If there were nothing but baseball to watch on TV, a lot of us sofa spuds would turn off the set and go outdoors. We care that much about the national pastime.
Which makes ”Diamonds on the Silver Screen” all the nicer a surprise.
American Movie Classics will premiere this original one-hour special about baseball in the movies in time to be part of the hoopla that surrounds the World Series. ”Diamonds” debuts at 7 and 10:30 p.m. Thursday; the Series begins Saturday.
Hosted by James Earl Jones, it is such fun with 60 minutes of film clips, interviews and commentary that even a non-fan will be delighted.
Oh, sure, some guests, like sportscaster Bob Costas, have a zeal we simply don`t understand. And we`re not sure we buy this business about baseball being a metaphor for America.
But it`s hard to ignore the broad appeal such films as ”Bull Durham,”
”Major League,” ”Field of Dreams” and ”A League of Their Own.” Those movies are more about life than baseball, to be sure, but the sport does seem to shape and change everything it touches.
Jones, a less than avid baseball fan himself, believes the game affects us whether we want or expect it to.
”You hear names like Babe Ruth, Shoeless Joe or Dizzy Dean all your life,” he said. ”It`s a curious reference. But just think about every World War II movie you`ve ever seen. One guy says, `Who goes there?` And the response, the password is some baseball statistic. I think it`s about heroes and how that becomes imbedded in our minds.”
On the face of it, what may seem to be a ramble really is a rocket-sled ride that takes in early silent films (”The Ballgame” and ”Casey at the Bat” from 1898 and `99 respectively), biopics of the late-`40s and `50s
(”The Pride of the Yankees,” ”The Stratton Story,” ”Fear Strikes Out”) and the more recent crop of baseball films, including ”The Natural,” ”Eight Men Out,” even ”The Bad News Bears.”
