CINEMA: Nice Guys Finish First

EVERY SPORTING EVENT IS a suspense thriller. No one knows who will win, unless it's the Super Bowl and the Bills are in it. But when Hollywood plays the big game, nice guys always finish first. The Cleveland Indians will take the American League pennant -- not on the field this year, perhaps, but in Major League II. A ragtag rainbow coalition of teens will win a junior hockey championship in D2 The Mighty Ducks. Whether the game is big-time baseball (Rookie of the Year, Mr. Baseball) or college football (The Program, Rudy), basketball on the campus (Blue Chips) or on the playground (White Men Can't Jump, Above the Rim), boxing (Gladiator) or figure skating (The Cutting Edge), victory is never in doubt. As Pete Rose might say, you could bet on it.

Now, flash back to Hollywood's supposedly Pollyanna past. Rocky Balboa in the original Rocky: he lost. Jake La Motta in Raging Bull: he went nuts. Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees: he died.

These were sports movies. They said that athletic competition was a bit like life -- humbling, harrowing, draining. You give it your all, and it takes all you've got. For a moment, if you're lucky, you feel great. And in the end, nobody wins. Nowadays it's often the movie studio that wins, by producing inexpensive pictures that have an even chance of making a bundle. The whole genre -- once a kiss-of-death proposition because it was entertainment deemed suitable for men only -- got a reprieve in the late '70s when the first Rocky scored a double K.O. (Oscar, box office) and its sequels earned huge purses worldwide. Audiences also embraced movies about baseball (the Bad News Bears series) and football (Semi-Tough, North Dallas Forty). In the late '80s baseball surged again with Bull Durham, Major League and Field of Dreams, and in 1992 A League of Their Own topped $100 million at the North American wickets. Since then, White Men Can't Jump has grossed $72 million, and lower- budget Disney films also broke through -- the first Mighty Ducks made $51 million, and last year's Cool Runnings, an inspirational comedy about the 1988 Olympic bobsled team from Jamaica, earned $69 million.

You don't have to be a sabermetrician, just a movie mogul, to savor these stats and take counsel from them. Studios are giving the green light to more sports pictures: Angels in the Outfield and Little Big League are scheduled for summer release; the Steven Spielberg production Little Heroes, about kids' football, is due out in the fall. To the lords of Hollywood, the lesson is plain. "Mass audiences are looking to feel good," says Joe Roth, who runs a production unit at Disney. "When teams win in these movies, you feel good that you've participated. They are very easy vehicles to get across emotion."