5. Buck Showalter critiques baseball movies for Esquire.
One thing we really miss about baseball season is hearing manager Buck Showalter’s one-liners during post-game interviews. His brash, quick wit caused even the most stoic reporters to giggle in the background. Luckily, Esquire magazine is producing a series where they ask real-life coaches what they think of watching their fictional counterparts on screen. We think it’s no coincidence that they tapped our own Showalter first to get his opinion on baseball movies, drawing from his knowledge as a player and manager. The results are amazing.
We learn he has a deep disdain for the movie Moneyball, calling it “complete fiction” and saying that Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of Oakland A’s manager Art Howe “was so far off that it was comical.” He was a great actor, but whoever was coaching him just had no idea. Maybe they just didn’t care. Maybe most of the people watching it just didn’t notice.” He then softened a little, talking about his affinity for Kevin Costner in movies like Draft Day and Field of Dreams, though, he says, the latter didn’t have enough baseball. Showalter liked The Natural because “Robert Redford looked like a hitter.”
But the best part has to be the end, where Showalter admits his favorite baseball movie is The Sandlot. “That was me growing up,” he says. “That’s realistic. We were in the back wearing tennis shoes, hitting homemade balls. If you hit it too far, it goes in somebody’s yard and you’re screwed; the game’s over . . . Although they killed it (in a bad way) with The Sandlot 2. That movie was terrible.” Buck, never change.
Honorable mention: For the second week in a row, we have a bit too much news to fit into five segments, so our honorable mention (pun kind of intended) goes to Ed Reed, who will be inducted into the Ravens’ Ring of Honor during this Sunday’s game, becoming the ninth member of that elite group. “Home is here. Home has always been Baltimore,” Reed told BaltimoreRavens.com. “My heart has always been in Baltimore. It will always be in Baltimore and at M&T Bank Stadium.”