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This week we’re adding “Draft Day” as our 2nd recommendation. Tying it in with this week’s NFL draft
We had great response to many who checked out our first recommendation, “The Battered Bastards of Baseball” and hope many folks got to watch it. We’ll keep adding to our list and categories and when “nothing is on” we hope you can check out on of our selections as we add to our list.
Below are the categories we have a movie listed and the categories will grow as we add nominations. We will try to add the locations you can stream our selections but you can also go to the “Just Watch” website and search where to find the shows on which streaming platforms at Justwatch.com.
Categories
Motion Picture Football
Nomination #1
“Draft Day”
Rated PG-13
Draft Day is a 2014 American sports drama film directed by Ivan Reitman, and starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner, with Denis Leary, Frank Langella, Sam Elliott, Ellen Burstyn and Chadwick Boseman in supporting roles. The premise revolves around the fictional general manager of the Cleveland Browns (Costner) deciding what to do after his team acquires the number one draft pick in the upcoming National Football League Draft.
The movie is following the GM of the Cleveland Browns and the “Draft Day” decisions he needs to make when the Browns are on the clock.
On the morning of the 2014 NFL draft, Cleveland Browns general manager Sonny Weaver Jr. must decide how to use the seventh overall pick to improve the team, but he has other problems on his mind. His semi-secret girlfriend Ali Parker, the team’s salary cap analyst, is pregnant, and the recent death of Sonny’s father causes tension with his mother. Sonny had fired his father, a legendary coach for the Browns, which he later admits was for his mother’s sake because his father refused to retire even with failing health.
The Seattle Seahawks hold the first overall draft pick, which general manager Tom Michaels offers to trade to Sonny; this would allow the Browns to draft highly-rated Wisconsin quarterback prospect Bo Callahan. Sonny initially declines, but after being pressured by team owner Anthony Molina to make a “big-splash”, reluctantly agrees to the deal, trading away the Browns’ first-round draft picks for the current draft plus the next two years. The unexpected opportunity to obtain Callahan excites Browns fans, but splits the team’s front office and players.
The film was Reitman’s final directorial effort and Jim Brown‘s final acting role before their deaths in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
You can watch Draft Day on Peacock, Apple and Prime Video. You may also find some free sites to watch it by searching for viewing options. Check out the “Just Watch” website which is a comprehensive streaming guide at Justwatch.com.
“Draft Day” Trailer on You Tube
Documentary Baseball
Nomination #1
“The Battered Bastards of Baseball”
Rated MA (strong language)
This is a documentary movie about the little known “Portland Mavericks” minor league baseball team. It is a fascinating story about a bigtime Hollywood family saving minor league baseball in Portland, Oregon. You do NOT need to be a baseball fan to be entertained or enjoy this movie. It is superb and is filled with video clips from the run of the team from 1973-77. Being 10-13 years old at time of this team and living in Tumwater, WA I was stunned to watch this movie and can’t believe that I never heard of them or had any recollection of this team.
I asked other friends and family members and none of us recall the “Portland Mavericks” ever existing. This was a time when the daily newspaper sports page covered EVERYTHING and you could read the box score of any pro sport in the country, along with minor league standings and more.
But there was such a divide between Seattle and Portland media that this story never caught on in the Puget Sound area. I searched newspapers.com history and the closest paper to Centralia, Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle to run anything about the Mavericks was the Daily News in Longview, the Kitsap Sun and the Everett Herald.
We are pretty sure folks from that era will love this movie and for all others it is worth the watch on the old “how it used to be” perspective. Enjoy it!
The Battered Bastards of Baseball is a 2014 documentary film about the Portland Mavericks, a defunct minor league baseball team in Portland, Oregon. They played five seasons in the Class A-Short Season Northwest League, from 1973 through 1977. Owned by actor Bing Russell, the Mavericks were an independent team, without the affiliation of a parent team in the major leagues
The film was directed by Chapman Way and Maclain Way, grandsons of Russell,[2] and features Russell’s son Kurt Russell, who played for the Mavericks and worked as a vice president.[3] It also includes batboy Todd Field, Frank “The Flake” Peters, Joe Garza, Jim Bouton, and Joe Garagiola.[4][5] The film premiered to a standing ovation at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2014.[6][7] Netflix, initially one of several interested buyers, acquired the rights to the film and premiered it as an Original Documentary on July 11, 2014.
“Battered Bastards of Baseball” trailer 0n You Tube
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