Based on fact and blessed with a sharp screenplay by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, this story of an all-black baseball team fighting for survival during racial segregation in 1939 was the directorial debut of John Badham, who made his name with Saturday Night Fever and went on to direct the very popular and successful action films Blue Thunder and War Games.
After he is fined by team owner Sallison Potter (Ted Ross) for trying to “foment rebellion” in the ranks of his club, charismatic star pitcher Bingo Long (Billy Dee Williams) steals a bunch of Negro League players away from their teams to form their own barnstorming team.
They take to the road In two convertibles and a motorbike and travel through small Midwestern towns playing pickup games with semi-pro and minor-league white teams to make ends meet.
Bingo’s team becomes so outlandishly entertaining (batting backwards, using oversized gloves, sending in a midget to play, throwing firecrackers instead of baseballs) that their success and popularity begin to cut into the attendance of the established Negro League teams until Sallison Potter proposes a winner-take-all game . . .
If Bingo’s team can beat a bunch of all-stars, it can join the League, but if it loses, the players will return to their old teams.
Still, there’s always Richard Pryor, as ace baseball player Charlie Snow, who is obsessed with the possibility of infiltrating a top white team as a Cuban or Native American.
Bingo Long
Billy Dee Williams Leon Carter
James Earl Jones Charlie Snow
Richard Pryor Willie Lee Shively
Rico Dawson Louis Keystone
Sam ‘Birmingham’ Brison Emory ‘Champ’ Chambers
Jophery Brown Fat Sam Popper
Leon Wagner Issac
Tony Burton Walter Murchman
John McCurry Esquire Joe Callaway
Stan Shaw Rainbow
Otis Day (as DeWayne Jessie) Sallison ‘Sallie’ Potter
Ted Ross Bertha Dewitt
Mabel King Henry Dunbar
Sam Laws Horace Quigley
Alvin Childress Honey
Ken Foree Mack
Carl Gordon Mr Holland
Joel Fluellen Pearline
Sarina C Grant Furry Taylor
Jester Hairston Lars Bostrum
Theodore Lehmann
Director
John Badham
Video
You May Also Like
Muscle Beach Party (1964) The original Beach Party (1963) was a big teen success, so the producers came up with this…
Black Windmill, The (1974) Major John Tarrant (Michael Caine) is a British secret service agent engaged in an undercover operation to…
Escape From New York (1981) The year is 1997 (the future) and the island of Manhattan has been turned into the…
After he is fined by team owner Sallison Potter (Ted Ross) for trying to “foment rebellion” in the ranks of his club, charismatic star pitcher Bingo Long (Billy Dee Williams) steals a bunch of Negro League players away from their teams to form their own barnstorming team.
f Bingo’s team can beat a bunch of all-stars, it can join the League, but if it loses, the players will return to their old teams.
