How Well Do You Know These Classic Baseball Movies?

Crystal’s 2001 HBO film, "61*," tells the story of Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle’s pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1961. The asterisk in the title denotes the unofficial asterisk that commissioner Ford Frick came up with upon realizing Ruth’s record was in danger; it relates to the fact that Ruth hit 60 home runs in 154 games when he set the record, whereas Maris had 162 games to break the record when he did so.

Former outfielder Reggie Jackson appeared in the 1988 comedy "The Naked Gun" as a brainwashed version of himself programmed to assassinate Queen Elizabeth during an Angels game. Producers initially wanted to cast Dodgers star Kirk Gibson in the role, as the movie was shot at Dodger Stadium, but they never heard back, which opened the door for Angel player Jackson to play the part instead.

In the 1984 film "The Natural," Roy Hobbs (played by Robert Redford) wields a mythical bat he calls Wonderboy, which he created from a tree struck by lightning when he was a kid. Hobbs is called up by the New York Knights, and although he's a middle-aged rookie, he leads the team to the playoffs. The movie is based on Bernard Malamud's 1954 novel of the same name and was nominated for four Oscars at the 1985 Academy Awards.

Disney's 2014 drama "Million Dollar Arm" is based on the true story of Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, two Indian teenagers who won a televised pitching contest organized by sports agent J.B. Bernstein (played by Jon Hamm). In real life, Singh and Patel were subsequently signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, becoming the first Indian athletes to sign professional baseball contracts in North America.

"Mr. 3000" chronicles a fictitious former MLB star's attempt to join the 3,000-hit club, a feat that has been achieved in real life by only 32 professional baseball players. Comedian Bernie Mac, who played Mr. 3000, aka Stan Ross, reportedly trained with the Chicago Cubs in preparation for the role, and scenes were sometimes shot between innings at Milwaukee Brewers games.

"Field of Dreams" was adapted from W.P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel "Shoeless Joe." The film centers around an Iowa farmer named Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) who constructs a baseball field on his property after a mysterious voice tells him, "If you build it, he will come." Ray is subsequently visited by the ghost of Shoeless Joe, who helps him reunite with the ghost of his late father.

Charlie Sheen starred as pitcher Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn in the 1989 comedy "Major League." Vaughn was purely fictional, but he developed a real-life counterpart in Phillies reliever Mitch Williams, who earned the "Wild Thing" nickname for his unusual delivery and later changed his jersey number to 99, the number Vaughn wore in the movie.

The Rockford Peaches were a real team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was founded during World War II. In 1992’s "A League of Their Own," Geena Davis plays catcher Dottie Hinson, who was based on the real Dorothy "Dottie" Kamenshek. Her younger sister, Kit Keller (played by Lori Petty), also played for the Peaches but was moved to the Racine Belles, another real-life team.

Starring the late Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson, "42" details the real-life story of how Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier — as the first Black player — with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. The film is named for Robinson’s uniform number, which was retired throughout MLB on April 15, 1997. Robinson's widow, Rachel, spent 30 years trying to make a movie about his life and worked closely with filmmakers to ensure the script was authentic.

Based on Michael Lewis' 2003 book "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game," this 2011 film chronicles the Oakland Athletics' 2002 season, when the A's general manager, Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt), pioneered a statistics-based approach to build a winning team. The movie also starred the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as manager Art Howe and Chris Pratt as first baseman Scott Hatteberg.