Baseball: The Movie

“Finally, someone takes baseball movies seriously! Baseball: The Movie blends the passion of a fan with the rigorous analysis of a film critic to create a persuasive argument that the baseball movie matters—to baseball, to Hollywood, even to America.” <BR/> ​—Ben Mankiewicz, host, Turner Classic Movies <BR/><BR/><B>Featuring <I>Field of Dreams</I>, <I>The Bad News Bears</I>, <I>A League of Their Own</I>, and more: a probing and entertaining work at the intersection of pop culture and sports</B><BR/><BR/> Baseball has always been a symbol as much as a sport. With a blend of individual confrontation and team play, a luxurious pace, and an immaculate urban parkland setting, it offers a sunny rendering of the American Dream, both the hard work that underpins it and the rewards it promises. <BR/><BR/> Film, America's other national pastime, which magnifies and mythologizes all it touches, has long been the ideal medium to canonize this aspirational idea. <BR/><BR/><I>Baseball: The Movie</I> is the first definitive history of this film genre that was born in 1915 and remains artistically and culturally vital more than a century later. Writer and critic Noah Gittell sheds light on well-known classics and overlooked gems, exploring how baseball cinema creates a stage upon which the American ideal is born, performed, and repeatedly redefined.<BR/><BR/> Traversing history and mythmaking, cynicism and nostalgia, this thoroughly researched book takes readers on a multifaceted tour of baseball on film.