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When David S. Ward’s “Major League” moved to multiplexes on April 7, 1989, many dismissed it as a pro baseball clone of the minor league “Bull Durham.” Is a wise veteran catcher (Tom Berenger) staring down a bad knee that forces him to retire? check. The twisted rookie pitcher (Charlie Sheen) with a flamethrower in his arm and no control over it? check. A superstitious slugger (Dennis Haysbert) who demands that he sacrifice a live chicken to get out of a batting slump? check.
The very presence of these familiar elements was enough for many domestic critics to dismiss Major League as a dumb comedy (Roger Ebert, who reviewed almost all of it, skipped it entirely). did). Moviegoers disagreed. The film grossed $50 million in the United States against an $11 million budget and earned an A-CinemaScore before becoming a sensation on home video/pay cable. By the time the next baseball season rolled around, Major League was considered a serious off-color classic of America’s pastime (one of /Film’s 30 Greatest Baseball Movies of All Time) .
And none of this would have happened if Ward hadn’t hired Bob Uecker to play the patient, hard-drinking play-by-play commentator Harry Doyle.
Only Milwaukee Brewers fans didn’t think Uecker was the perfect casting to be the radio announcer for the team then known as the Cleveland Indians (the organization renamed the Guardians in 2021). “Mr. Baseball” has been calling the team’s games since 1971. But when he took on the role of Doyle, a former professional baseball player who once shared a dugout with Milwaukee Braves greats Hank Aaron and Warren Spahn, he was more than just a sports celebrity than the city. It was. He appeared in many commercials for Miller Lite in the 1980s and played beloved television dad George Owens on ABC’s long-running comedy show “Mr. Belvedere.” He also appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” where he developed a reputation for being quick on his feet with a perfect joke.
There was nothing surprising about Uecker’s theft after steal in Major League, but that may be why so many critics took the film for granted.
Bob Uecker was a poet of the misery of Midwestern sports.
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The “Major League” hook is as familiar as the aforementioned gag. Margaret Whitton stars as a Las Vegas showgirl who inherits the infamous Cleveland baseball franchise from her late husband. Unable to grow attached to the depressed Midwestern city on the shores of Lake Erie and famous for its harsh winters, she replaced the team’s front office with a team of unknowns and experienced players whose numbers had plummeted due to poor performance. to be formed and allowed to move the organization to Miami. It’s basically “The Bad News Bears” with higher stakes. As expected, this losing team’s pride forces them to band together and enter a winner-take-all game against their arch-rival, in this case the New York Yankees.
“Major League” works admirably as a formulaic comedy about last-chance failure, but even though the entire ensemble gives top-notch performances, without Uecker it feels like a formulaic studio programmer. You’ll end up playing it. Ward does a good job of conveying how miserable it was to be a Cleveland baseball fan in the 1980s (the opening credits to Randy Newman’s “Burn On” are very effective); His gallows sense of humor makes it possible for even the most die-hard fans to do just that. When Doyle and Monte, a man of color, appear during the opening day game, the heartbreak and futility of surviving one scene after another is palpable. Uecker may be from Milwaukee, but he’s been around the game long enough to know all too well the traits of self-deprecating ennui that have been passed down from generation to generation in Cleveland. And in his first scene, he makes sure everyone in the audience feels like they’ve been screwed with Rocky Colavito’s deal since birth.
Harry Doyle lived a little outside the truth
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Uecker’s Doyle is necessarily a liar. On the surface, he’s an eloquent, game-deciding, energetic play-by-play man who, despite having been in the booth for years, is surprisingly persuasive. Line drives to deep center still have the mystery of distance. At least that would be the case if anyone in this awful iteration of the Cleveland club can put enough wood on the ball.
Instead, Doyle must find fierce poetry in Willie Mays Hayes’ (Wesley Snipes) first at-bat. He was a complete unknown who was an accidental dribbler and inexplicably turned a chance to second base into a single. “Hey, hot shot for the hole,” Doyle yelled as the fielder charged the weakly hit ball. When Hayes beats the throw, Doyle gasps and says, “Give Rudy credit for sacrificing his body with that racket. That guy has a family to think about,” and then plays. Added BS color to.
It’s going to be a season like that for Doyle, because it’s always been like that. But he needs his paycheck, so it’s going to sound like there’s professional baseball going on here. How does he endure that fear? Pour a few bottles of Jack Daniel’s into a paper cup and let it rest. Doyle is dying inside, but will never let his ever-dwindling audience know it.
Uecker’s best moment came late in the game when he faced the horror of an errant fastball from Sheen’s Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn. As the rookie pitcher’s first pitch flies out of reach of Belanger’s Jake Taylor, Doyle utters the film’s most famous line. “Come outside for a moment.” It’s a giant laugh line that drowns out the even funnier follow-up: “He tried the corner and missed.”
Thirty-six years later, sportscasters of all stripes still quote and paraphrase Doyle, and Uecker in general. But you can escape this kind of clever lies only if you are the listener’s eyes. It’s a dying skill that was never shared with sports fans before “Major League.” Doyle was an irredeemable allegorist to the foolishly faithful. There’s a nobility in loving your team enough to break your heart and believing that everything will work out when it never will. Bob Uecker, who passed away today at the age of 90, encouraged us to believe this. Because I think he believed that deep down.
