The combination of last weekend’s Nor’easter and a series of bumps and bruises I sustained Saturday, gave me ample time to catch up on my movie watching and peruse Netflix for some diamonds in the rough. In the past, I have stressed in The Tale of the Tape  the importance of the dying genre of sports fiction, which to me is much more inspirational than endless stories of football teams who defied the odds. Nothing stimulates the mind and encourages creativity better than seeing the fruits of someone else’s imagination brought to life. And with that in mind, and Christmas just days away, I compiled a list of my favorite sports fiction movies for those last-minute stocking stuffers.

10. “Finding Forrester” – Sean Connery saying, “You’re the man now, dawg!” would be enough to put this in the top 10 alone, but the movie is an entertaining one about a recluse writer that is much cooler than JD Salinger and an inner city youth.

9. “The Mighty Ducks” – This movie would probably be higher on my list if I didn’t hold it responsible for all the horrible things Disney did after it was a success. From “Angels in the Outfield” to “The Big Green” to sticking that stupid duck logo on a professional hockey team, this movie set off a disastrous chain reaction. But it is still the best live action kids’ sports movie out there.

8. “The Wrestler” – This is one of the saddest movies you will ever see. While the plot is a tad flimsy with plenty of holes, the acting of Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood make this an extremely powerful film. While I’m sure Sean Penn was great in “Milk,” I still feel Rourke should have won the best actor Oscar for this movie based simply on the fact that Penn had video and audio of Harvey Milk to mimic while Rourke created an iconic character from scratch.

7. “Field of Dreams” – There is nothing to hate about “Field of Dreams.” The ever self-important JD Salinger (I hate Salinger) refusing to let his likeness be portrayed on the screen was the best thing that happened to this movie because, instead, you get a great performance by James Earl Jones playing a cranky old writer.

6. “The Natural” – This is for the film buffs. It is a cinematic masterpiece, but it unfurls only slightly faster than “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It’s a great movie, but you really have to be in the mood to sit still.

5. “Blue Chips” – This may be the most underrated and forgotten sports movie ever, but it is a very well done drama about high school basketball recruiting.

4. “He Got Game” – Spike Lee obviously couldn’t figure out how to end this movie, but Celtic Ray Allen is surprisingly good as Jesus Shuttlesworth, and Denzel Washington is his usual, scene-commanding self. Plus the soundtrack by Public Enemy is almost better than the movie.

3. “Shaolin Soccer” – This is the precursor to “Kung Fu Hustle,” and is just as funny and entertaining. A group of Kung Fu masters apply their individual talents to soccer, how could this possibly be bad?

2. “Bull Durham” – This is usually number one on everyone else’s lists of sports movies, and it was a tough choice to put it at number two. To say it is the best thing Kevin Costner has ever done is not really a compliment, so let’s just say it is the best baseball movie, fiction or not, that has ever been made.

1. “Rocky” – The first Rocky movie is a masterwork. There are so many classic scenes, from Stallone running up the stairs to drinking raw eggs to the film’s dramatic climax.  It’s a very human story written by Stallone when he was just as starving and hungry as Rocky was in the film, and it is a movie everyone should see at least once.

I agonized over adding “Major League” to the list because it is also a great movie, but it gets sadder every year the Indians don’t win anything, so in the words of Bob Ueker, it is “Juuuuuuuuuuuuust a bit outside.”