Two Baseball Movies... a review

A few weeks ago I was looking for something at our local library and saw this DVD double feature on the shelf. I had never seen it before so I brought it home. The movies are called Kill the Umpire / Safe at Home.

We enjoyed both movies as a family and had a few laughs too. These are good old black and white movies from the 60's.

Kill the Umpire is about a middle-aged man, named Bill, who cannot hold down a job during baseball season because he is always sneaking out to attend games. One day he skips work to go to a game. Unfortunately his boss also shows up at the game and Bill is spotted. He finds himself among the unemployed, again. His wife is frustrated with his shenanigans and threatens to leave him, so Bill reluctantly agrees to take a job umpiring. First he must attend umpire school but hates umpires and so does his worst. He finally sees the need for umpires when he helps with a dispute in a young children's baseball game. Later he makes a controversial call which leads to a wild chase scene. The movie's plot creates the opportunity for a lot of laughs, reminding me of old cartoon gags. As I said we enjoyed the movie much.

One of the neatest features of the movie Safe at Home is the opportunity to see Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in their prime. A widower and his son Hutch move from New York to Florida. Hutch plays on a Little League team and he gets into an argument with one of his teammates, Henry. Henry claims that no one knows more about baseball than his father, and Hutch tries to outdo him and without thinking to much about it blurts out a falsehood. He says that his dad is a personal friend of Mantle and Maris. When Henry calls Hutch’s bluff Hutch sets out on a journey to talk the legendary sluggers into going back with him to meet the team.Hutch makes his way to Fort Lauderdale in the back of a truck to try to convince the two stars to help him out. The ball players refuse to accompany the boy and convince him to tell the whole truth to his team mates. After he does this things turn out better than he suspected, but I won't spoil the end for you in case you wish to watch it.

These movies got the Dove "Family-Approved" Seal: http://www.christiancinema.com/catalog/article_info.php?articles_id=5512# Their website will give you more details, I really like their "Content Chart and Description" very helpful. They suggest ages 12 and up for viewing. I think 10 and up would be fine but I suggest you watch them first and decide for yourself.

I will be submitting this review to The Christian Home blog carnival. I will let you know when the Carnival is posted on Monday so you can check out the other articles. For now you can click on the link in the box to the left to check out the types of articles you can submit.

This review is done with no compensation. I borrowed the movies from my library and all the opinions on this page are my own.


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