Blue and Orange

I follow two sports teams.  Both are currently plagued by an unreasonable segment of the fanbase.  Patience is a virtue possessed by an alarmingly small percentage of people if these fans are any indication.  The Cubs have been in rebuild mode ever since Theo Epstein took over.  A proper rebuild of an organization with a poor farm system and a major league team with few assets is always going to take time.  The idea is that the farm system starts producing, and then you can sign a few free agents to fill in the weak spots in your lineup.  The holdup is the time it takes for the farm system to develop longtime major leaguers.  Three years for them to start trickling in, with a steady flow by the fifth year.  This timeline means that it probably will not be until the fourth year (2015) before the team has a winning record, and 2016 before it is a legitimate playoff contender.  How hard is that to understand?  Some people apparently believe that this is the wrong way to build a contender.  These people never have an answer for what is the right way.  The Yankees, whose farm system has not been very productive lately, have had one championship in the last thirteen years, despite far outspending every other team.

Tanaka would have been an interesting signing, but the price might have been too high.  There are three issues with Tanaka.  First, no one knows how effective he will be against MLB pitching.  Second, can he remain healthy?  He has thrown a considerable number of pitches in the Japanese league.  His young age made him very attractive to many teams like the Cubs, but the mileage on his arm might quickly start to take its toll.  Another factor in his health is the forkball pitch.  Very few forkball pitchers are able to stay healthy for very long.  He might not throw it near as much as Hideo Nomo, but if he is throwing 30-40 a game that could still be very hard on his arm.  The third issue is the length of the contract.  Seven years is a long time to rely on a pitcher to be healthy.  The last few years of that contract could be an albatross to the Yankees.  Even worse, if Tanaka does pitch very well and stays healthy, he can opt out after four years.  If he is bad, the Yankees are stuck with him for another three years.  Maybe by then they will be done paying Arod.  I know that Epstein has a policy against "no trade clauses."  I wonder if he also has a policy against player "opt out clauses," which seems to me is worse for the team than the no trade clause.

Illinois' basketball team has been in rebuild mode for a season and a half, and already people are bemoaning the lack of success on the court.  This year's team consists of three Weber players, two transfers, and five freshmen.  Three other transfers are sitting out this year.  Considering the lack of recruiting time Groce had for that first recruiting class, he did quite well considering at least three of those freshmen have already shown themselves to be legitimate Big Ten players.  Recruiting success can only be judged over a period of years.  Only a few programs "recruit themselves," meaning the school attracts the biggest recruits regardless of the coach.  Illinois is not one of those schools. 

Another problem with the program is that early season success leads to raised expectations for the Big Ten Season.  For whatever reason, Illinois has had a tough time with the Big Ten schedule over the last few years.  The most popular theory is that the Weber's players are not physically or mentally capable of competing in the physical Big Ten, where sometimes talent is overwhelmed by a will to win.  That might apply to this year's team.  But I would stress three big reasons why the team has struggled lately.  First, Ravonte Rice has been slowed due to an issue with his groin.  Since he relies on driving to the basket for the vast majority of his points, obviously his production has fallen.  Second, this team really needs a point guard or two.  Third, this is a dreadful shooting team.  The best shooters are the freshman and the transfers who cannot play this year.

The good news?  The 2014-15 team only loses one player, the erratic Bertrand, and gains a couple more freshman, along with those three transfers I previously referred to.  That being said, it might not be until the following year before it will be possible to judge Groce, as that will be the first team without any Weber players.

Schlachthof-fünf

How does one ascertain that a book is a "classic?"  Before the Internet, it was not so easy.  "Greatest Novels" lists were hard to come by.  I suppose encyclopedia entries were one way.  Certain books just seemed to be part of the American vocabulary.  It helped when a book was adapted into a movie.  It also helped when an author was famous for something besides writing books.  Prizes enabled the book to remain a permanent fixture in the previously mentioned encyclopedias.  What books are assigned in the classroom is also a surefire designation of a book as a classic.  After all, a teacher would not waste our time on anything less, would he/she?

Closely associated with classroom assignments are Cliff's Notes.  I actually only heard them called CliffNotes, but that was in error.  Even in my small hometown back in the 1980s I knew of a place that sold them, albeit a limited selection.  Here were all the summations, meanings, and answers that one would need for the purposes of the classroom-according to Cliff.  It was difficult to look at the list of Cliff's Notes offerings and not come to the conclusion that it was as good of a source for a definitive list of classics. Of course, the shorter books were more likely to be Cliff's Noted, as those are the ones more likely to be assigned in the classroom.  Back in the 1980s, one of the more recent books in the collection was Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, released at the end of the 1960s.

I struggled a bit trying to construe Vonnegut's message.  Perhaps another reading is needed.  [Kids, what follows are topics for that three page paper the teacher is forcing you to write.]  The themes included death, perception, and predestination.  Death of the unnatural kind permeates the book, and Vonnegut underlines every passing.  So it goes.

