There are many, many reasons why 41 years later “The Natural” remains the gold standard for baseball movies (and probably for sports movies as a whole). Three are so many things to like across its 122-minute running time.

I like that Joe Don Baker completely hams it up as The Whammer, and doesn’t even pretend like he’s anything other than a (verrrry loosely) fictionalized version of Babe Ruth. Buford Pusser has company in JDB’s personal hall of fame.

I like that the movie was shot at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, and that the ballpark’s nickname was “The Rockpile,” a term of both affection and derision proffered by the locals. (I saw a baseball game there once. It was a dump. But it felt like you’d walked right into 1938.).

I like Robert Duvall, even if he made a lot of people automa

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