TV Eye

Steeeeee-rike!

by Margaret Moser

Tom Hanks and Geena Davis in A League of Their Own. The 1992 film plays a doubleheader July Fourth on Cinemax and Encore.

It's the Fourth of July, and there's more Tom Hanks on TV today than in a Bosom Buddies marathon. This unimportant bit of information became evident as I was trying to find a theme on television for the Fourth.

The Fourth of July is not like Easter, where all those hideously dull and guilt-inducing Jesus movies get trotted out. Christmas isn't quite the same without the back-to-back showings of It's a Wonderful Life. Halloween even got a whole series of films named after itself. Perhaps historical films would be appropriate but I didn't even see Independence Day on schedule anywhere. Baseball seems to be the general theme, but even those pickings seem uninspired this year.

Good thing there's some plain old game playing happening. The Baltimore Orioles play the New York Yankees (7/4, noon; KTBC) in New York. Emotions are running a little high for the next eight games since the Yankees were riding high last year, but the Orioles have had a much better 1998. It's rumored that the competition is so stiff that tickets for the subsequent Baltimore games are being snapped up by New Yorkers, and that the Orioles' owner has requested ticketholders not sell their tickets to Yankee fans. Tensions are not so high later in theafternoon with Pittsburgh at Chicago (7/4, 3pm; WGN). Since the Cubs and the Pirates are both in the central division of the National League, the rivalry isn't as high. But watch the Cubs' Sammy Sosa; he is in the midst of a home-run streak, in the number two spot behind the Cards' Mark Maguire. The Mets and the Braves face off (7/4, 6:05pm; TBS) for the first time, with eight games to go.

This is where I have to take the requisite break and meander off into a little story. I never cared about sports much at all. I learned to talk sports so I could talk to boys, and later men, without sounding like a complete twit. Having grown up around three brothers, I knew Sports Talk to be a secret language.

About that time in the late Seventies, Capital Cable started bringing Turner's pre-superstation into Austin homes, and I started watching a lot of it. At first it was mostly for the novelty of the Atlanta commercials but then I began to get annoyed that there was so much baseball in there. Yeeesh. I was about to give up on it, when I was flipping channels one day in 1978 and came upon a Braves pitcher named Larry McWilliams, whom I thought was the cutest thing I'd seen in ages. I watched him pitch all afternoon and was disappointed when the game was over. Fortunately, there was another game the next day and, well ... I became a diehard fan. In my own way. (Don't you guys roll your eyes. You stare at Baywatch for the same reason.) Jerry Royster, Phil Niekro, Chico Ruiz, Dale Murphy ... they were my boys.

That's why I started watching baseball. I came into Braves fandom after their extraordinary years with all-time home run king Hank Aaron, but there was an air of excitement about the sport that was as much due to the Aaron afterglow as it was to the new frontier of cable. When I started watching, Hank Aaron's number, #44, was the third Braves number to be retired. I note with pleasure that the only other two numbers retired from the Braves since have also been players from the golden era of my love affair with the Braves, in 1984 for #35 Phil Niekro and in 1994 for #3 Dale Murphy. Braves over the Mets, easy.

It's the Texas Rangers and the Mariners (7/4, 7:30pm; KNVA) for three games up in Arlington. A few are hopeful for Texas, but I think Seattle will take 'em down despite a strong Ranger defense.

There are a handful of baseball movies on television Saturday, though none of the heavy hitters, pardon the pun. A League of Their Own(7/4, 12:30pm, MAX; 2:45pm, ENC) shows twice, for example. Not a great baseball film but certainly not the worst; director Penny Marshall rounded up a stellar cast and got good performances from Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Lori Petty, David Strathairn, Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Pullman,and Téa Leoni. It's also infinitely more watchable than Brendan Fraser (who's hard not to watch) inThe Scout(7/4, 1pm; COM) but that's okay because you will have doubtless turned away before you can see the travesty of Bull Durham(7/4, 3pm; COM). It's not so much the constant commercial breaks and Comedy Central's dreadful in-house promotions that ruin Bull Durham as it is the "edited for television" part. Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Costner star; it's the film that brought Sarandon and Robbins together. Little Big League(7/4, 4:25pm; TNT) stars Jason Robards, Dennis Farina,and Timothy Busfield in the not-too-bad story of an 11-year-old boy who inherits the Minnesota Twins. A classic comedy, 1951's Angels in the Outfield (7/4, 11:30pm; TCM), was remade in 1994 but without its original charm. Here, it's the Pittsburgh Pirates who get some heavenly help. Look for Janet Leigh, Keenan Wynn, and Ellen"Grandma Walton" Corby. I would have liked to have seen Field of Dreams and Eight Men Out.

Oh yeah. Tom Hanks. He's also in That Thing You Do! (7/4, 10:30am; HBO) and Splash (7/4, 2:45; MAX).