Effectively Wild Episode 1559: Forgotten Greats

July 2, 2020

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ben’s effusive streaming recommendation, the Korean baseball drama Stove League. Then (8:51) they start the second episode of their week-long celebration of the Negro Leagues by bringing on Jeremy Beer, author of the award-winning baseball biography Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player, to talk about Charleston’s bona fides as one of the top 10 baseball players of all time, why his fame falls short of his accomplishments, and the challenges of researching Negro Leagues stars. Lastly (46:18), they speak to Invisible Ball of Dreams author and Ball State University professor Emily Ruth Rutter about two of the only non-documentary movies to focus on the Negro Leagues, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976) and Soul of the Game (1996), touching on where they succeed and fail, the differences in their portrayals of the Negro Leagues and Negro Leaguers, and the history of cinematic and literary representations of Black baseball.

Audio intro: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Forgotten Man"
Audio interstitial: Thelma Houston, "The Bingo Long Song (Steal on Home)"
Audio outro: Sloan, "Set in Motion"

Link to Stove League trailer
Link to stream Stove League on Viki
Link to stream Stove League on Kocowa
Link to Oscar Charleston book page
Link to Charleston at the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database
Link to Charleston’s Hall of Fame page
Link to Joe Posnanski on Charleston
Link to Bingo Long trailer
Link to Bingo Long full movie on YouTube
Link to Soul of the Game full movie on YouTube
Link to BlackBaseballLit site
Link to Invisible Ball of Dreams
Link to Paul Petrovic essay on Bingo Long and Soul of the Game
Link to article about historical inaccuracies in Soul of the Game
Link to Washington Post review of Soul of the Game
Link to Roger Ebert’s review of Bingo Long
Link to New York Times story on Toni Stone