I was supposed to watch a movie from just after my childhood, when I was in college, which I wouldn't have watched at the time because I didn't get to nearly as many movies in the early 1990s as I would after graduating. Or maybe I just thought always Angels in the Outfield (1994) looked a little babyish.
I had it all tee'd up, to use a tee-ball if not a baseball term, having done my due diligence a few days earlier and seen it was playing on AppleTV. The Play button was active, which is usually only the case when there is no obstruction or rental necessary to start watching a movie.
But when I clicked on that Play button on Wednesday night at nearly 10:40, it just took me to a Disney+ search area. And searching Angels in the Outfield on Disney+ was no use, as it was something I'd already done when I did my initial search of all my streaming services.
What I think happened is that my AppleTV is integrated enough with my other streaming services enough to know which other services I have and whether a movie might be playing on them, but not integrated enough to realize that I straddle two different countries in my streaming services. So while AITO is likely streaming on Disney+ in the U.S., it isn't here in Australia. And there was no option to rent it either.
Quick pivot.
In my previous fruitless searches for the movie on my other services, I'd seen a movie called You Gotta Believe offered up as something with similar subject matter. I could tell from the picture that Ty Roberts' 2024 film featured Luke Wilson and Greg Kinnear, both actors I like. And I certainly suspect I was lured in by the title, which was a slogan for one of my Red Sox' four world championship runs since 2004, though to be honest I can't remember which one. Not that having to believe is unique to any particular sports team in any particular championship run.
It being under 100 minutes helped, since it was now closing in on 11 p.m.
I didn't finish until nearly 3 a.m. after a nearly two-hour nap, but don't worry, I'm not working today. (Off to a four-day baseball tournament in Ballarat, so likely no posts from me in the next few days.)
You Gotta Believe is based on a true story of a Texas Little League team that in 2002 made it to the Little League World Series. The exceptional detail that made it worth turning into a movie is that one of the coaches, the one played by Wilson, had terminal cancer, and watching his son play baseball was one of the few things that gave him joy as his body went through its process toward the inevitable. (I thought that "believing" enough might cure his cancer, but it's probably a good thing, from a narrative perspective, that that wasn't the case.)
If I had known the movie was about this heavy subject matter, I might not have selected it. Like, I probably wouldn't watch Pride of the Yankees, about the first person with Lou Gehrig's disease (that being Lou Gehrig), to get psyched up for the season.
But there's enough good baseball stuff in here, and just enough filmmaking skill, to make me glad I watched it.
There are some bits of clunker technique, for sure. These kids often speak more like screenwriters than like children, and they rarely seem to have the appropriate emotional reaction to the cancer of their coach. I mean, there are an array of possible emotional reactions to death for a teenage boy, but that's not what I'm talking about. Their reactions often didn't seem to fit anywhere in that array.
I was also sometimes baffled about the true details of how far this team made it, considering that they are initially portrayed as sort of a Bad News Bears type team, hopeless and hapless on the field. There may have been some artistic license taken there.
But this is a pretty good inspirational sports movie, and it doesn't end the way you think it would. I suppose when I say something like that, in trying to be vague, I'm telegraphing the fact that the team doesn't win. So I'll just say it: the team doesn't win. Which is not a huge spoiler because a) it's in the historical record, and b) I doubt you are racing out to see this anyway.
When I'm watching a baseball movie prior to the season starting, what I'm really looking for is seeing baseball players run around the bases and catch balls, and You Gotta Believe certainly has that. I might prefer major leaguers, as I would have gotten with Angels in the Outfield, but any port in a storm.
And that means I have a year to try to properly source Angels before 2027 opening day -- if there is one. (There's a potential work stoppage in baseball looming after this season.) It also allows me to consider watching the original, which came out in 1951, and then saving the remake for another year.
As I type these words, we are about two hours from the first pitch of the 2026 baseball season. And after that, there will be baseball on nearly every day for seven months, including the playoffs.
Hallelujah, and play ball!
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