Among the guests at a recent reunion screening of “Major League” at the Aero Theatre was actor Tom Berenger who played veteran baseball catcher Jake Taylor. It is still one of Berenger’s best known roles as we watch his character go through another baseball season which may very well be his last while trying to win back his ex-girlfriend Lynn Wells (Renee Russo in her film debut). And like his fellow co-stars, Berenger proved that he could play baseball.
Berenger did have some experience playing little league when he was growing up and played some more ball after that but never professionally. “Major League’s” writer/director David S. Ward also said that “you could watch Tom swing a bat and you could tell he could play baseball.” Berenger said that he played on third base and left field but that “Major League” had him taking catcher position for the first time ever. What made the difference in preparing for this role was who he had to work with.
“I had a great teacher which was (Steve) Yeager who had been a catcher for the Dodgers,” Berenger said. “Besides being a great player he was also a great teacher which is important, and he worked with Charlie and I and we started probably six weeks before the other guys came in.”
Berenger even talked about how he got Yeager and some of the cast to come back to his hometown in South Carolina so that they could practice there. His thought was that practicing at Pepperdine University near Malibu with the “dry air” and “breeze coming off of the ocean” was “a little deceiving” as real ballplayers deal with more humid conditions.
“We raised a little team so we could do infield practice and drills and things like that, and it was all these guys who were on softball leagues that had once played baseball,” Berenger said. “They loved it, it was great. I had a friend that was head of maintenance for the public schools, and he got us a field at one of the high schools that was totally blocked off; it was just screened by Palmetto trees Live Oaks and stuff. He gave us the key to the gate to get in and he brought all his equipment out there and he recut the field, he redid the mound, he gave us a pitching machine so I could practice pop-ups and we could do batting practice.”
Berenger said that this worked out great for those there because everyone was “in humidity,” and it was that same humidity which the cast and crew faced in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where “Major League” was filmed. The movie was shot in 1988 during the hottest summer in Wisconsin since 1938, and he remembered it being “brutal” to work during the day as a result. While the training done in South Carolina certainly prepared many for day shooting, Berenger looked more forward to working nights when it was cooler.
Watching the movie again had Berenger getting nostalgic for the old Cleveland as it appears in the movie’s opening credits, which is one of the few parts of the movie that was actually shot there.
“I’m looking at it and I’m going ‘wow look at that industrial town.’ That’s what we used to be,” Berenger said. “And that makes me a little sad, you know? Chicago and Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Bethlehem and Allentown; all those towns were like that and they’re not there anymore and I find that really sad because I think they were the backbone of this country.”
“Major League” still holds a place in our hearts thanks to its hilarious moments and deeply felt ones which stay with us long after the end credits have finished. Even Berenger admitted that the movie still has a profound effect on him more than 20 years after its release.
“I have to say that I just love this film,” Berenger said. “I cry at the end every time I watch it. It’s a comedy but it’s got so much heart and great writing and direction.
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