Daughter of bigoted pitcher in ’42’ says movie unfair
JOPLIN, Mo. — The daughter of a pitcher portrayed in the new movie about famed baseball player Jackie Robinson says the movie unfairly characterizes her father as a racist.
In the recently released movie “42,” Fritz Ostermueller purposely hits Robinson in the head with a fastball and then tells Robinson: “You don’t belong here.”
But Ostermueller’s daughter, Sherrill Ostermueller-Duesterhaus tells The Joplin Globe that never happened. News accounts of the 1947 incident also show that Ostermueller actually threw a high inside pitch that caught Robinson on the wrist.