Major League (1989)

◄ Major League (1989)

Audio/visual unsynchronised

In the Indians locker room prior to the opening game, Ricky Vaughn is sitting in a chair and nervously flipping and catching a baseball into the air with one hand. Jake Taylor comes over and says, "Relax kid, we've got 161 of these games left to go." On the next flip, Vaughn is supposed to be rattled by Taylor's comment and miss the catch (evidenced by the audible "thud" of the ball on the floor). However, if you look at the bottom of the frame, you can actually see Vaughn still catch the ball in his hand.
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Character error

When Dorn throws out a Yankee to end the top of the first inning in the final game Harry Doyle (Bob Uecker) says that he threw over to "Metcalf" but the first baseman's name was Ward, as that was what was on the back of his jersey.
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When Jake confronts Roger in his house after tanking the next to last play in the Oakland game, Jake says he didn't come up with the ball Riker hit. The player who hit it had Alcantara on his jersey.
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Continuity

At the end of the movie, right after Willie Mays Hayes has been called safe at home, he jumps up and runs out to Jake Taylor, and as they celebrate, his batting helmet disappears and reappears between shots.
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When the Indians are playing Oakland in the "national television" game and Mike Rexman (Oakland), is at the plate the sun angle changes drastically between when Jake goes out to talk to Rick Vaughn and the last pitch of the game.
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In the game against Oakland, when Rexman steps up to the plate, right after he hits the ball he drops the bat. In the next shot he has it in his hand again.
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The necklace on Vaughn's chest as he's being kissed goodbye by Mrs. Suzanne Dorn moves between shots.
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The same fan comes out of the stands onto the field twice.
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In the top of the 9th during the one game playoff against the Yankees, the stadium clock reads 10:20 PM as Vaughn is coming in from the bullpen. In the bottom of the 9th right as the Duke comes in from the bullpen, the stadium clock still reads 10:20 PM.
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In the final playoff game, as Cerrano waits at the plate with Dorn on first in the 7th inning, there is a brief wide shot of the field, and the bases are empty.
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The Stroh's and Old Milwaukee Beer signs on the back fence of the spring training camp are replaced by Miller signs in one shot.
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In the movie, Lynn's last name is Westland. In the credits, her last name is Wells.
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At the end, when the Yankees' first baseman is throwing home, the home plate umpire has no hat on. His hat is on in all other shots.
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In the final game against the Yanks, the # 37 player is hitting, Jake Taylor then throws to 1st base to pick off the #37 player. The #37 player appears later in the game, this time being referred to by a different name by Harry Doyle.
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When Dorn gets his hit in the 7th inning of the playoff game, he rounds first base and the first base coach is #2. When he gets back to the base Leach (the first base coach) is #16.
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When Dorn (#24) gets his hit in the 7th inning of the playoff game, the shot of the base runner rounding first base shows his number as #8, and the first base coach has #2. When his face is shown again, Dorn's number is back to #24, and the first base coach is shown to be wearing #16 in all other shots.
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For Serano's home run in the playoff game with the Yankees - in a portion of the shots the bat is perfectly clean and shiny and the next second it is dirty and does not look as though it has ever been cleaned.
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When the guy hits a home run and the fans are arguing that it's too high or too hard and then the other guy says, "Who gives a shit, it's gone," the words don't match his mouth.
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During spring training, after the game against the Cubs, when players are looking to see if they got cut, Cerrano takes the snake and rubs the face of it on the paint on the locker. There is already a circle painted on the locker, and Cerrano makes a cross inside the circle with the snake. When the camera changes views, there is no cross on his locker.
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In the last game, Dorn throws to a right handed first baseman. There is then a long shot of the players leaving the field and the first baseman is obviously left-handed.
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When Taylor is in Lynn Wells boyfriend's apartment, his beer-glass goes from half-filled to three-quarters filled.
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In the final scene of the film, at the point where Jake is holding Lynn up and Vaughn and Willie exchange their special handshake, you can see that Willie's jersey is much cleaner than it was while running the bases in the process of scoring the winning run.
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After the Indians start winning and have a record that is roughly 60-61, a series of newspaper articles sequentially appears with news of the Indians' latest success. The dates on the newspapers are inconsistent. The first one is some time in May (you can't have played 121 games by May!). Then as the season progresses and the Indians move toward first place, the newspaper dates move backwards into April, again an impossibility.
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In the final "bunt and steal" scene, after the signs have been given by Lou Brown and the base coach, Taylor is knocked down by an up and in fastball by the Duke. Hayes should have been running on the pitch as he would have assumed Taylor was bunting based on the signs. There's no way the signal would have included a "run on the 2nd pitch" instruction as Taylor already had one strike on him. Hayes steals on the next pitch and scores on Taylor's bunt single.
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While the Yankees are batting in the top of the 9th in the playoff game, the scoreboard shows a 0 for runs in the inning for NY. After Haywood's strikeout ends the inning, they cut to a closeup of the scoreboard putting up the 0.
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In Jake's last at-bat, the Yankee pitcher throws him a brush-back pitch which causes him to dive into the dirt to avoid being hit. While on the ground, his uniform is very dirty from the dust of the batter's box. The Indian's radio announcer (Bob Ueker) says that "Taylor refuses to dust himself off". However, as Jake re-takes his stance, his uniform is clean. As Jake crosses first base on his bunt attempt, he falls into the dirt of the base path, again becoming very soiled. But in the post-game scenes he again has a clean, spiffy uniform.
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In the scene where Rick Vaughn pitches for the first time during spring training, the "NO PEPPER" sign is on the left side of home plate before Vaughn pitches. After Vaughn throws his pitch, the sign moves to a location directly above home plate which is where the ball shatters the sign.
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Just after all the players report to spring training, there is a shot of Roger Dorn walking with his duffel bag over his shoulder in the room with all the bunk beds. Right behind him, an extra playing one of the baseball player hopefuls (he has a mustache and is carrying a bag also) is walking behind him. The scene cuts to Dorn saying hello to Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger). When it cuts back to just Dorn, you can see that same extra doing exactly the same walking pattern he just did a second ago, like he just arrived twice.
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In the final game, during Haywood's last at bat, Jake Taylor (the catcher) is nearly standing for the final "strike-out" pitch by Vaughn. First, a catcher would never stand that tall, unless they were making the pitch an obvious high, out-of-the-strike-zone pitch. Second, as Haywood swings through the pitch for Strike 3, the ball is shown hitting Jake Taylor's catcher's mitt perfectly in the middle of the strike zone, about a foot below where the ball was just one frame earlier. Incorrect. Catchers definitely stand that tall, although it is not common. Vaughn hit the glove, but hit it at the high target set by Taylor. There is nothing in the film that suggests the pitch was in the strike zone.
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When Dorn throws out the runner at first, the throw is caught by a right handed first baseman. When the Indians run off the field, it is an entirely different group of players. The 1B is now left-handed and wearing Dorn's #24, the pitcher is much younger looking and wearing #10.
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Errors in geography

