Music, too, plays an important role in how the two movies are perceived. The music selections in The Bad News Bears comes from Georges Bizet's Carmen, all orchestra music, and often rather playful-sounding. Set over the montages of the Bears botching their defensive plays, missing balls, and falling down, it makes it all even more hillarious, and causes us to receive the events as comedic.

Hardball, on the other hand, uses music very differently. There was a score composed for the film, but it is subtle, and most often, the music playing while the boys are playing ball is the type of music they listen to, such as Notorious B.I.G. or DMX. This emphasizes how playing this game is important to them and as important to them as their music is. Playing ball well makes them feel good about themselves. Music is in fact central to the plot in a few instances. One of the boys, Miles, likes to listen to his Walkman while he pitches, listening the The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Big Poppa" over and over again. The coach of the Buawahs demands that he be made to remove them, and without them, Miles can't concentrate on his pitching, allowing everything else to distract him. In their final game against the Buawahs, their game to determine if they go to the championships, the whole team sings the song for him as he pitches so he can concentrate. Also, this song becomes Conor's song of triumph as he wins a bet that will allow him to pay off all his debts and get out of gambling for good. That he chooses to sing this to celebrate reflects how the boys on his team have become such an influential part of his life.