I grew up fearing Frank Howard. Not because of his size—though at 6' 7, 270, he was one of the biggest position players to ever play the game, today included—but because in my early baseball-watching and baseball-card-collecting days he always competed with my man Harmon Killebrew for the AL Homerun and RBI crowns. I hated getting one of those AL Leader cards with Frank on top.  

Ironically, Frank's career high in homeruns came in 1969, with 48, but Harmon hit 49 that year and won the MVP. His only one. Frank finished fourth, his highest finish. 

(And yes, the AL was awfully white back then, particularly compared to sluggers in the NL. The direction each league went in the late 1940s was still being felt in 1970.)

Both Frank and Harmon fell off about the same time, and rather quickly. In 1970 they were at the top, and then it all went away. Or it dropped a bit, then dribbled away as it tends to. Frank's HR totals went from 44 to 26 to 10, then he hit 12 more with the Tigers and was done; he retired after the '73 season. He later became a coach and briefly (very briefly) a manager: Padres for 110 games in '81, Mets for 116 in '83. He never had a winning record as a manager. Not many wins as a player, either, though he came up with a winning team, the LA Dodgers, and won Rookie of the Year in 1960; and in the 1963 World Series he mashed a monster double off Whitey Ford in Game 1, then a monster, second-deck home run off Whitey Ford in Game 4, and that last one was the margin of victory in a Dodgers sweep. But in December 1964, the Dodgers, feeling they needed pitching (!), traded Frank and others for Claude Osteen and others and cash, and Big Frank spent his glory years with the abysmal Washington Senators, who, though they were the second iteration, still fit the first's tagline: first in war, first in peace, last in the American League.

In '69, though, Ted Williams became his manager, and though he's usually not given much credit as a manager, or coach, Frank does just that. “He was just light years ahead of everybody,” Frank told a Washington Nats blog in 2007. “He didn't mess much with you mechanically—if you had played 6-8 years in the big leagues—unless you had absolutely no success. Then he would make some mechanical changes for you. But he never messed with your head. He was a thinking man's hitter.”

What he did with Frank was get him to take some pitches, to tighten the zone of what he'd swing at. And this is what happened. Look at how his walks jumped and strikeouts subsided.

Here's Frank's NY Times obit, with the hed/sub below, and oops they did it again:

I'm referring to the end of the sub. Sure, Big Frank struck out a bit (he had a big strike zone), and when he retired he was fifth on the all-time list—behind some all-time greats: Mantle, Killebrew, Mays and Mathews—but he only led the league in Ks once, and was in the top 10 only three times. His strikeout rate was more than 19%, which is up there for the time but would pale compared to those who came later: Reggie (22.7%), Thome (24.7%), Ryan Howard (28%), Chris Davis (32.9%). Just seems like an odd thing to bring up in an obit. But Times' obits have done this before: Bud Grant, Jim Fregosi, Fred Snodgrass.

Frank was nicknamed “Hondo,” after the John Wayne character, and was called “The Washington Monument,” and “The Gentle Giant,” and apparently (like Killebrew) was. He was a nice guy. He came on the Hall of Fame ballot in 1979—same year as Willie Mays—got a total of six votes and was done. He deserved better. Joe Posnanski has written a nice tribute about attending a game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium when he was 10 with his immigrant father: 

And Dad put his hand on my shoulder and pointed toward the first base coaching box, and said, “Look! There's Frank Howard!”

Two things stand out in my recollection. One was how big Frank Howard looked. He was the biggest human being I'd ever seen. In his peak playing days, Frank Howard was 6-foot-7, 270 or so pounds, but by the time I saw him there in the Milwaukee coaching box, he was probably 50 or 60 pounds heavier. To me, he looked even bigger than that. Hondo absolutely towered over Cleveland's first baseman, Andre Thornton, who I had thought of as one of the biggest men in the world.

