MSBL Players in ESPN Baseball TV Movie, “The Bronx Is Burning”
CT National MSBL (Men’s Senior Baseball League – 28 yr. old+) players play roles in the ESPN Mini Series movie filming at Dodd Stadium in Norwich CT, "The Bronx Is Burning”. 
Dan Delventhal as Charlie Hough of the '77 Dodgers
The movie recounts turbulent times in New York City during the late seventies including power outages, arson, looting, “Son of Sam murders”, heated political campaigns and climate, and the New York Yankees 1977 World Championship, culminating in Reggie Jackson’s record breaking home runs which earned him the nickname of “Mr. October”. Dan Delventhal, who plays and manages with the Fairfield Marlins Baseball team in the CT National MSBL responded to an email from Reel Sports Solutions (participants in making of other sports films including “Invincible”, “Radio” and “Waterboy”) in cooperation with Bronx Productions, to try out for a baseball player role in the movie. Bearing a strong resemblance to a key Yankee World Series opponent, knuckleball pitcher Charlie Hough of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and being a knuckleball pitcher himself, Delventhal soon found himself on the set with other baseball players and actors. His role as Charlie Hough includes a couple Dodger '77 World Series dugout scenes and also pitching a knuckleball to “Reggie Jackson” (played by actor Daniel Sungata) who hits it for a record setting 3rd home run in as many pitches that day in game 6. Lee Carilli, Wally Hurd (CT Nat. MSBL Pres.), and Rob Lombardo of the Stamford Phillies, New Canaan Cannons, and Monroe Tophats respectively also appear in the film. 
Left to Right: Brian "Doc" Pollard (Willie Randolf), Daniel Sungata (Reggie Jackson), and Dan Delventhal (Charlie Hough), wait to film a scene in "The Bronx is Burning"
The 8-hr. mini-series movie, which airs on ESPN on Monday, July 9th, 10pm, and the following Tuesday nights weekly, features a number of "name actors" like John Turturro as the fiery Yankees skipper Billy Martin, Arthur Nascarella (of Sopranos and “Running Scared”) as Tommy Lasorda, Dodgers Manager, Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner, Daniel Sungata as Reggie Jackson, Mather Zickel (of “Underfunded”), Evan Hart, and others.
Delventhal is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, a freelance executive at CAPS Business Recovery Services and RecoveryPlanner.com of Shelton, CT, Founder of MowGreen LawnScapes and an MBA student at Fairfield University.
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From Connecticut Post, Monday, 1/22/07 Page 2 and www.connpost.com
DAN DELVENTHAL 10 QUESTIONS FAIRFIELD: Portrait of actor Dan Delventhal of Fairfield for 10 Questions feature. Delventhal has a small role as Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Charlie Hough in an ESPN mini-series called "The Bronx Is Burning" which recounts turbulent times in New York City during the late 1970s, including the New York Yankees 1977 World Series Championship. The movie is set to air in July of next year. (Tracy Deer/Connecticut Post)
The first acting job for Dan Delventhal was pitched to perfection. Delventhal, 48, may never have given up a record-setting home run in the major leagues, but the Fairfield resident is a knuckleball pitcher who bears an uncanny resemblance to Charlie Hough, the major league knuckleball pitcher who did.
In "The Bronx Is Burning," a future mini-series on ESPN, Delventhal plays Hough, a Los Angeles Dodgers' pitcher best known for giving up New York Yankees' slugger Reggie Jackson's third consecutive home run in the 1977 World Series.
Delventhal, VP of Business Development at CAPS Business Recovery Services & RecoveryPlanner.com, in Shelton, and MBA student at Fairfield University, came back to baseball, a passion in his school days, about five years ago when he tried out for the Bridgeport Bluefish, a minor league team. Delventhal didn't make the team, but he does pitch now for the Fairfield Marlins, a team in the local Men's Senior Baseball League.
Delventhal said he got a few skeptical looks from the crew of "The Bronx Is Burning" when he showed up for an audition last fall in Norwich. "I could tell they thought I was a little bit old," he said.
But Delventhal was given a shot to return for tryout after he showed them some action pictures, told them he was a great pitcher, and that he had a "nasty" knuckleball. Hearing that, the baseball pro on the interview team said, "hey, he can play Charlie Hough", who was 29 at the time but pitched professionally until he was 45 years old.
Delventhal won the role, but missed a chance to be in a front shot of Hough's famous knuckleball pitch that Jackson crushed for a home run. He was in Florida visiting his daughter when the director decided at the last minute to shoot that angle. But Delventhal is in shots of that scene from the outfield and side.
"What was a very small role got diminished even further," Delventhal said. "I'm in three scenes, but the main scene, where the star breaks a record, I didn't have as prominent a spot as I had figured."
Delventhal, spurred to try acting by his brother Thom, a theater professional, said he was happy about his first role. "It's kind of neat. Within a year I got this little thing going, and I'm hoping to get other things, too," he said.
