major league

Director: david s. ward

Actor: tom berenger,charlie sheen,corbin bernsen,margaret whitton

Data Published: Sun Jan 01 1989

Genres: Comedy,Sport

Key Words: cutout,eccentricity,homerun,dog,whiskey

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097815/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_(film)

Description: Major League is a movie starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Corbin Bernsen. The new owner of the Cleveland Indians puts together a purposely horrible team so they'll lose and she can move the team. But when the plot is...

Plot: Former Las Vegas showgirl Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) inherits the Cleveland Indians baseball team from her deceased husband, Donald. Phelps receives a lucrative offer to move the team to Miami, but she must first trigger the escape clause in the team's contract with the city of Cleveland. To do this, she must cause attendance at the games to fall below a certain level. She decides to replace existing players with aging veterans and inexperienced rookies in the hopes that a bad team will cause attendance to decline. They need to finish dead last to void the lease to move the team to Miami. Phelps hires Lou Brown, a manager for the Toledo Mud Hens, to manage the team. During spring training in Tucson, Brown and veteran catcher Jake Taylor discover the new team has a number of interpersonal issues as well as their own struggles with the game. Problems include prima donna third baseman Roger Dorn, the weakening arm of veteran pitcher Eddie Harris; Taylor's knee issues; the inability of outfielder Pedro Cerrano to hit curveballs; and Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn's dangerous lack of pitching control. Willie Mays Hayes, who invited himself to Spring Training, has excellent baserunning speed, but is a terrible hitter. The team starts the season on a losing streak and Brown is about to demote Vaughn to the minors until he accidentally discovers that Vaughn has poor vision. After being fitted with glasses, Vaughn's performance improves and the team begins to win. Taylor discovers that his ex-girlfriend Lynn is living in Cleveland and tries to reconcile with her despite her being engaged to another man. Phelps, angered by the team's improvement, tries to demoralize them by removing team amenities. She replaces their chartered team jet with a rickety propeller plane, refuses to fix their workout equipment, and even has the hot water to the locker room turned off. Despite her efforts the team continues to win and brings themselves into contention for the division championship. The team GM Charlie Donovan visits Brown and informs him of Phelps' plan to make the team lose. He tells Brown that no matter how well they do, they will be fired or released after the season. Brown holds a team meeting and lets the players know of Phelps' plan. Taylor speaks up and, given that they will not have jobs in Cleveland next season, tells the players they might as well win the title anyway. Brown comes up with a way to motivate them into winning enough games to capture the title by using a standing cardboard cutout model of Phelps from her showgirl days. The team succeeds in tying the division with the New York Yankees, leading to a one-game playoff to determine the champions. In the playoff game in Cleveland, the Yankees take an early lead but Cerrano is able to overcome his inability to hit a curveball and hits a home run to tie the game. In the top of the 9th with the bases loaded, Vaughn manages to strike out nemesis Clu Haywood, the Yankees' best hitter, and preserve the tie. With the game tied and the Indians down to their last out in the bottom of the ninth, Willie Mays Hayes manages a single to get on base. He then steals second base while Taylor is batting, leading Taylor to suggest a trick play. Taylor steps in to bat and points to the outfield to "call his shot" like Babe Ruth famously did. Yankees pitcher The Duke brushes Taylor off home plate by intentionally throwing at his head, but a stubborn Taylor gets back up and again points to the outfield. With the Yankees prepared for Taylor to swing away, he instead bunts at the same time Hayes is stealing third base. Taylor beats the throw to first base which allows Hayes to slide into home safely and win the game. As the team celebrates, Taylor spots Lynn in the stands, no longer wearing her engagement ring. The two rush to hug each other as the city celebrates the victory. The theatrical release's ending includes Rachel Phelps, apparently unable to move the team because of increased attendance, angry and disappointed about the team's success. An alternate ending on the "Wild Thing Edition" DVD shows a very different characterization of Phelps.[3] Lou tenders his resignation and tells Phelps that he can't in good conscience work for her after she sought to sabotage the team for her own personal gain. Phelps then tells him that, in fact, she loves the Indians and never intended to move them. However, when she inherited the club from her late husband, it was on the brink of bankruptcy. Unable to afford top flight players, she decided to take a chance on unproven players from the lower leagues, whom she personally scouted, and talented older players who were generally considered washed up. She tells Lou that she likewise felt that he was the right manager to bring the ragtag group together. Phelps conceived the Miami scheme and adopted a catty, vindictive persona to unify and motivate the team. As the players believed that she wanted the Indians to fail, she was able to conceal that the team could not afford basic amenities such as chartered jet travel behind a veil of taking them away to spite the players. Lou does not resign, but Phelps reasserts her authority by saying that if he shares any part of their conversation with anyone, she will fire him. This alternate ending was actually the original ending and was filmed and shown to test screening audiences before the movie's release. The producers said that although the twist ending worked as a resolution to the plot, they scrapped it after preview audiences responded negatively, preferring the Phelps character as a villain.