The Winning Season

I'm a Pittsburgher with an above average knowledge of the Pirate history and Honus Wagner. Many things about the movie were well done. The recreation of Forbes Field, though imperfect, was better than expected. The portrayal of Wagner seemed to be generally on the mark. The protrayal of Cobb, on the other hand, seemed patentely unfair and overstated like I suspect most modrern-day portrayals of Cobb are. Let's face it though, this movie is above all a kids fantasy as is the book upon which it is based. The story in the book holds together better in my opinion. All that being said I will purchase it for my collection should it ever be released as a DVD.

This is the best new baseball movie I've seen in ages,Big (Tom Hanks) crossed with Field of Dreams and 8 Men Out....The reproduction of the way life was turn of the century Pittsburgh was excellent and looked as real as if you were there...The actors who were cast as the ball players & especially the portrayal of Honus Wagner by Matthew Modine and Ty Cobb by William Lee Scott were incredible....The movie has a feel good ending,a kid overcoming adversity on the ball field,problems at home with his family,discovering he's grown up & gone back in time,a little love story for the ladies,this movie just absolutely has it all!!!!!A Great movie for the entire family.....

"The Winning Season" is a nice family movie whose plot seems to be a mix between two classic from the 1980's and even includes a similar "choose love or game" theme just like as "For the Love of Game". Here a kid (Mark Rendall) living in 1985 (where another famous film about time travel was released) has the magical chance to see many famous baseball players of the past (in 1909) after discovering a magical baseball card of Honus Wagner (Matthew Modine), and this card could solve all his family financial problems.

Instead of being a kid he's somehow is transformed into a young men, played by Shawn Hatosy, who is marveled by this time travel but he desperately wants to get home in the future. In the meantime he lives with Wagner and his future bride (Kristin Davis) and he has the chance to met notorious baseball players including Ty Cobb (William Lee Scott) and watch many incredible games.

The film is good, has a good message despite making a plot loan of many other great films (it's very similar to "Field of Dreams"), it's very charming, has some good humor moments and it's very delightful to see it.

The acting of the ensemble casting is good, although I enjoyed more of the boy's performance than Shawn playing him as a grow man. William Lee Scott was very interesting playing Cobb, the movie's antagonist.

Anyway, it's enjoyable in many ways, "The Winning Season" is a very positive TV movie. 9/10.

The direction on this TBS TV movie is good, the performances are fine, the photography is handsome and interesting, but the script is a bit of a muddled mess. Nominally about life lessons and the importance of following your dreams, the movie turns into a rather mushy and ill-defined wish-fulfillment fantasy all around.

Joe's family is suffering through a bout of poverty when he comes across a rare baseball card of Honus Wagner worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the card does not solve his family's financial problems. Instead it sends him back to the 1909 World Series where he meets Wagner, and makes him several years older. Then later, after it appears to have all been a dream, it works further, concrete magic. This is a problem with ill-defined fantasy: if it can do anything, then it fails to keep the story's allegorical sense straight.

The script is a bit better at hinting at the complexities of life as a professional ballplayer in the era that saw Wagner and Ty Cobb square off against each other in the World Series, but the main story is a bit random. Perhaps the novel it was drawn from simply had too many subplots for the screenwriter to handle elegantly.

I just want to say that I love this movie. But I also want to say that it's a movie not be taken seriously. It's a fantasy. It's a baseball fantasy. Just like "Field of Dreams." As a pseudo baseball historian, I appreciate the details given to the baseball uniforms, the player's gloves and catcher's equipment and both team's stadiums. I also like how the stadiums were depicted in a neighborhood setting with the surrounding industries, which in 1909, they were. I admit that the movie does try to convey a message that takes awhile to get across. But once it does, it all makes sense and it makes you smile if you can forgive the historical inaccuracies.

This movie won't go down in history as a all-time great, but it will always be one of my favorites.