The Jackie Robinson Story vs. 42

Having just seen 42, the biopic of Jackie Robinson’s struggle to break the color barrier in major league baseball in 1947, last Sunday, I was intrigued to watch the 1950 film The Jackie Robinson Story starring Jackie Robinson that was aired on Turner Classic Movies Friday afternoon. 

Biopics are usually quite syrupy. They play loose with some facts. Comparing two cinema treatments of the same story left me perplexed as to which one was more accurate. In some instances, both films produced shoddy history.

Take, for example, the simple facts of when, how and where the Brooklyn Dodgers clinched the pennant in 1947. In The Jackie Robinson Story, the Dodgers clinched in front of their home fans at Ebbets Field. With two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning and a man on second base, Robinson tied the score with a double. He scored the deciding run when the next batter singled him home. 

In 42, the Dodgers were shown playing the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Robinson hit a late inning home run to win the game. General manager Branch Rickey, the driving force behind baseball integration, was not at the game. He was depicted back in Brooklyn listening to a broadcast as he never played in or watched a baseball game on a Sunday, a promise he had made to his mother, a devout Methodist, as was Rickey. 

So here’s the truth—Robinson had little to do with winning the pennant-clinching game. Actually, no Dodger deserves credit. The Dodgers captured the National League flag that year after the second place team, the St. Louis Cardinals, lost a night game at home on September 22 to the Chicago Cubs. For good measure, the Dodgers went out and won their game the next day against the New York Giants. The score was 6-1. Robinson played only part of the game. He went hitless in two at bats. He had no runs batted in. He was removed from the game after batting in the fourth inning, with the Dodgers leading 2-1. 

September 23 was a Tuesday. Rickey would have been at the game. It was, after all, a home game, at Ebbets Field. 

FYI, Dan Bankhead picked up a four-inning save for the Dodgers on September 23. Bankhead was an Afro-American teammate of Robinson. 

In The Jackie Robinson Story, a spring training exhibition game between the Dodgers and their farm team, The Montreal Royals, had to be cancelled because the city of Sanford, Fla., would not permit white and Negro players to be on a field at the same time. In case you’re a little startled, yes, that’s the same Sanford, Fla., that George Zimmerman hails from. I’ll let you draw any conclusions as to how prejudices have changed, if at all, in the ensuing 66 years.  

Pitching Our of a Funk

I was in a funk most of Sunday afternoon.

Before you jump to any conclusions, I was not depressed about our new bed. My back was almost free of pain after just one night. 

The other day my friend and former research partner Leo, who celebrated his 92nd birthday last week, sent me a note from Tucson asking how I was doing, as he said my “blogs tend to portray your life in nostalgic and depressing fashion.” To which I replied, “I will admit to nostalgia, Leo, but not to depression, though In checking the dictionary definition of nostalgia it might infer some sadness ("a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time"). 

“Could be also that I am depressed about GOP efforts on the state and national levels to return our society to one that is less caring and compassionate and more unequal and intolerant. I've avoided writing about politics for the most part over the last few months because of the never-ending march backward. Not being a paid commentator I can choose to take a vacation from the encroaching reality.”

I should have said I was “distressed,” not depressed, as I am about the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman verdict, another example of an unjust but probably judiciously correct outcome given the known facts in the case, the need to prove guilt beyond a shadow of doubt, and Florida’s insane “stand your ground” law. 

No, I was in a funk for a very superficial reason. It was because I stunk up the softball field Sunday morning (and couldn’t even blame my back for a lousy pitching job). In just three-plus innings, before I wisely took myself out of the game with the bases loaded, I walked more batters than I have in all the games I pitched this season combined. I put my teammates into a three-run hole they could not overcome. I was angry at myself because I did not measure the distance between home plate and the rubber before the game started. It was at least two feet too long, so pitches that normally would have crossed the plate as strikes came in too low, hence the many walks. It wasn’t until the third inning that I mentioned it to the umpire and the home team pitcher. We corrected the distance, though by then I had already damaged our chances. 

