Mike Donlin’s Second Career As An Actor, With Vaudevillian Wife Mabel Hite

This World Series champion turned to acting during his playing career and wrote a hit play with his wife.

by Rich Watson

In 1905, Mike Donlin was on top of the world. The outfielder and first baseman was third in the National League in hitting with a .356 average and his team, the New York Giants, beat the Philadelphia Athletics in five games for their first championship. 

“Turkey Mike” (he was said to have strutted like one) was known for drinking, partying, and dressing flamboyantly—for the turn-of-the-century era, anyway. One story about him claims he arrived at the ballpark wearing a medallion on his lapel, bearing a newspaper photo of himself. When security didn’t recognize him, he pointed to the medallion and proclaimed “I am Mike Donlin.”

The following season he broke his ankle while sliding into second base. He missed most of the 1906 season and the following one. During this time, though, he got a taste for what would become a second career when he met and married stage actress Mabel Hite.

Before Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio Married a Different Hollywood Actress

When Joe D was coming into his own as a superstar, he met and married a movie star long before his romance with Hollywood’s ultimate blonde bombshell.

by Rich Watson 

When Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe in 1954, it was headline news around the world. They were superstars in their respective fields, adored by the whole country and living their lives in the media spotlight. His relationship with her was abusive and marked by jealousy, yet the truth of it wasn’t well known at the time.

In 1939, DiMaggio was a star, but he was not yet the baseball legend he would become in later years. The fifty-six-game hitting streak, the hundred thousand dollar contract, the ascension to the Hall of Fame, the Mr. Coffee commercials, they all came much later—and before he even knew who Monroe was, a different film actress had caught his eye.

Hometown Manager Has Eyes For New Owner in “It Happened in Flatbush,” With William Frawley

Lloyd Nolan and Carole Landis star in this vintage baseball romantic comedy, also featuring a future legend of the early TV era.

by Rich Watson

This post is part of what’s known as a blogathon. That’s when a bunch of bloggers gather to write about a given topic. This one is called “The What a Character Blogathon,” devoted to supporting actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. In my previous blog I took part in it for years, and 2021 marks its tenth anniversary. At the end I’ll tell you where you can read more entries in this event.

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In 1951, William Frawley was sixty-four, a veteran of not only a hundred-plus movies, but vaudeville as well. Rumor had it, though, he was an alcoholic and difficult to work with. It seemed he was approaching the end of his career in entertainment.

Then he heard about an opportunity in the new medium of television: a sitcom about a ditzy housewife and her musician husband. The show was looking for a duo to play their neighbors, an older married couple. Frawley, eager to land the role of the husband in the older couple, called the lead actors and co-creators of the new program: Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. 

They gave him a chance. Despite initial resistance from the network, CBS, Frawley, paired with Vivian Vance, was an anchor of what would become I Love Lucy, one of television’s greatest programs. Years later, Arnaz would testify that Frawley always came to work on time and was a total professional.

Lucy was the highlight of a long career for Frawley, the former court reporter from Iowa who toured the vaudeville circuit with his brother Paul, singing and writing, before moving to Broadway and eventually, Hollywood. 

When Andrew McCutchen Proposed to His Girlfriend on TV

The Pirate superstar asked his girlfriend to marry him the way many celebrities do—in front of an audience.

by Rich Watson

In recent years, Andrew McCutchen has become one of the game’s biggest stars, mostly as a Pirate. He’s at the tail end of his career now, but his achievements to date include being a five-time All-Star and a former National League MVP. He also competed on the international stage in the World Baseball Classic in 2017.

As a Pirate, he met and dated Maria Hanslovan, the woman who would become his wife in 2013. How he proposed to her, though, took her and his fans by surprise.

Meat Loaf’s “Paradise By the Dashboard Lights:” A Love Song With a Baseball Twist

 

One of the greatest rock albums of all time puts a baseball spin on a power ballad about teenage romance.

by Rich Watson

He was born Marvin Lee Aday, but the world knows him as Meat Loaf, the plus-sized rock star with the bombastic voice and operatic songs. He has toured with Janis Joplin, Van Morrison, The Who, The Grateful Dead, Bob Seger and more. He has also acted on TV and in movies such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fight Club.

In 1977, after appearing on stage in musicals such as Hair and touring as part of several acts, he released a debut solo record, Bat Out of Hell. It wasn’t a big hit at first but it would eventually go multi-platinum. 

One of the best-known hits from that album was “Paradise By the Dashboard Lights,” a song about teenage lust with an unusual twist: a spoken-word movement halfway through performed by a baseball Hall of Famer.

“Sweet Magnolias:” The Netflix Adaptation of Sherryl Woods’ Book Series

 

Sherryl Woods’ women’s fiction series of books, mixed with a little baseball, is turned into a TV show.

by Rich Watson

Earlier this year we discussed the Sherryl Woods novel Stealing Home, the first book in the “Sweet Magnolias” series (eleven books and counting). I had mentioned the series had been adapted into a Netflix program. I gave it a watch.

