The Jockster Awards

No question, our national pastime produces good movies, like the Oscar-nominated "Moneyball." But the sport also produces mediocre actors. Pro baseball players have been outacted in movies by athletes from every other sport, including women's figure skating. (RIP, Sonja Henie.)

It's as though speaking and playing baseball are separate skills. (Insert Charlie Manuel joke here.) Former major leaguers Royce Clayton and Derrin Ebert get background roles in "Moneyball," and there's a cameo for former Phillie Tim McCarver as himself. But all the big roles go to Hollywood guys. You want to talk in a movie, play some other sport.

Which one produces the best actors? Not even close. Football. When we make football movies - "Any Given Sunday" - we fill them with football players, like Lawrence Taylor and Jim Brown.

Brown has outacted pro baseball players all by himself - with more than 40 movie credits. Plus he's done "T.J. Hooker," "The A-Team" and "CHiPs."

Also good on screen: pro wrestlers like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, or Andre the Giant, although let's be honest: They're part actor to begin with, so it's not fair to the others.

Who's the best? We won't embarrass baseball players by having them compete with the other pro athletes. But we can break it down by category:

Best Performance by a Baseball Player. With apologies to Jackie Robinson, who played himself in the "Jackie Robinson Story," this award has to go to Bob Uecker in "Major League." Yes, Derek Jeter was impressive in "The Other Guys," but next to Uecker, his work was . . . just a little bit outside. And, he's a Yankee.

Best Performance by a Basketball Player. No, Sixers fans, it was not Julius Erving in "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh." Nor was it Shaquille O'Neal in "Blue Chips." (We'll leave "Kazaam" out of this.) The class of the field is Ray Allen, holding his own opposite Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's "He Got Game."

Best Performance by a Hockey Player. Cam Neely in "Dumb and Dumber"? Not a chance. This one is shared by the bespectacled Hanson brothers in "Slap Shot." All three film brothers - Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson and Dave Hanson - played in the NHL or WHA. They could skate, fight and, shockingly, they could act.

Best Performance by a Football Player. An embarrassment of riches. And not just for cameos like Brett Favre in "There's Something About Mary." There's real acting here. Think of former Lion Alex Karras in "Blazing Saddles" or "Victor Victoria," and the aforementioned Mr. Brown. (My favorite, "Mars Attacks.")

But I think you have to go old school here, with former Los Angeles Ram Woody Strode. He was in Stanley Kubrick's "Spartacus," for goodness sake, and Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West." Had the title role in John Ford's "Sergeant Rutledge." The guy was also one of "The Professionals" along with Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan, any one of whom could have killed anyone in Stallone's "The Expendables."

Best Performance by a Boxer. Here we have one of the great performances by any former pro in any movie: Philly's own Randall "Tex" Cobb in the Coen brothers' "Raising Arizona." Maybe someday we'll have another athlete as well-suited to a role as Cobb was for the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse, but we doubt it.