If you wanted somebody crusty in your movie, you hired James Gammon.
Gammon, a veteran character actor, died Friday at his daughter's home in Costa Mesa, Calif., the Los Angeles Times reported. He was 70.
You probably know Gammon best for his role (pictured above) as Lou Brown, the gruff manager of the Cleveland Indians in the baseball comedy "Major League." (He was the one who was confined to a hospital bed during the Indians' stretch toward the division title.)
He also had major roles in "Urban Cowboy," "The Milagro Beanfield War" (for director Robert Redford), "Leaving Normal," "Ironweed," "Silverado" and "Cold Mountain."
On TV, he made guest appearances from the 1960s (in "Gunsmoke") through 2007 (on "Grey's Anatomy"). He also was on the detective series "Nash Bridges," playing the father of the title character played by Don Johnson (even though there was only a nine-year age difference between them).
On stage, though, Gammon was a regular actor in the plays of Sam Shepard -- a collaboration that began when Gammon appeared in a 1978 production at New York's Public Theatre of "Curse of the Starving Class."