We could hear Germans watching this movie and groaning. Not because of the depiction of them as the bad guys, but by the fact that an American Goalie was could be a force in a game against them. Sure, the United States have embraced soccer to the point where they are fringe World Cup contenders, but in 1981 the Americans had zero interest in the sport, beyond the first wave of badly coiffed soccer moms, so when you mix World War II (which Americans knew) with soccer (which Americans didn’t), you had a movie with sparse interest in North America;…

While his brother’s penis was becoming the gateway for Hollywood starlets, Jimmy Baio was given maybe one line a week on “Soap” and dazzled us with “air” impressions of Luis Tiant in the first Bad News Bears’ sequel. Actually, he was there to replace Tatum O’Neal who declined to appear in the film, and give a New York attitude to appeal to…those who loved impressions of Luis Tiant. Actually, he couldn’t pitch until Coach Leak basically taught him to simply just throw the ball. Damn, Kelly’s dad made everything look so easy.

We aren’t going to speak about the role in great detail (or really any detail at all), but just an observation. If you are John Krasinski and you are at the height of your run in “The Office” and an offer to star in a film with George Clooney and Renee Zellweger you had to figure that your movie career was made. It didn’t happen, as “Leatherheads” was seen by only a few people and what looked like a certain film never got launched. In hindsight, it may have been the best return prank Dwight Schrute ever pulled.

Long before he was Gil Grissom, William Petersen was Cecil “Stud” Cantrell, the Player/Coach of the 1950’s Gulf Coast squad, the Tampico Stogies. Before we let the coolness of his character’s name and team name sink in, the HBO movie in question (Long Gone) has been correctly described as a hybrid between Slap Shot and Bull Durham. With that equation, and with Cantrell leading (and stealing) the show with hard drinking and hard partying ways, the film has become a bit of a cult classic, especially since it can’t be found easily. Had this gained a bigger audience, we think…

With perennial FAHOF actor, Woody Harrelson as an opponent in Ron Shelton as a director, how did this fail? This is such a shame, as this is our only real shot to vote for an underrated actor in Antonio Banderas. Sorry, Mr. Cesar Dominguez, this wasn’t your fight.

Even though Charles Bronson was already in his early 50’s, this was when he finally became a movie star; though perhaps not a well respected one. This wasn’t a guy you expected to sit in the Actor’s Studio chair, nor did you really want him to. You wanted Bronson to beat the snot out of people, and in Hard Times, he plays Chaney, a bare fisted fighter in the Depression Era who beat people up. There you go, that’s the plot and isn’t that enough?

In a perfect world, we would nominate the scene where Phoebe Cates came out of the pool. I mean, athletics happen in swimming pools all the time right?   Maybe, we will figure out a Hall of Fame for that. Fast Times at Ridgemont High is not a sports movie, but we do recall a very motivated Linebacker named Charles Jefferson (did he ever get those Earth, Wind & Fire tickets) whose car was “allegedly” totaled by Ridgemont’s rival, Lincoln.   This began the greatest on field annihilation by a defensive Football Player in a motion picture, and we can still hear…

We did not really have a problem with the performance of Scott Caan as Charlie Tweeder, the main Wide Receiver for West Caanan, but we were not exactly sure what it was supposed to be. Was he the ladies’ man, the comedian, or the future prison inmate? It was a little disjointed, but our biggest issue is not buying Scott Caan as an athlete, but wasn’t he a little short to be a Wide Receiver in a solid Texas High School Football program? This was the same guy who stood eye to eye to the diminutive “E” in Entourage.  

Charlie Willoughby was the philosophizing Pitcher who likes to keep it weird and listen to a lot of Pink Floyd.  He also posed as a University student despite being age 30 and long since surpassing his eligibility.  If this ever comes down to who you want a smoke a joint with the most, he would be a lock.  

Chazz Michael Michaels may have been a male figure skater, but the sex addict sure loved his women. Will Farrell (Michaels) made many laugh out loud with his performance of a down on his luck figure skater forced to find a male partner (his old rival) to return to the Olympics in pairs figure skating. Considering the premise, the film could have easily fallen flat on its face, but Ferrell was brilliant in his role, and it is almost inconceivable to imagine anyone else executing the “Iron Lotus”.

Terry Crews has to be one of the most likable people in Hollywood, regardless of his role. How can we say this? Because he played “Cheeseburger Eddie”, a large convict who could make McDonald’s food appear (we really don’t want to know how) out of nowhere; and we liked him for it! He delivered corny lines and did the robot dance, and again, we liked it. Now, we know we aren’t the only ones!

Granted, this Canadian film was ONLY successful in Canada, but considering it was a film about Curling in Canada, that was completely to be expected. Still, this was a cute film about redemption, small towns, and a cute little sport that has a devoted audience. Paul Gross (a Canadian icon is own right) starred as the skip of his small town squad, and though again this film only has relevance in Canada, it was perfect for what it was. Now, does a curling film hold merit for the Hall? We are not sure either.

The lone Lacrosse entry on the ballot, Chris Ostreicher (Oz) was the star of the East Great Falls High School team, which meant…..well, not a whole lot. The only time we saw him on the field was when he abandoned his team to sing glee with the chick from American Beauty. What kind of teammate is that?

