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50 PLAY BALL BAY AREA NEWS GROUP 1.TheSandlot I'llstartoffwiththe easiest one for me. I enjoyed it as a kid, but my boys right now love it. They love watching it, and I love watching them watch it. As soon as baseball season rolls around, they want to emulate it. They want to talk about it. They say, "You're killin' me, Smalls." They say that all the time when their friend throws the ball and they miss it, so it's really great to be able to watch that and see my boys enjoy it as much as I did. 2. Fastball The most recent one on the list is one I screened last year at the Milwaukee Film Festival. It's narrated by Kevin Costner and is actually a very good film on the history and the mechanics and the science behind the fastball. They try to solve the ultimate question of who threw the fastest fastball of all time. So it goes over some players, you know: Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, Aroldis Chapman. It's just a very interesting historical look. There was one particular pitch that they clocked. I won't give away the ending. It even goes over the story of when Bob Feller threw against the motorcycle. They actually clocked that to see how fast it was in real-time. 3. Field of Dreams I'm going to stay on kind of the same theme, because Kevin Costner narrated "Fastball." This Costner movie I also enjoyed very much. It brings it back for me to high school. I did a paper in English class on W.P. Kinsella, the Canadian who wrote the book. He wrote on baseball, but he mostly wrote Native American stories. That brings me back to some roots of high school and actually some English course work. For me, watching "Field of Dreams" brings a true love of the game and nostalgia back. If you enjoy the game and if you are just a casual fan, it can bring that level up to love. 4. Bull Durham Since we're staying on Kevin Costner … this is THE film for aspiring ballplayers. When you are in the minor leagues, when you are in college, you watch it on bus trips. If it comes on even now, I'll stop and watch it. Once again, it's one of those films that has the one-liners, it has the fun characters. You certainly see glimpses of minor league life that you can attest to. There may be a little embellishment, but it's all baseball. 5. Major League I think a lot of my love for this movie is in the comedy, the one-liners. It just rings true all the way, but playing parts of five years in Milwaukee, being with Bob Uecker, he is Harry Doyle. Harry Doyle is Bob Uecker. It is incredible to be around that person. I was fortunate enough to be around him for five years and now when I watch that film, I see him. And it's incredible. I feel blessed and very lucky to have been around him for as long as I was. I enjoy that. Charlie Sheen was good, too. THE A'S HANDOUT;PREVIOUSPAGE:KARLMONDON Clockwise from top left: Bull Durham, Field of Dreams and Major League.