Baseball Watch: Eight Men Out (1988)

Watched:  07/23/2024

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  Second or Third

Director:  John Sayles

I haven't seen a ton of John Sayles, but if you want to see me get excited, let's talk Matewan or Lonestar sometime.  Sayles has become sidelined in the movie conversation.  If folks like Coppola, Lynch and Cronenberg are having a hard time out there, you can only guess how it's going for a guy who has always had a hard time convincing exhibitors that people will like his movies when he was at the top of his game.  Sayles' general lack of huge Hollywood success is partially why I think we can safely ignore awards/ box-office and just enjoy a movie.

I remember watching Eight Men Out (1988) the first time back in college, well before I was watching baseball, and eventually kind of fell in love with the sport (I'm currently watching the Cubs try to lose to the Brewers here in the 9th - whoops.  Yup.  They lost.).  But movies were a huge part of how I developed an interest in baseball to begin with.  

Willie Mays Merges With The Infinite

American legend and baseball player, Willie Mays, has passed at the age of 93.

Mays was, statistically, one of the best to ever pick up a bat and put on a glove.  His career started prior to the advent of the Golden Glove, and he still won 12 of them, consecutively.  He had 660 career home runs and a .302 career batting average.  And, frankly, it's exhausting to think about telling you people about every single one of his records and achievements.  Here's Wikipedia.  

I'm not sure we'll see his like again as a player.  Most baseball folk have him in company with Babe Ruth.  But, if the MLB can learn anything from Hays, I'd tell them:  let your players love the game the way Hays did.  Before I'd read about what kind of player he was - heck, before I knew about baseball - I knew him as a larger-than-life personality who took joy in people and his sport.  The game needs that, and is at its best when you've got those players.

We're sorry to see him go, but as long as people talk about baseball, folks are going to talk about The Say Hey Kid.  

Sports Watch: Moneyball (2011)

Watched:  02/27/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bennett Miller

Selection:  Jamie, but I was happy to do so

We're getting geared up for baseball season, so I'd expect we'll watch another baseball movie or two til the end of Spring Training and then switch over to regular Cubs-viewing.  

I hadn't seen Moneyball (2011) when it came out basically because I was busy watching other stuff.  I thought the premise - based on real-life events - seemed great.  And the aftermath of the events has wildly informed how baseball now works for MLB teams, analysts, fantasy players and even casual fans like myself trying to better understand the game (and occasionally checking on a hunch).

The basic plot of the movie is based on the 2002 season for the Oakland A's - and I can tell you now, I have zero memory of any of this happening as I didn't follow baseball at the time.  Following a great 2001 season that ends in a loss at the ALDS, the A's lose their best players and have no budget.  GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) sits with his scouts/ brain-trust to think about who to bring in, and he knows it will be a disaster.  Coming across a bright young man with a degree in economics and a head for SABRstatistics, Beane and Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) return to the recruiting session and put a roster down of players who are cheap, but - statistically - should be able to take the team far farther than best guesses and the weird mumbo jumbo that informs sports-think.

The team doesn't perform, and then it does.  (This is all on Wikipedia and common knowledge to A's fans, I'd guess).  

Meanwhile, Billy navigates his past and present, informing him how he should proceed.  And somehow they landed Robin Wright for what's usually a walk-on part of the ex-wife.*  

SPOILERS

Sports Watch: The Sandlot (1993)

Watched:  02/21/2024

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Mickey Evans

Selection:  Jamie

I was wrapping up my senior year of high school when The Sandlot (1993) hit.  At the time, I was more interested in adult-oriented movies, and not at all into baseball, so the movie came and went without much notice on my part.  I'd have forgotten about it completely, but it's since become an inter-generational favorite, especially with baseball fans (which is by far the best sport to put in a movie), and has become a meme-generating perennial.  "You're killing me, Smalls" has escaped the fandom of the film and made it's way into pop culture.

Jamie pitched it for our evening viewing, and wanting to know what the hubbub was about, we gave it a whirl.

