September 30, 1994: “The Scout” Premieres

September 30, 1994: The Scout premieres, directed by Michael Ritchie. Albert Brooks plays Al Percolo, a baseball scout that the New York Yankees banish to the Mexican League after one of his signings goes bust. That signing is Tommy Lacy, played by Michael Rapaport, a major Yankee fan (and New York Knicks fan) in real life.

In Mexico, Al finds a hotshot pitcher, Steve Nebraska, played by Brendan Fraser, who comes with his own problems. Seeing "Doctor H. Aaron" in the phone book, Al is reminded of Hank Aaron, but discovers the doctor is a woman, played by Dianne Wiest, who discovered that Steve is dealing with severe post-traumatic stress disorder from being physically abused as a child. Between the two of them, Al and Dr. Aaron manage to get him mentally in shape to pitch, and the Yankees win the Pennant.

This film is totally fiction, and it's a comedy. Judged on that basis, it's okay. The old Yankee Stadium looks great. And George Steinbrenner does all right playing himself. But if you're looking for Yankee glory, well, look elsewhere.

Also playing themselves are Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard; broadcasters Bob Costas, Roy Firestone, John Sterling, Bobby Murcer (a former Yankee player), Tim McCarver (a former player), John Roland and Rosanna Scotto; singer Tony Bennett; Minnesota Twins manager Tom Kelly; and baseball legends Ken Brett (but not his brother George), Reggie Smith, Steve Garvey, Keith Hernandez, Ozzie Smith and Bret Saberhagen.

20th Century Fox scheduled The Scout for release just as the 1994 MLB Playoffs were supposed to begin, but then came the players' strike. Despite the success of Ken Burns' nostalgia-tugging Baseball documentary miniseries on PBS, nobody was interested in spending $4.00 to watch a baseball movie. It would have been better if they had held the film back until the following Summer.

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September 30, 1994 was a Friday. As I said, the Strike of '94 was on, so all Major League Baseball games were off. The NBA and the NHL hadn't started their seasons yet.

The NFL was in midweek. There was 1 game in college football that night: Brigham Young University beat Utah State, 34-6 at BYU's Cougar Stadium (now LaVell Edwards  Stadium) in Provo, Utah.

In New Jersey high school football, my Alma Mater, East Brunswick, beat Bishop George Ahr High School, 13-7, at Ahr's Rev. Richard C. Brietzki Field in Edison.

The school was founded in 1969 as St. Thomas Aquinas High School. They named their sports teams the Trojans. Why would you name your teams after the most famous war losers in the ancient world? Not to mention a brand of birth control, when you're a Catholic school.

In 1981, the Catholic Church carved the Diocese of Metuchen out of the Diocese of Trenton. This included the 5 Catholic high schools in Middlesex County, including St. Thomas. In 1983, it was renamed for Ahr, who had recently retired as the Archbishop of Trenton. He died in 1993. In 2019, on the school's 50th Anniversary, the original name was restored. Not because Ahr had done anything wrong (as was the case with Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, for whom St. Mary's in South Amboy was renamed). Their official reason was that they wanted to return to their original mission, following Aquinas' way of educating people.