The story was too rich to ignore. When Newport Beach resident Pam Sullivan dug it up, she found a century of history.
“War on the Diamond,” the documentary premiering this fall on the film festival circuit, is a labor of love for pretty much everybody involved. Sullivan’s co-producers are Danielle Alberico, Art Horan and Andy Billman, who is also directing the film.
The 75-minute documentary, which debuts at the Boston Film Festival on Sept. 23, is based on Mike Sowell’s 1989 book, “The Pitch That Killed.” It tells the story of the 1920 Major League Baseball incident when New York Yankees pitcher Carl Mays beaned Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman in the head with the ball at the Polo Grounds.
Chapman would later die, the only casualty from an in-game injury in league history. The Indians went on to win the World Series that year, but the incident sparked a rivalry that is perhaps lesser known than the Yankees’ rivalry with the Boston Red Sox but still has plenty of teeth.
“War on the Diamond” will be at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival in Ohio in early October before being shown locally at the Newport Beach Film Festival, which begins Oct. 23. Sullivan said she just got the news that the film was approved for Newport Beach this week.
Sullivan, who grew up in Irvine, said she has a background in marketing and advertising. But she began writing screenplays when she was living in Colorado with her husband Scott, a 1988 Corona del Mar High graduate.
“I wanted to find a true story to write about,” she said. “I was looking through my husband’s Sports Illustrated in 2009, and I found a story by S.L. Price called ‘Hit in the Head.’”
That story was about a minor league player who was hit, but it referenced Chapman, which sparked Sullivan’s interest. She ended up reaching out to Sowell, then a journalism professor at Oklahoma State University, and optioned the book for a feature film.
Nobody bit, and Sullivan moved back to California in 2013. She started working with the sports nonprofit Team IMPACT, but left in March 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic began.
Months earlier, she said Alberico reached out to her. Alberico, who was born and raised in Cleveland and is a longtime resident of New York, became intrigued after her late father gave her Sowell’s book.
“As soon as I talked to Pam, it was like a light bulb went off,” Alberico said. “We were both just so determined to make the story happen. From there, everything happened so quickly … This cast of characters is crazy. Right away, I just thought it was an amazing story.”
Planning started in January. Lining up Billman, a native Clevelander and the director of 2016’s “Believeland,” made sense.
There was tragedy that followed the pitch that killed the well-liked Chapman, known as “Chappie.” Chapman’s wife, Kathleen Daly, remarried but happiness was elusive and she committed suicide eight years later. The Chapmans’ daughter, Rae Marie, died of measles the following year.
Mays had a career marred by controversy and never made the Hall of Fame, though his numbers suggest he could have. But Sullivan said the film features interviews with people like his adopted son Jerry Bartow, now 87, a longtime baseball coach at Southwestern College who paints him in a more favorable light. It also features previously unheard audio interviews with Mays, who died in 1971.
The film discusses the complicated legacy of late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner — a Cleveland-area native himself who once tried to buy the Indians — and features a recreation of the fateful pitch with three actors from Cleveland.
“I’m not sure why stories like this fall through the cracks, but I’m glad it did,” said Billman, the director. “I was there to scoop it up, I guess. There’s a lot of story lines in here. Cleveland didn’t just finish in third place and someone died. They won the World Series. They beat Babe Ruth and the Yankees to win the pennant. This was a big deal. Tris Speaker was on the team — Speaker! He’s one of the best players to ever play the game.
“There’s a lot of things that have been forgotten because of the tragedy of Ray Chapman dying.”
The Indians have gone on to win just one other World Series in their history, in 1948. The Yankees have won 27, and anyone who thinks they don’t have a passionate fanbase wasn’t paying attention as New York visited the Angels earlier this week.
Newport Beach resident Jim Abbott is also interviewed in the documentary. Abbott, born without a right hand, pitched several seasons with the Angels but threw a no-hitter for the Yankees — against the Indians — in 1993.
“It became a really intriguing story,” Abbott said. “The one thing that I found going to the Yankees was how much everyone loves to hate the Yankees.”
Sullivan hopes that “War on the Diamond” will gain momentum and can be distributed to a streaming service. As for her, she said she’s already working on her next documentary, on the late jazz saxophonist Stan Getz.
She smiled when she noted that the documentary will debut in Boston, before coming to the same conclusion as Abbott.
“It’s going to be interesting seeing what the Boston writers say about it,” Sullivan said. “I guess everybody hates the Yankees.”
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Newport Beach resident helps bring 'War' to local film festival - Los Angeles Times
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