Baseball on the Tube

July 31, 2007

The July 23 issue of TV Guide  highlights the ESPN miniseries, The Bronx is Burning.

The piece also pays homage to the TV baseball events that came before including:

  • 61*  — A 2001 HBO film starring Barry Pepper as Roger Maris  in pursuit of the single season home run record held by the beloved Babe Ruth. Pepper does a nice job portraying the increasing frustration over the course of the season, as Maris faced opposition from pitchers, fans, and baseball hierarchy as he approached the mark.
  • Jason Alexander’s slacker character, George Costanza, managed to snare a position with the New York Yankees, but one of the best shows featured a 1992 guest shot by Keith Hernandez as the object of Jerry’s “man crush.” A priceless gag was the Kramer-Newman “loogie” conspiracy theory, with Roger McDowell.
  • Ball Four — In 1976, CBS tried to take advantage of the popularity of Jim Bouton’s watershed behind-the-scenes look at his profession. Bouton starred as himself and didn’t do too terrible a job, but this became the first in a short line of failed baseball-themed series.
  • Clubhouse (2004) was probably doomed from the start. If you can’t get people to watch about baseball player, it’s not surprising that they wouldn’t warm to a show about a batboy.
  • Bay City Blues — a short-lived series featured an impressive cast, including Ken Olin, Sharon Stone, Michael Nouri, Kevin (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) McCarthy, Sheree North, Dennis Franz, and Bernie Casey, among others, from the mind of Steve Bochco.

Baseball players have made appearances on dozens of shows through the years. For example:

  • Leo Durocher appeared on The Munsters
  • Don Drysdale, The Donna Reed Show (Willie Mays, too, although on a separate episode)
  • Jim Lefebvre and Wes Parker as cannibals on Gilligan’s Island (!)
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