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‘The Duke of Tralee’, Roger Bresnahan.
A MOVIE is in the pipeline about a baseball legend and ‘hall of famer’ who has ties to Tralee.
The name may be unfamiliar, but Roger Bresnahan is a member of the prestigious baseball Hall of Fame. In his playing days at the turn of the last century he was known as the ‘Duke of Tralee’.
Though born in Toledo Ohio, when asked, Roger Bresnahan, would say he came from Tralee because his family reportedly came from town, though thus far, no direct link has been found.
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Now, a distant cousin is turning his story into a motion picture. Dave Bresnahan of Faranabrack LLC has announced that he has signed an agreement with Moving Pictures Media Group (MPMG) of Santa Monica, CA to provide development and production services for the film The Duke of Tralee.
The movie will be shot in Utah, Ohio and an unknown location in Ireland next year.
Roger Bresnahan, The Duke of Tralee, was just 18 when he became a major league baseball player in 1897, but his factory-working Irish immigrant father told him to quit playing a boy’s game and be a man with a real job. Somehow he had to find a way to please his father while pursuing his dream of playing baseball.
Dave Bresnahan, who is a distant cousin of Roger, is the owner of Faranabrack LLC and is co-screen writer with David Mickey Evans (The Sandlot) who is the director of the film.
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The Duke of Tralee played with greats like Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Miller Huggins, and John McGraw.
Just last year, the memorabilia of the man went under the hammer at a US auction fetching $224,039 (about €200,000). The items from the former 1905 World Series winner included, his final out World Series ball and the prized possessions of any purveyor of America’s favourite pastime his mitt and glove.
Bresnahan was a well known character during Baseball’s early years, but his ticket to the hall of fame was booked not solely by his performances behind home plate as a catcher where he played for most of his career, but for being a pioneer of safety in the game.
He was the first catcher to fully get behind wearing shin pads in the big leagues. He took a lot a heat from fans because it was seen as being a bit soft, but unlike the baying hordes, Bresnahan was looking out for his fellow ball players.
A Baseball historian once wrote of Bresnahan; “He was a throwback to the Irish nineties, Almost every paragraph written about him seemed to include the adjective fiery. He was one of those nice guys that if you were on his team played hard he was as nice to you as could be, but if you got on his bad side you’d think he was the Breadth of Hell.”
Sadly, it didn’t end well for Bresnahan, he went into management after his playing days, but his career in baseball trickled off. He died just weeks before he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1944 at the age of 65.
