Lights, Camera, Fastball

How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball

Dan Taylor

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Year: 2021
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781538138632
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The Hollywood Stars were the most inventive team in baseball history, known for their celebrity ownership and movie star following during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

In Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball, Dan Taylor delivers a fascinating look at the Hollywood Stars and their glorious twenty-year run in the Pacific Coast League. Led by Bob Cobb, owner of the heralded Brown Derby restaurant and known more famously as the creator of the Cobb salad, the Hollywood Stars took professional baseball to a new and innovative level. The team played in short pants, instigated rule changes, employed cheerleaders and movie-star beauty queens, pioneered baseball on television, eschewed trains for planes, and offered fans palatable delicacies not before served at ballparks. On any given night, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, and dozens more cheered on their favorite team from the boxes and grandstands of Gilmore Field.

During the Hollywood Stars' history, its celebrity owners pushed boundaries, challenged existing baseball norms, infuriated rivals, and produced an imaginative product, the likes of which the game had never before seen. Featuring interviews with former players, Lights, Camera, Fastball is an inside look at a team that was far ahead its time, whose innovations are still seen in professional baseball today.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• “You Can Sell It out of a Hat”
• “Not without Me”
• “Wholly Owned by Hollywood People”
• “Go in and Get a Uniform”
• “Play Ball!”
• “A Few Steps ahead of Them”
• “Clean up That Mouse Trap”
• “We’re Both Irish”
• “The Coast League Has Been Fast Asleep”
• “A Day That Will Live in Infamy”
• “A Sweet Prospect”
• “The Terrible Twinks”
• “We Fellows Will Win This Fight!”
• “Don’t Worry about Him”
• “Didn’t We Make a Fortune?”
• “The Boy Wonder”
• “The Business Is Not for Sale”
• “Give ’im My Regards When You See Him”
• “Let Me Have It for Three Years”
• “Hooray for Haney!”
• “It’s Funny about Kids”
• “Aren’t They Sexy?”
• “They’ll See a Lot More Movie Stars There”
• “This Is Major Class”
• “A Frankenstein Which May Eat Its Own”
• “Run Your Guts Out!”
• “A Natural”
• “That’s the Wrong Sanchez”
• “It Was a Good Clean Riot”
• “You’re Looking at Something Special”
• “Home Runs Are My Business”
• “I’ll See You at Chavez Ravine”
• “We Are at a Loss”
• “Those Were the Halcyon Days”
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author