Absolutely, I was reminded of the era, circa 1980-84, when my family lived near a cul-de-sac in Spring, Texas, in the halcyon summer days when kids were kicked out of the house after breakfast, drank out of hoses, and would set up games of baseball to play all afternoon.  We used the cul-de-sac as our diamond, and our certainty we were terrible at baseball ensured we weren't putting out any windows.  My neighborhood was chock full of kids around our age, so getting a handful together to play was never a big deal.  In some ways, I was primed.

Cubs Watch: Rookie of the Year (1993)

Watched:  08/20/2023

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Daniel Stern

So, every year before baseball starts, I tell myself "I gotta watch The Sandlot and Rookie of the Year", and then, I do not watch them.  I've never doubted they're fine movies, but both came out when I was not really watching non-animated kids movies, and baseball wasn't my jam at the time.

But movies were part of my interest in baseball.  I loved Field of Dreams and Eight Men Out (you have John Sayles to thank for my interest in the sport).  A League of Their Own is one of my "I'll sit and watch this" movies when it comes on TV.  

Anyway, I kind of had an idea of what this movie would be - and it was not that.  It's actually really funny and goofy in a way that sells the absurd concept, bordering on cartoonishness.  In a good way.

Signal Watch Round-Up: Sportsball and Television

 

Sportsball

Futbol is underway

Austin FC

Austin FC is my local team and my point of view when it comes to soccer/ futbol.  I am a fan.  I'll be ride-or-die with this team and the fanbase.  They are off to a very rough start.  

Futbol is a weird sport in that, unlike pretty much every other US-based sport, they don't just play within their league.  They also will play within a variety of Cups series, which adds extra games in the middle of the week.  It's bananas.  But, you can also get knocked out if you lose those games.  Which AFC did. 

It hasn't helped that my guy, Julio Cascante, went down with an injury about twenty minutes into the new season and one of our other strong defenders, Gabrielsen, returned to Norway for family reasons.  Anyway, it's not been great, but it's a long season.  And I'll be there!  Verde!  Listos!

In fact, we have tickets to see them play next week.

Apple and MLS

Apple+ is now the home for all of MLS, which is... fine.  I don't think they're actually sending the folks calling games to the stadiums, and because they're treating it almost like NCAA football coverage, they're missing what Americans depend on in some ways during long sporting seasons - we need coverage by homers.  

I don't know who the people are covering games.  They don't show them, they don't explain who they are, and there's a real tendency in soccer coverage to do it in a "what I would have done here" way I expect out of football games at 11:00 AM on a Saturday by ESPN's third tier guys.  It's not holistic coverage recognizing the audience, it's putting the person calling the game in the position of critic and a second adversary when you're watching.  I love baseball coverage by my local folks because they're living and dying with the team, an extension of that team, and they know to be merciful to the audience listening while also being honest.  It seems like an easy tweak for Apple to make, but I assume that placing teams in every city if very expensive versus having people sitting at a table in New York watching the games on a feed, which is what I suspect is happening.

I was also expecting the obvious to occur and a SportsCenter style show to arrive by Sunday morning after the Saturday matches, but instead it's basically just a dry highlight reel.  This is, in fact, bad.  It both keeps the audience at a distance from the game, players and staff, but it also suggests that there's nothing to see here or discuss, really.  Which...  I'm the first person to make fun of the endless coverage of sports on 5 Fox Sports channels, 10 ESPN channels, 4 NBC Channels, etc...  and the parade of dum-dums who get paid to make stuff up about sports.  But I don't think 30-60 minutes per week to cover an entire sports league that gets no coverage elsewhere is asking too much.  

USWNT

This weekend the US Women's National Team is playing in Austin, and I failed to secure tickets.  I'm a little down about it, but I think they'll be back, maybe even this year as they head toward World Cup play this summer.  

And do plan to watch this summer,  USWNT looks great, but in addition to the usual other power houses, England's team seems to be on an incredible roll.  

