KUOW Presents: Warren on Baseball

Baseball is the sporting equivalent of radio, ever-present during the summer, it can be appreciated sporadically, yet never be missed when turned off. It’s white noise posed as nostalgic distraction. (Sorry, purists, I’m a football fan.) However, America’s beloved diamond daze does lend itself to much superior cinematic story-telling. Doesn’t everyone enjoy the late-inning heroics of THE NATURAL, the compelling histrionics of BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY and the spot-on humor of BULL DURHAM? Of course. That’s the top of the order. But there are gems further down the line-up. Listen in on my conversation with Jeannie Yandel on KUOW Presents for three of my favorite — generally under-appreciated — baseball flicks and an explanation why the sport fares better on the big screen than in my daily life.

BONUS: There was a fourth movie I had wished to plug, but did not fit the broadcast, so consider this my designated sleeper-hit(ter): BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL, a Japanese cheese-fest so unabashedly absurd as to achieve a certain campy-cretinous brilliance. Rent it at your own risk. Drinking heavily beforehand strongly advised.