L'histoire vraie des Portland Mavericks, une équipe de baseball indépendante composée d'outsiders, créée par l'acteur Bing Russell dans les années 1970.
In the San Fernando Valley during the summer of the early 1960s, protagonist Scotty Smalls moves into a new town with his mother and stepfather, and joins a local baseball team under captain Benjamin "the Jet" Rodriguez. With Benjamin's help, Scotty becomes a proficient player; but everybody learns that more than 150 of the team's numerous baseballs have ended up in the backyard fence of the sandlot, which is protected by an English Mastiff, a legendary ball-eating dog known as "The Beast," who belongs to his neighbor, Mr. Mertle. One day, the team's last ball lands in "The Beast's" possession, and Scotty substitutes one from his stepfather's collection, which is earlier signed by Babe Ruth. When this, too, is lost, the team construct a series of machines (each of them more complex than the last) to recover it remotely; but every time they ultimately fail. Inspired by a dream of Ruth (whom he admires), Benjamin is the first to seize the ball himself, while the others trap "The Beast;" whereupon Benjamin and Scotty return the latter to his owner, Mr. Mertle, who reveals that he himself knew Ruth, and later becomes the team's coach. Over the next three decades, Benjamin becomes a famous MLB player, and Scotty becomes a sports announcer.
In 1998, the family of the late Roger Maris goes to Busch Stadium to witness Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals break their father's record with a 62nd home run. Maris' widow, Pat, is hospitalized due to complications from arrhythmia and watches the game on television from a hospital bed.
The Tampico Stogies are a last-place baseball team based in Tampico, Florida. The team competes in the lowest-level (Class D) professional Gulf Coast league during the summer of 1957. It is unclear if the team is affiliated with a major league franchise. The Stogies are owned by a pair of corrupt and scheming local Tampico businessmen, Hale Buchman (Henry Gibson) and his son, Hale Buchman Jr. (Teller). They refer to themselves as sports moguls, despite the team being heavily mortgaged.
Lors d'un match opposant les Gorilles et les A-tout-à-l'heure au Polo Grounds Stadium, les Gorilles (des joueurs tricheurs) battent largement les A-tout-à-l'heure (juste un vieillard). Bugs, fan des A-tout-à-l'heure, est défié par un Gorille pour un match. Au lancer, Bugs réussit à éliminer le joueur qui l'a défié. Il élimine finalement toute l'équipe par une balle lente.
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is upset by his team's loss to the New York Yankees in the 2001 postseason, after the Yankees overcome a 2-0 series lead. With the impending departure of star players Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen to free agency, Beane needs to assemble a competitive team for 2002, but must overcome Oakland's limited payroll. During a visit to the Cleveland Indians, Beane meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a young Yale economics graduate with radical ideas about how to assess players' value. Beane tests Brand's theory by asking whether he would have drafted him (out of high school), Beane having been a Major League player before becoming general manager. Though scouts considered Beane a phenomenal prospect, his career in the Major Leagues was disappointing. After some prodding, Brand admits that he would not have drafted him until the ninth round and that Beane would probably have accepted a scholarship to Stanford instead. Beane hires the inexperienced Brand to be the Athletics assistant general manager.
Lou Gehrig (Cooper) is a young Columbia University student whose old-fashioned mother (Elsa Janssen) wants him to study hard and become an engineer. But the young man has a gift for baseball. A sportswriter (Brennan) befriends Gehrig and persuades a scout to come see him play. Before long Gehrig signs with the team he has always revered, the New York Yankees. With the help of his father (Ludwig Stössel), he endeavors to keep his career change a secret from his mother.
Ray Kinsella is a novice Iowa farmer who lives with his wife Annie and daughter Karin. In the opening narration, Ray explains how he had a troubled relationship with his father, John Kinsella, who had been a devoted baseball fan. While walking through his cornfield one evening, Ray hears a voice whispering, "If you build it, he will come." Ray continues hearing the voice before finally seeing a vision of a baseball diamond in his field. Annie is skeptical of his vision, but she allows Ray to plow the corn under in order to build a baseball field. As Ray builds the field, he tells Karin the story of baseball's 1919 Black Sox Scandal. As months pass and nothing happens at the field, Ray's family faces financial ruin until, one night, Karin spots a uniformed man in the field. Ray recognizes the man as Shoeless Joe Jackson, a deceased baseball player idolized by Ray's father. Thrilled to be able to play baseball again, Joe asks to bring others to the field to play. He later returns with the seven other players banned as a result of the 1919 scandal.
The film tells the story of Jackie Robinson and, under the guidance of team executive Branch Rickey, Robinson's signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first African-American player to break the baseball color barrier. The story focuses mostly on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers season and somewhat on Robinson's 1946 season with the Montreal Royals, which emphasize his battles with racism.