The soap opera aspect is greater as a TV show than as a book, but the baseball elements remain, so it’s worth mentioning here.

When Hollywood Playboy Ralph Kiner Married Tennis Star Nancy Chaffee

The home run king was the darling of Hollywood, but it was a tennis player who turned his head.

by Rich Watson

During the 50s, Pirates slugger Ralph Kiner was often seen with celebrities. He was friends with team co-owner Bing Crosby, and his picture was taken with leading ladies from Hollywood he dated such as Elizabeth Taylor.

He would marry four times in his life, though. His first wife was tennis star Nancy Chaffee.

Curt Flood Isn’t In the Hall of Fame, But His Widow Judy Pace Is Trying to Change That

He was a sensational player and an icon in the history of American labor. Now his widow leads a drive to get him enshrined with the immortals.

by Rich Watson

Curt Flood was valuable to more than the St. Louis Cardinals. As an outfielder, he was a three-time All-Star, won seven consecutive Gold Gloves, batted over .300 six times and played on two World Series-winning Cardinal teams.

More importantly, he was the first ballplayer to challenge in court Major League Baseball’s reserve clause, a provision in players’ contracts that prohibited their ability to decide their financial future for years. His legal battle helped pave the way for true free agency in professional baseball.

Over twenty years after his death, however, Flood hasn’t yet been inducted into the Hall of Fame, baseball’s highest honor. Campaigning on his behalf is someone who knows a little about being a trailblazer: Flood’s widow, actress Judy Pace.

Raincheck

 

Ronald Reagan Depicts Hall of Famer’s Comeback in ‘The Winning Team,’ with Doris Day

The troubled life of a baseball legend is depicted in this 1952 film.

by Rich Watson
 

Few major league pitchers were as dominant as Grover Cleveland Alexander. During the 1910s and 20s, when professional baseball was still new, he set records left and right that stand today: 373 wins, the all-time National League co-leader; 28 wins in his rookie season, a modern rookie record; 90 shutouts, a NL record; a three-time winner of the pitching Triple Crown (wins, ERA, strikeouts), and a World Series championship.

Alexander (AKA “Old Pete”) achieved all this despite suffering epileptic seizures stemming from a freak playing accident, which also led to bouts of alcoholism.

In 1952, his career was chronicled in a movie: The Winning Team, with Ronald Reagan and Doris Day.

Raincheck

 

Feeling under the weather. Need to take a week off. Come back August 18.

The Championship Marriage of Ray Knight and Nancy Lopez

One of the most popular sports marriages of the 80s involved this couple, who both won championships during their time together.

by Rich Watson

In modern World Series history, third baseman Ray Knight will forever be remembered as the player who scored the winning run in one of the most improbable comebacks ever: Game 6 of the 1986 Fall Classic. 

The Mets came back from within one strike of losing the Series to the Red Sox and not only won the game but the Series as well. Knight was named MVP for his efforts: a .391 batting average with five RBI.

It was the highlight of a fourteen-year career in which he was named an All-Star twice. For a longer span, though, Knight was also known as the husband of a golf legend: Nancy Lopez.

When Burger Barons Joan & Ray Kroc Ran the San Diego Padres

He was the head of a fast food empire. She was a philanthropist. Between them they led the Padres to their first pennant.

by Rich Watson

McDonald’s is a burger restaurant universally known because of businessman Ray Kroc. Though it was created by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald, it was Kroc who developed their concept of assembly line-made hamburgers and french fries and shakes and turned it into a model for the food services industry worldwide.

After retiring from McDonald’s in 1974, Kroc chose to get into baseball, his favorite sport. He bought the Padres that same year for $12 million, when it was in danger of leaving San Diego. It was a passion he clung to until his death in 1984–and then passed on to his third wife, Joan Kroc.

Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon in “Fever Pitch,” an Ode to Red Sox Fandom

A memoir about soccer was transformed into a romcom about baseball and spawned a life of its own.

by Rich Watson

In 1992, Nick Hornby, the English novelist and screenwriter, released a memoir called Fever Pitch, a love letter to his favorite sport, soccer. GQ called it “tears-running down-your-face, read-bits-out-loud-to-complete-strangers funny, but also highly perceptive and honest.” Time Out said it “transcends the mundane and the sporty to say something about the way we live.” 

One might not have suspected Hollywood to have taken interest in a highly personal volume about a sport that never quite caught on in America the way it has in other countries. Hornby, however, was hot, and often, that’s enough.

So how did the movie version get turned into a romantic comedy about baseball?

1920s Yankees Era Depicted in Kim Van Alkemade’s ‘Bachelor Girl,’ Inspired By Actual Events

The era of Babe Ruth and the creation of Yankee Stadium is the backdrop for an unconventional love story.

by Rich Watson

The Yankees were not always the perennial powerhouse we think of today. It wasn’t until the acquisition of Babe Ruth in 1920 that their fortunes began to turn around—a deal set in motion by their owner at the time, brewer Jacob Ruppert.

