Man! I can hear James Earl Jones voice every day of my life.

While it's not the funniest baseball movie ever made, is nonetheless a worthy addition to the genre. By combining the historical context with this subgenre, you have a film that is both entertaining and somewhat educational.

John Badham, who a year later would find some recognition for directing the classic film Saturday Night Fever, does a very good job in his directorial debut. There is a good mix of comedy and drama, and he films the games in a way that isn't exactly exciting, yet is fun to watch largely due to the banter between the players and the audience's excitement.

The charm and chemistry shared by…

"The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings" is a 1976 sports comedy/drama directed by John Badham. Based on a famous book written a few years prior, the film is take on a fictional barnstorming baseball team within the Negro Baseball League of the 1930's. While segregation was still in application, the film takes place during time when the rules of inclusion was being reviewed for a future intermixing of all races to play the sport. This film follows a fictional team at the surface narrative of things, but some of the characters are tributes to big names who actually played. Bingo Long himself is a take on the famous Satchel Paige and another character named "Esquire" Joe is connective to…

Another grand performance from the Late Great James Earl Jones. This movie isn't as super well known as Jones' other 2 baseball films/franchises. Field of Dreams and The Sandlot are considered quintessential viewing for baseball fans, but I'd also encourage you to check this one out. It's the best baseball movie that no one knows about which follows of group of black athletes from the Negro League form their own team and travel the Midwest and put on a show both on and off the field.

Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor, Mabel King, Tony Burton, and Ted Ross star in this dramedy about a 1939 team of ballplayers just trying to make a living by playing America's…

'Bingo Long' doesn't go all in on its own premise but it doesn't totally disregard it either. Players in the Negro National Baseball League get tired of the abuse they take from their team owners. Led by ace pitcher Bingo Long (Billy Dee Williams) gathers the best players off each roster and they tour the country, playing whatever local teams they come across. They recruit their audiences by parading through towns in rainbow-colored uniforms where the white spectators sneer and the black townsfolk hesitantly join in on the fun.

The All-Stars don't have a lot of resources, even when they were backed by a league. Without that structure, they end up playing on tattered, decaying fields. They always make the…

CW: race, class, ableism, fatphobia

The rise and fall of communism in a baseball movie: the workers get frustrated with the ruling class, they form their own team with equal pay and equal say guided by competent and compassionate leaders, and outside imperialist forces try repeatedly to destroy them until finally they give up and just assimilate them instead. And they lie to do it.

This film exists at the intersection of race and class (mostly). It carefully interjects variations on racist interactions into every scene, from the manner in which the black players have to act like clowns while they win so they don't get lynched to the way steps toward integration are used against them (separate but unequal…

Motown’s tribute to the Negro Leagues begins with newsreel footage of two of their most famous players: Josh Gibson and Leroy “Satchel” Paige. As of this year, Major League Baseball has fulfilled its promise to integrate the Negro Leagues’ statistics fully into its records, which means Gibson in particular now figures prominently in MLB history. That and the passing of Willie Mays, one of the last surviving Negro League players, made this an appropriate watch this summer. Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones star as fictionalized versions of Paige and Gibson, respectively, and Stan Shaw plays an amalgamation of Jackie Robinson and Mays. Realizing how exploitatively their teams’ owners are treating them, they set up a cooperative “all-stars” team…

¤"He couldn't hit da flo’ if he fell outta da bed."¤

Catching up on the stories and people of Black History Month, and cleaning out the DVR a little.

Baseball! Also, I mean, c’mon: it's Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, and Richard Pryor. Though most people haven't heard of the 1977 historical comedy The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, but during this celebrated month – and during the week when pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training – you can catch this baseball lover enjoying an interesting if clunky story on the Negro Leagues and a barnstorming team of stars breaking free of corrupt owners. Though based on a novel, it's richly detailed with regards to period and…