There's No "I" in Blog

Usagi Biyombo!

patruby — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:29:00 -0400

Usagi Biyombo!

Boston Brewin': Some thoughts on the Cup

bumpasaurus — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:32:00 -0400

The Boston Bruins sent their city into a frenzy on Wednesday night when they dominated the Vancouver Canucks 4-0 in Game 7 to win their sixth Stanley Cup. Given Boston’s long sports history and its fans’ general fervor, it’s not surprising to read numerous accounts reminiscing on their personal relationships with hockey and the Bruins. The “Win it For…” thread on Sons of Sam Horn is chockablock with touching stories of parents, brothers, friends, and coaches who instilled in the forum’s posters a love for hockey and the Bruins. While not as long or quite as tragic as the Red Sox’s 86-year drought, the Bruins’ 39 years without a Cup inspired much of the same feelings in their supporters, and indeed, that thread is a homage to a similar thread in 2004.

I don’t have the personal connection to hockey or the Bruins that many others do. Not that I’m a bandwagon fan or anything—as with every sport I follow, I pay pretty close attention to the team and watch most regular season (and all playoff) games. But I never played hockey growing up, and I certainly feel like an outsider cheering along with guys and gals who got up early every day for practice and have been involved in rock ‘em sock ‘em battles of their own.*

While I can’t identify with the players who have worked their whole lives for the Cup, or the fans who wanted their Bruins to “Win it for” their die-hard father, mother, or Bobby Orr-idolizing grandfather, there are some qualities that this Bruins team embodies that everyone can admire.

Last year the Bruins became the first team in U.S. pro sports since 2004 and just the 4th of all time to blow a 3-0 series lead. While there were plenty of injuries for Boston—and Philadelphia was a very strong team in their own right (making at all the way to Game 6 of the Finals)—this was a huge disappointment, and many in Boston were calling for major changes. President Cam Neely and the rest of the Bruins’ front office stayed the course and kept the same coach, general manager, and the same core of players. At numerous points both in this year’s regular season and postseason, they faced adversity, and every time they responded. In the first round of the playoffs, they were down two games to none against bitter rival Montreal after captain Zdeno Chara had to sit out Game 2 with dehydration. They then scored the first three goals on the road in Game 3, winning it 4-2 to get themselves back in it. They were down 3-1 in Game 4 of that same series, looking at trailing the series 3-1. They won that game 5-4 in OT. In Game 2 of the next round against Philadelphia, they were down 2-0 after just ten minutes, but Tim Thomas saved the next 46 shots and Boston won in overtime. In Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, they gave up a three-goal lead and a chance to take a 3-1 lead against the Tampa Bay Lightning, but rallied to win the next game and eventually that series. And last, but probably most important, they fell down two games to none in the final and lost one of their best players, Nathan Horton, to an illegal hit, but rallied to win that game 8-1 and from that hit on outscored the Canucks 21-4.

As much as I’m inclined to disbelieve stories of motivation and leadership, it’s certainly believable that this team learned from adversity and made the extra effort and teamwork needed to win the Cup. Clichéd narratives like this make much more sense in a game like hockey where positioning, passing, and effort are so important, where there are players whose job it is to antagonize teams into taking bad penalties, or where teams will hit another guy just to make sure he’s tough enough. In hockey, if you don’t stand up for yourself** or have a teammate to stand up for you, you won’t last very long.

The Bruins’ teamwork, determination, and effort stand in stark contrast to their opponents in the final, who crossed numerous “hockey code” lines by diving, inflicting, or attempting cheap, dangerous hits and who blamed everyone but themselves for their failures during the series. The Bruins were able to remain smart and not get drawn into any wars of words, nor did they take any retaliatory penalties, even though it certainly must have been tempting. While they weren’t saints (Brad Marchand, I’m looking in your direction), they remained focused in a situation where a less driven team (and perhaps previous versions of the Bruins) may have lost their cool. And in the end, the team was rewarded and their fans can be proud.

