This is a Goofy "How To" short produced by Disney. There will be spoilers ahead:This is a typical Goofy short. There's a short setup segment covering the equipment, playing field and the basics of baseball and giving the animators an opportunity to do a few visual gags with Goofy in the standard Baseball getup, including a nice bit with the shoes. They show various pitches and take the playing rituals to absurd extremes.The second half of the cartoon is the deciding game of the World Series, Disney style. More accurately, it's the last half of the last inning of the deciding game of the World Series. Goofy is the pitcher, with a three run lead and two outs. All he needs is to get one out and his team wins. Naturally, he manages to blow the lead.Every player looks like Goofy, so it's Goofy batting, pitching, fielding and so on. The gags are visuals which play on the narration and are mostly puns. The ending is a rather predictable though funny ending.This short is on the Disney Treasures Complete Goofy DVD set and is well worth having. Recommended.

Jack Kinney was something of a miracle-worker for Disney, tirelessly concocting short after short involving the iconic Disney characters of Mickey Mouse, Pluto, and Goofy into cute, elaborate little short films that work as cute instructional videos, zippy entertainment, or often, a combination of the two. Kinney's How to Play Baseball is one of the several shorts he created that involved the Goofy character partaking in some kind of sport, whether it be golf, football, swimming, or even self-defense. The short focuses on Goofy's involvement in trying to succeed at the nation's pastime baseball and features a rousing game between the Blue Sox and the Gray Sox. During the game, the film shows numerous elements of the game that result in a surprisingly nailbiting short film. The one thing Kinney consistently does well is animate and conduct the action scenes, which are flawlessly animated for their time and completely unpredictable in their zaniness. Not to mention with a leading character like Goofy, hilarity is almost imminent.Directed by: Jack Kinney.

After being deeply impressed by the sketch-based Goofy short The Art of Self Defense,I decided to see Goofy take on America's favourite past time.The plot:Opening with a birds eye view of how the baseball pitch is set up,the movie then goes down to earth,and has Goofy show "the art of baseball",from long hours training,to reaching the World Series.View on the film:Staring the short with a title card that say's "Disney's education department",the screenplay, (whose writers are not credited anywhere!) sadly drains any paternally wild humour by taking the movie in a dry,exposition heavy direction.Along with the dry screenplay,Fred Shields narration lacks any sense of warmth or irony,whilst director Jack Kinney gives the animation a plain,minimally detailed appearance,which leads to this short being far from a favourite past time.

How to Play Baseball gets off to a slightly slow start. The narrative explanation was very interesting, especially for someone like me who has never played baseball in her life, but it wasn't as funny or as crisply paced as the rest of the cartoon. When it does get going, complete with a suitably ferentic pace, it is non-stop hilarity with the ending and the scene where the player gets hit on the head and walks around in a daze standing out. The sound effects also add much, especially the screeching tyres and wobbling guitar chord. The animation is clean, smooth and very colourful, and the whole different personalities with Goofy as various characters, as with How to Play Football, is a masterstroke.Overall, a great cartoon and one of the finer How to Goofy cartoons. 9/10 Bethany Cox