Strange couple of days.
Tried to nail down a time period during which Biggio would hit number three thousand. Secured tickets for Friday, Saturday, and Monday, and was given tickets for Sunday by a friend and former student.
(Wonderful thing about being so open about my baseball fanaticism. When friends have extra tickets, they often think of me.)
I had no idea Biggio would go nuts, have the second 5-hit day of his career, get to 3K on Thursday, and put me in the doghouse with Astro-Girl. Or that Carlos Lee would end the game with an 11th-inning, two-out, walk-off Grand Slam in easily the most exciting Astro game of the year.
Partial remedy came last night.
As Tom Boswell once said, baseball is at once democratic and aristocratic: enjoyable for anyone wishing to spend an evening, but self-revelatory to anyone who pays serious attention. And so it was last night, in the bottom of the ninth of a wild Astros-Rockies game in which (up to that point) one lead or the other had either been reversed, erased or won back seven different times.
The situation: 8-7 Rockies. Closer Brian Fuentes on the mound.
Up first, the Golden Boy, your Rookie of the Half-Year, Hunter Pence (and, really, the only reason to watch the Astros besides Biggio's 3,000-hit chase), who grounded out (with hints that the first slump of his major-league career may be in the offing). Lance Berkman, trying to tie the game with one swing, struck out mightily, twice nearly spinning himself into the ground, as Reggie Jackson often did.
Two outs. Carlos Lee. Fuentes threw ball one.
"They're walking him," Astro-Girl said--correctly. One ball was in danger of beaning the batboy. Speedy Chris Burke comes in to run for Lee.
Now, Mark Loretta, the steadiest Astro thus far (the sort of thing that can be annoying to a team, when a player slotted for platoon/utility/pinch-hitting plays so well they simply have to play him every day, never mind their previous plans).
Tense shift.
So, okay, a .330 singles hitter comes up as the winning run. Burke is fast enough to score on a double, or on a single if on second.
So: a few considerations.
1. Does Rockies first baseman Helton play behind the runner and guard the line? No. Helped in part by the knowledge that Loretta is a right-handed hitter, and thus unlikely to hit the ball with power to the right side, Helton holds Burke at first.
2. Does Burke attempt a steal? No--and with good reason. Burke has first-to-third speed, or (almost pointless here) hit-and-run speed, but not enough straight-steal speed. With two outs, he is be off on contact--enough, Garner reasons, to hold him, especially early in the count.
3. The rest of the infield plays . . . Easy, this one. Third baseman Atkins, hugging the line, is deep. Short and second are just in from the outfield grass. Anything hit to hard them is an out. Anything dribbled to them is a hit, but with Burke proceeding no farther than second. Anything hit past them, no worse than a single, with Burke at third, especially because . . .
4. The outfield plays . . . Talk about a no-doubles outfield. Albert Pujols doesn't command this kind of respect. Centerfielder Willie Taveras is at the pre-Tal's Hill warning track, 403 feet deep. (Were this Yankee stadium, he'd be standing beyond the centerfield fence.) Left fielder Matt Halliday nearly has his back leaned against the left field out-of-town scoreboard, which measures a uniform 315 feet across and fronts the inviting Crawford Boxes.
Rockie manager Clint Hurdle's strategy is clear. Anything hit to an infielder is out number three. Anything hit up the left field line (and thus at Atkins), out number three. Anything hit to the outfield is a single, with Burke stopping at third.
On-deck is Mike Lamb, red-hot but a left-handed hitter, a reduced risk against the left-handed Fuentes. The rational is to pitch to Loretta. If he makes out, game over. A base hit, the Rockies would still lead.
A good strategy. Except that right-handed hitters in Minute Maid, if you pitch them inside . . .
Loretta turned on the second pitch and sent it into the Crawford Boxes.
9-8 Astros. Ballgame.
Every team (that is, all but the best, like the 1998 Yankees) will lose 58 games. Every team (all but the worst, like the 1962 Mets) will win 58 games. Success or failure lies in the other 58.
The other 58 in 2007 will not treat the Astros kindly (witness tonight, a dreary 5-0 loss). But within the 58 wins--one-third of the season--one finds a reason to watch.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
Yankees 2, A's 1
Two runs in the first stand up.
RBI, A-Rod; RBI, Georgie.
Seven strong innings from Moose.
Set-up, Kardiac Kyle.
Give it to Mo, lights out.
Wow. Thought they didn't play games like that anymore.
RBI, A-Rod; RBI, Georgie.
Seven strong innings from Moose.
Set-up, Kardiac Kyle.
Give it to Mo, lights out.
Wow. Thought they didn't play games like that anymore.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Biggio's night
Boy, did I pick the wrong night to stay home.
1. Bidge's 3,000th hit is part of a 5-for-5 evening, including an infield base hit with two outs in the bottom of the eleventh, setting the stage for . . .
2. . . . tyro centerfielder Hunter Pence getting the sweetest seeing-eye single you'd ever want . . .
3. . . . followed by a Lance Berkman getting hit by a pitch, leading to . . .
4. . . . a walk-off, grand slam homer by Carlos Lee, which sailed right to the left of our partial season ticket seats.
Astro-Girl isn't talking to me.
1. Bidge's 3,000th hit is part of a 5-for-5 evening, including an infield base hit with two outs in the bottom of the eleventh, setting the stage for . . .
2. . . . tyro centerfielder Hunter Pence getting the sweetest seeing-eye single you'd ever want . . .
3. . . . followed by a Lance Berkman getting hit by a pitch, leading to . . .
4. . . . a walk-off, grand slam homer by Carlos Lee, which sailed right to the left of our partial season ticket seats.
Astro-Girl isn't talking to me.
