Photo caption: THE LEAGUE, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
The League is a comprehensive documentary on the history of Negro League baseball. As one would expect from a Sam Pollard doc, it’s well-sourced and reveals some less well known history:
Rube Foster, remembered as a pitching great and inventor of the screwball, was the impresario and strategic mind behind the first Negro League.
Effa Manley, the canny co-owner of the Newark Eagles, was a pioneering female AND African-American businesswoman with the spunk, if not the resources, to stand up to MLB.
The Negro Leagues’ surprisingly brief lifespan and even briefer glory days.
Why the immensely talented, even Ruthian, Josh Gibson wasn’t put forward to integrate MLB (like Jackie Robinson was).
How MLB execs like Branch Rickey and Bill Veeck worked with the Negro Leagues (or not).
The painful trade-offs from the long-awaited integration of MLB.
The League is the work of filmmaker Sam Pollard, who directed the more compelling MLK/FBI. The League will appeal to those with interests in baseball and/or civil rights. The League is streaming on Amazon.
Photo caption: Reggie Jackson in REGGIE. Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video.
After watching the documentary Reggie, I was surprised that I found spending 104 minutes with Reggie Jackson so rewarding. In the 1970s, Jackson seemed to me such an egotist, so consumed by his own stardom. Of course, the media were always asking him about himself. Here, where Jackson has the platform, he talks about himself in the context of larger issues of racial justice, economic justice, righting past wrongs and creating a more equitable future – for everybody, not just for Reggie.
The film could have been titled The Life and Times of Reggie Jackson. America’s struggle with race is in the forefront of Reggie, understandably because of the times. In addition, Reggie sees many of the pivotal events in his life as impacted by race – and he makes a convincing case.
Reggie contains lots of tidbits, many not well known:
Reggie’s own experiences with racial prejudice as a child and young man
Reggie’s shielding from the dangers of Alabama Jim Crow by minor league teammates Joe Rudi, Rollie Fingers and Dave Duncan
His early mentorship by Joe DiMaggio
His chafing at Charley Findley – and Findley giving him a $2500 pay cut for “too many strikeouts” in a season when Reggie led the league in homers
Reggie’s prickly relationship with Thurman Munson, his incendiary mismatch with Billy Martin, and an evolved friendship with George Steinbrenner
The origin of the “Mr. October” sobriquet.
Reggie can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime).
There isn’t a surprising moment in Trouble with the Curve, but as predictable as it is, the fine performances and the setting in an often obscure part of the baseball world combine to make it an enjoyable time at the movies.
It’s a story about a dad-daughter relationship. The dad (Clint Eastwood) is a crusty geezer whose failing eyesight threatens his job as a Major League Baseball scout. The daughter (Amy Adams) is an overachieving, workaholic lawyer who is unsatisfied with a relationship that her dad keeps as superficial as possible. They are improbably forced together on a road trip.
Now you know that she is going to run the pool table at the hick roadhouse. You know that the unlikely kid will turn out to be the real MLB prospect. You know that the geezer’s insight will be proven right in the end. And you know that the daughter will find closeness with the dad and a new boyfriend along the way. As I said, there are no surprises.
Nevertheless, Eastwood and Adams are just perfect in their roles. Eastwood’s graveside monologue and song are particularly moving. Justin Timberlake and John Goodman are excellent, too. Matthew Lillard is dead on perfect as a frat boy turned know it all baseball exec.
And then there’s the baseball setting. The movie had me with the gaggle of elderly scouts traipsing through South Carolina from one high school baseball field to another, breaking each others’ balls at dive bars every night. The Wife, who does not lapse into baseball reverie, didn’t enjoy it as much.
Contemplating the price of American freedom in The Best Years of our Lives
I haven’t found any other acceptable lists of patriotic movies. Other lists tend to be less patriotic and more jingoistic and nationalistic, less about celebrating the essential American values and triumphs (sometimes triumphs over ourselves) than about dominating some furriners in war or sport. That’s why Top Gun and Miracle show up on those lists, but not on mine.
Throughout our history, American patriots have taken risks and made sacrifices for ideas and causes greater than themselves. Here are ten movies that celebrate such authentic patriotism: 10 Patriotic Movies.
On August 24, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the 1919 silent film The Busher. It may not be a great movie, but it is an excellent document of baseball 90 years ago. In 1919, John McGraw was managing the Giants, Ty Cobb was in his heyday, Babe Ruth pitched 17 games for the BoSox and the White Sox were fixing the World Series. If you want to see how baseball looked back then (how the fans and umpires dressed, how the catcher squatted, etc.), watch this movie.
Both of my recommended surfing films are mentioned in my Best Sports Movies. I have a list of 10 Best Sports Movies and also a top movie for each sport. What’s my top pick for a basketball movie? Or football? Or wrestling? Or skateboarding? Or rowing? Or shuffleboard? Is shuffleboard a sport?
Here’s a clip from my pick for best bodybuilding movie. You will probably recognize this guy.
Babe Ruth as Babe Ruth in The Pride of the Yankees
Why hasn’t there been a good biopic of Babe Ruth? The three extant have ranged from unmemorable (1992’s The Babe with John Goodman and 1991’s Babe Ruth with Stephen Lang) to execrable (1948’s The Babe Ruth Story with the remarkably unathletic William Bendix).
