This film traces the history of major league baseball's one year team, the Seattle Pilots, who after their lone season of 1969 were moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers.
Buck Weaver and Hap Felsch are young idealistic players on the Chicago White Sox, a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey - a penny-pinching, hands-on manager who underpays his players and treats them with disdain. And when gamblers and hustlers discover that Comiskey's demoralized players are ripe for a money-making scheme, one by one the team members agree to throw the World Series. But when the White Sox are defeated, a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes, ripping the cover off America's favorite pastime.
Heralded as a palace among minor and major league baseball stadiums, Silver Stadium set a standard of excellence from opening day. From May 1929 through the 1990s Silver Stadium served as home to Rochester's historic baseball team, The Rochester Red Wings, as well as many other sporting teams. When not being used as a baseball stadium, the space served as center stage for a variety of traveling acts. Hear from the people closest to the history of this magnificent facility as they take you on a journey through The Memories of Silver.
In 1961, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle played for the New York Yankees. One, Mantle, was universally loved, while the other, Maris, was universally hated. Both men started off with a bang, and both were nearing Babe Ruth's 60 home run record. Which man would reach it?
No figure in recent sports history is as divisive as Jose Canseco. Millions of baseball fans remember him as the powerhouse slugger who earned one of the sport's rare statistics: 40/40. But millions more remember him as the whistleblower whose admission to steroids juicing exposed a scandal that overshadowed his remarkable career and led to the Congressional hearings that cast a pall over America's greatest pastime, baseball. Now, Jose finally speaks out. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of a man driven by grief and a promise made. Only time will tell whether history remembers Jose Canseco as a legend, a whistleblower or a scapegoat. But this candid documentary will leave audiences convinced of one inescapable fact. The Truth Hurts.
The film explores key moments in the history of the Expos as well as the relentless efforts to bring major league baseball to Montreal. Continuation of the work released in 2003.
In 2009, Alex Gibney was hired to make a film about Lance Armstrong’s comeback to cycling. The project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re-opened after Armstrong’s confession. The Armstrong Lie picks up in 2013 and presents a riveting, insider's view of the unraveling of one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of sports. As Lance Armstrong says himself, “I didn’t live a lot of lies, but I lived one big one.”
A rampant, street level story of mentorship and everyday heroism in tough circumstances. An inner city coach's son, estranged in his youth from his father, spends five years on ball fields in inner city Oakland and Havana, following the lives of two extraordinary youth baseball coaches, Roscoe in Oakland and Nicolas in Havana. The coaches meet on videotape and two years of red tape later, Coach Roscoe and nine Oakland players travel to Havana to play Coach Nicolas' team. For one week, the players and coaches eat, dance, swim, argue and play baseball together. But when the parent of an Oakland player is murdered back home, it brings back the inescapable reality and challenges of life in an American inner city.
Connecting different generations of players, Warren Cromartie, Andre Dawson, Cliff Floyd and Rondell White join together at a local restaurant to reminisce about life as Montreal Expos and the special bond created with its fan base.
"As soon as you hear the title to this new one, you know exactly what it's about and why it's likely to be good, especially if you were a sports fan growing up in the 1970s. Even to good boys all the way across the country in New Hampshire, the authority-flouting baseball A's and football Raiders were magical. Not only did they win championships, they did it amid clubhouse brawls, feuds with an owner and a general embrace of the 1960s aesthetic. Filmmakers Rick Bernstein and Ross Greenburg tell the stories of these turbulent, talented teams and show how they perfectly fit their city. Oakland was blue collar and home to hardcore hard-core 1960s rebellion, exemplified by the Black Panthers. Oakland, especially, was not San Francisco, the effete, world-class city across the bay."
The Portland Pickles are upending the entertainment world without compromising the essence of America’s pastime. As the #1 attended collegiate wood bat team in America, they draw fans from all walks of life with a bold embrace of local culture and community spirit. Experience the beauty, excitement, and passion of local summer baseball with the next wave of MLB stars.
