In appreciation of 'Tiger Town,' a silly but fun piece of '80s baseball cinema

Jason Foster

In appreciation of 'Tiger Town,' a silly but fun piece of '80s baseball cinema image

Not that one needs a news hook to write about an obscure 1980s TV movie, but I’ll offer one anyway: Disney Plus, which launched this week to much fanfare in part to let viewers rediscover long-forgotten gems from the studio’s vault, has made a glaring omission: “Tiger Town” is nowhere to be found.

If you’re younger than 40, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of “Tiger Town.” If you’re older than 40, and especially if you were a young baseball fan in the mid-’80s, there’s a good chance you watched with at least a wee bit of awe when it made the rounds on the Disney Channel in 1983, or later when it had a run as a Disney Sunday Movie on ABC.

As Disney productions go, “Tiger Town,” directed by Detroit native Alan Shapiro, is not upper-tier entertainment, at least not in the traditional sense. But its appeal is that it’s one of those pieces of '80s escapism that lives at the intersection of reality and ridiculousness.

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The basic premise: A young Tigers fan develops a friendship and quasi-psychic connection with an aging, down-on-his-luck slugger named Billy Young, played by, um, slender 51-year-old Roy Scheider of “Jaws” fame. The movie’s tagline is ripped straight from a school book fair motivational poster: “Sometimes there’s courage in just believing.” So, as little sense as all that makes, you pretty much know exactly how things will play out.

But never mind the plot for a minute. There are other, more important things that spoke to 10-year-old me when I first saw the movie in 1986.

— There were real-life baseball teams. It wasn’t one of those baseball movies that had to use fake team names because producers couldn’t get the rights to use real names and logos. The Tigers were the Tigers. The Orioles were the Orioles. The Royals were the Royals. As a young, passionate baseball fan, I was all-in based on this alone. Related: The movie was shot on location in Detroit and at Tiger Stadium. There were no green screens or stand-in stadiums. It was the real deal.

— Sparky Anderson was played by … Sparky Anderson! And he acts! All the Tigers players were fictional, but the filmmakers somehow got the longtime Tigers manager to play himself to inject a skosh more realism. Anderson’s scenes and lines are few, but it was a big deal to have him in there. Also playing themselves: Broadcasters Ernie Harwell and Ray Lane. Bonus!

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— The baseball action looked real enough. While Scheider was mostly shot in close-ups during his playing scenes, likely to hide some non-athleticism, other players looked mostly like major league players. (I'd give the overall make-believe games a solid B-.) And there was real game footage mixed it, which always helps.

— The kid, Alex, played by Oscar-nominee Justin Henry (“Kramer vs. Kramer”), was basically what I imagined the perfect version of myself to be. He was a kid who breathed baseball. His room was full of baseball cards, posters and other Tigers memorabilia. He lived near a baseball stadium and HIS MOM LETS HIM GO TO GAMES BY HIMSELF. I used to fantasize about having a stadium in my neighborhood, or close by, and going to games after school. I would actually stare out the windows in my house and picture the back of a stadium butting against the edge of our property, with a home run ball sailing into my yard. (It was kind of a Wrigley Field situation in my mind.)

— Alex was able to gain access to Tiger Stadium through kid moxie. He snuck in and would wander the empty stadium and make his way onto the field to chat with his baseball idol — not to mention sneaking into the dugout and clubhouse — while never getting in trouble. Getting to hang out with your favorite baseball player seemed like about the coolest thing ever.

— There was a grittiness that I found appealing. The setting wasn’t sanitized and Disneyfied. Detroit looked dirty and lived in. Tiger Stadium was dingy but cozy. The kids and adults all looked like real people. The kids were rambunctious. The adults looked tired. It was all oddly attractive.

But back to the plot. It’s obviously fantastical, mostly because Alex discovers that he can will Young to hit homers by clasping his hands together, concentrating hard and just … believing. Even as a kid, I knew this was ludicrous — despite believing with some certainty that my actions could affect games I watched on TV. But my biggest issue with his particular superstition was that when he closes his eyes to muster up those believing thoughts, he can’t see the game. That’s no fun. But, hey, whatever works. Fandom is complicated. 

Naturally, Alex’s telekinesis, or ESP, or however it would classify, sparks Young into a hot streak and gets the Tigers back in the pennant race. Because of course. But let’s talk about Scheider’s performance as the near-the-end, former superstar. Again, he was 51 in 1983. And his toned but slender physique didn’t scream “power hitter.” What little batting technique we see from Scheider is, well, adequate (which is being generous), but he clearly was not an experienced batsman. Several of his “homers” are clearly infield pop-ups. But even in the non-game scenes, he never looks like a baseball player. He just looks like Roy Scheider in a Tigers uniform. 

There are other weird things, too, such as:

— Young wears No. 6, which in real life belonged to Hall of Famer Al Kaline and was retired by the team in 1980.

— The announcing sometimes doesn't match what's happening in the game on screen. That's not the announcers’ fault, of course, but it makes for some clear continuity issues.

— The Tigers apparently play only day games, which is why Alex has to sometimes skip school to go. (Mom’s not happy, of course. But don’t you know? They can’t win if he’s not there!)

But none of that matters. It all works well enough. “Tiger Town,” with all its this-is-so-silly formula, is a serviceable reality-based fantasy that connected with me and many other young baseball fans who wanted to put ourselves in Alex’s shoes (minus subplots about bullying and loss).

Though mostly shown on the small screen, the movie had a brief theatrical release in Detroit in June 1984 — fitting, as the Tigers were on their way to a World Series title that year. On the whole, the film was received warmly; it even won a Cable Ace award for Best Dramatic Film.

It was later released on VHS and DVD, but it’s not easy to find a physical copy at a reasonable price. It feels like the epitome of what the “Plus” part of Disney Plus should include — innocent, quality, cheesy throwback entertainment, right up there with “Flight of the Navigator” and “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo” — so perhaps it’ll show up there eventually amid Disney’s other sports-themed fare.

Until then, there’s always YouTube. 

Jason Foster

Jason Foster Photo

Jason Foster joined The Sporting News in 2015 after stops at various news outlets where he held a variety of reporting and editing roles and covered just about every topic imaginable. He is a member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and a 1998 graduate of Appalachian State University.