My baseball hero's journey

I loved playing little league as a kid. I was a decent first baseman, but my brief moment in the sun came when I led the league in home runs one season - I believe it only took four to take the crown back then. But the competition got better quickly and I didn't keep up with the increasing speed of the pitches, so I found a new way to appreciate the game: as a fan in the centerfield bleachers of the Oakland Coliseum.

 

The concrete bowl just off highway 880 that now sits empty and hollow was a fantastic place to watch a baseball game in the early 1980's. Three bucks for a bleacher seat. About the same for the best nachos ever - must have jalapeños - and a large Coke. My best friend, Jonny O, and I would get there early to watch batting practice and hear Mel Allen recount This Week in Baseball, asking us rhetorically, "How about that?" Jonny and I would pretend we were A's announcers Lon Simmons and Bill King. We both wanted to be sports journalists. He actually made it happen. 

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It turned out my dad was watching me. He loved to see me love something so much. He asked if I'd like to see all the Major League ballparks together. Thankfully, his wasn't a rhetorical question. We went to seven parks together over the course of two short trips in the early 1990's before life got busy - graduation, retirement and other such important details. In 1994 Bud Selig did the unthinkable, canceling the World Series. It took five years for me to want to be a fan again - five years, an epic home run chase, and the beginning of a new era in Oakland: Moneyball. Something else happened around this time: my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. I rewatched Field of Dreams...and bawled my eyes out. I couldn't let our dream of seeing all the ballparks together be left incomplete. For the rest of that story, I hope you'll take a look at our award-winning documentary series, Boys of Summer.

 

As for baseball in 2025 - it's been kicked around. It barely seems to hold on as the third of the "three majors" in American sports fan culture.  Having the A's yanked from Oakland certainly didn't help this fan. But baseball remains a most unique sport. There's far more to it than meets the casual observer's eye. You have to commit to it to see it, feel it and fall in love with it. It's rich, historical and unique style as a sport is one of the reasons there are so many great baseball films; the game and its culture lends itself to cinematic storytelling. I hope you'll take a look at these 12 films with me on Friday, March 14th for the Hero's Journey of Baseball. Bring your friends, family and fellow fans. Let's laugh, cheer and maybe shed a tear or two - as this game is known to break hearts. 

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Forgive me if I left your favorite off the list. Hell, yell at me. That's what fans do.

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- Robert Cochrane, PhD