Smell that – the grass, grills, and sunburns? That smell indicates summer is in full swing, and a full-swing summer means America’s Favorite Pastime has invaded diamonds across the country. The live game provides a season-long drama as fans’ favorite players battle across a grueling, three-act saga against gifted foes, each character striving for the coveted championship trophy. A major league season, however, is at least 162 games and, at most, can span six months. Loyally following a full season is a significant investment of time and attention. Thankfully, a baseball craving can be quenched in a singular ninety-minute experience through the power of cinema. Paying homage to those films that inject epic energy into an occasionally sluggish nine-inning slog, this Saturday Morning Cinema series will look at those baseball favorites.

As a kid rolling through a summer break filled with rec activities and little league, I loved my free time during the day to do nothing. Sportscenter and HBO often occupied those hours, and the beauty of HBO was the apparent plan to select a handful of movies and play them daily throughout the summer. One of these movies happened to be Rookie of the Year. Henry Rowengartner breaks his arm, while in a cast the tendons heal tight, and then he develops an unpredictable fastball that reignites the Cubs World Series hopes. I perhaps should have thrown out a “spoilers” warning, but really, the movie is more than its plot mechanisms that serve as dressing for the story, fun, and hi-jinx occurring throughout. It is a classic, coming-of-age tale. Give yourself a sneak-peek with the trailer.

Daniel Stern, Marv from Home Alone, directs and plays the film’s most outrageous character, a spastic pitching coach, Brickma, responsible for helping young Henry navigate life in the big league. While Brickma provides the slapstick comedy, the character’s importance as a mentor should not be discounted. This movie is essentially about navigating life. Henry, in his pre-teen formative years, is torn from carefree experiences with his friends and thrust into pressure-cooked professional sport scenarios. Through most of movie, however, he handles them with the ignorance of a child who honestly does not grasp the magnitude of the situation in which he lives. It is only after the negative influencers in his life attempt to exploit Henry’s lucky break that the pressures and temptations of adult life pull him away from the things that made him happy and, basically, made him Henry. The changes young Henry weathers impact not only his life, but they also change the trajectory of his mother’s life, the demeanor and lives of his fellow players, and his friendships. Exactly as real life, the decisions we make do not exist in a vacuum but rather also impact those around us.

Without digging into the deep introspection of a young-adult comedy, Rookie of the Year is a fun movie that puts the best parts of baseball center stage. Major League Baseball may have forgotten the fun a year later as the 1994 season ended with a strike (no pun intended…well, maybe a little intended), but Henry Rowengartner’s high, stinky, Limburger fastball gave fans the opportunity to experience rivalries, highs and lows, and big league stars on the big screen. While Henry was only the rookie of the year, this movie, during that childhood summer, was my MVP, and I loved being able to go back and experience it again.