Oct 26 2006 11:05 AM
ESPN Revisits Tumultuous Time in and Around Yankee Stadium
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
October 26, 2006
NORWICH, Conn., Oct. 24 — The clubhouse at Dodd Stadium was full of actors Tuesday. They were portraying the 1977 Yankees, some in uniform, some in paisleys, double-knits and platform shoes, for an ESPN miniseries. They were supposed to be in Milwaukee in mid-July during the season in which Reggie Jackson designated himself the “straw that stirs the drink” on his new team.
Out of the manager’s office stepped John Turturro as Billy Martin.
Turturro lost weight to look as frail as Martin did. He wore latex ears to approximate Martin’s large, jutting ones. He stood timidly in street clothes and cowboy boots and read a statement in which he denied reports in which a “prominent Yankee” said that George Steinbrenner was dictating his lineup and making him miserable.
“I want everyone to know that Mr. Steinbrenner is in no way interferin’ with my day-to-day baseball decisions,” Turturro said in a quiet monotone, his voice tinged with the in-and-out Texas accent that Martin affected. He finished, looking abashed at his capitulation to the power of Steinbrenner, who is still the Yankees’ principal owner.
“Who wrote that for you, Billy?” a reporter said, but Martin ignored him, turned and walked into his office.
Down the corridor, visible in silhouette, stood Oliver Platt, who plays Steinbrenner in “The Bronx Is Burning,” an eight-hour adaptation of Jonathan Mahler’s 2005 book, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning,” an account of the 1977 Yankees. But the book follows several other threads, including a cantankerous brawl of a mayoral race starring the eventual winner, Edward I. Koch; Mario M. Cuomo, a future governor; and a former congresswoman, Bella Abzug; the citywide blackout on July 13 that led to looting in many neighborhoods; and the manhunt for the .44-caliber killer known as the Son of Sam. ESPN will carry the series over eight weeks starting in July.
Platt awaited his moment to stalk into the clubhouse. He is taller and heavier than Steinbrenner; at 46, he is a year younger than Steinbrenner was when the story takes place. Platt’s hair, usually parted in the middle, assumes the rigid contour of Steinbrenner’s swept coif. His below-the-earlobe sideburns are flecked with gray at their bottoms
He walked slowly out of the shadow. He glowered. Platt raised his voice to a higher pitch and blended it with Steinbrenner’s Midwestern inflections. He seethed about the “prominent Yankee” who had leaked the story. In reality, it was catcher Thurman Munson, who was angry enough at Steinbrenner to approach two reporters, one of them Steve Jacobson of Newsday, who is a consultant to the miniseries.
“I don’t know who did this,” Platt said — although Jacobson said that when Steinbrenner addressed the team, he knew it was Munson. Anyone who wears the pinstripes is a “prominent Yankee,” Platt said, and concluded, “This kind of monkey business sullies the character of everyone in this organization.” He tossed a copy of The Daily News on the floor and walked off.
On the right side of the clubhouse, Erik Jensen, as Munson, with a droopy mustache and tousled hair, looked pained; he knew that confiding in the reporters had placed Martin in a more precarious position.
“Cut,” said the director, Jeremiah S. Chechik. “That’s good.”
Like most films based on true events, ESPN took liberties. What Turturro said was not from a verbatim account. And Steinbrenner spoke to the players a few days later in a hotel meeting room in Kansas City, Mo., with no reporters present.
Jacobson, who was on the set at Dodd Stadium, said the scene was “true to the essence” of Steinbrenner and Martin, although he believed that Steinbrenner would have been more forceful than Platt was.
Ron Semiao, the senior vice president of ESPN Original Entertainment, said, “We wouldn’t have had Steinbrenner address the team if he hadn’t.”
One consultant to the project is Graig Nettles, the former third baseman. Another is Fran Healy, the former backup catcher, who recently described to Daniel Sunjata, who plays Jackson, his character’s reaction to his tussle with Martin in the visitors’ dugout at Fenway Park.
Nettles said he gave a crucial tip to the actor playing Lou Piniella, Mather Zickel.
“Lou had this nervous habit of smelling his hair,” Nettles said, smiling with the knowledge that their teammates will chuckle when they see Zickel smell his hair.
