Just because you may hate sports, as I do, doesn't mean there aren’t plenty of sports-themed films that are quite entertaining--and sometimes, down right hilarious.  Here are five of my favorites (which I readily admit to actually having in my personal video library).

1. Slap Shot:

Slap Shot is the 1977 comedy starring Paul Newman and Michael Ontkean that depicts a third-rate minor league hockey team, from a declining factory town, called the Charlestown Chiefs, that suddenly becomes popular because they start playing dirty--under the odious prodding of broken down player/coach Reggie Dunlop, played by Newman. The cast also includes Strother Martin (manager, Joe McGrath), Jerry Houser (Dave “Killer” Carlson), and the three “brothers” who succeed in stealing the movie, Jeff Carlson (Jeff Hanson), Steve Carlson (Steve Hanson), and David Hanson (Jack Hanson).

2. Major League:

Major League is the 1989 satire-comedy starring Tom Beranger (Jake Taylor, who was last playing for a team in Mexico), Charlie Sheen (Rick Vaughn, who’d been pitching for the “California Penal” team where he’d been incarcerated), Wesley Snipes (Willie "Mays" Hayes--who just shows up to play despite not having been invited to camp), James Gammon (Pedro Cerrano, who practices voodoo to try to help him hit curve balls), and Corbin Bernsen (Roger Dorn, an arrogant and high-priced prima donna who's afraid of getting hit with the ball). The film deals with the exploits of a fictionalized version of the Cleveland Indians baseball team who because of their miserable playing record, are on their way to being disbanded--but end up hitting the greatest winning streak of their careers.

3. Bull Durham:

Bull Durham is the 1988 romantic-comedy about the Durham Bulls, a minor league baseball team in Durham, North Carolina, starring Kevin Costner as "Crash" Davis, a veteran catcher brought in to prepare rookie pitcher Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) for the "bigs"--Major Leagues.  Baseball groupie Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) romances Nuke but finds herself increasingly attracted to Crash--which underlies the plot of the movie.  Also featured are Robert Wuhl and Max Patkin.  (This film is ranked #55 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies," and ranked #97 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Laughs" list.)

4. Semi-Tough:

Semi-Tough  is the 1977 comedy-drama starring Burt Reynolds (Billy Clyde Puckett), Kris Kristofferson (Marvin "Shake" Tiller), and Jill Clayburgh (Barbara Jane Bookman), based on the novel Semi-Tough, by Dan Jenkins. The plot involves a love triangle between the three main characters, and also includes a parody of Werner Erhard's New Age  Erhard Seminars Training (EST), depicted in the film as an organization called "B.E.A.T."

5. A League of Their Own:

A League of Their Own is the 1992 comedy-drama that tells a fictionalized account of the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) founded by Philip K. Wrigley in 1943 that existed until 1954.  Directed by Penny Marshall, the film stars Geena Davis (catcher, Dottie Hinson), Lori Petty (pitcher, Kit Keller), Tom Hanks (manager, Jimmy Dugan), Madonna (center fielder, "All the Way" Mae Mordabito), and Rosie O'Donnell (third baseman, Doris Murphy).  (Hanks delivers some of the funnniest lines of this film career.)

References:

Internet Movie Database

Personal Video Library

Movie Poster Images via Wikipedia.org

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>  Five Films for Students of the Occult

>  Five MORE Films for Students of the Occult

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