NEW ULM – It’s a whole new ball game with the New Ulm Film Society’s screening of “Bad News Bears.”

The screening starts at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, August 12, at the New Ulm Public Library.

“Bad News Bears” is a 1976 sports comedy that centers on a youth baseball team called the Bears, who are considered one of the worst teams in their league. The team consists of all the players who were not allowed to play on the better, more talented teams. In fact, the Bears only formed out of a settlement for a lawsuit.

The team’s coach, Morris Buttermaker, played by Walter Matthau, is an alcoholic former minor-league pitcher who takes the job out of desperation. Buttermaker only starts taking his coaching duties seriously to keep the players from outright quitting.

Despite having been complete underdogs, the Bears begin to show potential with the addition of two new players: pitcher Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O’Neal) and Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley). Like the rest of the Bear, Whulitzer and Leak are outsiders, but not because of their lack of talent. Whurlitzer is a great pitcher, but as a girl in the boys’ game, her opportunities to play have been limited. Leak might be the most talented player in the youth league, but his status as a juvenile delinquent has kept him off the other teams. As the season comes to a close, the Bears have a chance at the championship, but there is a question of whether the coaches are putting too much pressure on the kids to win.

If this plot synopsis sounds familiar, it is because several other films have borrowed the formula in the five decades since. Nearly every other sport has received “The Bad News Bears” treatment in which a down-on-his-luck coach must teach a rag-tag group of kids. In the end, the coach learns just as much from the kids. It might be a cliché now, but in 1976, this was a unique approach for a sports film.

Before “The Bad News Bears,” most sports movies were about adult players on professional teams. “The Bad News Bears” threw a curveball by making the story about kids. And not the good kids. These kids are clearly the underdogs.

“Bad News Bears” was one of the first films to realize sports stories did not have to be about the best of the best. Movies about the underdogs struggling to improve could be more entertaining. It was also more relatable. Most audiences will never play on a professional baseball team, but for those who had played on a Little League team, “Bad News Bears” looked familiar.

The film also changed up the script by daring to be cynical about baseball. This is not a romanticized story about America’s greatest pastime with larger-than-life heroes. This is a story about the potential ugliness created by competitive sports when people treat it as more than a game. The Bears baseball team only exists out of legal obligation, not out of love for the game. Coach Buttermaker’s big character moment is remembering that baseball is supposed to be fun. That’s the true victory of the movie.

The unique approach of the film and that fact that it is extremely funny, made “The Bad News Bears” not only a classic baseball film, but the start of youth comedy.

The New Ulm Film Society’s screening of “Bad News Bears” is free to the public. Before and after the film, there will be a discussion about the film’s place in film history.