The Making of "The Emerald Diamond" - Part 2

Note: This article is part 2 in a series about the making of "The Emerald Diamond.". You can read part 1 here.

Here is a trailer for "The Emerald Diamond":



Also, check out my new project, "Playing for Peanuts" - a TV show about minor league baseball.

Thanks,

John Fitzgerald
Director, "The Emerald Diamond" & "Playing for Peanuts"
Email: irishbaseballmovie@gmail.com

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The Making of "The Emerald Diamond" - Part 2

Enter "The Captain"

My first phone call was to my former Little League teammate and current drinking buddy, Bill "The Captain" Winters. Bill is an NYU film school graduate and an accomplished Director of Photography in film and TV (check out his site for details on what he has accomplished - www.BillWinters.net).

The phone call went something like this (note: this part is slightly exagerrated):

Me: "Hey, I wanna make a movie."
Bill: "Sounds good. What is it about?"
Me: "I'll explain on the plane. Are you free next week?"
Bill: "I'm in"

I'm not sure why Bill is always so quick to let himself get roped into my productions, but he was essential to the movie, from start to finish. His production experience far exceeds mine and it goes well beyond cameras and lighting. With Bill on board for the production, we flew to Dublin to start making a movie. I barely knew what we would do when we landed. But I knew we could figure it all out.

One Week in Dublin

Note: Before flying to Dublin, Bill and I filmed interviews with Baseball Ireland's American coaches - Ed Cooney, PJ Fox and Jon Houston. We also interviewed Ireland's newest American recruit - former Boston College first baseman Joe Kealty. The interviews were held in Rhode Island they laid the groundwork for much of the film.

I had never been to Europe. Bill warned me about the first day - "We're gonna be really jet lagged, so we should just crash at the hotel for one day. Trust me, it will pay off in the next few days when we're not tired."

Take note: If you're traveling to Europe to shoot a movie, SLEEP ALL DAY on your first full day. It's the best way to minimize jet lag when you're traveling eastward from the US to Europe. I don't call Bill "The Captain" for nothing.

We got off the plane around 7am, headed for the hotel... Intent on passing out for the day.

Mike Who?

INT. - BEWLEY'S HOTEL, NEWLAND'S CROSS, DUBLIN

PHONE RINGING.

I don't FEEL tardy... Where am I? Hotel... Back to sleep.

PHONE RINGING

Wait, I'm in Ireland? Jesus... Oh, hey, that's Bill over there.

(I mumble something to Bill, he rolls over and grunts).

PHONE RINGING

Oh, right. The phone.

"Hello?"

"John? This is Mike Kindle. I used to be president of Baseball Ireland."

"Oh. Hey."

"Sean Mitchell told me you'd be arriving today. I wanted to let you know that I'm available for an interview."

"Oh sure. We'll be here all week."

"I can be at your hotel in 15 minutes. I'll take you over to the baseball fields if you want to see them."

"Uh... well, it's almost 7pm. Once the sun goes down, we can't shoot anything."

"This is Dublin in summertime. The sun won't set for a few hours."

"Oh."

"I'll see you in a few minutes."

CLICK.

"Who the hell was that?" asks grumpy Bill.

"Some guy... Mike Kindle. He's an American. I think he used to be part of the Irish National Team or something. I don't know much about him. I guess we should interview him."

Here's the thing about Mike Kindle... He is so instrumental to the story of baseball in Ireland that I am embarrassed to say I knew very little about him when he called me that day. In my defense, Mike's tenure as Baseball Ireland president was over when I met him. He was no longer on the National Baseball Team and his role in the organization was somewhat limited when I began my research. My research was limited to a website and a few emails, so I didn't really get a chance to prepare myself for Mike Kindle... the guy is incredible.

Jump forward two hours... I'm interviewing Mike Kindle... The first interview we did in Ireland. Mike is delivering lines like they are written on a cue card, complete with tears of joy. The guy is so passionate about Irish baseball that at one point Bill looks at me while Mike is answering a question on camera and mouths the words "Yeah, bitch!" Kindle is a natural on camera - a soundbyte every minute. If Baseball Ireland was a rock band, Mike Kindle would be David Lee Roth - part MC, part CEO, all showman.

