Steven Spielberg was initially very interested in directing. However the success of Jaws (1975) meant he could get any project of his own off the ground, so he decided to make Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
Richard Pryor's character pretends to be Cuban to join a Major League team. The first black major league baseball player joined in 1905. The team claimed he was Puerto Rican, even though he spoke no Spanish.
Director John Badham grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and knew of the Birmingham Black Barons and the white Birmingham Barons. Both teams played at Rickwood Field.
Emmett Ashford: the umpire. In real life, Ashford was the first African-American umpire in Major League baseball.