Yeah, we know. However sometimes we just want to be nice, and throw a bone to a character whose demise developed his own syndrome (the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome), whereby a character suddenly disappears and is not just written off the show, but is treated like he never existed. With that in mind, our ballot gives you Opie’s big brother, Chuck. What do we really know of Chuck Cunningham? Based on his limited appearances, all we know is that he was always doing something basketball related and got a scholarship to Wisconsin-Milwaukee (or was it Marquette?). Sure, Richie Cunningham was actually…

The on the court talent with the Flint Tropics, Clarence Withers (AKA: Coffee Black/Downtown "Funky Stuff" Malone/Sugar Dunkerton/ "Jumping" Johnny Johnson) brought his 70’s afro and basketball skills to the America Basketball Association. Withers’ dream was to make it to the NBA, which would happen initially by a trade near the end of the season, but his return to the Tropics in the team’s final game ever, and the use of the innovative “Alley Oop” made him the star of the court.   That said despite the third billing, the co-member of Outkast did not feel like a star in this…

For a ten year period after Top Gun, Tom Cruise could appear in anything and it would have been a megahit. It didn’t matter, whether it was good or not, in these pre Scientology couch jumping days he could gave shot a film where he just made pancakes and it would have went number one on its opening weekend. Needless to say, he made a lot of crap that had a big audience; whether it made sense or not. This is the case with his role as Cole Trickle, NASCAR driver. Without going into detail on the plot, Trickle was…

You probably did not know the name of Robert Tessier in the 1970’s, but the stuntman, turned occasional actor made a living playing the tough guy in countless films, occasionally alongside his real life friend, Burt Reynolds. In the Reynolds’ 1974 Football film, “The Longest Yard”, Tessier was Connie Shokner, who was martial arts expert and serial killer; and one of the first convicts recruited by Burt Reynolds for the Prison Football team against the guards. He was never really the focal point of the film, but he may have been the scariest. That alone may make him worth a…

Victory (or ‘Escape to Victory’ as it was known in Europe) boasted a cornucopia of famous soccer stars who were cast as the Allied Prisoners of War. A small sample of these players included: Bobby Moore, the Captain of the 1966 England World Cup winning team, and considered to be one of the best defenders of all time. John Wark, the Scottish star who led Ipswich Town to the UEFA Cup that year. Osvaldo Ardiles, an Argentine star who was then a skilled midfielder for the Tottenham Hotspur. Kazimierez Denya, who was then starring for Manchester City and is one…

Odds are that if you are a fan of BMX racing you may have enjoyed Rad, which is far as we know is the only decent sized budgeted film of this genre. If you have no interest in the sport, than sitting through this horribly acted tire fire of a film was akin to a perpetual migraine. The film’s hero, Cru Jones, chooses to compete in…..oh we don’t have to do a film synopsis here do we? We’ll say this though; is there anyone less supportive to fictitious athletes then Talia Shire, who played the disapproving mom here? It can’t…

Arguably the coolest of the cool players on Carver High, we admit we were still shocked when reviewing all of the episodes of the White Shadow (even though we remember it happening) when we watched the death of Curtis Jackson. We suppose in a show based on the inner city of Los Angeles, that one of the players was not going to make it out alive, but we will always remember the party animal of Carver High.

When Daniel Day-Lewis heads the marquee, you know you are in for a spectacle of great acting. Despite the name of the movie (The Boxer), the film really is not about triumph in the ring, though Day-Lewis took method acting far, and looked about as convincing as a boxer as any actor who ever donned the gloves. We will say that if acting skills is a part of your voting decision, we would not be surprised to see Danny Flynn enter our Hall.

The English soccer version of the 1974 Burt Reynolds classic, The Longest Yard, saw former English soccer star, Vinnie Jones taking on the main role. For those who are not familiar with Jones, he was a very popular soccer player, known for his toughness and charisma, which translated into a successful film career. As Danny Meehan, in “Mean Machine”, he was a former English Soccer Captain, who found himself in jail due to match fixing. The plot is identical to the ’74 version, but of course with a British flavor making it unique all on its own.

Looking back, Caddyshack could have probably cast many goofing looking no-names in the role of Danny Noonan, so the question is did Michael O’Keefe do enough in this role, or was this really a movie that was run by the comedic talents in the flick? What works in Noonan’s favor is that he won the golf game at the end, but realistically when people quote this film; do they mention anything O’Keefe did? Chances are they didn’t, but considering the iconic stature of this movie, shouldn’t he have a shot?

Do you want to what we liked most about Darnell Jefferson in the College Football movie, “The Program”? Quite simply out of the core group of football players in the flick, he was the only one who seemed to be on the right path. We also consider that Jefferson (Omar Epps) played his way to become the team starting Running Back and stole that player’s girl in the process. Oh….and that woman was a young Halle Berry, nearing the apex of her cuteness. That enough makes him a star of this film.

In this mess of a movie, we remember three things. The first is that Rebecca DeMornay was scorching hot. The second was that there was no way we believed that Darryl Palmer was seriously able to chase Roger Maris’ record. The third was that we thought Neil Simon never watched Baseball. Sadly we will admit that this film is a strange guilty pleasure of our, and we wager we are not alone in that.