This is supposed to be a baseball blog, which means that, technically, I should probably be writing about baseball. Unfortunately, baseball has a way of becoming significantly less interesting once the season winds down. With what could be a very long offseason ahead—and potentially an even longer stretch where almost nothing meaningful happens—there comes a point when you have to find something else to talk about.
Fortunately, I have another major interest: movies.
So, rather than pretend there is endless baseball content to discuss, I decided to combine the two things. The result is a completely scientific list of movies that I think pair particularly well with various Cardinals players.
The connections are not always going to make perfect sense. Sometimes the movie reflects a player’s personality. Sometimes it has something to do with his style of play. Sometimes the comparison is based on how good—or frustrating—the player has been. And occasionally, I am going to make a connection that is so thin that the only reasonable response is to accept that I simply wanted an excuse to talk about the movie.
I’ve also had the chance to attend Winter Warmup and interview some of these players, so I have at least a little firsthand experience with their personalities. That helps in some cases. In others, I’m basically throwing darts at a board.
Either way, here are some movies to watch during the offseason, each loosely connected to a Cardinals player.
Quinn Mathews
Movie: The Conversation
Quinn Mathews strikes me as the sort of person who is intelligent, curious and maybe just a little bit unusual. Put those qualities together and, eventually, you start wandering toward conspiracy theories.
That makes The Conversation a natural choice.
Francis Ford Coppola’s paranoid thriller is one of the great movies about surveillance, secrecy and the fear that comes from realizing you may not understand what is actually happening around you. Gene Hackman is outstanding in the lead role, and the movie’s use of sound is particularly remarkable. In fact, the way The Conversation uses audio to create tension is arguably one of the best examples of sound design in cinema.
To be completely clear, I am not comparing Mathews to Hackman’s character. Hackman’s Harry Caul is deeply antisocial and withdrawn, and I have no reason to believe Mathews resembles him in that respect.
I also don’t think Mathews is walking around worrying about being watched.
I’m nearly a decade older than him, but I grew up during the period when the internet went from being something relatively new to being an unavoidable part of everyday life. Surveillance is simply something most of us have learned to accept. Harry Caul would probably be horrified by modern technology.
Mathews, on the other hand, just seems like the kind of guy who might appreciate a movie that makes you question everything.
Michael McGreevy
Movie: Singin’ in the Rain
I wasn’t sure whether to pick Singin’ in the Rain because McGreevy seems like someone who would enjoy watching a fun movie, or because I genuinely think he would appreciate a great musical.
Either way, it works.
McGreevy is one of the more entertaining Cardinals to listen to in interviews. He has a personality that comes through much more clearly than it does with most baseball players, and he seems like someone who actually enjoys having a conversation rather than simply giving the standard athlete answers.
Honestly, if McGreevy eventually decides that he wants to become a broadcaster after his playing career, I wouldn’t be surprised.
More importantly, he strikes me as the player most likely to have actually watched Singin’ in the Rain.
And unlike some of the players on this list, I don’t have to invent an elaborate baseball metaphor to make this one work. It’s just a great, entertaining movie for what seems like a genuinely entertaining person.
Leonardo Bernal
Movie: Hard Eight
You’ve probably seen Boogie Nights. You’ve probably seen There Will Be Blood. And if you’ve been paying attention lately, there’s a good chance you’ve heard about One Battle After Another.
But have you seen Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movie?
Hard Eight is Anderson’s debut feature, and the remarkable thing is that he seemed to understand how to make a compelling movie almost immediately. The film is currently available to watch for free on YouTube, which makes this an especially easy recommendation.
The connection to Leonardo Bernal is fairly obvious: a young talent coming onto the scene and immediately demonstrating that there might be something special there.
Bernal is still early in his career, so there is obviously a lot left to prove. But Anderson’s first film provides a nice comparison. Sometimes the most exciting part of discovering a young talent is realizing that the first thing you see might only be the beginning.
Bryan Torres
Movie: Hoop Dreams
Hoop Dreams is one of the great sports documentaries because it goes beyond the fantasy of becoming a professional athlete.
