Sports have been a favorite subject for storytellers since a primitive human first told others how much fun it was to whack a round rock with a stick. Author George Plimpton once wrote in the New York Times that "the smaller the ball, the more formidable the literature. There are superb books about golf, very good books about baseball, not many good books about football or soccer, very few good books about basketball and no good books at all about beach balls." The same parallels to life and American history that make those baseball books so compelling provide a rich metaphorical backdrop for cinematic masterpieces as well.

Baseball's enduring, prominent place in United States and Latin American culture has also made it popular as a movie theme. From the thousands of baseball films ever m

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