The stadium that the Cleveland Indians play their home games in throughout the movie is actually the old Milwaukee County Stadium, former home of the Milwaukee Brewers. Some billboards/ads in the stadium were not removed, like advertisements for area radio stations 94 WKTI and 620 WTMJ.
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Factual errors

When Pedro Cerrano gets mad at Harris in the locker room he shouts "¡Chíngate Cabrón!" Cerrano is supposed to be Cuban, but that expression is Mexican Spanish, rarely heard in Cuba.
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There are members of the New York Yankees wearing numbers 32 and 37. Both of these numbers have long been retired. 32 had been worn by Elston Howard and 37 had been worn by Casey Stengel.
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Harris gives up a double in the top of the 9th inning, which represents the 8th hit of the game for the Yankees. He walks the next hitter and relieved by Vaughn who throws three straight heaters to end the inning. When the Indians are up in the bottom of the ninth, the scoreboard shows that the Yankees have nine hits when, in fact, they only have eight.
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During the pre-game prayer the smoke from Pedro's altar sets off the locker room sprinklers. That type of sprinkler is activated by heat, not smoke, so they would not have gone off.
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After Taylor grounds out in the 7th for 2 outs Dorn singles and Cerano homers. Taylor comes up in the ninth with 2 out and a man on. That implies 9 at bats since he grounded out. There are only 8 at bats between the same spot in the batting order. 7th inning single, homer and 3rd out of inning. 8th inning 3 outs and 9th inning 2 outs and a single. Either there should have been only one out or Dorn up with two outs.
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In the all important bottom of the ninth inning, prior to Jake Taylor calling his shot, Willie Mayes Hayes is at first. What probably is a hit and run, Taylor swings and misses while Hayes is headed for second. As Hayes slides in to second you hear more than one person call "safe".
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In the last game against the Yankees, at "Two outs, top of the ninth, still tied at 2, Harris working on a 7-hitter" the local NBC station name is visible on the scoreboard over Harris' shoulder as WTMJ TV 4. WTMJ 4 is based out of Milwaukee. If it were Cleveland, it would read WKYC 3.
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As Cerrano hits his game tying home run in the playoff game against the Yankees, he is seen running the bases with the bat in his hand, which (then and now) is an eject-able offense in Major League Baseball.
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During the National TV game against the Athletics, Taylor was talking to Rexman (who is at bat), the catcher talking to the batter is (then and now) an eject-able offense in Major League Baseball. Edit: False. Catchers engage with friendly trash talk with hitters all of the time. Talking to a hitter is absolutely not an "ejectable offense."
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At the end of the final game when Jake sees Lynn in the stands, there is a beer vendor behind her. MLB does not allow beer sales after the 7th inning.
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The sign in Spanish during the introduction of Jake doesn't make sense it say's "Tengo Quartos Para Renta" which say's "I Have Quart's for Rent."
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Miscellaneous

