The obituaries of legends are written in real time. Upon his passing earlier this week, the cinematic legacy of Robert Redford was swiftly defined by critics, journalists, and fans on social media. It seemed like everyone was jumping in to sing his praises. Even Donald Trump had only nice things to say. As one of the premier stars of Hollywood’s most acclaimed era and the father of the modern independent film movement, his footprint on cinema is so obvious that it barely needed to be restated. His influence on one much-loved genre of film has largely gone unnoticed. I speak, of course, of the baseball film.

For decades, when we thought of the baseball movie, we thought of Redford. His 1984 film The Natural, based on the excellent novel by Bernard Malamud, brought the baseball film back from its most fallow period and set the stage for a winning streak that will likely never be matched. Without The Natural, we would not have had Field of Dreams (another film that ends with a father and son playing catch in a field), Eight Men Out, Bull Durham, Major League, or even The Sandlot. Director Barry Levinson and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel showed the possibilities of baseball cinema, capturing images that had no fealty to realism but instead showed audiences how baseball feels to its most ardent fans: like you’re watching gods play a child’s game.

The baseball film was always there; Thomas Edison’s The Ball Game, a 40-second clip of a game between the Newark Colts and the Reading Coal Heavers, counts as the seminal entry in the genre. The first narrative film was 1916’s Casey at the Bat, a one-hour retelling of Ernest Thayer’s famous Mudville-set poem. The genre found its national purpose, however, during World War II and the postwar era, when films about real-life ballplayers struggling with various afflictions resonated with a generation struggling to process the thousands of young men cut down in their primes. Pride of the Yankees kicked things off with its enormous box-office haul and 11 Oscar nominations, followed by The Stratton Story, The Pride of St. Louis, and The Winning Team, in which a young Ronald Reagan played a pitcher with epilepsy. 

The genre remained largely inert for decades after. The 1970s had a brief revival, with Bang the Drum Slowly, Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, and The Bad News Bears each showing the box-office potential of the game. But the era of disillusionment didn’t jive with baseball’s inherent optimism. When Reagan was elected president, the stage was set for the baseball movie’s return.

The excitement for The Natural was palpable, although little of that had to do with its baseball (baseball ratings were actually declining in the early ‘80s). The film marked Redford’s first time in front of the camera since his double win (Best Director and Best Picture) at the Oscars in 1981 for Ordinary People. With anticipation so high, the film could have been a minor hit even if it was bad. In fact, some critics thought it was; Roger Ebert gave The Natural a mere two stars, citing its “cheap and phony” final shot and guessing that its story had been “seriously meddled with” during post-production. The film grossed $48 million its $28 million budget but was only the 14th highest-grossing movie of the year, just behind Purple Rain and Clint Eastwood’s Tightrope. It did earn four Oscar nominations, including one for Deschanel’s indelible cinematography, although Redford and the film came away empty-handed.

Still, the legacy of The Natural outpaced its on-the-ground reception largely due to Redford himself. He was not only Hollywood’s brightest star at this time. He was also a tastemaker known, even before he turned to directing, for being hands-on with his projects, often choosing his own writers and directors. Attaching himself to The Natural, not as director but as a star—putting his face on the poster—was like a stamp of approval for the baseball film as a whole. It was a signal to Hollywood executives and moviegoers alike that this sport was worth investing in.

He also brought something to the genre that it had long been lacking: verisimilitude. During the making of The Pride of the Yankees, the efforts of Gary Cooper to learn baseball was an ongoing story, and the filmmakers eventually had to reverse the footage because Cooper couldn’t learn how to swing left-handed. One of the last mainstream baseball movies had been 1957’s Fear Strikes Out about major leaguer Jimmy Piersall, who suffered a nervous breakdown on the field. Actor Anthony Perkins was widely derided for his horrendous approximation of a professional athlete. A few years later, Hollywood decided to correct the problem by casting Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris as themselves in minor roles in Safe at Home! They were equally derided for their acting. In Redford, The Natural found both an actor and an athlete. Redford couldn’t exactly pass for Ted Williams (on whom he modeled his swing), he was convincing in a way no prior baseball movie star had been. When the ball sailed into the stands—or, as in the film’s climax, into the lights—you believed it came off his bat.

This accuracy was likely important to The Natural’s director, Barry Levinson, the first baseball film director to have grown up in the age of television The filmmakers that followed The Natural with their own baseball films—Ron Shelton (Bull Durham), John Sayles (Eight Men Out), Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams), and David S. Ward (Major League)—are of the same generation as Levinson, and they put a similar emphasis on accuracy. Kevin Costner took Ron Shelton to the batting cages to prove to him he could be convincing as the all-time minor league home run leader, and D.B. Sweeney played with a minor league team to prepare to play Shoeless Joe Jackson for Sayles. These days, accuracy is a prerequisite in sports films. Redford deserves credit for leading the way.

With its tantalizing blend of authenticity and mythology, The Natural quickly became the legend that real-life baseball aspired to. When Kirk Gibson hobbled to the plate to hit his famous World Series home run against Dennis Eckersley in 1988, every fan watching on television heard Randy Newman’s iconic score in the air. More recently, the film’s climactic moment has been replaced by Moneyball; whenever a big moment occurs in reality, fan videos set to that film’s postrock score pop up immediately. It makes sense that Brad Pitt, whose career and, well, face has always reminded moviegoers of Redford, would find yet another way to replace him. But Redford is no Wally Pipp; his legacy in film and baseball has lasted a lifetime and beyond.

Noah Gittell (@noahgittell) is a culture critic from Connecticut who loves alliteration. His work can be found at The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Ringer, Washington City Paper, LA Review of Books, and others. His book, Baseball: The Movie, is currently available wherever you buy books.