"Major League", 1989

Tom Berenger and Charlie Sheen have a conference on the mound

    “Major League” opens with a montage of shots of Cleveland, giving us a glimpse of the blue-collar town and it’s people, including a nun who feeds the pigeons while wearing an Indians jacket. Being a friend of a couple of native Clevelanders, I can tell you that these are people that take their sports teams seriously.

    There are two main plot threads that run through the film. The first revolves around Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton), a former Las Vegas showgirl, who has just inherited the team and her plans to move the team to Miami and it’s warmer climate. They way she plans to do this, we learn early on, is to recruit the worst players possible to kill ticket sales and therefore get out of the contract between the franchise and the city of Cleveland. This squad includes a motley crew of washed up has-beens and rookie never-weres like Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger), a catcher with bad knees, Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert), a power-hitting Cuban defector who can’t make contact with a breaking ball to save his life, Willy Mays-Hayes (Wesley Snipes),  a speedy outfielder with designs on a hall-of-fame career despite his inability to actually play the game, Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), a prima-donna third baseman who refuses to properly field a ball for fear that it could shorten his career or damage his looks, Eddie Harris (Chelcie Ross), an over-the-hill pitcher who relies on doctoring the ball to get a few more inches on the break, and finally, Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), and fireballer with control issues who‘s fresh out of prison. Managing this ragtag group falls to Lou Brown (James Gammon, who sadly passed away earlier this year after battling liver and adrenal gland cancer), a gruff, no-nonsense coach who has spent the last 30 years leading minor league teams. The second plot involves the love story between Jake and his former girlfriend, Lynn Wells (Rene Russo, making her major feature film debut), who is engaged to another man when we are introduced to her character.

    Both of these threads go pretty much the way you would assume, but it works none the less. Where the movie really shines, though, is in the comedic moments between the plot, most of which come from the Indians announcer, Harry Doyle (the hilarious Bob Uecker) and the bantering between the players. Even though the film progresses predictably, it never fails to entertain and even at times makes you wonder how, or even if, this group will be able to pull together and overcome the dreaded Yankees and the hurdles that Phelps is constantly throwing in front of them.

    “Major League” doesn’t break any new ground in either plot development or filmmaking in general but it succeeds, regardless, in providing an entertaining way to kill 107 minutes.

8/10