Major League II: “I Don’t Know What The Hell He’s Thinking”
October 10th of last year will always hold a special place in our hearts as it was the day we ran our post about Jameis Winston’s possible connection to the same autograph dealer that got Todd Gurley in trouble. The post caught on like wildfire unlike anything we’ve done before or since and even led to the blog being referenced by human penis Darren Rovell live on SportsCenter. What history has forgotten of course is that the post which was bumped for our brief moment of glory was this lightly received entry from me on bothersome sports failings in sports movies. A quick recap of the premise is I’m willing to accept just about anything a film universe presents as being true. If Godzilla is real than it’s not for me to question the logistics of him being able to breathe radioactive fire or whatever. But you’re still dealing with the world we all live in so some shit still has to fit reality and that’s when I have beef. Sports movies are some of the worst offenders.
Thanks to Sunday night’s Bleacher Feature airing of Major League II (plot background can be found here) and the bits I watched I felt inspired to resurrect the series to bring attention to why this movie truly sucks. It’s not a well regarded film but many will point to the formulaic repeat of the film’s first plot (which was a dicey situation since here the Indians are coming off an AL East championship the season before) and weird reinventions of the characters. But the true sucktitude comes from the baseball scenes themselves unless the movie was trying to say that Jake Taylor was the worst manager of a World Series club in history (keep in mind at this point Ned Yost hadn’t yet made it there).
Before we go any further however, credit where credit is due. Bob Uecker as Harry Doyle is still hilarious as well as Randy Quaid who became my spirit animal for bitter fandom in the decades since.
Also I would be remiss if I didn’t tip my cap to the trailer in the film for Willie Mays Hayes (now played by Omar Epps, forget what the deal with Wesley Snipes was, possibly on the run from the IRS at the time) starring with Jesse The Body Ventura in Black Thunder/White Lightning.
Now on to the rot. A story of the former underdog now having to deal with success is an interesting concept for a sports franchise to take. But where Rocky III succeeded in resetting the hero back to square one in a believable sense, this movie just shit all over itself. A few lines of dialogue are thrown around about how they’ve lost their focus but really they’re just shitty again until some special motivation comes along and they achieve glory, only this time it wasn’t even a smart plot device like wanting to piss off the owner who wanted them to lose in the first one.
And while we’re here, everything about Rachel Phelps being a part of this story is dumb. At the start of the film she’s no longer the owner, having sold the team to former third baseman Roger Dorn (who is still in the prime of his career in the first movie and I think only made one reference to retirement). Now, despite Dorn’s alleged acumen with the stock market a market value listing I saw for the Cleveland Indians in 1990 was $75M and the highest MLB salary at the time was $3.2M. Unless Dorn was a part of an investment group there’s no way he can afford that team. To the film’s credit there is a line later on about him not being able to make payroll leading to him selling off the team’s best hitter, Jack Parkman (my guy), but still. He finally gets desperate enough that he sells the team back to Phelps who wants it simply for revenge. For fuck’s sake though, you don’t just buy and sell pro sports franchises like they’re beater cars, you have to get approval from the other owners and everyone was aware of how she tried to submarine the club the season before, she has Best Interest of Baseball banishment written all over her but since this movie has no new ideas suddenly they just revert to the status quo.
Alright, so whatever, they get their shit together (which actually does make sense, a talented team over 162 games should win some games unless they’re the 2015 Washington Nationals), and then the true idiocy sets in. The Indians hold a 3-0 series lead in the ALCS over the White Sox and are up 6-5 in the bottom of the 9th. The entire movie has been about how Rick Vaughn no longer has it and is a mental wreck. So to have the offense pick him up and carry a one run lead into the 9th has to feel like found money. Jake Taylor though sends his beleaguered starter back out there having thrown god knows how many pitches while giving up five runs and puts two men on with Parkman coming up. Skip sits quietly in the dugout as Big Jack delivers a three run shot and the Sox win the first of three in a row to force a decisive Game 7 back in Cleveland. The first film only even remembered bullpens existed when Vaughn was involved but at least in the climatic game against the Yankees ol’ Eddie Harris at least was only allowing two runs into the last frame thanks to the power of Vagisil.
So Game 7 of course is a tight affair with runs coming hard and heavy, Parkman hits another shot to put the Sox up 5-3 into the bottom of the 8th inning. At this point I’ll point out that the Cleveland pitcher Schoup (he might have one or two lines the whole damn movie but is just the starter when Vaughn’s not out there, Eddie Harris he was not) has given up five runs in a Game 7 and is still being allowed to stay in the game. We saw in last year’s World Series Game 7 that the first time a starter got in trouble the managers had their bullpens warming, Jake Taylor sucks. He’s saved though when Roger Dorn (oh yeah, after he sells the team he suddenly puts himself back on it, Christ) leans into a pitch and takes first because “this guy likes to pitch you inside”. Nevermind that in this movie Dorn’s a shit player and there’s little reason the pitcher would even flirt with plunking him but that’s neither here nor there. There are now two on and in a new carbon copy of a first movie Pedro Cerrano, terrible at the plate again, runs into one for a homer. Tribe leads 6-5.
In his infinite wisdom of course Jake Taylor sends Schoup out for the 9th having probably thrown more pitches than Vaughn had at this point in Game 4, you have the most rested bullpen since the days of Old Hoss Radbourn in a decisive game, USE THEM STUPID. Instead however a jello-armed Schoup puts two men on while recording two outs and at this point the manager thinks it might be time for a change. Here’s what transpires, we’ll reconvene on the other side.
Doors open, Vaughn’s back to being Wild Thing (it makes sense that he’d be available since he’d only started Game 4 and there was no reason to move him up a day to start the big one) and in his one moment of managerial clarity points out that he only has to pitch to Beck, not Jack Parkman who’s on deck. So what does Vaughn do? Claim he wants Parkman and will walk Beck just to face him. After only a brief moment of hesitation Skip accepts this plan and moves on. I know you can’t change pitchers until at least one batter has been faced but are there no exceptions for your guy attempting a mutiny on the mound? If this happened in a real game that guy’s teammates would give him the Gomer Pyle bar soap treatment on the next road trip. Harry Doyle at least admits that the strategy seems stupid as fuck, especially when pointing out that Parkman’s hitting .900 against Vaughn which probably should have moved Taylor to put in another pitcher but alas it all works out and this abortion of a movie is over.
MLB shouldn’t have allowed their copyrights and trademarks to be used in this mess, I’m blaming the dark cloud this film cast over the game in 1994 for the player’s strike. A sports movie villain like Jack Parkman deserved better, but he can still reside on the mountainside with Clubber Lang, Coach Riley, and Johnny Lawrence.
