Published: April 11, 2014 (A1)
‘League’ still resonates
‘Major League’ star, extra remember film 25 years later
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
No matter how many times Willie Mueller has watched it in
the last 25 years, the ending hasn’t changed.
The hated New York Yankees lose on a squeeze bunt to the
underdog Cleveland Indians in a winner-take-all playoff game, ending almost a
half-century of misery for the Indians and saves the franchise.
It was a Hollywood ending.
That’s just the thing, though. It really was an ending made
for Hollywood.
On April 7, 1989, the movie, ”Major League,” was released,
starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Corbin Bernsen, Rene Russo, Wesley Snipes
and Milwaukee Brewers play-byplay radio announcer Bob Uecker.
It also starred Mueller, a native of West Bend, and former
Brewers pitcher from 1978-81. Mueller played the role of the evil Yankees
closer “The Duke.”
Twenty-five years seems like yesterday, especially because
the movie is still played on television and maintains popularity.
“It seems like only yesterday or not that long, but it has
(been 25 years),” Mueller said. “I didn’t think it would last that long. It’s
on every channel. ... And we lost by a bunt.”
The movie debuted at No. 1 in the box office and grossed
more than $50 million.
“It was just intriguing to find out how movies were made,”
Mueller said. “It was fun to watch.”
Lindsey Mueller, Willie’s daughter, 25, was about 10 years
old when she saw the movie for the first time and understood “The Duke” was
dad.
“I made him keep rewinding it,” she recalled. “It didn’t
look like him. It was hard to believe he was in the movie.”
When her brother, Danny, realized it was dad, he had quite a
different reaction: He cried.
The family was watching the movie at a relative’s house and
Danny saw dad on the TV. He was excited. Then he saw the bunt that won the game
for the Indians and all he could think about was daddy had lost the game.
“He just started crying because dad lost,” Lindsey Mueller
said.
Eventually, Danny Mueller realized it was only a movie and,
like his sister, was proud of dad.
“It was awesome,” Danny Mueller said.
Twenty-five years later, there are still a lot of laughs for
the movie.
The movie is popular among its fans for the oneline jokes by
Uecker. One of the jokes in the movie by Uecker said “The Duke” threw at his
son during a father-son game.
The Muellers can’t help but laugh. Some years later after
the movie was released, that actually happened.
When Danny Mueller was 12 or 13 years old, he and his dad
were playing a baseball game with the West Bend Warriors. One of Danny’s
teammates told him he should point to the outfield — call his shot — just like
they did in the movie.
The teammate thought it’d be funny. So did Danny, so he did
it, which didn’t sit well with dad.
“My dad told me not to do it,” Danny Mueller recalled.
He still did it. He paid the price.
With a tennis ball in his hand and a relatively still strong
right arm, Willie Mueller whipped the ball at his son and hit him in the rib
cage.
Danny Mueller never called his shot again.
”At the time, it hurt pretty bad,” he said.
Willie Mueller was cast for the role in rather unusual
fashion.
A representative from the movie called Mueller. The person
explained that there was a baseball movie filming at County Stadium in
Milwaukee and Mueller was recommended for a part.
When Mueller picked up the phone, he thought it was a friend
playing a joke on him.
“So I went along with it,” he recalled.
When he asked how the representative got his number, the
person said Pete Vuckovich suggested him after Vuckovich, a friend of
Mueller’s, was asked if he knew anybody who could play the part, someone who
was big, kind of ugly and could throw the ball hard. He didn’t hesitate: Willie
Mueller.
“I said, ‘Now you’ve got my attention,’” Mueller said.
He wasn’t the only local tie to the movie.
Douglas Bohn, a native of West Bend who is now an
over-the-road truck driver out of Fort Worth, Texas, was one of the many extras
the producers requested.
“I went down three different nights,” Bohn said. “Two nights
I went down there I was on my own and one was with my friend and his wife.
“At the times we went, it was like from 10 at night to 5 or
6 in the morning.”
Bohn got his couple seconds of fame in the movie.
In one of the last scenes of the movie, Russo’s character
shows the movie’s main character, Jake Taylor, played by Berenger, an empty
ring finger on her left hand, much to his pleasure. Just before that, a man
wearing a gray shirt pops into the aisle in front of Russo. That was Bohn.
“When I saw it, I said to myself, ‘I think I saw myself,’” he
said. “I went back and watched it and said, ‘Yep. That was me.’” “It was
exciting to see myself,” he added. “I was like, ‘I’m a star in a movie.’”
Willie Mueller was surprised with the finished product as well.
“I couldn’t believe it I was in that much,” he said with a
laugh. “It was all me at the end.”
“When it came out, everybody liked it,” he added about the
movie’s success. “Then all of a sudden it just blossomed. It’s been hanging
around for a long time.”
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