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By now everyone in the Milwaukee area has heard about the movie “Mr. 3,000” being filmed at Miller Park, starring Bernie Mac. The really fun part is that they are using Milwaukee residents as extras. On the 18^th and 19^th of July they asked for volunteers to come to Miller Park and participate to fill the background as fans for their baseball scenes. Both nights they had over 25,000 enthusiastic fans turn out; more that actually turn out for the majority of Brewer games. To me that’s a little sad.

The production company asked that the extras show up an hour before filming, which was about 5:00 p.m. and stay to about four in the morning. Your reward was a free hot dog, a bag of Doritos and a small soft drink; of course you had to be there four hours before they dished up the goodies. No alcohol was permitted, which was a good thing. You were allowed to bring in a small cooler with water, soft drinks and snacks, also they had the concession stands open to satisfy your appetite and thirst.  

Call me crazy, I personally thought it might be interesting to participate and write a column about the adventure. So I picked Saturday night to attend. I took my two older grandsons, Doug and Andy Saugstad, with me, along with Doug’s friend April and three Viewers Voice board members, Michelle Kasar, Laurie Muffler and Joe Strzyzewski. Thanks to Laurie and the boys we managed to get seats three rows up, right in back of the third base dugout. We all knew they couldn’t make us stay to 4:00 a.m., so we figured when we got bored or tired we’d leave.   

The evening started out a little slow as the crew set up their equipment. We were then introduced to Jerry Saslow and Stefanie Wilder who were there to draw winners for some fantastic prizes. They were giving away colored TV sets, a 54 w x 42 projection TV with home theatre system & DVD recorder, camcorders, digital cameras, $3,000 cash and many, many other expensive items. If you managed to stay to the end they gave away a 2003 Jeep Liberty. Now that made the night really interesting and gave you hope of maybe winning something nice. I’ve never won anything in my life so I don’t know what made me think I had a chance.

Jerry and Stefanie, who did a great job of keeping the volunteers entertained, are two comedians who are writers and producers for some very successful shows on TV. Which leads me to believe they were getting paid a pretty fantastic salary for this gig?

Jerry spent the last two seasons working on “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” and is currently producing for the new “Sharon Osbourne Show” premiering this fall on The WB.

Stefanie has written and produced for television shows including “Who’s Line is it Anyway,” “Blind Date” and “Head Trip” and she currently writes those funny ad libs that come from the celebrities on “The Hollywood Squares.” Silly I, I always thought the stars were actually delivering their own ad libs.

Every once in awhile they would stop giving away prizes and ask the audience to participate in shooting a scene. I’ve been to many television tapings and know how boring it can be. The directors will film the same scene a dozen times if they have too; that’s to make sure they get exactly what they want when editing the movie. This particular night they actually filmed only three scenes in over eight hours.

One portition of the filming that I found fun and interesting was when they had us do the wave in complete silence, because Mr. Mac had dialog that needed to be heard. It was kind of eerie, like maybe I lost my hearing. Of course after doing it 5 or 6 times I wasn’t that impressed.

The movie “Mr.3, 000” is the story of a retired Milwaukee Brewer who leaves baseball thinking he has 3,000 hits. After 9 years out of the game he finds out he only had 2,097 hits. He returns to his old team to try and get the hits he needs to reach 3,000. From the bits and pieces I picked up about the story, Stan Ross played by Bernie Mac is not one of the most liked fellows in baseball. In order to get in the Hall of Fame he must have his 3,000 hits.

Acclaimed actress Angela Bassett also stars in the movie opposite Mac. She has appeared in “Waiting to Exhale,” “Malcolm X,” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” for which she won a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Tina Turner. It would have been nice to catch a glimpse of her, but she was no where to be seen.

Another actor I would have loved to see was Chris Noth who also appears in “Mr. 3,000.” He plays Mr. Big in “Sex in the City” on HBO and what a hunk he is. I talked to his publicist trying to get an interview, but he had already left Milwaukee. They did say I was welcome to come to New York and they’d be glad to accommodate me. I do intend to take them up on that offer some day.         

Believe it or not I did stay to the end of the filming; we left Miller Park after 4:00 a.m. and that’s the first time I’ve seen the sun come up in a long time. I didn’t stay because of the excitement of the filming; that was totally boring, but there was always that chance I could win the car.

The experience was fun, but I wouldn’t want to do it again, with the exception of maybe Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson starring in the movie. I wasn’t that impressed with Bernie Mac, he seems a little arrogant. We were suppose to do an interview with him, but he decided he didn’t want to do any more interviews, he was sick of all the time he had to spend doing them. He made all press off limits the last four days of filming. If I was making all the money he’s making I wouldn’t hesitate to give back some time to promote my movie. Oh well that’s what happens when you get too big for your britches.

Until my next column let your voice be heard.