I have only heard amazing things about the movie “42.” I can’t believe I haven’t had a chance to see it yet. Well now there’s some controversy surrounding the movie. The daughter of pitcher Fritz Ostermueller is mad and she’s speaking out.
Via TMZ:
The daughter of a MLB pitcher who threw at Jackie Robinson’s head in the movie “42” tells TMZ … producers blatantly disregarded the truth and unfairly portrayed her dad as a racist.
It was one of the most important scenes in the flick … big, bad Fritz Ostermueller (pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates at the time) fired a baseball at Jackie’s head … and then shouted at him, “You don’t belong here!!!”
Problem is … Fritz never beaned Jackie in the head in real life — according to multiple reports at the time of the incident, the ball struck Jackie’s arm.
Now, Fritz’s daughter, Sherrill, is lashing out to TMZ — “The producers of ‘42’ certainly owe my father an apology. If they were going to portray my father falsely, they should have used a fictional name.”
Sherrill wants to make it clear — her beef is NOT with Jackie … “I have the deepest respect for Jackie Robinson and the courage he had to change baseball.”
However, Sherrill says producers have damaged her father’s reputation beyond repair — she tells us he was a “good man” who was never as angry or violent as he was portrayed in the movie.
We asked Sherrill if she believed her father was a racist — to which she replied, “My dad, to my knowledge, was not a racist. I was not raised in that type of home.”
We reached out to the people behind the movie — so far, no word back.
