Remembering Redford

BY KEVIN KERNAN

With the passing of Robert Redford, I wanted to take a deeper look at the making of one of the most iconic baseball movies ever made.

So, I put a call into my friend Kevin Lester. Lester, a longtime high school baseball coach, athletic director, and administrator, got to work with Redford in the filming of The Natural in 1983. The movie was released the following year in 1984, 41 years ago.

Hanging with Roy Hobbs was pretty cool.

“I’m not the guy that goes and bothers a star,’’ Lester, who turns 76 on Sunday, told BallNine. “I just introduce myself and that’s it. We are going to work together, let’s do it, but the one thing I learned quickly was that this guy was such a professional. I mean when he was doing a scene, he made sure he looked good, the people in the scene looked good, and by looking good, I don’t mean in appearance, but in actions, if it didn’t, he’d want to do it again.’’

Lester worked a variety of jobs for the movie that was filmed at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo and other nearby locations. He quickly earned the trust of director Barry Levinson and of Redford, who died Tuesday at the age of 89 at his home in Sundance, Utah.

Lester was hired to find local baseball talent that could fill out the New York Knights roster. But because of his baseball talents and knowledge, Lester, a former catcher at St. Bonaventure, who was 33 at the time, soon became a much-needed jack-of-all-trades.

 Lester had to sand down his bats so they could be the real McCoy “Wonderboy’’ bats. The art department then added the logo and the lightning bolt.

He did everything from re-lacing the 1939 era gloves Redford used to having a role as a Knights player – he was the one sitting by Redford during the “losing is a disease’’ team meeting. He also was the Knight who handed Redford the note Glenn Close sent to the dugout saying she brought their son to the game. Behind the scenes Lester threw baseballs into the stands that clanged around the empty rows of seats, mimicking home runs through the magic of film when the lefty-hitting Roy Hobbs was finally given the opportunity to hit in batting practice. Pop Fisher is so stunned he yells, “Hobbs! Roy, come here, let me see that bat? Where did you get this?’’

Hobbs explains he made it himself, from a lightning struck tree near his boyhood home. “Wonderboy, you put that on there,’’ Pop asks. “What does it mean?’’

We soon learn.

The movie originally used a baseball cannon to shoot those “home run’’ balls high up in the stands, a la Aaron Judge’s titanic blasts, but those blasts were inaccurate and could not go exactly where the camera needed them to go so in stepped Lester with his powerful catcher’s arm. He placed the “home run balls’’ right where they needed to be for the money shots.

Redford used Lester’s personal K55-MC44 Louisville Slugger because he liked the feel of those bats, as opposed to the bats purchased for the movie. Lester had to sand down his bats so they could be the real McCoy “Wonderboy’’ bats. The art department then added the logo and the lightning bolt. There also were other tasks, too that Lester performed, including guarding the expensive camera with a catcher’s mitt and wearing a mask during scenes where baseballs were flying all over War Memorial Stadium – affectionately known as The Rockpile.

Kevin Lester got to watch Redford do his thing every day, including when filming was in LA, where Redford jumped out of his classic Porsche and personally welcomed Lester and his wife Janet to the set.

“Another thing that impressed me about Bob is that before we did any filming with any baseball parts that he’d be doing, he’d really wanted to get it right,’’ Lester said.

In Buffalo, Barry Levinson asked if there was a nearby high school Lester could take Redford to where the actor could work on his hitting skills with technical advisor Tony Ferrara, who worked with the Yankees for many years and was a top shelf batting practice pitcher. No problem since Lester was the baseball coach at Williamsville South High School in Williamsville, N.Y.

“They had me take him to the high school, but he didn’t want to hit in public on the field,’’ Lester said. “We went to the gym to the batting cage and really worked at it and when we got to the ballpark, he felt much more comfortable.’’

As for outfield work, Lester jumped in to help Redford. “I’d throw him fly balls, he would chase them, I didn’t make him work too hard. I just wanted him to get used to catching a baseball.’’

Phil Mankowski – who played third base for the Mets and Tigers – played Hank Benz in the film and was close friends with Lester. In fact, Levinson asked Lester early on if he knew how to reach Mankowski because they wanted him for the part. Again, no problem. “I was actually Phil’s best man when he got married,’’ Lester told the director.