*I think a big reason that hockey is such an insular game is that there’s a distinct difference between watching and playing it. The hardest part of the game for me to learn was the “code” involved in fighting, chirping, and post-whistle scrums. For someone who never competed on the ice, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that it’s OK for guys to simply throw down during a game, and I’m sure I still don’t comprehend the tremendous physicality involved in the game, as I’ve never taken a check or a slash. It’s another reason why hockey in warm-weather areas may just not work, as people in Florida didn’t grow up lacing them up every day (whether on a team or on the local pond).

**A really great anecdote from Elliotte Friedman’s always-interesting column: “It was 1996 when Chara first arrived in Canada, joining the WHL’s Prince George Cougars as a 19-year-old. Stan Butler, who coached that team, said the big Slovak was challenged to a fight three seconds into his first shift. He destroyed the guy. After he got out of the penalty box, someone else dropped the gloves. Chara won that, too. During the first intermission, Butler asked him if he’d ever fought before. The answer was no.” This illustrates both hockey’s unwritten rules and the toughness of Chara and the Bruins.

***Photo via Boston.com Big Shots by Mike Blake

Best Names of the 2011 MLB Draft

patruby — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:36:00 -0400

Just as we did last year, this year we kept track of the best names drafted in the 2011 MLB draft. 2011 wasn’t a particularly strong draft. It didn’t give us any Goodrums or Greathouses, but—carrying over Kendrick Perkins (Red Sox) from last year—we were able to field a full (but still bad) NBA starting 5, with Perkins, Brad Miller, Matt Barnes, Aaron Brooks, and Derek Fisher.

ROUND 1
Bubba Starling (Kansas City Royals)
Matt Barnes (Boston Red Sox) - not this Matt Barnes
Joe Panik (San Francisco Giants)
Mikie Mahtook (Tampa Bay Rays)

COMP ROUND A
Brad Miller (Seattle Mariners) - not this Brad Miller
Austin Hedges (San Diego Padres) - We like when names are also complete sentences.

ROUND 3
Bryan Brickhouse (Kansas City Royals)

ROUND 4
Kylin Turnbull (Washington Nationals)
Dillon Thomas (Colorado Rockies)
Kenneth Peoples-Walls (St. Louis Cardinals)

ROUND 5
John Leathersich (New York Mets)
Taylor Featherston (Colorado Rockies)
Chris Marlowe (San Francisco Giants)

ROUND 6
Derek Fisher (Texas Rangers)
David Goforth (Milwaukee Brewers) - He was also drafted last year by the Indians.

ROUND 7
Abel Baker (Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of California Angels)

ROUND 8
Kevin Quackenbush (San Diego Padres)

ROUND 9
Aaron Brooks (Kansas City Royals)

ROUND 13
Stephen Lumpkins (Kansas City Royals)

ROUND 17
Adam Choplick (Arizona Diamondbacks)

ROUND 27
Derrick Loveless (Toronto Blue Jays)
Steven Snodgrass (San Francisco Giants)

ROUND 31
Aaron Bummer (New York Yankees)

ROUND 34
Adam Weisenburger (Milwaukee Brewers)

ROUND 38
Devin Shines (Los Angeles Dodgers)

ROUND 40
Raphael Rhymes (Pittsburgh Pirates)
Jordan Gross (Boston Red Sox)

ROUND 42
Joseph Pankake (Texas Rangers)

ROUND 48
Malcolm Clapsaddle (New York Mets)

ROUND 50
Travis Pitcher (Oakland Athletics)

Bullied: The 2010-2011 Boston Celtics Eulogy

bumpasaurus — Mon, 16 May 2011 12:33:42 -0400

At least it ended in a good way. LeBron went off, dropped the dagger, beat his chest, and acted like he had gotten further than the Eastern Conference Finals and like Dwayne Wade wasn’t the main reason for it. Wait, this isn’t a particularly good end. But it’s better than what I had envisioned, which was a game 7 loss, perhaps in overtime, as Lebron or Wade drove to the lane possession after possession, consistently drawing fouls while similar play on the other end went unrewarded. Or one of the Heat stars accidentally-on-purpose knocking a Celtic down and injuring him. Or maybe the refs overstepping their bounds and throwing a Celtic out of a crucial game for using bad language, which is technically in the rulebook but if applied fairly would mean nearly every player (except maybe Ray Allen and A.C. Green) would get tossed from every game.

