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Movie review: It Ain’t Over

New York Yankees

I am recommending to you the documentary movie It Ain’t Over. It’s about the baseball catcher Lawrence Peter Berra, commonly known as Yogi Berra (May 12, 1925 – September 22, 2015). Interesting, it was my wife, not really a baseball fan who recommended us seeing it after viewing the trailer.

Early in the film, we see the announcement at the 2015 All-Star Game of the four “greatest living ballplayers”: Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Sandy Koufax, and Willie Mays. Watching it, Yogi’s granddaughter Lindsay asked Yogi if he were still alive. Yogi affirmed that he was.

The narrative was about a player who didn’t really “look” like a model athlete. He was short (5’7″) and stocky (185 lbs) and not at all conventionally good-looking. Some said, after he reached the majors, that he didn’t “look like a Yankee,” whatever that meant.

But he could hit. And after some intense tutoring, he became a good catcher. Most of all, he could win, ten World Series rings, more than Aaron, Bench, Koufax, and Mays combined.

As he was treated as a bit of the buffoon, he leaned into the image. It helped that he had those Yogisms. “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up some place else.” It was only upon reflection that his sayings contained real truth. Also, he became an endearing pitchman for a variety of products.

Unfair

Still, he took baseball seriously. I remember well that after he managed the Yankees to the 1964 American League pennant before losing to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games, he was fired, and replaced by the Cards manager, Johnny Keane. I was 11, but I was outraged by this ill treatment. So I was happy when he won the National League pennant as manager of the crosstown Mets in 1973.

His firing by George Steinbrenner, only 16 games into his second of a two-year contract with the Yankees in 1985, and the fact that George sent an underling to do it kept Yogi out of his beloved Yankee Stadium for 14 years. When he came back, even though I KNEW what happened, it left tears in my eyes and my wife’s as well.

There were many great quotes by Yankee players from Al Downing to Mariano Rivera, big Yankee fan and friend Billy Crystal, sportswriter Roger Angell, broadcaster Bob Costas, the late baseball announcer Vin Scully, and Yogi’s neighbor growing up in the Italian section of St. Louis, the late Joe Garagiola.

But Yogi was much more than a beloved ballplayer. He was an unrecognized war hero. His loving marriage to Carmen Short lasted from 1949 until her death in 2014. They had three sons, including Dale, a Major Leaguer himself, and 11 grandchildren.

He became the inspiration for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Yogi Bear. Indeed, when Berra died, the AP accidentally reported the death of the animated ursine.

We saw the very positively reviewed It Ain’t Over at the Spectrum Theatre, on a Wednesday night in mid-June.

Folks turning 70 in May 2023

Oingo Boingo

Here’s a list of notable people turning 70 in May 2023. I’m SO much older than they are.

Tony Blair (6th). I had hope for him when he became the youngest Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1997. He worked for a minimum wage, and he supported LGBTQ rights. But in his second term, he supported W’s foolhardy invasion of Iraq.

Alex Van Halen (8th) – the only time I mentioned the drummer of Van Halen in this blog was as Eddie’s brother.

I have one CD by Mike Oldfield (15th), which has nothing to do with Tubular Bells; I have it on vinyl, considered a precursor to new-age music.

George Brett (15th) was a Hall of Fame third baseman, playing over 20 years for the Kansas City Royals. Yet, I still think of him regarding the pine tar incident on July 24, 1983.

Pierce Brosnan (16th) played in a detective series Remington Steele, which I viewed. Other folks watching thought he should play James Bond, and he did in five films, though I saw none of them. I did see him in Mrs. Doubtfire and Mamma Mia!

Oddly, I most remember him by how much he loved his first wife, Cassandra Harris, and her children. Cassie died in 1991, and her daughter Charlotte died in 2013, both of ovarian cancer.

“When your partner gets cancer, then life changes. Your timetable and reference for your normal routines and the way you view life, all this change. Because you’re dealing with death. You’re dealing with the possibility of death and dying… Cassie was very positive about life. I mean, she had the most amazing energy and outlook on life. It was and is a terrible loss, and I see it reflected, from time to time, in my children.”

