Motown Strong: The American Pastime

I'm a baseball fan. Grew up watching the Detroit Tigers with a passion. Grew up with former Tigers pitcher Hal Newhouser as my next-door neighbor. And with the sons of former Tigers outfielder Al Kaline in my Little League. The Tiger Stadium bleachers were like a second home for me.

I'm not alone.

Baseball has, for decades, been ingrained into the American fabric, and on July 4th in particular. Independence Day has been the traditional midway point of the season, the "measuring stick" for who will go to the post-season, for who will be buyers and sellers at the end of the month.

So on this Independence Day, I thought I'd list my 10 favorite baseball movies:

10: A League Of Their Own - "Rogers Hornsby was my manager, and he called me a talking pile of pigshit. And that was when my parents drove all the way down from Michigan to see me play the game. And did I cry? No! And do you know why? There's no crying in baseball!"

9: The Natural - "It took me sixteen years to get here. You play me, and I'll give ya the best I got."

8: The Sandlot - "But it was signed by Babe Ruth!" "Who is she?"

Worthy of a parody by The New York Yankees!

7: Eight Men Out - "Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes, or promises to throw a game, no player who sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing a ball game are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball again."

6: The Bad News Bears - "Hey, Yankees - you can take your apology, and your trophy, and shove 'em straight up your ass!"

5: 42 - "You think God likes baseball? It means someday you're gonna meet God, and when he inquires as to why you didn't take the field against Robinson in Philadelphia, and you answer that it's because he was a Negro, it may not be a sufficient reply!"

"Maybe tomorrow, we'll all wear 42. That way, they won't tell us apart."

4: Moneyball - "The problem we're trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then there's fifty feet of crap, and then there's us. It's an unfair game. And now we've been gutted. We're like organ donors for the rich. Boston's taken our kidneys, the Yankees have taken our heart. And you guys just sit around talking the same old 'good body' nonsense like we're selling jeans. Like we're looking for Fabio. We've got to think differently. We are the last dog at the bowl. You see what happens to the runt of the litter? He dies."

"He hit a home run, and didn't even realize it."

3: Major League - "Ball four. Ball eight. And Vaughn has walked the bases loaded on twelve straight pitches."

"Here comes the 1-1 pitch ..."

2: Bull Durham - "You lollygag the ball around the infield! You lollygag your way down to first. You lollygag in and out of the dugout. You know what that makes you? Lollygaggers!"

"Goddamn, I hate when people get the words wrong!"

1: Field of Dreams - "The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."

"Hey, dad? You wanna have a catch?" "I'd like that."

THE FINE FIVE - JULY 4, 2015:

(1) I've never watched the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. Ever. Nor have I ever had an interest in doing so. I don't watch The Food Network, either (well, it's on at Planet Fitness, but I have my glasses off when on the elliptical, so if it's in my visual path, it's a blur.)

(2) My iPhone 4s batter is bad. The phone dies way too often, way too suddenly. (It died during my 2.5-hour mall walk today, right in the middle of listening to Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band's "Hollywood Nights" - gah!) My two-year contract with AT&T expires in a month. So I'm trying to decide between a new phone and a new battery.

(3) I've decided over the next few weeks to start going through my CD collection, cleaning it up, and donating several hundred to the Palm Beach County library system. I donated about 75 VHS movies earlier this year, and Phase II of the media cleanup is on the horizon. I'll probably keep a few select CDs, but for the most part, all of my music will be digital (stored on two separate external hard drives).

(4) Back to baseball for a second. About 4-5 years ago I was given the movie "Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story" as a birthday gift. Today, I finally unwrapped it and watched it. (This shows how far behind I am on watching movies and reading books; there's a ton of each I've had for years and have yet to sit down to absorb.) It's a documentary, and a very-well done documentary at that. It has an all-star lineup (Shawn Green, Hank Greenberg, Ron Howard, Larry King, Sandy Koufax, Marvin Miller, Al Rosen, Bud Selig, Norm Sherry, Kevin Youkilis, and narrator Dustin Hoffman). It's historically deep and accurate. And, seriously, how can you go wrong with a film about Jews and baseball?

(5) Speaking of books, among the baseball-centric literature begging for me to open the pages include Cobb: A Biography by Al Stump, Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life by Hank Greenberg and Ira Berkow, Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof, The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship by David Halberstam, The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych by Doug Wilson (I've actually started this one!), and the 491-page-deep American Jews & America's Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball by Larry Ruttman. (My two favorite baseball books are Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy by Jane Leavy and About the B'nai Bagels by E.L. Konigsburg.)

FOODERCIZE

Weight: 246

Steps Taken: 14,315

Miles Walked: 7.58

STUPID NEWS OF THE DAY:

From The Washington Post: "Alligator kills 28-year-old Texas man during late-night swim" - not a shark!

FLORIDA NEWS OF THE DAY:
From Deadspin: "Woman Alleges Permanent Neck Injury Due To Marlins' Shark Attack" - land shark!

WEIRD NEWS OF THE DAY:

From The Metro: "Baby floats 1km out to sea in inflatable toy after sunbathing parents forget about her" - no shark!

VIDEO OF THE DAY:

The Muppets Take America!