Made for $11 million, Major League grossed $75 million worldwide. Major League deals with the exploits of a fictionalized version of the Cleveland Indians baseball team. It is the first installment in the Major League film series and spawned two sequels (Major League II and Major League: Back to the Minors), neither of which repeated the success of the original film.
Plot
Former Las Vegasshowgirl Rachel Phelps inherits the Cleveland Indians baseball team from her deceased husband. She hates Cleveland and intends to move the team to Miami by exploiting an escape clause in their contract if their season attendance remains low. She instructs general manager Charlie Donovan to fire the entire team and replace them with ageing and rookie players to make the worst team in the major leagues. Donovan brings on Lou Brown, the manager of the Toledo Mud Hens as coach.
Spring training begins in Tucson, Arizona. Brown asks former Indians catcher, Jake Taylor, to lead the team despite his bad knees. Among other players include third baseman Roger Dorn, a prima donna star player; veteran pitcher Eddie Harris, who has resorted to doctoring the baseball; outfielder Pedro Cerrano, a power-hitter who struggles to hit curveballs; outfielder Willie Mays Hayes, who can easily steal bases but has little batting power, and pitcher Rick Vaughn who has a wicked fastball but with no apparent control, earning him the nickname "Wild Thing".
Early on, the team struggles with their own interpersonal relationships but manage to win a few games. Brown and Taylor help to put the players' own troubles aside as the season progresses. Brown discovers Vaughn has poor eyesight and once fitted with glasses, he becomes a dominant pitcher. As team morale and performance improve, Phelps removes several amenities for the team, but they continue to soldier on. Meanwhile, Taylor discovers his old girlfriend Lynn and tries to rekindle their relationship. While they have a one-night stand, he learns she is engaged to be married soon.
With the Indians having a chance to win the division title, attendance has grown and Phelps' plan is in jeopardy. She informs Donovan that she will just fire the team, break contract, and move the team to Miami under a lucrative deal the city has offered her. Donovan relays this to Brown, who tells the team. They all agree that they only way to save their careers is to win the division. To encourage the team, Brown provides a cardboard cutout of Phelps from her showgirl days, with one piece of her clothing to be removed for each win.
The team succeeds in tying with the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East division, leading to a one-game playoff to determine the division championship. The Yankees take a 2-0 lead in the seventh inning, but Cerrano finally connects on a curveball and hits a 2-run homer to tie the game. Vaughn relieves Harris after the Yankees load the bases in the top of the ninth inning, and is able to strike out the Yankees' best hitter for the first time, maintaining the tie.
The Indians lose two outs in their half of the inning, but Hayes is able to get a single and then later steals second as Taylor is at bat. Taylor points to the outfield, mimicking Babe Ruth's famous called shot, luring the Yankees to play deep in the field. Taylor bunts the ball, hurting his knees but safely making it to first base, giving Hayes the time to reach home for the winning run. As the team celebrates with fans, Taylor sees Lynn in the stands, no longer with her engagement ring, and she joins him in the celebration on the field.
Alternate ending
The theatrical release includes added scenes of Rachel Phelps showing dismay with the team's success. An alternate scene included on the "Wild Thing Edition" DVD shows a very different characterization of Phelps. Lou Brown confronts Phelps over her plan to sabotage the team and announces his resignation. Phelps then reveals the threatened move to Miami was merely a ruse to motivate the team, as the Indians were on the verge of bankruptcy when she inherited them and she could not afford to hire star players or maintain standard amenities. She also tells Lou that she felt he was the right manager to bring the ragtag group together. Lou does not resign, but Phelps reasserts her authority by saying that if he shares any part of their conversation with anyone, she will fire him.[3]
The film's producers said that while the twist ending worked as a resolution of the plot, they scrapped it because test audiences preferred the Phelps character as a villain.[3]
Cast
Tom Berenger as Jake Taylor, a veteran catcher with bad knees. Taylor had been in the Mexican League before the Indians called him, and believes that this is his last chance to be on a winning MLB team.
Charlie Sheen as Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, a cocky young pitcher recruited out of prison to play. He commands a powerful fastball but lacks control, earning him his nickname.
Corbin Bernsen as Roger Dorn, the third baseman. Dorn is nearing retirement and fears being injured, causing him to play with a lack of effort. He flaunts his wealth in front of the other players and delights in tormenting the rookies.
Margaret Whitton as Rachel Phelps, the team's owner and a former showgirl who inherited the team when her billionaire husband died. She hates living in Cleveland and devises a plan to move the team to Miami.
