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James Gammon, a squint-eyed, froggy-voiced character actor who was best known as the manager in the baseball film comedy “Major League,” one of the rough-hewn American types — cowboys, rednecks and the alcoholic family patriarchs in the plays of Sam Shepard — that were his specialty, died Friday at his home in Costa Mesa, Calif.

He was 70. The cause was cancer of the adrenal glands and the liver, said his wife, Nancy.

He began his career in the 1960s, appearing on “Gunsmoke,” “Bonanza,” “The Wild Wild West,” “The Virginian” and other television westerns; he made his movie debut in 1967, as a member of the chain gang in “Cool Hand Luke.” He appeared in projects in other genres — in a recurring role on the cop show “Nash Bridges,” he played Don Johnson’s father — but westerns and outlaw pictures were his bread and butter. He played a redneck murder victim in “Natural Born Killers” and the revered cattle rancher Charles Goodnight in the television mini-series based on Larry McMurtry’s novel “Streets of Laredo,” a follow-up to “Lonesome Dove.” He also appeared in “Cold Mountain” “Urban Cowboy” and “Appaloosa.”

“Major League” (1989) was the biggest hit of his career. In it he played Lou Brown, the flinty but paternalistic manager of the Cleveland Indians, who roar back from last place with a roster of misfits and improbably win the pennant. Though not the familiar rural milieu, it wasn’t exactly a stretch for him; Brown was essentially a good-guy sheriff in a baseball cap. (He reprised the role in “Major League II” in 1994.)

Mr. Gammon’s first marriage ended in divorce. In addition to his wife, the former Nancy Kapusta, whom he married in 1972, he is survived by a brother, Phillip, of Northridge, Calif.; a sister, Sandra Glaudell, of Ocala, Fla.; two daughters, Allison Mann of Costa Mesa and Amy Gammon of West Hollywood; and two grandchildren.