Major League: Back to the Minors
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Major League: Back to the Minors is a 1998 movie, distributed by Warner Bros., directed and written by John Warren, with David S. Ward taking the co-writer duties. It is the third film in the Major League series.
The movie features a mostly new cast, with only Dennis Haysbert, Bob Uecker, Corbin Bernsen, Eric Bruskotter, Takaaki Ishibashi, and Steve Yeager reprising their roles from Major League II. The film also marks a shift in the series, as the featured team is no longer the Cleveland Indians, but the Minnesota Twins and their fictional minor league affiliate.
Gus Cantrell (Scott Bakula) is an aging minor league pitcher for the Fort Myers Miracle who had planned on retiring. However, old friend and former Cleveland Indians third-baseman Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen) recruits him as the manager of the Buzz, a AAA team (of an ambiguous location) associated with the Minnesota Twins, whom Dorn now owns. The new players include Lance "The Dance" Pere (Kenny Johnson), a former ballet dancer; Frank "Pops" Morgan (Thom Barry), an aging veteran who Cantrell elects as team leader; Hog Ellis (Judson Mills), a pitcher with a killer fastball; Billy "Downtown" Anderson (Walton Goggins), a natural home run hitter; and Carlton "Doc" Windgate (Peter Mackenzie), a relief pitcher who also acts as team psychiatrist. Meanwhile, former Cleveland Indians broadcaster Harry Doyle has stopped drinking, but inexplicably lost his job and now broadcasts Buzz games.
After clashing with snobby Twins manager Leonard Huff (Ted McGinley), Gus is having dinner with Maggie Reynolds (Jensen Dagget), who happens to be his girlfriend, along with Mr. Dorn and Mr. Huff. During dinner, Gus gets challenged by Mr. Huff to have the Buzz play against Huff's Twins at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in an exhibition game. After the game ends in a tie (Huff had the stadium lights turned off in fear of losing), Mr. Huff was mad at the Twins for almost losing to the Buzz and decides to bring Billy "Downtown" Anderson up from the minor league Buzz to the Twins, despite that fact that he's not yet ready for the majors.
While "Downtown" is with the Twins, he struggles with his hitting and the Buzz have trouble winning without him. After "Downtown" is sent back to the minors. Gus manages to get "Downtown" to improve his hitting and they win their division. Afterwards, he challenges the Twins to an exhibition game at Buzz Stadium, which serves as the film's climax.
[edit] Trivia
- Buzz Stadium is actually College Park in Charleston, South Carolina, which was the home of the Charleston RiverDogs until 1996. It has a capacity of 4,000. The remaining minor league stadiums depicted in the film are actually high school stadiums and community parks near Charleston that are not capable of holding more than a few hundred fans. In reality, AAA stadiums are much more elaborate and must feature at least 10,000 seats.
- The Buzz uses the wordmarks and logos of the team that was known as the Salt Lake Buzz at the time of filming (the team is now called the Salt Lake Bees due to copyright litigation). However, there is no reference to or implication of Salt Lake City, Utah in the film. Based only on a sign at the airport at the end of the film, the Buzz call a fictional town named "Littleville" home. It is strongly implied that Littleville is in the Southern United States, due to the fact the film was primarily shot in South Carolina.
- All of the Buzz's minor league opponents represent actual teams that, in reality, are (or were) part of the Class-A South Atlantic League.
