There are many, many reasons why 41 years later “The Natural” remains the gold standard for baseball movies (and probably for sports movies as a whole). I like that Joe Don Baker completely hams it up as The Whammer, and doesn’t even pretend like he’s anything other than a (verrrry loosely) fictionalized version of Babe Ruth. I like that the movie was shot at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, and that the ballpark’s nickname was “The Rockpile,” a term of both affection and derision proffered by the locals.
Author: Mike Vaccaro
Published at: 2025-09-20 21:01:33
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