Family Theater: Suzie's Prayer Ball

Family Theater presents Jimmy Stewart and Gene Kelly. From Hollywood, the mutual network in cooperation with Family Theater presents Jimmy Stewart in Susie's Prayer Ball. And now to introduce the drama, your host, Gene Kelly. Thank you, Tony Lefanza.

Family Theater's only purpose is to bring to everyone's attention a practice that must become an important part of our lives if we are to win peace for ourselves, peace for our families in peace for the world. Family theater urges you to pray. Pray together as a family.

Take me out to the ball game. Take me out to the park. I can already hear the crackle a cracker jack in the clink of soda pop bottles as a sort of background for our drama. You see, our story is a simple one. A story of a child's faith, a woman's love, and a man's stubborn pride.

And this is also a story of spring. Spring when a young man's fancy likely turns to thoughts of... ...love? Well, not always. For for young men of 6 to 60, spring means one thing. Restight, go baseball!

We call our story Susie's Prayer Ball. Yeah, hi. Oh, the sun feels good. It's so wonderful to be in Florida again. Yeah, good old St. Pete. Oh, Red, please. Well, how do you expect me to feel, Helen?

Four weeks of spring training, I haven't even pitched a single inning. But you would pitch, dear, if you'd sign your contract. Oh, for the last time, Helen, I'm not taking a 25% cut. We managed on less than $50,000 when we were first married Red.

A lot less. Yeah, we were in the Cotton Stage League, then, Helen. $125 a month. We were happy. That was before I'd won over 20 games, eight seasons in a row. Before I pitched the J's for four pennants, before I won seven World Series games.