Much was made earlier this year to recognize the 30th anniversary of the classic baseball movie “Field of Dreams.”

So where’s the love for another classic celebrating an anniversary?

This movie debuted 40 years ago and holds a special place in the hearts of longtime Padres fans, if not San Diegans.

On Sept. 30, 1979, NBC aired a made-for-TV movie called “The Kid From Left Field,” a remake of a 1953 film by the same name.


OK, maybe it wasn’t Field of Dreams, but wouldn’t anyone prefer scenes of San Diego over an Iowa cornfield?

The Kid From Left Field was a starring vehicle for diminutive child actor Gary Coleman, who shot to stardom as wisecracking Arnold Jackson in the 1970s sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes.”

In the movie, Coleman portrays a 12-year-old boy named J.R. Cooper, whose hitting and fielding tips to Padres players earn him a midseason promotion from batboy to manager.

And, of course, the youngster leads the team to the World Series (spoiler alert: The Padres beat the Chicago White Sox in seven games).


Also in the film was actor Robert Guillaume, star of the 1980s sitcom “Benson.” Guillaume plays Larry Cooper, a former Padres player who is down on his luck and working as a stadium vendor.

Other stars included Gary Collins as Padres outfielder Pete Sloane and Tab Hunter as Padres manager Bill Lorant.

Ed McMahon, best known as Johnny Carson’s longtime sidekick as well as pitchman for Budweiser and Publisher’s Clearinghouse, played Padres owner Fred Walker.

One thing Padres fans would get a kick out of is seeing longtime broadcaster Jerry Coleman behind the microphone in a couple of scenes calling the Padres’ games.


The plot wasn’t nearly as good as some of the behind the scenes stories from a movie filmed in and around town — much of it inside San Diego Stadium — during July of 1979.

Among the extras in the cast was Ed Zieralski, a former minor league pitcher in the Dodgers system who spent three decades as a writer at the Union-Tribune, the last 22 years as the newspaper’s outdoors writer.

Zieralski remembers playing in a men’s league game for Waldron’s Pirates at El Capitan High when someone involved in casting for the movie invited him and several other Waldron’s players to appear in the film as Padres players.

The extras were paid $60 a day for a nearly two-week gig, as Zieralski recalled.


Something else he remembered, Coleman didn’t have a lot of baseball skills.

“We were playing catch in the front of the dugout one day,” said Zieralski, who was reached over the weekend in upstate New York on his way back to Pennsylvania after a salmon fishing trip in Pulaski, N.Y. “He couldn’t catch, so another player caught for him and handed it to him.

“I turned my head at one point and was looking a different direction. I don’t know why. I turn around and he clocks me right in the head with the ball.

“I pretended like I was going to run after him. He starts laughing and giggling and carrying on and goes running around the batting circle and down the dugout steps. I said, ‘I’m going to get you, dude.’ Then one of the producers got on me and told me to knock it off.”


On the first day of filming, Coleman was spotted vomiting in the dugout, prompting a rumor that someone had given him chewing tobacco.

Another extra, Brad Cutler, a former Kearny High and San Diego State pitcher who reached Triple-A with the Twins organization, set the record straight.

“The kid decided he was going to do forward rolls down the ramp that led to the dugout,” said Cutler, now an assistant coach for the University City High baseball team. “He got down to the bottom of the ramp, threw up and he was done for the day.”

Cutler recalls having a lot of down time during filming, so he brought along a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions” to read in the dugout.


That was a different breakfast than many of the other ballplayers were interested in.

Dave Gonzalez, an infielder at St. Augustine and USD before going on to a teaching and coaching career, was among players on a men’s team called Bookie’s who joined the production after being scouted one weekend at Morley Field.

Gonzalez remembers that each morning in one of the dugouts were plates of food — donuts, rolls and fruit — along with beverages.

“The only two things guys were going over there getting were carafes of tomato juice and orange juice to mix with vodka and start their day at 8 in the morning,” Gonzalez said. “Because most of the time guys would be sitting around doing nothing (waiting for a scene to be shot).”


Some of the extras discovered common interests with director Vince Edwards at the start of filming.

“A couple of the guys were playing the ponies at Del Mar, looking at the Racing Form,” Gonzalez said. “Edwards comes over and says, ‘If you guys are running bets up there, can you take mine up?’ So they did. The next day, it was the same thing.”

There wouldn’t be a third day. Edwards “quit after two days because he didn’t want to work with children,” according to the book The Baseball Filmography.

Apparently, the word “kid” in the movie’s title hadn’t register with Edwards that there would be at least one child in the production.


Adell Aldrich replaced Edwards as the director.

With Coleman in the lead, the movie, obviously, was directed toward children. Adults — especially baseball fans — would roll their eyes at several scenes.

For instance, when Coleman’s character mentions that his initials J.R. stand for Jackie Robinson, McMahon says he was a fine ballplayer who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1960.

“1962,” corrects Coleman, who then mentions that Robinson was NL Rookie of the Year in 1948. Actually, it had to be 1947, the year Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier.


Other moments that would leave baseball fans shaking their heads included when the marquee outside Chicago’s Wrigley Field is shown as an establishing shot for a road game. Cut to a shot inside the ballpark and it’s obviously San Diego Stadium, not Wrigley.

San Diegans would get a chuckle late in the film when Coleman finds himself having to run from what looked like a North Park neighborhood to the stadium to get to the ballpark for the last game of the World Series.

Coleman sprints out from a tree-lined street, then is pictured running along the harbor, then along what looks like El Cajon Boulevard, then passing in front of the Star of India, then finally to the stadium.

With such a circuitous route, it’s no wonder it took the kid nearly nine innings to get there.


One head scratcher in the film is that many of the Padres players are wearing jerseys with numbers in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

At least they had jerseys.

“There weren’t enough to go around in the final scenes of the World Series,” Gonzalez said. “They had been pilfered (during filming), so you see a lot of guys in the dugout wearing jackets.”

Padres fans in attendance for the Sept. 21, 1979, home game against the Dodgers (a 3-1 Padres victory, by the way) received a postgame treat — a special advance screening of the movie.


Former Padres executive Andy Strasberg, then the team’s marketing director, had a 46 foot by 28 foot screen constructed (there were no video boards then, of course) and placed in the right-center field bleachers. A pair of 35mm professional movie projectors placed in center field projected the movie on the screen.

The hard part was actually getting the film. Strasberg had a friend who owned a four-seat Piper Cherokee and flew him to Burbank hours before the game to get the film reels. After fighting L.A. traffic to and from the airport, the return flight got Strasberg back to town with little time to spare.

A day after the movie was shown on TV, the Padres held a press conference to name their new manager.

They did something that also came out of left field — hiring their radio broadcaster.


Jerry Coleman, 22 years removed from his playing career as a Yankees second baseman, had never managed.

“I think (owner) Ray Kroc told ’em to give the job to Gary Coleman and they misunderstood him,” quipped one press conference observer.

“I’m 55 years old,” Coleman said when he was hired. “I’ve never had an opportunity to manage. I said, ‘Damn, why not?’ This is my last challenge. I relish it. I grasp it. I’m going to run with it.”

The Padres had finished 68-93 in 1979 under Roger Craig. Coleman improved on that, going 73-89. It was the second-best record in franchise history, but it wasn’t enough to get him a second season.


Not exactly a Hollywood ending, but Padres fans didn’t complain.

Coleman returned to the broadcast booth, where he would serve the Padres for another 33 years.