The Bad News Bears – The Sports Fan Project

Fan Teaser Solution: Week 198

August 9, 2026August 5, 2026DouglasTHillLeave a comment

**There’s no way this can be 50-years-old already!?!**

The Bad News Bears arrived in theaters just in time for the start of the Major League Baseball season in 1976.

It debuted on Wednesday, April 7, one day in advance of the Cincinnati Reds’ season-opening 11-5 victory over the Houston Astros.

While the Big Red Machine rolled to a 102-60 regular-season record, defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers by 10 games in the National League West, and then swept the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL Championship, and the New York Yankees in the World Series, it’s unclear who had a better summer, the Reds or the Bears.

Produced with a budget of $9 million, The Bad News Bears wound up earning $42.3 million at the box office, which is a pretty solid return on investment.

Coach Buttermaker with members of his Bears' baseball team. — **^{Coach Morris Buttermaker, portrayed by Walter Matthau, sits in the dugout during one of the Bears’ games. (Paramount Studios Photo)}**

The film starred Walter Matthau as Morris Buttermaker, an ex-ballplayer turned drunk with a gambling habit, who took the job as coach of this ragtag group of kids to earn some pocket change from a busy father who didn’t have time to do it himself.

Mathau’s co-headliner on the movie poster was Tatum O’Neal, who, at just 12-years-old, already had an Academy Award to her credit as supporting actress in 1973’s Paper Moon. She portrays Amanda Whurlizer, who is the daughter of Buttermaker’s ex-girlfriend. He taught her how to pitch, and she’s brought aboard to shore up the pitching staff.

The film, which was written by Bill Lancaster (son of Hollywood luminary Burt Lancaster), skewered the competitive nature of youth sports and parental behavior in particular. (How prescient it was, right?) As the Motion Picture Association of America didn’t have a PG-13 rating for nearly another decade, The Bad News Bears was awarded a PG rating despite the drinking, smoking, and coarse language throughout (from the adults and the children).

So, if you’re just biding your time until the annual Little League World Series ramps up later this month in South Williamsport, PA, crack open a cold beer of your choosing (any will do, just ask Coach Buttermaker!) rewatch The Bad News Bears and let me know what you think.

^{The original theatrical trailer. (Some language may be offensive.)}

^{The cast reunites at Turner Classic Movies’ 2026 Film Festival.}

Some little-known facts from The Bad News Bears.

Just to review, The Fan Teaser was the creation of former Ann Arbor News Sports Editor Geoff Larcom. Longtime friend and fellow Ann Arbor News alum, Pat Schutte, took it to heights previously unknown. We aim to keep it alive here at The Sports Fan Project. The cropped photo and the accompanying clue give you an idea as to who or what the image is of. We invite you to use the Comment option to take a crack at solving the Teaser and, if you’re so inclined, participate in some good-spirited banter with your fellow sports fans. The Fan Teaser will appear each Friday morning with the reveal coming to you Sunday.

The Fan Teaser: Week 96 Solution

August 25, 2024August 23, 2024DouglasTHillLeave a comment

**^{A full five years before Dwight Clark made “The Catch”}**
**^{there was this notable grab from an unexpected hero.}**

OK, OK, so it wasn’t a real competition catch, but Timmy Lupus‘ home run stealing nab in the top of the sixth inning against the hated Yankees in the 1976’s “The Bad News Bears” set up one of the most phenomenal fictious finishes in baseball film history. We can only hope for a similar wild ride when this year’s Little League Baseball World Series wraps up in South Williamsport, PA.

^{Here’s the clip of Lupus making his improbably catch.}

^{The Bears’ epic response to being league runners up.}

Just to review, The Fan Teaser comes courtesy of longtime buddy, Pat Schutte. The cropped photo below and the accompanying clue give you an idea as to who or what the image is of. We invite you to use the Comment option to take a crack at solving the Teaser and, if you’re so inclined, participate in some good-spirited banter with your fellow sports fans. The Fan Teaser will appear each Friday morning with the reveal coming to you Sunday.

The Fan Teaser: Week 21 Solution

March 5, 2023March 2, 2023DouglasTHillLeave a comment

**^{Smoke ’em if you got ’em! Ballplayers sure}** **^exercised**
**^{some unique traits in the ’70s.}** **^{Stuff that wouldn’t}**
**^{fly these days.}**

If you were able to tell that smoke belonged to Kelly Leak, played by the incomparable Jackie Earle Haley, from the 1976 youth baseball movie, The Bad News Bears, take the rest of the day off;-)

We’re pretty certain there’s no way this movie is Rated PG if it were released today or, for that matter, if it would even be made at all.

That said, the filmmakers from 47 years ago were pretty prescient looking into the crystal about the ongoing state of youth sports: Coaches that were paid to do the job, recruiting of star players to join the team, lawsuits filed just to get the team into the league, allegations of wrongdoing, abusive coaches, questionable sponsors, substance abuse. Anything else we missed?

I remember seeing this for the first time at the Decatur Drive-In with the tinny sounding little speaker in the window of our family’s station wagon. I found it to be funny because, to a not-quite-10-year-old it was. Upon revisiting it as an adult … whoa, plenty of heavy topics throughout.

In terms of actor Jackie Earle Haley, he played the character Moocher in another brilliant 1970’s sports movie, Breaking Away, about the Little 500 on the campus of Indiana University.