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Today we welcome back Bill Schaefer with an interesting “review of a review.” Bill analyzes Boston Globe sportswriter Bob Ryan’s “take” of the movie “42,” written in 2013. Bill then adds his own comments as he goes along. Read Bill’s essay, and see if you agree with Bob Ryan and/or Bill Schaefer! -GL

“42” MOVIE REVIEW

Recently Mark Kolier did a very interesting piece on baseball movies — jogging memories ranging from Pride of the Yankees to Field of Dreams to The Natural among many others. But not much was said about “42,” the story of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in 1947. The same year that saw the first televised World Series game, September 30, between the Yankees and Dodgers at Yankee Stadium. The Bronx Bombers won 5-3. It was the largest World Series crowd to date with 73,365 fans jam-packed together elbow to elbow and fanny to fanny at “The Big Ball Park.” It turned out to be a thrilling seven-game classic.

I saw the movie 11 years ago with a close friend and one of the all-time Brooklyn fanatics. We had some thoughts about the film, which I will convey with italicized parenthesis-enclosed comments, following a few of the points made by Boston Globe sportswriter, Bob Ryan. He provided a brilliant review of the movie on May 12, 2013. Here is his review edited just a bit for this essay:

I just had to see “42.”

The reviews have been generally complimentary. It’s been a surprising box office attraction. And the first personal account I received was full of praise for the basic baseball accuracy and paucity of Hollywood hokum, and this had come from someone who deeply loves baseball and understands it.

On that score, let me say this: Friends can dispassionately agree to disagree.

I say this because I believe “42” as well-intentioned as it is to be just another in an endless line of Hollywood biopics that wind up messing with history and infuriating anyone who enters the theatre with even a smidgen of knowledge about the subject and the world in which he or she operates.

It doesn’t matter if the subject is Emile Zola, Cole Porter, Abraham Lincoln, or, in this case, Jackie Robinson. No matter how good the story, history is never good enough for Hollywood. It must be embellished.

Now, I’m just asking. Did it really happen that in his very first plate appearance, in his very first exhibition game as a new member of the Montreal Royals — coming naturally against the parent Brooklyn Dodgers — that Jackie Robinson (a) drew a four-pitch walk from a pitcher clearly irked at the sight of a black man holding a bat, (b) stole second and advanced to third on a concurrent wild throw to center, and (c) scored by inducing a balk? Never heard that one.

And was he deliberately beaned by Pittsburgh’s Fritz Ostermueller? Uh, no. He was once hit by Ostemueller, but beanings played no role in Robinson’s 10-year major league career. And that leads to another issue.

The Ostermueller family is not pleased with the characterizations of the onetime Red Sox pitcher (1934-40) as a knee-jerk racist. His 65-year-old daughter, Sherill Ostermueller-Duesterhaus, has this to say: “You shouldn’t have to make things up. Truth and fiction get blurred in this picture.  It put a spotlight on my father for the wrong reason.”

And, um, not to nitpick, but the “42” hurler in question, like all pitchers featured in the movie, was righthanded. I never saw Fritz pitch, but every listing I’ve found says he was a southpaw.

One thing the movie does right is the sickening behavior of Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman. It has been thoroughly documented that he did taunt Robinson viciously, and Alan Tudyk succeeds quite nicely in demonstrating Chapman’s blind rage at the very thought of an N-word sullying his precious major league baseball.

But when Chapman unleashed his verbal garbage at Robinson, did he do it while standing 10 feet in front of the dugout while Robinson was at the plate? I mean, really. Have you ever seen a manager operating outside the dugout while the game was in progress?

(The entire scene was ludicrous. Alan Tudyk looked like a Borscht Belt comic delivering his over-the-top stand-up routine. Director-writer Brian Helgeland gives himself away as a less than-astute baseball fan.)                                          

Chapman was one of the more unsavory characters in 20th-century baseball. He was fired during the course of the 1948 season and never worked again.

Robinson had an outstanding rookie season winning the first Rookie of the Year award by batting .297 and accompanying it with a healthy .383 on-base percentage (he would retire with an exemplary .409 lifetime OBP and an .810 OPS. (Of course, in 1947 no one knew what OPS was). He led the league in stolen bases with 29. He also brought an electrifying base-running style that rattled opposing pitchers and managers alike. And he did it all while playing first base, a position he had never played before.

(Jackie had a 112 OPS plus that year, with an outstanding 133 career OPS plus.  He was robbed of four or five prime years because of the color barrier.)

Hollywood! Every point must be exaggerated for it to have any resonance, I guess. Did Dodger captain Pee Wee Reese really put his arm around Robinson before a game while they were standing near first base with absolutely no one else on the field?

Whatever Pee Wee did — and there’s a lot of historical debate on the subject — he did not do it in that manner.

And when I see Jackie Robinson seated in the clubhouse having a conversation with Ralph Branca while wearing his baseball cap on backward, my head is ready to explode. Nobody, but nobody could have remotely conceived of such a thing in 1947. That fashion statement was more than four decades in the future.

But here’s what is good about “42.”

The casting is superb. Chadwick Boseman gets Jackie the person and is entirely believable as a baseball player. This is not Tony Perkins embarrassing himself in Fear Strikes Out.

(But Boseman does not bring the fire of Robinson inside the white lines. Plus, Jackie was slightly pigeon-toed and always brushed his right hand across his right uniform pant leg as he approached the batter’s box. In certain scenes, however, Chadwick looked astoundingly like Jackie when he smiled.)

Nicole Beharie is flat-out beautiful, and she has to be, because Rachel Robinson can stop a room even today as she nears 91. She completes him, as ‘tis said, and they make an endearing couple. Christopher Meloni, of “Law & Order: SVU” fame, has Leo Durocher’s hairline, looks surprisingly like him, and brings “The Lip” to life. And who knew that Han Solo would grow up to be Branch Rickey?

But as far as John C. McGinley’s Red Barber is concerned, I don’t know whom to blame. Red was Southern, not a prissy pseudo-Brit. Barber was the ultimate down-the-middle baseball reporter-as-broadcaster. His heirs should sue for defamation.

The Ballparks are great.

The re-creations of Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds, Crosley Field (Cincinnati) and Forbes Field (Pittsburgh) are terrific.

That the film exists at all is important. Flawed though it may be, it is one of the most important American stories of the twentieth century and it should be seen by every young person, of any color and background, male or female. It sheds light on a very important subject.

Bill Schaefer

Sources: Boston Globe, Bob Ryan review, movie “42” May 12, 2013; James Montemurro, baseball historian; Wikipedia, 1947 events.

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