Biggio hits 3,000
Astro-Girl and I secured tickets for games on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, in the hope of viewing Bidge's 3,000th.
Bide came into this series three away: 2997 hits, all told.
So of course tonight, Bidge comes out tonight, goes 3 for his first 4, and wraps things up as we watch at home on TV.
It was a single he tried--unsuccessfully--to stretch into a double. I'm guessing the only 3000th hit that has resulted in an out.
Right now, 4-4 headed into the tenth.
Oh, and Bidge got 3001, passing--as everyone knows--Roberto Clemente.
Bide came into this series three away: 2997 hits, all told.
So of course tonight, Bidge comes out tonight, goes 3 for his first 4, and wraps things up as we watch at home on TV.
It was a single he tried--unsuccessfully--to stretch into a double. I'm guessing the only 3000th hit that has resulted in an out.
Right now, 4-4 headed into the tenth.
Oh, and Bidge got 3001, passing--as everyone knows--Roberto Clemente.
The fans go wild
Lest anyone think the immigration bill was defeated by a GOP cabal, take a look at the first three Huffpost comments re the news:
1. YES! This is a victory for America's poor and low wage citizens.
Now can we please enforce the laws? Crack down on the employers? Build the wall? etc...?
2. Agreed. Cracking down on the employers is the most important step.
This is a heated topic. I often hear the refrain "they're only taking jobs Americans don't want to do." This is patently false. Do the research. Construction, landscaping, factories. Illegal immigration has only driven down wages. That's the INTENT.
My parents were forced to close their once lucrative business in Texas. They were electrical contractors, running a union shop. Now even the FEDS contract with non-union shops.
With so much outsourcing, Americans will be forced to compete for these low-paying jobs. The good jobs are drying up, folks. There's not much left.
3. Let's hope this bill and all others like it STAY DEAD.
Once Congress and the Executive branch have demonstrated a little credibility on their ability to enforce immigration laws they themselves write, then perhaps we can revisit this problem.
This would be a good place to start working on that credibility problem. . .
Immigration goes down
And for good reason. I can't think of a more cynical piece of legislation, outside of McCain-Feingold, in my lifetime.
During the past few weeks, a consensus has formed on left and right--on the left, for fear of suppressing the wages of low-skilled (AHEMblackAHEM) workers; on the right, for fear of an unchecked border as a portal for the next Mohammad Atta, as well as a porous border as a staging ground for the general flounting of the law.
It isn't government's inability to contain the border that enrages people, it is government's willful practice of looking the other way. The flashpoint was George Will's revelation of a California town that stopped issuing traffic tickets, as so many of those drivers stopped didn't have licenses, because they were illegal aliens, which then obligated the town in question to do something about it. This was James Q. Wilson's "broken window" theory: looking away from low-level crime only encourages worse.
That alingment of strange bedfellows had one repeated mantra: Patrol the border, then we'll talk. Patrol the border, then we'll talk. All week long, every time Huffpost would try to explain the bills collapse (and simultaneously stick it to the GOP), comments from the Bushitler crowd would come in along the lines of, "I've never voted for a Republican in my life, but they're right this time."
Kausfiles, which has followed the proceedings as much as anyone, had this supposed pearl of wisdom:
Umm . . . no. Politics is about winning. Right now, McCain is (unfairly so) linked most closely to President Bush re Iraq. McCain-Feingold took a major hit in the Supreme Court this week. Now, immigration.
They say the state motto in Alabama is, "Thank God for Mississippi." This week, McCain's motto might be, "Thank God for Harry Reid."
During the past few weeks, a consensus has formed on left and right--on the left, for fear of suppressing the wages of low-skilled (AHEMblackAHEM) workers; on the right, for fear of an unchecked border as a portal for the next Mohammad Atta, as well as a porous border as a staging ground for the general flounting of the law.
It isn't government's inability to contain the border that enrages people, it is government's willful practice of looking the other way. The flashpoint was George Will's revelation of a California town that stopped issuing traffic tickets, as so many of those drivers stopped didn't have licenses, because they were illegal aliens, which then obligated the town in question to do something about it. This was James Q. Wilson's "broken window" theory: looking away from low-level crime only encourages worse.
That alingment of strange bedfellows had one repeated mantra: Patrol the border, then we'll talk. Patrol the border, then we'll talk. All week long, every time Huffpost would try to explain the bills collapse (and simultaneously stick it to the GOP), comments from the Bushitler crowd would come in along the lines of, "I've never voted for a Republican in my life, but they're right this time."
Kausfiles, which has followed the proceedings as much as anyone, had this supposed pearl of wisdom:
Obvious winner in today's vote: John McCain, who can now try to take the issue "off the table" in his presidential campaign.
Umm . . . no. Politics is about winning. Right now, McCain is (unfairly so) linked most closely to President Bush re Iraq. McCain-Feingold took a major hit in the Supreme Court this week. Now, immigration.
They say the state motto in Alabama is, "Thank God for Mississippi." This week, McCain's motto might be, "Thank God for Harry Reid."
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
Bio-fuels!
Every so often a Presidential candidate drops from sight for no other reason than he's become too much a figure of fun for everyone to be taken seriously.
In 1968: Governor Ed Romney of New York basically handed the GOP nomination to Nixon by making one cringe-inducing blunder after another (the joke, as George Will remembered, was that newspaper typesetters around the country kept the words "Romney later explained" intact for easy insertion).
1980: Jerry Brown, the progressive alternative to failure Carter and murderer Kennedy, gets tagged with "Governor Moonbeam" early. It sticks.
