- Awesome, Dear Boy: Charlie Sheen is a huge baseball fan and played the sport in high school (in fact, he actually was a pitcher, resulting in his form in the movie being as good as it is), which is why he joined the film.
- California Doubling:
- The scenes set in the Indians' home park were actually filmed in Milwaukee's County Stadium, then-home of the Brewers.note Averted, however, in the case of the spring training scenes, which were filmed at Tucson's Hi Corbett Field, which was the Indians' actual spring training park at the time.
- In the second movie, the then-newly built Oriole Park at Camden Yards doubled as Cleveland Stadium.
- In the third movie, College Park at the College of Charleston acted as the Salt Lake Buzz's stadium. Averted with the big-league club; the fact that the movie got permission to use the Metrodome as a filming location is why the Buzz are a farm team of the Twins in the movie.
- The Cast Showoff:
- Charlie Sheen was actually a pitcher in high school, which gives Vaughn one of the most accurate deliveries in any baseball movie. It also didn't require much fudging to make his fastballs look convincing; although nowhere near Vaughn's triple-digit heater, Sheen was routinely clocked in the high 80s during filming according to Word of God.
- Dennis Haysbert was no slouch when it came to batting. Several of his character's home runs, including the one in the first film's final game, were actually hit by him on camera.
- Corpsing: The actor who played one of Rachel Phelp's attendants/bodyguards just barely holds back a grin when Donovan blows a raspberry to Phelps during the climactic game.
- Defictionalization:
- Bob Uecker was in the middle of his long solid career as a Real Life game announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers. After the first movie came out he did more national games and World Series coverage during The '90s.
- When the real-life Indians games at Jacobs Field were snowed out in 2007, they played the series in Milwaukee. (Granted, it was in Miller Park as County Stadium was gone, but still....) Had the series been played in Cleveland, the Indians were going to give away Rick Vaughn-style glasses.
- The Rick Vaughn bobblehead.
- Many Real Life relief pitchers now have a Theme Song that plays when they come in, in imitation of Rick Vaughn's Wild Thing intro (famous examples include Enter Sandman for Mariano Rivera and Hells Bells for Trevor Hoffman).
- Mitch Williams of the Philadelphia Phillies, known for his lack of control and Hair-Trigger Temper much like Ricky Vaughn, acquired the nickname "Wild Thing" not long after this movie. He also switched his jersey number to 99, which was Vaughn's number in the movienote
- When the Indians made it to the World Series in 2016, there was an attempt by fans to get Uecker into the booth to announce the game. And to top it off, Charlie Sheen showed up to Game 7 dressed as Vaughn, trying to entice the league into letting him throw out the first pitch.
- Dyeing for Your Art: Charlie Sheen worked out and took steroids so that he could throw genuine heaters on film.
- Enforced Method Acting: During the scene where Roger Dorn is shown to be catching and often being hit by baseballs, Corbin Bernsen was being hit by rubberized balls. The bruises on his arms afterwards that he says "Oh shit" to were real.
- Fake Nationality: African-American Dennis Haysbert playing the Cuban immigrant Pedro Cerrano.
- Focus Group Ending: An alternate ending that was filmed would have revealed that the entire film was a Batman Gambit on the part of Rachel Phelps. She would have revealed to Lou that the team was bankrupt and unable to afford top flight players, so she decided to take a chance on unproven players from the lower leagues, whom she personally scouted, and talented older players who were generally considered washed up. She also tells Lou that she likewise felt that he was the right manager to bring the ragtag group together. Phelps made up the Miami scheme and adopted a catty, vindictive persona to unify and motivate the team. As the players believed that she wanted the Indians to fail, she was able to conceal that the team could not afford basic amenities such as chartered jet travel behind a veil of taking them away to spite the players. However, test audiences preferred having Phelps as a straight villain so this was cut.
- Another alternate ending was the film concluding with Jake and Lynn's wedding, but the director felt this took too much focus off the team's victory.
- Irony as She Is Cast:
- In the first film, the Yankees' power hitter, Clu Haywood, is played by Pete Vuckovich who, while he had been a major league baseball player, was actually a pitcher who'd never hit even one home run in his career.
- According to David S. Ward, Wesley Snipes was not a very skilled baseball player in real life, never having played much of it before. Ward said Snipes was so awful at throwing a baseball that they did not have any scenes of him throwing a ball. And despite playing the jackrabbit Hayes, Snipes's foot speed was apparently so unimpressive that his sprinting sequences were put into slow motion to disguise it.
- Missing Trailer Scene: Vaughn is lamenting the Grand Slam he gave up to Haywood. Taylor tries to cheer him up:Jake: That ball wouldn't have been out of a lot of parks.
Rick: Name one.
Jake: Yellowstone.- This scene was redone, with Nikki in Jake's role, in a scene in the 2nd movie.
- The Other Darrin: Omar Epps replaced Wesley Snipes as Willie Mays Hayes in the sequel and mocked the switch showing how Hayes spent his off-season... starting a movie career as an action hero (which is what Snipes did in Real Life).
- Throw It In!: Dennis Haysbert was sucked into the moment when he hit Pedro Cerrano's climactic home run for real and forgot to drop his bat before running the bases. This was kept because it worked for the scenenote .
- Working Title: Dead Last.
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