Doc Ock

Before I knew who he was, Alfred Molina (24th) was in many movies, including Raiders of the Lost Ark. I saw him in Chocolat, Frida, An Education, and primarily as Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man movies. I didn’t know he was born in London.

Danny Elfman (29th) is such a prolific composer of film scores that I don’t know where to start. From the Wikipedia page: “Elfman has frequently worked with directors Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, and Gus Van Sant, contributing music to nearly 20 Burton projects, including Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Batman, Edward Scissorhands,… as well as scoring Raimi’s A Simple Plan, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Van Sant’s Academy Award–winning films Good Will Hunting and Milk. He wrote music for the Men in Black franchise films, the songs and score for Henry Selick’s animated musical The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the themes for the popular television series Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons.” I’ve seen every single film mentioned above.

“Among his honors are four Oscar nominations, two Emmy Awards, a Grammy,… the 2015 Disney Legend Award… and the Society of Composers & Lyricists Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022.

Yet I will link to the video for Weird Science by his band Oingo Boingo, which he is now mortified by.

The zen of baseball division

pieces of eight

When I first learned about pi, it was noted as 3.14, or 22/7, the latter because I suspect they figured kids couldn’t understand how to multiply by 3 1/7. Or something.

Pi, of course, is 3.141592, followed by a whole lot of numbers, none of which I have bothered to memorize. And 22/7 is 3.142857 endlessly repeated. Close enough for most purposes.

As a kid, I loved the beginning of baseball season. I would take the box scores from the morning newspaper, the Sun-Bulletin, in Binghamton, NY. I’d figure out players’ batting averages after one or two games because it was FUN. (No, really, it WAS!) It was a bit of baseball division, as it were.

Figuring out two to six at-bats was easy. Eight at-bats also worked because I thought of pirates’ pieces of eight; in my mind, I considered eight twelve-and-a-half cent pieces (.125, .250, and so forth). Sussing nine at-bats was a cinch (.111, .222, et al.) though I had to add a point above 50%. (.556, .667, and so on).

Calculating seven at-bats was only slightly more challenging. But once I figured it out, I recognized its beauty. 1 for 7 is .143; 2 for 7, .286, 3 for 7, .429; 4 for 7, .571; 5 for 7,.714, 6 for 7, .857. The first two digits are multiples of 14 until you get past 50%, then it’s one more than that.

Om

Let me let you in on a secret. All the information I’ve written to date in this post was written in my head in the nine minutes I was waiting to take my blood pressure on a Sunday morning when I had not gotten enough sleep the night before.

I was so entranced thinking about the numbers that I missed the little chirp on the stove’s timer signaling one minute to go. It wasn’t until the device signaled the entire nine minutes that I recognized the passage of time.

It was almost, dare I say it, a zen experience, musing over numbers. I liked it, but I don’t recall experiencing something like that in a very long time.

Baseball’s Sammy Sosa and Curt Schilling

The 2013 voting

Kelly commented on my post about baseball, specifically concerning Sammy Sosa and Curt Schilling. It was so long that it required its own post.

Sosa was a smiling, happy player. He even had his own version of the High Five. He conveyed a sense of joy during those home-run years, so I think the ire isn’t as great toward him because of another annoying vestige of racism (that Black people are to be tolerated and even honored as long as they don’t convey the least bit of unhappiness).

I think you are correct up to a point. His post-career decision to use bleaching cream to lighten his skin is undoubtedly due to his dealing with colorism over many years. The issue of race is complicated.

He had over 600 career home runs, which I think should be HOF-worthy, PEDs or no.

The rap on him was that he was a one-dimensional player. Let’s look at the statistics. He was a career .273 hitter, which is not too shabby, especially for a power hitter. No, he was not Dave Kingman.

