Tag: baseball

The Babe Ruth Story (and Funeral)

Babe Ruth Funeral

The great baseball player George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Jr. passed away on August 16, 1948 at the age of 53. Ruth, who was born in Baltimore on February 6, 1895, died from cancer, which had been diagnosed two years before his death.

Ruth’s Funeral

After Ruth’s death, his body lay in state at the entrance of Yankee Stadium (“The House That Ruth Built“) for two days.  During that time, fans lined up to pay their last respects.

This video shows people lined up outside Yankee Stadium to Ruth one last time. It also includes scenes from Babe Ruth’s funeral, as well as some archival footage of the Sultan of Swat. Check it out.

Ruth Movies

In the month before Ruth’s death, Allied Artists released a bio-pic about the slugger, The Babe Ruth Story (1948), starring William Bendix as Ruth. Many critics have called the film, which includes scenes of Ruth healing sick children (a legend parodied by John Candy on SCTV), one of the worst movies of all time.

Regarding The Babe Ruth Story, people also note that the film could not even get little things right.  For example, Bendix plays baseball as a right hander.   Ruth was a lefty.

But if you watch The Babe Ruth Story with the right attitude and do not expect a realistic biography, you might have some fun. You can check out the trailer below.

Perhaps Ruth was so larger than life and so well known that it is difficult to make a good film about him.  Like The Babe Ruth Story, 1992’s The Babe — with John Goodman in the title role — generally received poor reviews.

One of my favorite Babe Ruth movies was not really about Babe Ruth. Pride of the Yankees (1942) tells the story of Lou Gehrig’s career through the discovery that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), what became known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”

In Pride of the Yankees, Gary Cooper pays Gehrig and Ruth plays himself. What I always admired about Ruth’s self-portrayal is that he took part in a scene that makes Gehrig look much better than he does.

In the scene, Ruth visits a sick kid surrounded by reporters covering his visit. Then Gehrig visits the kid in private, showing his sincere concern and promising to hit two home runs for the child during the 1928 World Series. Reportedly, the Gehrig incident never took place and is loosely based on when Ruth promised a home run during the 1926 World Series to a hospitalized boy.

The movie’s version of the story makes Ruth look bad in comparison to Gehrig. But his generosity in playing the scene in tribute to his former teammate says a lot about the The Bambino as a person. Unfortunately, that scene is not available on Youtube (although another scene featuring Ruth is available on the Turner Classic Movies website).

Baseball would not be the same had Babe Ruth not come along, and there will never be another one like him. Thanks Babe.

What is your favorite Babe Ruth story? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Chaos of Disco Demolition Night

    Disco Demolition Night On July 12, 1979, the White Sox hosted Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park. The promotional event, however, resulted in chaos and a forfeited baseball game.

    The once-popular music seemed to stir a lot of anger at the time. Even songs were written attacking disco. As many others have noted, the disco-hating trend of the late 1970s evolved out of a number of emotions.  Some of the hate came from those who consciously or subconsciously attacked the music out of racism and homophobia.

    In retrospect, it is hard to imagine how a type of music went from being so popular to being so hated. In fact, the White Sox had hosted a “Disco Night” in 1977, only two years prior to the 1979 Disco Demolition Night.

    The Disco Demolition Night Promotion

    It is also surprising in retrospect that nobody foresaw how Disco Demolition Night would be such a disaster. The entire idea was based on hatred of something, culminating with blowing up something (records) between the two games of a double header with Sparky Anderson’s Detroit Tigers.

    Steve Dahl, a morning DJ for rock station WLUP-FM, was on a campaign against disco music. As part of his campaign, he helped come up with the idea for the baseball promotion where he would blow up disco records on the field.

    Dahl’s animosity was both deep and personal.  He had lost his job at WDAI-FM on Christmas Eve in 1978 when that station switched to an all-disco format.

    As part of the promotion for the game, the cost of entry was 98-cents and a disco record.  Thus, there were many in the sold-out crowd who were not there for baseball.

