“So let’s lift a glass…”

June 20, 2012

I was tooling around the Internet recently and came across an item about Joe Garagiola, the former catcher who enjoyed a second act as author of the well-received Baseball Is a Funny Game. (More recently, Garagiola wrote It’s Anybody’s Ballgame and, most recently, Just Play Ball.

What I also learned was that Jolly Joe was the guest at one of those old Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts.

Of course, that led to the discovery that several other baseball figures were similarly skewered, including Leo Durocher and Hank Aaron. There may be others, but these things kind of make me feel sad so I stopped looking. The humor is often forced, at least a few of the rosters have absolutely no connection with the guest of honor, and the stuff just doesn’t age well. Does anyone remember Foster Brooks, whose shtick was playing drunk? A real laugh riot. They would also frequently toss in a female comedian (for balance?) who had no place on the program. And that was back in the network days. If you’ve seen a roast now on a cable program you know that the gloves are off when it comes to language (and taste).

Nevertheless, these videos are brought to you as a public service, a time capsule of humor, if you will.

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Tagged as: Dean Martin, Hank Aaron, Joe Garagiola, Leo Durocher

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