Plot Summary (The Bad News Bears) Bad News Bears
Buttermaker is paid to coach a team that exists because of a lawsuit
Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau) is an alcoholic ex-minor-league pitcher who now cleans swimming pools in the San Fernando Valley. Councilman Whitewood, a lawyer who sued the local Little League into accepting an expansion team of misfits, hands him a check in the parking lot of a baseball field and tells him he's the new manager of the Bears. The other six teams, led by Roy Turner's iron-disciplined Yankees, were chosen by selecting kids "that came who could play." The Bears get whatever is left.
The roster is the league's reject list
The Bears are the kids the league did not want — Engelberg, an overweight catcher who eats during practice; Lupus, who can't catch and never speaks; Tanner Boyle, a furious five-footer with a slur catalogue and a temper; Ogilvie, a stat-keeper who reads the bench from a notebook; Ahmad Abdul-Rahim, an outfielder who wants to play where Hank Aaron played; the Agilar brothers, who don't speak English; Rudi Stein, a bench-warmer; Toby Whitewood, the councilman's son; and Jimmy Feldman. Buttermaker reads names from a clipboard and barely engages. First practice he holds up a baseball: "This is a baseball. The object of the game is to keep the baseball within the confines of the playing field."
Opening day produces a 26-0 inning and a forfeit
On opening day the Bears take the field against the Yankees in front of parents and a councilman's speech. The Yankees score twenty-six runs without recording a single out. Joey Turner — Roy's son — beans Tanner with a pitch. Buttermaker calls time and forfeits the game. Roy Turner offers an alternative on the way back: "Why don't you do this league a favor? You and the Bears just drop out." Outside the park, Ahmad climbs an oak tree, strips off his uniform, and refuses to come down — "Don't deserve to wear no uniform." Buttermaker tells him a story about Hank Aaron's first sandlot year: forty-two errors, nine years old, almost quit. The first time he engages with one of his players as a person.
Buttermaker recruits a ringer named Amanda Whurlitzer
Whitewood wants to disband the team. Buttermaker leaves City Hall and drives directly to a corner where eleven-year-old Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O'Neal) sells maps to celebrities' homes. Amanda is the daughter of an ex-girlfriend Buttermaker was with for years and abandoned. He taught her how to throw a curveball when she was eight. She refuses cleanly: "You're not my father, and I ain't interested in playing baseball for you anymore. So why don't you get back into that sardine can and go vacuum the bottom of the Pacific Ocean?" He chips away at her over several scenes — reverse psychology about ignorant hicks buying dumb maps — and finally signs her with a deal involving twelve ballet lessons, French jeans, and modeling money.
Amanda's arm stops the bleeding; the team starts winning
Amanda's debut: three strikeouts; Buttermaker walks the bench through a Vaseline trick. The Bears actually field. They beat the White Sox. They keep winning. The team starts answering the league's contempt with its own chant: "Bad news for the White Sox!" Buttermaker delivers a team-loss / team-win speech that lands as a scolding. The defensive substitution — one ringer for respectability — is paying out.
Kelly Leak's arm comes over the fence
A deep practice fly ball clears the outfield fence. Outside the park, Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) — a juvenile delinquent on a motorcycle, the best young athlete in the area — picks it up and fires a strike back to the infield. Buttermaker, who has spent the previous hour chasing him off, reverses on a line: "Why screw around, guys? If the guy can play ball, he can play ball. Let's get him on the team." Amanda recruits Kelly at a pinball machine — she loses a bet, he gets a Rolling Stones concert date. The defensive substitution has metastasized into offensive substitution. The team Buttermaker was paid to coach is being shoved aside for the team he can win with.
The new approach pays out and starts costing
The Bears beat the Athletics 3-2 on Kelly's home run, after Buttermaker tells him to handle every ball: "I want you handling the ball as much as possible out there today. This game is too damn important for us." They clinch the championship game against the Yankees. The cost arrives in pieces. Amanda asks Buttermaker to dinner; he refuses harshly — "I'm an old, broken-down, third-rate ballplayer… I'm a bum." A teammate complains: "Kelly's a crud. He's been hogging the ball in all these games and we're sick of it." The team has noticed.
The championship game ratchets the new approach to the breaking point
Yankees vs. Bears for the title. Amanda is spiked at second; Buttermaker calls Roy Turner a "pus-head" for an intentional walk and one batter later orders Rudi Stein to lean into a fastball. Buttermaker yells at the bench until some of the Bears are crying. Across the field, in the inning's apex, Roy Turner walks to the mound and slaps Joey across the face for not throwing at a hitter cleanly enough. Buttermaker watches in silence. The substitution approach has just been externalized one degree past where Buttermaker has been willing to take it himself.
Joey Turner refuses; Buttermaker pulls the ringers
The next half-inning, Engelberg hits a comebacker. Joey fields it cleanly. He stands holding the ball, watches the Bears round the bases, drops the glove, takes off his cap, and walks off. The game is tied 3-3. The championship is now winnable on the substitution logic Buttermaker has been running. Buttermaker turns to his bench: "Tanner, Toby, Regi, and Jimmy, you're sitting on the bench. Ogilvie, Lupus, Miguel, and Jose, you take their place." The benched players want to stay benched — they understand the lineup change loses the game. Lupus protests: "I want to win, so don't send me in." Buttermaker: "You didn't come into this life just to sit around on a dugout bench."
The Bears lose 7-6 and refuse the trophy
Whitewood objects from the stands. Buttermaker threatens to shave off half his mustache. Lupus catches a fly ball — the kid who couldn't catch makes the play because the new approach put him in the game. Stein hustles into a double play; Ogilvie walks; Ahmad bunts after announcing a home run; Miguel walks. Bases loaded for Kelly. His deep hit drives in the team-shaped runs and his bid for the inside-the-park homer falls one base short at home. Yankees win 7-6. Beer comes out of a cooler in the dugout — substance the same as the cold-open beer in the Cadillac, relation inverted. Kelly asks Buttermaker to teach him to hit next spring. Roy Turner hands over a second-place trophy; the Yankees deliver an apology and a condescending cheer. Tanner takes the trophy and throws it across the mound: "You can take your apology and your trophy and shove it straight up your ass." Lupus seconds: "Just wait till next year." Bizet's Carmen — the Toreador's March, triumphal music for matadors — swells over the closing seconds.
See Plot Structure (The Bad News Bears) for the Two Approaches reading and Backbeats (The Bad News Bears) for the full beat-by-beat breakdown.