The holiday season is in full swing. With everyone tucked into households with family and friends, turning on the TV and throwing a movie on may be the way to entertain the crowd you are with.
However, being the baseball fan you are, you’d love to combine the elements of the holidays and baseball into one. So, here is a holiday guide to some movies for our baseball audience from around the world.
A Christmas Story has Baseball Cards???
Did you know that a Christmas classic is, in fact, a baseball movie? A Christmas Story actually has baseball hidden within it.
The movie takes place in Indiana in the 1940s and is centered around a kid named Ralphie. Cleverly, an MLB.com article from 2017 points out how Ralphie has vintage baseball cards in his room.
1940 Play Ball John Rucker – New York (National League), T206 Ed Reulbach – Chicago (National League), T206 Jimmy Hart -Montgomery, Alabama (Southern League) pic.twitter.com/DxNMAlBQse
— Tom Shieber (@tshieber@mas.to) (@tshieber) December 21, 2017
Curator Tom Shieber was able to identify the cards on Ralphie’s wall. The players that were hung up on the headboard included John Rucker, Ed Reulbach, and Jimmy Hart.
Rucker played from 1940-1946 with the New York Giants. This was before their relocation to San Fransisco. Rucker had a career .272 batting average and 214 RBI.
Reulbach played for the Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Boston Braves from 1905 to 1917. He had an incredible 2.13 career ERA and won two World Series championships with the Cubs in 1907 and 1908.
According to Shieber, Hart’s card in the movie is from his time playing in the Southern League. During his career, he also played first base for the Baltimore Orioles in 1901, the first season the league existed.
A Good Holiday RomCom to Settle Down with a Baseball Twist
The 2020 movie Cooking Up Christmas is a cheesy holiday romantic comedy about a man named Donovan Jackson, a professional baseball player. He needs a live-in-chef to care for his three children he raises on his own. A woman named Chloe takes on the task as she attempts to do this during the holiday season.
The movie is available for streaming on MAX, and it is a great choice for those who love those romantic comedy “chick flicks.”
