Fionnula Flanagan | Through the Shattered Lens

In 1945, Peter Gray made history when he became the first one-armed major league baseball player. Gray grew up in poverty in Pennsylvania. His father was a miner and Peter was one of five children. He was only seven years old when he lost his right arm in a wagon accident but he loved baseball and he wasn’t going to let his disability keep him from playing. He learned how to bat and catch and throw with his left hand. He quit school when he was thirteen and worked for a while as waterboy while playing baseball in the local leagues. Eventually, he made his way up to the minor leagues and, in 1945, he was called up to the majors. He played one season for the St. Louis Browns.

The media loved the story of the one-armed baseball player but Peter always said that he resented feeling like he was being put on display whenever he took the field. He was a competitive outfielder who could catch a ball, remove his glove, and then throw the ball to the infield just as quickly as anyone with two hands. As a hitter, he struggled because pitchers figured out early on that he couldn’t hit the breaking ball. After the 1945 season, Peter was sent to back to the minors, where he spent the rest of his career. Though Peter was known for being an angry player who resented anyone pointing out his disability, he still made time to visit amputees in military hospitals to show them that they could still find success and to encourage them to chase after their dreams.

Peter’s story was the basis of A Winner Never Quits, which I watched on YouTube this weekend. It was a good baseball movie, starring Keith Carradine as Peter. What I liked is that the movie didn’t make him into a saint. Carradine played Peter as being angry and with a definite chip on his shoulder. Peter had every right to be angry and I’m glad the movie acknowledged that. In both the movie and in real life, Peter was worried that he was just being treated as a sideshow. In the movie, his attitude improves when he meets a young boy who recently lost his arm and who looks up to Peter. Peter remained a friend to the boy and his family for the rest of his life. A Winner Never Quits is about pursuing what you love and never giving up. That’s what baseball is all about. A Winner Never Quits is a good and inspiring baseball movie that’s not just for the fans.

In this HBO movie, Alan Alda plays the biggest asshole in the world.

Alda is cast as Dan Cutler, an ad exec who books a corporate retreat to Canada’s White Mile. He tells the nine men who accompany him, some of whom are clients and some of whom work for him, that it’s going to be a weekend of fishing and male bonding. What he doesn’t reveal is that the trip is also going to require whitewater rafting. Despite the fact that the majority of the men are out-of-shape and hardly any of them have any rafting experience, Dan insists that they all take part. When their guide says that they’re going to need to take two boats, Dan refuses. He wants everyone in one boat, the better so they can all work together to prove their manhood by conquering the river.

The trip starts out well but, when the raft hits a rock and turns over, five of the men end up dead. Despite injuring his leg, Dan survives and, when he returns to work, he’s hailed as a hero. However, one of the widows of the men who didn’t survive is now suing the company. While Dan tries to cover his own ass, one of the survivors — Jack Robbins (Peter Gallagher) — is faced with a dilemma of his own. As one of the few people who knows that Dan demanded that the guide only use one boat, will Jack testify to the truth at the trial or will he follow Dan’s orders and keep quiet about what really happened?

Based on a true story, White Mile features some brief but exciting (and harrowing) rafting scenes but the film is less about what happened in the wilderness and instead about what’s happening behind the closed doors of corporate America. White Mile does a good job of taking Alda’s sensitive male persona and pushing it through the looking glass. As played by Alda, Dan is the type of tyrannical boss who we’ve all had to deal with. His friendly smile barely disguises a bullying streak. Even after the accident leaves five of his colleagues dead, Dan is still convinced that the trip was a good idea and that everyone was having the best day of their lives until they hit that rock. When the river guide initially finds Dan stranded on a rock, Dan makes a show of telling the guide to come back for him later and to find the others. When Dan later comes across one of the dead men, he says, “He must have had a bad heart,” as he grasps at any way to avoid taking responsibility. Though White Mile is dominated by Alda’s villainy, it also features good performances from Gallagher, Robert Loggia, Bruce Altman, and Jack Gilipin. When Gilpin demands to know if anyone at the ad agency has shown any true remorse for what happened, he is speaking for the entire audience.

White Mile was an early HBO film and, because it was released before HBO became known for its original programming, it’s often unfairly overlooked. When it was released on DVD, it was advertised as being an action-adventure film, which it definitely is not. Instead, it’s a look at the type of head games that far too often act as a substitute for responsible and ethical management in corporate America. It’s a good movie and you’ll never look at Alan Alda the same way again.