It follows talented young basketball players and shows just how difficult, complicated and unlikely the path from high school athlete to professional sports can actually be. Talent is only one piece of the puzzle. Opportunity, health, money, circumstances and countless other factors can determine whether someone ultimately reaches the highest level.
That feels particularly appropriate for Bryan Torres.
His journey to the major leagues has been much more winding and improbable than the traditional path. For every player who moves neatly through the minor leagues and arrives in the majors exactly when expected, there are players whose careers take unexpected turns before they finally get their opportunity.
Hoop Dreams is ultimately about that long journey and everything that happens along the way.
Torres can probably relate.
Ryne Stanek
Movie: Toy Story
Bear with me here.
Stanek is the resident old man on this team at 35 years old. He’s actually four years older than the next-oldest player, Riley O’Brien. Unless I’m somehow missing someone, the Cardinals don’t have another player in his 30s.
That means Stanek is essentially the team’s designated dad.
And he has two kids, which means there is presumably a cartoon playing somewhere in his house at nearly all times.
I don’t have children myself, but I do have a nephew. I’ve watched Cars approximately 10 times this year, and I don’t even live with him.
So I imagine Stanek has had plenty of exposure to animated movies.
Maybe the actual movie playing in his house is something much newer—and probably considerably worse—than Toy Story. That’s the reality of having young kids. You don’t necessarily get to choose what you watch.
But if I’m going to make Stanek watch an animated movie, I’m going with one of the classics.
And yes, Toy Story 3 might be the better movie. But if I’m watching something with a 2-year-old, I’m not selecting the movie that has the greatest chance of making both of us cry.
Nathan Church
Movie: Pleasantville
Pleasantville is a strange and very good movie about a teenage boy who becomes obsessed with an idealized world he sees through an old black-and-white television sitcom.
Eventually, he and his sister are transported into that world, where they discover that the supposedly perfect version of reality isn’t actually as perfect as it appears.
So how does Nathan Church fit into this?
Well, I’m going to have to stretch pretty hard here.
The Cardinals and Chip Caray seem determined to convince me that Nathan Church is Pleasantville. The numbers, however, aren’t quite as convincing.
If you look beneath the surface, Church hasn’t necessarily been as good as the narrative surrounding him might suggest. That doesn’t mean there isn’t something worth developing. In fact, that’s where the movie comparison comes in.
Tobey Maguire’s character enters Pleasantville and ultimately helps change the town.
The Cardinals are essentially hoping to do something similar with Church: take what they have, develop it, and see whether they can turn the potential into something more substantial.
It’s a tortured comparison.
I know.
Nolan Gorman
Movie: Grave of the Fireflies
This is probably the cruelest comparison I’ve made, and honestly, I feel terrible about it.
Watching Nolan Gorman hit has become physically painful for me because I spent so much time defending him. At some point, however, you have to acknowledge when something simply isn’t working.
I remember being at the game last Monday when Gorman came to the plate with runners in scoring position. Instead of feeling excited about the opportunity, I found myself anticipating the inevitable strikeout.
And that wasn’t because I dislike Gorman.
It was despair.
Watching someone you wanted to succeed struggle repeatedly is a very different emotion from anger. Eventually, you stop expecting the breakthrough and start bracing yourself for another failure.
That’s where Grave of the Fireflies comes in.
I don’t want to spoil the movie, although it’s difficult to spoil because you understand pretty quickly where things are headed. But once you’ve watched it, you probably won’t be eager to watch it again.
It is an exceptional movie. It is also devastating.
In other words, it is very good at making you feel something you don’t necessarily want to feel.
Which, unfortunately, is how watching Gorman bat has felt lately.
And the fact that Grave of the Fireflies is based on a real historical tragedy only makes it more difficult.
Riley O’Brien
Movie: Babylon
Babylon was a massive swing by Damien Chazelle, the director behind Whiplash and La La Land.
And, much like Riley O’Brien’s season, it had some spectacular moments and some stretches that didn’t work nearly as well.