But let's see what Rose Lavelle and Crystal Dunn do this year for USWNT.

Baseball Begins

The baseball season is underway!  Cubs are still gelling and look middle-of-the-road so far.  I didn't watch much last year, but am giving it some time again, which means figuring out who some of these guys are, especially on pitching.  

And, it's hard to know how good any of these guys will be over the length of the season.  You see people come in hot at the start of a season and fizzle at the end of month one.  Other people get hot for a while.  Others - especially pitchers - can be all over the place during a season.  I'm excited one of our pitchers seems to have found a good spot as a reliever (Alzolay).  But I also want to see more out of defense, especially around third base.  

And, I've been watching Pitching Ninja videos.

Anyway, baseball!  

Television

The Wire

I never watched The Wire when it first aired.  Until HBOmax, HBO was something I'd have sporadically, but didn't feel the need to watch whatever was the hot HBO show and the movie selection was usually pretty mediocre.  

My brother had the series on DVD and loaned it to Jamie and me in 2007, but according to him we weren't "watching it fast enough" to demonstrate we truly appreciated it.  And he took the DVD set away.  It was hilarious, but I wound up just not watching the show at all.

But now I have the idiotically named HBOmax* and therefore access to The Wire, and I'm watching it with Laura and Marshall, one episode per week.  Laura is documenting her journey through The Wire via this Tumblr.

I am sure my participation is frustrating for my pals as I tend not to say a lot about a TV show until the end of a season.  I'm either enjoying it or I'm not, but I tend not to want to say much about a character's arc until the end of the season, because that's when you can say what worked or what didn't.  Anything before is guess work.  

As I mentioned in our chat, if you've worked for a large organization or one that's "political" (I suspect everyone's workplace with more than six people is political, literally or figuratively), it's a reminder of how people and their self-interest are their own worst enemies when it comes to solving the problems their paid to solve.  Obviously the point of the show, but - it's kind of fascinating to also see it done in a way that isn't just a labor to watch.  You can see the angles without feeling like you're watching Death of a Bureaucrat.  

What Else Are We Watching?

Ted Lasso - I feel like this season is off to a good start, I'm glad it's back, etc... But, man, I hate that they added the fortune teller to predict the future for even one scene.  I know you dum-dums decided astrology was real during COVID, but now we have to deal with fan speculation and, technically, wizards existing in the universe of a straightforward TV show.  Other than that, it's been lovely, and they more or less seem to have found a workable and less awkward storyline for Rebecca this season.

Abbott Elementary - The only 1/2 hour network sitcom we watch.  I'll be curious how long they can keep this up.

Mandalorian - I've seen nothing but the whining on twitter from people who get confused by any story more complicated than a side-scroller videogame, but pretty clearly Star Wars is expanding the timeline and storyline from a pretty narrow window to include the wider Star Wars universe, and that's... a good thing.  I was not a BSG watcher, so this is my first real time spent with Katee Sackhoff, and y'all were right about her.  

Superman and Lois - The weirdly undiscussed Superman show is still 2/3rds soap opera, 1/3rd Superman-ness, and that's... fine.  I've settled in, and after 2 prior seasons, I know the last few episodes of each seasons are where they'll pull out the super-story and remind you how cool Superman stuff can be.  In many ways, Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth "Bitsie" Tulloch are near-exact embodiments of how I think of Lois and Clark in the comics.  It's honestly kind of weird how much they've got it down.  There are things I wish they'd tweak or do differently, but I suspect the budget is a limiting factor for more time at the Fortress or doing Superman things.  But it's a lot for a CW show, so I'm happy about just having a Superman and Lois I can completely buy.

Schmigadoon - Season 2 of the show I've not even heard my theater-pals discuss is underway and you can tell they're a lot more comfortable from jump.  Rather than the Meredith Wilson style of musical, we're moving into Sondheim and Fosse, and while, yeah, maybe it helps to do your homework and this won't be for everyone, I'm *barely* a musicals guy, and this works for me.  Plus, Cicely Strong and Keegan-Michael Key are endlessly funny just existing on screen as folks reacting to what is happening.

