The Babe charts the life of America's first superstar athlete from his lonely childhood in a Dickensesque Baltimore orphanage to his last game as a player for the Boston Braves. John Goodman is just right as the big-hearted child whose appetite for food, women, cigars, booze, and good times knows no limits. He loves the sport of baseball more than anything else including his two wives — an unhappy homebody (Trini Alvarez) and then a former Ziegfeld girl (Kelly McGillis). This film, written by John Fusco and directed by Arthur Hiller, does no damage to the legend of one of America's first superstars.