Everybody loves a great sports movie, but which one is the very best?  SI has compiled their own rankings, as has the 4-letter.   Do you agree with the predominant voices in sports?  I sure don’t.

In the spirit of the NCAA Tournament, we here at Sparty & Friends will be holding our own field of 64, but this will be breaking down the best 64 sports movies of all time.

Today, we present to you the bracket.  There was a lot of arguing that took place amongst the committee of what should make the field.  They did their best to pick movies where the sport was the main focal point of the movie, which impacted a major part of the storyline.  One movie that came into question was Jerry MaGuire.  The movie was not necessarily about a specific sport, but one of the main characters was a member of an NFL team, and the climax of movie takes place on Monday Night Football.  Jerry MaGuire himself was a sport agent.  So, it snuck into the tourney.

We expect there to be some uproar over the rankings, and the inclusion/exclusion of different movies. We had to narrow it down to 64, so obviously there were some snubs.  A certain redneck is very upset that the Cutting Edge is not in the field.

Round 1 will take place tomorrow starting at 12pm, with the finals culminating on Thursday and Friday next week.  So, without further ado…The Bracket:

(Click on the updated bracket to enlarge)

Here are the individual regions and the seedings: (click on the brackets to enlarge)

Baseball
1.  Bull Durham
2.  The Natural
3.  Field of Dreams
4.  Major League
5.  Pride of the Yankees
6.  Bad News Bears
7.  Eight Men Out
8.  Bang the Drum Slowly
9.  The Rookie
10.  Mr. Baseball
11.  For the Love of the Game
12.  The Sandlot
13.  League of their Own
14.  The Jackie Robinson Story
15.  61*
16.  Mr. 3000

Basketball
1.  Hoosiers
2.  He Got Game
3.  White Men Can’t Jump
4.  Hoop Dreams
5.  Rebound: The Legend of Earl “The Goat” Manigault
6.  Blue Chips
7.  Glory Road
8.  Above the Rim
9.  Love & Basketball
10.  Spacejam
11.  Basketball Diaries
12.  Coach Carter
13.  The Air Up There
14.  BASEketball
15.  Semi-Pro
16.  Like Mike

Football
1.  The Longest Yard
2.  Rudy
3.  The Program
4.  Friday Night Lights
5.  North Dallas Forty
6.  Necessary Roughness
7.  Any Given Sunday
8.  Brian’s Song
9.  Remember the Titans
10.  Varsity Blues
11.  Jerry MaGuire
12.  Little Giants
13.  We Are Marshall
14.  The Replacements
15.  All the Right Moves
16.  Wildcats

Others
1.  Slapshot
2.  Rocky
3.  Raging Bull
4.  Caddyshack
5.  Tin Cup
6.  Karate Kid
7.  Mighty Ducks
8.  Bloodsport
9.  Kingpin
10.  The Hustler
11.  Happy Gilmore
12.  Dodgeball
13.  Days of Thunder
14.  Ali
15.  Chariots of Fire
16.  North Shore

The S&F ”experts” have once again embraced full disclosure and compiled their picks to share with you to elicit praise, ridicule, laughter…whatever.  Here they are:

We also were able to speak with a passionate sports movies critic who’s familiar with our site.  He was kind enough to give us a few minutes of his time to fill out his bracket and then break down what he thinks should and will happen.  Here’s what he had to say:

I see this tourney going one of two ways. The younger crowd is going to roll with the comedies and more recent films, while the older, more seasoned vets (Mikey, Cycledan, Sparty-he’s a young guy with a 70-year-old’s mind, Patphish) will pick movies with more depth. With that said, I will provide two sets of picks - what I think should happen and what actually will happen:

SHOULD HAPPEN:
Field of Dreams, Hoosiers, Rudy, Raging Bull
Rudy over Hoosiers for the title

The big upsets would be:
- All four 11 seeds winning,
- The Sandlot beating Major League and Bull Durham back to back
- Remember the Titans with a huge 2nd round upset of The Longest Yard
- Basketball Diaries reaching the Sweet 16 after upsetting White Man Can’t Jump with Jerry Maguire beating grossly overrated The Program to reach that round as well.

WILL HAPPEN:
Since everyone here but me hates Notre Dame, Rudy will get bounced early, maybe even Richmond/Syracuse early. I also think the comedies will do well - Happy Gilmore will probably beat Raging Bull, which is a travesty. Rebound will also probably lose early because many people have probably never seen it, but it is a great flick. Heres how I think the voters will go:
The Sandlot (which I have in the elite 8), Friday Night Lights, Caddyshack (close victory over Happy Gilmore in the Elite 8), Hoosiers

Caddyshack over Hoosiers for the title

There you have it folks.

OPENING ROUND VOTING (Thursday, March 26):
BASEBALL REGIONAL VOTING
BASKETBALL REGIONAL VOTING
FOOTBALL REGIONAL VOTING
OTHERS REGIONAL VOTING

SECOND ROUND VOTING SCHEDULE (Friday, March 27):
BASEBALL REGION SECOND ROUND VOTING – Underway!
BASKETBALL REGION SECOND ROUND VOTING – Underway!
FOOTBALL REGION SECOND ROUND VOTING – Underway!
OTHERS REGION SECOND ROUND VOTING – Underway!

THIRD ROUND VOTING SCHEDULE (Monday, March 30):
BASEBALL REGION SWEET SIXTEEN VOTING – Underway!
BASKETBALL REGION SWEET SIXTEEN VOTING – 9:30 AM
FOOTBALL REGION  SWEET SIXTEEN VOTING – 11:00 PM
OTHERS REGION SWEET SIXTEEN VOTING – 12:30 PM

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