The second thing that stands out is the reverence in my father's voice. "There's Frank Howard! He said it like we were stargazing, and he was pointing out Ursa Major.

WARNING: SPOILERS

“Guardians 3” is one of the better superhero movies of 2023—we get action, humor, and one of the best arguments against animal testing ever in a popcorn movie—but does it go on too long? Does it undercut itself? Does it insist on giving everyone their unnecessary scene? Yes, yes and yes. It might also be too reliant on music to set the tone. But I like the music. 

It begins with Radiohead’s “Creep” and that’s who our heroes are, and who they think they are—misfits from around the galaxy:

I’m a creep
I’m a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here

It ends with everyone dancing to Florence + The Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over,” and that speaks not only to the end of the action and the defeat of the villain, and the various resolutions for our heroes’ personal dilemmas, but to what we’ve all been through: the COVID awfulness. And maybe the Trump awfulness? Or is it just James Gunn’s sign-off before taking over the DC Universe. Maybe Marvel was Gunn’s dog days.

Kidding. He was living the nerd dream. Is living it. He gets to decide what happens to Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman. Him. That guy. He probably has Radiohead’s “Creep” in his head 24/7.

Lost souls
“Vol. 3” assumes we remember everything about the first two volumes, not to mention the various Avengerses, but I barely remember “Vol. 2.” Didn’t Star Lord/Peter (Chris Pratt) go looking for his father and find Kurt Russell/Ego? I guess (now that I’ve re-read my review) he realized that the Ravagers’ leader Yondu (Michael Rooker) was his real father, since he raised him and sacrificed for him, etc. The oddity is that, in this movie, I thought Yondu was Kraglin’s father. But he just passed on the flute-weapon to him? Apologies for not knowing chapters and verses, Marveldom. 

The movie opens in Knowhere, the Guardians HQ, with everyone dealing with their personal dilemmas—Peter keeps getting drunk because second Gamora (Zoe Saldana) doesn’t know and love him; Mantis (Pom Klementieff) thinks she isn’t taken seriously or something. During this quiet, and despite Radiohead, I thought of an old Cowboy Junkies’ song:

In the storm, you are my destination
In the port, you are my storm

Knowhere is the port and they’re each other’s storm. Then the real storm arrives in the form of Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), a golden-haired, golden-skinned man-baby that I vaguely remembered from my 1970s comic-collecting days. He cuts a swath through the Guardians and is only prevented from completing his mission when Nebula (Karen Gillan) stabs him through the chest. Even so, he all but kills Rocket Raccoon (voice: Bradley Cooper), but when the Guardians try to save Rocket with a med-pack they’re prevented by a “kill switch” because he’s the proprietary tech of Orgocorp. Which, yeah, feels a little meta.

From the beginning we get flashbacks to Rocket’s origins. He was experimented upon then tossed into a cage with other experimentees from Batch 89: Lylla, an otter with metal poles for arms; Teefs, a legless walrus, and Floor, a rabbit that I can’t even imagine what happened to her. They’re self-named. So is Rocket, who envisions great travels and blue sky. To the company, and particularly to the evil High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), he’s simply 89P134. “P13” for short. Which, yeah, feels a little “Les Miz.”

To get the code to override the kill-switch to save Rocket’s life, they fly to Orgocorp’s headquarters, an organic, gelatinous thingamajig in space, and with the help of the second version of Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who is now a Ravager (i.e., space pirate), they have to sneak inside, dodge various corporate security, led by Nathan Fillion, get into fights, etc. It’s fun. Oddly, the exposition on how they’re going to do this is given to us by Sylvester Stallone. Sly’s got talents but delivering exposition isn’t one of them. Anyway, they get what they need, but it wasn’t what they needed, so now they have to go to Counter-Earth, a “perfect society” that the High Evolutionary is creating with animal organisms that he has super-evolved into human-like states. Which, yeah, feels a little Dr. Moreau/“Island of Lost Souls.”

