An aging, down-on-his-luck ex-minor leaguer coaches a team of misfits in an ultra-competitive California little league.
Acting
Matthau's hungover magnificence meets Tatum O'Neal's preternatural swagger.
Writing
Kids swearing like sailors because that's how kids actually talked.
Direction
Ritchie shoots sports like a documentarian who hates sports movies.
Director
Michael Ritchie
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Tatum O'Neal was 12 and already an Oscar winner; she learned to pitch left-handed for four months because the real Amanda Whurlitzer was a southpaw.
This film essentially invented the 'kids sports movie' template that The Mighty Ducks later sanitized—note how Buttermaker never really reforms, he just gets slightly less terrible.
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