Best movies like The Natural

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?

When a plane crash claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team's new coach and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive.

Jim Morris never made it out of the minor leagues before a shoulder injury ended his pitching career twelve years ago. Now a married-with-children high-school chemistry teacher and baseball coach in Texas, Jim's team makes a deal with him: if they win the district championship, Jim will try out with a major-league organization. The bet proves incentive enough for the team, and they go from worst to first, making it to state for the first time in the history of the school. Jim, forced to live up to his end of the deal, is nearly laughed off the try-out field--until he gets onto the mound, where he confounds the scouts (and himself) by clocking successive 98 mph fastballs, good enough for a minor-league contract with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Jim's still got a lot of pitches to throw before he makes it to The Show, but with his big-league dreams revived, there's no telling where he could go.

12-year-old Henry Rowengartner, whose late father was a minor league baseball player, grew up dreaming of playing baseball, despite his physical shortcomings. After Henry's arm is broken while trying to catch a baseball at school, the tendon in that arm heals too tightly, allowing Henry to throw pitches that are as fast as 103 mph. Henry is spotted at nearby Wrigley Field by Larry "Fish" Fisher, the general manager of the struggling Chicago Cubs, after Henry throws an opponent's home-run ball all the way from the outfield bleachers back to the catcher, and it seems that Henry may be the pitcher that team owner Bob Carson has been praying for.

Rudy grew up in a steel mill town where most people ended up working, but wanted to play football at Notre Dame instead. There were only a couple of problems. His grades were a little low, his athletic skills were poor, and he was only half the size of the other players. But he had the drive and the spirit of 5 people and has set his sights upon joining the team.

Jimmy Dolan is a college basketball coach who wants a big promotion. To get it, he needs to make a dramatic find. He ends up deep in Africa, hoping to recruit Saleh, a huge basketball prodigy Jimmy glimpsed in a home movie. But Saleh is the chief's son and has responsibilities at home, since the tribe's land is threatened by a mining company with its own hotshot basketball team.

The short-tempered manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates mends his ways in return for a little divine assistance.

Roger is a foster child whose irresponsible father promises to get his act together when Roger's favourite baseball team, the California Angels, wins the pennant. The problem is that the Angels are in last place, so Roger prays for help to turn the team around. Sure enough, his prayers are answered in the form of angel Al.

A chronicle of Babe Ruth's phenomenal story--from his hard knock beginnings at a Baltimore orphanage, to his meteoric rise to baseball superstardom and his poignant retirement from the game. His amazing career included seven American League pennants, four World Series championships, two tempestuous marriages and a wild lifestyle that earned him numerous suspensions.

An aging, down-on-his-luck ex-minor leaguer coaches a team of misfits in an ultra-competitive California little league.

A troubled, rebellious teen drives his rambunctious baseball team out to Houston where they play an exhibition game and the boy meets his estranged father, and hires him as the teams coach.

In this third film version of the Bad News Bears series, Tony Curtis plays a small time promotor/hustler who takes the pint-sized baseball team to Japan for a match against the country's best little league baseball team which sparks off a series of adventures and mishaps the boys come into.

The story of a New York pro baseball team and two of its players. Henry Wiggen is the star pitcher and Bruce Pearson is the normal, everyday catcher who is far from the star player on the team and friend to all of his teammates. During the off-season, Bruce learns that he is terminally ill, and Henry, his only true friend, is determined to be the one person there for him during his last season with the club. Throughout the course of the season, Henry and his teammates attempt to deal with Bruce's impending illness, all the while attempting to make his last year a memorable one.

In the world of 1930s Negro League baseball, a spirited team of renegade players travels around the Midwest looking for that one big score. Richard Pryor, Billy Dee Williams, and James Earl Jones star as three barnstorming ballplayers who take on prejudice and their own League's unfair rules while stealing cars, food and home base - anything to prove that they're the best team around. It's a showdown of brains over booby traps and sportsmanship over racial segregation as Bingo Long's All-Stars swing their way into a winning season;.

Alex believed in his baseball hero Billy Young. When Billy's performance struggled, Alex's friends began to doubt Alex; and Billy began to doubt himself. Alex wants to prove to his friends, to Billy, and to himself that believing in someone can make the difference.

