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Soul Of The Game
''Soul of the Game'' (also known as ''Field of Honour'') is a 1996 television film about Negro league baseball. The film stars Blair Underwood as Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo as Satchel Paige, Mykelti Williamson as Josh Gibson, and Harvey Williams as "Cat" Mays, the father of Willie Mays. The film depicts Paige and Gibson as the pitching and hitting stars, respectively, of the Negro leagues in the period immediately following World War II. Robinson is an up-and-coming player on Paige's team, the Kansas City Monarchs. Premise Branch Rickey, played by Edward Herrmann, is the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who is determined to integrate Major League Baseball. He begins sending his scouts to Negro league games to find the best players. Rickey directs his scouts to look not only at playing ability but also at the players' maturity and capacity to withstand the hostility that is sure to be directed Cast Main * Delroy Lindo as Satchel Paige * Mykelti Williamson as Josh ...
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Kevin Rodney Sullivan
Kevin Rodney Sullivan (born August 3, 1958) is an American film and television actor and film director. Early life and acting career Sullivan is a native of San Francisco who began his career as a child actor. He grew up in St. Francis Square in the Fillmore district of San Francisco as the youngest of three children. His father was a bus driver, and his mother was a receptionist for the St. Mary's hospital. According to Sullivan, he was "one step up from a housing project".Fenjves, Pablo F., and Rocky Lang. ''How I Broke into Hollywood: Success Stories from the Trenches''. New York: Regan, 2006. Print. During sixth grade while performing '' A Midsummer Night's Dream'', Sullivan's talents were picked up by Ann Brebner, who placed him and his entire class as extras in a movie by Sidney Poitier, '' They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!'' in 1970. This was his first experience with cinema. Brebner would continue to give him auditions for various roles. In 1970, he was picked up for a job in an Al ...
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Television Film
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for initial showing in movie theaters, and direct-to-video films made for initial release on home video formats. In certain cases, such films may also be referred to and shown as a miniseries, which typically indicates a film that has been divided into multiple parts or a series that contains a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Origins and history Precursors of "television movies" include ''Talk Faster, Mister'', which aired on WABD (now WNYW) in New York City on December 18, 1944, and was produced by RKO Pictures, and the 1957 ''The Pied Piper of Hamelin'', based on the poem by Robert Browning, and starring Van Johnson, one of the first filmed "family musicals" made directly for television. That film was made in Technicolor, ...
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Gina Ravera
Gina Ravera is an American actress. She has appeared in the films ''Showgirls'' (1995), ''Soul Food'' (1997), '' Kiss the Girls'' (1997), and ''The Great Debaters'' (2007). She co-starred as detective Irene Daniels in the TNT crime drama series ''The Closer'' (2005-2009). Life and career Ravera was born in San Francisco, California. She is of mixed African-American and Puerto Rican heritage. She is a classically trained dancer. In the early 1990s, Ravera began appearing in guest-starring roles on television shows, including ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'', ''Melrose Place'', and '' Star Trek: The Next Generation''. During 1993-94, she was a cast member of the CBS crime series ''Silk Stalkings''. In films, she had a starring role in the 1995 erotic drama ''Showgirls'', directed by Paul Verhoeven, and in 1997 appeared in the comedy-drama ''Soul Food''. Ravera later went to television, appearing in TV films of the week and in series guest roles and regular roles. She was a regular c ...
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Salli Richardson-Whitfield
Salli Elise Richardson-Whitfield () is an American actress, director and producer. Richardson is known for her role as Angela in the film ''A Low Down Dirty Shame'' (1994) and for her role as Dr. Allison Blake on the Syfy comedy-drama series ''Eureka'' (2006–2012). She is also known for her voice acting as Elisa Maza on the Disney animated series '' Gargoyles'' (1994–1996), and as Viveca Foster on the CBS series ''Family Law'' (1999-2002). Richardson also has appeared in a number of other films such as ''The Great White Hype'' (1996), ''Antwone Fisher'' (2002), '' Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid'' (2004) and '' I Am Legend'' (2007). She had leading roles in the independent films ''Pastor Brown'' (2009), ''Black Dynamite'' (2009) and ''I Will Follow'' (2010). In the 2010s, Richardson started working as a television director. Early life Richardson was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her mother is of African American ancestry (with distant Cherokee roots), and her father was ...
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Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. The NL and AL were formed in 1876 and 1901, respectively. Beginning in 1903, the two leagues signed the National Agreement and cooperated but remained legally separate entities until 2000, when they merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball. MLB is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan. It is also included as one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. Baseball's first all-professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded in 1869. Before that, some teams had secretly paid certain players. The first few decades of professional baseball were characterized by rivalries between leagues and by players who often jumped from one te ...
