MILLIANS: Unbelievable baseball feats

Published 12:07 pm Friday, June 27, 2025

Henry Rowengartner, a 12-year-old kid playing Little League baseball, injures his arm and discovers that he can throw a baseball more than 100 miles per hour. 

He signs with the Chicago Cubs and becomes an instant phenom. Unbelievable.

Only in the movies, right?

Right.

The Atlanta Braves have a bullpen with pitchers named Bummer and Blewitt.

Only in the movies, right?

Wrong.

The Braves really did have pitchers named Aaron Bummer and Scott Blewitt. They probably would have been better off with Henry Rowengartner.

Watching the Braves’ bullpen blow (Blewitt!) lead after lead? Bummer! 

That’s pretty much the story for the Braves this season. Unbelievable. 

That and Braves’ management trying to blame the third base coach instead of signing better pitchers to replace Max Fried, Charlie Morton, etc. 

The other baseball news this summer was former Brave Chipper Jones calling the University of Georgia baseball team’s uniforms “a mess.” I guess he meant players failing to fasten the top three buttons of their jerseys. 

Maybe he should include Ronald Acuna in that criticism. 

Anyway, it’s summer, it’s baseball and it’s great whether it’s at Bonner Park — like it used to be, Walter Williams Park or the Braves’ plush Truist Stadium complex.

I’m still watching the Braves on TV. It’s great background noise for reading, and I can look up and watch the highlights when something happens.

On the other hand, you could always spend your summer watching baseball movies in air-conditioned comfort. Like Henry Rowengartner shows in “Rookie of the Year,” something is always happening.

Here’s my list of the Top 10 baseball movies:

1. “Field of Dreams” 

Build it and they will come. Just ask James Earl Jones and Kevin Costner.

2. “The Natural”

Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs overcomes a long list of adversities.

3. “Bull Durham”

Have there ever been any better baseball names than Nuke Laloosh and Crash Davis? 

4. “Moneyball”

Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill bring sabermetrics to the woebegone Oakland A’s.

5. “A League of Their Own”

What a cast: Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna. There’s still no crying in baseball.

6. “42”

Jackie Robinson breaks baseball’s color barrier.

7. “Bad News Bears”

Tatum O’Neal could more than hold her own against coach Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau).

8. “Pride of the Yankees”

Gary Cooper plays legendary ironman Lou Gehrig, “the luckiest man on the face of the earth” despite having a terminal illness.

9. “Major League”

The hapless Cleveland Indians and Charles Sheen find the secret.

10. “The Sandlot”

Baseball brings together a bunch of kids in a coming-of-age film.

Since I’m doing rankings, here’s the list of my five favorite major league ballparks, among the ones I have visited. 

1. Dodger Stadium

They call the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers “blue heaven,” and that’s not far off. What a beautiful setting.

2. Wrigley Field

A baseball stadium plopped down in the middle of miles and miles of Chicago’s northside neighborhoods. The Cubs play day baseball as it was meant to be played.

3. Fenway Park

Seeing Boston’s “Green Monster” up close and personal is worth the price of admission to a Red Sox game. 

4. Oracle Park

The best food in the majors – try the Crazy Crab’z Sandwich — is at this home of the San Francisco Giants. 

5. Riverfront Stadium

The old home of the Cincinnati Reds has been torn down, but it’ll always have a special place in my heart. I took my sons to the 1990 World Series there, games they will never forget.

Baseball is perfect for making memories – in the movies or in real life.

—Rick Millians, a 1970 Baldwin High grad, is retired after working at newspapers in Georgia, Ohio and South Carolina. Reach him at
rdmillians@aol.com.