April Fool’s Week 2015: Baseball Bites
Written by: Russell Davidson, CC2K Sports Editor
Sports geek Russ Davidson takes on some of the all-time worst baseball movies for April Fools Week.
I hate baseball. Ask anyone who knows me.
In fact, I hate it so much, I wrote a whole bit about how much I hate it (insert link here), so even people who DON’T know me know how much I hate it.
I hate watching it. I hate playing it. I hate the uniforms, I hate the players, I hate the coaches, I hate the fans, I hate the mascots, I hate the music, I hate the snacks, I hate the refs, I even hate the ball.
Baseball, get lost.
In the Heaven I envision, no one plays Baseball. No one wants to. Baseball is reserved for the depths of Hell, as out-of-shape luckless souls play a sport where nothing happens, play a game that never ends, wallowing and drowning in the inactivity and numbing dullness of it all, forever. A sad fate, for sure, so be good! (The angels play Ultimate Frisbee in Heaven, naturally)
Baseball, begone.
And then we have Baseball movies. I’ve been told there’s some good ones, “Field of Dreams,” “Bull Durham,” “The Natural,” and I may have seen parts of some of those, but I didn’t enjoy it. I may even have hated it. Just don’t like the subject matter. “Eight Men Out” was actually pretty good, now that you mention it, as was the original “Bad News Bears,” but all in all, I’d have to say that baseball movies, like baseball, stink.
So now what happens? For some reason I agree to play along, and get stuck watching not just one baseball movie, no, not just two baseball movies, no, that’s not bad enough, but two really, really BAD baseball movies, “The Benchwarmers,” and “Ed.” This, of course, raises the age-old question, what’s worse, watching baseball, or watching baseball movies?
Gonna find out.
I tackle “The Benchwarmers” first.
Talented, lovable cast, to be sure, some real big-time actors here, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Jon Heder doing his Napoleon thing, Jon Lovitz. A dream cast, really. The plot concerns them forming a team and playing some kids and no it doesn’t make a lick of sense, but there are important lessons about bullying and other stuff that are there to be had, or, failing that, there’s lots of slapstick. I’m a sucker for slapstick. I chuckled at least four times. I have never chuckled watching an actual baseball game. Yawned? Yes. Cringed? For sure.
“The Benchwarmers” was, actually, borderline o.k. Amusing, kinda, moronic, of course, but I watched it through without stopping, so there. Better than actual baseball, of this there can be no doubt.
Score:
Baseball – 0.
Bad Baseball movie – 1.
And then came “Ed.”
Holy cow. I’ve sat through “Plan 9” and “Troll 2” and “Battlefield Earth” and “Lucky You” and “Robot Monster” and I could go on all night, but then came “Ed.”
A monkey plays third base for a minor league team somehow, and wow, what the heck is poor Jack Warden doing in this, he needed the money that bad? Matt LeBlanc gets out-acted by a paper sack. Monkey gets sold, animal right issues, maybe? Aw, who cares, yeah, it’s a real piece of crap, badly done on every conceivable level. And still, as wretched as it is, it surely would have been better than watching real baseball IF ONLY it had had a real monkey in it instead of a guy in a monkey suit playing Ed. With this, they went too far.
And without at least a real monkey to look at, “Ed” was painful, excruciating. All existing copies should be destroyed, erased, whatever, for the good of mankind, and to all involved in the making of it, a resounding “Boooooo” to you. For shame. But would I rather have been watching baseball? Hmmmmmm.
It comes down to dosages, I think, the telling stat. I could take “Ed” in chunks of 20 minutes, max. I can’t even watch baseball highlights on Sportscenter.
So there you have it. There it is. There it be. Close the door and turn out the light, the party’s over. Jump over a pickpocket and whistle Dixie, the fat lady has sung. Ride a horse backwards and tell him otherwise. It’s a done deal. The results are in.
Baseball – 0.
Bad baseball movies: 2
Nice try, CC2K. But don’t take it personally.
It’s not your fault the game of baseball bites like no other.