The Southpaw

Charlie Brown's secret baseball scandal

 I only recently found out that for three years, from 1983 to 1985, CBS ran a Saturday morning cartoon series called "The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show." Based on plot lines developed in the daily strips, it probably didn't produce any "classic" Peanuts material, though I could be wrong -- my knowledge of the show is thin at best.

However, there seems to be plenty of good material that survives on DVD (and on YouTube, of course). For example, in the brief, five-minute episode below, good old Chuck thinks he's finally a winner on the diamond ... but later finds out he's unknowingly been ensnarled in the kind of scandal that Kennesaw Mountain Landis (who Charlie Brown actually mentions in the episode) and Bart Giamatti knew about all too well. Enjoy.

I Love the 30s: Babe Ruth

The Babe of the 30s ... remembered in the 40s. A spoof of VH1's "I Love the 80s."

Jon Stewart Whiffs with "Three Strikes" Baseball Sitcom

Everything seemed to be perfect: Jon Stewart, executive producer. Writers from "King of the Hill," "Frasier," and "The Larry Sanders Show." Experienced, no-name actors, some who actually look decent on the diamond. But it wasn't to be. Comedy Central declined to pick up "Three Strikes," which was the first sitcom produced by Stewart's Bus Boy Productions, so it looks like the Fresno Floods have played their last game.

Of course, there's always a chance another network will give it a look. I hope so -- there are some genuine laughs in this pilot, entitled "The Sex Boat," and some characters with real potential. Which is more than you can say for most shows in prime time.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Casey At The Bat: The Cartoon

From 1954, a classic (and well-preserved) animated version of "Casey at the Bat," by Jerry Colonna. Well done.

Opening Day for the Peanuts Gang

A rain delay, and the team tries to get its signals in order. Click on the panel below for a larger version.

South Park: The Losing Edge

The South Park Little League baseball team wins the league title ... and advances all the way to the state championship game against Denver at Coors Field. But they can't wait for their season to be over, and try to do everything they can to lose. Complete with trash talk, brawling dads, the opposite of a ringer, and homages to "Rocky," the suspense builds until we find out, at the very end, if South Park will spend the summer playing the national Little League circuit, or the summer goofing off at home.

Bill Murray as Joe DiMaggio

Well, sort of, as he plays DiMaggio in the Yankee Clipper's second-favorite setting -- his restaurant, DiMaggio's on the Wharf. This is one of Murray's SCTV skits, and a pretty good one, I think. Enjoy.

Chris Farley on baseball

The late, great Saturday Night Live star waxes prosaic about Our National Pastime, during the players' strike. He recalls the 1978 World Series: "And as I'm dragged from the field, Bucky Dent points right at me and says, 'That pathetic idiot."

Top 10 Joe Schultz Quotes

Middle of winter, icy rain coming down, and as usual Ball Four provides me with some baseball comfort -- and lots of laughs. It's remarkable, when you think about how businesslike today's game is, to consider just how loose and informal Pilots manager Joe Schultz was with his players in 1969, which, to me at least, wasn't all that long ago.

While perusing Ball Four this year, I decided to focus particularly on Schultz's wit and wisdom, and after gathering some quotes, ranked them. You may disagree with my ranking. But I hope you'll laugh.

The 10 list follows after the jump.

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.

                 

Baseball Bugs

A cartoon contest takes place at the Polo Grounds, with the Gashouse Gorillas facing the Teatotallers. The Gorillas, led by a cigar-chomping slugger (in every sense of the word), take a huge lead until Bugs Bunny, playing every position, takes over.

How Willie Mays inspired "A Charlie Brown Christmas"

PopMatters has a  terrific feature on the making of A Charlie Brown Christmas, which premiered in 1965. Considering Chuck's love of baseball, it's not surprising that there's a baseball connection. San Francisco filmmaker Lee Mendelson tells Brian Heater (perfect byline for the story, huh?) why he decided to work on the special:

“I had done a Willie Mays documentary in 1963, A Man Named Mays, which had done really well. Then I was reading a Charlie Brown baseball strip, and the idea came to me: I’ve just done the world’s greatest baseball player; now I’ll do the world’s worst.”

It took two years, but Coca Cola called Mendelson and asked him to produce the Christmas classic.

Mendelson went on to produce a couple of baseball-themed Charlie Brown specials: Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown (2003), and It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown! (1992), in which Linus gets a hit while cheering himself on from the bench. That kind of thing always happens in spring training.

Mendelson has written a more complete account about the connection between the Mays documentary and A Charlie Brown Christmas at the Charles M. Schultz Museum Web site.

If Aaron Sorkin wrote a show about baseball

Comedy writer Ken Levine's hilarious spoof of Aaron Sorkin's writing style.

Setting the World Series in Kansas City is a nice touch ...

EXT. KAUFFMAN STADIUM -- NIGHT THE MANAGER, LEO, TROTS OUT TO THE MOUND TO TALK TO BELEAGURED PITCHER, DANNY (THERE’S ALWAYS A DANNY). THE BASES ARE LOADED. THE CROWD IS GOING NUTS. IT’S GAME SEVEN OF THE WORLD SERIES.

LEO
You can’t get a good lobster in this town.

DANNY
Last I checked we were in Kansas City.

LEO
4.6 billion pork ribs sold every year and 18.9 tons of beef consumed annually since 1997 –

DANNY
They like their beef, what can I tell ya?

LEO
But you’d think just for variety’s sake.

There's more. And it gets better.

I dissected "Sports Night," Sorkin's show about a pseudo SportsCenter, for ESPN.com a while back.

Abbott and Costello: Who's on first?

According to Abbott and Costello Quarterly, it took the comedy duo years to perfect this routine, and they did it best in "The Naughty Nineties," released in 1945.

A transcript of that performance:

Borat - Guide to Baseball

Dock Ellis and his hair curlers

There's a lot to love about Dock Ellis -- read Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball and you'll know what I'm talking about. (Written by Donald Hall, our current Poet Laureate, with Ellis, it's one of the best baseball memoirs of all time.) One of the things I like most about Ellis is that he was a true flake, not in the Bill Lee "look at how big a flake I am" style, but he's just Dock being Dock.

And part of Dock being Dock was wearing hair curlers on the field before a 1973 game. For this, Ellis got a warning from Pirate Manager Bill Virdon. "Ellis had contended that the curlers were necessary tohis Afro coiffure and that the anti-curler order smacked of racism," reported the Associated Press. "Nonetheless, he confirmed Monday that he would sidestep controversy and abide by the management order. 'I just don'w want to have to deal with it,' Ellis said with a shrug." Ellis donated the curlers to The Baseball Reliquary, which has more on the story (with photos).

George Carlin: Baseball and Football

Casey with the Beater (or, Casey at the Bat)

Baseball's epic poem, "Casey at the Bat," translated from English into French, then back into English. Enjoy.

Casey with the Beater
by Ernest L Thayer (via Babelfish)

The prospects was not brilliant for neuf Mudville that the day,
The points held four to two, with but a turn of beater more to play.

And then when Cooney died at the beginning, and wheelbarrows made the same thing,
A coffin-like silence fell on the owners from the play.

Being in disorder a little is raised to enter major despair.
The rest clung to this hope which spouts out eternal in the human centre.
They thought, "so only Casey could but to obtain one to beat with that.
We would put upwards to equalize the money now, with Casey with the beater."