With the way games one through three went, these scenarios weren’t even a fantasy. They actually happened. Now, no one wants to be the one who complains about the refs. “Only losers whine about that.” And yes, that’s true, and it’s unbecoming, but it also assumes a base level of competence from the officials. When the officials are decent and a losing fan complains about a borderline call, that’s whining. But in a series reffed the way this one was, it’s simply being realistic to discuss the effect the officiating had on the series. Consider:

In five games, Miami attempted 47 more free throws than Boston. So nearly ten per game. It’s generally accepted that the Celtics are more of a jump-shooting team, while the Heat like to go hard to the basket, so maybe this disparity isn’t surprising. But adding up the totals by shot type (according to CBS Sports), the Celtics actually attempted 108 layups and 18 dunks, while Miami only attempted 95 layups and 16 dunks. I’m willing to buy that Miami’s drives to the hoop were more likely to draw a foul, given James’ and Wade’s playing styles, but not so much more likely as to warrant such a disparity.

I was also pretty unhappy about Dwayne Wade pulling Rajon Rondo down and injuring his elbow, rendering him pretty ineffective for the next two games. Rondo is of course the Celtics’ biggest offensive weapon, and as we saw in previous playoffs, he has a tendency to turn up his game when the team needs him most. But on a play when the ball was far away, Wade hooked his leg around Rondo and knocked him over awkwardly. While he was ostensibly protecting Rondo from chasing the ball, I thought it was an unnecessary non-basketball play and should have been called a flagrant foul. But it fit right in with the Heat’s pattern of physical, bullying play that bruised Ray Allen’s chest, knocked Rondo down repeatedly, and got the Celtics into foul trouble (along with a couple phantom technicals*) and was generally ignored by the officials.

*Is it weird to anyone else how little was mentioned about the flagrant foul on Jermaine O’Neal and technical on Pierce in game one that caused a five-point swing in the former case and an ejection in the latter, both of which were later rescinded by the league? I know the refs can’t be perfect, but something is wrong when two calls that have such an obvious effect on the outcome of the game are later admitted by the NBA to be wrong.

Some more thoughts on the series:

-I’m unlikely to watch the rest of the playoffs at this point. It’s a shame, because basketball is a great game, but it’s really being ruined for me by poor officiating and boring play from the Heat. I much prefer teams that run offenses, setting screens and making the extra pass, than teams who put it in one of two players’ hands and either jab-step and shoot a jumper or drive and expect a foul at worst.

-Where do the Celtics go from here? There’s lots of talk about “blowing up the core,” but this doesn’t make any sense to me. The Big Four are all signed at least through next year (when Garnett’s contract expires) so it makes sense to me to bring them back, see what Jermaine and Shaq O’Neal can offer, see what an offseason can do for Jeff Green’s teamwork and basketball IQ (and for the Big Three’s legs and other nagging injuries) and see what happens. At the end of the year, Garnett and Allen’s contracts expire, so GM Danny Ainge needs to again take a look at the team at the trading deadline and, if things don’t look promising, deal those expiring contracts for future pieces. I don’t have any delusions about the Celtics’ chances next year, but if enough things go right (Green matures, good health, some good bench additions through free agency or even the draft) they have as much shot as anyone.

Hey, at least they didn’t go down like the Lakers!

Any Day Ellsbury #4: Very Superstitious

patruby — Fri, 13 May 2011 14:42:00 -0400

Inspired by Ted Walker’s “Every Day Ichiro” over at Pitchers & Poets, I’ll be chronicling the 2011 Red Sox season by paying close attention to outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury.