The "Bronx Is Burning," an eight-hour miniseries, will air on ESPN in July.
Q: How did you get the role?
A: "They have a sports group called Reel Sports Solutions. They've done a lot of films you'd recognize, like 'We Are Marshall,' 'The Longest Yard.' They'll come into an area and contact local leagues. They sent an e-mail to MSBL [Men's Senior Baseball League] offering interviews. They're looking for professional, high-quality players so I went to the interview and I had a really positive attitude and I showed them photos and told them I had a great knuckleball, which is what sparked the connection to Charlie Hough and got me a tryout the next day. The tryout was fun -- alot like an American Idol show for baseball."
Q: Did you do research for your role?
A: "A little bit. I kind of studied, just learned who Charlie Hough was, and they had a video for me to watch so I could do it just like it happened, but it was a fairly modest role. & There wasn't a lot to it. I had no speaking parts. I just had to try to look like Charlie Hough so I had the sideburns; strangely enough, my motion was like his so I didn't have to adjust that, his windup. It was a real blessing that there was a knuckleballer who figured into the whole scheme because that was my only shot. I think it was a real driving force that I looked like the guy and had a professional-looking knuckleball."
Q: For a non-baseball fan, what is a knuckleball?
A: "That's when you grip it with your fingertips and your fingernails and you throw it with no spin, and the lack of spin creates, really a lot of wavering & It creates an air pocket and makes it jump one way or the other. It's also known as the snake pitch, the dancer. It's really strange because it comes out with no spin sometimes. It comes out one way and back the other way. On windy days, I've seen it change direction by as much as a foot. & It's not very often you see someone hit a knuckleball for a home run, which is why that scene in the movie is so unique. You're throwing a pitch 70 miles an hour, but effective. You never know where it's going and when."
Q: Were you a natural knuckleballer or did you have to learn how to throw it?
A: "Coaches didn't really take it seriously. They didn't want me to use it back in high school. I just developed it as my main pitch in the last five years."
Q: What is the movie about?
A: "It's based on the book called, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning.' That was something Howard Cosell said during the World Series. The book is really, it's a book about life and times in New York City in those days, the late '70s. It's about the turbulent atmosphere in New York with the heated political climate, Son of Sam murders, blackouts. There was arson and looting so the New York Yankees championship was sort of an attractive marquee to front this historic backdrop. It was Howard Cosell. He was in the middle of a game, looked out over the stands and, literally, the Bronx was on fire."
Q: Are there any roles you're looking to do in the future, or hoping to do in the future?
A: "Yes, although nothing at the moment. I'm going to get an agent to look around and circulate my acting resume. I think I will be a little discriminating. I'd like to do some commercials or film work. I don't really want to do live drama. I think that's got to be the hardest. You've got to get it right the first try. & My [acting] coach, Roseanne Gates, used to be an agent for some well-known names and wrote the book on the business. She said I could probably get work in corporate training videos, too."
Q: Did you identify with your character in the movie?
A: "Yeah, a little bit. I think for the times in the dugout, scenes we were really trying to get in character & Having played baseball before and been in championship situations, that was fairly easy, and then trying to feel the magnitude of the situation, being on the field and facing Reggie Jackson in a World Series, that was kind of neat. & Being on the mound for that pitch, trying to maybe feel the intensity and the pressure, there was a lot of pressure because you had these volatile directors who wanted to get it perfect on the first try, and have you in and out. There was pressure to throw a strike."
Q: What was the biggest misconception you had about how they make movies? What did you learn that you were really surprised about?
A: "There really is a lot of waiting around, and it's long hours. I was reminded how, unless you're a highly-paid celebrity star, it may not be a really good quality of life choice for some & because you're on location, you're away from your family. They brought us in around 11 or 12 and had us hanging around until 2 in the morning some nights. That was a heck of a week. I had heard that, but I had no idea it was so bad. It seemed a bit inefficient because they never knew, really, when they needed you, and they may bring you in for a whole 10 hours and not get to do your scene. There are so many variables in staffing and equipment -- its a difficult process to schedule."
Q: What did you like most about your experience?
A: "I think I liked getting to know the other baseball players best, the camaraderie of hanging out in the clubhouse, getting to know people from all different parts of the country. That was the best part about it. Most were professional ballplayers trying to make the major leagues. Everybody had a story to tell. I liked being with the actors also. I found myself in a couple of situations where John Turturro was telling a funny story, John Turturro who plays Billy Martin. We were in his tent for a while, and he had us in stitches. Getting to know the other staff and seeing how the whole movie making process works was pretty cool."
Q: What did you like least?
A: "I guess the long hours, the difficulty in planning and the intensity and hurry involved with the staffing and the cameras when its shooting time. There's kind of an air of anxiety. But I guess thats not unlike any other business or sport -- you have to deliver your best when the action starts!"