"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do, I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers Hornsby

:: Friday, October 31, 2003 ::

Movie Review: "Mystic River"

The professional critic reviews are almost unanimous. Ebert, Rolling Stone, New Yorker: four stars across the board.

Clint Eastwood has gotten so many raves for his directing, from "Unforgiven" to "Bridges of Madison County" to "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", and this type of film almost hearkens back to his "Dirty Harry" days, as it appears on the surface to be a cop thriller, a murder mystery, when a 19-year-old girl is brutally murdered after appearing in only one scene.

But it's more than that; it's about three friends, boys in the mid-1970's, one of whom is literally snatched off the street one day when they are playing street hockey, and sexually abused. Now grown, the three men, who are no longer close, are all affected by this long-ago tragedy.

Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins play the three men, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that all three could come away with Best Actor nominations for their roles. Each one of them steps way out of their past roles, and stretches his limits, showing deep pain and emotion for things that have happened in their past. Penn's daughter is the one who is murdered, and we feel for him, but as we learn more about him, that sympathy turns dark, as he hasn't lived an exemplary life. Bacon's the cop, who investigates along with his partner (Laurence Fishburne, who provides the voice of reason), but even he has a secret: a wife who has left him and who calls him every now and then, but says nothing. And Robbins plays the grown version of the kid who was kidnapped, and his pain is almost palpable. I give Bacon particular credit here, because he has often been treated with disdain by critics and the public, made fun of in the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game invented originally by some college students, but Bacon establishes himself here as one of the best actors of his generation.

I'll say no more about the police investigation of the murder, which seems almost secondary to the characters finding out who they really are, and the wives of the Penn and Robbins characters (Laura Linney and Marcia Gay Harden, respectively) both grow during the film from silent women backing up their men, to pivotal roles in both solving the crime, and opening up years of suppressed emotions.

The film is set in Boston and shot in a very stark grainy light, and shows off the middle-class neighborhood in which it is set extremely well. There are people, my wife included, who didn't like the ending, but I thought it neatly summed up the real struggles that people go through and the things that they sometimes need to bury, and what happens when the past is suddenly wrenched into the present.

Cub fan note: one of the principal characters in this film is named Brendan Harris, and when I first heard that name I flinched, because a player named Brendan Harris is one of the Cubs' top infield prospects. The character is about that age, too. Weird.

AYRating: **** (yeah, I agree with everyone else. Bigtime Oscar material)

:: posted by Al at 6:15 PM [+] ::
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Cub Notes

I'd like for all of you to send some positive vibes out to the West Coast for Christian Ruzich, fellow Cubs blog army member and author of "The Cub Reporter"; he has just lost his home to the California wildfires. My thoughts to you, my friend.

Also, Derek, another army member and author of "Let's Play Two", has today posted a well-reasoned analysis of Sammy Sosa's decision today to stay with the ballclub. Well worth checking out.

156 days till Opening Day (163 to the home opener).

:: posted by Al at 5:54 PM [+] ::
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The 2003 Bottom-Of-The-Heap Awards

Since 1977, I have been handing out awards for the worst performances of the season, named after appropriate players from baseball history.

Click here for the 2003 B-O-T-H Awards, just posted today.

If you'd like a copy of any of the previous 26 years' awards, e-mail me.

Enjoy!

:: posted by Al at 2:20 PM [+] ::
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Book Review: "The Time Traveler's Wife"

Yes, I know I promised a review of an actual baseball book, Michael Lewis' "Moneyball", which I read earlier this summer, but I never did get around to writing that, given what was going on with the Cubs, and maybe I will review it eventually. Brief review is that you ought to read it; it gives great insights into the current state of major league baseball management and what makes it tick.

But this isn't about "Moneyball" -- it's about what to do once the season is over. First of all, my house is now an official disaster area, I've been pretty much relegated to my little corner of the basement where the computer is because there are dropcloths and workmen and paint and all kinds of other crap all over the place, and one of these days I figure I'll find myself crouching in a closet because that's the only place left here that isn't being worked on.

What does this have to do with "The Time Traveler's Wife"? Well, nothing. But you get me started on a tangent, and I'll take it... well, maybe it does have to do with this novel, the first from Audrey Niffenegger, a professor at Chicago's Columbia College.

It's about a man who, through no fault of his own, travels through time. He learns that he's possibly a new type of human called a "Chrono-Displaced Person". But it's worse than just finding himself in the "whenever". When he lands, he's usually naked, which means he has to steal clothes and money just to survive, because he never knows how long he's going to be whenever he is.

He winds up meeting a young girl in a field near her home in Michigan, and he watches her grow up. Later (or is it earlier?) he meets her, having no knowledge of this since he'd been traveling to this "past" from his future (trust me, it's easier to follow in the book), they fall in love, and marry.