    After the chaos, Dahl was surprised at the crowd’s reaction.  But the notoriety of the event would help make him a dj superstar in Chicago.

    This website hosts memories from folks who were at the stadium that night. And below is a short video about Disco Demolition Night.

    The Effects Today

    Regarding baseball, the event went into the record books.  The unplayed game between the White Sox and the Tigers is the last American League baseball game to be forfeited.

    Regarding the music, others have noted that while disco was dealt a blow, it lives on successfully today in various forms such as house music. You can try to kill music with hate, but it will survive.

    Do you remember Disco Demolition Night? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    New Footage of 1919 “Black Sox Scandal” World Series

    Black Sox
    The Library and Archives Canada and the Dawson City Museum in Yukon, Canada has made available newly discovered film of the famous 1919 World Series. As featured in Eight Men Out (1988), many of the White Sox players, including Shoeless Joe Jackson, were banned from baseball for allegedly throwing the series to the Cincinnati Reds.

    The more than four minutes of baseball footage is probably the best quality video of the most infamous World Series in baseball history. British Canadian Pathé News filmed the scenes, and the film was stored in an old swimming pool-hockey rink before being found again in the Canadian archive in January.

    The segment includes scenes from the first and third games of the series (starting with some clips of the third game). Among the scenes, at around the 3:06 mark there is a short clip of what legend reports as a bungled double-play ball by Swede Risberg after Eddie Cicotte made a great play in stopping the ball. For more descriptions of what is on the film, check out the story from the Society for American Baseball Research. To watch the film, check it out below.

    Thanks to Sonja for telling me about the fascinating video.

    Do you think the White Sox players should have been banned forever? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Jackie Robinson Takes the Field

    Jackie Robinson On April 15, 1947 as a soft breeze blew across Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, Jackie Robinson took his position at first base to play his first official Major League Baseball game for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson was 28 years old, having served in the U.S. Army and played in the Negro American League before Dodger general manager Branch Rickey recruited Robinson in 1945 to join the Dodger organization.

    On this date against the Boston Braves, Robinson broke the color barrier that had existed in baseball for more than fifty years.  The last such player before Robinson was catcher Fleetwood Walker who played for the American Association’s Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884.

    Robinson’s major league career that began that day would not be easy. But Robinson triumphed over the hate he encountered, both as a man and as a player, making him the greatest hero of any sport.

    Many were hostile to him, but many others admired Robinson at the time. The radio even played a song about him in 1949, “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit that Ball?”

    Baseball eventually recognized his accomplishments too. On this date in 1997, Major League Baseball retired his number 42, making it the first number retired for all teams.

    Robinson’s Major League Debut

    To go back and relive that sunny day at Ebbets Field on this date in 1947, listen to this 2007 NPR interview with writer Jonathan Eig, who wrote a book about Robinson’s first year called Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season. The interview discusses the historic game played this date in 1947.

    Movies About Robinson

    In 2013, a very good movie bearing the name of Robinson’s number 42 was released. But another earlier movie from 1950 told his story starring Jackie Robinson himself in The Jackie Robinson Story.

    Below is the entire film, although the sound quality is not great. The recreation of his Major League debut begins around the 54-minute mark. The movie condenses events to give Robinson a triple on a day the first baseman went hitless.  In the real game, he did score the go-ahead run after reaching on an error.

    Another Rookie Debuting On This Date

    Finally, here is a trivia question about that April 15, 1947 game. On that date, one other rookie besides Robinson took the field for the Dodgers that day, who was it?

    As explained in the video above, the other rookie was Spider Jorgensen.  Jorgenson was called up on such short notice that he did not have a glove. But his new teammate Jackie Robinson loaned Jorgensen one of his gloves.

    Using that glove, third-baseman Jorgensen fielded a ball hit by Boston’s Dick Culler, throwing it to Robinson at first base to make the first out of the game.  The Dodgers won by a score of 5–3.

    At the end of the 1947 season, the Dodgers won the National League Pennant.  And Robinson won the Rookie of the Year Award, which is now called the Jackie Robinson Award.

