It's Opening Day for baseball today, more specifically, the Padres. And what better time than now to bust out The Bad News Bears. Actually, I watch this at least 1-2 times a year and I always have this one out within the first week of the new Baseball season, if not on Opening Day itself. So why The Bad News Bears and not any other baseball movie? Well, this movie is what propelled me into my life long obsession with the sport. Sure, it would be 4 long years before I was old enough to play Little League, but the movie itself got me interested in Baseball and the Padres.

I absolutely love everything about this movie. It is the quintessential baseball movie there is. It appeals to both kids and adults alike. The movie meant one thing to me as a kid and something else all together as an adult. And even though I may view the film from two different angles, I still feel like a kid whenever I watch this. The plot is simple enough, watch a rag tag team of misfits come together and give the best team in the league a run for their money. Great cast of characters adorn this one with Walter Matthau, Vic Marrow and Joyce Van Patten looking over the kids. The Bears have your prototypical cliche archetypes, but they work extremely well with Jackie Earle Haley and Tatum O'Neal as their star players. Even Brandon Cruz was in this one. By the way, I had a MAJOR crush on Tatum when I saw her in this on the theater.

She seemed like she was almost like an adult to me back then even though I knew she was just a kid like me. But watching her now, you can see that she carried herself differently, even as a child actress, she was very serious about her job as an actress. It shows. I highly recommend this as a must-Buy, even if you're not into sports movies. It has a lot more going for that than just baseball. All the kids make this a true winner in my book. One of my all time favorite movies. Love the look of the movie and the way it was shot. It's over 30 years old, but it still looks and feels like a contemporary film. There is absolutely no aging to the film at all. The musical score also kicks ass too.

FYI, what a great name for a movie title. Think about it, they could have named it anything like: The Bears, The Horrible Team or Bad Bears. But they came up with a clever name and it has since become synonymous to label any sports team that sucks as 'The Bad News Bears'. One thing that still makes me do a double take watching this now is how far they pushed the envelope when it comes to how the kids take, especially the racial slurs. They would NEVER allow that in today's films, which definitely marks the time and era the movie came out. And lets not forget about the profanity too. Sure, it's tame by today's standards, but it does make you sit up and take notice what was coming out of the kids mouths at the time.

Another FYI, the Padres got blown out of the water today by the Mets, 11-2. Ugh. It's gonna be another long season. Ack!!

Isn't one of the kids Rorschach?