I saw 42 tonight. It's the new movie about Jackie Robinson's breakthrough with the 1946 Montreal Royals, and then with the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers as the first black player in modern Major League Baseball. The movie's a bit cheesy, redeemed mainly by the glorious story it recounts, and by a wonderful performance from Harrison Ford as Dodger General Manager Branch Rickey—the man who spearheaded baseball's integration. There are some nice touches, as when Rickey picks Robinson's bio out of a stack of Negro League player reports he's considering. "He's a Methodist," notes Rickey. "I'm a Methodist. God is a Methodist. It should work out well." Growing...

16 April, 2013

Our post on Vin Scully, 81, who just wrapped up his 60th season calling play-by-play for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers (and plans to stay on through next season), elicited some wonderful reader comments. First, Frank MacDonald (yes, that Frank MacDonald, the other Inverness County writer who deserves a Giller): Enjoyed your reminder of the Koufax perfect game. In my own writing during the baseball season, the game plays the role for me that music plays for many others. Even when it is televised, as it mostly is in this house, it is two rooms away, and the sound of the...

13 November, 2009

Frank MacDonald also sent us a song he wrote "many years ago." "There has never been a musician I could interest in it," he writes. "Not being a singer myself, I converted into a talking blues that I entertain myself with from time to time in the car, As a old Brooklyn Dodger fan, you may enjoy it. As a Cleveland fan my chances to enjoy things have been few and far between since 1954." SANDLOT KID He lived on a park bench, reading baseball box scores And paid his way doing odd and end chores. But he loved to remember when baseball was magic, And...

13 November, 2009