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Tonight’s movie is on Pluto! Here’s your link.
A long-suffering Senators fan makes a deal with the devil to help the team… but, as we know, those deals with the devil tend to backfire on ya. (He doesn’t
tend to be a scrupulously honest negotiator.)
This musical is drawn from a book, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, by Douglass Wallop, a D.C. native. Born in 1920, his formative years would have been spent watching the Yankees beat the Senators year after year after year — between 1936 and 1954 (when the book was published), the Yankees appeared in 13 of 19 World Series… and won 12 of them. While the Senators had won a Series in 1924, lost ones in 1925 and 1933, and would never appear in one again. (They were officially named the “Nationals” by this point, but everybody just referred to them by the old name.)
Incidentally, you’re probably familiar with the bigoted comments made by Senators/Twins owner Cal Griffith about 1960s Black baseball fans, suggesting they didn’t like baseball (these comments, made in 1978, were part of why Rod Carew demanded a trade from the Twins).
Well, of course Griffith was wrong… and yet baseball in D.C. DID face a huge challenge, especially as/after the federal government grew massively during WWII. The biggest problem was, most government workers came from other cities! So if they were baseball fans, they stayed loyal to their former teams! It’s less of a problem now, since D.C. has more than just the feds as a main employer. But in 1954, things were looking pretty bleak for Senators fans, and maybe only a bargain with the diabolical could save them?
No such bargain was made… and the Senators left town for Minnesota in 1961. They’d get an expansion team to replace them, but that team wasn’t very good, and it moved to Texas in 1972. (D.C. would get another team in 2005, courtesy of Jeff Loria, which one might say was a definite deal with the devil.)
The book became a Broadway musical in 1955, written by Wallop and George Abbott (who lived to 107!). Songs by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The musical became a movie in 1958, directed by Abbott and Stanley Donen (who I assume worked on the musical numbers; he directed Singing in the Rain). It stars the totally-closeted Tab Hunter, the totally hammy Ray Walston, and the muse to Bob Fosse, dancing legend Gwen Verdon.
And I guess the musical/movie was responsible for bringing us, um, this:
Here’s tonight’s link again. And here’s the upcoming schedule:
December 19: 12 Angry Men (1957)
It’s on Internet Archive, and baseball plays a part in the plot, or wanting to finish in time for a game does. I mean, justice SHOULD matter more, but priorities are priorities.
December 26: Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)
I figure, it’s Christmas, so why not a Christmas movie? Specifically, a Christmas movie where people bash zombies with baseball bats! Free on Tubi.
January 5: Eight Men Out (1988)
Yep, they cheated for gambling money, but the way Charles Comiskey treats them, you’ll kinda understand why. Free on Pluto and Tubi.
January 12: Benched (2018)
John C. McGinley and Garret Dillahunt star as two youth baseball coaches with very different approaches to coaching. Free on Tubi.
I’ve got some ideas for future ones if we do this more, and all movie suggestions are absolutely welcome & wanted!
But, until then, pop your popcorn, and let’s start the show at 7:30!
