The Winning Team

In filming the life story of Grover Cleveland Alexander, Warner Brothers made it a story of redemption when in fact it was a story of tragedy. But 1952 movie audiences wanted their happy endings.

Grover Cleveland Alexander (1887-1950) was possibly the greatest right handed pitcher in National League history. He played for 3 teams, the Phillies, Cubs, and Cardinals and compiled 373 lifetime victories over a 20 year period.

While still in the bush leagues Alexander sustained a serious head injury when a ball struck him right between the eyes while he was a base runner. He had double vision and headaches for a year. During World War I while an artillery officer the noise of exploding shells compounded a seemingly healed injury with a complication of epilepsy. To anesthetize himself, Alexander took to drinking some of that Prohibition whiskey and became an alcoholic.

After leaving baseball in 1930 for the next twenty years, Alexander drifted to all kinds of menial jobs, occasionally making headlines with some alcohol related incident. One positive headline was his election to the Hall of Fame in the second round of elections. He was on hand for the dedication of the building in Cooperstown.

In 1950 Alex was on hand as the Phillies won their second National League Pennant. Alex was the star of the first pennant winning team in 1915. A month later he was found dead in a cheap rooming house.

That unfortunately is the sad truth of the real Grover Cleveland Alexander. This is not the film you will see.

Ronald Reagan is just fine and actually comes close to the character of the real Alexander who was a genial and kind man with a terrible drinking problem. This was the final film Reagan made while at Warner Brothers.

Doris Day in her second film with Reagan plays Amy Arrants Alexander, his loyal, faithful wife. In her memoirs Doris wrote that during the shooting she and Reagan had a few dates and she remembers him best as a good man who was quite a dancer when they went out. This film also qualifies as a musical for in the beginning Doris has a Christmas number, Old St. Nicholas, and Reagan joins her for the last two bars. Ronald Reagan actually did sing in one of his films.

Today Hollywood would have no problem filming the real story which was quite a love story. Amy Alexander married Alex 3 times and divorced him twice, both those divorces an effort to give him a wake up call.

But the widow Alexander was an adviser on the film and she got the film made to show the public the husband she wanted them to remember.

And baseball fans the world over remember Grover Cleveland Alexander as a great baseball pitcher and a decent and patriotic man whose service to his country caused him a lifetime of triumph and tragedy trying to control the pain in his brain. It's a good legacy that doesn't need any embellishment from Hollywood.

Winning Team, The (1952)

*** (out of 4)

Pretty good, if watered down, drama about the career of Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander (Ronald Reagan) who started life on the farm but quickly made a name for himself as a pitcher. When his career was apparently over he started to suffer from alcoholism but his wife (Doris Day) gets him back into shape so that he can make a comeback. Once again we have a bio-pic that has been fictionalized but even with this the movie manages to be very entertaining from start to finish thanks to some very good performances. I think there are a few minor issues with one of them being the fact that the studio forced the producer's to cut down on some of the more darker moments. The alcoholism issue is only touched for a few seconds and Alexander's battle with epilepsy is pretty much overlooked. Another minor problem is that this is a movie about Alexander yet a lot of the attention goes to the wife. Day got top-billing but this is certainly Reagan's movie but at the same time there are many scenes that are obviously here just to give Day more scenes and this includes a really bad singing sequence around Christmas time. With all of that said, the rest of the movie is pretty much a winner. Baseball fans are really going to eat up seeing how they were playing back in the day plus we get to view the old-time uniforms and even better is that we get to see some of the old baseball stadiums. There's also quite a bit of stock footage used to try and re-create some moments of the 1926 World Series, which was against the New York Yankees and their Murderers Row. This was Reagan's final film at Warner after fifteen-years worth of service and they certainly let him go out on a high note. I thought Reagan was very believable in the role and manages to look quite natural as a pitcher and he also managed to be very believable in the part of the farm boy. The early scenes with him struggling with his disease were extremely well-done and this ranks as one of the actors better performances. Day is also in top-form even though I think we could have used a little less of her character. Frank Lovejoy gets a good bit as Rogers Hornsby and we get some real-life players including Jerry Priddy, Bob Lemon, Peanuts Lowery and Irving Noren. Frank Ferguson, who most will remember from ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, plays Day's father here. Again, if you're wanting to truth on Alexander then it's best you go read a book but if you're just looking for some quick entertainment then this film does the job.

Ronald Reagan delivers one of his best screen performances as baseball great Grover Cleveland Alexander in THE WINNING TEAM. The title refers to the mutually supportive relationship between Alexander and his loving wife Aimee (top-billed Doris Day); with this in mind, is it any surprise that the real Aimee Alexander served as the film's technical adviser. What was left out of the script & film was that Aimee married her husband three separate times after twice divorcing him to as she said stop him from drinking. THE WINNING TEAM was directed by Lewis Seiler who went from directing 2-reel silent comedies to making westerns with legendary Tom Mix. Among his best sound films are GUADALCANAL DIARY and some DEAD END KIDS & CHARLIE CHAN films. THE WINNING TEAM was produced by Bryan Foy a long time friend of Ronald Reagan's as they made so many "B" films together he was jokingly referred to as "keeper of the B's" (low budget, shorter films to play second on a double bill). Foy directed the very first all-talkie feature film LIGHTS OF NEW YORK in 1928 and he produced the most successful 3-D film of the 1950's, HOUSE OF WAX in 1953. And yes Foy was one of the sons of vaudevillian Eddie Foy.

Grover Cleveland "Old Pete" Alexander lived from 1887 to 1950. He was a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, and St. Louis Cardinals. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938. In his 1911 debut, Alexander led the league with 28 wins (a modern-day rookie record), 31 complete games, 367 innings pitched, and seven shutouts. He was drafted into WWI and in France was an artillery officer, where he suffered from shell shock and partial hearing loss. Injuries from playing baseball and battle fatigue lead to more physical problems and alcoholism. After the film was finished Ronald Reagan was disappointed that it was not made more clear that Alexander suffered from Epilepsy, the studio banned the use of the word in the film because of a social stigma at the time. Modern examples of controversy might include living legends Pete Rose and Mark McGuire. But it has been suggested that the drinking was due to his fear (which the film touches on) from not understand epilepsy and the seizures that he had. Notable Achievements include: 373 career wins (3rd all-time); Won 20 games or more 9 times, won 30 games or more 3 times; Pitched 90 shutouts (2nd all time); Won NL Pitcher's Triple Crown in 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1920; World Series champion (1926); National League pennants (1915), (1918) In 1999 he was ranked number 12 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Ballplayers of all time.

Ronald Reagan best known as our 40th President, started his acting career as a sports caster in Des Moines, Iowa which led to being a play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Cubs. In 1937 he moved to Hollywood and debuted in LOVE IS IN THE AIR. He appeared in dozens of B films. In the 1939 Bette Davis "A" film DARK VICTORY, Reagan got good notices which led to better roles as in George Gipp (win this one for the "Gipper") in the sports bio KNUTE ROCKNE: ALL American and George Armstrong Custer in SANTE FE TRAIL. He was never Oscar nominated but many consider his role in KINGS ROW to be his best performance. In 1951 he made his first film with Doris Day, it was a KKK drama called STORM WARNING. During the 1950s he was a democrat and fought communism as the head of the Screen Actors Guild and while working in television as host of the General Electric Theater he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. He met his wife Nancy Davis while making the film HELLCATS OF THE NAVY. His last film was THE KILLERS in 1964. In 1966 he was elected Governor of California and the rest they say is history.

Doris Day turned 87 this past April 3rd, she was born Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff in Evanston, Ohio. At 14 she won a talent contest on a Cincinnati radio, the band leader joked she should change her name to something shorter for a marquee. The song she sang was "Day by Day." Doris Day was soon discovered by band leader Les Brown and their hit SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY sent her to Hollywood where she made ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS in 1948. Her song, "IT'S MAGIC" was Oscar nominated for best song. Among her many film highlights are CALAMITY JANE, TEACHER'S PET (her favorite), LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME, THE PAJAMA GAME, Hitchcock's THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, THAT TOUCH OF MINK and PILLOW TALK (my favorite) where she was Oscar nominated for Best Leading Actress. Her TV career included THE DORIS DAY SHOW, DORIS DAY TODAY & DORIS DAY'S BEST FRIENDS. She is now retired, living in Carmel California, a full-time vegetarian and an animal rights activist.

3rd billed Frank Lovejoy plays Rogers Hornsby another ballplayer who befriends Alexander. You may not remember his name but you will recognize him, square-jawed, intense, no-nonsense Frank Lovejoy played a succession of detectives, street cops, reporters and soldiers in films. He made his Broadway debut in 1934 and with his gritty, authoritative voice was perfect for radio making thousands of old time radio show appearances on "Gangbusters", "Night Beat" and "Damon Runyon Theater".

The movie tells the story of Grover Cleveland Aexander (Ronald Reagan), a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball pitcher for Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis. His great skill on the mound is hampered after he takes a ball to the head, leaving him with double vision. He later serves in World War One, where he suffers from exposure to mustard gas and subsequent shell-shock, after which he develops epilepsy and a severe drinking problem. His farm-girl wife Aimee (Doris Day) tries to help him through his troubles, but are his demons too strong to allow a comeback?

The film skims over Alexander's troubles, and Reagan does a poor job of depicting a man at rock bottom. He always looks like, with just a shave and some pressed clothes, he'd be back at peak. Day doesn't have a lot to do, although she sings a Christmas song at one point, and sounds good doing so. This wasn't the worst sports biopic that I've seen, but I gained more insight on the real man from his Wikipedia page.

When film began, Grover Cleveland Alexander was a teenager--while Ronald Reagan was almost 40! singing?! This is a biopic about the career of one of the greatest pitchers in major league history, Grover Cleveland Alexander. If you look at the man's statistics, they are staggeringly impressive. Because of this and Alexander's later medical issues, it's not at all surprising they made this film. What is rather surprising, however, is that they chose Ronald Reagan to play the man. When the film began, he was supposed to be a very young man--while Reagan was nearly 40! He did fine in the role, however.

The first half of the film sticks reasonably close to the facts. If anything, it underplayed the greatness of the man (such as not even mentioning his three consecutive 30 win seasons and winning the triple-crown three times). However, around the middle of the film, the story gets hokey--and deviates very far from the truth. While Alexander did have problems with epilepsy and alcohol following his stint in WWI, the film made it look like his life and career fell apart. It also shows him being out of major league ball for some time until he cleaned himself up--but this just isn't true. He never had a losing season and still had excellent statistics until his final season in ball (when he was 43)--and the lengthy downward spiral in the film just never happened. With a career record of 373 and 208, he clearly was no bum! Overall, "The Winning Team" is a highly enjoyable and highly inaccurate and sensationalized film. While I do recommend it (it's well made and interesting), it seems sad that a great man's life was so distorted just to see a few extra tickets. But, that was pretty common for Hollywood during this era.