There are sequences in Babylon that rank among Chazelle’s best work. The opening alone is incredible, and the sequence involving the early transition to talking pictures is also fantastic.
But the movie is extremely uneven.
The first half is exciting, ambitious and frequently spectacular. The second half loses a lot of that momentum.
That’s basically how I would describe O’Brien’s season.
There were stretches when he looked excellent, followed by stretches when the results became much harder to defend.
If Babylon had ended at the halfway point, it would have been an All-Star.
Unfortunately, the movie keeps going.
So did O’Brien’s season.
Jose Fermin
Movie: The Thing
I struggled to figure out what baseball characteristic would correspond to the greatest practical effects in movie history, so eventually I decided to focus on The Thing itself.
The creature can become essentially anything it needs to become in order to survive.
What better baseball equivalent is there than a utility player?
Fermin appeared in 43 games in left field, 34 at third base, 23 in center, 21 at second, five at shortstop, three in right field and one at first base.
That’s seven different positions.
At that point, you’re basically asking Fermin to become whatever the lineup needs him to become.
Obviously, The Thing is a much better movie than Fermin is a baseball player.
But, as I mentioned at the beginning, the entire point of this article is to find the thinnest possible connection between baseball players and movies.
This one qualifies.
Masyn Winn
Movie: Casablanca
What is the defensive equivalent of filmmaking?
I would argue it’s the screenplay.
The screenplay is often overlooked by people who aren’t paying close attention. You notice the actors, the cinematography, the music and the action first. But a movie is extremely difficult to make work if the script doesn’t work.
The same is true of defense.
You can overlook defense if you’re focused on offense, but eventually a great defender makes it impossible not to notice.
That’s why Casablanca is such a good comparison for Masyn Winn.
When you watch Casablanca for the first time, you realize how many lines from the movie you already know, even if you’ve never actually watched the film. The writing has become part of the broader culture.
Winn’s defense has a similar quality.
Even people who don’t appreciate defense as much as they should can recognize when Masyn Winn makes an incredible defensive play.
Great defense often disappears into the background unless you’re paying attention to it every day. Great screenwriting can work the same way.
But Casablanca and Winn both have a way of making you stop and notice.
JJ Wetherholt
Movie: My Cousin Vinny
Considering how good Wetherholt’s defense is, I can’t pretend that he doesn’t make some flashy plays.
But I also don’t think you would necessarily guess just how good he is defensively if you hadn’t been watching him closely.
That’s basically how I feel about My Cousin Vinny.
The premise doesn’t immediately scream “classic movie.” A New York lawyer travels to Alabama to defend his cousin in a murder trial, and the whole thing is structured as a comedy.
You might reasonably expect it to be funny.
You might not expect it to be this good.
But the writing is much sharper than you might initially anticipate. The movie gradually sneaks up on you until you realize that the entire thing is constructed incredibly well.
That’s Wetherholt’s defense.
You might notice the spectacular plays, but the more interesting part is how consistently good he is when you’re paying attention.
Alec Burleson
Movie: Die Hard
I really tried to come up with another movie.
I did.
But eventually I had to admit that Die Hard is the obvious answer for a reason.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone reading this article immediately thought, “Alec Burleson has to be Die Hard.”
Do I even need to explain it?
Burleson seems like the type of player who would genuinely enjoy the movie. His style of play has an action-movie quality to it, and there’s also the added benefit of another writing comparison: his defense is underrated.
It’s hard to find a better combination.
And honestly, it’s late.
I’ve run out of ideas for the remaining players, and I’d rather stop here than force increasingly ridiculous comparisons just so I can include everyone on the roster.
Besides, leaving some players off gives everyone in the comments an opportunity to come up with better comparisons than I would have.
There are plenty of Cardinals I didn’t get to, including several good bullpen options.
So, if you’ve got a movie that perfectly matches one of those players, go ahead and make the case.
At this point, I’m just happy I managed to find two movies for the bullpen.
And now, with baseball giving us very little else to talk about, I guess it’s time to start watching movies.
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