Synopsis
When the owner of the Minnesota Twins passes away, he bequeaths the team to his preteen grandson. The newly minted head honcho quickly appoints himself manager, causing unrest in an organization that struggles to take orders from a 12-year-old.
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Cast
- Luke EdwardsBilly Heywood
- Timothy BusfieldLou Collins
- John AshtonMac MacNally
- Ashley CrowJenny Heywood
- Kevin DunnArthur Goslin
- Billy L. SullivanChuck
- Miles FeulnerJoey
- Jonathan SilvermanJim Bowers
- Dennis FarinaGeorge O'Farrell
- Jason RobardsThomas Heywood
Recommendations
- 88
Chicago Sun-Times
Like Free Willy, The Secret Garden, Searching for Bobby Fischer and The Man in the Moon, this is a "family movie" that doesn't condescend. It takes its 12-year-old hero as seriously as he takes baseball, and nothing is "dumbed down" for the PG audience. - 83
Entertainment Weekly
Filled with baseball lore, trivia, and cameos by major-league players, this fable covers its bases with sincerity and humor. - 80
Time
Little Big League was a movie for kids that never talked down to its target audience. It gave equal weight to issues that could easily be expected under these unusual circumstances. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
For once in a kids' sports picture, the child actors don't grate or get sticky, and the adults aren't crotch-grabbing, swaggering, overgrown delinquents. More important, Little Big League makes some very nice emotional points along the way to a satisfying end, suggesting that America's rocky romance with baseball is alive and well. - 67
Austin Chronicle
It's not the greatest movie about baseball ever made (and I'll keep my mouth shut on that one if I know what's good for me), but it's not the worst, either. Like the game itself, it's pretty darn fun. - 60
The New York Times
The scenes on the ballfield have a credibility that is unusual in a baseball film. Adding to the realism are the appearances of a number of major league players as the Twins' opponents. The glow and cleancut innocence of these scenes evokes the magic of the game as seen through the eyes of a youthful fan. - 60
Time Out
Scheinman is so keen to pile on the moral precepts, that the proceedings never really take on an imaginative life of their own. The film does, however, avoid tub-thumping triumphalism and manages better than most Hollywood sports movies to integrate its roster of real-life players within the contrivances of the storyline. - 50
ReelViews
This film never believably captures the sport it portrays, and that leads to a picture that's closer to a strikeout than a home run.
