‘Max Patkin: The Clown Prince of Baseball’ explores the man behind the clown
Produced over a very long period of time, the entertaining new documentary tells the story of a 20th-century baseball mainstay
Baseball used to have weird characters out on the periphery who might appear at the game. Before the Phillie Phanatic and all the other furry, kid-friendly, costumed mascots of today, there were figures like the San Diego Chicken and Morganna the Kissing Bandit. And then there was Max Patkin, known always as the Clown Prince of baseball.
His schtick was an old-school, boomer cornball act that lasted a half-century. Patkin, decked out in a ratty old uniform with a question mark instead of a number, would interrupt games, hang out in the first base coach’s box or somewhere else, and sometimes antagonize players and managers. His act, which didn’t change much over the years, mostly entailed funny hand motions, sometimes imitating the motions of the fielder or baserunner next to him.
A new documentary, Max Patkin: The Clown Prince of Baseball, covers the untold story of Patkin, who died at age 79 in 1999, just a couple of years after his retirement.
The film, directed by Greg DeHart — a sometime minor-league ballplayer himself — is a bit of a shoestring. It was produced over a very long period, as evidenced by the inclusion of a couple of talking heads who are long deceased and a couple more who look strikingly younger in the footage than they do today.
The documentary is only 69 minutes long but packs a lot into that short time frame.
Patkin, as you may not be surprised to learn, was a frustrated ex-baseball player. Also, in keeping with the oldest cliche about comedians, he was motivated by inner torment to make others laugh.
It’s not surprising that Patkin’s act was brought along by Bill Veeck, the king of humorous baseball stunts, and Veeck’s son Mike is among the talking heads; the one time I saw Patkin perform in person was at a game of Veeck’s St. Paul Saints.
But you’ll likely learn things in the documentary about Patkin that you probably didn’t know, like that he once chased Joe DiMaggio around the bases, which was the genesis of the act he’d spend the next 50-plus years doing. Or that Patkin was informally banned from Major League Baseball ballparks in the 1950s, leading to his act mostly getting performed at minor-league fields.
Or — and this is the dark part — that Patkin’s frequent travels led to his wife’s serial infidelities, as well as an episode when she struck Max in the head with a ball-peen hammer.
You may remember Patkin for his appearance in Bull Durham, where he does his act and introduces Crash to Annie- and, as director Ron Shelton reveals, Max’s character was supposed to die in the movie in a scene that was cut for time (his funeral is the reason Susan Sarandon is inexplicably wearing a black veil in one scene.)
That movie led to a career resurgence for Patkin, including more gigs and induction into the Clown Hall of Fame. (Patkin is also in the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.)
Indeed, while Patkin has never quite been claimed as a Philadelphia sports hero, he was born in Philly, raised in West Philly, and died in Chester County. We see Angelo Cataldi, the longtime Philadelphia sports morning show host, singing Patkin’s praises and even showing a video of a bizarre scene when con men in Love Park tricked the clown prince and gave them baseball cards anyway. (There is one mistake- Reading, PA, where Patkin performed frequently, is not “just miles” from Patkin’s childhood home in West Philadelphia- it’s about 60 miles.)
The Cataldi footage is notable for something else: Cataldi has a full head of dark hair, speaks in a very different vocal cadence than he has more recently, and is sitting in a studio that was likely at least two WIP studios ago and at a time when the station was still on AM 610 (it switched to 94.1 in 2011.)
We also hear from Philadelphia sportswriter Stan Hochman and baseball lifer Don Zimmer — dead since 2015 and 2014, respectively — and there are even some interview clips of Patkin himself. It’s admirable for someone to keep at such a passion project for such a long time- and a fine tribute to Patkin himself.
Max Patkin: The Clown Prince of Baseball lands on VOD this Friday and will also have a premiere at – where else? — a minor league baseball park in Reno, Nev., next week. It is now available on SunnStream.com's streaming service and on multiple platforms, including Apple TV, IOS, Google Play, Roku, and Amazon.