SnoopyStyle Charlie Brown's baseball team is horrible and his whole team blames him. It's the start of a new season. After another embarrassing loss, everybody quits to do something fun for the summer. Hardware store owner Mr. Hennessey offers to sponsor the baseball team. The team reunites for the promise of uniforms. Hennessey then withdraws since girls and dog are forbidden in the league. Charlie Brown keeps the secret to himself. The team does a lot better but Charlie Brown's bonehead play loses the game. Everybody blames him until Linus reveals the secret. The team makes a manager's uniform for Charlie Brown out of Linus' blanket.This takes a large section of the Peanuts world and sets it for the second TV special after "A Charlie Brown Christmas". It suffers by comparison. It tries to have a lesson but it doesn't work as well. The message is a little muddled. It also doesn't have anything iconic like the Charlie Brown tree or The Great Pumpkin. It's fine for loser Charlie but it needs to say something more beautiful about losing.

utgard14 The second Peanuts TV special is a baseball-themed one. Charlie Brown sucks at baseball and his team, frustrated with "that old blockhead" for losing them the first game of the season, quits. Shortly after Charlie finds out the team has the chance to join the Little League, with a sponsor who will pay for new uniforms and everything. Everyone's excited and eager to play again, even with sucky Charlie Brown. But then the news is handed down to Chuck that the team can't have the girls or Snoopy on it. So he struggles with how to tell them, knowing they will rip him a new one. Lots of funny lines in this one but also lots of heart. Love the ending.

Shawn Watson In this second ever Peanuts TV special Charlie Brown is in the bad books of the rest of the gang (as if he's ever in their good books) for being utterly hopeless at baseball and losing every game. He's a curse on their team and they'd all rather spend summer doing their own individual thing.But when he arranges to have personalized shirts made for the team they come back, though he neglects to tell them it's on the condition that Snoopy and the girls get kicked out.He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Old Blockhead just can't do anything right. For a 1966 effort the colors and sound in this one were surprisingly good. It may not have the lasting appeal of the seasonal specials, but it's still worth watching.

richard.fuller1 Charlie Brown playing baseball must have been established with this program.I always wondered why toy figures of Charlie Brown had him in a baseball cap.I remember this program, and likewise, I remember the accompanying storybook (Charlie Brown and Linus on the pitcher's mound in the rain at the end was effective).Lately, ABC has realized that airing new Christmas or Valentines Day specials simply makes fans go 'what happened to the old one?' so now they air Charlie Brown as a full hour, the old one accompanying the new one.Works for me.I hadnt seen the Easter one in DECADES, do you hear me!!! All Stars aired in connection with the old Easter one, so I sat and watched it.It seemed incredibly crudely done, but as I watched it, I realized which one it was.From there, I was then very amazed by the story.Charlie Brown wasn't as easily defeated here (which was the way he sort of began in the comic strips, kind of like Sluggo to Lucy's Nancy, or Tubby to Lucy's Little Lulu).This time, he took the slings and arrows from his 'friends' with a bit more endurance.What makes this one so funny is they were really sending some ammunition his way! Lucy: "Don't expect us to be doing all that cheering from the outfield. 'Yay, Charlie Brown! You can do it! You're a great pitcher, Charlie Brown!' -- Fact is, you can't do it, Charlie Brown, and you aren't that good a pitcher. That makes us hypocrites. You wouldn't want us to be hypocrites, would you, Charlie Brown?" Sherman: "I don't like being on a losing team, Charlie Brown. It's depressing. You're different. You seem to get some satisfaction from losing." Something like that.I remember many of the situations and jokes from the comics."Slide, Charlie Brown, Slide" was actually the title of one of the reprint books.Yet this episode was made wholly unique when Charlie Brown got a store to sponsor the team with uniforms, then was told he would have to remove the girls and Snoopy from the team.Charlie Brown couldn't do it and the team turned on him.Only later did they learn why and feel utterly crushed.I don't think at any time Charlie Brown has made such a supreme sacrifice for his ungrateful friends and likewise they in turn sought to make amends to the ol' blockhead.Which then brought us to the ending.Devotion.That's what you can say about our boy named Charlie Brown.Devotion.