Landing their ship into a kind of ’90s suburbia, they’re aided by a bat family, then take off for the big corporate headquarters. Everyone is telling Star Lord he’s falling into a trap but he keeps insisting it’s a face-off, and they keep insisting it’s not a face-off if one side is way more powerful. Turns out Star Lord is kind of right—they jump out of corporate HQ with their maguffin and get what they need. It also turns out to be a pun from Gunn. In flashbacks we see the moment Rocket becomes Rocket—when he realizes he and his friends are going to be disposed of and plots their escape. The friends all die (Lylla's death scene is truly poignant) but Rocket attacks the High Evolutionary before flying out into the great blue sky he’d always dreamed of—but in that attack, we find out later, he’d clawed off the High Evolutionary’s face. For most of the movie, the dude is wearing a mask. So yes: face off.

Because they’re the Guardians, nothing is ever clean. Drax (Dave Bautista) suckers Mantis into going to HQ to rescue Peter and Groot, but now they’re not there, and the HQ is flying off because Counter-Earth is a failure and is being abandoned by the High Evolutionary. And so our heroes have to somehow:

• Reunite
• Defeat the superpowerful High Evolutionary
• Save all the children in cages
• Save all the animals in cages
• Realize Drax is smarter than they think
• Find closure for Rocket’s past
• Find closure for Peter’s love for Gamora
• Find closure for Kraglin calling Cosmo, the talking Soviet dog, a “bad dog,” and for Kraglin to master the flute-weapon thingy
• Allow Warlock to join their community

Whew. It all goes down and everyone dances but it’s a bit much.

But, yes, fuck animal testing. I don’t know how we continue to let this happen.

Proprietary
I have to say, Bautista’s Drax is one of the great, original characters in the Marvel universe, and even in this third iteration they don’t waste him:

Quill: That’s why we’re going to break in!
Drax: And kill anyone who gets in our way!!!
Quill: Not kill anyone!
Drax: Kill a few people.
Quill: Kill no people!
Drax: Kill one guy. One stupid guy no one loves.
Quill: Now you’re just making it sad.

So when did Peter branch out of his 1970s playlist? When he got the Zune last go-round? And why do I know Will Poulter? He was immediately familiar and I couldn’t figure out why. “Detroit”? Was it just that? And trailers for “We’re the Millers”? Oh, “The Revenant”! Third-billed. Probably that. But he seems even more familiar. One wonders if it’s a quality some people have: seeming familiar. I bet it helps.

Post-credits, we get the re-formed “Guardians,” including Warlock, and led by Rocket, and … I just wish they’d let Peter die in space, as he seemed to be doing. It felt like it had the chance to be poignant. But of course not. He’s too valuable. He’s the proprietary tech of Orgocorp.

Early days, not dog days.

We had a good Game 1 of the 2023 World Series last night. The Rangers scored early with some nice hitting and baserunning from Evan Carter, who, two months ago, was playing AA ball and now is batting third for the American League champions. How do you get a better story than that? Maybe with Corey Seager's 2-run, ninth-inning, game-tying bomb of a homerun? (That's more emotion than I've ever seen from him.) Or Adolis Garcia's opposite-field walk-off in the 11th after being hit by yet another pitch? (That's about the same emotion I see from him.) He keeps getting hit by pitches and then keeps mashing homeruns. You wonder when they'll stop hitting him with pitches. 

Joey Poz (not Joey Pants) goes deep on Adolis in his column today, worth reading, fun reading, but I wanted to quote some from one of his posts earlier this month, way back on Oct. 4, when he indulges himself a bit by talking about what he'd do if he were Commissioner of Baseball. It's a question he gets asked often, he says, and his answer (he also says) is usually uninteresting because he takes it too seriously. He thinks too much of the fans and the limits of his power. So this is his answer if he didn't give a shit about any of that. Oddly, in speaking from the heart, he winds up speaking for this fan:

I would work out a deal with Oakland, expand the game to Nashville and Montreal, create eight divisions, and I would have the eight division winners, and only the eight division winners, make the playoffs.

