Richard Sandomir

Non-fiction about the making of the movie, Pride of the Yankees, starring Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig and Teresa Wright as Eleanor Gehrig. The book starts off with a summary of Lou Gehrig’s life and baseball career, focusing on the latter stages when he was struck down by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), now commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease. It then shifts to the making of the movie of his life story, which was heavily influenced by his widow, Eleanor, producer Samuel Goldwyn, sportswriter Paul Gallico, who wrote the initial script, Herman Mankiewicz and Jo Sterling, the two scriptwriters of the final film.

This book provides a thorough look at the making of the film and is more about filmmaking than baseball. It includes a scene-by-scene analysis of the movie. It goes into detail on scenes that were later cut. The author points out what liberties were taken with the facts and the importance of the film in the context of the time (Gehrig died in 1941 and the movie was released in 1942). It contains answers to whether or not Gary Cooper, a right-hander, performed left-handed for the picture, and whether the famous “luckiest man” speech was ever written down word-for-word.

I appreciate the author’s achievement in separating fact from fiction, as I think it is important to the historical record. I need to take another look at the movie with the details of this book in mind. It is an enjoyable read for baseball fans and film history buffs.
… (mais)

I bought this book as a 'bargain' book, and while I have enjoyed flipping through it, I am glad that I didn't buy it at full price. It's a cute conceit, and indeed some of the brackets are extremely amusing (e.g. the bracket for the best tooth-- I mean, really, does it get more enjoyably ridiculous?), but I was disappointed by how much of the book was devoted to sports brackets. I find the main humour of the title to be in applying that sports-specific construct of the 'final four' to everything non-sports, so those that didn't have that incongruity didn't do much for me.… (mais)