Mike Kindle during his first interview (O'Malley Field, Dublin, 2004)

Author's Note: Mike's first interview is so good that you can see pieces of it throughout "The Emerald Diamond," in fact, it is the first and last interview in the entire movie. All of that was shot in 45 minutes. I'm still amazed by that.

Mike's "performance" and his very existence cuts right to the heart of the movie and the story of Baseball Ireland - an American who leaves home for Europe, only to find himself missing baseball more than he ever expected. This is a running theme - in fact, nearly all of Baseball Ireland's players can be broken down into three groups:

-Native Irishmen - Primarily concerned with national pride, they realize that baseball is a shortcut to representing their country in international competitions. They don't necessarily know all the rules, but they read books and ask questions. They soak it all up in the name of national pride. Along the way, they fall in love with the sport more than they probably ever imagined was possible. They end up volunteering their time to play, umpire and even coach in youth leagues. After ten years, many of them still have friends and family who think they are absolutely insane for playing what is referred to as a "minority sport."





Sean Mitchell was born in Dublin and spent time in Philadelphia as a teenager.

-American expatriates - These are guys who left the US - either for work or, in the case of Mike Kindle, to traverse Europe. They end up in Dublin, usually loving it, but missing something. Baseball isn't necessarily what they're missing, but it fills the void. They don't always have great baseball backgrounds - but they know the game well enough to play and teach it to their teammates. They are invaluable to the development of the Irish amateur leagues as well as the National Team. The opportunity to represent their adopted country represents a way to tie their past, present and future together.

-Americans with Irish passports - These guys came into the picture later. Usually, they are players with collegiate playing experience and a parent or grandparent from Ireland. For them, it is usually a sense of pride in their heritage that draws them to play for Ireland.


Chris Foy was born on Long Island and moved to Ireland after college.

Supplemental Category (Chris Foy) - Chris was born on Long Island, NY and graduated from Fordham University. He moved to Ireland for work and he was getting ready to come back home when he found Irish baseball. Depending on who you ask, Chris may have actually stayed in Ireland because of baseball. I'm not sure that's entirely the case, but it's possible. Chris then met his future wife and told his brother Kevin about the team. Kevin joined the team a few years later. Either way, it's a hell of a story.

Supplemental Category (Cormac Eklof) - Cormac is another special case. Born in Connecticut to a rabid Sox fan father and an Irish mother, he basically grew up in Dublin. For various reasons, Cormac represents all three categories. I've had to explain this to several people who insist Cormac has an American accent and therefore couldn't have grown up in Dublin (he doesn't have an American accent, but some people expect all Irish people to speak like Father Ted).



Pitcher Cormac Eklof was born in Connecticut and grew up in Dublin.


Despite the different factions on the team, there doesn't seem to be a pecking order or clique on the Irish National Team - everyone is treated equally and everyone gets along, regardless of where they came from or why they initially wanted to play for Ireland. It's pretty cool... but I'm getting ahead of myself... This deleted scene from the movie does a decent job of explaining how the players come together as a team, despite their origins:


Mike Kindle gave us a tour of the field - pointing out that it had been financed by former Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley. My initial reaction was to bring up how O'Malley's father had moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to LA and that was unforgivable. Not so, explained Mike... In fact, he pointed me to a website that details how O'Malley had fought with evil jackass developer Robert Moses for years before moving the team. O'Malley asked for more parking spots and/or a new stadium in Brooklyn. Moses told him to move the team to Queens. As a Mets fan, I know what an awful idea it was to put a team in Flushing Meadows. And 50 years later, the Mets are building a complete replica of Ebbets Field to replace the dump that Moses wanted to build for O'Malley. Anyway, I never would have known any of this if not for Day One in Dublin. Onward...

At the end of Day One, we had an amazing interview with Mike Kindle under our belts - and all I had planned on doing that day was sleep.