In the ninth inning of the final game against the Yankees, Vaughn comes out to retire the last hitter. With the bases loaded, Jake (the catcher) only gives one set of signals. In such situations, there are two, sometimes even three sets of signals to prevent on base players from stealing signals and communicating to the batter what is coming.
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Incorrectly regarded as goofs

The Spring Training site for the Indians is in Tucson, Arizona, according to the advertisement on the taxi Jake Taylor gets out of. While it has since moved, this was correct at the time of the film.
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In the bus, Lou Brown tells Vaughn that he is starting Harris in the Yankee game instead of him. Vaughn is clearly a starting pitcher and would thus not normally be in the bullpen for the final out of the game. However, it is not uncommon for all pitchers (including starters) to be available during winner-take-all games. For example, Randy Johnson pitched in relief for the Mariners and was the winning pitcher in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS against the Yankees.
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When pitching, Vaughn is using an outfielder's glove which is somewhat bigger than a glove a "real" pitcher or infielder would use. However, many baseball players are highly superstitious and many pitchers do use non-infielder gloves, including at least one pitcher in the early 90s who used a catcher's mitt.
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Cerrano and Haywood tossed their bats and their helmets to the ground, which (then and now) is believed to be an ejectable offense in Major League Baseball. However, this is only true when an umpire feels the player is "showing up the umpire." Any umpire would see this is in disgust of their own action and would never throw out a player for that.
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Revealing mistakes

At the opening game there is nobody in the stadium. A clock in the scoreboard reveals that it is 10:40am, too early for Major League Baseball games.
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Obvious stunt runner (longer hair) for Dorn as he rounds first base during the playoff game.
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During Manager Lou Brown's opening-day locker room speech, there is a flopped shot of Jake Taylor. The team name is obscured but the "Chief Wahoo" logo is backwards and on the opposite sleeve.
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After Vaughn strikes out Haywood to end the top of the 9th inning, the Yankees first base coach is still seen in the 1st base coach's box as the Indians enter their dugout to begin the bottom of the 9th inning. In reality, the coach would have left the field right away.
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In the last game of the series, whenever they pan to the score board, the clock says 10:20 every time it's shown, no matter how much time has passed.
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The one game playoff is played in the first week of October in Cleveland. Yet the people are dressed in shorts and t-shirts which would not be indicative of the weather in Cleveland at that time of the year. Additionally, Municipal Stadium sat right on the banks of Lake Erie, which made it feel 10-20 degrees colder then it actually was. It would probably feel in the 40's to early 50's at best. It would far too cold for the summer attire worn by the fans.
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When the team is traveling on the team bus, the movie cuts twice to an outside shot of the moving bus. It is clear that the bus is empty.
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In all of the newspapers shown for 1988 and beyond, the headlines and pictures are about baseball, but the actual stories are not.
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Spoilers

The goof below may give away important plot points.

Continuity

In the one-game playoff with the Yankees, after Taylor bunts Willie Mays Hays tries to score. When the catcher catches the ball thrown from first base you see the umpire behind him without his cap on in a shot filmed from behind first. In the next two shots with Mays sliding and the umpire calling 'safe, safe' he is wearing his cap again.
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