I have no idea if Jacoby Ellsbury has any kind of pregame rituals or superstitions. I haven’t even noticed if he has prepitch routine. (I did, however, notice that a few games ago, in his first AB, Ellsbury did the thing Ichiro does where he holds his right arm straight out, holding the bat vertically. I’ve never noticed him do that before, and I haven’t seen him do it since.) I’m not sure it matters for the purposes of this post, anyway; the fact that I’ve started every sentence so far with “I” should make it clear that this post is about more about me than Ellsbury. When it comes to baseball, I am very superstitious.

Two nights ago, Ellsbury’s 19-game hitting streak was snapped by an 0-4 night at the plate. Around 15 games, I started thinking, “If he keeps this going, I’m going to have to write about it.” At 18 games, I thought, “Well, I don’t want to jinx him.” Yes, I do, in fact, know how silly it is to think that a blog post discussing Ellsbury’s hitting streak could ruin it, just as I think it’s silly any time a fan thinks any of his or her actions can directly influence the outcome of a game. But for some reason my own weird baseball-related superstitions have never gone away.

Baseball, maybe more than any other sport, is full of these little eccentricities. Teammates don’t talk to a pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter. The words “perfect game” or “no-hitter” are off limits until the possibility of either has disappeared. Players avoid stepping on the foul lines while taking the field, except for those players who go out of their way to always step on the line. Then there are all the different prepitch routines. These are only examples of on the field routines. Back when my brother was still playing, if he hit a home run one day, he had to eat the same exact meals the next day (a fact I found very entertaining when he opened the 2001 season with homers in his first three games).

As for myself: back when I played, I believed in not washing my white sanitary socks (for those who don’t know, those are the socks that go under your stirrups) until I went hitless in a game. The same went for my long-sleeve undershirt. Needless to say, I had moments on my summer league teams where I probably smelled really disgusting. Anyway, those days are long gone (I’m OLD!), but apparently some kind of remnants have lingered long enough for me to think I could have ruined Ellsbury’s hit streak. Fortunately, I can write this knowing I had nothing to do with his streak’s end.

Ellsbury gets a chance to start a new streak tonight as the Red Sox visit Yankee Stadium.

Any Day Ellsbury #3: Where I Ramble About Stephen Crane and Ellsbury the Killer Robot

patruby — Thu, 05 May 2011 14:04:46 -0400

Inspired by Ted Walker’s “Every Day Ichiro” over at Pitchers & Poets, I’ll be chronicling the 2011 Red Sox season by paying close attention to outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury.

I’ve always been drawn to people in the middle of things. One of my former literature professors called them “characters on edges.” Stephen Crane’s Jack Potter, town marshal of Yellow Sky in “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,” has always been one of my favorite characters because of how he had one foot in the diminishing Wild West and the other in the more civilized West. Newland Archer—despite his Hamlet-esque waffling in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence—is another, simply because he was torn between two smoking hot babes who apparently represented old Victorian values and a new age of American modernism. If you’re not yet wondering what this has to do with Jacoby Ellsbury, then congratulations, you are just as nerdy as I am. I wrote before that I’m drawn to Ellsbury’s extremes; he struggles badly and goes on crazy hot streaks. Ellsbury constantly hovers on the precipice of greatness and mediocrity.

Ellsbury’s ridiculous speed and athleticism might be all that keeps him from sliding into mediocrity. He is, in all other aspects, a rather generic baseball player. He’s an outfielder who is decent at reading the ball off the bat but makes up for bad jumps by being super fast, and he has a below-average throwing arm. His streaky hitting is usually caused by his mechanics getting a little out of wack. In short: Ellsbury is close to being a replacement level player. Maybe this doesn’t surprise a lot of people. I know a fair amount of Boston fans were ready to ship him out last season. But when he’s on his game (which he has been lately), Ellsbury looks less like the generic, Randy Winn-type outfielder and more like the electrifying Carl Crawford-type player.* Maybe that’s an unnecessary shot at Winn, but the point is that Winn is an entirely unremarkable player.

