Paige and Robinson


One reviewer on this board states that Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson may never have met each other. The truth is the two men were teammates on the 1945 KC Monarchs, as the movie correctly shows. However, the film could have done a better job using accurate uniforms.

http://www.umass.edu/pubaffs/jackie/proball2.html

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With all due respect, you misread my post. I said there was no evidence to suggest that Robinson ever met Josh Gibson, not Paige. As you say, Paige and Robinson played together on the Monarchs, as I also mention on my post.

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I looked for your original post to see what you wrote, but it seems to have disappeared.

As far as Robinson and Gibson, I don't know if they ever met either, but I do know that Robinson was on the 1945 Kansas City Monarchs. Gibson's last stint with the Homestead Grays was 1942-46. So there is a serious chance they could have met, but their relationship may not have been as involved as seen in the movie.

It's best to look at movies like Soul of the Game with the mindset of "based on a true story." I finally gave up on trying to get real history from a lot of these "history" films.

I heard that there is a new Jackie Robinson movie coming out. It would not surprise me at all if, except for Robinson and Branch Rickey, all of the other characters are made up. Of course, I hope that does not happen.

If you want a good baseball movie with historical accuracy, check out 61*.

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You're right about 61*. Crystal made sure everything he could control was on top of it. It is also amazing how much Thomas Jane and Barry Pepper looked like Mantle and Maris. Anthony Michael Hall was also a terrific Whitey Ford, albeit much taller than the real one.

I am looking forward to a new Jackie Robinson movie, especially since Rachel Robinson has been hired as a technical advisor. It will also be interesting to see who they cast in the main roles, especially Robinson.

Here is my original post. It was a "user comment," not a message board post.

Kevin Rodney Sullivan uses this masterpiece of a cable movie to build his resume for his entre into feature film directing ("How Stella Got Her Groove Back"). HBO Pictures' faith in the young actor/director, who to date has very few credits as either, is justified.

The year is 1945. Everyone knows that soon, the Major Leagues will be integrated. Most think the player who breaks the "color line" will be an established Negro Leagues star, such as legendary hurler Leroy "Satchel" Paige of the Kansas City Monarchs or Homestead Grays' catcher Josh Gibson, who was called "the black Babe Ruth." But Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey confounds the experts and chooses the confrontational but cerebral Jackie Robinson first.

Delroy Lindo, an unheralded but talented character actor ("Broken Arrow," "Get Shorty," "Malcolm X," "Crooklyn") shows true leading man potential as Satchel Paige in this engaging story about the struggle for Negro League stars to make it to the "big leagues" in the mid 1940s. Mykelti Williamson ("Forrest Gump," "The New WKRP in Cincinnati," "Midnight Caller") is excellent as Josh Gibson. Blair Underwood ("L.A. Law"), a fine actor, seems physically miscast as Jackie Robinson, but turns in a credible performance as the future Brooklyn Dodger second baseman and Hall of Famer. Edward Herrmann ("Richie Rich" and Dodge automobile pitchman) is properly pontifical as Rickey, and an excellent facial match, although he is much taller and more nattily attired than "The Mahatma" was in real life. Venerable character actor R. Lee Ermey ("Full Metal Jacket") steals a couple of scenes in his role as J. L. "Wilkie" Wilkinson, the visionary Kansas City Monarchs owner who, among other innovations, invented night baseball.

The story is mostly entertainment, a docudrama. It is a sumptuously photographed period piece with clothes, cars, ballparks, and hotel lobbies perfectly festooned in the style of the day. As a character study, it is flawed. Paige, while portrayed as the consummate showman he was, is also shown as a devoted husband whose wife Lahoma (Salli Richardson) travels everywhere with him. The real life Paige was a notorious womanizer. And although there are many scenes with Gibson and Robinson together, including a near-fight that probably never happened, in reality, there is no evidence to suggest that Gibson and Robinson ever met each other. The screenplay also glosses over Gibson's well-documented alcoholism and heroin addiction, suggesting that the brain tumor which eventually killed him at the tender age of 36 was the sole cause of the bizarre behavior that kept him from being the first African-American selected to play in the majors.

