The big screen adaption of Moneyball, the New York Times bestseller about Billy Beane's quest to assemble a team of computer-enhanced players (or something like that), comes to theaters next year. It'll be covered pretty regularly by BaseballTainment, for obvious reasons. These stories will be a part of a series I like to call MoneyballTainment.
As an avid fan of baseball movies, I've always found the actors (or former athletes) that get to play baseball players to be the most fascinating part. I guess the same goes for any sports movie, really. When they film the action, it obviously has to be very precise, things have to be predetermined in order to tell the story. But is it fun? Are these guys fans of baseball who are getting to play out a dream? Is it tedious and frustrating?
And what about those who are portraying real players? Is there a lot of pressure there, especially if the player is still alive or is the holder of a particularly important legacy? Is it a big deal or not to do justice to a sports figure compared to a political personality? All questions I think about while lying awake at night.
Royce Clayton played seventeen seasons of pro ball with eleven different big league teams. He wrapped up his career with the Red Sox in 2007, and although he didn't get to play in the postseason, earned his first and only World Series ring that year. In 1999, Royce was playing for the Texas Rangers. At the same time, an old fireballer named Jim Morris had worked his way into a September call-up with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
That name probably sounds familiar, and it should. Dennis Quaid famously portrayed Jim Morris in Disney's The Rookie. Morris' major league debut came against the Rangers at the Ballpark at Arlington, and he earned his first strikeout against, you guessed it, Royce Clayton!
But Clayton didn't play himself in the movie (he was busy playing infield for the Chicago White Sox during filming in 2001). He, instead, was played by a sports agent/independent filmmaker/actor/Hofstra alum named Jorge Sanchez. Three pitches, three strikes, dramatic music, and it would seem as though we'd seen the last of any kind of Royce Clayton in the movies.
Not so. Royce, a Burbank, CA native, has been cast (and I assume finished filming) as Miguel Tejada in the big screen adaption of Michael Lewis' book, Moneyball. So, former shortstop Royce Clayton, who was played by Jorge Sanchez in the movie The Rookie, will be playing current shortstop Miguel Tejada in the movie Moneyball. This will come full circle in five years when Miguel Tejada stars as Jorge Sanchez as Royce Clayton in the movie retelling of the making of the movie The Rookie.
Also worth noting: Royce is currently 40 years old and will be playing Miguel as a 28 year old. Maybe it wasn't that Royce Clayton was too busy playing baseball to appear as himself in the Disney film, he actually just looked way too young for the part.
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