*While discussing this post with a friend of mine, he said Randy Winn wishes he could be as good as Carl Crawford while Crawford is currently playing like Randy Winn.

Since Ellsbury’s athleticism is what separates him from the pack, it’s what I find myself focusing on. I look for smiles, laughter, and other facial expressions, even the slightest burst of anger at a bad call or a swing he’d like to take back, but there’s almost never anything there. It’s as if Ellsbury has learned his on-field demeanor from JD Drew, who is only notable in that he never expresses any emotion. He is often robotic, and Ellsbury has adopted Drew’s machine-like qualities. Ellsbury is always stone-faced and sometimes seems cold, which makes his speed that much more fun. Everyone knows that, once he’s on first, he’s going to steal second. It’s a programmed decision, and Ellsbury is only calculating the precise pitch to run on. Sometimes he teases the pitcher into throwing to first a billion times, making the pitcher think maybe he’s held Ellsbury close enough to prevent the theft. And when he steals anyway, I like to imagine it crushes the soul of the pitcher, because he’s less of a replacement level player and more of a killer robot designed to crush spirits.

*Photo courtesy of Keith Allison via Creative Commons License

New at the Unified Field Theory Shooting (SF) Giants: A photo...

patruby — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:30:55 -0400

New at the Unified Field Theory

Shooting (SF) Giants: A photo essay by Stephanie Lim

Any Day Ellsbury #2: The Weekend in Jacoby

patruby — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:30:19 -0400

Inspired by Ted Walker’s “Every Day Ichiro” over at Pitchers & Poets, I’ll be chronicling the 2011 Red Sox season by paying close attention to outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury.

Ellsbury hasn’t done a whole lot to write about so far. He has made a couple of nice defensive plays, he’s still struggling at the plate, and—like all of the Red Sox—he’s been upstaged by Dustin Pedroia’s “Laser Show.” Pedroia seems to want to carry the whole team on his back, and he’s doing a damn fine job of it. At times I thought I picked the wrong player to follow for the season, but there’s just something more attractive about a player who can both be an offensive spark and also struggle at times. I wonder what goes through the mind of a player like Ellsbury when he looks so visibly disappointed at himself after watching a perfect fastball go by him for a called strike. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pedroia never went through another slump ever again.

On to the weekend: I’ll admit I didn’t watch an entire game this weekend, but I did catch most of all three games. I spent most of the weekend doing household chores and watching sports, rotating through baseball and the NBA playoffs. Baseball has always been my favorite sport, so I always go back to it. Ellsbury served as my anchor this weekend; no matter what I did, I did my best not to miss an Ellsbury at-bat. Washing dishes can be quite relaxing with the TV volume loud enough to hear Remy’s and Orsillo’s voices over the swoosh of soapy water.

Despite not having a hit on Saturday, Ellsbury showed why he can be such an asset to the Sox offense with two walks. I’m okay with Ellsbury walks because they’re pretty much the same as a double. After a walk in the second inning, I (and all of Fenway) expected Ellsbury to steal second, which led to a number of throw-overs by Jays pitcher Jo-Jo Reyes, which ultimately led to a Jed Lowrie home run. I feel like it’s easy to overrate the effect a runner can have on distracting a pitcher from the batter, but I do think there’s something to it. Maybe some advanced stats guys can educate me on that. (Also, Ian and I have been on the #FreeJedLowrie hashtag on the Twittermachines.)

On Sunday, he crushed a ball around the Pesky Pole for his third homer of the season. Three homers for Ellsbury this early in the season is a bit surprising, if not a little troubling. As Remy pointed out, his swing had a bit of an uppercut motion to it. I don’t really want him trying to hit homers. I want him hitting line drives, which he’s not doing right now. He is, however, getting walks, which is nice.

