The Bookshelf Conversation #174: Jim Gilmore and Tracy Halcomb

The things one finds wandering down the rabbit hole.

I was doing some research and just happened to come across the new film, Fielding Dreams: A Celebration of Baseball Scouts. It’s a fascinating look at an under-reported part of the game.

H. James Gilmore on LinkedIn: Very pleased to announce that my new documentary will premiere at the… The first thing I thought of was the scene in Moneyball in which Billy Beane confront a group of veteran scouts about introducing the new world of analytics into their way of doing business. Naturally, this novel idea is met with skepticism, to say the least.

One thing led to another, and thanks to the internet I was able to track down the film’s director/producer, H. James “Jim” Gilmore, who brought onboard his collaborator, Tracy Halcomb, for a look into what it takes to scout the scouts.

An extra and unexpected component of Fielding Dreams was that a good portion of it took place during the pandemic, adding an additional level of stress on an already difficult job.

Moneyball was not the only feature film that had a heavy scouting component. One that came immediately to mind was The Stratton Story, a 1949 biopic in which itinerant “bird dog” Barney Wile, played by Frank Morgan, famous for The Wizard of Oz, discovers Monty Stratton (played by Jimmy Stewart, the Kevin Costner of his day when it comes to portraying baseball players).

Just for fun, other features including or based on scouting include, in no particular order:

The Scout (1994), with Albert Brooks and Brendan Fraser (which lists Roger Angell among its writers)
A League of Their Own (1992) with Jon Lovitz as the sharp-tongued Ernie Capadino
Talent for the Game (1991) with Edward James Olmos as “Virgil Sweet [who is] on the verge of losing his job as a talent scout with the California Angels when he discovers Sammy Bodeen, a country boy with no pro ball experience, but with a pitching arm no one has seen the like of.”
Trouble with the Curve (2014) in which “A daughter tries to remedy her dysfunctional relationship with her ailing father, a decorated baseball scout, by helping him in a recruiting trip which could be his last.” One of my least favorite baseball films, riddled with cliches.

As for books on the topic, I highly recommend the classic Dollar Sign on the Muscle: The World of Baseball Scouting by Kevin Kerrane and the neo-classic Baseball’s Endangered Species: Inside the Craft of Scouting by Those Who Lived It by Lee Lowenfish (my Conversation with Lowenfish here).