*to my dying day, I will believe this branding was the work of people who don't understand the holdings and possible reach of WB's vast library, but who really think Game of Thrones is neat

Travel/ Sports Report: Cubs at Astros May 29. 2019

The last two years, we went to Chicago for Cubs games, but due to a few shifting things this year, no can do.  However, The Cubs came to Houston for inter-league play (The Astros used to play them all the time when the 'Stros were in the National League before deciding to mostly just play The Rangers in the American League).  We'd lost two to Houston before this evening's game, and Houston is excellent this season, but you gotta believe!

Baseball Watch: Bull Durham (1988)

Watched:  05/15/2019
Format:  Amazon streaming
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's

I was about thirteen when this movie hit, and it was one of those movies that arrived that everyone else saw when it came out, but at the time I wasn't that interested in baseball or Susan Sarandon, so I skipped it.  Well, life changes things in some amazing ways.

I suppose if there's a marker to say "was this a good movie or not?" I can point to the fact that I put this on as I was about to do something else (edit a podcast) but was fiddling around before settling in, and just put it on to have something on for a few minutes to see what it was like, and the next thing I knew I was finishing the movie.

Baseball Watch: The Natural (1984)

Watched:  04/07/2019
Format:  TCM
Viewing:  Second
Decade:  1980's

When I was a kid, for some reason my parents took me to see The Natural (1984).  My memory is that I walked out, told them I didn't understand it, and somehow got in trouble for making that statement - which just led to further confusion.  I dunno.  Not everything makes sense when you're 8 or 9.

In the intervening 35 years, I hadn't rewatched the film.  Not because I was traumatized, but I just never got around to it.  And that's unfortunate - because The Natural is a fine movie and the sort no one is making anymore.   Lyrical, with craftsmanship to spare, spanning decades, borrowing from other myths to create a new mythology, blending grounded reality with fantasy and the remarkable stories embedded in sport - it's an ambitious film, and I can't knock it.

Where in the World is The Signal Watch? Chicago 2018

the coolest kids you know.  I am moping because my Cubbies just lost, 3-2 to the Reds.

This is our second year in a row to travel to The Windy City to take in some Cubs games (and rumor has it, we're doing it again next year).  It's no secret I don't just cheer for The Cubs, but quite like Chicago.  I also happen to work for a university in Chicago (from home), so I'm up here a lot.

Houston Astros Win World Series 2017!

I'm a Cubs fan, but I grew up in Texas, and spent part of elementary school and part of high school in Spring, which is part of Houston.

The 'Stros were the home team, but I wasn't a baseball fan.  That said, I still remember my folks taking me to see Jose Cruz and Nolan Ryan in the Astrodome.

But this isn't about me:  it's about my friends who suffered all these years watching the Lastros.  The Dis-Astros.  Who watched the 'Stros ditch the orange for some safe color choices and wait it out til it came back again.

Houston's pro sports last saw glory back when the Astros were in the World Series in 2005.  Prior to that, you have to look to the WNBA titles by the Comets in 97' and 98' or the Rockets' wins in basketball (gulp) back in 94' and 95'.   The Texans and Oilers just never really get there nor got there.

And, of course, Houston is still recovering from Hurricane Harvey.  A lot of tough days for that city this year.

But, dang.  What a series.  I watch 98% Cubs baseball, so I mostly only see the National League, and those were the playoffs games I watched til the Dodgers took out my team.  Had the series gone Dodgers/ New York - maybe I would have watched... but I was in when the Astros bumped off New York.

I'll let you read elsewhere about the series.  But do yourself a favor and read up on Game 5, which was bizarre, and that article more or less encapsulates how it felt to watch the weirdest game I'd had the pleasure of watching - granted, I'm pretty new to baseball.

Congrats again to the Astros, but especially to my pals who have suffered with the team, year in and out.  And to my pals who were cheering for the Dodgers.  They had an extraordinary season and a series that looked to go either way during every inning of 7 games.