Ellsbury’s been bounced from leadoff to the 8- and 9-spots in the lineup, which is indicative of how much lineup shuffling has been going on with the Sox in general. I believe most of the shuffling is caused by trying to get Crawford going and finding a consistent spot for him in the lineup. Ideally, I’d like to see Ellsbury leading off, followed by Crawford and Pedroia, but the Sox lineup has so many offensive weapons—especially when Lowrie is in there—that finding a consistent lineup can be difficult.

litandbasketball: Hope is the thing with feathers - Emily...

patruby — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 08:55:17 -0400

litandbasketball:

Hope is the thing with feathers

- Emily Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers”

Submission from Lit And Basketball reader whatthenoelle

Photo

patruby — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:18:11 -0400

Any Day Ellsbury #1: Intro, 0-5, and 0-6

patruby — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:22:21 -0400

Ted Walker of Pitchers & Poets has been doing a wonderful ongoing project called “Every Day Ichiro,” where he tracks the Seattle Mariners’ season through the lens of Ichiro Suzuki. I’ve chatted briefly with him about my idea of doing the same thing with Jacoby Ellsbury. I’ve been fascinated with Ellsbury ever since he appeared with the Boston Red Sox in 2007 and played an integral role in the team’s World Series run. The fact that both he and I went to Oregon State University certainly helped me jump on the Ellsbury speed train as well. In baseball, I’m always drawn to the hyper-athletic, speedy players like Ellsbury (and Ichiro). These players demand attention because every pitch might lead to something brilliant; with them, diving-catch highlights, inside-the-park homers, and any other exciting or rare feat is always a possibility. Any poorly hit ground ball still might result in a single, which will probably result in a stolen base, which can easily change the dynamic of a game. So, inspired by Ted, I’ve decided to track the 2011 Boston Red Sox season through Ellsbury.

I decided to go with “Any Day Ellsbury” instead of “Every Day Ellsbury” for a few reasons. The first simple reason is that 162 games is a lot of games to write about, let alone watch. For example, today’s first pitch was at 12:05 p.m., which means I couldn’t watch it while at work. Also, while Ellsbury makes fun baseball plays, he doesn’t really carry the enigmatic, zen-like presence of Ichiro. (The closest thing Ellsbury might have to that is that Red Sox fans think he’s dreamy looking.) Still, on any given day, Ellsbury might do something that makes me think, “I need to write about this!”

Last night, Ellsbury went 0-5 (same as the Red Sox record at the time!) bringing his batting average to .143. I should be in panic mode, right? I mean, Red Sox Nation is! Okay, maybe the Nation isn’t on red alert, but no one thought it would take this long for the Sox to get a win. I’ve always wondered what goes through a professional athlete’s head after a 3-strikeout, 0-5 game after the the postgame interview or the immediate frustration. I wonder what lingers, if anything, after a game like that, and after six games without a win.

Sure, it’s a long season, but Ellsbury’s final AB last night (broken bat groundout to second) pretty much sums up the Red Sox season so far.

*Top photo courtesy of Keith Allison via Creative Commons License

Lights Out: War

patruby — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 12:28:45 -0400

I was tempted to write this final recap in an unending sequence of clichés that built upon each other because it would have been exactly like the season/series finale of Lights Out: a bunch of rehashed tropes that was somehow entertaining to watch. From the boxing sequences (where Lights gets thrown out of the ring and uses the rope-a-dope) to random camera shots (Barry, Hal, Johnny, and Pops waiting in the hall after the fight could have been lifted straight out of Ocean’s 11), everything seemed overdone.

Instead, I’ll keep this short because, unfortunately, there’s not a lot to say about this show. This final episode seemed to be building new story lines for the show’s second season that won’t happen, like the League of Extraordinary Boxing Gentlemen, the incredible and bloody aftermath of trifling with Barry K. Word’s business, and the (immediate) onset of Lights’s memory loss. None of that really matters, I suppose. The only thing I’ll miss without a second season is seeing how Reynolds deals with his fall from grace. I’ve said before that Reynolds was a lot like Lights, and it would have been interesting to see how that played out as he went through the same things Lights did.