James Gammon as Lou Brown, Manager. Brown spent thirty years managing the Toledo Mud Hens before taking over the Indians. He's a grizzled veteran who believes he can make the team a winner.
Rene Russo as Lynn Weslin, Jake Taylor's ex-girlfriend. Taylor dumped her when he left to play in Mexico, but now seeks to rekindle their romance since his return to Cleveland.
Wesley Snipes as Willie Mays Hayes, the team's center fielder. He arrives at spring training as an unknown and uninvited player, but manages to earn his spot on the team even after being kicked out of camp.
Charles Cyphers as Charlie Donovan, the General Manager. He is tasked by Rachel Phelps with carrying out her plan to tank the season despite his objections.
Chelcie Ross as Eddie Harris, a veteran pitcher nearing the end of his career. He openly doctors the baseball to make up for his diminishing power.
The film's opening montage is a series of somber blue-collar images of the Cleveland landscape synchronized to the score of Randy Newman's "Burn On", an ode to the infamous day in Cleveland when the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire.
Much of the film's spring training scenes were shot at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona, which was the spring training home for the Cleveland Indians from 1947 to 1992. The production used members of the University of Arizona Wildcats baseball team as extras.[4]
Despite being set in Cleveland, the film was principally shot in Milwaukee because it was cheaper and the producers were unable to work around the schedules of the Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Browns. Milwaukee County Stadium, then the home of the Brewers (and three Green Bay Packers games per season), doubles as Cleveland Stadium for the film, although several exterior shots of Cleveland Stadium were used, including some aerial shots taken during an Indians game. In fact, the sign for the television station atop the scoreboard is for WTMJ-TV, the NBC affiliate for Milwaukee. One of the ending scenes of the movie is in West Milwaukee's legendary restaurant, 4th Base which showcases their unique horseshoe bar that is shown in the celebration scenes. Another restaurant scene, at the then Gritz's Pzazz on Milwaukee's north side, is no longer open for business. County Stadium has since been demolished: the former playing field is now a Little League baseball field known as Helfaer Field, while the rest of the former site is now a parking lot for the Brewers' current home, American Family Field.[5]
Casting
The film was notable for featuring several actors who would go on to stardom: Snipes and Russo were relative unknowns before the movie was released, while Haysbert remained best known as Pedro Cerrano until he portrayed U.S. President David Palmer on the television series 24 and the spokesperson for Allstate Insurance. The longshoreman who is occasionally seen commenting and is shown in the final celebration inside a bar is Neil Flynn, who later achieved fame playing the Janitor in Scrubs and then the father Mike in The Middle. This is Flynn's first credited movie role.
The film also featured former Major League players, including 1982 American League Cy Young Award winner Pete Vuckovich as Yankees' first baseman Clu Haywood, former Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Willie Mueller as the Yankees pitcher Duke Simpson, known as "The Duke", and former Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Steve Yeager as third-base coach Duke Temple. Former catcher and longtime Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker played the Indians' broadcaster, Harry Doyle. The names of several crewmembers were also used for peripheral players.
Sheen himself was a pitcher on his high school's baseball team. At the time of filming Major League, his own fastball topped out at 88 miles per hour. In 2011, Sheen said that he had used steroids for nearly two months to improve his athletic abilities in the film.[6]
Reception
Box office
The film debuted at number 1 at the US box office[7] and received generally positive reviews.[8][9][10] It grossed almost $50 million in the United States and Canada and $25 million internationally for a worldwide total of $75 million.[11][2]
Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 83% based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's critics' consensus reads, "Major League may be predictable and formulaic, but buoyed by the script's light, silly humor—not to mention the well-built sports action sequences and funny performances."[12] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[14]
Rachel Phelps' character is loosely based on that of Georgia Frontiere, a past owner of the Los Angeles / St. Louis Rams, in the way she took over the franchise and how she was initially perceived. She took over ownership and control of the Rams upon the death of her husband in 1979, and eventually moved the team to her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri in 1995. The Rams (at the time owned by Stan Kroenke, who bought them from Frontiere's family after her own death) returned to Los Angeles in 2016.[citation needed]
