About the only baseball player my wife has ever recognized is John Kruk.

My wife recognizes Roy Halladay, because he's the major focus of the Jays ad campaign, and Benji Molina, because she thinks he's absolutely hilarious to watch when he runs.

He was tagged out doing his "Walter Brennan in the 'Real McCoys'" imitation

.

I occasionally wonder when he shows up in something I see on TCM if Brennan was handicapped in some way, because he didn't just display that idiosyncratic walk in The Real McCoys, but in a number of other films as well. I'm thinking especially of To Have and Have Not (that's twenty years earlier)and Rio Bravo. Yet, it seemed at other times he walked normally. See My Darling Clementine, The Westerner, Support Your Local Sheriff. Sometimes he does it; sometimes he doesn't, but I can't tell for sure if it's a real handicap and it's being covered up at times or if he just affects it some times and not other times.

The last time I took a date to a baseball game was two years ago. It was the Indians-Angels game in Milwaukee and my date got really drunk almost immediately. Wisconsin football fans have a bit of a tradition with the wave. They do the slow-motion wave and the fast forward wave along with the regular wave. So my date takes part in all the different kind of waves and when they get to the fast forward wave she forgets that she has a beer in her hand and splashes the whole beer all over herself. The whole section is in tears, kids are take pictures on their cell phones, others are calling their friends about her. Afterwards she got pulled over for drunk driving and spend the night in jail.

That might be my favourite story in the history of BTF.

She despised me for some time after that and when asked would state through pressed lips that I was a "vile and loathsome creature" or something similar.

This sounds just like my wife.

... Do they stop saying that at some point?

Mrs fra paolo is a soccer fan. :(

My other sports-related obsession. My previous post was written from a Starbucks near the pub that hosts the FC Dallas watching parties.

*grumble, grumble*

... Do they stop saying that at some point?

At your funeral, particularly if they're the reason you're having one.

My wife's one and only major-league game was this one. Not bad.

Q: Why did walter brennan limp?

A: A friend of his in the motion picture business - Jack Foley - suggested as a prop for Walter Brennan to put a rock in his shoe to simulate a limp. It went over so well that it became a trademark of sorts.

WikiAnswers.com

Yes, but does your wife know that Manny Ramirez is the only RHB in history to hit over 1000 OPS six consecutive seasons?

Brennan is a very underrated character actor. Even for what could be a stock drunk character such as Eddie in "To Have and Have Not", Brennan plays him with a bit of an edge -- leading me, anyway, to see something deeper and painful and needy in the character. He was deliciously evil as Pa Clanton in "My Darling Clementine", as compelling on screen as Fonda's Wyatt Earp. And in playing Judge Roy Bean in "The Westerner", he gave a believability (and a sense of fun) to a nasty character with an exploitable weakness for Lily Langtry.

I agree that he is a great character actor, with great range in his characterizations. I don't know if he was underrated, though. The guy won all sorts of awards, including three Oscars, and considerable fame (for any actor, much less a "character" actor). You can't take your eyes off him in To Have and Have Not. His eccentric performance there dominates every scene he's in--no small feat considering the competition. You just can't take your eyes off him. He could do comic, the grumpy sidekick a la Meet John Doe, Red River and Rio Bravo, and he could be commanding, as you note for My Darling Clementine (he gives that role a fine comic twist in Support Your Local Sheriff) and The Westerner. He is really the star of The Westerner. Cooper almost refused to do it because he recognized that right off the bat, but he was talked into going ahead and doing it. Nevertheless, Brennan gives a gem of a surreptitioous star turn masquerading as a supporting foil. Glad some others here think as highly of him as I do.

I might just be quibbling. I would agree he isn't remembered as much as he should be, so that might be the same thing as being underrated. I think that most of us old movie fans don't, though. We fully appreciate his general excellent, his range and versatility, as well as facility for thoroughly "giving himself to a role."

Morty, I agree, "isn't remembered as much as he should be" is a much better way of phrasing what I wanted to say.