Eight is plenty of playoff teams for baseball. Heck, I could probably be talked into four.

I also would limit teams to 10 pitchers (this could be a gradual decrease over, say, five years), and I would come up with incentives to get starting pitchers to stay in the games longer, and I would be very public with my disappointment any time a manager took out a starter throwing a no-hitter or took out a hitter with a chance to do something historic, and I would get rid of the zombie runner, and I would work out a rule to stop position players from pitching so much, and I would bring back bullpen cars, and I would create Larry Doby Day, and I would make Opening Day in Cincinnati every year, and I would probably bring back the four-pitch intentional walk (to give fans the fair chance to boo), and I would ...

... It would be a busy first day.

Not to get all Molly Bloom about this, but: Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!!!!

What would I do beyond this? I gotta give that some thought. That'll be a Comm. Lundy column.

Sometimes you look at certain people on the national or world stage (particularly U.S. Republicans, these days) and wonder where the hell they came from. Thanks to Public Notice, we have an answer for at least one of them: Jenna Ellis, the Trump election-fraud attorney who pled guilty this week to “one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements in Fulton County Superior Court.” She got five years probation, was fined $5k, and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in testifying against her co-defendants. One assumes that's not-good news for Rudy Giuliani and Donald J. Trump.

So where the hell did Jenna Ellis come from?

• In 2011, she graduated from the University of Richmond School of Law
• In 2012, she became a deputy DA in Weld County, Col., working mostly traffic court
• Six months later, she was fired from same for “unsatisfactory performance”
• Won an unemployment claim even though the examiner agreed with the cause of dimissal: “... the officer found that Ellis had only 'committed an irreparable egregious act' in a small portion of her cases and was 'performing the duties to the best of her ability' given the 'deficiencies in her education and experience.'” (<-- Yes, this.)
• Six-month stint with discovery processing company
• Several years as pre-law adviser at Christian college; wrote several Christian-themed, anti-homosexual books
• “Then it was on to gigs at rightwing Christian outfits, including James Dobson's Family Institute and the Thomas More Society, which got her booked for conservative media hits.”
• In 2019, Trump liked what he saw of her on Fox News and she joined his reelection campaign
• In 2020, she attempted to undermine American democracy

Not exactly a great CV. Throughout, she's lied about her credentials while whapping people with the Bible. Public Notice suggests that while she's pled guilty, and despite the waterworks, she's hardly contrite. Will be interesting to hear her testimony next year.

Here's the Business Insider headline: 

The banks which loaned Elon Musk money to help buy Twitter expect to lose $2 billion on the debt, report says

Key stats:

• Downloads of the app (once Twitter, now X) fell by almost 30% in just three months
• A marketing firm says only two of the world's biggest advertisers advertised on Twitter/X last month
• Fidelity has marked Twitter's valuation down by 2/3

A key graf:

Bankers close to the deal told The Journal that X could be given a junk-bond rating, meaning it is at risk of defaulting on the loans, due to both Musk's controversial management style and a waning ad market.

My farewell post, nearly a year ago:

I've said it before: If you had told me to destroy Twitter without anyone knowing I was destroying Twitter, I wouldn't have been able to come up with half the stuff Musk has done in supposed service to the company. So I guess, in a way, he is a genius.

Not exactly the T&A the networks want to show.

“Paul Sewald shuts them down in the ninth to take the Mariners to the World Series!!!!”

What? Oh, the M's traded Paul Sewald to the Arizona Diamondbacks in July? And they're the ones going to the World Series? While my Seattle Mariners didn't even make the postseason? While we just missed the postseason? While we needed to win four of four against the Texas Rangers in the final weekend but only won three of four, and now those self-same Texas Rangers, whom we beat three of four, are facing off against the Arizona Diamondbacks for the title?

Yeah, sounds about right.

