Who Says Character Is Overrated In Baseball?

Posted by Steve Lombardi on August 20th, 2009 · Comments (5)

There have been some good baseball movies featuring excellent character actors…

Seeing Michael Gaston in Sugar the other day got me thinking about this…

J.K. Simmons was in For Love of the Game. Peter Jacobson was in 61*. James Gammon and Chelcie Ross were in Major League. Shoot, you can pick a bunch of them from Eight Men Out.

Who is your all-time favorite character actor to appear in a baseball movie?

Comments on Who Says Character Is Overrated In Baseball?

  1. Raf
    August 20th, 2009 | 9:49 pm

    I thought Trey Wilson (Bull Durham) was great in Raising Arizona

  2. Tresh Fan
    August 21st, 2009 | 6:03 am

    You’d have to start with Walter Brennan in Pride of the Yankees

    Others of interest may include:

    William Frawley in The Babe Ruth Story and Safe At Home
    Wilford Brimley in The Natural
    Keenan Wynn in Angels In The Outfield
    Phil Foster in Bang The Drum Slowly

    That’s just from the top of my head

  3. MJ
    August 21st, 2009 | 8:17 am

    I loved Chelcie Ross in Major League. For some reason, he reminded me of old knuckleballer Charlie Hough in appearance and demeanor.

  4. August 21st, 2009 | 8:20 am

    @ MJ: Ditto
    @ Tresh Fan: Great picks on Brennan and Brimley

  5. Evan3457
    August 21st, 2009 | 10:46 am

    Lots of good baseball movies. Apart from those cited above, many of them have great character actors, some more well-known, and others less…including:

    Dan Duryea and Ludwig Stossel in Pride of the Yankees
    Jackie Earle Haley and Vic Morrow in The Bad News Bears (original)
    Dennis Haysbert in Major League
    David Straithairn in both A League of Their Own and Eight Men Out
    Robert Prosky, Richard Farnsworth, Joe Don Baker, Alan Fudge and Michael Madsden in the Natural
    Lori Petty and Jon Lovitz in A League of Their Own
    Ray Walston in Damn Yankees
    Vincent Gardinia and Selma Diamond in Bang the Drum Slowly
    Robert Wuhl in Bull Durham
    Ted Ross and Tony Burton In The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings

    However, if you want a baseball movie which is wall-to-wall character actors, the choice has to be one of the movies Steve cited above, namely, 61*. Apart from Peter Jacobsen as sportswriter Artie Green, you have ALL of the following character actors in this one film:

    Robert Costanzo as Toots Shor
    Connor Trinneer (pre-Enterprise) as a Writer
    Renee Taylor as Claire Ruth
    Michael Nouri as Joe DiMaggio
    Robert Joy as Bob Fitschel (Bob Fishel)
    Seymour Cassel as Sportswriter Sam Simon
    Joe Grifasi as Phil Rizzuto
    Donald Moffat as Comissioner Ford Frick
    Bob Gunton as Dan Topping
    Christopher McDonald as Mel Allen
    Chris Bauer as Bob Cerv
    Bruce McGill as Ralph Houk
    Richard Masur as Sportswriter Milt Kahn
    and, arguably, Anthony Michael Hall as Whitey Ford

    There’s hardly a scene in the 1st half-hour of that movie where I didn’t say to myself, “Oh, HE’S in this, too?” And you also get a knuckleball pitcher (Tom Candiotti) portraying a knuckleball pitcher (Hoyt Wilhelm) and the classiest character voice of modern times: Bob Sheppard.

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