Top 10 revelations from SI’s oral history of ‘Major League’

   Top 10 revelations from SI’s oral history of ‘Major League’

The 1989 baseball comedy "Major League" is consistently near the top of moviegoers' favorite sports films despite the ridiculous concept of the Cleveland Indians beating the New York Yankees for a pennant. Crazy, right? Sports Illustrated writer Chris Nashawaty recently interviewed the director, David Ward, and most of the cast for his latest feature, an oral history of the movie that digs deep and reveals some things we didn't know.

Here are the top 10 revelations from Nashawaty's exhaustive interview feature in the July 4 "Where Are They Now?" issue of Sports Illustrated. Hopefully, he'll avoid doing a followup for the cast and crew of that dud "Major League III: Back to the Minors."

1. Charlie Sheen was doing steroids during filming!: Or so he claims. Sheen, who played fireballing reliever Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, played some baseball in high school but got kicked off the team because of poor grades. To prepare for his role in the film, Sheen says he improved his fastball from the high 70s to the mid 80s with the help of steroids. That's dedication to the craft. Or something.

2. Jeremy Piven was left on the cutting room floor: Director David Ward admits that Piven, then a prematurely balding 23-year-old actor with just "Lucas" and "One Crazy Summer" under his belt, played a supporting role as a bench player who pelted opposing teams with insults. All of Piven's scenes were (mercifully) cut.

3. Dennis Haysbert can hit a baseball pretty far: All of the actors in the film had enough athletic ability to fill the roles of ballplayers, but Haysbert, who played voodoo-worshipping slugger Pedro Cerrano, actually hit a ball out of the park during filming. Sure, it was only 315 feet but there are enough Yuniesky Betancourts in the majors now who could use that kind of power.

Top 10 revelations from SI’s oral history of ‘Major League’4. Bob Uecker was hired for his work in commercials: Ward claims that when he asked Uecker to play the role of Indians radio announcer Harry Doyle, he did it because of Uecker's hilarious work in Miller Lite ads. Ward had no idea Uecker was already the real life radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers.

5. Bob Feller didn't like all the swearing: Legendary Indians hurler Bob Feller saw a screening of "Major League" in Cleveland soon after the film's release and told director Ward that he was upset at the foul language used by ballplayers in the locker-room scenes, claiming that they "didn't talk like that." I guess in Feller's day, teammates spoke to one another with flowery prose and bend-over-backwards politeness!

6. The original ending was terrible: Spoiler alert! Ward originally put a twist in the end of the movie where evil owner Rachel Phelps, who spends the entire season trying to sabotage the team in an effort to move them to Florida, turns out to be the team's savior, working behind the scenes to make them better. Test audiences hated that ending, preferring to live in a world where good people are good and evil people own baseball teams in Miami.

7. Wesley Snipes is actually slow as molasses: Snipes played Willie Mays Hayes, a character who was supposed to have both the baseball skills and the self-aggrandizing attitude of Rickey Henderson. Turns out he had the latter but not the former. Scenes where Snipes runs the basepaths were shot in slow motion because he was "not very fast."

8. Corbin Bernsen is as arrogant as the characters he plays: All the actors playing ballplayers auditioned for their part by participating in actual baseball tryouts except Bernsen, who was shooting another film at the time and assured the producers, "Trust me, I can play." Playing washed-up third baseman Roger Dorn, however, didn't require much skill anyway except to be cuckolded by Ricky Vaughn.



9. "Major League" was Joe Morgan's "Citizen Kane": According to Charlie Sheen, the film became a quick favorite among the MLB community and that Hall of Famer Joe Morgan claimed that "Major League" was the only movie he brought with him on airplanes. Bringing your own VCR tapes on airplanes? Fancy!

10. Nearly all the cast members want to do another sequel: David Ward has written a third sequel (or second sequel, for those of us who pretend "Major League III" never happened) in which 20 years have passed and Ricky Vaughn is mounting a big league comeback. In these interviews, Bob Uecker, Dennis Haysbert, Tom Berenger (catcher Jake Taylor), Corbin Bernsen and, of course, Charlie Sheen are all open to come back and let Hollywood unleash foist another sequel upon the popcorn-addled masses.  

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Gayle hopeful of speedy national return

Chris Gayle, who was named the 2010 West Indies Players Association (WIPA) Cricketer of the Year as well as Test Player of the Year during the eighth annual First Citizens WIPA Awards in St Ann’s on Thursday night, is hopeful about getting back into the national side “as quickly as possible”.Gayle, who had been omitted from the West Indies limited-overs squad for the Twenty20 and first two ODI games against India, following his ongoing dispute with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) over his controversial radio interview in April, wrote in his column in the Hindustan Times that he wanted the “issue to be sorted out”.”We have a meeting scheduled sometime in the next few days,” Gayle wrote, “[and] I want to be involved in the game. But it is out of my control. The WICB people are the ones in charge. I have to see if we can resolve the issue. As I had stated to the board, they have known that I am fully available.”Gayle, who watched the Twenty20 game between West Indies and India in Trinidad on Saturday from the stands, wrote it was “disappointing to actually be on the sidelines” and “strange not to be involved in the game, not to be walking out to open the batting”.”The atmosphere was great but the stands are not a great place to be. I want to be in the middle.” Gayle had called on his fans to give him “a wake up call to go and watch cricket, wake me at 9-30am T&T plz [sic]” on Twitter the day before the match. After the game he tweeted that he had a “blast at cricket It was really nice to see the support and appreciation by fans thank you all for d [sic] support!!” During the game he had tweeted “WI Fans Don’t worry about a thing,cause every little things gonna [sic] be alright”, suggesting that that there could soon be a reconciliation between him and the board.The WICB was angered by Gayle’s decision to play in the IPL for Royal Challengers Bangalore but Gayle had said the way he had been treated by the West Indies board (WICB) had left him with little choice but to join Bangalore and miss the home series against Pakistan. Gayle, who ended the IPL as the tournament’s top run scorer, called his stint “memorable.”"The people and fans there showed a lot of warmth,” he wrote. “That was in contrast to how one’s own people fail to recall, tend to forget the things you have done for the team.”From a player’s point of view, that kind of respect is definitely deserved. In your own region you are made to feel like an outsider. It is sad but that is how it is. Yes, here I’m definitely talking about the administration. It is always important that you should feel absolutely relaxed to feel an integral part of an environment.

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