At the end of the week, Bill flew home and I spent a few days in Dublin. I played in a game as part of the "President's 9," which is basically all of the best players in Ireland who aren't Irish citizens. If you can't play for the National Team, you can at least give them decent competition to play against to prepare for international tournaments... In my first at-bat, I took 5 pitches (3 balls, 2 strikes) and then hit a ball to the left field fence, missing a home run on my first swing in Ireland by about 3 feet.

Author's Note: I'm still pissed about that.

That night I drank about 10 Longbow ciders at Mike Kindle's house while we watched a live baseball triple-header via satellite TV. I had no idea that Bill's plane had caught fire and returned to Dublin. Bill waited in the airport for 15 hours, refusing to call me because he knew how much I hate flying (sometimes) and he didn't want to freak me out. When I returned home, Bill told me he wasn't going to fly Aer Lingus again. It turns out that everybody has some sort of horrendous Aer Lingus story (please share them in the comments section below!) Since then, I've only flown Lingus twice. I don't recommend it unless you want to eat bad food in a dirty plane while sucking wind from an oxygen bag on your way to visit the Titanic...

Production Overview: 2004

I spent one week in Dublin with Bill, followed by months of research and editing back in NY, while working as an Associate Producer on a cable TV talk show. I made sure to interview any Irish player or coach who passed through New York - thus saving alot of time and money by using local crews and equipment. I hadn't quite given up on my day job, but my bills were already piling up...

I returned to Europe in August to film the 2004 European B-Pool Championships (the same tournament I originally hoped to play in). I was joined on this leg of the production by camera operator Shane McGaffey.

Characters in the film were still taking shape - Sean Mitchell had recently retired from the National Team and he was sharing coaching duties with PJ Fox. Several new Irish-American players were on the roster, including two former Boston College players - pitcher Chris Gannon and 1B Joe Kealty. Several younger players were also on the roster, proving that Ireland could develop it's own players. All in all, it was a turning point for the development of Ireland's National Team.

Ireland had high hopes for this tournament. They were two years removed from a fourth-place finish and they fully expected to face host nation Germany in the championship game. Without giving too much away, the tournament was very exciting and Ireland played really well, but still fell short of their goal - a running theme in Irish baseball and "The Emerald Diamond."

On the production side, we got some important footage and managed to nearly burn down our hotel while trying to plug an American light into a German outlet (Sorry German hotel, our bad). Before the bronze medal game, Mike Kindle appeared out of nowhere to unilaterally (or so it seemed) retire Sean Mitchell's number in a hotel lobby. It was bizarre and awkward and it was completely awesome. Mike looked like hell (he had been syphoning diesel fuel out of the team van the night before to save Baseball Ireland thousands of dollars worth of damages to the team's rented van... long story for another time) but he delivered all his lines like a pro. That's the thing about Mike, if you don't watch closely, you'll think it's all an act because he's so good with his delivery. But it's NOT an act - the guy genuinely believes what he is saying, all the time. Another running theme... Here's the video:



Back to the games...

Ireland's third place finish presented a bit of a problem. I had hoped they could have won the championship - it would have allowed me to end the movie on the ultimate high note... The lovable losers beat the hated Germans in an exciting finale.

Although I never assumed Ireland would win, it would have been nice. The movie would have been nearly completed at that point, saving me a ton of time and money. But you can't end an inspirational movie on a bronze medal finish. I had much more work to do...

I returned home, deeper in debt and confused about my next move.

Author's Note: That's the same character flaw that got me into this in the first place...

Continue - Part 3



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John Fitzgerald is the producer and director of "The Emerald Diamond" - a 90-minute documentary about Ireland's National Baseball Team. "The Emerald Diamond" won the Critic's Choice Award at the 2006 Baseball Hall of Fame Film Festival. It has been screened in over 30 theaters in the US and Ireland and is currently being aired on the America One Television Network.

For more information, visit http://www.irishbaseballmovie.com/

Media Inquiries: Email John Fitzgerald

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