The Southpaw

The Lou Gehrig Story

This is not "The Pride of the Yankees," the 1942 silver screen Gehrig biopic for which Gary Cooper (Gehrig) and Teresa Wright (Eleanor Gehrig) picked up Oscar nominations. But it is a very good treatment of the end of Gehrig's career and life. This live teleplay, part of the Climax! series that ran on CBS from 1954 to 1958, stars Harry Carry Jr., the great Western actor, as Bill Dickey; Wendell Corey as Gehrig; and Russell ("The Professor") Johnson as the young fireballer "Rusty."

An hour of drama. A lifetime of memories.

The Jackie Robinson Story

The Jackie Robinson Story, a 76-minute biopic, premiered in New York on May 16, 1950, with Robinson playing himself. As you know, Robinson was at the peak of his major league career at the time (he was the NL MVP in 1949), so the timing seems a little odd -- seems like they might have waited until the end of his playing days to give his life story the Hollywood treatment.

But "The Jackie Robinson Story" comes off well. Here's what New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther wrote in the May 17 edition:

What is surprising ... is the sincerity of the dramatization and the integrity of Mr. Robinson playing himself. Too often, in films of this nature about sports figures, fanciful or real, the sentiments are inflated and the heroics glorified. Here the simple story of Mr. Robinson's trail-blazing career is reenacted with manifest fidelity and conspicuous dramatic restraint. And Mr. Robinson, doing that rare thing of playing himself in the picture's leading role, displays a calm assurance and composure that might be envied by many a Hollywood star."

Crowther also singles out Minor Watson for his excellent portrayal of Branch Rickey.

Enjoy the film.

The Untold Saga of Jimmy Piersall

While researching my latest story for 108 Magazine, which appears in the Summer 2007 issue (available on many Borders and Barnes & Noble newsstands and also via subscription), I was surprised by what I learned by talking to his rookie year roommate (and best friend at the time), Ted Lepcio, and others who knew him during that fateful season, when he was institutionalized.

Piersall is most remembered for his mental illness, but less remembered for his subsequent recovery and long, productive major league career. His years in the majors were stormy, for sure, but what emerges is something less "sensational" than the character depicted by Tony Perkins in the 1957 biopic, Fear Strikes Out. The subtler version -- the one I think I managed to pull off, is, I think, more interesting.

Fortunately, my good friends at 108 posted the entire article online in PDF format; it's the first item in the online Table of Contents.

There you'll also find excerpts from many other fine articles and short stories in the issue.

Video: Mantle and Maris, Spring Training 1962

Well, sort of. This is a scene from the 1962 film "Safe At Home." The plot, according to Ed Stephan over at IMDB.com: "Young Hutch Lawton brags to his Little League buddies that his dad knows Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. Forced to "put up or shut up" Hutch goes to spring training camp where he is lectured about honesty being the best policy. He returns to face his buddies with the truth to find the entire Little League team invited to camp."

The Columbia Pictures film had a budget of $1 million, with Maris and Mantle paid $25,000 each for their starring roles. Twenty rookies who appeared in the background each received $100. The amount paid to Yankees manager Ralph Houk, who was so good that his single line role was expanded to two or three lines, was undisclosed.

"Mantle and Maris are doing well, so far," reported John Drebinger of the New York Times during filming in Fort Lauderdale. "Mantle, in particular, seems to be enjoying himself. He laughs easily and takes everything in stride. Asked whether he preferred being an actor to a ballplayer he replied: 'Why this life is a breeze. Shucks, in this business when you make a mistake you do it over and over and over until you do it right."

Let's whet our appetites with the movie poster:

A clip follows after the jump.

In Memory of Mark Harris: Watch "Bang the Drum Slowly" here

Mark Harris, who wrote four baseball novels focusing on the trials and tribulations of pitcher Henry Wiggen, died Wednesday at 84. The best known of the four, Bang the Drum Slowly, was made into a well-known 1973 movie starring Robert De Niro. First published in 1956, it received its first screen treatment the same year in a CBS teleplay starring Paul Newman. During his literary career, Harris wrote 13 other books.

It Looked Like For Ever, the last of his baseball books, came out in 1979. In the New York Times Book Review, Donald Hall, our current Poet Laureate and the author of the great, but largely unknown, Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball, wrote that it "is not so much about baseball as it is about aging, just as ‘Bang the Drum Slowly’ was not so much about baseball as it is about dying.”

In addition to writing, Harris taught English; his final stint in that capacity was at Arizona State University from 1980 to 1982.

The 1956 version of "Bang the Drum Slowly," starring Newman, is presented below. Enjoy.

"A Perfect Pitch" -- a near-perfect short-film gem

Good baseball movies are rare; good short ones (of the fictional variety) almost impossible to find. In this 18-minute flick, directed by Bruce Worrilow, small and unathletic Stuart Warren is forced to play on his father's Little League baseball team. The problem is that it's also the team of his worst enemy: his brother.

Babe Ruth and the sorority girls

This short movie from around 1930, entitled “Play Ball with Babe Ruth—Fancy Curves," has a terrific plot. Some sorority girls are watching Babe play an exhibition game and get a great idea -- would the Sultan of Swat coach them so they could beat the boys in a sorority-fraternity game the next day?

With Mrs. Ruth's approval, Ruth agrees.

The girls show up for the coaching session wearing shorts and very tight shirts. Mrs. Ruth looks on, and scolds the Babe -- who's just guiding, of course -- for putting his arms around a hitter a little too tightly for a little too long.

During the actual game, Babe is in uniform with the girls. One gets a hit and pauses on the basepaths to put on makeup.

Then, with the girls in a position to win, Ruth dons a wig and goes up to bat in disguise, and hilarity ensues.

                 

Movie Pitchers: The World Series rotation

I've watched (and analyzed) way too many baseball movies. One of the most interesting aspects of the genre is how good (or, most often, bad) the actors do at pretending to be athletes. Sports films still tend to be hokey, but the sports action has gotten better.

This is due to more sophisticated camerawork, better research, and better training, both of the main characters and the supporting actor/athletes. (Costume authenticity, both for players and spectators, also makes a big difference. For a good example, see "Seabiscuit." For a bad one, try to sit through a bit of Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday.")

Watching Jon Stewart bounce his ceremonial first pitch before a NLCS game at Shea (47 mph on the radar gun) reminded me of a subject I've been thinking about for a while ... who have been the best and worst actor/pitchers? I give you a totally unscientific survey  (with some second-hand analysis).

Hall of Fame aces (“Just give me the ball”)
Charlie Sheen
Kevin Costner
Sammi Kane Kraft
Joe E. Brown (Veteran’s Committee selection)

The Jackie Robinson Story

One of the best and biggest "hidden" sites in the Web is the Internet Archive. It features the "Wayback Machine," which is an excellent way to find old stories that haven't even been archived by Google. I sometimes use it to find articles we published at SportsJones.com, where I was executive editor. Many of those articles can't be accessed anywhere else. Which is kind of amazing, when you consider that back in the late '90s, we thought that once something was posted on the Net, it would never go away. But stuff does disappear.

Once in a while I just check out the audio and video files hosted by the Archive. There's not a ton of baseball-related material, but there are some gems, including a full, downloadable version of "The Jackie Robinson Story."