1988: People sometimes forget that Gary Hart, after dropping out of the race in May 1987, re-entered in December, with the slogan, "Let the people decide." Thing was, he opened in first in New Hampshire, at 27 percent, in part because the alleged Dem heavyweights (Mario Cuomo, Bill Bradley, Sam Nunn) were taking a pass, and Dukakis and the others had been nicknamed, with good reason, the Seven Dwarfs. Hart's lead lasted precisely one week, or until Carson and Letterman had spend evening after evening carving him up. (Carson: "He's back in the saddle again." Letterman: "Gary Hart? In? Out? In? Isn't that what got him in trouble the first time?" By the end of that week, Letterman would merely shout "Gary Hart!", and the audience would respond with cheers and gales of laughter.) Hart's final score in New Hampshire: 2 percent.
2000: After losing the 1996 nomination to Bob (next in line) Dole, Lamar Alexander basically takes up residence in Iowa and New Hampshire for four solid years. One 2000 shot of him, in his plaid shirt, playing his organ in a half-empty hotel board room, was enough to sink him.
2004: Howard Dean was probably sunk before his post-Iowa scream; Iowa had been his firewall, his key to the nomination. Had he won in Iowa, he probably would have won New Hampshire, and the race would have been over. He lost Iowa--to Kerry--and suddenly Kerry, a fellow New Englander, became the alternative. But that scream.
2008? Bill Richardson says a lot of stupid things, but never has a candidate so blatantly run for Vice President so early. Joe Biden has been smart and funny. Kucinich has been Kucinich. Hillary is a figure of fun, that's already been priced into her poll numbers, and--like Obama--she hasn't made any mistakes. (The problem for Obama is, he can't keep trading baskets with Hillary.)
Turning for a moment to the GOP: Ron Paul is a cuckoo, but never had a chance. Huckabee, Brownback--time to pull the limo around. Rudy has been erratic, but like Hillary's shrillness and both their ghastly personal lives, his temperament is already factored in. Thompson is too smooth. Romney . . . he might lose, but he won't embarrass himself.
Which leaves McCain and Edwards.
McCain won't be the nominee: my money, right now, is on Rudy, with either Thompson or Haley Barbour as Veep, to help hold the South (with the more likely choice being Thompson, in part because of his name recognition, and in part because Tennessee will be in play in '08. No freaking way the GOP loses Mississippi to Hillary). McCain will go down for some serious reasons, some deserved, some not. He is attached to Bush (ironically, a man he despises, and for whom he carried water for in '04, hoping to storm to the nomination in '08) on Iraq; this is unfair, as Bush's blunders are not his. But his name is also attached to two policy initiatives that are hugely unpopular with the GOP faithful: McCain-Feingold, which was gutted this very day, and the current Immigration Reform Bill, which has the true believers (think South Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire) ready to storm the Bastille. He will go down because (sincerely or not) he went all-in on a few serious but wrong-headed policy proposals that blew up in his face. He'll lose, but not shamefully.
And then there is Edwards. His latest gambit has all the echoes of a young man trying to get the girl: first humor, then flowers, then playing the buddy, then at-turns cruel--all in the hope that the right thirty or so words, strung together carefully, will get him laid.
His word of the week?
Bio-fuels!
Eh?, you say?
Bio-fuels, which we and Africa apparently have a lot of. So we sell to the Europeans, and the Europeans buy from us, and then we and the Euros pay to harvest from Africa, resulting in wealth, peace, wealth, and peace. And elections and stuff.
Because, um, quantities of value in Africa always lead to peace, prosperity, and democracy, yes?
COUGHdiamondsCOUGH.
As Steven Spreuill recounts, not even Edwards's own paid audience could take him seriously:
Bio-fuels, baby.
John Edwards. Laughingstock of 2008. Bank on it.
In 1968: Governor Ed Romney of New York basically handed the GOP nomination to Nixon by making one cringe-inducing blunder after another (the joke, as George Will remembered, was that newspaper typesetters around the country kept the words "Romney later explained" intact for easy insertion).
1980: Jerry Brown, the progressive alternative to failure Carter and murderer Kennedy, gets tagged with "Governor Moonbeam" early. It sticks.
1988: People sometimes forget that Gary Hart, after dropping out of the race in May 1987, re-entered in December, with the slogan, "Let the people decide." Thing was, he opened in first in New Hampshire, at 27 percent, in part because the alleged Dem heavyweights (Mario Cuomo, Bill Bradley, Sam Nunn) were taking a pass, and Dukakis and the others had been nicknamed, with good reason, the Seven Dwarfs. Hart's lead lasted precisely one week, or until Carson and Letterman had spend evening after evening carving him up. (Carson: "He's back in the saddle again." Letterman: "Gary Hart? In? Out? In? Isn't that what got him in trouble the first time?" By the end of that week, Letterman would merely shout "Gary Hart!", and the audience would respond with cheers and gales of laughter.) Hart's final score in New Hampshire: 2 percent.
2000: After losing the 1996 nomination to Bob (next in line) Dole, Lamar Alexander basically takes up residence in Iowa and New Hampshire for four solid years. One 2000 shot of him, in his plaid shirt, playing his organ in a half-empty hotel board room, was enough to sink him.
2004: Howard Dean was probably sunk before his post-Iowa scream; Iowa had been his firewall, his key to the nomination. Had he won in Iowa, he probably would have won New Hampshire, and the race would have been over. He lost Iowa--to Kerry--and suddenly Kerry, a fellow New Englander, became the alternative. But that scream.
2008? Bill Richardson says a lot of stupid things, but never has a candidate so blatantly run for Vice President so early. Joe Biden has been smart and funny. Kucinich has been Kucinich. Hillary is a figure of fun, that's already been priced into her poll numbers, and--like Obama--she hasn't made any mistakes. (The problem for Obama is, he can't keep trading baskets with Hillary.)
