Things You Maybe Didn’t Know About “Mr. Baseball”

Remember the Tom Selleck baseball vehicle stunningly titled Mr. Baseball? In said tale, a boorish American ballplayer goes to ply his trade in Japan and eventually gets a massage in a tub. As Hollywood and the Bill of Rights teach us, every Japanese person is quiet, workaday, self-serious, and hopelessly yoked to tradition. So you can imagine the clash of cultures that ensues. I don’t exaggerate when I use words and phrases like “madcap” and “hazardous to the funny bones.”

Anyhow, Giants skipper Bruce Bochy consulted on the film, and he recently recalled a thing or two about a thing or two related to said film …

Bochy and other base-balling consultants made $100 a day. They also enjoyed the catering service.

Frank Thomas’s power stroke was not enough to please the fancy-pants director.

Frank Thomas, because of his inability to homer to dead center on command, was replaced by a cannon.

Doug DeCinces sucks at hitting fungoes.

At one point during production, Doug DeCinces hit a ground ball to an unsuspecting Mr. Selleck, and the ball struck Mr. Selleck in the rascal basket. Mr. Selleck was not pleased.

In decidedly related news — and not because I’m out of things to say — here are Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker on “Magnum P.I.” Please note that Mr. Trammell is the kind of man who likes to pair a gold chain with his linen jacket. He’s also the type of man for whom the top two shirt buttons are not something you can dance to.