If you're looking for a happy ending, there is one, but before you get there, the novel is fraught with unhappiness and the feeling of a certain inevitability of things that simply have to happen the way they do. The characters are well drawn, and for me, one of the best things about the novel (which I didn't even know before I bought it) is that it's set in Chicago, and Niffenegger knows the city well, and is able to evoke the feelings and settings of its neighborhoods, parks, downtown and, well, just the feeling of being a Chicagoan. I liked that a lot.

It's an easy read despite jumping around in chronological time (the author always helps you out by prefacing each section with what date it is, and how old the principal characters are at that time, and whose voice each section is being heard from -- either Henry, the time traveling man, or Clare, his wife, narrate alternately). It's a love story, but it both entertains and makes you think. Well worth purchasing, even in hardcover.

AYRating: *** 1/2

:: posted by Al at 4:15 PM [+] ::
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Cubs 2004 Schedule

I've obtained the TENTATIVE 2004 schedule. I cannot emphasize that word enough, because MLB has apparently even prevented some teams that did want to release their schedules, from doing so, primarily because of the uncertain status of the Expos (in fact, teams including the Cubs that have released schedules, list those games as simply "Expos". However, under the current scenario that would send the Expos back to Puerto Rico for approximately the same number of games as last year, they'd all be played before the All-Star break, and the Cubs aren't supposed to visit them till the end of August).

Anyway, I have TENTATIVE game times for about a third of the games, so here goes (home games in CAPS, and all times listed are CDT):

April 5-7-8: at Cincinnati
April 9-10-11: at Atlanta
April 12-14-15: PITTSBURGH
April 16-17-18-19: CINCINNATI
April 20-21-22: at Pittsburgh
April 23-24-25: NEW YORK
April 26(8:35)-27(8:35)-28(5:05): at Arizona
April 30-May 1-2-3: at St. Louis
May 4(7:05)-5(1:20)-6(1:20): ARIZONA
May 6-7-8: COLORADO
May 11-12-13: at Los Angeles
May 14(9:05)-15(9:05)-16(3:05): at San Diego
May 18(7:05)-19(7:05)-20(1:20): SAN FRANCISCO
May 21-22-23: ST. LOUIS
May 25-26: at Houston
May 28-29-30: at Pittsburgh
May 31-June 1-2: HOUSTON
June 4-5-6: PITTSBURGH
June 7-8-9-10: ST. LOUIS
June 11-12-13: at Anaheim
June 14-15-16-17: at Houston
June 18-19-20: OAKLAND
June 22-23-24: at St. Louis
June 25-26-27: at White Sox
June 29-30-July 1: HOUSTON
July 2-3-4: WHITE SOX
July 5(7:05)-6(7:05)-7(1:05): at Milwaukee
July 9-10-11: at St. Louis
(July 13: All-Star Game at Houston)
July 15(7:05)-16-17-18(1:20): MILWAUKEE
July 19-20: ST. LOUIS
July 21-22: CINCINNATI
July 23-24-25: at Philadelphia
July 26(7:05)-27(7:05)-28(7:05)-29(1:05): at Milwaukee
July 30-31-August 1: PHILADELPHIA
August 3(8:05)-4(8:05)-5(2:05): at Colorado
August 6(9:15)-7(3:05)-8(3:05): at San Francisco
August 10(7:05)-11(7:05)-12(1:20): SAN DIEGO
August 13-14-15: LOS ANGELES
August 17(7:05)-18(7:05)-19(1:05): at Milwaukee
August 20-21-22: at Houston
August 23(7:05)-24(7:05)-25(1:20)-26(1:20): MILWAUKEE
August 27-28-29: HOUSTON
August 30-31-September 1: at Expos
September 3-4-5: at Florida
September 6-7-8: EXPOS
September 10-11-12: FLORIDA
September 13-14-15: PITTSBURGH
September 16-17-18-19: at Cincinnati
September 21-22-23: at Pittsburgh
September 24-25-26: at New York
September 27-28-29-30: CINCINNATI
October 1-2-3: ATLANTA

:: posted by Al at 6:01 PM [+] ::
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World Series Aftermath

Hey, that Josh Beckett really can pitch, can't he?

I suppose that's meant to make us all feel better about losing to a team that dominated the Yankees in a way that they couldn't dominate the Cubs (seriously, the Cubs lost because they imploded at the worst possible time), but it doesn't. I still could hardly watch any of it; the game that went extra innings (game four, I think) was kind of interesting, and I did see some of game six, because I had a sense it would be the last game of the year, and I do always like to see that one.

[sigh]

In the next few days I'm going to post an updated version of my All-Time Standings, which you can find elsewhere on my site, as well as the annual Bottom-of-the-Heap Awards, where I will give recognition to those who, well, usually wind up as Cubs, that is, the worst performances of the season just finished.

And so, we begin counting the days till spring training; sources tell me that schedules for next season are held up (some teams have released theirs already) in part because of the uncertainty regarding where the Expos are going to play in 2004, and once that is resolved, we'll know when and where Opening Day will be.

Stay warm, all.

:: posted by Al at 1:44 PM [+] ::
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