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?
I thought Trey Wilson (Bull Durham) was great in Raising Arizona
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
I loved Chelcie Ross in Major League. For some reason, he reminded me of old knuckleballer Charlie Hough in appearance and demeanor.
@ MJ: Ditto
@ Tresh Fan: Great picks on Brennan and Brimley
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.