Those that attended the SABR 52 conference in Minneapolis, MN had been handled to a screening of the beautiful characteristic size documentary entitled The Diamond King. The movie depicts the historical past of baseball as advised by way of the life and works of baseball’s Picasso, Dick Perez.
Mr. Perez ought to want no introduction, actually to not folks of the Gen X fold like me who collected the Nineteen Eighties and 90s Donruss baseball artcards referred to as Diamond Kings which depicted baseball’s best heroes, like Kirby Puckett and Cal Ripken Jr, reimagined although the lens of Dick’s inventive genius.
Dick Perez was chosen by SABR’s Baseball Card Analysis Committee because the 2024 Jefferson Burdick Award winner for his vital contributions to the baseball card pastime. It was an award that attendees had hoped to see offered to Mr. Perez in individual on the conference. Nonetheless, resulting from an unlucky medical emergency, Dick was unable to make the journey to Minneapolis.
Within the midst of a busy schedule of screenings of The Diamond King at different venues, such because the Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, this author felt lucky and fairly blessed that the movie’s director, Marq Evans, organized for me to interview each Dick Perez and himself through a video name throughout which we mentioned the collaborative partnership between Marq and Dick that resulted within the making of the movie.
In contrast to most of Marq’s documentary initiatives which might take 5 years to finish, The Diamond King got here collectively in simply two years thanks largely to the moment connection solid between Marq and Dick that has now turn out to be a real friendship for all times.
In June of 2022, Marq composed an electronic mail to Dick wherein he made his pitch for a documentary in regards to the artist. Marq determined he wished to make the movie after his personal son Jude started to indicate an curiosity in baseball that led Marq to interrupt out his previous playing cards together with the Donruss Diamond Kings. Like all good documentarians, Marq is a grasp storyteller and immediately knew he wished to study and inform the story of Dick Perez.
Recalling his response to studying Marq’s electronic mail, Dick famous “I used to be flattered. I don’t keep in mind throughout my lifetime with The Diamond Kings [cards] any actual response from the individuals who collected them. I assumed they had been well-liked solely as a result of they had been totally different than what the opposite card corporations supplied. I didn’t suppose it was something that will develop into what it has with collectors of Diamond Kings. To make a film about it, I felt that’s greater than I anticipated once I was doing it, so why not?” It actually helped promote Dick on the mission that Marq was already an award-winning director, however what actually closed the deal was Marq’s passionate enthusiasm for his work.
In line with Marq, “This all occurred over a weekend. I keep in mind on a Friday night wanting by way of the [Diamond Kings] playing cards after which I googled Dick Perez. The Diamond Kings took me again to a spot in my childhood, good emotions, and so I obtained curious in regards to the artist. I didn’t know [at that time] about Dick’s historical past with the Corridor of Fame and the Perez-Steele playing cards that I got here to comprehend had been very fashionable slightly bit earlier than my gathering time. I found on his web site how he misplaced his father at a younger age, his time with the Philadelphia Phillies, and noticed extra of his work. That’s once I obtained excited seeing the wealth of the work he has achieved, and I used to be impressed by it. He’s obtained an attention-grabbing story, and we are able to inform the historical past of baseball by way of his work. He’s painted every little thing so you may see how the sport has modified and stayed the identical. He’s painted each Corridor of Famer. Because the weekend went on, I began having all these concepts and that’s once I knew that Dick was somebody value reaching out to. I’m all the time in search of tales. Writing that preliminary electronic mail is all the time probably the most difficult factor since you need it to be brief and candy. It didn’t damage that my earlier movie was about to start out its first theatrical run. I used to be ready to make use of that in my first sentence. The worst that might occur is that somebody doesn’t reply or says they don’t seem to be .”
Just a few weeks after sending the e-mail, Marq and Dick related by cellphone name throughout which they each felt a mutual connection and enthusiasm for the concepts being mentioned. Marq was already scheduled to come back to New York, the place Dick lived, for one among his different movies, so he advised to Dick that he keep a pair further days to shoot an interview with Dick to see how that goes. In line with Marq, in contrast to a few of his previous initiatives, this one was much more collaborative. “I used to be extra clear [with Dick] by way of letting him know what I used to be pondering and why. We’d speak about it, and I thank Dick a lot that he by no means mentioned ‘no’ to something. It was actually a collaboration.”
🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨
If you happen to haven’t seen The Diamond King movie, that is the purpose the place I warn you NOT to proceed when you don’t need spoilers.
