Major League (film)
Major League is a 1989 American sports comedy film produced by Chris Chesser and Irby Smith, written and directed by David S. Ward, that stars Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes, James Gammon, Bob Uecker, Rene Russo, Margaret Whitton, Dennis Haysbert, and Corbin Bernsen.
Telling the story of a single regular season of a fictionalized version of the Cleveland Indians Major League Baseball team, Major League grossed $75 million worldwide from an $11 million budget and received generally positive reviews from critics. It spawned two sequels, neither of which repeated the success of the original film.
Plot
Former Las Vegas showgirl Rachel Phelps inherits the struggling Cleveland Indians baseball team from her deceased husband. She intends to move the team to Miami by exploiting an escape clause in their contract with the city of Cleveland: if their season attendance falls below a certain number, she can terminate the lease and move the team. In an act of sabotage, she plans to create the worst team in the major leagues, instructing team executives to cut the current players from the roster and replace them with rookies and washed-up veterans. She starts by hiring Lou Brown, 30-year manager of the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens.Spring training begins in Tucson, Arizona, with Phelps' list of players likely to fail: Jake Taylor, a former all-star catcher with bad knees; third baseman Roger Dorn, a prima donna more concerned with his financial portfolio than playing good baseball; aging starting pitcher Eddie Harris, who has resorted to doctoring the baseball; outfielder Pedro Cerrano, a voodoo-practicing power slugger who has trouble hitting breaking balls; speedy outfielder Willie Mays Hayes, who can steal bases but is a terrible hitter; and rookie pitcher Ricky Vaughn, an ex-con who has a fastball but no control, earning him the nickname "Wild Thing."
The players struggle to come together as a team, with a feud developing between Dorn and Vaughn. They discover that Vaughn suffers from poor eyesight, which explains his lack of control, and once fitted with glasses, he becomes a dominant pitcher. Team morale and performance improve, so Phelps cancels several amenities, such as downgrading the team's private jet to a run-down bus, but they continue to build on their strengths. Meanwhile, Taylor reconnects with his old girlfriend Lynn and tries to rekindle their relationship, even though she is engaged to another man.
Nearly three-quarters of the way through the season, the team is 60–61, exceeding expectations, and fans have begun to fill the stands. Phelps's general manager, Charlie Donovan, tired of her manipulations, reveals her scheme to Brown, who relays the message to his team. To thwart Phelps' plan, Taylor decides that the only thing left to do is win.
The Indians climb in the standings until they are tied with the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East division on the final day of the season, requiring a one-game playoff to determine the division champion and a bid to the ALCS. Watching the team's celebration on television, Dorn's wife Suzanne sees him in an amorous embrace with another woman. In revenge, she sleeps with Vaughn and informs Dorn just before he leaves for the ballpark the next morning.
The Indians keep pace with the Yankees, and the game enters the ninth tied. The Indians win 3–2 and advance to the postseason. In the ensuing celebration, Dorn punches Vaughn for sleeping with his wife but pulls him up and they celebrate. Jake spots Lynn in the stands, and she holds up her hand to reveal that her engagement has been called off, and their relationship is rekindled.
Alternate ending
The theatrical release shows Phelps in the owner's box in the final game showing dismay with the team's success. An alternate final scene included on the "Wild Thing Edition" DVD shows a different characterization: Brown confronts Phelps over her plan to sabotage the team and resigns. Phelps reveals that she loves the team and invented plans to move to Miami as a ruse to motivate the players. Brown does not resign, and Phelps says that if he shares their conversation with anyone, she will fire him.The film's producers said that while the twist ending worked as a resolution of the plot, they scrapped it because test screening audiences preferred Phelps as a villain.
Cast
In addition to former catcher and longtime Milwaukee Brewers team broadcaster Uecker appearing in the film's main cast, three former Major League players have brief cameos in the film: World Series MVP catcher Steve Yeager as Indians third base coach Duke Temple; Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Pete Vuckovich as Yankees' first baseman Haywood; and an uncredited performance by pitcher Willie Muellerwho made brief appearances in six Major League gamesas Yankees' pitcher Duke Simpson.Production
Development
Ward, who grew up in the Cleveland suburb of South Euclid, Ohio, reflected on filming a movie about a Cleveland team that had not won a pennant since his childhood. “I figured I would never see the Indians win anything unless I wrote a movie where they did. That was the real genesis behind the movie."The film's opening montage is a series of somber blue-collar images of the Cleveland landscape synchronized to the score of Randy Newman's "Burn On", an ode to the infamous day in Cleveland when the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969.
Many of the film's spring training scenes were shot at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona, which was the spring training home for the Cleveland Indians from 1947 to 1992. The production used members of the University of Arizona Wildcats baseball team as extras.
