By Darcy Gifford '91

Actor Billy Crystal, addressing the throng of Detroit media at a news conference on June 23, 2000, unveiled his plan to shoot his HBO film 61* at Tiger Stadium. 61*, the story of Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle's 1961 home run race, was a dream project for Crystal, a diehard Yankees fan, and he was going to great lengths to make the movie as authentic as possible. Every detail was meticulously researched. Up-and-coming actors were cast in the principle roles, and a computer enhanced Tiger Stadium would stand in for Yankee Stadium.

Still, Crystal needed baseball players as extras. "We need to re-create the '61 Tigers," he was quoted saying in the Detroit News. "We need to find a new Al Kaline."

Crystal found his Al Kaline in the form of Jeff Dropps '97, a former Adrian College baseball and football standout.

Jeff, a great athlete but not an aspiring actor by any means, went to an open tryout almost on a lark. A teammate on his summer baseball team heard about the casting call, and Jeff and two of his buddies went to Wayne State for a tryout that they thought would take about an hour.

"I actually didn't hear about it until the night before tryouts," he said. "I thought it would be fun to go down to Wayne State and give it a shot."

Jeff was extra number 637 out of almost 800 players who showed up hoping to land a bit part in the film. Trying out as an outfielder, he was put in a group of 50 hopefuls who fielded fly balls and threw to second base. Cuts were made from that group, and those players still in the running were put in another group and would field fly balls again. This went on for hours. After several rounds of catching fly balls, Crystal called in Jeff and another hopeful. He said they resembled Kaline. Now he wanted to see them bat.

No doubt that Jeff, standing 6'1" and 190 pounds to Kaline's playing size of 6'1", 175 pounds, had the physical tools to play the part of Mr. Tiger. Plus he was a very good college player, compiling a .307 career average and earning All-MIAA honors as an outfielder while playing for Adrian from 1993-96. But would that be enough, especially in the eyes of an authenticity-minded Billy Crystal?

Nine hours after the tryout began, Jeff left the ballpark, still unsure of his fate. Then the rollercoaster began. A casting agent called him at home and said they were looking at him to play Kaline. Then they called him back and told him they were bringing in "someone from Hollywood" to play Kaline, but Jeff would be cast as an extra on the Minnesota Twins team. A third phone call brought the disappointing news that he was no longer needed for the movie. Not at all. The movie had already starting filming when Jeff's phone rang again, and they said they wanted him to come down to the stadium because Crystal wanted to take another look at him running and swinging a bat.

"Every day got worse, got better, got worse, got better," Jeff recalled.

Then, after about two weeks of uncertainty, Jeff's wait was over. He was told that he was being cast as Al Kaline.

"I was a little tired of being yanked around, to be honest, but I was still excited that I got Kaline's part because I really wanted that one," Jeff said. "He was my dad's favorite player growing up, so I really wanted to play him. But I was still almost in disbelief that I was even going to play Kaline when I went down to Tiger Stadium and checked in. I was waiting for them to say 'oh, we have somebody else.' I was waiting for another let down. It wasn't until I actually started shooting the film that I thought, 'I'm him.'"

After that initial bumpy road, though, things took off. Jeff spent five days on the set in August, 2000, spending an average of 13 hours per day to get the scenes shot. The final result? Three action-packed baseball scenes depicting real game situations. Interestingly, each scene played a crucial role in the summer of 1961 as Maris and Mantle tried to top Babe Ruth's mythic 60-home run record. (The asterisk in the movie title 61* represents the controversial record-book notation indicating that Maris hit his 61 homers in a 162-game season, while Ruth hit 60 in 154 games in 1927.)

Scene one. The Yankees are playing Detroit at Tiger Stadium. New York Manager Ralph Houk employs a new strategy in an attempt to ignite the Yankee offense. Houk switches the batting lineup so a slumping Roger Maris can bat third, ahead of a hot-hitting Mickey Mantle, and hopefully see some better pitches. With runners on first and second, Maris rips a screaming liner to right center field. Kaline races to his right and plays the ball off the blue outfield wall, just inches from the 370' mark. He fields the ball cleanly and fires it into second, but not in time to nail Maris or prevent two runs from scoring.

