The Jason Salas Experience

I'm not too much of a man to admit that I cry at movies. And no other genre captivates me and has me pretending I've got something stuck in my eye than powerful sports flicks. I have, do and will continue to let great moments lushly depicted on film having to do with the athletic experience take control over my tear ducts. And I don't care who knows. It's who I am.

Maybe it's the thematic return to one's childhood. Maybe it's the rare chance for even a brief moment to escape whatever chains bind you and become something larger than you are. Perhaps it's the great equalizer in the lopsided society in which we live. More than likely it's that in today's warped world of reality TV, pre-scripted drama and over-reliance on technology, sports cinema is the closest thing we've got left to emulating true human emotion.

Here are the movies and accompanying scenes that, no matter what, get me reaching for a tissue every time:

• "The Karate Kid" (1984) - when I was 10 I totally looked like Ralph Macchio, so my parents and I watched this movie several times in the theater, and had it running on videotape in perpetuity. How can you not like the story of an out-of-place kid who doesn't fit in with the cool crowd, getting the girl, finding friendship in the form of an aging retired Japanese war veteran and defeating his rivals, eventually winning their respect? The crescendo of the final "crane kick" scene busts me up everytime, worse than Daniel laying some sweet chin music on Johnny. Great soundtrack, too.
  
• "Best of the Best" (1989) - this is one of those films that gets the patriotic spirit in all of us soaring. It's very low-budget so the production quality is poor, but with James Earl Jones and Ahmad Rashad has great acting (an oxymoronic statement given Eric Roberts' lead role), and an anticlimactic ending that anyone will respect and remember forever.
  
• "A League of Their Own" (1992) - a given of a good baseball movie is the ability to jerk most people's tears. There are several such notable scenes in Penny Marshall's classic about the All-American Girls Baseball League, but the one that gets me is when Tom Hanks, as Rockford Peaches manager Jimmy Dugan, delivers a telegram from the War Department to Betty Spaghetti about the overseas death of her husband. The anticipation of Dugan's slow walk while all the players hold their breath is chilling.
  
• "Cool Runnings" (1993) - go ahead and take a moment to laugh at me for this one. Everyone does. Maybe it's because I'm from the islands that I have a deeper appreciation for the pride and courage it took for four men from Jamaica to compete out of their element in the Winter Olympics. The memorable scene is when the men's quest, just starting to earn the respect of the world as underdogs, goes terribly wrong when their ill-crafted bobsled comes apart, hurling them into defeat. They hoist their broken toboggan and on their shoulders symbolically carry it together in unison across the finish line. That's island pride. Yah, mon.
  
• "Field of Dreams" (1989) - "Hey...dad? You wanna have a catch?" 'Nuff said. Every boy can identify with such anxious timidity. And it breaks me down every time I see it.
• "Major League" (1989) - another one of those timeless pictures about our national pastime dealing with overcoming odds and being the best. It's funny when it has to be and backs off when appropriate. This is Charlie Sheen's best acting work outside of playing the part of a young New York City financier and confused idealist soldier in the Vietnam war. It also introduced most of us to Wesley Snipes.
  
• "Little Giants" (1994) - I can watch this every day for a year and not get tired of it. Most football movies don't get me sniffling ("Brian's Song" is unfortunately left off of this list, as it's a made for TV movie), but the scene with the clumsy kid who'd have trouble walking down the street without tripping over himself making a mad dash for the end zone, suddenly blessed with Barry Sanders-esque jukes in order to run into his estranged father's outstretched arms will make any guy turn away from his date and cough lightly.
  
• "*61" (2001) - now label me a hypocrite for including Billy Crystal's directorial debut in this list (it's an HBO movie, not a theatrical release), but the tragic tale of the Summer of 1961 and the race to break Babe Ruth's homerun record by Yankee teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris was awe-inspiring in both good and bad ways. It's a very emotional picture that captures Maris' torment and Mantle's career decline - and the strain it put on their friendship.
  
• "Rudy" (1993) - this should be on everyone's list, and I identify with it, being the kid everyone said would never amount to anything. The final revelation and slow dissolve to black that Daniel "Rudy" Ruetigger was the last player carried on the shoulders of Fightin' Irish football players is emotional moviemaking at its best.
  
• "The Cutting Edge" (1992) - again, laugh if you want. I worked at Blockbuster when the film about figure skating was first released on VHS, and we'd play it constantly. I sometimes wake up at night screaming "Toepick!" residually. D.B. Sweeney, once I figured out he wasn't John Cusack, was brilliant as the washed-out hockey player, and the angelic Moira Kelly was equal parts princess and bitch.
  
• "Miracle" (2004) - now ANYONE who doesn't shed a tear after watching Disney's recollection of the greatest moment in American sports history suffers from Stiff Upper Lip Syndrome and should get themselves checked out. The pivotal piece is when Mike Eruzione and Jim Craig led the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team out onto the ice against the Soviets. They didn't know they were about to make history, but they held their heads high and marched proud. Just writing about it now gives me goosebumps. I went to see this with a buddy of mine who's not a sports fan, and he wept.
  
• "American Anthem" (1986) - Mitch Gaylord and Janet Jones (the future Mrs. Wayne Gretzky) put on a stellar performance at the height of one of several periods of our interest in American gymnastics. What got me bawling was the athletes coming back from devastating injury to win in dramatic fashion. At a young age, this impressed upon me that anything, anytime was possible. (Equally as lasting is the memory of one of the raunchier love sequences in a PG-13 movie I witnessed at the tender age of 12.)