Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona had a cameo in ‘Major League.’

CLEVELAND — Thirty years ago this year, “Major League” debuted in theaters across the country, and current Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona has a unique connection to the movie.

Late in the film, which dramatized the unlikely rise of a fictional Indians team built of castoffs and washed-up players with an owner that wanted to the squad to lose so that she could relocate the organization to Miami, Francona appeared as an extra.

“You would have to know to look, but once you know, you can tell,” Francona told reporters before Tuesday’s spring-training game against a split squad from the Chicago White Sox at Goodyear Ballpark in Goodyear, Arizona.

“You have to really look closely. It’s toward the end when they’re playing that last game. Corbin Bernsen was 24 in the movie, so he gets a base hit and they show Carmelo Martinez rounding first. Then, after the inning is over, they show the first baseman coming in and getting the ball from the dugout.

“You can tell it’s me. Anybody that played, you can look, but it’s that quick. I’m getting the ball coming in from first base. They shot it in July. We were playing Oakland in a doubleheader and I had just gotten called up a week before.”

The movie, which started Tom Berenger as past-his-prime catcher Jake Taylor, Corbin Bernsen as the business-conscious Roger Dorn, Dennis Haysbert as Cuban defector Pedro Cerrano, Bob Uecker as announcer Harry Doyle and Charlie Sheen as “The Wild Thing” Rick Vaughn, was shot partially in Cleveland, and also, Milwaukee’s County Stadium.

“I was in Cleveland in ’88 and Milwaukee in ’89, so I saw both sides of it,” Francona recalled. “It was live. It was during a game.

“When you see the scoreboard shots, (they) are all from Milwaukee, and I remember because they were the same ones they used in our games. That was funny. One of the bat boys was our bat boy in Milwaukee. There were a lot of things that you recognize.”

Although it was 30 years ago that “Major League” premiered, Francona thinks of the movie quite often, especially during spring training.

Francona is reminded of the movie every time he comes to Goodyear Ballpark, which neighbors a nearby airfield, because of a similarity to the rickety mode of transportation the team used when owner Rachel Phelps attempted to cut the budget.

“Every time we go past this airfield here, there’s a plane that looks like the plane, and I kind of chuckle every day,” Francona said.

While Francona does not know how much of the movie was accurate compared to a how a real team in Major League Baseball operates, he recognizes it for what it is, a comedy built around the game he has dedicated his life to even after his playing days came to an end after the 1990 season.