I stayed in that funk until the evening when Gilda and I enjoyed a showing of the film 42, about Jackie Robinson’s 1947 debut as a Brooklyn Dodger, as the first Afro-American to play in the major leagues. The movie was emotional and inspiring, but what truly elevated me from my funk was the appearance of one of Jackie’s teammates, a pitcher who perhaps more than anyone else would have reason to have remained in a funk since 3:58 pm October 3, 1951, when the pitch Ralph Branca threw to NY Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson in the bottom of the ninth landed in the left field stands for a game-winning, National League pennant-winning home run. 

Now 87 and still sharp of mind, able to recall minute details of his and other ballplayer careers, Branca appeared at Pelham, NY’s Picture House with his son-in-law Bobby Valentine, the ex-NY Mets,  Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox manager, and Marty Appel, the former NY Yankees public relations director during the George Steinbrenner-Billy Martin-Reggie Jackson era. They engaged in a 45-minute conversation about the film, for which Branca served as a technical advisor, and baseball in general.  

Over the years I’d read how Branca recovered from the trauma of serving up the fastball that Thomson launched into baseball immortality for himself, infamy for Branca. Indeed, until Thomson’s death several years ago the two would appear together at conventions and other gatherings. If Branca was able to get over it, then so could I. After all, I didn’t have the whole borough of Brooklyn lamenting my existence.  

Aside from observing that your emotional life can go on, here are some comments Branca made about 42 and baseball:

The “shower scene” where Branca asks Robinson to join him in the shower with the rest of the team, where it’s played for laughs to suggest homosexual overtones, did not happen that way, he said. He merely told Robinson go with him to  the showers, that a team showers together. 

Branca was pitching against St. Louis when Enos Slaughter spiked Robinson in the calf at first base. Branca wanted to hit Slaughter with a pitch the next time he was up but Robinson told him not to. Slaughter led off the top of the eighth inning. Branca was pitching a perfect game at the time, 27 up, 27 down. Slaughter singled, the Cardinals’ only hit of the game. Branca was upset he didn’t throw at Slaughter.

Asked who was the best player of his era, Branca didn’t hesitate—Joe DiMaggio. As to who was the best center fielder among Mickey Mantle of the Yankees, Willie Mays of the Giants and Duke Snider of the Dodgers, Branca remained loyal to his teammate, reasoning Snider had the best arm of the trio and had to defend a more difficult turf as the Ebbets Field fence was more irregular with hard to play angles.  

He wasn’t in 42, but there was another Afro-American who played for the Dodgers in 1947. Dan Bankhead, a pitcher, joined the team in late August, Branca recalled.

A native of Mount Vernon, NY, Branca asked a tough trivia question: Which two unrelated major leaguers grew up in the same house at different times? Answer: Branca and Ken Singleton whose family bought their Mount Vernon home from Branca’s family. Singleton played for the Mets, the Montreal Expos and the Baltimore Orioles. He is now a sportscaster for the Yankees. 

Returning to the film, Branca said “Dem Bums” was not written on the side of the Dodgers team bus.

  

The team’s away uniform should have been grey with Brooklyn written across the chest, not Dodgers. Several pitchers on opposing teams in the movie had their throwing arms mixed up (righties were shown as lefties and vice versa).

When the Dodgers clinched the 1947 pennant in Pittsburgh, general manager Branch Rickey was not at the game. Rather, he was shown listening to a radio broadcast at Ebbets Field. Branca explained that Rickey, a devout Methodist, was fulfilling a promise to his mother not to play or watch a baseball game on a Sunday.

I'm Really Sick This Time

My wife and friends all think I'm a hypochondriac so there's no additional shame in telling you I feel lousy. I'm sick. No temperature, but I've got a hacking cough, sore throat and a stuffed nose. I've felt this way for about six days now, which means about another four to seven days of misery. I don't even get the benefit of staying home from work since I don't have an every day job anymore.

Tuesday morning around 5:30 I finally succumbed to my hypochondria and looked up strep throat on WebMD.com. I lacked the symptoms. I checked out how to treat a plain sore throat. It advised to take pain killers to relieve the discomfort of swallowing. It worked, so I’ve continued medicating, have gargled with salt water and imbibed cups of tea laced with honey. 

Finley’s not aware of it, but I’m blaming him for this health setback. Come to think of it, Dagny had a running nose when they were here for Passover. Hmmm ... I rarely get sick. I’m more prone to complaining about body aches (which are real, trust me, but are mainly due to my disinterest in exercising, stretching, limbering up). Well, I guess this is a counterpoint to the joys of grandparenthood. 