After reckless young lawyer Gordon Bombay gets arrested for drunk driving, he must coach a kids hockey team for his community service. Gordon has experience on the ice, but isn't eager to return to hockey, a point hit home by his tense dealings with his own former coach, Jack Reilly. The reluctant Gordon eventually grows to appreciate his team, which includes promising young Charlie Conway, and leads them to take on Reilly's tough players.

In a last-ditch effort to save his career, sports agent JB Bernstein dreams up a wild game plan to find Major League Baseball’s next great pitcher from a pool of cricket players in India. He soon discovers two young men who can throw a fastball but know nothing about the game of baseball. Or America. It’s an incredible and touching journey that will change them all — especially JB, who learns valuable lessons about teamwork, commitment and family.

A track coach in a small California town transforms a team of athletes into championship contenders.

A small, turbulent town in Texas obsesses over their high school football team to an unhealthy degree. When the star tailback, Boobie Miles, is seriously injured during the first game of the season, all hope is lost, and the town's dormant social problems begin to flare up. It is left to the inspiring abilities of new coach Gary Gaines to instill in the other team members -- and, by proxy, the town itself -- a sense of self-respect and honor.

Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice telling him to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond. He does, but the voice's directions don't stop -- even after the spirits of deceased ballplayers turn up to play.

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.

World War I has left golfer Rannulph Junuh a poker-playing alcoholic, his perfect swing gone. Now, however, he needs to get it back to play in a tournament to save the financially ravaged golf course of a long-ago sweetheart. Help arrives in the form of mysterious caddy Bagger Vance.

Jack Cooper could be a world-class baseball pitcher if he didn't keep buckling under the pressure. He tries to keep his spirits up after he's traded to a minor league team but loses all hope when he discovers that Ed, one of his teammates, is a chimp. Ed used to be the team mascot, but was promoted to third base when the owners realized he had a talent for baseball. As Jack struggles to get used to his new surroundings, Ed helps him regain his confidence on and off the field.

A losing coach with an underdog football team faces their giants of fear and failure on and off the field to surprising results.

When the San Francisco Giants pay center-fielder, Bobby Rayburn $40 million to lead their team to the World Series, no one is happier or more supportive than #1 fan, Gil Renard. When Rayburn becomes mired in the worst slump of his career, the obsessed Renard decides to stop at nothing to help his idol regain his former glory—not even murder.

Failed college coach Norman Dale gets a chance at redemption when he is hired to coach a high school basketball team in a tiny Indiana town. After a teacher persuades star player Jimmy Chitwood to quit and focus on his long-neglected studies, Dale struggles to develop a winning team in the face of community criticism for his temper and his unconventional choice of assistant coach: Shooter, a notorious alcoholic.

As America's stock of athletic young men is depleted during World War II, a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest, funded by publicity-hungry candy maker Walter Harvey. Competitive sisters Dottie Hinson and Kit Keller spar with each other, scout Ernie Capadino and grumpy has-been coach Jimmy Dugan on their way to fame.

When the owner of the Minnesota Twins passes away, he bequeaths the team to his preteen grandson. The newly minted head honcho quickly appoints himself manager, causing unrest in an organisation that struggles to take orders from a 12-year-old.

When Rachel Phelps inherits the Cleveland Indians from her deceased husband, she's determined to move the team to a warmer climate—but only a losing season will make that possible, which should be easy given the misfits she's hired. Rachel is sure her dream will come true, but she underestimates their will to succeed.

At the behest of Roger Dorn -- the Minnesota Twins' silver-tongued new owner -- washed-up minor league hurler Gus Cantrell steps up to the plate to take over as skipper of the club's hapless farm team. But little does he know that Dorn has an ulterior motive to generate publicity with a grudge match between the big leaguers and their ragtag Triple A affiliate.

Best-selling author John Grisham deviates from his usual literary thrillers with this winning film that stars Harry Connick Jr. as Tripp Spence, a widower who goes on the run from the IRS with his 12-year-old baseball-phenomenon son, Derrick (Shawn Salinas). They assume new identities and flee to Las Vegas, where Derrick, now known as Mickey, joins a team that makes it to the Little League World Series. But will fame give away his true identity?

