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The Cleveland Indians are in the World Series. If someone had told you that in the days of Willie Mays Hayes, you wouldnt have believed it. But believe this: The Major League movies were mostly duds.Jim Caple looks back and reviews Major League, Major League II and Major League: Back to the Minors.Major LeagueThis movie came out in 1989 when baseball was at its Hollywood peak -- The Natural, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams and A League of Their Own also came out within an eight-year span -- and it tells the tale of a team and a city that has endured decades of miserable, heart-crushing losing seasons. And no, its not about the Chicago Cubs. Instead, its about Cleveland, which at the time had gone 34 years since its previous postseason and 40 years since its last world championship. If only the team had the sense to hire Lou Brown as its manager rather than Doc Edwards. Or Pat Corrales. Or John McNamara. Or...The plot is about owner Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) intentionally fielding a team that is terrible, even by Cleveland standards, in the hopes of dropping attendance enough that she can move the club to Miami. Instead, manager and offseason tire salesman Lou Brown (James Gammon) is able to inspire catcher Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger), third baseman Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen), outfielders Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes) and Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) and others to be a winning team. He even gives Rick Wild Thing Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) a pair of glasses that turns him into a great closer. Cleveland ties for the AL East division title and beats the Yankees in a one-game playoff. We do not see how the team does after that, but there was no need to because, of course, it is Cleveland and we know how they would have lost. (At least back then.)Major League has funny moments -- particularly when Harry Doyle (Bob Uecker) is announcing or when Taylor drives a bullpen cart through the streets of Cleveland to go see his girlfriend -- but this is nowhere in the same league as those other baseball movie classics from that era. In other words, Kevin Costner should have been the Cleveland catcher, not Berenger.Best performancesUecker was splendid as the club broadcaster, delivering lines that were the movies funniest quotes by far. Sheens acting was all right, and his actual pitching ability is perhaps the best ever displayed by an actor -- and far more credible than, say, Tim Robbins in Bull Durham. Sheen pitched in high school and was able to throw 85 mph during the film. He later said he used steroids to prepare for the movie, which means he might have gotten some coaching from a bunch of players from that era.Worst performancePete Vuckovich appears as a Yankees slugger. He was an actual big leaguer, albeit a pitcher with the Brewers, not a hitter. Madison Bumgarner would have been much more credible at the plate. If, that is, Bumgarner had been alive at the time.Best quoteHarry Doyle: Juuust a bit outside. (By the way, according to reports, Uecker improvised this line, which is probably why he is such a good broadcaster in real life.)Worst quoteRachel Phelps: I hate this f---ing song.Did You Know?The movie is filmed at Milwaukees County Stadium, then the home of the Brewers, rather than Cleveland. At the time, it had been six years since County Stadium had hosted a playoff game -- but it never would again. Maybe Major League IV could be about the Brewers.RatingManny Ramirez -- Like Manny, it has some classic moments that people will remember forever. And like Manny, it also has some lesser moments that people would like to be able to forget.Major League IISome movie sequels can be like when a team makes the World Series one year and then wins it the next. Like The Godfather II or any of the Toy Story sequels. Others (such as the Star Wars prequels) can be like winning 111 games in the regular season and then getting swept in the World Series. Like Cleveland in 1954. Put Major League II in the latter category.This sequel came out five years after the original Major League and tells the story of Cleveland in the season immediately after that first movie. The team has somehow been purchased by third baseman Roger Dorn, who quickly runs out of money and is forced to sell it back to Rachel Phelps. And despite its success in the previous season, Cleveland soon collapses -- literally so, when manager Lou Brown has a heart attack and is replaced by former catcher Jake Taylor. Rick Wild Thing Vaughn gives up enough home runs and Cleveland loses so many times that broadcaster Harry Doyle passes out drunk in the booth.The team -- shock! -- rebounds in the end to reach the postseason, win the ALCS and go to the World Series, but the film does not show us what happens in that series. Which is good because that just would have made a bad movie even longer -- and worse. This is a movie with so little original thought or character interest that it should have ended in spring training.Best performanceDavid Keith as catcher Jack Parkman, who gets signed by Cleveland before the season and then is sent to the White Sox. He actually looks like a real ballplayer -- good enough that I wouldnt be surprised if Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein signed him.Worst performanceRandy Quaid as Johnny, one of the fans who became so passionate about Cleveland thanks to the season in Major League. He heckles Vaughn so often that he becomes almost as obnoxious and annoying as Red Sox fans did after they won the 2004 World Series. (Fingers crossed that Cleveland fans do not duplicate that if their team finally wins.)Best quoteRoger Dorn: Oh God! (Sure, that isnt an impressive quote at all. But how Bernsen says it in the movie after he gets hit by a pitch is very funny.)Worst quoteHarry Doyle: Cerrano doing some interesting limbering-up exercises in right. What a pansy. (Even todays anti-PC crowd would have been critical.)Did You Know?The home stadium is actually Camden Yards, which was just a year old when this movie was being filmed in 1993, which is also when Clevelands current ballpark was being built.RatingRocky Colavito -- The curse of the foolish trade of Colavito for Harvey Kuenn was about the same as the curse of foolishly making a completely unnecessary sequel. If only we had gone as many years without yet another sequel