Screen Snapshots: Hollywood on the Ball (1952)

• 84%
• 1952
• Ralph Staub

Ralph Staub visits Hollywood's annual "Out of This World" charity-baseball game between two celebrity-ridden baseball teams, each managed and put together by an ex-jock actor or a wannabe-jock actor, usually Mickey Rooney, Danny Thomas, Joe E. Brown or Gordon MacRae. And each team usually had a "ringer" or two on the roster---real baseball players from the Pacific Coast League or a retired major-league baseball player living in Southern California--- as none of the ego-managers wished to be on the losing team. In addition to the celebrities playing in the game, the stands were filled with many faces-and-names from both sides of film-making, most taking advantage of a "photo-op" long before the term was invented. But all hands donated their "services", such as they were, and paid for their uniforms (some custom-designed) and all the proceeds went to a deserving charity, which is usually not the case in such events.