Turning for a moment to the GOP: Ron Paul is a cuckoo, but never had a chance. Huckabee, Brownback--time to pull the limo around. Rudy has been erratic, but like Hillary's shrillness and both their ghastly personal lives, his temperament is already factored in. Thompson is too smooth. Romney . . . he might lose, but he won't embarrass himself.
Which leaves McCain and Edwards.
McCain won't be the nominee: my money, right now, is on Rudy, with either Thompson or Haley Barbour as Veep, to help hold the South (with the more likely choice being Thompson, in part because of his name recognition, and in part because Tennessee will be in play in '08. No freaking way the GOP loses Mississippi to Hillary). McCain will go down for some serious reasons, some deserved, some not. He is attached to Bush (ironically, a man he despises, and for whom he carried water for in '04, hoping to storm to the nomination in '08) on Iraq; this is unfair, as Bush's blunders are not his. But his name is also attached to two policy initiatives that are hugely unpopular with the GOP faithful: McCain-Feingold, which was gutted this very day, and the current Immigration Reform Bill, which has the true believers (think South Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire) ready to storm the Bastille. He will go down because (sincerely or not) he went all-in on a few serious but wrong-headed policy proposals that blew up in his face. He'll lose, but not shamefully.
And then there is Edwards. His latest gambit has all the echoes of a young man trying to get the girl: first humor, then flowers, then playing the buddy, then at-turns cruel--all in the hope that the right thirty or so words, strung together carefully, will get him laid.
His word of the week?
Bio-fuels!
Eh?, you say?
Bio-fuels, which we and Africa apparently have a lot of. So we sell to the Europeans, and the Europeans buy from us, and then we and the Euros pay to harvest from Africa, resulting in wealth, peace, wealth, and peace. And elections and stuff.
Because, um, quantities of value in Africa always lead to peace, prosperity, and democracy, yes?
COUGHdiamondsCOUGH.
As Steven Spreuill recounts, not even Edwards's own paid audience could take him seriously:
Maybe it’s the faintly colonial whiff given off by Edwards’s vision of Africa as the developed world’s compost heap, or maybe the preceding sequence of events was just too difficult to follow. In any case, Edwards is losing the crowd. Whenever he mentions the Europeans, a woman by the bar yells, “They’re way ahead of us.” Even the children of Africa fail to elicit applause.
Looking for a way to get back on track, Edwards concludes: “Think about the impact of American leadership, where instead of trying to expand American power, instead of this myth in Iraq, instead of the world seeing us as selfish, shortsighted, greedy, only caring about ourselves, all of a sudden, America is visionary again. All of a sudden, America is a force for good again.” This one gets loud cheering and sustained applause from the crowd. Selfless. Caring. That’s the America New Yorkers want people to see.
After the rush of noise dies down, it’s time to restore a sense of reality. “If you believe that the next president of the United States can do all these things alone, you are living in a fantasy world… Your country needs you,” Edwards says. “So, on that score, if you have your cell phone with you now, pull it out, and if you text the word ‘today’ — T-O-D-A-Y — ‘today’ to 30644…”
Bio-fuels, baby.
John Edwards. Laughingstock of 2008. Bank on it.
Okay, Politics
Could things be going any worse for John McCain? He's dropped to fourth in many states--single digits in some--the immigration bill he champions is tanking (in no small part because he refuses to admit what is written down on paper), and now the piece of legislation most closely tied to him has been gutted by the Supreme Court.
McCain's reaction here.
McCain-Feingold, the most onerous piece of anti-free speech legistlation to become law since the Alien & Sedition Act (which was passed during the first Adams administration), has been struck down. It was hard to wonder what was more prominent about the whole aorry mess: the blatant unconstitutionality of the bill or the cynicism of those who voted for it. In their unguarded moments, Senators, especially, would reveal their true purpose: shutting up their critics and continuing their reign in (to quote Mark Steyn) Incumbistan.
This, too, must be said: President Bush did not exactly drape himself in glory here: first (again) cynically signing it, hoping that the Supreme Court would take him off the hook; then, when it did not, needing a mulligan to place the deciding vote on the bench. With Roberts voting the same--or nearly--as his mentor Rhenquist, Alito's vote reverses O'Connor's.
Next up (one would hope): Kelso.
McCain's reaction here.
McCain-Feingold, the most onerous piece of anti-free speech legistlation to become law since the Alien & Sedition Act (which was passed during the first Adams administration), has been struck down. It was hard to wonder what was more prominent about the whole aorry mess: the blatant unconstitutionality of the bill or the cynicism of those who voted for it. In their unguarded moments, Senators, especially, would reveal their true purpose: shutting up their critics and continuing their reign in (to quote Mark Steyn) Incumbistan.
This, too, must be said: President Bush did not exactly drape himself in glory here: first (again) cynically signing it, hoping that the Supreme Court would take him off the hook; then, when it did not, needing a mulligan to place the deciding vote on the bench. With Roberts voting the same--or nearly--as his mentor Rhenquist, Alito's vote reverses O'Connor's.
Next up (one would hope): Kelso.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Rod Beck
I occasionally take a passing interest on players for other teams. The endeavor can be worthwhile. When I was a college student in the 1980s, I would attend (sometimes alone, sometimes with my dad) Spring Training games in the greater Phoenix area. In those days, for ticket price, parking, sight lines, seating and beer, the best place to be was Tempe Diablo, then home of the Seattle Mariners. In those days, Mariner manager Dick Williams would send a skinny teenager out to center field to play the final two innings. There was no thought of the kid making the big club in those years; it was clear Williams was trying to give the kid a taste of major-league life in front of a receptive audience--and we were receptive.
