July 14, 1942: "The Pride of the Yankees" Premieres

July 14, 1942: The Pride of the Yankees premieres at the Astor Theatre, at 1537 Broadway in Manhattan. It was distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, and directed by Sam Wood, previously known for directing the Marx Brothers films A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races.

It stars Gary Cooper as New York Yankees star Lou Gehrig, who had died a year earlier, and Teresa Wright as his wife Eleanor, who lived on until 1984.

At this point, Cooper was best known for Sergeant York, about Alvin C. York, the Tennessee farmer and pacifist, turned World War I Congressional Medal of Honor winner. "Coop" was considered an All-American hero himself.

But the worst-kept secret in Hollywood was that he slept with all his female leads -- not including Wright. But they did include Clara Bow, Lupe Vélez, Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, Ingrid Bergman, Patricia Neal and Grace Kelly. (Granted, some of these women also got around, especially Bow, Dietrich and Kelly.) In contrast, if the real Gehrig ever slept with any woman other than Eleanor, I would be surprised.

But there was a problem other than Cooper's extramarital activities: He had never played baseball before. And he just couldn't swing a bat lefthanded, as Gehrig did. So they made a reverse Yankee uniform, had him run to 3rd base, and flipped the film.

File footage of the original Yankee Stadium was used, and the film has some of the best footage available of the 8 American League ballparks then in use. But, due to proximity to the Hollywood studios, the actual baseball scenes were filmed at Wrigley Field, home of the Pacific Coast League's Los Angeles Angels, then a Chicago Cubs farm team, and thus built to look like Wrigley Field in Chicago.

Walter Brennan had also been in Sergeant York. Through his role in Western films, the 1960s Western TV series The Real McCoys, and the spoken-word records he made like "Old Rivers," he is remembered as a grizzled old ranch hand. In this film, much younger, and dressed in what were then present-day clothes, he was almost unrecognizable as he played fictional sportswriter Sam Blake.

Four Yankee greats play themselves: Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Mark Koenig and Bill Dickey (still active at the time, and the closest thing the Yankees had to a Captain after Gehrig's retirement). The scene where Dickey punches out a teammate who questions the dedication of an impaired Gehrig was a dramatization, but he would have done it: Gehrig was his best friend on the team.

Gehrig's farewell address on July 4, 1939 is depicted, although the key line, about being "the luckiest man on the face of the Earth," is spoken at the end, instead of the beginning as it actually happened. The film ends with Cooper walking down the tunnel to the locker room -- the baseball equivalent of a Western hero walking off into the sunset.

It is regarded as the best baseball-themed movie yet made, and would remain so into the 1980s. But it really isn't a "baseball movie." It's an old-fashioned romance, the story of Lou and Eleanor, and Lou just happens to be a baseball player.

In 1977, Eleanor's memoir was turned into an ABC TV-movie A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story. Blythe Danner (Gwyneth Paltrow's mother) played Eleanor, Edward Herrmann played Lou, and, in a weird twist, Gehrig's domineering German immigrant mother was played by one of Cooper's exes, Patricia Neal. Unlike The Pride of the Yankees, this film showed the final effects of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the disease that claimed Lou's life and has since borne his name.

The Astor Theatre was on Broadway between 45th and 46th Streets, facing Times Square. It was torn down in 1982, and the Marriott Marquis Hotel was built on the site. I stood across from it as I watched the Yankees' 2009 World Series win on the big board in Times Square.

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July 14, 1942 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-0 at Yankee Stadium. Hank Borowy pitched a 2-hit shutout. Tommy Henrich, soon to be drafted, hits a home run. Joe DiMaggio went 2-for-3 with a walk, and would also be in World War II before the next Opening Day.

* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Cubs, 3-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Vern Olssen allowed 11 hits, but kept the shutout, and helped his own cause with a sacrifice fly. Mel Ott went 0-for-4.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Whitlow Wyatt went the distance for the win, and Pete Reiser got 3 hits.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Boston Red Sox, 3-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. Ted Williams went 0-for-4, but still went on to win the Triple Crown that season -- and go into The War the next.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Braves, 7-5 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. A rookie named Stan Musial won the game with a home run in the bottom of the 11th inning.

* The Chicago White Sox were supposed to play the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, but got rained out. On August 31, an off day for both teams, 2 games that had been rained out were played. The ChiSox swept, 3-1 and 5-0. Edgar Smith allowed 9 hits in the nightcap, but still pitched a shutout.

* And, in a notation for which Baseball-Reference.com (without which I could not possibly write this feature to my satisfaction) provides no explanation, a game scheduled for this day, between the Washington Senators and the Cleveland Indians for Griffith Stadium in Washington, was moved back to the preceding Sunday, July 12, as part of a doubleheader. The Indians swept, 9-7 and 5-0. Jeff Heath won the 1st game with a triple in the top of the 10th inning. Jim Bagby Jr. allowed 8 hits in the 2nd game, but kept the shutout.