I didn't even get to NLCS MVP Ketel Marte being a Mariner, too. He came up through our system. We traded him in 2016. Fun.

I forget who I wanted to see in the World Series at the start of this neverending postseason (Baltimore vs....?) but by the time the LCS hit I was hoping for Texas/Philly. Almost got my wish. Unfortunately, in Game 7, Corbin Carroll brought his A-game (3-4, 2R, 2RBI, 2SB), while many otherwise otherworldly Phillies flailed: Turner, Castellanos, even Harper to an extent. The three of them in that final game went a combined 0-12, and worse, it felt like they would. It wasn't like, “Uh oh, here's Harper.” It was “Yeah, I don't think he's going to do anything.” He didn't even project menace. To be honest, I think he might be injured. And thus whatever mojo the Phils had at the start of all this stopped mojoing. 

This is the second year of the new playoff system that's supposed to reward the long season by giving a first-round bye to the division winners with the best records, and thus far that reward looks unrewarding. No NL first-round bye team has won a division series or even forced a fifth game. It's been 100-win Braves and Dodgers teams both years, so maybe there's something wrong with those orgs that prevent them winning (or even competing in) short series? I don't know.

• 2022 NLDS1: Phillies (87-75) over Braves (101-61), 3 games to 1
• 2022 NLDS2: Padres (89-73) over Dodgers (111-51), 3 games to 1
• 2023 NLDS1: Phillies (90-72) over Braves (104-58), 3 games to 1
• 2023 NLDS2: D-Backs (84-78) over Dodgers (100-62), 3 games to 0

The AL, thanks mostly to Houston, has been different. Last season, they beat the Mariners 3-0, while the division-winning Yankees squeaked by the Guardians 3-2. This season, Houston beat the Twins (3-1) while the 101-win Orioles lost to the wild-card Rangers.

Many think the first-round bye is still a boon, and the above is too short a sample size. I think the above is too important to let lie for a larger sample size, but that's me. Either way, we now have an all-wild card World Series: the 90-win Rangers vs. the 84-win D-Backs. I'm backing the Rangers. They're one of six franchises to never win a World Series (chronologically by year of expansion: Rangers, Brewers, Padres, Mariners, Rockies, Rays), and I wouldn't mind if it was five. Plus Mariners fans could say we beat the World Series champions three of four in that final weekend of the regular season. That'll be our World Series. The way things are going, it may be as close as we get.

“He’s had lawyers abandon their ethics for him for decades. And he puts enormous pressure on lawyers. That’s why Trump went through a lot of lawyers, in my own view. ... Trump has no ability to be grateful. Gratitude is something that does not exist in his narcissistic world. So, the fact that these people are sacrificing their lives, reputations, and careers, that will not register with him.“

-- former Trump attorney Ty Cobb, who repped Trump without getting into legal trouble on his own, to Politico, on the day that former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis joined Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro in pleading guilty to charges stemming from attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. In my day job, we featured Cobb back in 2015, when the world was young. He was a D.C. lawyer with strong Kansas ties, and that name, so of course called the feature ”The Kansas Peach.“ 

From later in the Politico article: ”...all three lawyers pleading guilty in the Georgia case have agreed to surrender relevant documents to prosecutors..."

Stallone and Young in the sleeper hit of 1976.

When did I first see Burt Young? He always seemed part of my film/TV landscape in the 1970s but he'd actually just started getting roles. His first credit (of 166) was in an episode of “The Doctors” that aired in Oct. 1969, and then he was into the 1970s; and then he came to embody a kind of gritty, slobby 1970s aesthetic. But when did I first see him? “Rocky” was in March 1977, just after I'd turned 14. Was anything before then?

