In advance of my Bookshelf Conversation with Jonathan Eig which I will post tomorrow, here’s a blast from the past.
Climax! was one of those live-performance anthology television series in the 1950s sponsored by a major corporation, in this case Chrysler. This 1956 episode, The Lou Gehrig Story, starred Wendell Corey as Gehrig, character actor James Gregory (Inspector Luger on Barney Miller, among many other roles) as Yankees skipper Joe McCarthy, and Harry Caray Jr. as Bill Dickey. There’s also an appearance by Russell Johnson — the Professor on Gilligan’s Island — as Rusty, a teammate who complains about the decreasing skills of The Iron Horse.
The hour-long program also featured several players in archival footage, including Babe Ruth and Dizzy Dean.
The host of the series, which ran from 1954-58, was William Lundigan, who, while awkwardly fiddling with a ball and glove, noted that “not many seasons” had passed since Gehrig had last played. This episode aired on April 19, shortly after the beginning of the season. I’m not going to give anything away — really what spoiler alerts could there be? — other than this obviously isn’t a feature film in terms of budget and length, so just enjoy.
But speaking of Gehrig, there’s this, too:
is available on Amazon.com,
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