"You're gonna need a bigger boat"
There were also roles as Cloudy in The French Connection, as the protagonist in Elmore Leonard's 52 Pick-Up, and as The Punisher's father in, um, The Punisher...the one with John Travolta as the bad guy, not the one with Dolph Lundgren as The Punisher.
Anyway, Scheider was also in a pair of baseball movies: Tiger Town and Night Game.
In Tiger Town, Scheider played an aging Detroit Tigers. It's a Disney flick, as you might be able to tell from this writeup at Wikipedia.
Alex (Henry) and his father (Ron McLarty) are devoted Detroit Tigers fans, even now as they are struggling. Alex's favorite player is aging star Billy Young (Scheider), who is having a sub-par season, his last before retiring.
Alex's father dies unexpectedly, but not before he tells Alex that he should always believe. Consequently, Alex decides to visit every Tiger home game. Every time Young comes to the plate, Alex closes his eyes and wishes hard, and Young ends up hitting a home run. Thanks to Young's rejuvenated play, the Tigers start winning again.
But there is a price. Alex, who now believes that if he doesn't go to the games, the team will lose (explaining the Tigers' pitiful road trips); finds himself the subject of ridicule by classmates, since he often sneaks out of school early to watch the Tigers play. Nevertheless, thanks to Billy Young, the Tigers claw their way back into the pennant race. The final game of the season, against the Baltimore Orioles, would decide the pennant.
Alex has his ticket and school lets out early so kids can watch the game, but as Alex leaves school, he's detained by bullies who take his ticket and his money. Only when Alex gets his principal's attention is he released and forced to run all the way to Tiger Stadium. Bribing a little girl for her bike and hanging onto the back of a city bus get Alex to the stadium in time for the ninth inning, where Young is up and the Tigers are trailing. Young makes contact with the ball just as Alex gets to the front of the stadium aisle, and Young ends up clearing the bases, giving the Tigers the pennant.
Night Game was not a Disney movie, as you might be able to tell from this writeup at Wikipedia (some snark removed).
Also at that Wikipedia entry is an article from the July 1989 Astros program:A number of young women are found dead on or around the beaches of Galveston and the one thing they all have in common is that they were murdered when Houston Astros ace pitcher Silvio Baretto (an amalgamation of real-life pitchers Bob Knepper and Juan Agosto) pitches and wins a night game at the Astrodome. Additionally, each victim had their throats slashed by some sort of knife or hook.
Scheider plays former minor league baseball player turned Galveston homicide detective Mike Seaver ... who is engaged to a lady with an accent that repeatedly changes from southern to non-southern throughout the film. Her name is Roxy. Seaver is a staunch Astros fan and is the only person on the case that begins to realize the coincidence of the deaths coming after Sil Barretto's night game wins in the Dome.
After 95 minutes of sleuthing, Seaver ultimately realizes that the murderer is a disgruntled former Astros pitcher named Floyd Epps. Epps had lost his pitching hand in a minor league bus accident and now wears a hook. He personally, if illogically, blames Sil Baretto for his misfortune and decides that his murders on the same night as Baretto's wins will steal the headlines from his former teammate.
The penultimate scene features Seaver shooting and killing Epps at a Galveston beach front restaurant. Epps had been attempting to murder Seaver's fiancee, Roxy, but his swings of his hook prove to be as inaccurate as his mental state, and he fails.
The final scene of the film features Sil Barretto walking off the mound before the start of a game in the Astrodome to lead the entire stadium in a standing ovation for the newly married Seaver and Roxy who are standing behind the dugout.
"Glenn Davis has proven repeatedly that he has a flair for the dramatic. With his consistent game-winning RBIs, one might say he almost performs on cue. And in August, he will prove it again, not only to Astros fans, but across America, when he belts a homer in the upcoming movie, "Night Game."
Parts of the movie were filmed in the Astrodome last year and director Peter Masterson says Davis proved to be the man he needed for a tricky plot twist. "We needed an Astro to hit a home run and Davis was the one that hit it, so he got in the movie," laughed Masterson in a call from his New York home.
...
Much more Dome footage will involve players no one is familiar with though. Masterson said former Astro Norm Miller, now a team executive, arranged for squads of amateur players to imitate the pros. "After games ended, we got the field. We simulated some on-the-field stuff and got the close ups we needed," Masterson recalled. "We worked until dawn every night. As soon as it got too light, we'd have to quit."
In addition to present and past Astro stars, Houstonians will also recognize one more local figure in the movie. Bob Allen, the sports director at KTRK-TV Channel 13 plays the Astros' play-by-play broadcaster. Masterson said the anchorman "did a really good job."
Add in a guest starring role on Law & Order: CI and you've got most of my favorite Roy Scheider characters.
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