Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper), THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1942)



Some of the most memorable depictions of famous baseball players in movies have undercut the boy's-book images of childlike saints in cleats by showing the darker and more neurotic sides of driven professional athletes, but everyone with an informed opinion on the matter seems to agree that Lou Gehrig really was what a great ball player was supposed to be: hard-working, clean-living, decent, and somehow not even boring because of it, maybe because in the context of the Murderers' Row of the Babe Ruth-era Yankees, his boy scout qualities kind of gave him curiosity value. Like most celebrity biopics of the old studio era, especially ones made about athletes, this movie substitutes corn for depth or factual accuracy, and it has its snoozy side. But Gary Cooper's delivery of Gehrig's legendary farewell speech puts it at the top of the pile for male weepies.

Elmer Kane (Joe E. Brown), ELMER THE GREAT (1933)

"Imagine a cross-roads apple-knocker like that high-hatting the Chicago Cubs!, sneers the great talent scout Bull McWade, having traveled all they way (by horse-drawn sleigh apparently) to the little town of Gentryville, Indiaina, in order to welcome minor league wunderkind Elmer Kane into the majors. But, enigmatically, the swaggering, cossetted man-child will have nothing to do him, hiding in his room until the man leaves, and it is safe for him to descend for another of his endless ritualized breakfasts (towards the end of the gargantuan meal, asked by his housekeeper if he wants a slice of apple pie, he says, "Well, bring it on in and I'll flirt with it!"), where he reveals nothing either to his unbelieving brother (the great Sterling Holloway) other than boasting that his not joining the team will mean the Cubs will have no chance to win the "World Serious" that year, or dispensing xenophobic homilies to his dim ("Who's Babe Ruth?") doting mother (Emma Dunn), such as, "I hate places that I ain 't never seen!""

Inevitably it's love that keeps the poor sap trapped in Hicksvillle. He's fallen long and hard for his boss, the lovely Patricia Ellis, the women who runs the dry good store down the street . And he's lucky enough that she realizes the only way to loosen this barnacle is with a quick scrape of the brush; she rejects him as soon as he painfully mumbles out his feelings, then fires him, and in the cold fury of her apparent rejection he takes up the contract for the major leagues and heads out broken-hearted for fame and fortune. Elmer Kane , like many of Brown's characters, can have the tendency to set modern audience's teeth on edge, with the overbearing, know-it-allrube on the outside, barely covering up a world of ignorance and naiviete on the inside. Talented enough at baseball to lead his team to victory, but at the same time too dumb to know the difference between a sun lamp and microphone; hero to millions but also able to fall into the grips of organized crime boss because he thought he was "playing for fun" at the dice table, he often comes across as dim and otherworldly as an American Kasper Hauser. And if in the end if it's hard not to cheer for him when inevitably brings in that finally, muddy home run, and wins the pennant for the Cubs, you get the feeling that you still wouldn't really want to invite him over for breakfast after the game.

Nicky Rogan (Michael Keaton), GAME 6 (2005)



Life couldn't be much better for Red Sox fans these days, what with two world championships in four years and even the much-maligned Bill Buckner getting a hero's welcome for throwing out the first pitch at this week's Fenway Park home opener. The image of the tormented Sawx fan has pretty much passed into mythology by now, so the Don DeLillo scripted Game 6, which takes us back to the fateful night that "little roller up along first" dribbled between Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series, is more of a quaint time capsule than was probably intended. Still, baseball brings out the best in DeLillo as anyone who read the dazzling "Pafko at the Wall" segment of the otherwise turgid Underworld knows, and it brings out the best in Michael Keaton, too. As playwright Nicky Rogan, whose latest effort is opening the same night as the pivotal Game 6, Keaton has his best role in years; he captures the feverish intensity of the true believer who sees the Red Sox as metaphor for all that's tragic in life, yet still can't take his eyes off them.

Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau), THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976)



Sure, it's a good thing for kids to have larger-than-life role models, like Reggie Jackson or Aquaman. But it can't hurt to develop a more attainable view of adulthood, which is where Morris Buttermaker, the manager of the Bad News Bears, comes in. (And with all due respect to Billy Bob Thornton, who essayed the role in the 2005 Richard Linklater remake, and Jack Warden, who took it to the small screen in a short-live 1979 series, the definitive Buttermaker is the original: Walter Matthau.) A failed minor leaguer turned swimming pool cleaner, perpetually disheveled and hungover, owner of a crappy car and so hard up for cash he takes a job coaching kids he can't stand--these are recognizable qualities of a man in full. He gets a bail bondsman to sponsor the team uniforms, he lets the kids drink beer in the dugout, and his idea of an inspirational speech is "Tanner almost got a base hit in the fourth inning." It is often said that baseball is a game of failure, in that even the best player makes an out in six out of ten tries. If that's the case, then what better manager for our nine? Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Buttermaker!

Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen), THE NAKED GUN (1988)



We can't have a ballgame without an umpire, so we might as well pick one who can double as our national anthem singer. I've long maintained that the original Naked Gun movie (from the files of Police Squad!, natch) was the last shining moment for Leslie Nielsen, comic actor, because it's the last movie he made before he realized he was supposed to be funny and started mugging like crazy instead of maintaining his serene deadpan. Here is one of his finest moments, a slapstick sendup of every arrogant ump who ever decided he was the show all the fans came to see. Unfortunately, this clip doesn't include his equally sublime butchering of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the guise of opera singer Enrico Pallazzo, nor the repeated bad calls he makes in order to delay the game and prevent the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, but you probably know it all by heart anyway.

--Robert Gomez, Phil Nugent, Scott Von Doviak

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