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Brooklyn Dodgers
The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1884 as a member of the American Association (19th century), American Association before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles, California, where it continues History of the Los Angeles Dodgers, its history as the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team moved west at the same time as its longtime rival, the New York Giants (baseball), New York Giants, relocated to San Francisco in northern California as the San Francisco Giants. The team's name derived from the reputed skill of Brooklyn residents at evading List of streetcar lines in Brooklyn, the city's trolley streetcars. The name is a shortened form of their old name, the Brooklyn ''Trolley'' Dodgers. The Dodgers played in two stadiums in South Brooklyn, each named Washington Park (baseball), Washington Park, and at Eastern Park in the neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn, Brownsville before m ...
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Branch Rickey
Wesley Branch Rickey (December 20, 1881 – December 9, 1965) was an American baseball player and sports executive. Rickey was instrumental in breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier by signing black player Jackie Robinson. He also created the framework for the modern minor league farm system, encouraged the Major Leagues to add new teams through his involvement in the proposed Continental League, and introduced the batting helmet. He was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967. Rickey played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Browns and New York Highlanders from 1905 through 1907. After struggling as a player, Rickey returned to college, where he learned about administration from Philip Bartelme. Returning to MLB in 1913, Rickey embarked on a successful managing and executive career with the St. Louis Browns, St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cardinals elected him to their team Hall of Fame in 2014. R ...
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Kansas City Monarchs
The Kansas City Monarchs were the longest-running franchise in the history of baseball's Negro leagues. Operating in Kansas City, Missouri, and owned by J. L. Wilkinson, they were charter members of the Negro National League from 1920 to 1930. J. L. Wilkinson was the first Caucasian owner at the time of the establishment of the team. In 1930, the Monarchs became the first professional baseball team to use a portable lighting system which was transported from game to game in trucks to play games at night, five years before any major league team did. The Monarchs won ten league championships before integration, and triumphed in the first Negro League World Series in 1924. The Monarchs had only one season in which they did not have a winning record. The team produced more major league players than any other Negro league franchise. It was disbanded in 1965. Negro National League The Monarchs were formed in 1920, primarily from two sources. Owner J. L. Wilkinson drew players fr ...
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ...
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Negro Leagues
The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relatively successful leagues beginning in 1920 that are sometimes termed "Negro Major Leagues". In the late 19th century, the baseball color line developed in professional baseball, excluding African Americans from league play. In 1885, the Cuban Giants formed the first black professional baseball team. The first league, the National Colored Base Ball League, was organized strictly as a minor league but failed in 1887 after only two weeks owing to low attendance. After several decades of mostly independent play by a variety of teams, in 1920 the first Negro National League was formed and ultimately seven major leagues existed at various times over the next thirty years. After integration, the quality of th ...
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Willie Mays
Willie Howard Mays Jr. (born May 6, 1931), nicknamed "the Say Hey Kid" and "Buck", is a former center fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB). Regarded as one of the greatest players ever, Mays ranks second behind only Babe Ruth on most all-time lists, including those of ''The Sporting News'' and ESPN. Mays played in the National League (NL) between 1951 and 1973 for the New York/San Francisco Giants and New York Mets. Mays is the oldest living member of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Mays joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League in 1948, playing with them until the Giants signed him once he graduated from high school in 1950, then won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1951 after hitting 20 home runs to help the Giants win their first pennant in 14 years. After spending most of the next two years in the United States Army during the Korean War, he was named the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1954 after winning the batting title with a .345 avera ...
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Josh Gibson
Joshua Gibson (December 21, 1911 – January 20, 1947) was an American baseball catcher primarily in the Negro leagues. Baseball historians consider Gibson among the best power hitters and catchers in baseball history. In 1972, he became the second Negro league player to be inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Gibson played for the Homestead Grays from 1930 to 1931, moved to the Pittsburgh Crawfords from 1932 to 1936, and returned to the Grays from 1937 to 1939 and 1942 to 1946. In 1937, he played for Ciudad Trujillo in Trujillo's Dominican League and from 1940 to 1941, he played in the Mexican League for Azules de Veracruz. Gibson served as the first manager of the Cangrejeros de Santurce, one of the most historic franchises of the Puerto Rico Baseball League. Gibson was known as a spectacular power hitter who, by some accounts, hit close to 800 career home runs. He was known as the "black Babe Ruth"; in fact, some fans at the time who saw both Ruth and Gibson p ...
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