Eight big leaguers who sought fame and fortune by acting in classic Hollywood movies

Long before baseball games were broadcast to televisions all around the globe, fans still had a chance to see their heroes on the screen. How, you ask? Just as today's athletes are big enough celebrities to film cameos in TV and movies, baseball players of yore got a chance to star in old Hollywood fare. Sadly, much of it is largely forgotten, and in the case of many silent films, completely lost to history. 
With the Oscars honoring this year's best films tonight, let's take a look at eight old-time big leaguers who tried their hand at the silver screen. 
John McGraw
The New York Giants' legendary manager was no stranger to films as he appeared in 12 different shorts as himself. The most famous of these is likely "One Touch of Nature," about a rookie pitcher whose personal problems are affecting his play for the Giants. Unfortunately, it joined the many films from this era where no print exists. 

(Screengrab via Chronicling America)
However, three years before "One Touch," McGraw took a crack at acting as someone other than the Giants' manager, and starred as the title character in 1914's "Detective Swift."

The film featured McGraw chasing stolen jewels across the globe, in part because the film was shot during the Giants and White Sox 1914 World Tour.
Bull Durham
Yes, that's right -- long before the movie or the team, there was a player named Bull Durham. Born Louis Durham, he legally changed his name to Bull to exploit a loophole that would let him continue playing in the Minor Leagues after being banned due to a barroom brawl. He appeared in nine big league ballgames from 1904-1909, before Durham gave up the field for the screen, where he was a bit more successful.
Credited under a variety of names, he appeared in 36 films total. Naturally, a handful were about baseball, including 1917's "The Pinch Hitter," where Durham appeared as a coach, and 1919's "The Busher," though Durham was uncredited.

Ty Cobb
For years, Cobb resisted overtures from touring vaudeville shows begging for him to star. Eventually, he relented, but the stress of performing proved to be too much for Cobb to handle during the offseason. It looked like his acting career was over before it really got going … until the movie business -- and its easier shooting schedule -- came calling.
Sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote a script called "Somewhere in Georgia" featuring a Ty Cobb-like player called, predictably, Ty Cobb. However, this fictional Cobb was a bank clerk and part-time ballplayer, who was competing for the affection of his boss' daughter. Given the resemblance, the real-life, ballplaying Cobb was a natural fit once they got him to take on the role. 
Oddly enough, this one didn't get a national release. Perhaps because of this distribution plan, or just because films of this era didn't have a home video market once they left theatres, the prints no longer survive. 

(via Our Game) 
Fortunately, we do have Cobb's other big screen work, when he and Joe DiMaggio made brief cameos in the original "Angels in the Outfield."

Honus Wagner
Who knows, in another world maybe Honus Wagner becomes one of the Three Stooges. That's because he made his screen debut in 1919's "Spring Fever," alongside Three Stooges actors Moe and Shemp Howard. 
Unfortunately, nothing remains except a lobby card that was recently auctioned off for just under $1,500. It's a shame, too, as IMDB's plot summary of the two-reel short features the solid comedic premise of Wagner teaching Moe how to bat. 
The shortstop would make one more film appearance three years later in the thinnest excuse for a film yet: "In the Name of the Law," in which Wagner apparently saved the public from the menace … of a man dropping baseballs off a 150-foot building. Yeah, I dunno either.
Lou Gehrig
Somehow, even in the midst of his record-setting consecutive games streak, Gehrig managed to film the 1938 western "Rawhide." Starring as a retiring Lou Gehrig (it seems studios were a little reticent about casting ballplayers under different names), he set out for the west as a rancher.
The film opens with Gehrig announcing at Grand Central Terminal that he is retiring from baseball, and has already bought a ranch with his sister where they can relax in solitude. 

Frankly, the image of the Yankee great in a giant cowboy hat is worth the price of admission alone. Eat your heart out, Pharrell:

Unfortunately for Gehrig and the town of Whos that live under his hat, his dreams of a quaint and peaceful retirement are thrown out when a bunch of bandits demand protection money.
The film was later used to help determine when Gehrig first began to show signs of ALS. After careful study, researchers found the disease had yet to affect him during shooting in January of '38. 
Babe Ruth
Befitting a larger-than-life star who changed the fabric of the game, Ruth appeared in a whopping 10 films all as himself or versions of himself. That began with 1920's "Heading Home," which created a fictionalized, rosy-tinged view of Ruth's life. It even included the slugger chopping down a tree like he was George Washington to turn it into a bat: 

Ruth's final role was in "Pride of the Yankees," where he played himself. Unfortunately, the stress of the film and the diet they put him on led him to be hospitalized after shooting. 
Mike Donlin
If Ruth is the greatest two-way player on the field, then Donlin is the greatest two-way player when it comes to baseball and acting. Donlin was a career .333 hitter, but his career is largely forgotten because he took multiple breaks from the game to perform on stage and in vaudeville. 
After retiring for good in 1914, Donlin went after his silver screen dreams. He started with "Right off the Bat," which featured -- who else? -- his manager, John McGraw. Though the story was heavily fictionalized, it purportedly charted "Donlin's rise to Major League stardom."

(via Our Game)
With the help of John Barrymore (yes, that John Barrymore), Donlin ended up appearing in 68 films and was often sought after as an assistant director on baseball films. Unfortunately, he was more of a bit player or uncredited extra for most of his later work.

Jackie Robinson
Only a player like Robinson could take on such a big role for his first -- and only -- film: Robinson played himself in the "The Jackie Robinson Story."

Perhaps even more shocking was it was made just three years into Robinson's career, when the story was still being written. In fact, Robinson wouldn't win his first World Series title for another five years. 
It's something that Richard Brody in "The New Yorker" found rather astonishing:
"If the film spends dramatic time on Robinson's childhood and schooling, it's because so many viewers at the time were unlikely to think of him as a regular man. His utter normalcy needed to be shown because it was, for many, in doubt as a sole result of the color of his skin. When Jackie and Rachel Robinson ride in the back of the bus beneath the sign mandating it, that sign was, at the time, the law of the South. When Mack and Jackie Robinson found themselves the victims of employment discrimination, there was no redress to be sought in the courts. The movie was made without the benefit of hindsight, with no particular reason to expect that the situation would change, with no apparent hope that Jim Crow laws would be pushed aside by the Supreme Court or that the integration of schools would take place under the authority of the National Guard."
The film is actually in the public domain, so you can now spend the rest of your day watching the entire thing here.