Here are the best options, per his IMDb page:

• “Across 110th Street” (1972): Great movie, but I didn't see it until my 30s in the 1990s
• “M*A*S*H,” S2, Ep7, “L.I.P.: Local Indigenous Personnel”: So memorable in this (more later) but I didn't start watching “M*A*S*H” reguarly until Season 4—though there's a chance I saw this in rereuns before March 1977
• “Chinatown” (1974), one of the greatest movies ever made, and he's there at the beginning and end in a pivotal role, but again, I didn't see “Chinatown” until my 30s
•  “Cinderella Liberty,” “The Gambler,” “Hustling,” “The Killer Elite:”: Nah, I was a kid

I'll cut to the chase: I think it was in a first season episode of “Baretta,” which I watched all the time: S1, Ep10, “Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow.” In it, he played Willie, a mentally challenged adult, and a childhood friend of Baretta's, who may be behind a string of robberies. It aired April 9, 1975. When I first saw “Rocky,” I might've even thought, “Hey, it's Baretta's friend!” There's some part of me that thinks I thought that, but I could just be fooling myself.

The point is, I don't remember any episode of “Baretta” anymore. But Paulie? He's imbedded forever. 

Here's the thing people forget about “Rocky”: It was at the exact fulcrum of gritty, realistic '70s movies and the crowd-pleasing, sequel-laden blockbusters Hollywood movies became. The first half was gritty slice of life; second half, he goes the distance, gets the crowd and the girl, etc., and, because it was a huge hit, the No. 1 movie of 1976, it led to “Rocky II,” “III,” “IV,” “V,” “Balboa,” and the first three “Creed” movies. It helped lead us away from gritty realism and the kinds of movies Burt Young was great in.

And was anyone grittier and more realistic in the first “Rocky” than Paulie? Stallone was strong and handsome, with Paul McCartney eyes, and his Rocky was too much of a sweetheart to become a thumbbreaker for the mob. Even the mob was nice: “Here's some money, Rock, don't worry about it.” But Paulie? Ooof. Always wanting something, always insinuating himself in. Hey, Rock, take out my sister. What? You're busted! You ain't a virgin no more! That whole scene. Yikes. Throwing the turkey out the door? There's no one in that movie you wanted to hang around with less than Paulie. Who woulda thought he would last the longest among the supporting cast? Mickey died in “III,” Apollo in “IV,” Adrian after “V.” We don't see Paulie's grave until “Creed.”

During the pandemic I wound up watching a lot of old “M*A*S*H” episodes on HULU, and came across the aforemented Season 2 episode, in which Hawkeye and Trapper help a soldier marry and take home a Korean woman and their child. It's the one where Hawkeye is going after that hot new nurse, but she turns out to be racist, and so he buys back his introduction to her? Anyway, the lieutenant who's charged with looking into the matter is played by Burt Young, and he's just this sad, slobby, brutal, slice of life. Hawkeye and Trap get him drunk, and then surround him women's clothes, to blackmail him. At first it doesn't work, but then he's like “What do I care?” and signs the release but doesn't hold a grudge. He's still kind of affable. More, I was reminded that a few of my forever lines came from him. Particularly:

• “Whu — braissiere?”
• “Fuggetit!”

So memorable. 

Young was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for “Rocky,” both him and Burgess Meredith, but they lost to Jason Robards' Ben Bradlee in “All the President's Men.” (Ned Beatty and Laurence Olivier were also in the mix. Helluva slate.) The movies then went the way they went, but almost anytime they returned to something gritty, serious and New York-centric, filmmakers reached out to Burt Young: “Once Upon a Time in America,” “The Pope of Greenwich Village,” “Last Exit to Brooklyn,” “The Sopranos.”

So long, Paulie.

“You don't give a no-jail plea deal unless that person's got something very good to say that will help your case against the others.”

-- former NJ govenor, federal prosecutor and current GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie after it was learned today that one-time Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors (for six years of probation) in the Georgia RICO case focusing on Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results there. The New York Times say it's “the first time that anyone who was closely tied to his attempts to stay in power had reached a cooperation deal with the authorities.”

My father and Suzanne Somers in Mexico in 1978. And no, not that way, it was just a press junket. 

