42: The True Story of an American Legend

A home run to clinch the pennant wasn't over the top?

Robinson's "revenge" home run against Ostermuller happened in the 4th inning of a scoreless game on Sept. 17, 1947. The Dodgers won 4-2.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT194709170.shtml

The Dodgers' win that day put them 10 games up, but the Cardinals still had 12 games left to play. Brooklyn mathematically did clinch the pennant a day later, when the Cardinals lost to the Braves, but they didn't know that at the time. So the Dodgers didn't celebrate their pennant until September 22, when the Cardinals' loss to the Cubs to put them 8 back with 7 to play:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cgNZAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4E4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5655,4790755&dq=dodgers+pennant&hl=en

None of that is important enough to matter in the movie, of course. I thought the ending was fine: After all, he really did take his "revenge" on the field with his playing ability. That's the truth.

But for the record: The Ostermuller home run in September really wasn't dramatic at all — Robinson had already homered off him in July after the infamous HBP in June — and had nothing to do with them clinching the pennant.

And while we're at it: The Ostermuller pitch in June hit him in the left elbow, not the head. That was in the first inning. In the fifth, Robinson took his real revenge with a line drive back up the middle that made Ostermuller flinch noticeably enough that the NYT remarked on it in the gamer. That single extended his hitting streak to 14 games.

 

Saw the movie, thought it was OK. Very Hollywood-ized, not to my surprise. But my 11 year old liked it, and I think that's more to the point of this movie: Getting those who don't know the story to know it, in whatever fashion.

 

I liked it. Thought it was well done and well-acted, with a few gratuitous cliche scenes in which the camera lingered a bit too long.


On thing that bugged me was that the way Robinson was shown stealing bases (and watching a home run). It seemed like ht took an awful long time to get going.

He wouldn't start heading to second or third until the ball was crossing the plate.

Some really nice acting jobs by mostly TV actors -- Max Gail did a good job of portraying Burt Shotton as an amiable doofus; Chris Meloni was great as Durocher and John C. McGinley did a surprisingly nice turn as Red Barber.

 

Saw it yesterday and my wife asked about Shotton. She wondered if he was as out of touch as it seemed in the movie. I didn't know. Was he?

 

Dick Young used to refer to him in print as KOBS, for "Kindly Old Burt Shotton".

Supposedly, he was a nice guy who was very calm, which was both good and bad. Good, because the Dodgers responded to him after Durocher's fire. But bad because he wasn't as vociferous as standing up for Robinson as Durocher was.

 

In addition to Dick Young's famous "Kindly Old Burt Shotton" line, which he used often, I'll add this:

Shotton hadn't managed in the big leagues since 1934 when Rickey plucked him from retirement to manage the Dodgers 13 years later. That's longer than any of Jack McKeon's hiatuses.

Had the game passed him by? Certainly. Was he as much a buffoon as the movie made him out to be? Of course not. He was eccentric and old and probably didn't relate to his players well on a personal level, but he did win two pennants, after all.

When he got hired in 1947, he had spent the past few years coaching the Dodgers' minor leaguers, so he knew some of the younger players well, but he admittedly didn't know the established major leaguers at all. The only reason he got the job was because of his lifelong friendship with Rickey. But he was well-liked by players, and he was a calming influence on the Dodgers' clubhouse, which wouldn't have been possible with Durocher at the helm. Who knows how much that helped ease Robinson as a rookie? Clearly he was doing something right.

 

Went to see yesterday. Thought it was a really well done movie in creating a feel of the era from dress, cars, music ect. Always love seeing everyone at suits and fedoras at ball park.
Miss the days of being able to smoke cigars which went out in '95.

The racism as portrayed was almost uncomfortable to sit through which I think is what the director was driving at to give people as good a feel as possible of some of what Robinson went through.

As Ace said I found it odd that he stood at plate at watched his HR vs Pittsburgh.

Wish they had continued movie through World Series with The Yankees.

 

He stood at the plate and watched *every* ball hit to the outfield in this movie, not just the home runs.

 

Interesting take from historical perspective by Howard Bryant:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9207998/42-gets-some-jackie-robinson-history-wrong-starts-conversation

 

Since Bryant mentioned at beginning of his story that his son was mixed race I did find this passage a little odd:

"It was also with sadness and a little bit of fear that I watched his face contort as I answered each question about Jim Crow, segregation and desegregation, about how Jackie Robinson and MLK and Rosa Parks weren't the only ones, about his school trip last year to Plimoth Plantation and the Wampanoags, and the rest of that story. I told him of yesterday and today.

As his brow furrowed, I asked him how many of his classmates looked like him or like me, how many times he saw people like us in restaurants or cartoons or movies. He was quiet and I knew I had darkened his mood. "That life does not have to be your life," I said. "And it won't." Then, he looked up and said, "Papa, when I get older, I'm going to do things that make the world better. I want to make sure everybody has the same chance, so no one has to go through what Jackie Robinson went through."