Ruppert is a pivotal character in the historical fiction novel Bachelor Girl by Kim van Alkemade, a book set in the post-World War One period. The Yankees still played in the Polo Grounds, Ruth was a pitcher for the Red Sox, and Prohibition was the new law of the land.

The centerpiece, however, is a fictitious, unusual love story uniting the woman Ruppert would one day name his successor as Yankees owner with a secretary who lives a double life as a gay man.

The Charitable Work of Vera and Roberto Clemente

When the baseball humanitarian perished, his wife carried on in his name.

by Rich Watson

Roberto Clemente was not only a superstar player for the Pirates, but for Latin American fans in general. The Puerto Rican right fielder won a National League MVP award, four batting titles, twelve Gold Gloves and two World Series rings over an eighteen-year career.

In 1964, he met banker Vera Zabala in San Juan. It was love at first sight. He was eager to know her because he was dogged by a premonition that he would die young. He wished to start a family soon and do whatever his god required from him.

She wasn’t interested in him at first, but his persistence wore away at her defenses and they married in November. They would remain together only a short time, though, because his premonition turned out to be correct.

How and Why Two Yankee Pitchers Once Swapped Wives

They were all really close—maybe a bit too much in the end.

by Rich Watson

Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich were Yankee pitchers in the late sixties and early seventies. The former had his best year in 1970, when he went 20-11 with a 2.90 earned run average. The latter was less distinguished; he had back-to-back ten-win seasons in 1971-72, with his lowest ERA, 3.70, in 1972.

They, along with their respective wives, Marilyn Peterson and Susanne Kekich, were close friends. In 1972, they went to a party, and afterwards, they acted upon an idea they had only discussed in jest: they traded spouses and went home together, Marilyn with Mike and Susanne with Fritz.

They liked it enough to do it more often. Eventually they moved in with each other and made the swaps permanent. They swapped each other’s children and even their dogs. All four spouses thought the whole thing perfectly natural.

Then Major League Baseball found out.

Excuses Interfere with Romance in “Alibi Ike,” Starring Baseball Fan Joe E. Brown

One of three baseball movies by this lifelong sports fan was also the debut of a future Hollywood legend.

by Rich Watson

If Joe E. Brown is remembered by modern movie audiences, it’s for his scene-stealing turn in Some Like it Hot, the gender-bending comedy with Marilyn Monroe in which Brown seduces Jack Lemmon in drag. It’s Brown who utters that film’s famous last line, “Well, nobody’s perfect!”

Long before that career-redefining role, Brown was a headlining actor in a number of comedies from the thirties, in particular baseball films. One of those was a romantic comedy co-starring a young woman taking the first step on a long journey to superstardom: Olivia de Havilland.

Small Town Gossip Threatens Baseball Romance in Sherryl Woods’ Sweet Magnolias Book “Stealing Home”

Single mom finds love on the diamond with a little help from her friends.

by Rich Watson

For almost forty years, Sherryl Woods has entertained readers with her Southern blend of romances and mysteries. A former journalist, she has written over a hundred ten books in a variety of series, under her own name and with the names Alexandra Kirk and Suzanne Sherrill.

In 2007, she started a new series called “Sweet Magnolias,” centered around a trio of best friends in a small Southern town, and the first book combined her love of romance stories with another interest: baseball.

Elaine and Tony La Russa Go To Bat for Pets with Animal Rescue Foundation

One of baseball’s greatest managers teams up with his wife to rescue animals in need.

by Rich Watson

Tony La Russa is one of the winningest managers in baseball history; third on the all-time list. He led the Oakland A’s and St. Louis Cardinals to six pennants and three World Series championships. 

After nine years, he has recently come out of retirement to once again manage the White Sox, the first team he led, from 1979-86. He’ll likely move up to number two this summer, passing John McGraw and trailing only Connie Mack.

La Russa’s on-field accomplishments are many, but almost as well-known is his work with his wife Elaine in providing homes for abandoned and injured animals.

When Tom Seaver Was Traded, a Poison Pen Didn’t Keep Him and His Wife Down

A newspaper columnist libeled them, but they got the last laugh.

by Rich Watson

Tom Seaver was the lynchpin of the astonishingly successful 1969 Mets, an expansion team that went from cellar-dwelling losers to World Series champions in seven years. The Mets won a second National League pennant in 1973. Seaver and his wife Nancy were the toast of New York.

In 1977, contract renegotiations between Seaver and the Mets broke down. A newspaper column by a firebrand sportswriter made matters worse by implicating Nancy as a factor in the breakdown.

The next day Seaver had been traded.

The Twisted Path to Marriage for Leo Durocher & Laraine Day

It took two weddings and two divorces before they legally tied the knot.

by Rich Watson 

Baseball manager Leo Durocher met Hollywood actress Laraine Day in 1942. They were married to other spouses at the time, yet they fell in love. 

He divorced in 1943. By 1946, once she obtained a divorce from her husband, bandleader and airport manager Ray Hendricks, she was ready to wed Durocher.

They would have to jump through a number of hoops first.