This baseball movie trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the films that made the sport a genre of its own. It runs from The Pride of the Yankees and Damn Yankees through the great late-1980s run of Bull Durham, Eight Men Out, Major League and Field of Dreams, on to A League of Their Own, The Sandlot, Rookie of the Year and the true-story era of The Rookie, Moneyball and 42. Expect questions about who played whom, which real ballparks stood in for Ebbets Field or Yankee Stadium, the novels behind The Natural and Bang the Drum Slowly, altered endings, box-office records, and the details only a repeat viewer would catch, like Charlie Sheen's actual fastball or which opera hides in The Bad News Bears score. About a third are easy warm-ups; the rest climb toward genuine deep cuts. Every answer has been checked against the film's Wikipedia entry and the sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Field of Dreams (1989) was adapted from the novel Shoeless Joe. Who wrote it?
W. P. Kinsella
Kinsella was Canadian, and the film shot under the novel's title before the studio renamed it late in production.
Q 02The cornfield ballpark in Field of Dreams was built on a farm outside which small town?
Dyersville
The diamond was left standing after the shoot and became a tourist attraction.
Q 03In the novel Shoeless Joe, which real reclusive writer does Ray seek out, before the film changed him to Terence Mann?
J. D. Salinger
Salinger threatened to sue if his name was used, so the character became a fictional 1960s novelist and civil-rights-era icon.
Q 04Which Hollywood legend made his final film appearance as Doc 'Moonlight' Graham in Field of Dreams?
Burt Lancaster
Archibald Graham was a real player who appeared in exactly one major league game, for the 1905 New York Giants, without an at-bat.
Q 05Which two teams played MLB's first regular-season game at the Field of Dreams site in 2021?
White Sox and Yankees
The game had been scheduled for 2020 and was pushed back a year by the pandemic; the White Sox won it with a walk-off homer into the corn.
Q 06What is the nickname of Tim Robbins's wild young pitcher in Bull Durham?
Nuke
His full name is Ebby Calvin LaLoosh; Robbins and co-star Susan Sarandon became a real-life couple after the film.
Q 07After leaving the Bulls, Crash Davis breaks the minor league home run record playing for which team?
Asheville Tourists
The Tourists are a real club, and Crash Davis was also the name of a real Durham Bulls infielder from the 1940s.
Q 08Major League (1989) is about Cleveland, but most ballpark scenes were shot in which city?
Milwaukee
County Stadium stood in for Cleveland Stadium; only a few exterior and aerial shots came from Cleveland itself.
Q 09Which real broadcaster plays boozy announcer Harry Doyle in Major League?
Bob Uecker
Uecker was a career .200 hitter turned Brewers play-by-play man, and critics say his line has been borrowed by every sportscaster since.
Q 10Ricky Vaughn throws 100 mph in Major League. How fast could Charlie Sheen actually throw during filming?
88 mph
Sheen had pitched in high school, and later admitted he used steroids for weeks before the shoot to add velocity.
Q 11The Natural (1984) is based on a 1952 novel by which author?
Bernard Malamud
It was Malamud's first novel; his later work, including The Fixer, won him a Pulitzer and two National Book Awards.
Q 12What is the name of the bat Roy Hobbs carves from a lightning-struck tree in The Natural?
Wonderboy
It is branded with a lightning bolt, and it splinters in the final game, forcing Roy to use the batboy's bat.
Q 13Most of The Natural was shot in which city, using its old War Memorial Stadium?
Buffalo
The 'Rockpile' was already home to the Bills' early years, and it was demolished four years after the film came out.
Q 21The 2002 A's winning streak dramatized in Moneyball set an American League record. How long did it run?
20 straight wins
Scott Hatteberg's pinch-hit walk-off homer sealed it after Oakland blew an 11-0 lead to Kansas City.
Q 22Who plays Dodgers executive Branch Rickey opposite Chadwick Boseman in 42 (2013)?
Harrison Ford
Ford was 70 playing a Rickey who was 65 in 1947, and buried himself under bushy eyebrows and a gravelly growl for the part.
Q 23Which historic minor league park in Chattanooga, Tennessee stood in for Ebbets Field in 42?
Engel Stadium
Birmingham's Rickwood Field, America's oldest pro ballpark, doubled for several other stadiums in the same film.
Q 14Who directed A League of Their Own (1992)?
Penny Marshall
Marshall was the first woman to direct a film that grossed over $100 million, with Big, four years earlier.
Q 15Which team do Dottie Hinson and Kit Keller play for in A League of Their Own?
Rockford Peaches
All four clubs really existed; the actual Peaches won four AAGPBL titles between 1945 and 1950.
Q 16The championship game in A League of Their Own was filmed at Bosse Field, a 1915 ballpark in which city?
Evansville, Indiana
Bosse Field is the third-oldest professional ballpark still in regular use, behind only Fenway Park and Wrigley Field.
Q 17What is the nickname of Madonna's center fielder Mae Mordabito in A League of Their Own?
'All the Way' Mae
Madonna also recorded the end-credits ballad, which hit No. 1 but was left off the soundtrack album for contractual reasons.
Q 18What breed of dog is 'the Beast' in The Sandlot?
English Mastiff
His real name turns out to be Hercules, and he is far less monstrous once the fence comes down.
Q 19Moneyball (2011) is based on a 2003 book by which author?
Michael Lewis
Lewis also wrote The Blind Side and The Big Short, making him the rare writer with three Best Picture-nominated adaptations.
Q 20Jonah Hill's character Peter Brand in Moneyball is a fictionalized version of which real A's executive?
Paul DePodesta
DePodesta asked that his name not be used, so the film invented a Yale economics grad named Brand in his place.
Q 24In The Rookie (2002), high school coach Jim Morris ends up pitching for which MLB team?
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
The real Morris debuted at 35 and struck out Royce Clayton on four pitches; he pitched 21 big-league games in all.
Q 25Which independent filmmaker wrote and directed Eight Men Out (1988), about the 1919 Black Sox scandal?
John Sayles
He also cast himself as sportswriter Ring Lardner, and put author Studs Terkel on screen as reporter Hugh Fullerton.
Q 26Eight Men Out is based on a 1963 book by which writer?
Eliot Asinof
Asinof had himself been a minor league first baseman in the Phillies system before turning to writing.
Q 27Which actor plays Shoeless Joe Jackson in Eight Men Out?
D. B. Sweeney
Sweeney spent months working out with a minor league club to convincingly swing left-handed for the role.
Q 28Most of Eight Men Out was shot at Bush Stadium, an old ballpark in which city?
Indianapolis
The 1931 park's ivy-covered brick walls made a passable Comiskey; it has since been converted into apartments.
Q 29Who plays Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees (1942)?
Gary Cooper
The film premiered just 13 months after Gehrig's death, and the 'luckiest man' closing line made the AFI's top-100 quotes list.
Q 30The Pride of the Yankees earned eleven Oscar nominations. In which category did it win its only award?
Best Film Editing
Editor Daniel Mandell also had to make right-handed Cooper look like a left-handed thrower, briefly flopping the film in a minor league scene.