We knew his father. The skinny kid, of course, was Ken Griffey, Jr., who--despite some troubles recently--went on to great feats.
Occasionally, since then, some player will snag at my attention. Rod Beck always stood out--how could he not, with that gut, that crazy hair, that goatee--but never so much as when, the best part of his career behind him, he accepted an assignment to Triple-A Iowa, purchased a recreational vehicle, and took up residence beyond the team's center field scoreboard. I remember him being interviewed on ESPN, and his descriptions of having the younger (sometimes teenaged) players over for cookouts after games made me think, Hey, not bad.
Well, now he has died at 38, and the outpouring from fans and reporters alike testify to someone who will be missed. RIP.
We knew his father. The skinny kid, of course, was Ken Griffey, Jr., who--despite some troubles recently--went on to great feats.
Occasionally, since then, some player will snag at my attention. Rod Beck always stood out--how could he not, with that gut, that crazy hair, that goatee--but never so much as when, the best part of his career behind him, he accepted an assignment to Triple-A Iowa, purchased a recreational vehicle, and took up residence beyond the team's center field scoreboard. I remember him being interviewed on ESPN, and his descriptions of having the younger (sometimes teenaged) players over for cookouts after games made me think, Hey, not bad.
Well, now he has died at 38, and the outpouring from fans and reporters alike testify to someone who will be missed. RIP.
AFI Top Hundred
Something tells me that this is the last time for Citizen Kane at number one.
The complete list here.
The Godfather has been edging ever upward the past few decades. Now number two, it is poised to take over as number one.
It is a close call, and Kane is certainly a masterpiece. But . . . to pick at a masterpiece, a few things simply do not hold up. The whole premise of the movie, for one--what newsreel service would hold up news of the death of a famous person for an entire week while poor Thompson went out in search of the answer to a word? And, if a reporter for a newsreel, where is Thompson's cameraman and camera?
And--to repeat what struck me at 13, when I first saw the movie--is there anyone not cognizant of the fact that Kane whispers his famous word alone in his bed, completely out of earshot of everyone? Who in the world hears "Rosebud"? Certainly not the nurse, who enters from the other room.
Some--not a lot, but some--of the dialog is painful to listen to: "Looky out here in the window!" And some of it is simply purposeless: see Joseph Cotten and Everett Sloane's conversation at the party introducing the stolen New York Chronicle staff, when they discuss whether the new staff will change Charlie or vice-versa. It's an interesting idea, but it goes nowhere, because the notion is simply dropped once Kane returns from Europe. In fact, we never see nor hear of this new staff ever again. (In fact, all account of Kane's career as a yellow journalist is simply dropped after the Spanish-American War, save for his brief attempt to gin up his second wife's opera career; the account of the last forty years of his life is given over to his domestic troubles, his run for the governership, Susan's singing career, and finally Florida.)
Understand: none of the above is to dislodge the film as a masterpiece. It is. In fact, I spent a half-hour last night arguing that very point with my new uncle in-law. Even now, when I see it, scene after scene prompts me nearly to applause. To mention just one eight-minute segment in the movie: Just about everything remembered in Thatcher's memoirs, starting with Agnes Moorhead in the cabin, to "Merry Christmas," to "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper," to twenty-five year-old Welles' first appearance on screen, the scene in the city room with Thatcher and Bernstein: "You provide the prose poems. I'll provide the war." Then the end: "You know Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place . . . in sixty years."
It's just, from a distance of thirty-five years, a little older than half the age of Citizen Kane, The Godfather is starting to hold up just a bit better. The characters are fuller, the screenplay richer. The music is better. The cinematography comparison is a wash, with Gordon Willis's use of colors, of darkness and sunlight, matched by Greg Tolan's tracking and deep focus. Directing, narrowly, goes to Coppola over Welles, on the basis of the performances Coppola was able to coax, uniformly brilliant from the Godfather down to Enzo, the baker's helper. (Trivia: what do Coppola and Welles have in common for their respective efforts? Neither won Best Director at the Oscars, though both did win, as a co-writer, Best Screenplay. Welles, who should have also won for Best Actor, didn't.)
Conclusion? The 2018 poll will have a switching at numbers one and two.
The complete list here.
The Godfather has been edging ever upward the past few decades. Now number two, it is poised to take over as number one.
It is a close call, and Kane is certainly a masterpiece. But . . . to pick at a masterpiece, a few things simply do not hold up. The whole premise of the movie, for one--what newsreel service would hold up news of the death of a famous person for an entire week while poor Thompson went out in search of the answer to a word? And, if a reporter for a newsreel, where is Thompson's cameraman and camera?
And--to repeat what struck me at 13, when I first saw the movie--is there anyone not cognizant of the fact that Kane whispers his famous word alone in his bed, completely out of earshot of everyone? Who in the world hears "Rosebud"? Certainly not the nurse, who enters from the other room.
Some--not a lot, but some--of the dialog is painful to listen to: "Looky out here in the window!" And some of it is simply purposeless: see Joseph Cotten and Everett Sloane's conversation at the party introducing the stolen New York Chronicle staff, when they discuss whether the new staff will change Charlie or vice-versa. It's an interesting idea, but it goes nowhere, because the notion is simply dropped once Kane returns from Europe. In fact, we never see nor hear of this new staff ever again. (In fact, all account of Kane's career as a yellow journalist is simply dropped after the Spanish-American War, save for his brief attempt to gin up his second wife's opera career; the account of the last forty years of his life is given over to his domestic troubles, his run for the governership, Susan's singing career, and finally Florida.)
