Cinema: Baseball-batty

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Safe at Home! {Columbia}. "My father knows more about baseball 'n your father!"

"No he dozen. My father knows Mickey Man'le, an' Roger Maris too." "Wow! Kin ya git me a autograph pitcha?" "Sure I kin."

No he can't. His father (Don Collier) is just an ordinary joe who owns a fishing boat in a Florida backwater and knows Mantle & Maris about as well as he knows Dun & Bradstreet. The boy, a lovable little liar called Hutch (Bryan Russell), is a utility outfielder in the Little League, and he hasn't yet learned that a small lie usually leads to a big lie: "Sure, I'll get Man'le an' Maris t' come ta the Little League banquit."

To get them, Hutch assembles his life's savings (87¢), lays in the necessary provisions (eleven peanut-butter sandwiches), and shinnies up the tailgate of a truck bound for Fort Lauderdale, where the Yankees train. When he gets there, Hutch ducks past the doorman of the Yankee Clipper Hotel, falls asleep in Mickey's room, wakes up to see two mountains of muscle frowning down at him. "G-g-gee!" Hutch stutters. "M-Mickey Man'le an' R-Roger Maris! G-gee!"

"Son," they want to know, "what's your name?" Hutch tells them, tells them the spot he's in—"So please come! Ya gotta come!" But Mantle and Maris only shake their heads sadly; and then Mantle, with a wisdom that few fans have suspected him of concealing, gives Hutch a few pointers on the great game of life. "Hutch," he drawls stolidly, "yew lied. Now son, yew cain't make a foul ball faar, jes' by movin' the baselines."

"Gee," says Hutch. "What shall I do?" "Face up," Mantle replies. "Face up tew whut yew've done."

Sound advice—for Mantle and Maris too. They sure do try hard, but what they have done is scarcely worthy of two players who studied elocution with Casey Stengel, and who have enjoyed previous dramatic experience as the stars of Vitalis and InfraRub commercials.