Despite being set in Cleveland, the film was principally shot in Milwaukee because it was cheaper and the producers were unable to work around the schedules of the Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Browns. Milwaukee County Stadium, then the home of the Brewers, doubles as Cleveland Stadium for the film, although several exterior shots of Cleveland Stadium were used, including some aerial shots taken during an Indians game. In fact, the sign for the television station atop the scoreboard is for WTMJ-TV, the NBC affiliate for Milwaukee. One of the ending scenes of the movie is in West Milwaukee's legendary restaurant, 4th Base which showcases their unique horseshoe bar that is shown in the celebration scenes. Another restaurant scene, at the then Gritz's Pzazz on Milwaukee's north side, was filmed at a restaurant that is no longer open for business. County Stadium was demolished in 2001; the stadium's former playing field is now a Little League baseball field known as Helfaer Field, while the rest of the former site is now a parking lot for the Brewers' current home, American Family Field, which opened in 2001.
Originally in Ward's script, there was a twist involving Whitton's character being revealed to have wanted the team to have won all along, having personally scouted each member of the team with flaws that hid their talent. The film was shot with that ending in mind, complete with reaction shots for the final game depicted of her cheering the team on. However, this was changed due to audience test scores that apparently had grown to like seeing Whitton's character in its villainous form. As such, a small bit of re-shots and editing was done for the climax. The ending is included on the DVD for the film.
Casting
The film was notable for featuring several actors who would go on to stardom: Snipes and Russo were relative unknowns before the movie was released, while Haysbert remained best known as Pedro Cerrano until he portrayed U.S. President David Palmer on the television series 24 and the spokesperson for Allstate Insurance. The longshoreman who is occasionally seen commenting and is shown in the final celebration inside a bar is Neil Flynn, who later achieved fame playing the Janitor in Scrubs and then the father Mike in The Middle. This is Flynn's first credited movie role.Sheen himself was a pitcher on his high school's baseball team. At the time of filming Major League, his own fastball topped out at 88 miles per hour. In 2011, Sheen said that he had used steroids for nearly two months to improve his athletic abilities in the film.
Reception
Box office
The film debuted at number 1 at the US box office and received generally positive reviews. It grossed almost $50 million in the United States and Canada and $25 million internationally for a worldwide total of $75 million.Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes Major League holds an approval rating of 83% based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's critics' consensus reads, "Major League may be predictable and formulaic, but buoyed by the script's light, silly humor—not to mention the well-built sports action sequences and funny performances." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.Year-end lists
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:- 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10:
- * Nominated Sports Film
In popular culture
The character of veteran junk ball pitcher Eddie Harris is based on that of Gaylord Perry and his affinity for throwing baseballs doctored with vaseline, spit, or any other substance known to illegally change the movement of a pitch.
When he joined the Cubs in 1989, pitcher Mitch Williams' extravagant wind-up and release, and his frequent wild pitches, earned him the nickname "Wild Thing". As with Rick Vaughn's character, the Wrigley Field organist played "Wild Thing" as Williams came out of the bullpen; this was changed to the rock recording by X from the film after he was traded to the Phillies. A few years later, in 1993 with the Phillies, Williams, who had up to that point in his career, worn the number 28, started wearing the number 99 on his jersey, the same number that Vaughn wears in the film.
In the years since its release Major League has become a beloved film of many professional baseball players and announcers, and is often referenced during game broadcasts. For example, in 2014, for the film's 25th anniversary, Major League catcher David Ross filmed a one-man tribute to the film, with Ross playing the part of Lou Brown, Pedro Cerrano, Willie Mays Hayes, Rick Vaughn, and Roger Dorn. Additionally, as part of their 2014 "Archives" set, the trading card company Topps celebrated the film's 25th anniversary by creating baseball cards of Roger Dorn, Jake Taylor, Eddie Harris, Rachel Phelps, Rick Vaughn, and "Jobu". Harry Doyle's call of a wildly off-target Rick Vaughn pitch that was "JUST a bit outside" is so well-known, film critic Richard Roeper wrote in 2019 that the line was invoked by every sportscaster in the last 30 years. In 2011, Bleacher Report's Timothy Rapp named "JUST a bit outside" his fifth greatest sports-movie quote ever.
In 2017, the University of Arizona men's baseball team created a parody of Major League, which was filmed at UA's current home field, Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona. Hi Corbett was the spring training home for the Cleveland Indians from 1947 to 1992. The star of the short film is outfielder Matt "Mays" Frazier, who played the role of Snipes' Willie Mays Hayes character from the original film. Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn and Roger Dorn are also parodied, and Arizona head coach Jay Johnson plays the role of Indians manager Lou Brown.
Major League became an inspiration for the real Cleveland Indians and the city, given the previously long-standing Cleveland sports curse that had left Cleveland without any sporting championships in between 1964 and 2016. The Indians reached the 2016 World Series, but lost to the similarly cursed Cubs. Between 1995 and 2016, the team went to the World Series three times, losing each time.
The Indians changed their name to the Guardians for the 2022 season. The opening scene of the film is an image of one of the Guardians of Traffic on the Hope Memorial Bridge.