After a 3 hour flight delay and subsequent cancelation.
After an additional delay for the rescheduled flight.
After a rental car with a flat tire.
After checking into a hotel with no running water.
After discovering that the airline had destroyed the inside of my suitcase.
Finally: BASEBALL.
EXT. CAMELBACK RANCH GLENDALE – DAY
Abbott: Well Costello, I’m here in Arizona for the first full squad spring training workout with you. You know Dave Roberts, the new Dodger manager, gave me a job as coach for as long as you’re on the team.
Costello: Look Abbott, if you’re the coach, you must know all the players.
Abbott: I certainly do.
Costello: Well you know I’ve never met the guys. You’ll have to tell me their names and then I’ll know who’s playing on the team.
Abbott: Oh, I’ll tell you their names, but you know it seems to me they give these ballplayers nowadays very peculiar names.
Costello: You mean funny names?
Abbott: Strange names, pet names…like number 14 over there. His name is Enrique, but he goes by the diminutive.
Costello: Oh yes, those Diminutives are very popular these days. The kids, they love those goofy little guys and their silly gibberish language. From what I hear that young man and those Diminutives are both awful fond of bananas too.
Abbott: No, those are the Minions. I said the diminutive. It means the small or short version meant to convey a sense of endearment.
Costello: Oh, sense of endearment or not that’s problematic!
Abbott: Without the accent in the proper place it sure can be.
PAUSE
Costello: What accent? I thought they preferred to be called Little People.
Abbott: Oh for crying out loud, it’s not about his height. It’s a nickname common in his place of origin, an island in the Caribbean.
Costello: I think I get it now. He’s from the Diminutive Republic. There are a lot of guys from there, he must be one hell of a player if he’s the one they call THE Diminutive.
Abbott: I’ll break your arm if you if you say the diminutive one more time. His name is Enrique. He is from Puerto Rico. They call him Kiké.
Costello: Okay, now I think I finally understand. So where do…they-que play-que Enrique Kiké the Puerto Rique?
PAUSE
Abbott: No. No, we’re not going to do the positions now.
PAUSE
Abbott: AND THE SPANISH DIMINUTIVE OF PUERTO RICAN IS PUERTORRIQUEÑO GOD DAMMIT.
~FIN~
WELCOME TO HELL
All season long you have counted on me to provide you with baseball insight and musings and I have let you down. The playoffs will offer more of the same sense of disappointment you have come to expect!
I decided to wait until the Wild Card games were complete before trying to predict the outcome of the rest postseason because of the one and done nature of the Wild Card round. I didn’t want to be proven wrong immediately. Now that we know that the Royals and Giants will be advancing to the Division Series I am ready to prognosticate:
I have crunched the number. 2014 is the only one that matters. Being an even-numbered year I have long feared the return of GIANTS DEVIL MAGIC. Their blowout victory over the Pirates is only just the beginning of a new era of NIGHTMARE BASEBALL. The wheels of fate have been set in motion and now we must accept our collective destiny: endless suffering and eternal damnation.
THE DIVISION SERIES
The Dodgers advance in dramatic fashion when the entire St. Louis roster and fan base are raptured.
THE LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
The first playoff series in the history of the storied Dodgers-Giants rivalry does not disappoint. In a thriller that goes right down to the wire the Giants become the first team to ever win all seven games in a best-of-seven series.
THE WORLD SERIES
In a rematch of the 2002 World Series, San Francisco faces Los Angeles of Anaheim. In a Fall Classic for the ages the Giants literally ride the Angels through the gates of Hell and into the warm embrace of Satan. The ensuing celebration destroys most of civilization. Those who survive are forced to watch the victors defile the spirits of their ancestors and tie little orange and black bandanas on all of their dead pets.
Now that we are all prepared for the worst let’s try to relax a little bit and just have some fun out there.
My body is ready.
This post don't seem to be like it is, but it do.
[Editor’s note: An apology: I’m reading the title of this post again now and I feel that in retrospect it might seem a bit misleading for some of you. Some of you probably came here expecting a requiem for hair of fame outfielder Oscar Gamble. That could actually be pretty cool, but that isn’t what I had in mind. This has surely caused some unnecessary anger and confusion and for that I am deeply sorry.]
This year the Academy Awards had everything: a scared and confused pizza man, a Samsung commercial that broke Twitter and the controversy surrounding John Travolta being left out of the In Memorium montage after suffering a stroke onstage. The show was so chock full of EVERYTHING that you probably didn’t even notice what was missing.
Well, guess what? Baseball was missing.
After the mid-90s kid’s wish fulfillment baseball fantasy movie boom fizzled out there wasn’t a lot to get excited about. There definitely wasn’t anything worthy of the Academy’s attention. Oh sure, there was that one where the doofus from Friends high fived a chimp, but that is a good example of attracting the wrong kind of attention. Recent years however have shown that this trend is changing. Long gone are the days of the flighty baseball comedy. Not only is Hollywood making baseball movies again, but they’re making them as important prestige pictures. Moneyball was just the beginning. Yeah, Trouble With the Curve was terrible, but it had Oscar bloodlines. With the release of the Jackie Robinson film 42, 2013 was supposed to be baseball’s year. 42 was everything that the Academy usually loves unconditionally: a civil rights hero biopic period piece with an over-the-top supporting performance from Harrison Ford (FUN FACT: as Branch Rickey, Ford consumed 31 whole cigars and chewed so much scenery that the movie’s final act had to be filmed on green screen). When it debuted in April it seemed like an Oscar shoo-in despite tepid reviews. A funny thing happened when the nominations were announced though: the mighty Jackie was shutout.
Since conventional methods seem to no longer be working let’s try something a little bit different and reverse engineer some great baseball movies using the titles of this year’s Academy Award winning and nominated films!
AMERICAN HUSTLE
A gritty, aging ballplayer dreams of representing the United States on the world stage. When his country betrays him by putting together a team of conventionally talented players he grinds and scams his way onto Italy’s World Baseball Classic roster…seeking revenge. Nick Punto stars.
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB
A gripping courtroom drama explores the backroom conspiracy to stop Mark Cuban from purchasing the Texas Rangers through bankruptcy court.
PHILOMENA
When a maverick owner announces his intention to hire baseball’s first female manager, baseball lifer Phil Garner trades “Scrap-Iron” in for a flat iron to take one last shot to get back in the game.
HER
The seedy underbelly of the baseball card collecting community is exposed when the only known copy of a Tom Herr error card goes up for auction.
NEBRASKA
Christopher Nolan helms a dark reboot of The Scout, reimagining Steve Nebraska as a brooding anti hero.
With recent past failures will an enterprising executive take a chance on another high-concept feature? That’s baseball’s Oscar gamble.
Beyond the Valley of the Daals 