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.