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ABOUT THE 1977 YANKEES
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The project's big challenge:
Who plays Our Maury?
of TheColumnists.com
Louis Mustillo is a character actor from Buffalo who has made a living in movies, television and theater for more than 20 years with significant roles in TV's "Seinfeld," "The Sopranos," "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Murphy Brown."
Now all he has to do is play me.
Mustillo has the challenging role of sportswriter Maury Allen
in the eight hour ESPN mini-series, “The Bronx is Burning,”
taken from the book by Jonathan Mahler, an account of the 1977
New York Yankees volatile season and the weird happenings around
the Big Apple.
That was the year Reggie Jackson joined the Yankees and all hell
broke loose in the Bronx, including the battles among Jackson,
Thurman Munson, Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner. The "Son
of Sam" intimidated the city that year with his serial killings
and the political scene was at its ugliest with the Mayoralty
election of Edward Koch over Mario Cuomo despite the nasty signs
imploring voters to “Vote Cuomo, not The Homo.”
All of this is captured in the film with John Turturro playing
Billy Martin, Oliver Platt playing Steinbrenner, Daniel Sunjata
playing Jackson, Erik Jensen playing Munson and Mustillo, with
the hardest acting job of all, playing me.
My wife Janet and I journeyed up to New Haven, Connecticut the
other day to meet Mustillo, the look-alike me, and watch a day’s
filming at the Omni Hotel.
One thing you learn about movie making. It’s boring.
Mustillo, as one of the sportswriters covering those tumultuous
days of Yankee baseball, was in a scene with the other actors
as Steinbrenner walked into the hotel, whispered a few words
to Jackson and didn’t fire Billy Martin. It took all day
to film it.
It was one of the few times in the volatile Yankee 1970s that
Steinbrenner followed the team on the road and didn’t fire
anybody.
Mustillo has one of those comfortable, recognizable show business
faces that keep him working without ever letting him star in
anything.
“A lot of times I was close for a lead role in a film or
a TV pilot but something or other always comes up and knocks
it down,” Mustillo said.
Probably his best known role was as a neighbor of Seinfeld’s
in a show called “The Parrot Episode” where Jerry attacks
him for allowing his parrot to dirty his apartment door.
“I think it would have been a recurring role and gone on
a long while but it was the final season of the show. Jerry pulled
the plug after that year,” he said.
In covering the 1977 season for the New York Post and writing
several books on the team, later identified as The Bronx Zoo,
I remember the fun involving the psychodrama among the leaders
of the club.
Billy Martin hated Reggie Jackson and Jackson hated Thurman Munson
and George Steinbrenner hated all of them, except when they won,
and the ego battle among all the leading contestants was a soap
opera symphony.
That was the year Martin embarrassed Jackson by removing him
from a game for failing to hustle after a fly ball and a fight
almost ensued on the bench before coaches Elston Howard and Yogi
Berra intervened.
The Yankees did win the pennant despite all this fighting and
went on to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
Jackson hit four homers in a row in that memorable Series, including
three in a row on three straight pitches in the final game.
Martin and Jackson hugged after the final game, a show of warmth
that lasted about as long as it took for the cameramen to snap
their shutters.
According to director Jeremiah S. Chechik, the film will be about
75 per cent on the Yankees and their 1977 in-fighting and about
25 per cent on the other adventures in the tumultuous city that
year.
Mustillo, who is about the same age now as I was then, wore a
sports jacket, slacks, an open collared shirt and a New York
City press card hanging from his neck, as we met up in the lobby
of the Omni.
“We try to get everything exactly right,” said Mustillo.
“After all this is being done for ESPN and sports fans remember
all this and know their stuff.”
One of the Yankees players on that team, third baseman Craig
Nettles, is serving as a consultant. He said that Turturro, with
latex ears made to look like Martin’s bulging lobes and
Platt, carrying an attaché case, had Martin and Steinbrenner
down just right.
Nettles was the perfect third baseman and the team comic for
the 1977 Yankees. He summed up the season once by saying, “When
I was a kid I couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted to be
a baseball player or join the circus. By playing for this team
I could do both.”
The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers in the 2006 Series
without much happening off the field. The Yankees of 1977 were
all about what was happening off the field.
Open a can of beer, dip into the potato chips and settle in for
fun when the ESPN mini-series hits your TV screen sometime early
next summer.
Munson and Martin are gone now but Jackson and Steinbrenner will
make enough noise for the film preview to be a major show business
event. Mustillo and I will be there to record all the happenings.
©2006 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen
caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The cartoon people are
from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E.,
San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Nov.
13, 2006.
You
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