Understand: none of the above is to dislodge the film as a masterpiece. It is. In fact, I spent a half-hour last night arguing that very point with my new uncle in-law. Even now, when I see it, scene after scene prompts me nearly to applause. To mention just one eight-minute segment in the movie: Just about everything remembered in Thatcher's memoirs, starting with Agnes Moorhead in the cabin, to "Merry Christmas," to "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper," to twenty-five year-old Welles' first appearance on screen, the scene in the city room with Thatcher and Bernstein: "You provide the prose poems. I'll provide the war." Then the end: "You know Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place . . . in sixty years."
It's just, from a distance of thirty-five years, a little older than half the age of Citizen Kane, The Godfather is starting to hold up just a bit better. The characters are fuller, the screenplay richer. The music is better. The cinematography comparison is a wash, with Gordon Willis's use of colors, of darkness and sunlight, matched by Greg Tolan's tracking and deep focus. Directing, narrowly, goes to Coppola over Welles, on the basis of the performances Coppola was able to coax, uniformly brilliant from the Godfather down to Enzo, the baker's helper. (Trivia: what do Coppola and Welles have in common for their respective efforts? Neither won Best Director at the Oscars, though both did win, as a co-writer, Best Screenplay. Welles, who should have also won for Best Actor, didn't.)
Conclusion? The 2018 poll will have a switching at numbers one and two.
Giants 5, Yankees 4 (13)
I was thinking today about the play that--as much as any other--both led to and defined the Yankee dynasty of the late-90s.
Game 4, 1996 World Series, eighth inning, two outs. The Atlanta Braves had ran out a 6-0 lead (thank you, Kenny Rogers); the Yankees had cut that in half to 6-3 but were running out of outs.
Everyone knows what happened. With two men on, Jim Leyritz hit a home run off soon-t-be-former-closer Mark Wohlers (Joe Buck: "To the track, to the wall . . . we are tied!"), the Yankees went on to win not just that game but the next two, and the next 10 World Series games in a row after that, for a total of four rings in five years. The truly remarkable aspect about Leyritz's homer was how many other clutch hits were like it; this was a dynasty where comebacks such as the above were almost routine.
It is hard to remember but well to remember that the 90s Yankee dynasty almost ended before it started. In 1996, The Yankees were very fortunate they weren't swept in the ALDS by the Rangers (probably the best Rangers team ever); Games 2 and 3 of that series, both Yankee wins, were both late-inning comebacks involving about four flukey plays. And if Jeffrey Maier doesn't reach out catch Derek Jeter's fly ball, or if Rich Garcia makes the correct call on the play, New York starts the ALCS with an 0-2 deficit headed to Baltimore. And then of course there was Leyritz.
After a game like yesterday's, it is always remarkable to think back to those days, where it seemed every crucial cliffhanger fell the Yankees way. With one exception (Sandy Alomar's dinger in '97), a Yankee lead stayed a Yankee lead. A comeback--even to a tie--meant a victory. As for having a lead late, with the Hammer of God stretching in the bullpen . . . forget it.
In the 1998 World Series, there was the comeback from 5-0 in Game One, against Kevin Brown. In Game 3, Scottie Brosius's eight-inning homer off Trevor Hoffman. 1999: the late-inning magic against the Red Sox in the ALCS, followed by the erasure of two eighth-inning deficits against the Braves (and Maddux and Glavine, respectively). 2000: the seven-run, eighth-inning explosion against the Mariners, followed by David Justice's upper-deck smash in Game 6, followed by the World Series against the Mets, where in Games 1 and 5 . . .
You get the idea.
To many, the Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty (to quote Buster Olney) was that fateful Game 7 in the Desert. No elaboration needed. What always sticks out to me is Game 4 of the 2003 World Series, when, in the ninth inning, Ruben Sierra tripled home the tying runs against the Marlins. Millions--fresh from the latest Yankees-Red Sox war, with the memory of Aaron Boone still fresh--were on the same page: We got 'em. A victory, and a 3-1 Series lead, seemed inevitable. The dynasty would resume.
It didn't happen, of course, thanks to a cheap home run in the 13th, struck off a banished ex-starter while Mariano Rivera stood helplessly in the bullpen. I was upset of course, but I remember being also puzzled: Hmm. Interesting. Doesn't usually happen like this.
Nowadays, of course, it happens all to often. Tying homer in the ninth means . . . . tie game. Nothing more or less. The less comes later.
Game 4, 1996 World Series, eighth inning, two outs. The Atlanta Braves had ran out a 6-0 lead (thank you, Kenny Rogers); the Yankees had cut that in half to 6-3 but were running out of outs.
Everyone knows what happened. With two men on, Jim Leyritz hit a home run off soon-t-be-former-closer Mark Wohlers (Joe Buck: "To the track, to the wall . . . we are tied!"), the Yankees went on to win not just that game but the next two, and the next 10 World Series games in a row after that, for a total of four rings in five years. The truly remarkable aspect about Leyritz's homer was how many other clutch hits were like it; this was a dynasty where comebacks such as the above were almost routine.
It is hard to remember but well to remember that the 90s Yankee dynasty almost ended before it started. In 1996, The Yankees were very fortunate they weren't swept in the ALDS by the Rangers (probably the best Rangers team ever); Games 2 and 3 of that series, both Yankee wins, were both late-inning comebacks involving about four flukey plays. And if Jeffrey Maier doesn't reach out catch Derek Jeter's fly ball, or if Rich Garcia makes the correct call on the play, New York starts the ALCS with an 0-2 deficit headed to Baltimore. And then of course there was Leyritz.
After a game like yesterday's, it is always remarkable to think back to those days, where it seemed every crucial cliffhanger fell the Yankees way. With one exception (Sandy Alomar's dinger in '97), a Yankee lead stayed a Yankee lead. A comeback--even to a tie--meant a victory. As for having a lead late, with the Hammer of God stretching in the bullpen . . . forget it.
