"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, January 09, 2004 ::

Blowing My Own Horn

One of my fellow bloggers in the Cubs Blog Army is holding an online poll for "Best Cubs Blog of 2003".

So head on over to The View From The Bleachers and vote!

Oh, yes -- blowing my own horn. Of course I want you to vote for me!

A bit of Cub news today: Mike Kiley wrote in his column that he thinks (i.e. more idle speculation) that the Cubs will wind up with Greg Maddux, since the only other likely suitor is the Cardinals.

Ah, but the plot thickens. The Cardinals signed Julian Tavarez today, and while he's no Maddux, that might fill the roster spot that Maddux might otherwise fill. There are also web rumors flying that Maddux' signing might be the big "surprise" announcement at next weekend's Cub convention.

We await developments.

:: posted by Al at 7:19 PM [+] ::
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You Guys Are Nuts!

And I thought I was crazy.

By six am today, there were at least 1000 people in line outside Wrigley Field, in 20-degree temperatures, more than three months before the home opener.

Why? Because season tickets went on sale today. At least one woman slept out all night. There are packages from 23 games to all 81 games on sale, ranging from about $300 to about $2700 per ticket.

This is the first time I can ever remember that many people waiting to pay literally hundreds or thousands of dollars for season tickets. I cannot imagine what the mob scene will look like next month when single-game tickets go on sale.

And now, since everyone else has, I'll put in my $0.02 on the Pete Rose episode.

First of all, his timing is blatantly obvious -- he wanted to get the attention at this time of year because of the announcement that Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley, deserving folks, will be inducted this summer (and maybe next summer, Ryne Sandberg). But by doing so, he has damned his cause further.

There's no shading here, folks. Rose broke a rule that's posted in every major league clubhouse. He played more games than almost anyone, and managed hundreds. He couldn't not know. You can argue the merits of the rule, but it is a rule. And the penalty is clear. And he accepted it, despite a 1989 agreement with the late commissioner Bart Giamatti that Rose was not admitting or denying that he had bet on baseball.

And for 14 years he insisted he hadn't.

Now, for profit in his new book (which I shall not buy), he admits that he has? Gee, great motive, Pete. And is he repentant? Contrite? No, instead he says: "I'm sure that I'm supposed to act all sorry or sad or guilty now that I've accepted that I've done something wrong. But you see, I'm just not built that way."

I can see the public turning against him, and I like that idea. Pete Rose was indeed a great baseball player. But he's a lousy human being, and he broke rules that he knew were there, and even though he admits it now, he sure doesn't seem very sorry.

There's an excellent piece on ESPN.com by Jayson Stark today on this subject, and I urge you to click through and read it.

And if you want to know the real truth of what Pete Rose did to sully his own name and that of the game he professes to love, make sure you read the Dowd Report.

:: posted by Al at 2:13 PM [+] ::
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Movie Review: "The Cooler"

William H. Macy, who is one of the best actors of his generation, did not even take credit on the opening titles for this film, even though he is the star. (He did take credit in the cast list.)

But the real star of this film is Maria Bello, who is best known for a recurring role in the TV series "E.R.", who plays Natalie, a down-on-her-luck waitress in a down-on-its-luck casino, trying, like all the others, to make a break in Vegas.

In fact, just about everyone in this film is down on his or her luck, which is kind of the point. Macy is the silly-named Bernie Lootz, who is hired by Shelly (Alec Baldwin, and he plays evil really well), the owner of what's termed the "last of the old-style casinos" in Vegas, which some Harvard MBA's have been hired to "revamp", bring "into the future" -- as a "cooler", someone whose luck is so bad that he can dampen a winning streak just by sitting at the same table as someone who's on a lucky streak.

There's a bit of magic in all of this, because you have to believe in luck and lucky streaks to believe what's about to happen to Bernie. There are setups and double-crosses here; suffice to say that Natalie truly does fall in love with Bernie, though you'll question this throughout the film. Her character reminds me a bit of Elisabeth Shue's Sera in "Leaving Las Vegas", though she's not quite as hard-edged. None of the characters here are, not even Shelly, though you'll see him doing some extremely nasty things to many of the people he supposedly cares for (and warning: there's a scene in which some violence is done to a woman who's obviously pregnant, though even that turns out not to be as it seems).

The movie has a '50s sensibility about it, both in the characters (though Baldwin's Shelly seems too young to have been an old-fashioned, hard-bitten Mob ruler of a casino), the music, the lighting, the settings, but it's clearly a modern fable, almost a parable, of how luck can rule people's lives, and the choices you make don't always turn out the way you think they will.

AYRating: ***

:: posted by Al at 8:38 PM [+] ::
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