worst/cheesiest sports movie?

Saw "Mystery, Alaska" on a plane, years ago.

I've seen plenty worse.

 

At the risk of being a grouchy old guy, you guys don't know anything about bad sports movies...

The Babe Ruth Story, made in 1948 starring a ridiculously non-athletic William Bendix, is without question the worst sports movie of all time. It has to be included among the worst movies overall of all time.

Babe Ruth himself was disgusted with it. In addition to looking ridiculously unrealistic even for a sports movie before 1960, it used every cliche in the book. It is even more amazing how bad it is because there were so many great stories about Babe Ruth.

The Babe, which starred John Goodman, was also awful. It really disappoints me that a good movie has never been made about Babe Ruth. The best portrayal of Babe Ruth in a movie was in The Sandlot, where the ghost of Babe Ruth appears.

 

Agreed the Babe Ruth story with Bendix was crappy ...

A review of the movie:
PLOT DESCRIPTION
The Plan 9 From Outer Space of baseball biopics, The Babe Ruth Story is definitely in the "So Bad It's Good" category. An outrageously miscast William Bendix stars as George Herman "Babe" Ruth, who as depicted herein is a childish, misunderstood oaf who happens to be one of the greatest ballplayers of all time. With an almost perverse disregard for the facts, the film chronicles Babe's school days in Baltimore, his brief tenure with the Baltimore Orioles, his glory days with the New York Yankees, his precedent-breaking 60th homer, his "called shot" of 1932, his fall from grace with the Boston Braves, and his slow death from an unnamed but obviously cancerous illness. Along the way, Ruth marries nightclub performer Claire Hodgson (Claire Trevor) with whom he spends many happy years (the earlier Mrs. Ruth, Helen Woodford, is ignored as if she never existed, as is Babe's daughter Dorothy). It's difficult to remember all of the film's howling innacuracies, which include Claire Hodgson's performance of "Singin' in the Rain" ten years before the song was written, the Yankee Stadium billboard for Ballantine Beer in the middle of Prohibition, and Babe's promise to a dying child that he'd hit a homer during the 1932 World Series (this famous incident actually occured in 1927, and the kid wasn't dying). It's also fun to note that Babe's spiritual mentor Brother Matthias (Charles Bickford) remains steadfastly the same age from 1914 to 1948. It was probably to much to expect the truth from coscripter Grantland Rice, who during his newspaper career spent most of his time covering up Ruth's many sexual and alcoholic peccadilloes "for the good of baseball." Despite its multitude of flaws, The Babe Ruth Story is worth sitting through if only for the jaw-dropping final scene (which is even more ridiculous than the earlier vignette in which a Ruth home run enables a crippled child to walk for the first time!) Yes, it's awful, almost stupefyingly so, but The Babe Ruth Story is an experience not to be missed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

 

Ali was insanely boring. I actually fell asleep during the 45-minute slo-mo jogging montage leading up to the Rumble in the Jungle. In fact, that director deserves some sort of award for producing a movie about Ali that could put a coke fiend to sleep.

That said... the fight sequences are absolutely fantastic, and not just because Will Smith swole up some 30 pounds. The actors who play Liston, Frazier and Foreman must be clones.

 

"Blue Chips". Let's see, Al Bundy has this big scoop about Shaq, Penny and Matt Nover getting cars, tractors and cash, so what the hell, he'll just wait to ask about it during a press conference after Western University defeats Indiana in the season opener.

Oh, and I've never received letters of intent over the teletype like Bundy did in his office with the Chicago Sting pennant in the background.

 

If "Gymkata" is a sports movie, "Gymkata" wins.

My other nominee: as an open-wheel racing fan, I find "Driven" to be spectacularly awful and cheesy. It stars Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds, and appears to have been written and directed by someone who has heard that there are such things as car races, but has never actually seen one take place or even had it described to him. My favorite scene: a driver crashes in the German Grand Prix and is inexplicably launched hundreds of feet in the air, over treetops, landing in flames upside-down in a lake. Other drivers start turning around and driving the wrong-way down the track -- dodging the oncoming traffic -- to try to save him. This is intercut with shots of a fire engine leaving a fire station across town, because there are apparently no safety crews working the race. The drivers find the wreck, wade out into the lake, and eventually lift the upside-down car up out of the water after several minutes of effort. They pull off the driver's helmet... and he gasps for air and tells them how happy he is to see them. Genius.

 

Forgot about "Drivel," — er, "Driven". My favorite was the scene where Stallone and the other guy were racing through the city streets, with the obligatory woman's-skirt-blowing-in-the-wind scene.

 

And the cars suck the manhole covers out of the street. Classic.

 

I did, and of course I loved it. How could anyone not?

 

Exactly...I didn't mind the movie overall....but the portrayal of the reporter there was beyond ridiculous.