Author Archives: Dazzling Erin

Music Video of the Day: Just A Dream by Carrie Underwood (2008, Dir. by Roman White)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

This is a very powerful music video.  I don’t have much to say about it other than that.  It’s not a political song or as political music video.  Instead, it’s a tribute and an appreciation of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and the loved ones who were left behind.

I Watched 61* (2001, Dir. by Billy Crystal)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

61* is about two baseball player and two friends who couldn’t seem to be more different.

Roger Maris (Barry Pepper) is an introverted family man who doesn’t like it when reporters show up at his house in search of a story or a quote.  He’s a good ball player, one of the best, but he doesn’t want to be a celebrity.  Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane) is a larger-than-life personality, a beloved figure on the field and in the dugout.  Mickey loves being famous and the fans love him.  Both Maris and Mantle are members of the New York Yankees.  Because Mantle is struggling with his drinking, he becomes Maris’s roommate when they’re on the road.  In 1961, the two friends both go after Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season.  The press presents their season as a battle, a race to see who will be the first to hit the sixty-first home run of the season.  Mantle and Maris, though, are just swinging the bat and making plays.

I really enjoyed 61*, which is a baseball film made by and for people who love baseball.  I liked the contrast between the quiet Maris and the charismatic Mantle.  Even though Maris is a hard worker and a good ballplayer, Mantle is the fan favorite and the one that people actually want to break the record.  I appreciated that Maris and Mantle remained friends even when the press tried to turn them into rivals.  That’s what teamwork is all about.  Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane were great as Maris and Mantle and the movie showed how each man dealt with the stress of possibly breaking Babe Ruth’s record.

(Why is there an asterisk in the title?  Babe Ruth set his record in a season that only had 154 games.  The 1961 baseball season was 8 games longer.  The asterisk was added as a reminder that Maris and Mantle had 8 more games than Ruth did to try to break the record.  Baseball fans understand how important accurate statistics are to a player’s career and a team’s season.)

61* celebrates the way baseball used to be, a game played by athletes who had to depend on skill and teamwork instead of performance enhancing drugs.  The movie opens with Maris’s family watching as Mark McGuire closes in on breaking the record.  McGuire would only briefly hold the record.  He would lose it, for 48 minutes, to Sammy Sosa and then, three years after winning it back, he would lose it a second time to Barry Bonds.  Of course, Roger Maris won the record without using steroids so, as far as I’m concerned, it still belongs to him.

If you’re a baseball fan, 61* is a film that you have to see.

I Watched Flashing Spikes (1962, Dir. by John Ford)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

When infielder Bill Riley (Patrick Wayne) makes an error that costs his team the game, sports columnist Rex Short (Carleton Young) claims that he witnessed Bill being paid off by Slim Conway (James Stewart).  Slim is a former player who was banned from Major League Baseball after he was accused of taking a bribe from a gambler.

Most the movie is a flashback, showing how Bill first met Slim when Slim was playing for a barnstorming team of former major leaguers.  That was my favorite part of the movie.  Slim and a collection of old, worn-out men stumble out of their bus and even though they might move a little slower and they might need to stretch a little more before swinging a bat, they still show up a cocky team made up of young local players.  Even after the crowd nearly riots when they realize that Slim is one of the players, the old players keep their cool and their eye on the game.  After Bill spikes Slim while sliding into home plate, Bill apologizes.  Slim remembers the young man’s humility and, working with one of the few friends that he has left in the game, Slim helps Bill get his chance in the Majors.

Usually, when my sister yells at me to come watch something because “it’s got baseball!,” I’m prepared for it turn out to just be a movie with one scene of someone holding a bat.  I’m glad that she called me to come watch Flashing Spikes with her because it really is a good and loving celebration of my favorite game.  Even after Slim is treated so unfairly by the press, the League, and even some of the fans, he never stops loving the crack of the bats and the cheers of the crowd.  Flashing Spikes is unabashedly pro-baseball and Slim stands in for every player who was ever unfairly railroaded out of the game by scandal mongers like Rex Short.