One of two well-known baseball movies filmed at the iconic Rickwood Field, the oldest professional ballpark in the United States dating back to 1910, this 1994 biopic about misanthropic Hall of Famer Ty Cobb helped put Birmingham’s historical sports facility on the map in terms of the nation at large due to its use as a stand-in for Philadelphia’s Shibe Park and Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field around the early days of the 20th century. Starring Tommy Lee Jones as the notoriously brusk, violent and narcissistic Cobb, as he recounts his life and infamous personal exploits to hired biographer Al Stump (played by actor Robert Wuhl) and takes him on a whirlwind ride through the last days of his life before his demise in 1961, the movie was not considered a box office success at the time, but did earn some laudatory reviews from critics. With scenes from the ballpark both opening and closing the movie, Rickwood proved to be the perfect setting for the baseball sequences, highlighting its legendary status among sports aficionados, and really helped bring the film’s flashbacks to Cobb’s heyday to life through its timeless look and feel, which can still be seen and experienced today.
FUN FACT: The film contains a brief cameo from beloved musician and Alabama native Jimmy Buffett, posing as a heckler who gets hit in the face by Cobb in a dramatized reenactment of a confrontation that actually happened between the legendarily fiery baseball great and a fan in New York City on May 15, 1912. Buffet’s arrival in town for the film caused quite a stir and he actually performed a free concert for the film crew and extras as a thank you for letting him be a part of it.
Trailer Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZeCgMpLwnU