The Winning Team

Not a great film, but entertaining for baseball fans. Ronald Reagan plays Grover Cleveland Alexander, one of the greatest pitchers in big league history.

Doris Day, a great actress, is outstanding as Aimee, his wife (this film is worth watching just because Doris is in it).

The real life Alexander served in World War I and also was an alcoholic.

The movie covers the baseball career of the great pitcher (who won 28 games as a rookie, 373 overall). The movies' biggest fault was it ends with Alexander's heroics in the 1926 World Series in St. Louis upset of the powerful Yankees. In 1928,the Yankees slaughtered the same Cardinals team in a four game sweep, with Alexander, still pitching at age 41, getting shelled in two starts.

Actual baseball footage at the end of the film shows the great Babe Ruth inexplicably trying to steal second base, with the Yankees trailing, down to their last out in the series (he was thrown out).

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.

This is an average and generally somewhat interesting film biography of baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, whose life does provide plenty of material for a movie. Although the portrait of Alexander is somewhat stylized, it is relatively straightforward in bringing out the less admirable events in his life. Overall, it follows the usual formulas for such films, with a reasonable degree of success.

Ronald Reagan gives a solid if unspectacular performance as Alexander, with Doris Day as his wife giving it a little more energy. The supporting cast is decent, with Frank Lovejoy probably getting the best opportunities as Rogers Hornsby, although the character takes some noticeable liberties with the Hornsby of baseball history. There are also numerous other factual inaccuracies about the players, stadiums, and so forth. In this respect, it's somewhat interesting as a contrast to many recent biographical movies.

Recent movies sometimes make better efforts to get the minor details right, but then they often distort the larger picture to promote a pet view of history or of a historical character. Older biographies like "The Winning Team" might be more likely to change factual details to fit a dramatic story, but less likely to distort the broader view of events.

Regardless of all that, this is a reasonable picture, without many significant strengths or flaws. It's probably mostly of interest to baseball fans or to those curious to see Reagan's role.

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.

Grover Cleveland Alexander was a remarkable pitcher and lived a very interesting life in an era in which baseball sported the most colorful people in its history: the early 1900s. Some of stories about them, like this one, are very inspiring, too, although they end this bio on Alexander's high note not his tragic demise - but what's wrong with that? People want to leave the theater feeling good, not depressed.

Ronald Reagan does a decent job portraying "Alex," except for the baseball scenes where he doesn't throw or hit like a real big-leaguer. That was common in classic sports films. You don't see that now. Robert Redford ("The Natural"), Kevin Costner (several baseball films) and the like, know how to play the game.

This is corny in spots and it's sugar-coated like some of the other classic sports stories. However, Alexander is shown with his drinking problem and his wife, played by Doris Day, also does the wrong thing walking away from her husband in his time of need.....so you do see some bad with the good. Yet, all ends well and overall, it's an interesting movie.

What's more, the climactic scene actually happened in real life where Alexander turned into a World Series hero despite the odds against him.

If you really want interesting stories, read the real-life accounts of men like Alexander, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Christy Matthewson, John MacGraw, Honus Wagner, Tris Speaker, etc. They are fascinating.