Angels in the Outfield (1951)

This delightful baseball fantasy stars Paul Douglas as Guffy McGovern, the most hard-hearted, foulmouthed, dictatorial baseball manager in the entire league, who has almost hit rock bottom with his losing team. His Pirates are in seventh place and getting worse. His hard-nosed training methods just aren't paying off. But one day he hears an otherworldy voice telling him to "look for a miracle in the third inning." It turns out that the Archangel Gabriel and his ball club, the Heavenly Choir Nine, want to help McGovern's losing team as long as he promises to stop swearing and fighting. Sure enough, as McGovern cleans up his act, his team starts to improve, and with the help of the invisible ghosts of baseball legends, the Pirates' chances for the pennant begin to look brighter. But things become more complicated for McGovern when a young orphan girl (Donna Cocoran) tells a reporter (Janet Leigh) she has seen angels in the outfield giving the players a hand, and McGovern's bizarre secret for success makes national headlines. Plenty of stars from baseball (including Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio) and Hollywood (Bing Crosby) make cameo appearances in this charming film, which was remade in 1994.