It’s only fitting Joe Charboneau had a bit part in the iconic 1984 sports film “The Natural.” It starred Robert Redford as the fictional Roy Hobbs, who appears essentially out of nowhere and become…
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The legend of Joe Charboneau never dies | Opinion
It’s only fitting Joe Charboneau had a bit part in the iconic 1984 sports film “The Natural.”
It starred Robert Redford as the fictional Roy Hobbs, who appears essentially out of nowhere and becomes a baseball sensation for the New York Knights.
As quickly as Hobbs becomes a star, that star fades just as fast.
The same can be said about Charboneau, who resides in Avon Lake and previously worked in baseball with the Lake Erie Crushers, and was manager of the Lorain County Ironmen in 2015. He’s currently the hitting coach at Notre Dame College in South Euclid.
It’s probably not uncommon for those on the west side to run into Charboneau. For those old enough to remember, they might want to talk about 1980.
That was the year Charbonneau was named American League Rookie of the Year for the team — at the time — called the Indians. They now go by the Guardians. No matter the name, Cleveland baseball in 1980 was best-known for Joe Charboneau.
But by 1983, Cleveland’s brightest baseball star was out of the game. On June 5, 1983 — almost 40 years to the day — Charboneau was released by the franchise.
That same year, Tri-Star Pictures acquired the rights to Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel “The Natural.” In the book, the Hobbs character was more outlandish than Redford in the film.
Anyone who followed Chaboneau’s career can relate. His off-the-field antics are legendary to this day. Reportedly, he opened beer bottles with his eye socket, drank beers with a straw through his nose, ate cigarettes, fixed a broken nose with pliers, and stitched up his own cut with fishing line.
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