Mankowski was having trouble with his period glove, so Lester “put a few extra laces in it,’’ noting, “I always repaired my own gloves, and I showed Phil the catcher’s mitt I was using in the movie and said, ‘I put a few extra pieces of leather in here.’’’

The next day Redford asked Mankowski, “Where did you get that glove like that?’’

He told him. Then the prop master came to Lester and asked if he had “fixed’’ Mankowski’s glove. “I told him I did, I thought I was going to get fired,’’ Lester explained. The prop master was happy, and said, “Well, do it for Redford’s glove.’’

“That period glove was a challenge,’’ Lester admitted. “So, for the five gloves they had for (Redford) I put in extra leather strings and basically gave him more of a webbing so you could catch the ball better. He wanted to get it right and that is what I admired about him. He was very engaging, you could talk to him about things, and he worked hard at the baseball aspects of the movie.’’

Before filming, Lester rented old baseball movies. “I wanted to see how players from the 30s and 40s acted,’’ he explained. “So, when we were filming, I made some suggestions to Barry Levinson like ‘Bob should be doing this, this is the way they did this and that.’’’

The suggestions were taken to heart by Redford. “He was engaging on that, and he did research too. The only thing I know he did not research was playing pepper. While we were playing pepper,’’ Lester added with a laugh, “he was taking full swings. We said, ‘Hey Bob, it’s someone else’s turn now’ and he quickly figured it out and was doing little bunts.’’

Getting it right was important. Especially the bats.

“When we started hitting, there were probably a dozen of the Wonderboy bats there that they had and they were all the same model,’’ Lester said.

“Bob was trying different bats, and my bat was laying there,’’ Lester said. “He picked up my bat and started using it for batting practice, my regular K55 handle and MC44 barrel – it was McCovey barrel, a Mickey Mantle handle, a bigger top, I liked that – I figured I had a better chance of hitting the ball. He started using my bat in batting practice so Barry Bedig, the prop master said, ‘Hey Kevin, where do you get your bats from?’

Lester told him he ordered them from Louisville Slugger. Bedig said they would need a dozen of them shipped overnight before filming would begin tomorrow. Lester explained that was not going to happen.

Bedig said, “We have a problem, “Redford wants to use your bat tomorrow.’’

In stepped The Fixer.

“I took it home,’’ Lester said, “I hand-sanded it, took a little wood chisel, took my name off it and really got it nice and smooth, took it into the artist the next morning and they put Wonderboy on it. So that’s the bat he’s using.’’

Bedig told him they would need more.

Lester had about four more bats at home. “I got them, took them to the high school and put them on the lathe and sandpapered them down, better than the first one,’’ Lester said. “Those are the bats that were in the movie.’’

Lester was given three Wonderboy bats by Barry Bedig, one for each of his sons.

In the end, Roy Hobbs does not strike out, he dramatically blasts that pyrotechnic home run.

“Like I said, he was a complete professional,’’ Lester noted of his lasting memory of working with Robert Redford. “He did not leave any stones unturned. If he did not like the way the scene went, he stopped it and said, ‘You know we have to do this again.’ This was a great experience.’’

Last year on the 40th anniversary of the film, Lester and his friend Duke McGuire, who played a Knight in the movie, and gave the original tour to the movie makers of War Memorial Stadium, were doing a TV interview at the remnants of War Memorial Stadium. “I got the Wonderboy bat, I got my jersey and my hat, it was a good video,’’ Lester said. “We’re packing things up, my stuff is now in the car, and some young man drives up with his wife.’’

Lester says hello and asks what brings the man to this spot. The man explains he drove up from Tampa, Florida. “My father’s favorite move was The Natural and he died six months ago and before he died, I told him I was going to visit every venue in Buffalo where the movie was filmed.’’

“You are not going to believe this, but I was in the movie, and we just got done doing a piece for one of the local news stations.’’ Lester said.

Lester called the news crew to come back; he went to his car and let the young man hold Wonderboy. “He and his wife were crying,’’ Lester said.

At that moment, just as in the closing scene of The Natural, with Roy Hobbs throwing the baseball to his son in the sun-splashed field, a young man experienced the love of baseball with his dad.