The movie "Major League" features some loveable, laughable characters that form the motley band of baseball players on the mythical Cleveland Indians. It may not have the class of "Field of Dreams," the charm of "A League of Their Own," the historical realism of "Eight Men Out," or the quality and sensual stimulation of "Bull Durham," but it is a classic sports movie on almost anyone's list of films in that genre.
             The plot is both funny and outrageously absurd. And there are obvious links to plot themes from other movies and from real life. For example, the new owner of the Indians, Rachel Phelps (played by Margaret Whitton), has inherited the team from her late husband. She hates Cleveland and is actually clueless about what it means to own a major league baseball team. So she deliberately stacks the team with misfits and fools, hoping that they will fail and in the meantime very few customers will pay to come and see them play. Why does she want them to fail?
             If less than 800,000 fans pay to see the Indians in any given season, Phelps and the Indians are excused from their stadium lease and can move elsewhere; Phelps prefers the bright lights and action of Miami. After all she was a Las Vegas showgirl in her previous career, and Cleveland is a boring town.
             This part of the plot has strong similarities with St. Louis Rams' former owner, the late Georgia Frontiere, also a former showgirl. Frontiere, a blond with certain affectations that gave the impression she was shallow (like Phelps) had inherited the Rams (when they were the Los Angeles Rams) from her husband, who died in a mysterious drowning accident in Miami. Although she didn't deliberately try to lose games, Frontiere never liked playing in the Los Angeles Coliseum, so first she moved the team to Anaheim, then eventually to St. Louis where the city gave her a new indoor stadium and millions of dollars to...