The movie also has fictional scenes at the beginning and end where a newspaper reporter talks to Willie Mays during the 1954 World Series before the young Giants outfielder goes out and makes "the catch" of Vic Wertz's blast in Cleveland's Municipal Stadium. It is also convenient how many times the juvenile Mays seems to pop up in opportune moments as a spectator or autograph seeker during the film. One such scene was used to make the point that his father, Cat Mays, had been a standout in the Negro Leagues long before baseball integration was a remote possibility, and also to get Robinson--and the audience--to question how old Paige really was at that point.

On the other hand, the film does a creditable job of showing how tough times were for Negro League ballplayers and how eager most were to be accepted into so-called "organized baseball," despite the Jim Crow laws and attitudes of the day. There is a shocking and touching scene depicting Jim Crow attitudes when a clueless young fruit vendor, who repays the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Paige by calling them the ugliest racial epithet used against African-Americans.

As entertainment, "Soul of the Game" gets an "A." As a historical document, it deserves a "C." That's still a "C" as in "see it."

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As far as Paige not being portrayed as the womanizer he was, two things are possible: either the director was a huge idol of Satch and just could not bring himself to portray the man negatively (as so many did with Babe Ruth over the years); or he was concerned of a lawsuit by showing this side of the man. I mean, does anyone have proof that that Paige was really an adulterer, or is it just heresay?

Sometimes we just have to enjoy these films as entertainment, but I do regret that so many get their history from movies. Perhaps if everything were directed by Billy Crystal, it would be different.

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From "Seasons to Remember The Way It Was in American Sports 1945-1960" by Curt Gowdy with John Powers (1993), HarperCollins Publishers: "He loved tailor-made clothes and fast roadsters and women...If he'd been born thirty years later, he could have had steaks and prime rib until the day he died. His best years were gone before America ever got to appreciate him." From a synopsis of "Don't Look Back: Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball" (1994), Da Capo Press: Mark Ribowsky gives the best picture yet of life in the Negro Leagues as he brings to life a man whose act as a lovable eccentric with a golden arm masked a decidedly darker side as womanizer, hard drinker, and contract jumper always on the lookout for number one.

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Buck O'neil shared a story in the "Shadow Ball" episode of Baseball that Satch gave him his "Nancy" nickname from an episode where Lahoma almost caught him with another woman (named Nancy). If he was a hard drinker, it's amazing he was able to last so long in athletics.

I still haven't found out any more about how well Robinson and Gibson knew each other. But as I said, I would imagine they were on the same field, in the batter's box together, some time in 1945. But that does not mean they went out for drinks or a bite to eat.

BTW, I just finished an incredible book called Carrying Jackie's Torch: The Players Who Integrated Baseball-and America by Steve Jacobson. It's about many of the first generation of black ballplayers who came after Robinson. All people you've heard of, but the stories of their lives that you have not heard. It's no surprise to hear that Frank Robinson or Curt Flood dealt with racist, heckling fans like Jackie did. But it's a shock to hear that Ken Griffey Jr. encountered this in Bakersfield, CA in 1988, and had to have security escort from the ballpark because the racist hecklers were waiting for him in the parking lot after the game. Excellent book.

http://www.amazon.com/Carrying-Jackies-Torch-Integrated-Baseball/dp/1556526393/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-9698660-7498224?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179238037&sr=8-1

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While I did not know about Griffey Jr.'s episode, racist heckling in Bakersfield comes as no shock to me at all. It is a cow town and a country music stronghold which produced both Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakum.

While Paige was a social drinker, he was not a "hard drinker" like either Gibson or Babe Ruth, both of whom had long careers. But Ruth, Gibson and Paige all had a couple of things in common. With the barnstorming that was done back in those days, they all played ball all year around, so even though they drank and partied and did not have the cross-training conditioning regimens of today's players, they essentially stayed in game shape year-round.

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I have a friend who worked as a doorman in a Chicago hotel in the early 1990s. A ballplayer for the White Sox lived in the hotel. He had a great rookie season, but was gone a few years after that. This happens to a lot of players. My friend said that a lot of guys in sports, right after games, hit the bars, discos and strip clubs hard and don't take care of themselves. He said this guy often didn't come home until like 6 or 7AM.

Not only do today's players have cross-training, strength conditioning and the luxury of not having to work some other job like selling cars in the offseason, but they have huge contracts where they are set for life, agents who take care of them, and often an entourage of nutritionists, strength and conditioning coaches and PR people to handle the media and sales reps for them.

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Also, Jackie Robinson did not wear #42 for the Kansas City Monarchs.

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