Winning Team, The (1952) - full review!
Directed by Lewis Seiler, and written by Merwin Gerard, Seeleg Lester, and Ted Sherdeman (from a story by Gerard & Lester), this average sports biography features Ronald Reagan as baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander (inducted in to Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame as Pete Alexander), and Doris Day as his wife Aimee. This was Reagan's second and last pairing with Day (the other was Storm Warning (1951)), who sings a Christmas song in this one. 'Alex the Great' began as a telephone lineman come farmer, an occupation which seems to be his would-be father-in-law's (Frank Ferguson as Sam Arrants) idea, until a professional ball club run by Mr. Glasheen (Gordon Jones) comes to town; they're shutout (held scoreless) by this hayseed, heretofore referenced as Alexander. That game leads to an offer by Glasheen to join his club, which Alexander accepts, and the rest, as they say is history.
Actually, there's more to the story. In fact, the focus of much of the drama (though it contains plenty of baseball action, actual footage of the Cardinals and Yankees and more) is on Alexander's problems which inhibited his still great career, and his relationship with his wife (e.g. their partnership being "the winning team"). Some real ballplayers (Bob Lemon, Hank Sauer, Gene Mauch, and more) appear in the cast, and many of the Yankee greats (like Ruth and Gehrig) appear in the movie's archival sequences. Frank Lovejoy plays Rogers Hornsby who, according to the film, began his Hall of Fame career when opponent Alexander intentionally pitched him a ball to hit, to keep him from having to go down to the minor leagues. James Millican plays Bill Killefer, Alexander's battery mate (e.g. catcher); Eve Miller plays Killefer’s wife Margaret, who befriends Aimee. Seventeen year old Russ Tamblyn (no longer Rusty, his credited name in a dozen earlier films) appears as one of Alexander's many siblings, two years and two movies before his adult acting career would begin with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)). Walter Baldwin and Dorothy Adams appear as Pa and Ma Alexander.
Alexander was a highly successful winning pitcher, compiling and impress win-loss record starting in his rookie season with the Philadelphia Phillies (he won 28 games!). After seven seasons and a stint serving as an artillery officer during World War I, he was traded to the Chicago Cubs where he started having troubles, perhaps caused by an earlier injury he'd received before he played in the Majors which caused him double vision (he'd been hit in the head by a baseball thrown by a shortstop trying to turn a double play while he was the base runner from first base trying to make it to second) and/or his war experiences. He had periodic dizziness (not diagnosed in the film as epilepsy) which was believed to be due to too much alcohol consumption (which was partially true; he did drink) by everyone else, including his wife. This movie doesn't tell it, but Alexander had 7 of 9 very good season with the Cubs before 1926, when the screenplay shows that he washed out of the league and couldn't find a position with any club until his old friend Rogers Hornsby, now the second baseman and player-manager of the Cardinals, added him to their roster and he went on to help them win the World Series, beating the New York Yankees and helping to defeat their "Murder's Row". For what it's worth, Alexander had three more productive years with the St. Louis Cardinals before he returned to the Phillies and then retired.
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