There are three reasons for this post:

#1 is that I criticize New York Times reporters and writers so often for bias and incompetence that it is only fair that I give credit when one of them does something not only right, but exactly as I would have done it.

#2 is that the “something” is a list of the best baseball movies to watch while trying to endure both the anxieties of the Wuhan virus disruption and the delay of the baseball season.

#3 is that I am trying to scale down Part 2 of the Ethics Alarms inspirational films list (Part I is here), and this helps: I can remove the baseball movies now.

Times film critic Bruce Fretts picked what he called the ten best baseball films of the last 50 years. I would call them the best baseball films of all time. The one borderline pick he left out would be “The Lou Gehrig Story,” which is more a biography than a true baseball movie, and it’s also sad. Only two films on Fretts’ list are sad. Baseball movies shouldn’t be sad, though I agree with him on the exceptions.

I would add two more baseball movies if it was a Top 12: “The Sandlot” (1993), which brings back memories of my own pick-up baseball gang (and my late English Mastiff, Patience) and “Fever Pitch” (2005), which perhaps is more of a Red Sox movie than a baseball movie. (It had me from the moment Jimmy Fallon kissed his hand and deposited the love on a picture of Tony Conigliaro.) These, however really are the ten best.  Fretts listed them alphabetically, and I wouldn’t try to rank them. Continue reading →