I've got to write a research paper, had it for a while, shooting to have it done tonight.

 

I'm focusing on these three films: Sandlot, Major League, Field of Dreams.

 

Together, I think the three of them completely show what makes baseball so damn special.

 

Sandlot gives you the restorative power of baseball, Major League shows the uniting elements of the team sport as well as the cultural love for the underdog, and Field of Dreams shows the well known father-son-bond that the sport possesses.

 

If anyone else has any other thoughts, or quotes that they remember from the movies or about baseball in general that you think are relevant, throw it in here, I'd appreciate it.

I don't think you could write the paper without including this Field of Dreams quote out there:

 

Ray"]The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.[/b] Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

 

 

One of my favorite quotes in any film ever. All of it is pertinent but the bolded part is most important and the most powerful part to me.

That quote actually leads off the paper, I built the topic and ideas around the quote, lol.

I love The Sandlot! The new kid finding a place to belong, the great characters, everything about that movie. The thing that always stuck out in my mind was that it was like he was meant to be there and form those bonds on that sandlot. That is where he was supposed to find his way. At the beginning of the movie the narrator says:

 

"But when I finally got up enough guts to go out there and try and make friends, I found out that they never kept score, they never chose sides, they never even really stopped playing the game. It just went on forever. Every day they picked up where they left off the day before. - It was like an endless dream game.

 

There was only eight of them, so they didn't have a whole team. So even though I didn't know how to play, I figured I could be the ninth man...and maybe just stand in the outfield somewhere and take up space."

 

 

Then at the end he says:

 

"When one guy would move away, we never replaced him on the team with anyone else. We just kept the game going like he was still there."

 

So the fact that there were 8 when he arrived somehow seems so right.

thats an awesome paper.

 

 

i might have to use that same subject for a journal article one of these days, it can be expanded in so many ways there.

 

 

*jots down*

Thats a really intriguing paper you got there.

Thanks for the input, strike.

 

Anyone have any thoughts on Major League or Field of Dreams?

 

And I came up with the concept myself, so there's no right or wrong answer, really, it was just a broad research paper on Sports Films and American Society.

 

Anything relevant is very appreciated, it doesn't even have to deal with the films, I can throw in anything.

In its theory and practice baseball embodies some of the central preoccupations of that cultural fantasy we like to think of as the American Dream. Anyone who does not understand the game cannot hope to understand the country. A subtle and complex activity, it rewards not brute strength, but agility, intelligence, imagination, and daring. George Grella, Massachusetts Review, 1975

 

To enter upon a deliberate argument to prove that Baseball is our National Game; that it has all the attributes of American origin, American character and unbounded public favor in America, seems a work of supererogation. It is to undertake the elucidation of a patent fact; the sober demonstration of an axiom; it is like a solemn declaration that two plus two equal four.

A. G. Spalding, 1911

 

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.

Jacques Barzun

 

Human beings seem to take morose pleasure from believing that once there was a Golden Age, some lost Eden or Camelot or superior ancient civilization, peopled by heroes and demigods, an age of greatness long lost and irrecoverable. Piffle. Things are better than ever, at least in baseball, which is what matters most.

George Will, 1990

:notworthy

Sounds like a great paper man.. You must post it so we can read it...

 

Favorite Sandlot Quote: "Remember Kid...Hero's get remembered, but legends never die!"

A good book to reference for your article is "Baseball as America" (published by the Baseball Hall of Fame and National Geographic)...it's pretty much about what you're article is. Of course, it's derived from a traveling HOF exhibit (it was here in the Bay Area over the winter, went to see it three times), so if you're ever comes near you you have to see it

I saw the exhibit at the Smithsonian in 2002.

 

It was very cool...I don't think it's travelling anymore, I saw most of the stuff again at the hall of fame last summer.

I saw the exhibit at the Smithsonian in 2002.

 

It was very cool...I don't think it's travelling anymore, I saw most of the stuff again at the hall of fame last summer.

 

it's in Detroit right now

http://www.baseballasamerica.org/schedule.htm