Perception is interesting.  While it seems to revolve around Billy Pilgrim's view of the world, Vonnegut slips in his own views, along with a few other characters like Roland Weary and Kilgore Trout.  Billy's view of the world is shaped by his war experience at a young age.  Then the plane crash seems to jumble everything up.  Kilgore Trout's writing comes to life in his head.  He has visions of the future.  He is even abducted by Troutian aliens.  Reality comes unglued.

Predestination, the belief in the inability to change one's future, is a part of the alien creed.  But maybe it is merely a defense mechanism for Billy's traumatized mind.  And what does Montana's locket signify, the one whose message is important enough to warrant the only illustration in the book?  "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference."  This is at odds with the gospel according to Billy.

Vonnegut's description of the war is troubling.  Those English prisoners of war and their cushy lifestyle does not seem possible that late in the war.  Why would the Germans, who had to be running short on amenities, allow it?  Maybe this is a true story related by Vonnegut's own experience.  Then there is the whole issue of Dresden, which is damaged by Vonnegut's insistence, both in the "prologue" chapter and in Billy's experience, that the bombing of Dresden was as bad or even worse than Hiroshima and the like.  Vonnegut says that 135,000 were killed.  Where does he come by that number?  A short investigation reveals that this number was quoted from a "historian" who had written a book about Dresden.  This "historian" apparently used Goebbels as a source, and unsurprisingly he has been labeled as a holocaust denier, among other things.  That book has been largely discredited.  In recent years Dresden has claimed at most 25,000 people killed as a result of the bombing.  Quite a difference from what Vonnegut espoused, and it is damaging to the book.  Unless, that is, this is seen as another issue in the theme of perception.  To Billy and Vonnegut, the destruction had to result in over 100,000 deaths, because that is what their eyes and minds were telling them.

So, is Vonnegut's book a classic?  That is not really for me to judge, particularly so soon after just one reading.  It does offer a lot to chew on.  And it will probably stay with me longer than the movie version, about which I remember practically nothing from my viewing 15 years ago.  Or maybe I did not see it at all?  I do not have the power to recall the events of nearly every day of my life.  If you are a regular watcher of 60 Minutes you know what I am referring to.  A very small number of people have that power, including Marilu Henner.  It sounds a lot like Billy Pilgrim, does it not?

Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

Oops-Saving Mr. Banks is now in more theaters than any Best Picture nominee, despite doing weaker business than Wolf or American Hustle over the last two weeks.  I guess Banks will be riding the wave that the Best Original Score nomination will provide it.

Scandal!-It turns out it's not necessarily important how many Academy members see your movie, but rather how many you are buddies with.  It will be interesting to see how much more press this particular controversy receives.  It is the kind of thing that other, less prestigious awards used to be known for.  At this point The Golden Globes is not looking all that bad, now that the 31 year old Pia Zadora fiasco is starting to fade from memory.

Stick to what you do best?-"Director" Spike Jonze received three nominations, and none of them are for direction.

Reality Bites-Julia Roberts is in the "Supporting" category despite a role that is a lead performance.  This is more chicanery by Harvey Weinstein, but really all studios do it, probably because it works.

It's a lock!-Keep in mind that in recent history the Globes winner rarely matches the Academy winner for Best Picture.  Argo did, but last year was a bit of a strange year for predictors.  This year the Globes managed to make winners of the two top picks to win at the academy, thanks to the questionable inclusion of American Hustle in the comedy category, so look for another match this year.  The guild awards are the true indicators of who will win, as there is significant crossover in the voting constituencies.

Drop the Pretentiousness

Awards shows are promotional pieces.  Perhaps at some point they were geared more towards the ideal of rewarding excellence.  That time is long past, for various reasons.  The voters' qualifications are suspect.  Many nominations and wins are purchased.  In the case of the Academy Awards, without a "campaign" one will be lucky to receive a nomination, and a win is nearly impossible.  This includes glad-handing and working the room during the season.

Regardless, I have a fascination with the whole process.  How the movies rise and fall in the rankings, the problem with being the early favorite, the mystery movie no one has seen that receives the end of the year release.  How the whining and the attacks keep the dialogue going.  The resulting four hour borefest cannot help but be anticlimactic .

Best Picture appears to come down to two movies.  12 Years a Slave is considered too intense for the older crowd that dominates the Academy electorate.  If they turn it off thirty minutes into the movie, they probably are not going to vote for it.  American Hustle is a showcase for actors, which is beneficial because the actors' branch is by far the biggest branch in the Academy.  It will be hard to beat if it manages nominations for Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner or Bradley Cooper, in addition to Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams.  By the way, most people consider her to be iffy for a nomination due to the veteran actresses in the category this year, but Adams has two things going for her: four previous nominations, and the most difficult role in the movie, in addition to juggling accents.

