Cinematic baseball birthday: Fred Mertz

February 28, 2012

(Kids, ask your parents/grandparents.)

Rob Neyer, baseball expert and cinemaphile, noted on SB Nation that Sunday would have been William Frawley‘s 125th birthday.

Frawley, a hard-core baseball fan, is perhaps best known for his role as Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy (and later My Three Sons), but he was a veteran actor dating back to the silent film era. And what Neyer neglected to mention in his interesting tribute was that Frawley appeared in several baseball feature films as well, including:

Frawley often played a manager. Guess he liked to suit up.

Frawley, right, with Joe E. Brown in "Ailibi Ike"

(1962http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034905/

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Tagged as: Alibi Ike, Fred Mertz, Jack Dunn, Rob Neyer, William Frawley

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