Sidenote: During the press conference, Reynolds points out that if he were in the same legal troubles as Lights, he would immediately face an assumption of guilt because he’s black. This is obviously a huge theme that seldom arose throughout the season, and discussing racism so openly always puts people on alert. This should have been bigger all season. This is why you can’t have nice things, FX Network.

Real Life Sidenote: The moment where Lights tells the ref to stop the fight was interesting, when you consider what happened in the recent Manny Pacquiao fight.

Literary Sidenote: The ending of Lights Out had a very nice ambiguously happy-sad ending. I immediately thought of Thom Jones’s The Pugilist at Rest, which is a fantastic book of short stories about boxing (and other awesome things).

Tommy Amaker's Breakfast Club

patruby — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:21:21 -0400

Tommy Amaker's Breakfast Club:

But once a month, the fourth-year Harvard men’s basketball coach adds a different element to his routine.

On these days, Amaker pays a visit to Harvard Square restaurant Henrietta’s Table. It is there that Amaker meets with nearly a dozen predominately African-American scholars, doctors, and businessmen from the Boston area for a monthly breakfast that provides an opportunity for the group to share in conversation, laughter, and good-natured trash talking.

Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t you forget about me.

latimes: What became known as Fernandomania began with an...

patruby — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:29:39 -0400

latimes:

What became known as Fernandomania began with an opening-day shutout by Mexican rookie Fernando Valenzuela 30 years ago, reports Dylan Hernandez:

He said he didn’t notice more Latinos in the seats at Dodger Stadium. Or that he was helping ease long-standing ethnic and cultural tensions in the city. Or that he was drawing the attention of businesses to the growing Latino market. Or that because of him teams were increasingly looking outside the country for players.

“The impact he made not only in Southern California but in all of the country, it was really great for the game,” said Bud Selig, commissioner of baseball.

Photo: Valenzuela salutes the crowd after pitching a three-hit shutout for his eighth consecutive victory to start the 1981 season. More photos on Framework. Credit: Rob Brown / Herald Examiner Collection

There was something in the air that night…

(Dropped) Handoff

waltinboston — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:00:57 -0400

(Dropped) Handoff:

Seriously? Nobody thought the second-to-last paragraph maybe warranted a bit more focus? Maybe even a sub-headline?

Lights Out: Sucker Punch

patruby — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:01:14 -0400

In any half-decent writing workshop, someone inevitably says something like, “You know what? I need to know more about (blank) character.” Even if it’s a stupid comment, it always comes up. If Lights Out were being workshopped, that question would be followed by ones like, “Where is the Leary mother?” and “Why did she leave?” And if you’re writing workshop is only half-decent, the writer will carelessly throw in some crazy answers to the crazy questions late in their story just because everyone bugged them about it. Lights Out did just that, introducing Patrick’s mother, Mae, played by Valerie Perrine.

Mae walks back into the Leary life, and Patrick and Pops welcome her with open arms. I’m not sure why Pops didn’t react the way Margaret and Johnny did, because it’s not like Mae has entered and exited their lives five or six hundred times or anything. Patrick’s daughters fawn over their new grandma, too, which is weird. Blah, blah, blah. It’s another cliché plot device in a season full of clichés. She left Pops for a drummer (not to be mistaken for a musician) who is so broke he forces Mae to weasel money out of the Leary family. Patrick finds out and breaks little drummer boy’s hand before giving Mae $20 grand I didn’t know he had and cutting her out of his and his family’s lives.

Yes, this show has been a series of clichés and guest stars, but it’s somehow still very entertaining. Maybe it’s because the acting is great. Barry K. Word should burst into every scene and just start spittin’ hot fire at everyone. Margaret’s hospital freak out was great. (She’s been one of the best characters on the show despite not getting as much camera time as others.) Then Eamonn Walker as Ed Romeo and David Morse as “Rainmaker” were great. Even Lester the drummer, who gets two minutes of airtime was played by the very good Paul Calderon. Or maybe it’s because the show is smart enough to have Margaret (and Johnny) treating Mae the way they did. It adds a nice bit of believability to a show that can feel shark-jumpy with all the coming and going of side characters.