He told Alex Cranmer, who portrays the young Nettles, “Don’t hurt yourself diving.” Nettles often flung his body left and right to retrieve ground balls and line drives.
“I never practiced it,” he said. “It just happened in a game.”
Jeffrey Maier, the fan who deflected Derek Jeter’s fly ball into a home run during Game 1 of the Yankees-Orioles American League Championship Series in 1996 and then played for Wesleyan University, is playing third in the baseball sequences.
ESPN will not rely only on what it shoots at Dodd Stadium, home of the Connecticut Defenders of the Eastern League; it has a 40-hour archive of game action and news footage from the tumult beyond the House That Ruth Built. Close-ups of actors playing the Yankees will be intercut with video, like that of Jackson hitting three home runs in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series.
But the heart of the miniseries will be the power struggles between, and among, Turturro’s Martin, Platt’s Steinbrenner and Sunjata’s Jackson.
Turturro and Platt are not impersonating their characters, but Nettles said the actors had captured their personalities.
“Oliver’s got George,” Nettles said. “He’s got that blusteriness.” Turturro “is scary,” Nettles added. “Just watching him sit in the dugout — he’s Billy.”
Marty Appel, a former Yankees public-relations director and another consultant to the production, said that when he heard Platt, in character, shout, “You!” he jumped with the memory of Steinbrenner’s voice.
Turturro has adopted Martin’s style: his leanness, his slouch, his habit of placing one, or both hands, in his uniform back pockets, his pugnacity. On Monday night, he re-enacted the incident when Martin blew up at the umpire Bruce Froemming, and was ejected for throwing baseballs on the field, during Game 4 of the 1976 World Series. The actors danced unhappily around each other and Turturro kicked dirt on the actor playing Froemming, even though Martin did not actually do it.
“Billy moved like a cat,” Turturro said.
Platt, a Red Sox fan, said he had to purge preconceptions about Steinbrenner. He said he admired Steinbrenner’s accomplishments and was not playing him as a tyrant.
“I seriously think he never thought of himself as a tyrant,” he said. “I’m not trying to candy coat the guy, but I need to understand him.”
Platt added: “You have to play him small. You can’t do a circus-clown version. You want to give him his dignity.”
Turturro views Martin as a street tough from his father’s generation, a tragic, riveting character and societal outsider who never found the love or satisfaction he needed.
“He could never love his family like he loved baseball,” he said, adding that “George bought him and he broke him.”
Late Tuesday night, Platt was in a luxury box (which doubled as a suite at Royals Stadium) surrounded by well-dressed actors playing Steinbrenner’s friends and associates. Nettles stood among them, pretending to watch the Yankees lose Game 3 of the 1977 A.L.C.S. to the Royals. The intention was to collect an array of Steinbrenner’s frustrated reactions to Yankees failures.
As extras on the field below enacted pop-ups and double plays, Chechik, the director, asked Platt to stand grimly with his arms folded, stare balefully, turn from the glass window, or walk away. Finally, Platt offered a signature Steinbrenner gesture: Rankled by a Jackson pop-up, he raised his hands and brought them down in an ultimate act of disgust.
Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson in ESPN’s miniseries “The Bronx Is Burning,” an account of the Yankees’ 1977 season.
John Turturro as Billy Martin. Turturro wore latex ears to approximate Martin’s. 
A film crew acts as the catcher for Leander Carilli, who portrays pitcher Ed Figueroa. Figueroa went 16-11 for the Yankees in 1977.
The rocky relationship among Martin, Reggie Jackson and George Steinbrenner, played by Oliver Platt, left, is a main thread of the show. Right, Platt talking with former third baseman Graig Nettles, a consultant for the project. "Oliver's got George," Nettles said.
Erik Jensen plays catcher Thurman Munson, who had told reporters that George Steinbrenner was interfering with Billy Martin's decisions.
Henri Stanley portrays outfielder Mickey Rivers in the miniseries, which is an eight-hour adaptation of Jonathan Mahler’s 2005 book, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning.”
The actors get a walk through of the next scene from the producers. ESPN will carry the series over eight weeks starting in July.