When he joined the Cubs in 1989 (the same year the film was released), pitcher Mitch Williams' extravagant wind-up and release, and his frequent wild pitches, earned him the nickname "Wild Thing." As with Rick Vaughn's character, the Wrigley Field organist played "Wild Thing" as Williams came out of the bullpen; this was changed to the rock recording from the film after he was traded to the Phillies. A few years later, in 1993 with the Phillies, Williams started wearing the number 99 on his jersey, the same number that Vaughn wears in the film.[16]
In the years since its release Major League has become a beloved film of many professional baseball players and announcers, and is often referenced during game broadcasts. For example, in 2014, for the film's 25th anniversary, Major League catcher David Ross filmed a one-man tribute to the film, with Ross playing the part (among others) of Lou Brown, Pedro Cerrano, Willie Mays Hayes, Rick Vaughn, and Roger Dorn.[17] Additionally, as part of their 2014 "Archives" set, the trading card company Topps celebrated the film's 25th anniversary by creating baseball cards (using the same design as the company's 1989 base set) of Roger Dorn, Jake Taylor, Eddie Harris, Rachel Phelps, Rick Vaughn, and "Jobu."[18] Harry Doyle's call of a Rick Vaughn pitch that was "JUST a bit outside" is so well-known, film critic Richard Roeper wrote in 2019 that the line "has been invoked by every sportscaster in the last 30 years."[19] In 2011, Bleacher Report's Timothy Rapp named "JUST a bit outside" his fifth greatest sports-movie quote ever.[20]
In 2017, the University of Arizona men's baseball team created a parody of Major League, which was filmed at UA's current home field, Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona. Hi Corbett was the spring training home for the Cleveland Indians from 1947 to 1992. The star of the short film is outfielder Matt "Mays" Frazier, who played the role of Snipes' Willie Mays Hayes character from the original film. Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn and Roger Dorn are also parodied, and Arizona head coach Jay Johnson plays the role of Indians manager Lou Brown.[21]
Major League became an inspiration for the real Cleveland Indians and the city, given the previously long-standing Cleveland sports curse that had left Cleveland without any sporting championships in between 1964 (when the NFL's Cleveland Browns won the NFL Championship) and 2016 (when the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Finals and secured their first title in their 46-year history). The Indians reached the 2016 World Series, but lost to the similarly cursed Cubs. Between 1995 and 2016, the team went to the World Series three times, losing each time.[3]
In July 2021, the Indians announced that they would change their name to the Guardians for the 2022 season.[22] The opening scene of the film is an image of one of the Guardians of Traffic on the Hope Memorial Bridge.[23]
Soon after the film's 25th anniversary in 2015, a company called "The Jobu Lifestyle" began producing figurines of Jobu (Pedro Cerrano's voodoo figure). The packaging is a reference to Cerrano's locker that made up Jobu's shrine.[25][26]
In news coverage of the 2017 World Baseball Classic, Team Israel's outfielder Cody Decker made a comparison between Jobu and the team's mascot, "Mensch on a Bench", a five-foot-tall stuffed toy that looks a bit like a rabbi or Hasidic Jew: "He's a mascot, he's a friend, he's a teammate, he's a borderline deity to our team.... He brings a lot to the table.... Every team needs their Jobu. He was ours. He had his own locker, and we even gave him offerings: Manischewitz, gelt, and gefilte fish... He is everywhere and nowhere all at once. His actual location is irrelevant because he exists in higher metaphysical planes. But he's always near."[27][28][29][30]
Due to the success of the film, two sequels have been produced, neither of which achieved the original's success. Major League II returned most of the original stars, with the notable exception of Wesley Snipes, and focused on the following season and the players' reaction to the previous season's success. Major League: Back to the Minors again starred Corbin Bernsen, but this time, as the owner of the Minnesota Twins, attempting to turn around the Twins' AAA team, the Buzz. A possible third sequel, Major League 3 (which was to ignore Back to the Minors), was reported in 2010 to be in development by original writer and producer David S. Ward. Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, and Snipes would return, with the plot revolving around Ricky Vaughn coming out of retirement to work with a young player.[31] In 2015, Morgan Creek Productions announced that the sequel was still in the works.[32]
Reboot
In 2017, Morgan Creek announced plans to reboot their classic films from the 1980s and 1990s as television series or movies following the success of The Exorcist television series. Several films in early stages of development include film series Young Guns, Major League, and Ace Ventura.[33]
^Although, according to an interview on The Dan Patrick Show (October 22, 2008), Williams' number change had nothing to do with the Major League film. Williams said he had wanted the number 99 for years because of his admiration for the football player Mark Gastineau, who also wore number 99. Williams said that he did not change his number until 1993 because that was his first chance to do it.
