Telling the story of a single regular season of a fictionalized version of the Cleveland Indians Major League Baseball team, Major League grossed $75 million worldwide from an $11 million budget 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 struggling Cleveland Indians baseball team from her deceased husband. She intends to move the team to Miami by exploiting an escape clause in their contract with the city of Cleveland: if their season attendance falls below a certain number, she can terminate the lease and move the team. She plans to create the worst team in the major leagues, instructing team executives to fire the current players and replace them with rookies and veterans long past their prime. She starts by hiring Lou Brown, 30-year manager of the Triple-AToledo Mud Hens, who runs a tire store in the off season.
Spring training begins in Tucson, Arizona, with Phelps' list of players likely to fail: Jake Taylor, a former all-star catcher with bad knees; third baseman Roger Dorn, a prima donna more concerned with his financial portfolio than playing good baseball; aging starting pitcher Eddie Harris, who has resorted to doctoring the baseball; outfielder Pedro Cerrano, a voodoo-practicing power slugger who has trouble hitting breaking balls; speedy outfielder Willie Mays Hayes, who can steal bases but cannot hit; and rookie pitcher Ricky Vaughn, an ex-con who has a 100-mph fastball but no control, earning him the nickname "Wild Thing."
Early on, the players struggle to come together as a team, with a feud developing between Dorn and Vaughn, but they win some games under Brown and Taylor's leadership. They discover that Vaughn has poor eyesight, and once fitted with glasses, he becomes a dominant pitcher. Team morale and performance improve, so Phelps cancels several amenities, but they continue to build on their strengths. Meanwhile, Taylor reconnects with his old girlfriend Lynn and tries to rekindle their relationship, even though she is engaged to be married.
Nearly three-quarters of the way through the season, the team is 60-61, exceeding expectations, and fans have begun to fill the stands. At this point, Phelps's general manager, Charlie Donovan, tired of her manipulations, reveals her scheme to Brown, who then relays the message to his team. To thwart Phelps' plan, Taylor decides that the only thing left to do is "win the whole fuckin' thing."
The Indians climb in the standings until they are tied with the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East division on the final day of the season, requiring a one-game playoff to determine the division champion and a bid to the ALCS. Watching the team's celebration on television, Dorn's wife Suzanne sees him in an amorous embrace with another woman. In revenge, she sleeps with Vaughn (who is unaware of who she is) and informs Dorn just before he leaves for the ballpark the next morning.
The Indians manage to keep pace with the Yankees, and Cerrano is able to hit a curveball for a home run. The game enters the ninth tied at 2, but a fatigued Harris loads the bases with two outs for star hitter Clu Heywood. Brown brings in Vaughn to face him despite his struggles against him all year; Vaughn, after a bit of encouragement from Dorn, strikes out Heywood on three fastballs.
With two out in the Indians ninth, Hayes beats out a ground ball to keep the inning alive, causing the Yankees to bring in their head hunting closer, Duke Simpson, to face Taylor. After Hayes steals second, Taylor has an idea and relays it to the dugout. Taylor points to left field, ostensibly calling his shot, but Duke responds by throwing at Taylor's head.
Once again, Taylor points at the stands. Hayes again takes off, and at the last possible second Taylor catches everyone off guard with a bunt, which he beats out by a step. Heywood spots Hayes, who never stopped running, breaking for home and throws to the plate, but Hayes slides around the tag and scores. The Indians win the game, 3-2, and advance to the postseason.
In the ensuing celebration, Dorn punches Vaughn for sleeping with his wife, but pulls him up and they celebrate. Jake spots Lynn in the stands, and she holds up her hand to reveal her engagement has been called off.
Alternate ending
The theatrical release shows Phelps in the owner's box in the final game showing dismay with the team's success, and this is the last time she is seen. An alternate final scene included on the "Wild Thing Edition" DVD shows a different characterization: Brown confronts Phelps over her plan to sabotage the team and resigns. Phelps reveals that she loves the team and invented plans to move to Miami as a ruse to motivate the players. Brown does not resign, and Phelps says that if he shares 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 screening audiences preferred Phelps as a villain.[3]
Cast
Tom Berenger as Jake Taylor, a veteran catcher with bad knees. Taylor is playing in the Mexican League when the Indians call, and sees the season as his last chance to be successful. He takes rookies Hayes and Vaughn under his wing.