"A guy was standing between second base and center field and was throwing the ball off the wall in the outfield," Jeff said, recalling how the scene was created. "And Maris (played by Barry Pepper) was actually standing on first base. When the ball was thrown, Maris took off from first to second, and I play it off the wall and throw to second, trying to time it so that Maris just beats the throw. We did that scene about 11 or 12 times. I made a lot of throws on that one. Then after each time they have to reset everything, they were very particular about that, and they'd even wait five minutes for a cloud to pass over before shooting again."

Scene two. Labor Day weekend. The Yankees are hosting the Tigers at Yankee Stadium in a crucial series. New York leads Detroit by just 1 ½ games. It's the top of the sixth in a scoreless game, the Tigers have a runner on first, and future Hall of FamerWhitey Ford is on the mound. Kaline steps to the plate and drills a ball to the gap in right center field. Maris chases down the ball, flips it to Mantle, who throws the ball home and Detroit has to settle for runners at second and third. The Tigers fail to score. New York eventually wins the game.

"He (Crystal) told me how he wanted me to stand in the batter's box, even the very first day at the tryout, he had me hold the bat a totally different way than I normally hold it," Jeff said. "He had me hold it straight upright and told me not to kick my leg so high. He really tried to get me to look just like Kaline. The day of the shooting he reminded me, but I remembered everything that he told me during the tryout - it's not every day that you talk to Billy Crystal, you know.

"Then he said 'remember that when the pitch comes, I want you to hit it to right center field.' And then the very first pitch came in and I hit it dead straight up the middle and almost broke a $500,000 camera. All of the cameramen dove out of the way. But he was excited and came running out and said 'that's great, that's perfect, that's right where we want it.' The next hit was the one they actually used in the movie because it was hit deeper in right center in the gap right where he wanted it. We shot the scene one more time just to get another angle, and I hit it basically in the same spot. He was pretty excited that it only took three takes for me to hit a ball in the exact spot that he needed it."

Scene three. Yankee Stadium. Maris has 52 home runs. Mantle has belted 48. Maris steps to the plate against Detroit and launches a ball deep to right field. Kaline turns to his left, moves back to the wall, and leaps into the stands trying to make the catch. The ball ends up 10 rows back in stands for Maris' 53^rd homer of the year. The New York fans boo Maris. Mantle then steps to the plate and receives a standing ovation. This is the quintessential scene that depicts New York's love affair with the hero Mantle and their disdain for the shy, introverted Maris.

"Again, a guy was standing behind first base and would throw the ball from there so it had some arc on it," Jeff said. "It looked pretty realistic on film. We did the scene about 12 times, maybe even more - I probably caught four of those balls. And they would say 'you're supposed to let it go,' but it wouldn't look realistic if I could have made the catch but didn't. So, we did quite a few takes on that."

When not filming the baseball scenes, Jeff endured one of the realities of movie making: down time.

"That was a key phrase, everybody would say 'oh we've got some down time.' That meant we had about eight hours to sit around and do nothing," he said with a laugh. "So we played a lot of cards with the people who were on the Tigers team. One day I was there for nine hours and didn't shoot one scene."

The down time did have its benefits, though. Watching other scenes being shot. Chatting with star Anthony Michael Hall (who played Whitey Ford). Asking Pepper where he's been hanging out while in the Motor City. Soaking in the surroundings of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

After his stint on the set, Jeff went back to the routine of his normal life. A physical education and health teacher at L'Anse Creuse Middle School East, he lives in his hometown of Waterford with wife LeAnne Knee Dropps '97 and daughter Alexis.

61* was in production for eight months, then premiered at the Fox Theatre in Detroit on April 17, 2001. Jeff and LeAnne attended the premiere, and he admits he was "pretty geeked" to see himself on screen.

"I thought the movie turned out great," he added. "It was really neat to see the finished product and amazing to see what they can do with computers these days."

For Jeff, who comes from a sports-minded family, his glimpse of Hollywood movie making was exciting but didn't compare to the real-game rush of being an athlete and competing.

Instead, his thrill came in another context. As a kid, Jeff collected baseball cards. He still has his Al Kaline cards, and he remembers his dad sharing stories about the Tiger Hall of Famer. What a great arm he had, what a great hitter he was, and what a great person he is. Then for five glorious days, Jeff went to the corner of Michigan and Trumbull and stepped into a replica Detroit Tiger uniform with the number "6" gracing the back. For five days, he was Al Kaline.

"It was a pretty neat experience to get to play my dad's hero," he said. "My entire family was thrilled."