Spring
is here! Okay, not in my apartment, but I've read that it's here, some places,
apparently, and with it, the return of what's left of baseball, the American
game. Sports in general, and baseball in particular, have a spotty history in
the movies. I think I've been reading that sports movies are box-office poison
since before I'd ever seen a sports movie and maybe before I had any clear
grasp of the concept of "box-office poison." (Then I saw a trailer
for Catwoman.) But anything that inspires the kind of passion,
excitement, despair, and apoplexy that baseball
inspires in its hardcore adherents has got to inspire some great
characters. Here's a bullpen's
worth of them. — Phil Nugent