Charlie Sheen as Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, a cocky young pitcher recruited out of prison. He has a powerful fastball but lacks control.
Corbin Bernsen as third baseman Roger Dorn. Dorn is nearing retirement and fears being injured, believing he has a future in acting, and so initially plays with little effort (despite believing himself to be a star player).
Margaret Whitton as Rachel Phelps, a former showgirl who inherits the team from her billionaire husband just before the film begins. She hates Cleveland and schemes to move the team to Miami.
Rene Russo as Lynn Weslin, Jake Taylor's ex-girlfriend. They broke up when he left to play in Mexico, but now he wants to rekindle their romance despite her engagement to someone else.
Wesley Snipes as center fielder Willie Mays Hayes. He arrives at spring training uninvited, but earns his spot on the team with his impressive speed, despite being a terrible batter.
Charles Cyphers as Charlie Donovan, the general manager. Rachel Phelps orders him to carry out her plan of tanking the season over his objections; eventually, he reveals her scheme to the team.
Pete Vuckovich as Haywood, Yankees' first baseman. He has previously won the Triple Crown and has a reputation for being mean.
Willie Mueller as Duke Simpson, the Yankees' relief pitcher, a skilled reliever with a reputation for hitting batters on purpose.
Stacy Carroll as Suzanne Dorn, Roger Dorn's wife, who is loving and supportive until she sees her husband on TV cavorting with another woman.
Keith Uchima and Kurt Uchima as Groundskeepers who routinely deride the team but who eventually come around.
Neil Flynn appears as a longshoreman who is initially dismissive of the new team but soon realizes their potential.
Production
Development
Ward, who grew up in the Cleveland suburb of South Euclid, Ohio, reflected on filming a movie about a Cleveland team that had not won a pennant since his childhood. “I figured I would never see the Indians win anything unless I wrote a movie where they did. That was the real genesis behind the movie."[4]
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 in 1969.
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.[5]
Despite being set in Cleveland, the film was principally shot in Milwaukee because it was cheaper (Ward noted that Cleveland was a big union town) 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, was filmed at a restaurant that is no longer open for business. County Stadium was demolished in 2001; the stadium's 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, which opened in 2001.[6]
Originally in Ward's script, there was a twist involving Whitton's character being revealed to have wanted the team to have won all along, having personally scouted each member of the team with flaws that hid their talent. The film was shot with that ending in mind, complete with reaction shots for the final game depicted of her cheering the team on. However, this was changed due to audience test scores that apparently had grown to like seeing Whitton's character in its villainous form. As such, a small bit of re-shots and editing was done for the climax. The ending (with an introduction by the filmmakers) is included on the DVD for the film.[7]
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.[8]
Reception
Box office
The film debuted at number 1 at the US box office[9] and received generally positive reviews.[10][11][12] It grossed almost $50 million in the United States and Canada and $25 million internationally for a worldwide total of $75 million.[13][2]
Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten TomatoesMajor League 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 [is] buoyed by the script's light, silly humor—not to mention the well-built sports action sequences and funny performances."[14] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[15] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[16]
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]
The character of veteran junk ball pitcher Eddie Harris is based on that of Gaylord Perry and his affinity for throwing baseballs doctored with vaseline, spit, or any other substance known to illegally change the movement of a pitch.[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, who had up to that point in his career, worn the number 28, started wearing the number 99 on his jersey, the same number that Vaughn wears in the film.[18]
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.[19] 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".[20] Harry Doyle's call of a wildly off-target Rick Vaughn pitch that was "JUST a bit outside" is so well-known, film critic Richard Roeper wrote in 2019 that the line was invoked by every sportscaster in the last 30 years.[21] In 2011, Bleacher Report's Timothy Rapp named "JUST a bit outside" his fifth greatest sports-movie quote ever.[22]
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.[23]
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]
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.[27][28]
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."[29][30][31][32]
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 were reported to return, with the plot revolving around Ricky Vaughn coming out of retirement to work with a young player.[33] In 2015, Morgan Creek Productions said that the sequel was still in the works.[34]
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.[35]
^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.
Established in 1894 Former names (all in Cleveland unless noted) - Grand Rapids Rustlers, Lake Shores, Bluebirds, Bronchos, Naps, and Indians Based in Cleveland, Ohio
