Elisberg Industries
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Products
    • Books
    • Movies
  • About Elisberg Industries
    • Our Corporate Board
    • Information Overstock
    • Elisberg Industries Entertainment Information
    • Elisberg Statistical Center of American Research
    • Consultancy Service
  • Contact
    • How to Find Us
  • Kudos
  • Good Things to Know
    • The BOB Page
    • Sites You Might Actually Like
Decent Quality Since 1847

You Don't Know Jack

4/26/2013

0 Comments

 
There's a very nice piece over on Truthdig about Jackie Robinson, written by Alan Bara, who writes about sports for the Wall Street Journal, and has a couple of baseball books to his credit, including an upcoming one on Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays.

It’s an interesting and insightful article, well-written and informative, giving some more detail and shadings to the Robinson story tht couldn't make it into the film.  Like the author, I too was scratching my head at Leo Durocher being suspended in the film for reasons of morality, living with a married woman, rather than the real reason which gambling.  Also, he’s right about Leo Durocher never saying, “Nice guys finish last,” as he does in the film, but it would have been worth nothing that Durocher did “write” a book with that title.

However, I do have a few quibbles, mostly about the author's perception of Hollywood and making movies.  None made me discount the article – it’s quite good and well-worth reading – just that, like he wishes the movie had gotten everything spot-on right, I wish his article, did, too.

(Since I'm going to spend more time here with complaints than praise, that likely will give an imbalanced view of the article.  Do know that it's quite good.)

The article begins with two paragraphs of complaint that baseball took so long to make a movie about Jackie Robinson and saying how “it seems odd” -- but this shows little understanding of Hollywood.  First of all, as Mr. Bara himself notes, there was a movie about Jackie Robinson, and then another one too that he mentions.  So, Hollywood probably figured that they’d not only made the movie – but the definitive one, since Robinson himself starred in it.  They certainly wouldn't jump right in to make another one right away -- but hen 15 years passed, and the market changed in the mid-60s.  Hollywood discovered the Youth Culture, and the world market began to open.  In fact, in these last 50 years there have been very few movies about real-life baseball players – in part, I assume because the foreign market is so small for them.  There was Cobb and The Babe, but I can’t of all that many others.  (Eight Men Out and Moneyball weren’t really about A Player.  That leaves Fear Strikes Out, which counts, but was less about baseball than Jimmy Piersall's off-the-field battle with mental illness) So, while he’s right that it’s an oversight, it‘s not remotely as “odd” as he says, justifying him going on at length at the start of the article -- most especially since there were two movies.

I also thought his complaining about the scroll at the end (updating the audience) was ridiculous, suggesting that the movie implies this is the end of the story, with happy news about the Hall of Fame for so many people, but that the story really went farther and had sadness.  Yeah, that’s the way movies about great accomplishment always end, by noting that the hero got diabetes and eventually died, and there was subsequent sadness in the lives of some of the characters!  To mention the difficulties that Robinson's son, Jackie, Jr., had would have been pointless – in part, because Jackie Jr. really isn’t even mentioned in the movie, in the first place.  And to complain about “one of the great acts of disloyalty,” when the Dodgers traded Jackie Robinson to the the hated rivals, the Giants, was something I felt far too over the top -- yes, it was a big deal, and Robinson retired rather than be traded, but he was nearing the end of his career, which is why he was traded.  And even Babe Ruth got traded – and if not to the Yankees' hated rivals, the Boston Red Sox, but to the city of their hated rivals, the Boston Braves.  Players get traded.  Legendary players get traded.  Players get traded to rivals.  It happens.  Is it disloyal?  Would it have been better than to just cut the player and leave him with nothing?

In his updating what happened to the principals, the author also made it sound like the reporter, Wendell Smith, had a sad, tragic end to his writing career, not being able to write a book about Jackie Robinson "in a discrimination as unjust as what Robinson was subject to,"  In fact Wendell Smith had a distinguished career writing for decades in Chicago, and becoming a TV sportscaster.  I know -- I grew up reading him in the ChicagO Sun-Times and watching him on WGN.  He also lived until 1972.  Why he didn't write a book about Jackie Robinson as society hit the mid-60s and the Civil Rights Movement began to grow, I have no idea.  But it doesn't seem unreasonable to suspect that he might have had a chance to do so.  Also, what the movie leaves out -- as does Mr. Bara -- is that Wendell Smith was posthumously inducted into the journalism wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

Finally, I think Alan Bara's criticism of Major League Baseball taking 50 years to retire Jackie Robinson’s number for all teams was misguided.  Such a thing had never been done in baseball’s history.  (It hasn’t been done in football or basketball.)  For baseball to do it at all was remarkable and should be praised, period.  Not derided that it took so long.  And I don’t think it was “so long.”  Most things require at least some time and distance. 

To be clear, I liked the article a lot, and do recommend reading it.  It's very good, and very informative.  I just think he made some mistakes, just as he suggests the movie did.  (As we all do...)  And I’m not sure that I think most of those movie mistakes were problematic.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Picture
    Elisberg Industries gets a commission if you click here before shopping on Amazon.
    Picture
    Follow @relisberg

    Author

    Robert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 

    Elisberg is a two-time recipient of the Lucille Ball Award for comedy screenwriting. He's written for film, TV, the stage, and two best-selling novels, is a regular columnist for the Writers Guild of America and was for
    the Huffington Post.  Among his other writing, he has a long-time column on technology (which he sometimes understands), and co-wrote a book on world travel.  As a lyricist, he is a member of ASCAP, and has contributed to numerous publications.

    Picture
           Available on Amazon

    Picture
           Available on Amazon

    Picture
           Feedspot Badge of Honor

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    Animals
    Audio
    Audio Land
    Books
    Business
    Chicago
    Consumer Product
    Education
    Email Interview
    Entertainment
    Environment
    Fine Art
    Food
    From The Management
    Health
    History
    Huffery
    Humor
    International
    Internet
    Journalism
    Law
    Los Angeles
    Media
    Morning News Round Up
    Movies
    Music
    Musical
    Personal
    Photograph
    Piano Puzzler
    Politics
    Popular Culture
    Profiles
    Quote Of The Day
    Radio
    Religion
    Restaurants
    Science
    Sports
    Technology
    Tech Tip
    Theater
    The Writers Workbench
    Tidbits
    Travel
    Tv
    Twitter
    Video
    Videology
    Well Worth Reading
    Words-o-wisdom
    Writing

    RSS Feed

© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2025
Contact Us    About EI    Chicago Cubs
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Products
    • Books
    • Movies
  • About Elisberg Industries
    • Our Corporate Board
    • Information Overstock
    • Elisberg Industries Entertainment Information
    • Elisberg Statistical Center of American Research
    • Consultancy Service
  • Contact
    • How to Find Us
  • Kudos
  • Good Things to Know
    • The BOB Page
    • Sites You Might Actually Like