The pride of the Yankees and the Stratton Story -- The Jackie Robinson story -- The Babe Ruth story and Angels in the outfield -- Fear strikes out and damn Yankees -- Bathroom break : the most popular team in baseball cinema -- Bang the drum slowly -- Bingo long and the traveling all-stars and motor kings -- The bad news Bears -- Beer run : the best baseball scenes in non-baseball movies -- The natural and field of dreams -- Eight men out and major league -- Bull Durham -- A league of their own -- Bathroom break no 2 : is the Naked gun a baseball movie? -- An investigation -- The Sandlot -- Rookie of the year -- Little big league -- Seventh-inning stretch : an interview with Richard Linklater -- Moneyball and trouble with the curve -- 42 and Fences -- Sugar -- Faith-based baseball films -- Epilogue : extra inning

"Featuring Field of Dreams, The Bad News Bears, A League of Their Own, and more: a probing and entertaining work at the intersection of pop culture and sports Baseball has always been a symbol as much as a sport. With a blend of individual confrontation and team play, a luxurious pace, and an immaculate urban parkland setting, it offers a sunny rendering of the American Dream, both the hard work that underpins it and the rewards it promises. Film, America's other national pastime, which magnifies and mythologizes all it touches, has long been the ideal medium to canonize this aspirational idea. Baseball: The Movie is the first definitive history of this film genre that was born in 1915 and remains artistically and culturally vital more than a century later. Writer and critic Noah Gittell sheds light on well-known classics and overlooked gems, exploring how baseball cinema creates a stage upon which the American ideal is born, performed, and repeatedly redefined. Traversing history and mythmaking, cynicism and nostalgia, this thoroughly researched book takes readers on a multifaceted tour of baseball on film"--