Who’s On Worst: Trouble with the Curve

Let it be known, first and foremost, I feel bad for using John Goodman as the header image here, but it’s also a good reminder that “Hey, John Goodman is in this movie.”

About two months ago, I posted my list of the worst baseball movies ever, and at the time I said Trouble with the Curve was on the top of that list for sure. When I wrote that article it had been eight years or more since I’d seen the movie. Then it won the podcast vote by a landslide, and Brett, Darby, and I were forced to watch it again.

It did not improve with age.

The story sees aging baseball scout Gus (Clint Eastwood) head out on a trip to determine if the Atlanta Braves should sign the next-big-thing “five-tool” prospect in Bo Gentry, a high-schooler built like a shed. Worried for Gus’s health, his friend and colleague Pete (Goodman) asks Gus’s lawyer daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) to go on the road with her father. Along the way they meet former pitcher Johnny (Justin Timberlake, and who we will repeatedly call Jimmy in this podcast), who is now a scout for the Red Sox.

The whole thing is a disaster from beginning to end, and you can find out why we think so by listening below.