as Cleveland went between World Series appearances. Instead, we got Major League: Back to the Minors just four short years later.Major League: Back to the MinorsI watched Major League: Back to the Minors and laughed about the same number of times as Cleveland fans did during the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. Which is to say, zero times. A player would rather be called into Terry Franconas office and sent back to the minors than be forced to sit down and watch Back to the Minors.While Major League writer and producer David S. Ward has said he has plans to make a Major League III with Sheen and Berenger, he had nothing to do with this movie. And clearly so. Despite its name, the movie bears no real link to the Cleveland team of the first two movies. Instead, it is about the minor league Triple-A Buzz, managed by Gus Cantrell (Scott Bakula), and the Minnesota Twins, who are somehow owned by Roger Dorn (still Corbin Bernsen), Clevelands former third baseman in Major League and the temporary owner in Major League II. It is essentially about Cantrells Buzz trying to beat the Twins managed by Leonard Huff (Ted McGinley) in two exhibition games. Lets just say that rivalry is nowhere near as interesting or funny as the fun between the Bad News Bears and the Yankees.There are minor appearances by Pedro Cerrano from Major League I and II, and Isuru Tanaka (Takaaki Ishibashi) from Major League II. Oh, and Harry Doyle is the Buzz radio broadcaster, after he was perhaps fired by Cleveland for passing out drunk too many times in Major League II, or maybe simply demoted to the minors because his lines are so unfunny compared to Major League.But thats it for the Cleveland connections. Well, actually, there is a notable Cleveland link. There is very little plot, virtually no character development and absolutely terrible baseball play by the actors. In other words, it is essentially the story of Cleveland baseball from 1960-93. Or from all but a few of their 15 seasons previous to this one.Best performanceKenny Johnson as Lance The Dance Pere, a former ballet dancer turned ballplayer. He dances in a few mildly amusing moments. Still, hes nowhere near as good or interesting as Max Kepler, the actual Minnesota Twins outfielder who is the German son of ballet dancers.Worst performanceMcGinley as Huff. An even worse choice than Buck Showalter using Ubaldo Jimenez in the final inning of the wild-card game against Toronto instead of dominant closer Zach Britton.Best quotePops Morgan: This is the clubhouse.Gus Cantrell: In some places of the world, this is called a basement.Worst quotePops Morgan (on the closest he ever got to the majors): It was October. A player got sick. So I got the call. I was on the plane and a freak snowstorm hit. We couldnt land. Two days later: The weather is fine, so is the player. Twenty years in the minors, I circled The Show, couldnt land.(Ummm, no one gets called up in October.)RatingUbaldo Jimenez -- The starter lost a league-worst 17 games with a 5.40 ERA for Cleveland in 2012. Still, that was a better performance than this movie.Wholesale Authentic Jordans . -- If this was Aaron Gordons final home game at Arizona, and it almost certainly was, then he went out in style. Wholesale Jordans China . Nine days before the opening ceremony, organizing committee chief Dmitry Chernyshenko said Wednesday that Sochi is "fully ready" and will deliver safe, friendly and well-run games that defy the grim reports that have overshadowed preparations. http://www.cheapairjordanfreeshipping.com/ .C. - The Carolina Hurricanes have placed backup goalie Anton Khudobin on injured reserve with an unspecified lower-body injury. Wholesale Jordans . -- Matt Kuchar and Harris English ran away with the Franklin Templeton Shootout, shooting a 14-under 58 on Sunday in the final-round scramble to break the tournament course record. Cheap Authentic Air Jordan . Oyama had six birdies and two bogeys at Kintetsu Kashikojima in the event also sanctioned by the Japan LPGA Tour. "I have been having this neck ache thats been affecting my golf recently," Oyama said.NEW YORK -- The league that wins baseballs All-Star Game no longer will get home-field advantage in the World Series, which instead will go to the pennant winner with the better regular-season record.The change was included in Major League Baseballs tentative new collective bargaining agreement and disclosed early Thursday to The Associated Press by a person familiar with the agreement. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the deal, reached Wednesday evening in Irving, Texas, had not been announced.In addition, players and management agreed the minimum stay on the disabled list will be reduced from 15 days to 10.Home-field advantage in the World Series generally rotated between the leagues through 2002. Baseball, led by then-Commissioner Bud Selig, and Fox television promoted the This Time It Counts innovation after the 2002 All-Star Game in Milwaukee ended in a 7-7, 11-inning tie when both teams ran out of pitchers. Selig was booed in his own Milwaukee backyard.This energizes it. This gives them something to really play for, Selig said after owners approved the change by a 30-0 vote in January 2003. People pay a lot of money to see that game. They deserve to see the same intensity they see all year long. Television people pay aa lot of money for the game.dddddddddddd It was not and should not be a meaningless exhibition game.What began as a two-year experiment was extended. The American League won 11 of 14 All-Star Games played under the rule, and the AL representative won eight World Series in those years.It will put back a little of the sizzle, San Francisco Giants executive Larry Baer said in 2003.Under the new rule, a wild-card team could have home-field advantage against a division winner.As part of the changes for next year, players in the All-Star Game will have the incentive to play for a pool of money.The DL change will allow teams to make quicker decisions on whether to bring up a roster replacement rather than wait to see whether the injured player would be ready to return to action in less than two weeks.An international play plan is part of the new agreement that includes a payment schedule for potential games in Asia, Mexico (and elsewhere in Latin America) and Britain, plus U.S.-based special events such as this years July 3 game between Atlanta and Miami in a specially built ballpark on a military base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. ' ' '