Cleveland Indians Star Bob Lemon Teaches Pitching To Ronald Reagan – 1952

Bob Lemon And Ronald Reagan Reminisce 30 Years After Making A Movie Together

Pitching For Pictures
Hollywood, Calif. – Bob Lemon, (left) star hurler of the Cleveland Indians, goes through some mound paces with actor Ronald Reagan, who’ll play the famed Grover Cleveland Alexander in a film now in production. Lemon, who also has a part in the film, was hired to give Reagan a few tips on pitching style. credit: United Press (1/28/52)

The subject has the makings of a fine dramatic movie. The Winning Team (1952) starring future President Ronald Reagan along with Doris Day is instead a mundane biopic of one of baseball’s greatest pitchers, Grover Cleveland “Pete” Alexander (1887-1950) who won 373 games between 1911 and 1930. Alexander still holds the single season record of 16 shutouts in one season.

Pete Alexander’s first seven major league seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies are astounding. Bold indicates league leader.

Alexander had his career interrupted by serving on the front in World War I. He returned from the war deaf in his left ear and suffering from shell-shock. Add to this Alexander’s epilepsy and alcohol intake which he believed would combat his epileptic seizures.

Ronald Reagan’s primary experience with baseball was announcing  games remotely for the Chicago Cubs in the 1930s for radio station WHO-AM in Des Moines, Iowa.

It’s not that Reagan was miscast for the role. He does a fine job. The script for The Winning Team is simply lackluster.

Detroit Tigers second baseman Jerry Priddy who was in charge of casting major leaguers for bit parts, decided Lemon would be a good teacher for Reagan

Bob Lemon On The Filming

In 1983 Bob Lemon told the Boston Globe’s Thomas Oliphant his memories of working on The Winning Team.

“There were quite a few of us,” Lemon said. “Besides me and Jerry, there was Peanuts Lowrey, Gene Mauch, Hank Sauer, and Chuck Stevens. There weren’t very many places you could earn $250 a week in the off-season in those days.

“In the weeks before the shooting started, the routine with Reagan was always the same. We’d be in the back lot at Warner’s in midmorning, and I’d throw a bit while he watched, and then he’d throw while I watched.

“I don’t know whether it was because he’d played a little football or what, but he was very graceful and easy to teach. I had this little quirk in my own motion where I did a little hop after I released the ball so I would be in position to field a ball hit back at me. By the time they started shooting the movie, Reagan was doing exactly the same thing.

“For me, it was not exactly exhausting work. Not being in shape or anything, Reagan could only throw for about 20 minutes before his arm gave out, so I was never on the golf course later than noon the whole time.”

President Reagan On The Winning Team

On March 27, 1981 President Ronald Reagan hosted a luncheon at The White House for 32 members of baseball’s Hall of Fame. Among the attendees was Bob Lemon.

At the luncheon Reagan sat between Duke Snider and Willie Mays. As reported by Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post, Reagan was supposed to talk for one minute and instead regaled the players with several stories.

Reagan said, “I’ve always been proud I played old Alex. Bob Lemon, who’s here, can tell you about that. He was my double. Sometimes I had to to pitch for myself in close-ups. I can’t really claim I was a baseball player. I went more the football route. So, they wanted me to pitch past the camera past the camera set up between the mound and home plate. Well Al Lyons was catching me. My control wasn’t all that good. One pitch I fired on the wrong side of the camera. Well Lyons reached out and speared it with the hand that had no glove. He came out to the mound real slow, handed me the ball and said, ‘Alex, I’m sorry I had to catch your blazer barehanded.'”

“Red Sox outfielder George Metkovich memorized everybody’s lines. Then, on the bus back from location, he’d imitate us and give everybody a hard time. One day, he finally got his speaking line. He was supposed to chew out an umpire. We told Metkovich just to yell anything he usually would at an ump.

As the camera started rolling, you could tell something was wrong. His bat was shaking. I
throw the pitch, the umpire bellows, ‘Strike one.’ George steps out, goes nose to nose with the ump and in this meek voice says, ‘Gee sir, that was no strike.’ ”

The audience was howling and Reagan added in a sarcastic aside, “The picture wasn’t a comedy, so we couldn’t leave it in.’”

Reagan saved his kicker for last, as his supposed “one minute of remarks” reached 15 minutes. “I was always sorry that in the Alexander film the studio was unwilling to reveal the reason behind Old Alex’s drinking problems. Alex was an epileptic. Sometimes, when there were reports that Alexander had been found ‘drunk in the gutter again,’ it had really been a seizure. But Alex would rather take that have it known what was wrong with him.”

“Alex once got beaned and had double vision. He wanted to make a comeback, so he practiced pitching with one eye closed. The first day back, he threw one pitch and broke three ribs. He was asked, ‘What happened?’

“‘I closed the wrong eye,’ he said.”