This official film from Major League Baseball presents the thrilling story of the 2015 World Series championship run of the Kansas City Royals through comprehensive highlights, exclusive access and interviews, and breathtaking footage.
From Casey Stengel to Dwight Gooden, An Amazin' Era captures all the magic and mystique surrounding 25 years of New York Mets baseball. Relive the team's first quarter century in a collection of interviews and rare footage that follows the Mets from their humble beginnings through their championship years of 1969 and 1973, right up to the present day powerhouse team. An Amazin' Era is a complete history of the team that has captured the spirit and imagination of New York since 1962
Jim Bouton's 1970 book "Ball Four" was groundbreaking, shocking, and controversial. It sold in the millions. 40 years later, Bouton and former teammates spin hilarious stories from behind baseball's cloistered clubhouses, giving a rare glimpse inside Major League baseball in the 1960s. The book's cultural impact is examined by filmmaker and former pro baseball player Ron Shelton ("Bull Durham"), author Jean Hastings Ardell, and David Kipen, former director of literature for the NEA.
The St. Louis Cardinals teams of the 1980s are examined. Whitey Herzog was hired as manager in 1980 and began crafting a team that was built on speed and defense. Cardinals were the only team in the decade to appear in three World Series (winning the 1982 World Series over the Milwaukee Brewers).
The New York Yankees Are Once Again World Series Champions! The Yankees won their record 27th World Series Championship with a thrilling six game victory over the NL Champion Philadelphia Philles. From Jeter to Rivera to A-Rod and C.C. its all here.
Since Little League Baseball was founded in 1939, about 40 million kids have played the sport. The list includes future Hall of Famers like Carl Yastrzemski, Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan, and hundreds of other future Major Leaguers. But of all the kids who ever played Little League, the best of the best was a boy you’ve probably never heard of: Art “Pinky” Deras. In the summer of 1959, he led the team from Hamtramck, Mich., to the Little League World Series title, and in the process, he put together a Little League season the likes of which we might never see again. His amazing story comes to life in “The Legend of Pinky Deras: The Greatest Little-Leaguer There Ever Was,” a new film from Blue Hammer Films. Pinky received a ton of national publicity back in 1959, but then he fell off the map. In the half-century since he lit the Little League world on fire, there have been no films about him, no magazine stories, not even a single newspaper article.
Told on the premise that the United States has always been a refuge from those seeking a reprieve from poverty and bigotry, this Miniature short from M-G-M is the story of a young Polish boy, unable to speak English, just arriving in New York City with hie parents. He leaves his lower east-side tenement to go play. Passing an open field he sees a sight unfamiliar to him; a group of boys playing baseball. When the boys drop their bats and gloves to hitch a ride on a passing ice-wagon, the Polish boy goes over to the baseball diamond and starts examining the baseball equipment. The boys come back and think he is about to steal their belongings but, when they learn he is a new immigrant and doesn't understand English, they invite him to play base ball with them..and he gets a base-hit his first time at bat.
In December 2021, Hideki Kuriyama began devoting his days to one singular goal: hoisting the championship trophy at the 2023 World Baseball Classic. How did he mold his players into one of the best and strongest Samurai Japan teams in history? A close-up documentary that looks back on Samurai Japan's path to becoming world champions, along with valuable behind-the-scenes footage captured by the team's dedicated crew.
A look back at the history of major league baseball in Houston, starting with its humble beginnings at Colt .45 stadium, to the massive grandeur of the Astrodome and the birth of the Astros. Enjoy many of the great moments in Houston's baseball history including Ken Johnson's no-hitter, which he lost, Don Wilson's spectacular performances on the mound, and Nolan Ryan's triumph in overtaking Walter Johnson's strikeout record, just to name a few. Relive the story of the Astros as told by the stars who experienced it: like Rusty Staub, Joe Morgan and Mike Scott. From an expansion team in 1962 to today's National League Western Division Champions, "A Silver Odyssey" captures a quarter-century of history, humor and excitement.