HOLLYWOOD, CA—If your baseball team were a movie character who would it be? After very little consideration and virtually no painstaking research to speak of, here’s the way we see it.
• Arizona Diamondbacks: Nomi Malone (Showgirls). We have no idea why, but a pole-dancing, Vegas showgirl wannabe just seems right for this club.
• Atlanta Braves: Pick a Character (Steel Magnolias). The Braves are a chick flick that even chicks don’t want to see. They couldn’t fill Turner Field if they promised free shotguns and a Brooks & Dunn concert after the game.
• Baltimore Orioles: Shelley “The Machine” Levene (Glengarry Glen Ross). An aging, sweaty real estate salesman making all the wrong moves.
• Boston Red Sox: Ronald Miller (Can’t Buy Me Love). Loser High School Student buys his way into the cool kids clique, becomes an insufferable jerk, and still rides off into the sunset with the girl. Isn’t this what the Sox did?
• Chicago Cubs: Inspector Jacques Clouseau (The Pink Panther series). No matter how many flubs and foibles, this team still manages to fail upwards. Despite their incessant bumbling, they sell out Wrigley game after game after game.
• Chicago White Sox: Wendy Torrance (The Shining). Ozzie Guillen is Jack chasing hapless players and fans around the South Side with an ax.
• Cincinnati Reds: Ratso Rizzo (Midnight Cowboy). Once the crown jewel of the Queen City, the Reds now resemble Dustin Hoffman’s sniveling, smalltime grifter, ambling about Great American Ballpark hacking up a lung and wishing they were in Florida.
• Cleveland Indians: Cameron Frye (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). April snowstorms, gnats, angry fans, there are lots of horrible things that can befall the Indians every time they take the field. They don’t know what it will be, they just know that something bad is about to happen.
• Colorado Rockies: Jake and Elwood Blues (The Blues Brothers). They’re on a mission from God.
• Detroit Tigers: The Cooler King (The Great Escape). Detroit as a city always seems on the verge of a jailbreak, and the Tigers reflect that very same attitude: Biding their time in solitary, bouncing that ball against the wall, waiting for their next chance to make a run at a title.
• Florida Marlins: Lana (Risky Business). The Marlins are the baseball embodiment of this calculating hooker. Pick your moment, generate genuine excitement, take the money, fold up shop, start over again.
• Houston Astros: Tanner Boyle (The Bad News Bears). The legacy of this franchise can still be found running around somewhere in the Astrodome.
• Kansas City Royals: Paula Pokrifki (An Officer and a Gentleman). Toiling in obscurity for almost two decades now, the Royals have that same look of desperation as Debra Winger’s sad factory worker character. In fact every time the clubhouse door swings open we’re sure the hope is that the second coming of George Brett is about to come in and sweep them off their collective feet.
• Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: Leonard Zelig (Zelig). The Angels want to belong to everyone and everything, just like the chameleon lead character of Woody Allen’s 1983 comedy.
• Los Angeles Dodgers: Johnny Lawerence (Karate Kid), Chas (Back to School), Greg Tolan (Just One of the Guys). It really doesn’t matter, William Zabka played all three of these characters and they’re all pretty much interchangeable. You know, the smug blond rich kid with the nice car and smoking hot girlfriend who lords it over everyone for three quarters of the movie only to have his lunch handed to him by some gritty underdog in the final reel. Yep, that’s the Dodgers.
• Milwaukee Brewers: Frank “The Tank” Ricard (Old School). His wife’s left him, he’s got no prospects, a pretty sizable drinking problem and he’s hilarious. Sounds like a Brewers fan.
• Minnesota Twins: The Joan Cusack character (Multiple Movies). The Twins are the prototypical best friend. How many people do you know who hate the Twins? Nuff said.
• New York Mets: Al Czervik (Caddyshack). The rich misfit. He’s got money to burn, but the elite want nothing to do with him. No respect, I tell ya. He pretty much chokes in the big match too. Sound familiar? Still, who doesn’t want to hang out with this guy?
• New York Yankees: Gordon Gekko (Wall Street). “Greed is good.” So says the slimy Wall Street megalomaniac played by Michael Douglas. He’ll stop at nothing to stay on top, just like the Yankees. He finally gets into bed with the wrong guy, which Yankees players and management know plenty about.
• Oakland Athletics: Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction). Maybe a cooler character than the A’s deserve, but it’s hard not to look at Jules or the Athletics and think “Badass 70s.”
• Philadelphia Phillies: Walter Sobchak (The Big Lebowski). Fat? Check. Loud? Check. Obnoxious? Check. Loser? Check. Takes sports very seriously? Oh yeah. Why the Coen’s didn’t put Walter in a Phillies cap is beyond me.
• Pittsburgh Pirates: Nora Desmond (Sunset Boulevard). Faded legend, living a desperately lonely life in an awesome house. The Pittsburgh Pirates are ready for their close-up Mr. DeMille.
• San Diego Padres: Linda Barrett (Fast Times at Ridgemont High). The rest of the movie is fine, but it’s really all about Phoebe Cates getting out of that swimming pool. Same thing in San Diego where the weather and babes can make the worst baseball team seem appealing.
• San Francisco Giants: Nordberg (The Naked Gun). After Barry Bonds, the Giants should be thrilled to be associated with this injury-prone O.J. Simpson character.
• Seattle Mariners: Lloyd Dobbler (Say Anything). The lovable slacker finding his way in the Pacific Northwest. The Mariners have had their moments but, so far, no Hollywood endings.
• St. Louis Cardinals: Clark Griswold (Vacation). Though it was St. Louis where Clark’s car got spray-painted with the words “Honky Lips,” this team still gives off that nauseating can-do attitude every year.
• Tampa Bay Rays: Carrie White (Carrie). From outcast to Prom Queen in 2008. But, don’t look up, there may be a bucket of blood about to fall this year at Tropicana Field.
• Texas Rangers: Mongo (Blazing Saddles). “Candy gram for Mongo!” Rangers owner Tom Hicks would have paid this oversized oaf more than A-Rod.
• Toronto Blue Jays: Dean Vernon Wormer (Animal House). The Blue Jays have had the Yanks and Sox on double-secret probation for years, just waiting for those guys to screw up. But they just can’t seem to get rid of them. Adding insult to injury even the Delta House of the division, Tampa Bay, is making them look bad now.
• Washington Nationals: Deep Throat (All the President’s Men). They may as well be playing in a poorly lit parking garage.
