• Today’s Movie: Major League
• Year of Release: 1989
• Stars: Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen
• Director: David S. Ward

This movie is not on my list of essential films.

NOTE: This installment of Movies Everybody Loves That I Hate should actually be titled Movies I Used To Hate because as she always does, the driving force behind Taking Up Room has come up with another of her tremendous concepts; this time it’s called the It Grew On Me Blog-A-Thon. There’s beauty in simplicity, and it’s hard to beat this idea for getting straight to the point; writing about a movie you didn’t like at first but (as the title says) it grew on you.

You can see all the contributors to this blog-a-thon here:

• Days One, Two, and Three

I really did hate Major League the first time I saw it. But that’s the beauty of being an independent blogger; if I want to include a tale of movie redemption in a series titled Movies I Hate, nobody can stop me. Not to mention, the usual format for this series lends itself rather well to chronicling this film’s journey from “meh” to one of my top ten baseball movies. In other words, there’s so many things which either should have ruined this movie or helped it congeal into a classic flick.

1) Wesley Snipes Was “All Hat and No Player”

There’s an old saying about somebody who looks the part but can’t back it up as being “all hat and no cowboy.” Welcome to the driving force behind the molding of Wesley Snipes into “Willie Mays Hayes.”

When the “all-flash and no bat” Willie Mays Hayes showed up at the Indians training camp, his ostentatious portrayal was modeled after the way Wesley Snipes made a spectacle out of his audition for the role. Clad in a tailored suit and driving an attention-getting car was a lot of hype just like the “hitting display” he promised. But that swagger forms the backbone of the quick-witted speedster’s persona.

The raison d’être for the display was a part of a greater subterfuge hiding the fact was Wesley Snipes was so uncoordinated it was nearly impossible to pass him off as a major league baseball player. If you’ll note, there are no scenes showing Snipes throwing a baseball, and almost every on-screen depiction of Snipes running and sliding had to be done in slow-motion to foster the illusion Snipes was athletic.

2) Charlie Sheen Was “No Hat And All Player”

The diametric opposite of Wesley Snipes, Charlie Sheen played as both a shortstop and a pitcher for the Santa Monica (CA) High School Vikings. Sheen was so good at the game he received a scholarship offer from the University of Kansas. Unfortunately, this is not the only realism Sheen added to the role of fire-balling relief pitcher Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn.

If you recall, before joining the Indians, Vaughn previously played in the California Penal League; having been incarcerated for stealing a car. Sheen’s real-life baseball got cut short when he was expelled from high school following an an arrest for credit card fraud.

3) “Real Player” Baseball Boot Camp

Because of the disparate abilities between Snipes and Sheen, the other actors portraying players were sent through a three-week “baseball boot camp” conducted by bona fide major leaguers. By spending this time immersed in the arts of throwing, catching, and hitting the horsehide, Major League has a realistic feel which not only helped it become a classic, but avoids the quickest pitfall of all for a baseball film. If you don’t believe in the importance of realism for the athletic sequences, just look at Anthony Perkins in Fear Strikes Out or William Bendix in The Babe Ruth Story.

4) “Wild Thing” Was Modeled After A Real Player

The success and the likability of this fictional baseball team stems from the characters. I’ve already mentioned the swagger of Willie Mays Hayes, but the pugnacious nature of Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn was just as defining. While “Wild Thing’s” fighting spirit was crucial to the guts of the movie Indians, it wasn’t original.

Sports/movie fans of the correct vintage (like yours truly) took one look at “Wild Thing” and were immediately put in mind of St. Louis Cardinals’ Hall-of-Fame relief pitcher and current broadcaster Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky. Not only would both have no reluctance to put a fastball right into your ribs, don’t even try to tell me that if we made enough sequels to this movie “Wild Thing” wouldn’t have made the perfect broadcast guy in the wake of the dearly departed Harry Doyle.

After all, if you can’t have the “Mad Hungarian” going “Tarps Off” crushing beers, it’s not a stretch to see fellow reliever “Wild Thing” picking up that dropped ball.

5) Real Players In The Movie…

The real player with the largest role in the film is Pete Vuckovich, who plays New York Yankee slugger Clu Haywood…the archnemesis of “Wild Thing” Vaughn. In reality, Vuckovich had a 12-year career as a pitcher in the major leagues, most notably as a member of the 1982 “Harvey’s Wallbangers” Milwaukee Brewers.

But for my money, the player who had the smallest role clearly had the more interesting story. The Los Angeles Dodgers of the late 1970s were a star-studded team shining in the land of stars. Loyal readers of this blog know I hate the Dodgers more than bad movie sequels and tax audits combined. But there were a couple of Dodgers I didn’t hate. Steve Yeager was one of them, family because nobody embraced the southern California celebrity lifestyle better than he did.

He was just fuckin’ cool.

As far as Major League goes, Yeager’s speaking part can be seen at the at 1:10 mark in the Pedro Cerrano video above. But in another effort to maintain a high degree of realism, Yeager serves as Tom Berenger’s double in some of the more demanding baseball scenes.

Off the field, Yeager just had a cool life. How many guys can say they appeared on Family Feud and posed nude in Playgirl magazine?

In between, Yeager became a low-key celebrity in his own right. Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles at the time, was the Best Man when Yeager married musician Gloria Giaone. He made several appearance on The Tonight Show. Fame also ran in the family; Steve Yeager and legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager are cousins.

6) Cleveland…Milwaukee…What’s The Difference?

