Tuesday, January 22, 2013
DJACKIE UNCHAINED: Between the trailers for the upcoming 42 (doors slammed! epithets hurled! Harrison Ford, exerting effort?) and the recent deaths of Stan Musial and Earl Weaver, like some others I couldn't help but wonder: what real-life baseball stories should be the subject of movies? (Other than Moe Berg's.)
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Cal Ripken, Jr.
ReplyDeleteOnly if it includes the Kevin Costner story.
ReplyDeleteThe Yankee Wife Swap.
ReplyDeleteIs "42" different than "Movie 43"? Are these all movies about baseball? I thought they were about president. I'm so out of it.
ReplyDeleteBaseball epics are great, and I'll be among the first in line to see 42, but I like sports stories about the guy who didn't quite make it, about the comeback, about adversity whether overcome or not. So I want to see stories about these guys (though I suspect they'd be better as the basis for a fictional movie rather than a straight up biopic):
ReplyDeleteFred Merkle of the "Merkle boner": http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/372b4391http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/372b4391
Adam Greenberg: Cubs player hit in the head in his first major league at-bat, never returned to the majors for real, got an at-bat with the Marlins in 2012 as a (very nice) publicity stunt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Greenberg_%28baseball%29
Rick Ankiel: Cardinals pitcher who got the yips and spent several years retraining himself to be an outfielder to make it back to the majors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Ankiel
Satchel Paige. Get Charlie Kauffman to write it and it could be a great story about how myth can grow up around a guy.
ReplyDeleteAnkiel would make a hell of a movie.
ReplyDeleteI can practically see it in my head - I loved the "Ankiel Watch" feature in SI, which absolutely needs to be part of the film.
ReplyDeleteSince I rush to the comments to say "Moe Berg" before I noticed that you've included it, I'll just say "Moe Berg" but, of course, you could frame a great narrative around the life of Connie Mack -- just as a way to march through the first half of the 20th century. I don't think there's any great Greek tragedy of his life -- he just got old and worn out, but you could include a lot of baseball in a movie like that.
ReplyDeleteDock Ellis.
ReplyDeleteThe original video of Ankiel's NLCS meltdown is amazing drama just by itself: http://www.amazinavenue.com/2012/1/30/2756687/lets-go-to-the-videotape-the-ankiel-meltdown
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't read the SI story about Dickey and and Kayla Harrison, you absolutely must. Harrowing, but beautifully done. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1206584/index.htm
ReplyDeleteI thought they were both prequels to Billy Crystal's movie "61*"
ReplyDeleteMy (deceased) mother would have loved to see a Tony Conigliaro movie. She frequently talked about what happened to him.
ReplyDeleteEd Delahanty. Hall of Fame player around the beginning of the 20th Century who either jumped or fell off the bridge spanning Niagara Falls after getting kicked off a train.
ReplyDelete(looks like this was lost when I made from the phone)...The Dock Ellis LSD no-hitter. But it's only about the 35 batters he faced. And each encounter is depicted by 35 different animators.
ReplyDeleteThe exact opposite of how awful the trailer looks and if the movie is 80% about Robinson.
ReplyDeleteSee, now I want a movie about Mike Veeck, the guy who reinvented minor league baseball. That could be a whole lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteRoy Campanella. The SECOND black dude in the majors. Dumb as a box of rocks, unusual for a catcher, and paralyzed in a car accident.
ReplyDelete