The Wolf of Wall Street's unorthodox handling of a serious topic has been a turnoff to some people, and its meaning and purpose have been misconstrued by people who cannot see past the broader elements of the film.  Saving Mr. Banks has a story that normally results in victory come awards time, but some people might be turned off by the unwarranted deification of Walt Disney.  Gravity, the favorite to many, is too dominated by special effects (i.e. Star Wars and Avatar).  Gravity's consolation prize might be in the director category.  None of the other potential nominees have ever been on anyone's radar to win the big prize, and it is too late now for that to change.

Realism Schmilism

One of my favorite games for the 8-bit Nintendo was R.B.I. Baseball.  What it lacked in realism it made up for in fun factor.  Because it included real names and stats from the 1986 and 1987 seasons (despite not being licensed by MLB), it included the flukey 1987 season in which home runs were flying out of the park in great contrast to the rest of the 1980s.  It never was explained what happened that year.  Some might claim it was the beginning of PED use (see Canseco and McGwire), but that does not explain why home runs went down to normal levels after that.  Anyway, being able to hit with Andre Dawson, who clubbed 49 that year, is one of my fond memories of this game.  In stark contrast to all the power numbers was the Cardinals team from that year, which featured several base stealers instead of the normal power laden lineup.  Plus Jack Clark, of course.

There was also an arcade version that I remember playing at Wal-Mart.  It was similar to the Nintendo game, except that it used much older lineups featuring players like Ruth, Mays, etc.  I loved using Carl Hubbell since he was a left handed sidearm pitcher.

Anyway, what brought this to mind is that a new version, R.B.I. Baseball 14,  has been announced for release this spring.  I have no idea what the 14 refers to, unless they are counting all the versions released in Japan.  This version is licensed by Major League Baseball, so it should include real names and stats, and hopefully places like Wrigley Field, etc.

Here is video that a guy made using the R.B.I. game and Vin Scully's call of the bottom of the tenth of game 6 of the Mets-Red Sox World Series.

Jersey Con Job

Spoilers ahead.

There really is not much to say about it.  To those people whining that it does not make sense, at least it is a lot less ludicrous than Argo.  And this movie has stylish direction and riveting dialogue.  Christian Bale dives into his role with ease.  Bruce Wayne has been erased.  58484When Rosenfeld is struggling to pop that pill in his mouth, does anyone see a hunky movie star on screen?  Of course, understated does not win awards, and it will not this time either.

American Hustle is pleasant enough without really saying anything.  It does briefly try to portray the murky waters of political favoritism where legality does not always match the right thing to do.  But Rosenfeld's repentance towards Mayor Polito does not seem credible considering Rosenfeld has swindled people his whole life, with little regard for the consequences of his actions.  The portrayal of Rosenfeld for a few scant minutes as an apologetic atoner comes across as a strained attempt to make the protagonist of the film a sympathetic figure. 

A triumphant Rosenfeld emerges at the end.  He has escaped from the FBI's clutches, he has placated the mob, he still has his son, and he still has Amy Adams.  That upbeat note rings false.  If allowed, Rosenfeld will surely return to the only life he has known, a life built on lies, deception, and enriching himself at other people's expense.  Will most filmgoers realize this?  No, because they have been hustled by David O. Russell.

Not Such a Good Thing

It always surprised me that "Good Thing" by Fine Young Cannibals was a number one song.  Rather slight and repetitive, is it not?  Sure, those are two ingredients for a successful pop song, but in this case they do not add up.  The song does have a nice retro-feel (not pop), and a soulful piano solo (not pop).  This song was also not as popular in their native England, where the band already had several hits.  Curiously, the song debuted in 1987's Tin Men, two years before its release as a single.

Roland Gift's high pitched voice and pronounced accent made the lyrics largely unintelligible.  After reading them, I do not think I was missing much.  Certainly the lyrics do not match the video, which celebrates motor scooters.  Wha, wha, what?


The one good thing in my life
Has gone away
I don't know why
She's gone away
I don't know where
Somewhere I can't follow her

The one good thing didn't stay too long
Woo who who who
My back was turned and she was gone
Hey hey hey

Good thing
Where have you gone
Doo doo doobie doo
My good thing
You've been gone too long
Good thing
Doo doo doobie doo

People say I should forget
New friend tomorrow
Don't get upset
People say she's doing fine
Mutual friends I see sometime

That's not what I want to hear
Woo who who who
I want to hear she wants me near

Good thing
Where have you gone
Doo doo doobie doo
My good thing
You've been gone too long
Good thing
Doo doo doobie doo
Good thing

Then one day she came back
I was so happy that I didn't act
Morning came
Hey hey hey hey
Into my room
Woo who who who
Caught me dreaming like a fool

Good thing
My good thing
Doo doo doobie doo
My my my my my good thing
Where have you gone
Good thing
Doo doo doobie doo
My good thing
Hey hey my good thing
Doo doo doobie doo good thing

Girl
Where have you gone
Good thing
Doo doo doobie doo good thing
It's been so long
Good God girl
Doo doo doobie doo good thing
Good God girl
Good God girl
Good thing
Doo doo doobie doo good thing
Good God
Doo doo doobie doo good thing
Good God