It seems that Pete Vuckovich isn’t the only thing most associated with Milwaukee playing a role in a film about Cleveland. According to Google Maps, the difference between these two Great Lakes port cities is about 440 miles. But the makers of Major League believed it was negligible because they made Milwaukee pass as Cleveland. The dirty little secret is an overwhelming majority of the baseball scenes were shot in Milwaukee’s County Stadium.

The makers of Major League had Milwaukee pinch-hit for Cleveland as they were not able to secure arrangements with the city of Cleveland for access to Municipal Stadium. Even though they took great measures to avoid them, there’s some dead giveaways in the movie they aren’t in Cleveland. The most notable is an ad in the ball park for Milwaukee radio station WTMJ.

Not only were the baseball scenes shot in Milwaukee, the summer of 1988 saw hundred of Wisconsinites cast as extras to fill County Stadium with fans. Not to leave anybody out, the Milwaukee County House of Correction served as the setting for the spring-training dormitory, and the scene where Suzanne (Mrs. Roger) Dorn (played by Stacy Carroll) picks up “Wild Thing” Vaughn was filmed in the Horseshoe Bar at the 4th Base Restaurant in West Milwaukee.

It’s almost as if the producers consulted the guy living under the flight path to Milwaukee’s airport who painted “Welcome To Cleveland” on his roof.

7) Cleveland Even Stole “Mr. Baseball” From Milwaukee

In the movie, the Cleveland Indians fictional broadcaster “Harry Doyle” is portrayed by Bob “Mr. Baseball” Uecker. In reality, Uecker was the iconic voice of the Milwaukee Brewers. Either way, he was the perfect choice to play the acerbic radio broadcaster.

Baseball guy or not, Uecker was a comic genius. The majority of his great lines…such as the film’s signature quote “juuuuuust a bit outside” were ad libs made possible by Uecker’s innate sense for improvisation. This carried over to his off-set persona where he became the heart and soul of the set through his ever-present wit and charisma.

In short, Bob Uecker was a national treasure. This movie would not have been the same without him, and there a reason why he is the counterpart to Groucho Marx at #21 on my list of favorite actors and their sporting comparisons. There’s no better way to tell you’ve become an icon when the all-time king of late night television will play “straight man” for you…

8 ) So Much Type-Casting…

Easily the “signature” feature in this series, this is all about faces you’ll see in a film that are forever burned in your head being associated with another role. This movie literally has the bases loaded with them.

Corbin Bernsen

It totally makes sense that Bernsen didn’t want to do the fielding scene where he takes a baseball in the face because he didn’t want to risk damaging his “pretty boy money-maker.” After all, he’s best known for playing self-absorbed narcissists like third baseman Roger Dorn or the quasi-sleazy lawyer “Arnie Becker” on the 80s TV series L.A. Law. But…there’s a reason why whenever Mrs. J-Dub and I see a overly-stiff ex-jock on TV we say he graduated from the “Roger Dorn Acting Academy.”

Charles Cyphers

In the movie, Cleveland Indians’ owner Rachel Phelps envisioned the team’s season to be a slaughter. What better guy could there be to play the role of general manager Charlie Donovan tha n the one who watched every teenager in Haddonfield, Illinois get chopped to bits in Halloween?

James Gammon

Here’s a crossover to the similar series on this blog Classic Movies My Wife Hates. Gammon appears there thanks to the craptacular Urban Cowboy. It really doesn’t matter whether he’s playing one of the best fictional managers ever or running a mechanical bull, if you’ve got a movie with a hat-wearing James Gammon, you’ve got movie blogger gold.

Chelcie Ross

Just look at this guy’s face. It’s like if you 3D-printed your mind’s eye view of a hypocritical prick. Granted, “Eddie Harris” is toward the lighter end of that scale, but the scene where he’s lecturing Cerrano about Jesus Christ while thumbing a Hustler magazine tells all one needs to know about him. His portrayal of the slimy Senator Geary in Godfather II is just the opposite end of the same spectrum. Oh wait…that’s actually G.D. Spradlin; I always get these guys confused. But in my defense, just look at their IMDB pages…frankly, Chelcie Ross is the sports movie equivalent of G.D. Spradlin.

9) The Ending They Almost Ruined

In all honesty, if they had kept the original ending to this film, it would have never been given a chance to escape my disdain. This movie only works if the villain gets a major comeuppance; we all spend most of the movie waiting for it.. Instead, Rachel Phelps (played by Margaret Whitton) wasn’t intended to be a heartless cutthroat. Instead, she was supposed to be secretly rooting for the team’s success; her overt bitchiness being a ruse to cover “tanking” the Indians being just a business decision. Another proposed ending would have revealed the aforementioned bitchiness to be little more than playing the “heel” to motivate the team.

Forget about this movie’s great characters. Forget about it’s attention to detail (except for that whole Cleveland/Milwaukee thing). This movie literally depends on the audience and the players sharing a hatred of the owner. Without it…what’s the point? Like I said, I hated this movie the first time I saw it. I stayed with it because I wanted to see that bitch owner get the proverbial egg on her face. Apparently, America agrees with me since test audiences preferred the scheming antagonist over the secret sympathist.

Conclusion:

I think it’s fair to say in 1989, nobody expected Major League to become a classic. But the same things that won over the guy who originally hated it also made the film resonate with fans…even those who knew nothing of baseball. In retrospect, the film’s combination of humor, great characters, and the All-American “underdog” storyline proved to be a winner…all tied together by the universal loathing of one of the great sports movie villains of all time.

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You can see all the movies I hate here.

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