Comparable hitters

Sammy Sosa struck out a lot. For a guy with 609 home runs, he only had 1667 runs batted in. But he was playing for the Chicago Cubs. He was a below-average right fielder, but he wasn’t in the lineup for his defense. Here are more impressive numbers.

Baseball-Reference considers his batting career comparable to:
Jim Thome (862.9) *
Mike Schmidt (858.1) *
Reggie Jackson (841.1) *
Ken Griffey Jr. (830.6) *
Harmon Killebrew (822.5) *
Eddie Mathews (822.2) *
Mickey Mantle (821.4) *
Willie Stargell (820.5) *
Gary Sheffield (814.5)
Willie McCovey (807.8) *
Except for Sheffield, they are all in the Hall of Fame.

Yet in his ten years on the BBWAA ballot, he never got more than the 18.5% he got in his last year of eligibility. And he only had 6.6% in 2015; if he had dipped below 5%, he would have fallen off the ballot.

I still remember the excitement he and Mark McGwire generated during the 1998 season chasing Roger Maris’ home run record. This was a counterweight to the disastrous 1994 MLB strike, which soured many fans on the game.

Yet I never voted for him on my faux ballot because I always found ten candidates more worthy. This was exacerbated by the 2013 voting when NO ONE was selected. This meant there were more candidates to consider in subsequent years.

Performance-enhancing drugs

It’s worth remembering that PED use was really widespread and that PEDs mostly help with recovery from day-to-day injuries; while they do increase your strength a bit, they don’t suddenly make you good at the act of hitting a baseball thrown by a major-league pitcher.

Agreed.

I’m not a PED apologist by any means, but I find the moral outrage (especially among HOF voters) really overblown and even disingenuous since MLB didn’t even take the issue seriously enough to have a testing policy in place at the time, despite PED use having been a major issue in sports for over a decade prior to all that HR hitting.

I’ve been saying that for years. For anyone taking performance-enhancing drugs before 2004, I’ve largely given a pass. I would always select Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens on my would-be ballot.

The PED era is far from the first time MLB has run its business in such a way as to artificially influence the competitive product on the field (collusion in the 70s, raising and lowering the mound, and the decades-long collusion that kept some of the very best baseball talent relegated to under-reported Negro Leagues).

Too true.

The guy with the bloody sock

BTW, on the topic of guys from that general timeline who aren’t in the HOF, what’s your take on Curt Schilling? In terms of baseball accomplishments, he should be there, but he’s proven himself to be at least double the heel that Bonds ever was.

Yup.

If you made a list of the biggest jerks in MLB history, Schilling might make the cut, just behind Ty Cobb–to the point that he just outright said that he didn’t want to be in the HOF at all. That guy, I struggle with. He certainly displayed the kind of sustained excellence that the HOF is partly intended to honor, but he has displayed none of the character qualities thereof.)

How did I “vote” for him over the years? In 2014 and 2016, I made no selections. (Years generally indicate the time I wrote about the following year.)

2012: Yes. “Pivotal in World Series wins for two different teams (2001 Arizona, 2004 Boston)”

2013: No. I dropped him in favor of Tim Raines

2015: A stellar pitcher in a couple of World Series. I don’t like him much, but I’d support him.

2017 and 2018. No.

2019: Yes. It’s not the taint of steroids but his quite terrible politics, specifically “his xenophobic, transphobic and conspiratorial memes.” I’d bump him if there were many other candidates of a similar caliber, but there aren’t.

Time #9 was his best chance

2020: Yes. (70.0% of the vote last year, with 75% needed for induction). His Twitter feed is full of Trumpian drivel about the notion that Biden didn’t win the election… I find him to be a loathsome individual. But he deserves to be in the Hall… He has the highest strikeout-to-walk rate of any pitcher with 3,000 innings (4.38). This is the year he likely gets in. [which tells you what I know]

2021: No. “In a flip from last year, I WOULDN’T vote for Curt Schilling (10th year, 71.1%). And it has something to do with his public request not to be on the ballot. After last year’s vote, he touted “presidential election-related conspiracy theories, calling for a declaration of martial law; and comparing Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, to a Nazi.