Oh yeah, while all this was going on, there’s some preparation for a big boxing match that is supposed to be happening in the season’s (and series’s) final episode next week. The betting line drops so hard that Barry comes in and spits fire, someone tries to pull a drive-by on Hal and Margaret, and Johnny pulls an amusing prank to steady the line, making the media think Reynolds had a heart attack. It’s a jerkface move that even Pops seems to enjoy. Johnny’s smirk when seeing his work unfold really was a fantastic moment of television. Hal then tells Lights that he was moving the line low because that way, the odds against Lights means a bigger payout for anyone who bets on him. Somehow Barry, Johnny, or anyone else missed that day of Gambling 101.

Sidenote: Ever since I found out Billy Brown is both “Death Row” Reynolds and the narrator of the U.S. Marines commercials, it’s been impossible for me to watch any of his outbursts on Lights Out without thinking, “The few. The proud. The marines.” This amused me even more after he threw a table over on (live?) television.

Gross Sidenote: I mentioned it a few times throughout the season, but I don’t get how schleazy old Johnny manages to hook up with everyone in exchange for promoting his brother’s boxing career.

Hilarious Historical Guest Character Sidenote: Valeria Perrine’s IMDB page says she was the “first woman to display (on purpose) her nipples on American network television.”

Video

patruby — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 14:37:05 -0400

via Best Week Ever

patruby — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 11:33:14 -0400

via Best Week Ever

Lights Out: Rainmaker

patruby — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:12:30 -0400

I’ll be honest: I’ve never gotten completely on board with Lights Out, but I only figured out why after watching last night’s episode. The show seems to float between a successful serial drama and a show more like Law & Order, where the stories are wrapped up at the end of each episode. “Rainmaker” is a perfect example.

All of a sudden, Patrick has to deal with the repercussions of his delivering a birthday cake with a sweet filling of CASH MONEY to a lowdown dirty councilman. This takes up most of the episode, as Patrick is arrested, his home is searched, and a nice FBI man pays a courtesy visit to Patrick at the Leary gym.

While all this is going on, there’s another story line involving another former boxing champion by the name of Rainmaker (played very well by David Morse, of Treme and House). For 3/4 of the episode, the two stories seem unrelated; Margaret says she wanted Patrick to see him because he’s all punchdrunk, broke, and can’t remember anything he doesn’t write down. She doesn’t want to see her brother end up like that. At one point, Theresa, who apparently watches crime dramas like Law & Order when she’s not on camera, is surprisingly willing to come up with an amazing and complicated story about how Rainmaker was the “champ” who delivered the moneycake, not Lights.

These plots come together in the very end when it’s revealed that Lights paid Rainmaker to make it rain (with his fists, not cash money) on the councilman. Rainmaker gobbles down the paper with the councilman’s hotel address on it, so it’s like it never happened. For me, that moment saved the episode from being a complete bust. It was such a good ending that I didn’t see coming, even though it should have been ridiculously obvious. (Theresa pretty much lays the groundwork for it with her crazy plan!) The problem is that Rainmaker will likely disappear completely from the series, like Ed Romeo, while the major story line of the FBI investigations has to keep going.

Sidenote: Reynolds’ brief appearance is rad. He essentially turns Lights into their rematch’s bad guy by pointing out that, with the sum of shady things happening to Lights, some of it has to be true. Then he implies that he’s always the bad guy because of his race, which is probably true. Reynolds kicks ass.

Sad-eyed Sidenote: I love Hal Brennan as a bad guy. He’s so calm and evil! I have to admit though, I crack up every time he gives this sad puppydog face to threaten Patrick.

The lexicon according to a Knicks legend

patruby — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:39:16 -0400

The lexicon according to a Knicks legend