Sport and Cinema.com

On August 28, 1982, Cody Webster and a small group of schoolyard friends from Kirkland, Wash., sat anxiously in a dugout waiting to take the field for the championship game of the Little League World Series.

In the fall of 1993, in his prime and at the summit of the sports world, Michael Jordan walked away from pro basketball.

After leading the Dream Team to an Olympic gold medal in 1992 and taking the Chicago Bulls to their third consecutive NBA championship the following year, Jordan was jolted by the murder of his father

Baseball’s Midsummer Classic returns to Anaheim Tuesday for the third time since the All-Star Game began in 1933, but the event has changed quite a bit since the city first hosted the exhibition (in 1967 when the NL won in dramatic fashion on a Tony Perez home run in the 15th inning).

In a new film from Columbia Pictures being released this weekend that uses basketball as a backdrop, the real-life chemistry between the lead actors has been an easy transition to the characters they play on screen, in large part because they have known each other for years.

Out in theaters now comes this basketball-centered romantic comedy featuring Queen Latifah and Common.

Written by Michael Elliot (Like Mike, Brown Sugar), the title refers to Latifah’s character, Leslie Wright, a physical therapist and die-hard hoops fan that is simply not lucky in finding Mr. Right.

Where did the author stand? Primarily in centerfield. The former Phillie, Cubs and Ranger player, Doug Glanville presents a cornucopia of the everyday occurrences, rituals and pressures that operate hand-in-hand as a major league ballplayer.

One of major league baseball’s oldest franchises gets some well-earned exposure on DVD as this multi-disc set presents four television broadcasts of games that are representative of the pride between Tiger fans and their ball club.

One of baseball’s most charismatic and talented players of all-time is presented in a rich and engrossing new biography that goes well beyond the amazing statistics. Still the numbers reflect the ultimate “five-tool” player:

Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock leads a group of four football films as the leading-All-American winners at the box office. The star of “The Blind Side” who portrays NFL lineman Michael Oher’s adoptive mother, teams with the director of “The Rookie” John Lee Hancock to deliver a popular picture.

The first decade of the twenty-first century has come to a close and there have been some outstanding squads from all the team sports.

You recently witnessed a dominating run by the New York Yankees who became the only team of the decade to win 100 games and the World Series.