In the 1998 World Series, there was the comeback from 5-0 in Game One, against Kevin Brown. In Game 3, Scottie Brosius's eight-inning homer off Trevor Hoffman. 1999: the late-inning magic against the Red Sox in the ALCS, followed by the erasure of two eighth-inning deficits against the Braves (and Maddux and Glavine, respectively). 2000: the seven-run, eighth-inning explosion against the Mariners, followed by David Justice's upper-deck smash in Game 6, followed by the World Series against the Mets, where in Games 1 and 5 . . .
You get the idea.
To many, the Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty (to quote Buster Olney) was that fateful Game 7 in the Desert. No elaboration needed. What always sticks out to me is Game 4 of the 2003 World Series, when, in the ninth inning, Ruben Sierra tripled home the tying runs against the Marlins. Millions--fresh from the latest Yankees-Red Sox war, with the memory of Aaron Boone still fresh--were on the same page: We got 'em. A victory, and a 3-1 Series lead, seemed inevitable. The dynasty would resume.
It didn't happen, of course, thanks to a cheap home run in the 13th, struck off a banished ex-starter while Mariano Rivera stood helplessly in the bullpen. I was upset of course, but I remember being also puzzled: Hmm. Interesting. Doesn't usually happen like this.
Nowadays, of course, it happens all to often. Tying homer in the ninth means . . . . tie game. Nothing more or less. The less comes later.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Free Scooter Libby (back to politics)
Five months later, I finally learn to work the cut/paste mechanism on my new desktop..
Allow me to break out the mechanism thus:
Scooter Libby should not go to jail.
Christopher Hitchens (ta ra!)has the details.
Iraq, immigration, the coming '08 elections, Gaza, Hillary, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi--the political landscape is looking pretty dreary indeed.
Allow me to break out the mechanism thus:
Scooter Libby should not go to jail.
Christopher Hitchens (ta ra!)has the details.
Iraq, immigration, the coming '08 elections, Gaza, Hillary, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi--the political landscape is looking pretty dreary indeed.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Yankees 8. Mets 2
A good end to a vanity interleague series.
When I first presented the reality of a forever Yankees-Mets series to Desert Rose, she responded as any Sun Devil would:
"Well, it doesn't count in the standings, does it?"
Bless her heart, Desert Rose was responding as any college football fan would. Conference games, non-conference, all differentiated as we work toward the Rose Bowl.
(Understand--Desert Rose had her own morality as regards sporting events. Eighteen years before Pete Rose was thrown out of baseball, my mother saw him basically end Ray Fosse's career with a collison at home plate during the 1971 All-Star Game. My mother's take: "That was wrong. That game didn't count in the standings." Her verdict, Pete Rose: Asshole. Turned out to be so true.)
When I first presented the reality of a forever Yankees-Mets series to Desert Rose, she responded as any Sun Devil would:
"Well, it doesn't count in the standings, does it?"
Bless her heart, Desert Rose was responding as any college football fan would. Conference games, non-conference, all differentiated as we work toward the Rose Bowl.
(Understand--Desert Rose had her own morality as regards sporting events. Eighteen years before Pete Rose was thrown out of baseball, my mother saw him basically end Ray Fosse's career with a collison at home plate during the 1971 All-Star Game. My mother's take: "That was wrong. That game didn't count in the standings." Her verdict, Pete Rose: Asshole. Turned out to be so true.)
Saturday, June 16, 2007
The last three days
Whoa, how time flies during a lifestyle change.
Sorry, Blue, one personal note.
In the past ten years, I have undergone one major lifestyle change as regarded my sleeping hours. From the time I tok my doctorate in English (May, 1996) to the time I bedded down for two weeks with the flu (January, 1998), my night life was spent in the following fashion:
Mondays: stay up reading until past midnight, sleep, struggle awake the next morning.
Tuesdays: watch my prime time shows, go to Blanco's Bar & Grill at 10:30, play pool and drink beer until they kicked us out at midnight, go with my friends to the Ale House or Cecil's until last call, go to bed at 2:30, wake up early the next morning for my 8 am classes, all in preparation for a thunderous nap Wednesday afternoon, leading to . . .
Wednesday: rent a movie, go to sleep early.
Thursday: watch my prime time shows (Seinfeld, et al), drive downtown at 10:30 to Warren's Inn (the original Houston businessman's dive), hang out with two colleagues, go home past midnight, in preparation for my 8 am Friday class.
Friday: Try to work until 10. Then go out.
Saturday: Try to work until 10. Then go out.
Sunday: go to bed early, be unable to sleep, watch cable on the sofa until 2 am, in preparation for, yes, my Monday 8 am classes.
This lifestyle ended nine years ago this past January, when I tumbled into bed at 2:30 at the tale end of one Tuesday night . . . and woke up four hours later, completely and utterly unable to move, to get up, to go to my 8 am class. Well, I did, anyway, and then spent the next five days fighting off what was coming, then a week indulging in it, in bed, unable to move. Ah: I was 33, and the party was over.
So? Lifestyle change.
Early to bed, early to rise, blah blah blah.
Only thing: I was never early to bed, nor, really, early to rise. In Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney wrote of the (I think) barely noticeable pivot of the club evening during which 9 pm becomes becomes 2 am (he wrote it well--it was the best line he's ever written). For me, it was more along the lines of when 10:30 (the end of the news) becomes 1:30: three hours, one-eighth of my day, frittered away. Oh, sure, I could tell myself I was, um, pursuing new endeavors, or polishing this or that assignment, or what-all, but the truth was I was feeding my old habit. At those hours, I would sit down, inspired--then fatigue would be it--enough to stop serious work, not enough to warrant sleep--and I'd be off to the bookshelf for my collection of Muyrray Kempton essay, or the best of Red Smith; or of to the videocassette library (or DVD collection). Or maybe there was a great Sidney Lumet on the cable version of The Late Show: Network, maybe, or The Verdict, or Prince of the City, or (dare I hope?) Serpico.