“After the December 31 voting deadline, Schilling doubled down by tweeting his support of the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, a move that was a bridge too far for some voters who had otherwise continued to support him.”

Obviously, I’m very conflicted about Schilling. I would not have been upset had he made it, but his exclusion does not break me up. I think, down the road, Schilling, Bonds, Clemens, and maybe even Sosa and McGwire will get in via the veterans’ committee.

Break-up, baseball, and JEOPARDY

Lake George

Here are some Ask Roger Anything questions about break-up, baseball, and JEOPARDY. They were asked by Kelly Sedinger, the fine Buffalo-area blogger at ForgottenStars.net.

When the break-up finally comes, does New York form a country with, say, NJ and New England and maybe PA, MD, and DE? Or do we all just join Canada?

First, I do accept the premise of the question. Major Garrett, formerly of FOX and now CBS, wrote a book suggesting that America is close to Civil War. But I remain puzzled by the mechanism.

As someone in upstate New York, you KNOW there are pockets of conservatives in New York, such as the Southern Tier south of you, or much of the territory north of me, which are quite conservative. Conversely, there are liberal enclaves in Iowa.

The Greater Idaho movement, with much of eastern Oregon joining the spud state, will be difficult to achieve. Redistributing assets nationally would be a nightmare.

Still, rhetorically speaking, your larger model works. And the Canadians, if they are smart, will want to have nothing to do with a land annexation. They don’t want those gun-toting folks in their jurisdiction.

Here comes the Judge

Am I crazy in detecting a rather unsavory note in all the cheering of Aaron Judge this season as he chases home run records? Because it really does occasionally take on a tone of “Thank God a white guy is posing a threat to the record held by the black guy nobody likes.”

I can say that Barry Bonds was very supportive of Judge’s pursuit of the American League record of 61 (Roger Maris, 1961) and understood the stress of getting that 61st one. Days before the regular season ended, it was pretty clear that Judge wouldn’t surpass Bonds’ 73 HRs.

But I think your question hit on the real issue. Barry Bonds is just not warm and fuzzy. And people feel that he cheated with the Performance-Enhancing Drugs. So I don’t think it’s specifically racism, although I don’t listen to sports talk on radio or TV because I find much of it repetitive and banal.

Now some people didn’t want Henry Aaron to topple Babe Ruth’s career record of 714, even sending death threats. (When I saw a guy on the field running with Hammerin’ Hank, I was genuinely worried about the slugger’s safety.) But many people think Bonds’ career record of 762 is tainted and that it should belong to Aaron, with 755.

Favorite place within 50 miles of Albany?

I’m fond of Lake George, north of here. The lake itself is quite beautiful, and it has several amenities without being TOO touristy.

Unchange

A change you would make to JEOPARDY!? (Resurrecting Trebek is not an option.)

Actually, my wish can never happen because it seems to be too popular with the fans. I’d prefer that they stayed with five-day champions, and then they’re gone until the annual Tournament of Champions. The interview segment is fine for someone staying for a week, but most of them start to wear on me.

I don’t want to see the same people in yet another tournament. They had that awful team event a few years ago. Besides seeing Ken and Brad yet AGAIN in competition, it took away time when we might see your average champion. They seem to be keying on the “super champions,” which just doesn’t feel right. At least Ken Jennings and Buzzy Cohen, as hosts of the show, can no longer compete on the show because they’ve hosted.

Oh, and I’m against giving a bonus to people who run a category. Former JEOPARDY champ Austin Rogers makes a case for it, but I remain unconvinced.

Oh, and here’s something that Trebek used to say that I never liked, and I recently heard Jennings repeat. When all three contestants missed the same question, Alex would say, “No harm, no foul.” It’s not correct. If Player A has $12,000, Player B has $6,000, and Player C has $3,000, and they all miss a $2,000 question, who is most disadvantaged? The person with the least amount of money.