Sports movies are their own genre. Most are dramas and comedies, due to the intensity of the games and rife possibilities of someone getting kicked in the groin. Then you have the occasional action flick (The Last Boy Scout) and chick flick (Jerry McGuire. Yes it is). Horror films are rare, unless you want to count Tom Selleck’s Mr. Baseball. “Okay, so we get Magnum PI to be a DH in Japan! Huge merchandising! Who doesn’t want a mustachioed bobblehead action figure?!?”

What these films all have in common (and Rookie of the Year was a FILM, not a movie) is that they attempt to imitate unpredictable life. The outcome of games aren’t written, and these are. So how do you line them up?

You wait for the inevitable moment when life imitates art (and yes, D3 was ART!).

Here are the Top Five Sports Movies Come True!!

5. MAJOR LEAGUE 2. Counterculture closer Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn (Chaz Sheen) shaves, gets a Gordon Gecko mullet, and sells out in every way imaginable. At the end of the film, he returns to his nasty roots to cut down Quisling slugger Jack Parkman with 102 mph gas.

IRL: Jason Giambi, who looked like former pro wrestler Mankind after spending two weeks living in the stockroom of a Ross Dress for Less, shaves and trims himself to don Yankee Pinstripes in 2002.

The Call: While it would have been great to see Giambi grease it up and switch teams mid-game in the ALDS and win it for the A’s, Giambi left the Yanks without a title and with the stain of being a steroid user. “Upside-down!”

4. LITTLE BIG LEAGUE. An eleven year old inherits the Minnesota Twins and ends up as their manager, coaching and leading his childhood heroes. His soon-to-be stepdad hits a potential play-in winning home run, only to get robbed at the wall by Ken Griffey Jr. He steps down as manager, but still acts as owner, letting someone more experienced run the ship.

IRL: Dan Snyder makes a billion dollars, buys his childhood favorite Washington Redskins, and attempts to create them in his own image: stocky, bespectacled, attitude problem. He goes through more coaches than Kim Kardashian’s ass goes through C list rappers and has established the Redskins as a perennial off-season champ and in-season bye week.

The Call: Snyder hasn’t given the reins to someone else yet. We didn’t see how it turned out for Billy Heywood, but at least he knew he wasn’t the answer. Danny Boy doesn’t have such maturity.

3. THE NATURAL. Yeah, it’s a book, but the book didn’t have Robert Redford in it. Roy Hobbs is a prodigious baseball talent who goes from superstar to fading talent. He’s tapped to throw the final game, only to hit a ridiculous walk-off home run.

IRL: Kirk Gibson was one of the clutchiest of the clutch when he was with Detroit and became “more of a leader” than a hitter with the Dodgers. So the guy has two screwed up legs and a stomach virus and he’s walking around like Forrest Gump pre-Crimson Tide scholarship. You know the rest: pinch hit, walk-off dinger against Dennis Eckersley to win Game 1 of the ’88 World Series.

The Call: Pretty damn close. It’s possible gambling was involved. Perhaps The Judge gave Gibson some six-day-old sushi and a wrench to the patella before the game. Nasty. They already made the video.

2. LITTLE GIANTS. Big shot older bro Kevin O’Shea (Ed O’Neill) dominates his younger bro (Rick Moranis) only to face off against his rag-tag group of misfit Pop Warner kids for the right to rule Ohio (it doesn’t take much). The underdogs defeat the evil establishment by running the ridiculous ‘Annexation of Puerto Rico.’ Brothers find middle ground, weird ‘roided up ten year old is sold into white slavery (it’s in the director’s cut).

IRL: It was tempting to pick the 2008 Giants, but nothing comes close to the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. Power conference OU against little guys Boise State. After getting a big lead, EVERYTHING goes wrong for the Broncos, who end up down a TD with a minute and change left on a brutal pick six. One Hook and Ladder later, they’re going to overtime, and win it on a too-gimmicky-for-the-playground Statue of Liberty play. The running-back keeps going through the end zone and proposes to his cheerleader girlfriend. If it happened on a screen, you’d never stop vomiting.

The Call: If Mike Stoops was the Boise State coach it would be flawless. Also, the O’Shea’s got both of their names on the Urbania Water Tower, and the Broncos are still second class citizens in the fascist BCS. It can’t all come true.

1. SUDDEN DEATH. Jean Claude Van Damme plays a disgraced fireman/butterfly goaltender who must save the Stanley Cup Final from Powers Boothe and his evil plot to blow up the building once the game ends. He must keep the game going, kill a dude dressed like a penguin, and make a sickening glove save in the worst case of mistaken identity ever. He saves his family and the Penguins win the Cup.

IRL: In a 2000 conference semifinal between the Penguins and Flyers, FIVE overtimes were played before Keith Primeau scored on a lazy rainbow wrister. Behind the scenes, Van Damme, fresh off of Timecop a scant six years earlier, killed seventeen members of the Mellon Arena hospitality staff, including two ushers and the lady who operates the nacho cheese machine. He also made thirty saves for both the Flyers and Penguins and no one noticed.

The Call: There wasn’t a bomb and the Penguins lost. But other than that, this actually happened. Life…imitating art…and Sudden Death is both.