Today on TCM, the 1942 classic Pride of the Yankees runs, the fictionalized account of Lou Gehrig and his all too young departure from this world due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease that eventually took his name, so associated with him it became. Like many sports dramas, the real drama comes not from the game (baseball, obviously) but from the dilemmas and conflicts of the characters. And I like it, to a degree. If nothing else, it has the real Babe Ruth in it and, for me, that’s enough right there to recommend it as a living piece of history. But as a sports fan, I’ve never much liked any sports movie, even the good ones. Of course, there are exceptions and Pride of the Yankees is one of them, but in the end, they don’t work and, at least for me, I think I know why.
The problems I have with sports movies all start at the same point: I love sports. This, some may think, would be a good indicator that I would love sports movies but, in fact, it’s just the opposite. Take football. I enjoy the game immensely and since childhood, following college football with a passion (I grew up in the south, no further explanation necessary), I have learned the ins and outs of the game, the plays, the strategies, and the challenges. It’s more enjoyable as you learn more about it. So when I’m watching a movie about football players, I keep thinking, “but the game’s more interesting than they are.” It’s like this: If a movie is about a group of mail sorters, then I might find their personal ups and downs more interesting. If a movie is a about a group of firefighters, well then, I want to see them putting out fires. And sticking with that line of reasoning, watching The Towering Inferno, which is solely concerned with showing Steve McQueen and company battle the blaze, is far more enjoyable than Backdraft, which tries to make the characters more interesting than their clearly more interesting profession.
This phenomenon is particularly noticeable when I view a documentary on a sports subject that then becomes the subject of a fictionalized account. When I watched the documentary on Seabiscuit years ago, I found it fascinating. It stuck with giving me the story of the horse and its jockey, right up through their final moment of glory. Then the movie came out and I found myself shrugging. It focused far more on the characters and their lives while the documentary focused more on the races, struggles, and triumphs of Seabiscuit.
There’s even more than that and perhaps it has something to do with knowing the subject you’re watching. Ever gone to a baseball game? Well, I’ve been to a few and even in the small town minor league games, of which we used to regularly attend, a great pitcher is a beautiful thing to see. And you get used to it, watching them game in, game out. When I first saw The Natural upon its release, I wasn’t much of a baseball fan yet. I came to the game late, in my mid-twenties, and then, when I saw The Natural again after a couple of decades of watching the real thing, all I could think when watching Robert Redford pitch a ball was, “Man, he looks pathetic. There’s no way he’s striking out anybody.” (And, no, Redford didn’t play with Don Drysdale.)
Katharine Hepburn slices her golf swing wildly in Pat and Mike. Ian Charleson bobbles up and down when running in Chariots of Fire. Farley Granger doesn’t follow through on his forehand at all in Strangers on a Train. Okay, that last one’s not a sports movie but Farley never looks like a very good player to me, even if he did play in his spare time. And, look, I like all those movies and realize that nitpicking what looks real and what doesn’t isn’t a good way to judge anything. I’m just trying to make that point that if you become too familiar with something, its falsity on the screen may become distracting.
But I can deal with actors not looking very much like real athletes if the movie respects the sport because despite some famous instances, for the most part, big games are rarely won with home runs, last second touchdowns, or a hole in one. Sports movies, however, when they do concentrate on the game, too often sell the game out before it’s even begun. It all becomes about the big finish, the super-charged finale, that, honestly, barely exists in real sports. The thrill of a baseball or football game is in the individual plays that build towards a victory, not some last second heroics. And because baseball and football rely on methodical steps and incremental gains, filmmakers often go against their very spirit for the sake of cheap excitement. I think that’s why, when it comes to sports movies I actually like, it’s sports like basketball and hockey, that do actually rely more on quick backs and forth and, especially basketball, last second winning shots (buzzer beaters). So a movies like Hoosiers and Slapshot work very well for me (well, Slapshot is just great in so many ways that have nothing to do with the game, but still), while movies about baseball and football do not. And it probably helps that I’m far less familiar with basketball and hockey than I am with baseball and football so my knowledge of the game doesn’t get in the way. One thing never changes: I walk into every movie wanting to like it, whether I know the subject matter intimately or not. I mean, I’m not going to be a bad sport about it.