Major League is a 1989 American satire comedy film written and directed by David S. Ward starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes, James Gammon, and Corbin Bernsen. Made for US$11 million, Major League grossed nearly US$50 million in domestic release. The film deals with the exploits of a fictionalized version of the Cleveland Indians baseball team and spawned two sequels ( Major League II and Major League: Back to the Minors ), neither of which replicated the success of the original film.
This was the only film in the series to be distributed by Paramount Pictures. The others had Warner Bros. as distributor.
Plot
Rachel Phelps, a former Las Vegas showgirl, has inherited the Cleveland Indians baseball team from her deceased husband. She wants to move the team to the warmer climate of Miami, Florida. In order to do this, she must reduce attendance at Municipal Stadium below a total of 800,000 ticket sales, which will void the team's lease with the city of Cleveland. After she moves the team, she would also be able to fire all the current players and replace them with new ones. She instructs her new General Manager Charlie Donovan to hire the worst team possible from a list she has already prepared. The list includes veteran catcher Jake Taylor, who has problems with his knees, and was last playing in Mexico, incarcerated pitcher Rick Vaughn, the brash but speedy center fielder Willie "Mays" Hayes (who was not actually invited to camp), power hitting outfielder Pedro Cerrano who practices voodoo to try to help him hit curveballs, veteran pitcher Eddie Harris, who lacks a strong throwing arm and is forced to doctor his pitches, and third baseman Roger Dorn who is already under contract but is a high-priced prima donna. As manager, Phelps hires Lou Brown, a tire salesman who once managed the Toledo Mud Hens for several years.
Spring training in Tucson, Arizona reveals several problems with the newer players. Vaughn has an incredible fastball but lacks control. Hayes is able to run the bases quickly but hits only pop flies, while Cerrano cannot hit a curve ball. The veterans have their own problems, as Dorn refuses to aggressively field ground balls, afraid that potential injuries will damage his upcoming contract negotiations. On the final day when Brown is to cut the team down to 25 players, Dorn plays a practical joke on Vaughn making him believe he was cut. After the team returns to Cleveland for their opening game, Taylor takes Vaughn and Hayes out to dinner but happens across his ex-girlfriend Lynn who is dining with her current beau. Taylor believes he can try to win her love again but is disappointed to hear that she is already engaged.
The Indians' season starts off poorly with Vaughn's initial pitching appearances ending in disaster, his wild pitches earning him the derogatory title "Wild Thing." Brown discovers that Vaughn's eyesight is poor and once Vaughn is given glasses he becomes very accurate and "Wild Thing" becomes Vaughn's nickname, even using the song of the same name as his theme music on walks from the bullpen. The team begins winning and are able to bring their win-loss percentage to .400. Phelps realizes this is not bad enough to stall attendance and decides to remove luxuries the team has, such as replacing their airplane with a bus. However, these changes do not affect the Indians' performance and the team continues to improve. Donovan reveals Phelps's plan to Brown who then relays the same news to the players, telling them that if the team plays too well for Phelps to void the lease, she will bring in worse players who will. Taylor says that, since they have nothing to lose, the team should get back at Phelps by winning the pennant. Brown gives the team an incentive by removing one portion of a dress on a cardboard cut-out model of Phelps taken during her showgirl days for every win the team achieves. At the end of the season, the team ends up tied for the division lead with the New York Yankees, putting them in a one-game playoff at Cleveland. Prior to the playoff, Taylor continues to try to woo Lynn back and they share a night together. Vaughn learns that he will not be the starting pitcher for the game and goes to a bar to mope. Suzanne Dorn, after seeing her husband during a television broadcast leave the team's hotel lobby with another woman, lures Vaughn to sleep with her. Vaughn became aware of who she was only after Taylor spotted her leaving Vaughn's room the next morning.
Based on Taylor's advice, Vaughn keeps his distance from Dorn for most of the game by staying in the bullpen. The game remains scoreless until the seventh inning when Harris gives up two runs. Cerrano comes to the plate in the bottom of the seventh and misses badly on two curveballs. He angrily gives up his loyalty to the voodoo gods, and hits a two-run home run off a curveball on the next pitch to tie the game. In an ironic twist, it is Harris (a seemingly devout Christian) who places Cerrano's voodoo doll Jo-bu at his side while warming up while Cerrano ends his allegiance with the doll to gain batting ability. At the top of the ninth, the Yankees are able to load the bases and Vaughn is called in, the crowd roaring their excitement over "Wild Thing." Vaughn and Taylor are concerned when Dorn comes over to the pitcher's mound but he only gives Vaughn sound advice for pitching to the next batter. Vaughn is able to strike out the Yankee's best batter in three straight pitches and end the inning.
With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Hayes manages to single to first and subsequently steals second. Taylor is next to bat, and after signaling back and forth with Brown, points to the bleachers, calling his shot. However, Taylor bunts instead, catching the Yankees infield off-guard. Taylor is able to get to first base safely, though injuring himself, while Hayes clears third base and slides safe into home, giving the Indians the win. As the team celebrates, Dorn punches Vaughn in the face but then helps him up to continue the celebration, while Taylor finds Lynn in the stands, realizing she has given up her engagement to be with Taylor.
Alternate ending
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. 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 she never intended to move the team; 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 made up the Miami scheme and adopted a catty, vindictive persona to unify and motivate the team. As the players believed she wanted the team to fail, she was able to hide the fact that the team could not afford basic amenities such as chartered jet travel behind a veil of taking them away to spite the team.
Lou does not resign, and Phelps reasserts her authority by saying that if he shares any part of their conversation with anyone, she will fire him.
Producers said that while the twist ending worked as a resolution of the plot, they scrapped it because test screening audiences preferred the Phelps character as a villain.
Casting
Major League was notable for featuring several actors who would go on to stardom: Wesley Snipes and Rene Russo were relative unknowns before the movie was released, while Dennis Haysbert remained best known as Pedro Cerrano until he portrayed US President David Palmer on the television series 24 .
The film also featured former Major League players, including 1982 American League Cy Young Award winner Pete Vuckovich as Yankees first baseman Clu Haywood, former Brewers pitcher Willie Mueller as the Yankees pitcher known as "The Duke", and former Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Steve Yeager as third-base coach Duke Temple. Former catcher and longtime Milwaukee Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker played the Indians' broadcaster Harry Doyle. The names of several crewmembers were also used for peripheral players.
Charlie Sheen himself was a pitcher on his high school's baseball team. At the time of filming Major League , his own fastball topped out at 85 miles per hour. His delivery in Major League is frequently noted as far more realistic than others depicted in films.
Background
The film's opening montage is a series of somber blue-collar images of the Cleveland landscape synchronized to the score of Randy Newman's melancholy "Burn On": an ode to the infamous night in Cleveland when the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River literally caught fire. The filmmakers chose the Cleveland Indians as their example of a notorious losing franchise because the actual Indians had a very similar history of futility—the franchise was the butt of many jokes and fit in perfectly with the premise of the film.
While it is not known if there was any inspiration taken from this source, the attempt by an owner to manipulate a roster to create the worst team possible actually was done with a Cleveland baseball team, in 1899, when Frank Robison, then owner of the National League's Cleveland Spiders, sent almost all of the Spiders' major