Result: oversleep or wake up groggy, get to work late or on time and cranky, slog through a day waiting for nap time.
Then nap.
Then jog.
The Devil sent me the internet, to read book reviews published in Detroit, or first-hand accounts of the Titanic sinking, or Roger Ebert through the years. All quite fascinating.
Well, with marriage behind me, this past week, I thought I'd turn things around.
Bed by eleven.
Up at seven.
At my desk by nine, my pencils sharpened.
So far, so good.
But I'm having to patch, patch, patch.
So: the last three days. The Yankees. Two wins, one loss.
I've been watching Oliver Perez for years, back when he was with the Pirates. I thought: Who in the world could hit that slop? The bony kid, with a fastball that wouldn't blacken your eye--nevertheless, when on, could make up for lack of velocity with location and movement.
His performance against the Yankees doesn't surprise me in the least.
But okay. Three-point-five games behind Detroit.
The hitting is hitting.
The starting pitching is suddenly a strength.
And, yeah, it's bedtime.
Sorry, Blue, one personal note.
In the past ten years, I have undergone one major lifestyle change as regarded my sleeping hours. From the time I tok my doctorate in English (May, 1996) to the time I bedded down for two weeks with the flu (January, 1998), my night life was spent in the following fashion:
Mondays: stay up reading until past midnight, sleep, struggle awake the next morning.
Tuesdays: watch my prime time shows, go to Blanco's Bar & Grill at 10:30, play pool and drink beer until they kicked us out at midnight, go with my friends to the Ale House or Cecil's until last call, go to bed at 2:30, wake up early the next morning for my 8 am classes, all in preparation for a thunderous nap Wednesday afternoon, leading to . . .
Wednesday: rent a movie, go to sleep early.
Thursday: watch my prime time shows (Seinfeld, et al), drive downtown at 10:30 to Warren's Inn (the original Houston businessman's dive), hang out with two colleagues, go home past midnight, in preparation for my 8 am Friday class.
Friday: Try to work until 10. Then go out.
Saturday: Try to work until 10. Then go out.
Sunday: go to bed early, be unable to sleep, watch cable on the sofa until 2 am, in preparation for, yes, my Monday 8 am classes.
This lifestyle ended nine years ago this past January, when I tumbled into bed at 2:30 at the tale end of one Tuesday night . . . and woke up four hours later, completely and utterly unable to move, to get up, to go to my 8 am class. Well, I did, anyway, and then spent the next five days fighting off what was coming, then a week indulging in it, in bed, unable to move. Ah: I was 33, and the party was over.
So? Lifestyle change.
Early to bed, early to rise, blah blah blah.
Only thing: I was never early to bed, nor, really, early to rise. In Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney wrote of the (I think) barely noticeable pivot of the club evening during which 9 pm becomes becomes 2 am (he wrote it well--it was the best line he's ever written). For me, it was more along the lines of when 10:30 (the end of the news) becomes 1:30: three hours, one-eighth of my day, frittered away. Oh, sure, I could tell myself I was, um, pursuing new endeavors, or polishing this or that assignment, or what-all, but the truth was I was feeding my old habit. At those hours, I would sit down, inspired--then fatigue would be it--enough to stop serious work, not enough to warrant sleep--and I'd be off to the bookshelf for my collection of Muyrray Kempton essay, or the best of Red Smith; or of to the videocassette library (or DVD collection). Or maybe there was a great Sidney Lumet on the cable version of The Late Show: Network, maybe, or The Verdict, or Prince of the City, or (dare I hope?) Serpico.
Result: oversleep or wake up groggy, get to work late or on time and cranky, slog through a day waiting for nap time.
Then nap.
Then jog.
The Devil sent me the internet, to read book reviews published in Detroit, or first-hand accounts of the Titanic sinking, or Roger Ebert through the years. All quite fascinating.
Well, with marriage behind me, this past week, I thought I'd turn things around.
Bed by eleven.
Up at seven.
At my desk by nine, my pencils sharpened.
So far, so good.
But I'm having to patch, patch, patch.
So: the last three days. The Yankees. Two wins, one loss.
I've been watching Oliver Perez for years, back when he was with the Pirates. I thought: Who in the world could hit that slop? The bony kid, with a fastball that wouldn't blacken your eye--nevertheless, when on, could make up for lack of velocity with location and movement.
His performance against the Yankees doesn't surprise me in the least.
But okay. Three-point-five games behind Detroit.
The hitting is hitting.
The starting pitching is suddenly a strength.
And, yeah, it's bedtime.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Yankees 7, D-Backs 2
A few things may be falling into place:
1. One may make the case that, all at once, the Yanks have their best starting rotation since 2003, their last World Series year: Moose, Rocket and Pettitte again, all four years older, and Wang standing in for David Wells--an upgrade.
2. The offense, a definite upgrade from '03. A-Rod has come back from his mini-slump, Posada is batting .358, Jeter has been solid, Matsui is coming around.
3. The bullpen. Well, we'll see.
1. One may make the case that, all at once, the Yanks have their best starting rotation since 2003, their last World Series year: Moose, Rocket and Pettitte again, all four years older, and Wang standing in for David Wells--an upgrade.
2. The offense, a definite upgrade from '03. A-Rod has come back from his mini-slump, Posada is batting .358, Jeter has been solid, Matsui is coming around.
3. The bullpen. Well, we'll see.
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