Oh, and:  Congrats to Carlos Correa of the Astros, who knew how to make the most of what was already a great moment, and who proposed to his girlfriend (she said "yes")! 

Cubs Win 2016 World Series

Wednesday night, November 2nd, the Chicago Cubs broke their 108 year streak and won Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.  At this point, you have no doubt heard about this win and cannot have missed the jokes and media bits surrounding the long drought for the Cubbies over the past, oh, fifty years or so.

The Cubs' 2016 season was one for the record books, with individual players earning honors and a win record that's going to be discussed for a generation or more.  At some point, books and movies will memorialize this team and this season, and those adaptations will end in what will seem to be hokey, melodramatic fashion as the series stretches to seven games, then feature a Game 7 that ties up with an outstanding hit by Davis of the Cleveland Indians, then is delayed from going into the 10th inning by a rainstorm.  A speech will be given in a players-only meeting by Jason Heyward, a phenomenal outfielder who had a terrible batting slump, but who never, ever gave up.  And, the final play will be a showcase for the same meticulous defense we've seen all season by Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo.

As was being joked about on social media with some friends, it could have only felt more like a Disney movie if they'd needed to sub in a charming 12 year old girl as the closer with her golden retriever behind the plate to catch.

I didn't grow up watching baseball - our family sport was basketball when it was anything.  But I've followed the Cubs since middle school, more off than on, thanks to the broadcasts of WGN out of Chicago.

Cubs Win!!! Clinch 2016 National League Division Series

Javier Baez pic from Chicago Tribune

If my movie and TV watching has slowed, the Cubs have been playing the San Francisco Giants for the National League Division Series, and that's taken up some time.  This evening they won the game 6-5, winning the series in four of five possible games.

I'm tired as I stayed up to watch the Cubs lose in the 13th inning last night, giving up in the middle of the 13th as it was past 1:30 AM.

But, tonight, when it looked like all was lost, in the 9th inning they came back with 4 runs and won the game!

I've selected a pic of Javier Baez, 2nd base for the Cubs, as he's been a superhuman this whole season, and his powers seem to just be growing in the post-season.  The guy is incredible on both offense and defense.

All right. Bed time for me.  Go Cubs!

Here's the link to the Tribune story on the game.  The game was one for the ages.  Seriously.

This was about an hour after the game ended in San Francisco...

Most of this crowd still here cheering. pic.twitter.com/i9DcbhnAhX

— Colleen Kane (@ChiTribKane) October 12, 2016

Sports Watch: Chicago Cubs and UT Longhorns

Well, this weekend and today have turned out to be just an amazing few days in sports-watching.

This is the first time I have seen Coach Strong smile in a calendar year.

Cubs Win!

I didn't grow up watching baseball.  I started watching it with Jamie's mom.  I think we started watching ball when Jamie was in the hospital and then just because, hey, baseball.  It wasn't my Old Man who taught me the rules of baseball, it was Jamie's mom when I was 20.  They were kind of the team I liked, anyway, because as a kid I'd watch them on WGN mostly because I thought Harry Caray was hilarious.  I was an adult before I found out - literally everyone thinks Harry Caray is hilarious.

Later, when the Cubs played the Diamondbacks when we lived in Phoenix, we'd always go to at least one game, and I really regret only ever making one Spring Training game, because it wasn't all that far from our house.  And, we did make it to a Cubs game or two at Minute Maid Park before the Astros changed leagues.  I'm still trying to plan a vaycay in Chicago next year to make it to a couple of games.  I've only been to Wrigley once, but it was incredible.  I like the new mega-stadiums, too, but seeing the Cubbies at Wrigley was just a blast.

Anyway, the Cubs have been just entirely terrible for most of the last 100 years.  The fanbase, as near as I can tell, has some weird, masochistic thing going on where you learn the virtues of patience and eternal hope, because you never know when this year might be your year.  And, for Cubs fans, it just never is.