61 (2001)
Directed by Bill
Crystal
HBO/Warner Brothers,
129 minutes, TV-MA (language)
* * ½
Each spring I watch a baseball movie or two to get myself
psyched for May and June–when the games begin to matter more than they usually
do in April. This year I decided to watch one I've not see before. 61 recounts the 1961 season when both
Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris threatened to break what was then the
single-season homerun record: Babe Ruth's 60 in 1927.
First, let me get a rant out of the way. Is there a law that
says that the music for a baseball film has to be as schmaltzy as polka night
in down-market bar? Marc Shaiman's score is insufferable in a
we-can't-trust-viewers-to-fashion-their-own-emotions fashion. Not even the
Lifetime channel would be able to stomach the 61 score.
Okay, on to the film. 61
was directed by comedian Billy Crystal, a serious baseball fan and devoted
Yankees fan. The project was originally done as an HBO exclusive and was later
picked up by Warner Brothers for broader distribution. It has many of the
earmarks of a TV production: broad character development, a tendency to
simplify, a sense of triumphalism, bathos, and infusions of moralism. In other
words, it's more light entertainment than masterpiece.
Still, scriptwriter Hank Steinberg knows his way around the
keyboard and was nominated for a Writers Guild of America prize for 61. The film was also cast well,
especially Barry Pepper as Roger Maris and Thomas Jane as Mickey Mantle. Each
looks the part. Jane captures Mantle's crooked smile and Pepper channels Maris' straight
arrow demeanor. Christopher McDonald also sticks out as broadcaster Mel Allen,
as does Peter Jacobson as sports journalist Artie Green.
We open to documentary footage from 1998 when the Cardinals
Mark McGwire was set to obliterate Maris' record. Members of the Maris clan
were on hand to witness the event and were charitable in ways that Babe Ruth's
widow Clare had not been 37 years earlier*. From that point on, we are thrust back to the 1961 season
and the media frenzy that ensued. We are so used to media circuses these days
that it's easy to forget they were relatively rare back then, unless you were a
jetsetter with a trail of paparazzi on your tail.
In 1961, baseball was decidedly America's pastime. The season
opened with Maris as the reigning MVP, having hit 39 homers and driven in 112
runs in 1960, but "The Mick," as Mantle was dubbed, was the local
golden boy. Another thing that might surprise is that personal lives were not
scrutinized as much in the early 1960s, which was a good for Mantle, a heavy
drinker and a womanizer, though he had a wife and kids back in Oklahoma. We
later found out that he and Whitey Ford were also peeping toms. As the summer
and the bats heated up, New Yorkers were pulling for Mantle to break Ruth's
record. The media hyped competition between the two, which was not true. As the
movie correctly shows, the M and M Boys–a media creation that became an
actual business partnership–were very good friends. Maris even convinced Mantle
to share an apartment with him and Bob Cerv, an attempt to keep Mickey healthy
and sober. Ironically, Mantle got injured late in the summer, the result of a
botched "energy" shot that left him with an ulcerated hip. As Maris
got closer and closer, the strain on him was so great it caused patches of his
hair to fall out and the boo-birds to come out of the woodwork. In stark
contrast to McGwire in 1998, even Ford Frick (Donald Moffat), the Commissioner
of Baseball, was against Maris. (He had been friends with and a ghostwriter for
Babe Ruth.)
Diehard fans probably know that Frick announced that Ruth's
record would stand unless Maris broke it in the same number of games (154). He
made it to 59 in game 154, but was stymied by Orioles' knuckleball hurler Hoyt
Wilhelm. (Fun fact: former major leaguer Tom Candiotti, who threw a
knuckleball, portrayed Wilhelm.) Maris hit number 61 on the last day of the
season, game 162. Frick promptly inserted an asterisk beside the record, an
indignity that lasted for 9 years until a new commissioner decreed that all
records were for a season, however
many games that might be.
61 is also about
the loss of innocence. Maris was the opposite of The Mick—a guy who married his
high school sweetheart Pat (Jennifer Crystal Foley), was a devoted father of
six, and was polite and painfully shy–not the sort you want to feed to the New
York media sharks. To say that Roger Maris did not receive his due is an
understatement. He died of cancer in 1985 at just 51 and never saw McGwire
break his record, nor is he in the Hall of Fame.
The Maris saga is a compelling story, though Billy Crystal's
film is frequently more melodrama than drama. It seeks to be iconic in the way
that many sports-as-metaphor-for-life films often do. To reiterate an earlier
point, it paints with a broad brush and its made-for-TV credentials are very much in evidence. Serious
baseball fans will not be pleased with portrayals of teammates such as Whitey
Ford, Elston Howard, Yogi Berra, and Bill Skowron, who appear more as wallpaper
than fully realized characters.
61 as a film
leaves much to be desired. If, however, you are a younger fan who does not
recall those days, 61 will whet the
appetite to dig deeper. The rest can relive our youth and grumble about how a
great drama was reduced to so-so theater.
Rob Weir
* McGwire would hit 70 homers and the Cubs' Sammy Sosa 66. Barry Bonds subsequently passed them both.
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