A Winner Never Quits Explained

Genre:Biography
Drama
Family
Sport
Director:Mel Damski
Starring:Keith Carradine
Mare Winningham
Dennis Weaver
Fionnula Flanagan
Huckleberry Fox
Theme Music Composer:Dana Kaproff
Country:United States
Language:English
Executive Producer:Daniel H. Blatt
Robert Singer
Producer:James Keach
Lynn Raynor
Location:Chattanooga, Tennessee
Long Beach, California
Los Angeles
Editor:Michael A. Stevenson
Cinematography:Joseph F. Biroc
Runtime:96 min.
Company:Columbia Pictures Television
Sony Pictures Television
Network:ABC

A Winner Never Quits is a 1986 television film based on the true story of baseball player Pete Gray, the first one-armed man ever to play major league baseball, hired in 1943 as a "freak attraction" and wartime morale-booster by the Memphis Chicks, Class-A minor league ball club.

Though a success, Gray maintains a tough, defensive veneer, which is softened only by the love of his life Annie and the adulation of baseball fan Nelson Gary Jr., who has also lost an arm (and who would, in real life, become a top minor-league ballplayer himself). With the war depleting big-league baseball's manpower in 1945, Pete Gray finally achieves his goal of entering the Majors when he is hired by the St. Louis Browns.

Plot

Raised in the Northeastern Pennsylvania mining town of Nanticoke, Pete Gray loses his right arm while still a young boy. But through the encouragement of his immigrant parents, Antoinette and Peter Wyshner Sr., and the constant coaching of his older brother Whitey, Gray never gives up on his dream of playing professional baseball. Driven by anger, he finally makes it to the big leagues. But it isn't until he agrees to meet handicapped youngster Nelson Gary Jr., who idolizes him, that Gray finally comes to terms with several life realizations.

Cast

Actor Role
Pete (Wyshner) Gray
Annie
Tatum
Peter Wyshner
Nelson Gary Jr.
Bloom
Antoinette Wyshner
Whitey Wyshner
Nora
Nelson Gary Sr.
Mrs. Gary
Sheldrake
Steve Rees Young Pete Gray
Andrew Lubeskie Young Whitey
Taylor
Sergeant
Brook

Home media

A Winner Never Quits was released on VHS on August 18, 1993, by Columbia Tri-Star.

See also