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The Winning Team (Warner) is a bleacher biography of baseball's late great Grover Cleveland Alexander (Ronald Reagan). Like The Pride of St. Louis (TIME, May 12), the movie life story of Dizzy Dean, The Winning Team dramatizes the ups & downs of Alexander's career in conventional and sometimes fanciful screen style. Alexander is depicted going from his telephone lineman's job to Midwest minor leagues in 1908, making a sensational major league debut with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1911 (28 won, 13 lost), and later becoming a pitching ace with the Chicago Cubs.
The picture has it that Alexander's decline was due to diplopia (double vision) after being hit on the head with a baseball. As a result, he takes to drink, but with the encouragement of his wife (Doris Day) and St. Louis Cardinal Manager Rogers Hornsby (Frank Lovejoy), he makes a dramatic comeback and helps the Cardinals win the 1926 World Series.
There are brief appearances by Big Leaguers Bob Lemon, Jerry Priddy, Peanuts Lowrey, Hank Sauer, Irv Noren, George Metkovich and Al Zarilla, and a few authentic shots of World Series games. But The Winning Team loses out through sand-lot writing and direction and a rookie performance by Ronald Reagan in the leading role.