Colbert Joins the Attack: Move over, Mel Brooks. Stephen Colbert has joined the ranks of those who make fun of my given name.

During Monday night’s Colbert Report, the comedian was riffing on the liberal initiatives of Pope Francis, specifically his washing the feet of two women as part of last Thursday’s pre-Easter celebration. Colbert even went so far as to state, “There were no women in the Gospels. It’s a common mistranslation. Jesus was actually born of the Virgin Murray.”

Then he showed a picture of a cloaked man, which, to be honest, didn’t really look like me but did bear a striking resemblance to Gilda’s brother Carl. 

Five Finger Discounts: Did you see the article in today’s NY Times about retailers using databases to screen out job seekers who might have been involved in stealing from a previous employer? (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/business/retailers-use-databases-to-track-worker-thefts.html?hpw&_r=0)

It’s no secret employee theft is a bigger problem than five-finger discounts perpetrated by customers. So controlling internal theft is a big issue for retailers. 

The Times article dealt with prospective employees. For those already on the payroll, Kmart had a different tactic to thwart theft. I’m not sure if Kmart is still doing this, but years ago its store managers used to monitor the level of purchases made by their store staff. They reasoned that employees could not find merchandise such as paper products or toiletries for less than what they would pay at Kmart. So if someone wasn’t buying such goods at work, they probably were secreting the stuff out the back door. Closer observation of the suspects ensued. 

Brooklyn On My Mind: Next Friday, the movie 42 will premiere. It’s a biopic of Jackie Robinson. From the clips I’ve seen it looks like a winner.

I can’t remember actually seeing Jackie play in person for the Brooklyn Dodgers but I’m sure I did. Growing up in Brooklyn, we had a sweet access to Ebbets Field. If you sent in a quarter plus 10 wrappers from a Borden’s Ice Cream bar, you’d get a general admission ticket for a seat along the left field foul line. I wasn’t a Dodgers fan, but my brother Bernie was, so he took me along to games. 

Bernie has fond memories of visiting Ebbets Field, sitting in box seats behind first base with our mother, courtesy of tickets provided by one of our father’s sales representatives, Mr. Schaenman, who had an office in the Empire State Building. I can remember going to his office, riding the ear-popping elevators up to the sky to his office to pick up tickets for games, to Yankee Stadium for me, to Ebbets Field for Bernie, until they moved to Los Angeles, that is. After that Bernie would take me to Yankee games, though he didn’t become a fan. We’d always have box seats at Yankee Stadium, low enough that after the game we’d be close to the field and able to walk out on the outfield grass to the massive exit doors in center field (it was a different time back in the 1950s and early 1960s.) 

Anyway, Bernie remembers a game at Ebbets Field when he arrived early to watch batting practice. Though he tried to get a baseball hit into the stands, he couldn’t. At the end of batting practice a policeman suggested he go after a ball headed for the seats, but he got there too late. The ball dribbled back down onto the field. However, Billy Loes, a Dodger pitcher, retrieved it and handed it to Bernie. I don’t remember us ever having a baseball, but I must have been less than seven years old when Loes played in Brooklyn, and I never played catch with a real baseball. Too dangerous. You miss catching a baseball and it could knock your front teeth out. That’s what happened to a friend one year at summer camp where they specifically told us not to play with a baseball. Too dangerous. They were right. 

Bernie says he lost the ball a year or two later while playing on the street, probably down a storm sewer. Sewers were a real hazard when playing in the street or even on the sidewalk in Brooklyn. We’d lose at least one ball each time we played, until our arms were long enough to fish the sphere out of the sewer. No, we didn’t actually reach the bottom of the pit with our fingers. We’d elongate a wire clothes hanger, fashion one end into a loop, then go fishing for the ball down the sewer. Most times we’d reel in our lost balls, though they were usually Spaldeens or Pensie Pinkies—lightweight pink bouncers. Baseballs, being far more dense, were difficult to raise up. In case you suspect I’m making up this sewer fishing, here’s a corroborating post from another blogger: http://stillabrooklynkid.blogspot.com/2011/08/games-we-played-spaldeens-and-sewers.html.