    1950 photo of Jackie Robinson and The Jackie Robinson Story via public domain. Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    “42”: Great Story, Good Movie (Review)

    Jackie Robinson Movie The previews for 42, the new movie about baseball player Jackie Robinson, tempted me to wait until the movie came out on video. I feared that the movie would not have much that I did not already know, and the preview made me wonder if the movie was going to be more like a made-for-TV movie. But I love baseball movies and Jackie Robinson’s story is worthy of the big screen, so I headed out to the local movie theater. While the movie may not rise to the level of the best baseball movies, it is still entertaining and worth your time in the theater.

    42 covers the story of how Jackie Robinson, played by Chadwick Boseman, came to break the code of Major League Baseball’s ban on black baseball players. The film does not cover all of Robinson’s career, but it covers his rise from the Negro Leagues through his first season in the Majors. Boseman does an excellent job of portraying the hero as a human being, and Nicole Beharie also does a great job of playing Robinson’s wife, Rachel. The most well-known actor in the cast is Harrison Ford, who in an unusual role for him, plays Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey.

    Some have complained that writer-director Brian Helgeland focuses too much on the white men like Rickey. With no standing to defend the movie’s perspective, I do understand the complaint and would like to see a film that focused almost entirely on Robinson’s view. But 42 is trying to do something else by showing the historical context of Robinson’s great achievement. I also appreciated that Helgeland did not settle for showing stereotypes and that he featured some good people in the South as well as racists in New York.

    One minor weakness in the film is that it only shows Robinson’s first season, and it left me wanting more. So 42 suffers from some of the problems with biopics that can only cover so much time.

    42 also suffers a little from trying to fit into the baseball movie genre. Baseball films often end with an important baseball game win (or loss), and 42, like the recent Moneyball (2011), tries to fit in that genre but comes a little short because of real life. During Robinson’s first season in the Majors in 1947, his team did win the pennant and the movie portrays the climactic scene of Robinson hitting the home run to clinch it. But since the Dodgers won the division over the Cardinals by five games that season, it was somewhat lacking in drama. The movie does not follow Robinson into the World Series, apparently because the Yankees beat Robinson’s team four games to three. So reality took away a little of the traditional baseball climax, but, of course, the drama of 42 is really on Jackie Robinson succeeding when so much was against him, and the movie does a good job of telling the real story.

    The movie does do an excellent job of showing some of the difficulties that Jackie Robinson encountered from opposing players, opposing managers, and his own teammates. And you get to see the true strength of a man who had the courage to turn the other cheek for a higher cause (although not depicted in the film, by 1949 when other black players were established in Major League Baseball, Robinson could finally fight back).

    Conclusion: Overall, 42 is an engaging story about some things you knew about and probably some things you did not. It tells the story of a real hero and should be required viewing for every child in America. For a bonus video, here is Jackie Robinson appearing on What’s My Line? after he retired from baseball, and you can see at the end how he still speaks fondly of Branch Rickey.

    Other Reviews Because Why Should You Trust Me?: Rotten Tomatoes gives 42 a critics rating of 77% and an audience rating of 88%, which makes sense because fans may appreciate the true-life story and care less if the movie is too predictable. Jeffrey M. Anderson at Combustible Celluloid says that 42 is “a wonderful, huge, glossy, mythical portrait of America’s growing pains.” By contrast, Rick Kisonak at Seven Days concludes that Jackie Robinson “deserves a movie that strives to be at least half as great as he was, a movie better than a cookie-cutter Hollywood biopic like this one.”

    Bonus History Lesson: At the end of 42, Helgeland shows scenes of modern baseball players, starting with Yankee Derek Jeter for some reason, wearing Jackie Robinson’s number 42 on the annual Jackie Robinson Day. I wish, though, that Helgeland had shown a scene of the baseball player who actually inspired the idea of having players wear Jackie Robinson’s number on that day, Ken Griffey, Jr.

    How does “42” rank among the great baseball movies? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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