Here is the greatest baseball player who ever lived. (Only Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were in his league as a hitter, and Ruth was also a star pitcher in his early years – so there’s no argument that he was the greatest.) Ruth transformed the game itself from station-to-station to the power game.
On top of that, The Babe was a great character: a boisterous man of unrestrained appetites, a great athlete who did not look athletic, nevertheless charismatic and very funny. He was made for the movies. Unfortunately, the great Babe Ruth movie hasn’t been written.
Incidentally, Babe Ruth has been portrayed in 30 movies, the first seven times by Babe Ruth himself.
We’re at the All-Star Break, so let’s talk baseball. Here are the Ten Best Baseball Movies.
1. Bull Durham (1988): This comedy is the ultimate baseball film, depicting the minor leagues and players on the way up and on the way down. The very smart screenplay celebrates all of the little customs, superstitions, traditions, idioms, etc., that make up the culture of baseball. Plus there is the all-time funniest conference on the mound.
2.Eight Men Out (1988): Director John Sayles tells the true story of the Black Sox Scandal – the Chicago White Sox players who fixed the 1919 World Series. Sayles used actors, not baseball players, but the baseball scenes are totally authentic. The characters of star players Eddie Cicotte, Buck Weaver and Shoeless Joe Jackson and owner Charles Comiskey vividly come alive.
3.A League of Their Own (1992): This film is set during the man shortage of WW II, when there was a professional baseball league of women players; grizzled manager Tom Hanks is not enthusiastic about managing the girls, but finds that they really do play baseball – real baseball. “There’s no crying in baseball.”
4. Baseball (1994): This is Ken Burns’ history of baseball, told in nine “innings”. The first inning probes the hazy origins of the game, and the ninth inning explores modern corporate baseball. In between, we see the one-base-at-a-time game of the 1910s, the Black Sox scandal, Babe Ruth and the new power game, the Negro Leagues, Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, the move of MLB into California, expansion, and so much more. Burns uses a delightful array of talking heads (players and observers), the most compelling of whom are Buck O’Neil, Stephen Jay Gould and Bob Costas.
5.The Natural (1984): This is the beautifully shot fable of an promising player whose career is aborted by violence, but who, with a magic bat, reappears in middle age under a different identity as a once-in-a-lifetime slugging star.
6.Bang the Drum Slowly (1973): Michael Moriarty plays the hotshot pitcher and Robert DeNiro plays the simple-minded catcher on a minor league team. Roommates, they share the secret of the catcher’s alarmingly progressive disease. This is the best sports tear jerker.
7.The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976): This film is the story of the Negro Leaguers who barnstormed the countryside. It’s also a rowdy and earthy vehicle for Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones and Richard Pryor. But the baseball scenes are really, really good by themselves.
Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones and Richard Pryor
8. Field of Dreams (1989): This is the lyrical fable of a dreamer who builds a baseball field in his cornfield to connect with players of yesteryear, including his own father. “Build it, and he will come”.
9. The Pride of the Yankees (1942): This classic tells the true story of the taciturn superstar Lou Gehrig (the taciturn Gary Cooper) who is stricken by a debilitating illness. Co-stars Babe Ruth as himself.
Gary Cooper in The Pride of the Yankees
10. (tie)Major League (1989), Angels in the Outfield (1994) and Damn Yankees! (1958): Major League is the crass joke-a-minute baseball comedy – the Airplane! of baseball. Angels in the Outfield is the sweet fable about a boy who sees angels, and enlists them to help his favorite ball club. Damn Yankees! is the musical on our list, and asks what baseball fan wouldn’t sell his soul to have his cellar-dwelling heroes win the Series? Gwen Verdon has a show stopping rendition of “What Lola Wants”.
Tom Hanks and Geena Davis in A League of Their Own
More excellent baseball movies were made between 1984 and 1994 than in any other period: The Natural, Bull Durham, Eight Men Out, Field of Dreams, Major League, A League of their Own, Angels in the Outfield, The Scout, Cobb and Ken Burns’ Baseball.
Why didn’t this trend continue? My guess is that Major League Baseball lost the hearts of Americans during the MLB Strike of 1994-95. That Strike even forced cancellation of the entire postseason, including the 1994 World Series.
Before the Strike, my kitchen and auto radios were always tuned to the station that broadcast my favorite baseball team; those radios are tuned to NPR now. I was familiar with every regular player, starting pitcher and key reliever in the National League; I’m not any more. The Strike made me go cold turkey and killed my baseball habit.
By the measures of revenue and attendance, MLB has been even more successful since the strike, but I don’t believe that it is loved as much as before.
It was also a key time in American sports culture – as baseball was being eclipsed by soccer as a youth sport and by the NBA and NFL as a spectator sport. Baseball did not understand how vulnerable its place in American culture was.
Americans have been burned once – and severely burned – by baseball. We will go the ballpark as an entertainment event, but no longer from devotion to the sport and our favorite teams. That devotion – which so warmly received the baseball movies of 1984-1994 – is no longer there.