Aging baseball star who goes by the nickname, Mr. 3000, finds out many years after retirement that he didn't quite reach 3,000 hits. Now at age 47 he's back to try and reach that goal.

A decade has passed in the small town where the original Sandlot gang banded together during the summer of ’62 to play baseball and battle the Beast. Now comes the sequel, a campy romp back to the dugout where nine new kids descend on the diamond only to discover that a descendant of the Beast lives in Mr. Mertle’s backyard--a monster of mythical proportions known as "The Great Fear."

When his star recruit botches a Major League Baseball debut, humiliated talent scout, Al Percolo gets banished to rural Mexico, where he finds a potential gold mine in the arm of young phenom Steve Nebraska. Soon, the Bronx Bombers put a $55 million contract on the table—provided a psychiatrist can affirm Nebraska's mental stability.

Based on true events amid the wreckage and chaos dealt by Hurricane Katrina; one basketball coach in Marrero, Louisiana just will not give up. Coach Al Collins, gathers other players from hard-hit schools and builds a team actually worthy enough to go to the state playoffs.

To build up attendance at their games, the management of a struggling minor-league hockey team signs up the Hanson Brothers, three hard-charging players whose job is to demolish the opposition.

Local boy Ryan Dunne, now a pitcher for Boston College, meets Tenley Parrish, the daughter of a wealthy couple who summer on the Cape. Ryan and Tenley fall in love, much to the chagrin of their families, while Ryan clings to one last hope of being discovered and signed to a pro baseball contract.

After taking a job managing a little league team, a homeless man inspires the kids to reach for it all and they inspire him to reclaim his life.

Rick Penning lives life just like he plays rugby; fast, hard-hitting and intense. When life on the edge lands him in jail, prison ward Marcus Tate offers him a chance to get back in the game by playing for his rival, Highland Rugby. Reluctantly Rick joins the team where he must adopt the grueling training schedule that Coach Gelwix enforces, or finish out the season behind bars.

Freddie Steinmark, an underdog on the gridiron, faces the toughest challenge of his life after leading his team to a championship season.

True story of the life of Jimmy Piersall, who battled mental illness to achieve stardom in major league baseball.

Chuck Murdock, a 12-year-old boy from Montana and son of a military jet pilot, becomes anxious after seeing a Minuteman missile on a school field trip. He protests the existence of nuclear weapons by refusing to play baseball, which results in the forfeit of a Little League game by his team. "Amazing Grace" Smith, a fictional Boston Celtics player, played by NBA star Alex English, decides to join the boy in his protest by resigning from professional basketball. This gives it nationwide coverage, inspiring more pro athletes to join the protest against nuclear weapons. The film reaches a climax when the President of the United States personally meets with Chuck, admiring his resolve but at the same time explaining the practical difficulties of disarmament. Sinister forces, meanwhile, threaten the lives of Amazing Grace and his agent, Lynn.

A Florida boy (Bryan Russell) tells his Little League buddies that his father knows two New York Yankees (Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris).

Joe Mazzello, best known for his acting roles in Jurassic Park, HBO's The Pacific, The Social Network, etc, wrote and made his directorial debut with this story based on his brother's experience as a collegiate baseball star who was skipped over in the Major League Baseball draft. Story centers around an intramural baseball game with his misfit teammates that becomes incredibly important to him as he tries to come to grips with his dashed dream.

In a conservative small town, a young man's wish to coach high school basketball are tweaked by a school board decision that makes him the new coach of the girls' team.

Comic melodrama following the day-to-day life of high school senior Will, a promising but naive athlete struggling with choices that could determine his future, romance and family difficulties.

When an 11 year old boy gets cut from his Little League baseball team, he sets out to form his own team.

Major League Baseball scout must find promising young player to save his job and his team.

At the NFL Draft, general manager Sonny Weaver has the opportunity to rebuild his team when he trades for the number one pick. He must decide what he's willing to sacrifice on a life-changing day for a few hundred young men with NFL dreams.

When Jessica Parker’s former high school boyfriend, superstar baseball player Chase Taynor, returns to town, she finds the inspiration to reinvent her struggling diner… and revisits the past to find something even better for the future.