Books & Movies

We can’t go to the DBAP to watch a game.

The World Series is long over.

My Spanish is non-existent so watching erratic streaming video of the Liga Mexican del Pacifico’s Venados de Mazatlan really doesn’t do much for me. So it’s to the bookshelves or Netflix to make in through the winter.

What I thought was that I’d put up really short list and hope you readers will add to it. Here’s the criterion I used for my list — do I plan to read/watch the book/movie again some day?

So, here’s the beginnings of a list to help us through the winter. What can you add? I’ll update this post for a couple of weeks with your additions.

Books:

Shoeless Joe. W.P. Kinsella. 1982. ISBN: 9780395957738. The novel that film Field of Dreams was based on. Similar to, but in its way very different from the film.

Baseball: A Literary Anthology. Nicholas Dawidoff (Ed). ISBN: 193108209X. Terrific collection of poems, stories, essays, etc.

The Curious Case of Sidd Finch. George Plimpton. 1987. ISBN: 9780025976504. Based on the famous 1985 Sports Illustrated April Fool’s Day story. Fun read.

The Natural. Bernard Malamud. 1980. ISBN: 978-0809435944. Also made into a well-known film. Book is better.


Movies:

Bull Durham. Of course. What red-blooded Bulls fan doesn’t have a secret yearning for Susan Sarandon (except for those who go for Kevin Costner -- unfortunately, once seen it’s pretty hard to get the image of those gills he has in Water World out of your head).

Major League. Mostly for the fun of it.

Bang the Drum Slowly. Robert de Niro playing a semi-literate catcher with a terminal illness. What not to like? Note that Netflix categorizes it as a “tear-jerker”.

Field of Dreams. Keeps the heart of the Kinsella novel and a very strong cast.