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In the course of the movie, the connection between Dick and his mother comes into focus which might solely occur as a result of Dick was comfy being weak with Marq. I requested Dick when, in the course of the journey of creating the movie, he felt that he might let his guard down not only for Marq but in addition for the numerous audiences that will come to view the movie. Dick replied, “One of many moments was when he [Marq] requested me ‘Did I ever paint my mom?’ I feel there was one thing inside me that was large about that relationship. And it wasn’t one thing that I’d ever think about that will be within the movie. I didn’t suppose we had been going to speak about my mom within the movie. We had been going to speak about baseball, speak about artwork, and I feel when he insisted to do that portrait. I’m so completely happy that I did [paint the portrait] and so completely happy that he insisted on it as a result of it actually provides a component to the movie that what you suppose is one factor isn’t that dangerous. And I keep in mind the great issues about my mom once I have a look at her image that I did. That was an enormous a part of opening up.” From Dick’s relationship along with his mom to his relationship along with his spouse of fifty years, Marq was capable of authentically seize many components of Dick’s extraordinary life.
Marq recalled the method as follows, “You’ve obtained to enter a mission with a imaginative and prescient and a sport plan as a result of that’s going to type the way you pitch the mission and you then’ve obtained to have that imaginative and prescient going into the preliminary interviews and manufacturing. You need to do a bunch of analysis about what’s identified [about your subject]. Then you definitely additionally have to be listening and open to belongings you didn’t know and belongings you weren’t initially pondering of. I didn’t find out about his relationship along with his spouse or there was going to be a mom factor on this, however in listening to Dick on digicam, his mom got here up a handful of instances and it impressed me to dive into it slightly bit extra. And along with his spouse, it was simply being round them. Seeing them collectively and pondering that’s the type of marriage I aspire to. It was the precise reverse of the topic of the earlier movie I used to be engaged on the place he had 4 wives and was engaged on quantity 5.”
Because the interview continued, I grew to become inquisitive about how laborious it was for Dick Perez, an artist himself, to be part of another person’s artwork, on this case the movie artwork of Marq Evans. Dick acknowledged that “It wasn’t laborious. In talking with Marq, I knew he had frequent sense in his artwork. And being an artist, you don’t need someone guiding you in how you need to do your artwork. I trusted him. One of many issues within the film that I by no means meant to make public was my perception system that got here by way of with the story about my mom. After I did it, I assumed ‘Am I going to lose half of my followers by revealing that I questioned what my mom was following?’ However the large factor is that you just obtained to let him [Marq] do his factor. I don’t know something about filming. It’s the interior self that you just make judgement on, and we appeared to have the precise chemistry, so I by no means imposed something on him.”
Marq added that Dick advised him the best factor he might hear, which was “I don’t need to intrude together with your artwork,” which gave Marq unimaginable freedom that he cherished. Not each topic Marq has labored with afforded him this type of artistic freedom.
What happy Dick probably the most in regards to the The Diamond King movie was how Marq intertwined his biography with the historical past of the sport of baseball. As Dick acknowledged it to me, “I really feel like I contributed to one thing within the historical past of the sport. One in every of my best needs was that it [the film] would depict the historical past of the sport and I simply occurred to be a small a part of it. Baseball was fairly an introduction to America [for me]. I didn’t search it. It was there in my existence. It was all all people performed – stoop ball, stick ball, punch ball. There was a time in New York when there have been three groups, so baseball was an enormous attraction. It grew to become a approach I made buddies with out understanding the language. All you needed to do was discover ways to hit the ball and catch it. I used to be going to be a baseball participant. I used to be asking all my uncles and aunts how I did. How do I turn out to be a baseball participant?”
Dick, who had moved from Puerto Rico to New York when he was six years previous, clearly didn’t turn out to be an expert baseball participant. He famous to me that he realized that dream wasn’t to turn out to be a actuality when he was a part of a championship youth league workforce in Manhattan and he felt, based mostly on his batting common, that he didn’t contribute considerably sufficient to that championship. However Dick all the time beloved to attract and determined he ought to pursue it. A profession in illustration is hard as a result of an artist should discover their distinctive lane that separates them from their friends and positive aspects them an appreciative viewers. Dick studied to be a graphic designer and taught himself to be an illustrator and painter by pouring over the work of twentieth century artists similar to John Singer Sargent.
In 1982, Dick Perez debuted the Donruss Diamond Kings baseball card set and due to the good filmmaking of Marq Evans, it’s now, over forty years later, that Dick Perez can cease questioning in regards to the response to his artwork. The grins and pleasure skilled by audiences watching the movie have clearly given him that reply.
(photograph by Jason Roark)
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