Baseball, Benny and Broadcasting

Baseball was still America’s pastime in the 1950s. It began in the days when even big cities had vacant lots on which boys could play the game. It was played all over America; even teeny towns could have a professional team, if not semi-pro or amateur ball. The big leagues were centred in the East, where newspapers in New York City and its boroughs wrote of the game’s stars, some of whom hob-nobbed with Broadway’s hoi polloi (and appeared on the vaudeville stage in the off-season).

Meanwhile, stars of the entertainment world took more than a passing interest in the game. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope had an interest in major league clubs. Hollywood stars became minority owners of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League. Jack’s radio show featured at least one episode centring around a PCL game in Los Angeles. And twice he had as his guest that noted umpire-baiter, manager Leo Durocher (though the way Jack pronounced his name, you’d swear it was Derosha).

Durocher was glitzy, show-biz guy by nature. He appeared on other radio comedy shows as himself. Television, too (including the George Burns-owned Mr. Ed). He showed up on a Benny TV broadcast in 1954, and one Associated Press columnist thought it was worthy of a column on “the changing Benny.”

It was no change at all, really, as you’ve read above. Durocher had been on the air with Benny before. And the idea of a “Benny life story” episode had been done twice with Danny Kaye on radio. The “Tom Jones” show mentioned below was an episode of “General Electric Theatre” co-written by Benny’s occasional writers Hugh Wedlock, Jr. and Howard Snyder and included secondary players Joe Kearns and Benny Rubin in the cast.

This story appeared in papers on November 19, 1954.

Jack Benny Forgets His Maxwell, Violin In Change Of Pace
By WAYNE OLIVER
NEW YORK (AP)—“How'd you like that Leo Durocher? Wasn't he great?”
That was Jack Benny as he flew into New York from Hollywood, still enthusing over the appearance on his show of the New York Giants manager in a baseball skit. In it, Durocher repeated some of his now famous performances from the playing field, where his acting reputation already is firmly established.
Benny's opinion is that the acting ability of the Durocher family is by no means confined to Leo's pretty wife, Laraine Day.
Turning serious, Benny declared “I think Leo would make a fine actor. I think if he wanted to quit baseball and start playing character parts, he'd do very well. “And that Beans Reardon is another good one who would make a good actor,” said Benny of the retired National League umpire who also took pan in the Sunday night show.
The show was in keeping with Benny's increasing change of pace in which he relies less on old trademarks—such as his Maxwell, his stinginess and his famous violin. He will change pace again on his next telecast Nov. 28 “in which I'll do my own life story.”
The comedy will develop from his attempts to cast actors in the roles of people he has been closely associated with in his long career.
Benny came here for an appearance in a Sunday night half-hour guest shot on CBS-TV's Sunday Night Theater. He will play “Tom Jones,” a waiter whose face is so ordinary no one is able to remember him.
Jack, who has the energy you’d expect if he were really 39, has continued his weekly radio program and stepped up his telecasts to every second week this season. But somewhat to his own surprise, “it's not tough at all.” He resorts to film only on occasion and all except four of his 16 shows this season will be live.
He says he finds a lot of people still follow his radio show “and I think it has a bigger audience than the ratings show—19 out of 20 people who tell me about hearing it say they heard it in their cars, and the ratings don't cover automobile sets.”