Maury Wills Movies
- 2005
From their early days in Brooklyn, where the Dodgers year after year vainly went up against their cross-town rivals the New York Yankees until winning the World Series in 1955, to the present day, with the team (now based in Los Angeles) holding the record for the third most victories in major league history, few baseball teams have enjoyed as storied a history or enjoyed as passionate a fan following as these boys in blue. Dodger Blue: The Championship Years is a documentary (produced in affiliation with Major League Baseball) that traces the history of the Dodgers from the club's formation to the 2004 season, and profiles such legendary ballplayers as Jackie Robinson, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Pee Wee Reese, Maury Wills, Fernando Valenzuela, Kirk Gibson, and Steve Garvey. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
The Sandlot is sparsely narrated by the main character (now an adult) who occasionally drops in on the action to comment on events or help move the story along. Tom Guiry plays Scotty Smalls, the shy new kid on the block who wants to join the rowdy pickup baseball team that plays every day in the neighborhood sandlot. But he doesn't know how to catch a baseball, and his stepfather (Dennis Leary) is too busy to teach him. He tries out for the sandlot gang anyway, and though he isn't very good, it turns out he's lucky: there happen to be only eight of them, and nine makes a team. The summer passes blissfully as Scotty learns to play ball under the wing of Benny Rodriguez (Mike Vitar), the oldest and best player, as well as Ham, Squints, Repeat, and the rest of the kid-eccentrics. The skies darken, however, when Benny literally knocks the stuffing out of the team's only baseball, a sign of impending doom, or worse, bad luck. Wanting to set things right, Scotty returns home and "borrows" his stepfather's ball, which he promptly uses to hit his first home run, knocking the ball clear out of the sandlot into mean old Mr. Mertle (James Earl Jones)'s junkyard, home to Mertle's legendary guard dog The Beast. Scotty admits that he took the ball without asking, and he naively explains that his stepfather will want it back since it had a woman's name written on it: some lady named Babe Ruth. Horror-stricken, the sandlot gang mobilizes to fetch the autographed ball from the clutches of The Beast, building a series of mechanical ball-retrieval machines which get progressively more complicated and preposterous as The Beast's size grows in their imaginations. ~ Anthony Reed, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, (more)
- 1985
This is a sports instructional series which gives the viewer an overview of the basics of pitching, hitting and running - geared for the beginning baseball player. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi
Football fans should enjoy this low-budget biker movie starring several of the 1970s' greatest gridiron stars. "Mean" Joe Greene, Carl Eller, Gene Washington, Willie Lanier, and Mercury Morris are among the familiar faces as a gang of Vietnam veterans fights white racists in a Southern town to avenge their dead friend. Rosalind Miles, Mikel Angel, and the Raiders' Ben Davidson (an avid biker in real life) co-star. It's not any better than most of director Matt Cimber's films, but the nostalgia factor compensates for its clumsier moments. Cimber, whose real name is Matteo Ottaviano, went on to direct Pia Zadora in Butterfly. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