This is how The New York Times began its obit:

Suzanne Somers, who gained fame by playing a ditsy blonde on the hit sitcom “Three's Company” and then by getting fired when she demanded equal pay with the series' male star — and who later built a health and diet business empire, most notably with the ThighMaster — died on Sunday at herhome in ...

If she'd died in the 1990s, I think the lede would've read more like this: 

Suzanne Somers, who gained fame by playing a ditsy blonde on the hit sitcom “Three's Company” and was fired after making salary demands — and later wound up selling exercise equipment on late-night TV — died on Sunday... 

What's the line from “The Dark Knight”? You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain? Somers lived long enough to see herself become the hero. And a feminist icon! I don't think anyone thought Somers was a feminist icon in 1978. Particularly the feminists. 

Contempating her trajectory—from walk-on eye candy, to sexy blonde TV star, to failed film star—I thought of Farrah Fawcett, and lo and behold they had the same manager, Jay Bernstein, who was apparently great at publicity, and getting actresses to leave successful TV shows, but not much else. It feels slightly shady to me, but he became a producer on their stabs at film stardom: “Sunburn” for Farrah, “Nothing Personal” for Suzanne. In the latter, Somers plays an environmental lawyer who gets entangled with a professor, Donald Sutherland, in preventing the clubbing of (yes) baby seals to make room for (yes) a missile base. That's the late '70s all wrapped into one awful storyline. My father, who, per above, had every reason to give her a pass, lambasted “Nothing Personal” in his usual manner. He quoted the publicity dept.'s take on the film and tore it apart. You call it a “modern comedy”? Neither, actually. 

Here's a question: If Somers indeed demanded equal pay with John Ritter, was she right to do so, or was she more replaceable than John Ritter? Since she was in fact replaced—first by Jenilee Harrison, who didn't take, and then by Priscilla Barnes, who did, kinda—it seems like the answer is yes. But as someone who was there, and watching, off and on, the show was never the same once Suzanne Somers was gone. It was fun, and then suddenly she was calling in long distance? That didn't work. And all of her replacements never really replaced her. Chrissy Snow was a dumb blonde, but also sweet and wise. In many ways she was smarter than the others. She knew what mattered in life. 

You know who thought she was worth the money? Newsweek magazine:

Look at that. She's literally bursting out of the televsion set—and her nighty. Which is the point. Newsweek was tsk-tsking about SEX AND TV but using both, and particularly the former, to sell the magazine. Suzanne Somers had to deal with that hypocrisy her entire life. 

Her most memorable film role was one of her first—the blonde in the white T-bird that Richard Dreyfuss spends the night, and the movie, chasing after in “American Graffiti.” Smart boy. Oddly, I always thought she was in the backseat. Nope. He was—in the other car. She was driving. Not a bad metaphor, particularly if the posthumous accolades are correct. All the time I thought she was a passenger, she was actually in the driver's seat.

WARNING: SPOILERS

Pity the poor DCEU. It came out of the gate meh (“Man of Steel”), then turned into a series of roiling disasters (“Batman v. Superman,” Snyder v. Whedon), and even when it did something right it couldn’t sustain it. Wonder Woman had an OK first movie and an idiotic second. The first Suicide Squad was a hot mess but was rebooted well by James Gunn, leading execs at Warner Bros. to figure, OK, Gunn, reboot the whole thing.

“The Flash,” directed by Andy Muschietti (“It”), was released after the reboot announcement, making it seem pointless. More, its star, Ezra Miller, an indie darling in 2012, was suddenly hugely problematic:

• April 2020: choked a woman at a bar in Iceland
• March 2022: arrested for disorderly conduct in Hawaii
• April 2022: arrested for second-degree assault (chair throwing) in Hawaii
• June 2022: accused of grooming a young Indian girl
• August 2022: arrested for felony burglary (alcohol) in Vermont

Most of the above is indicative of mental health and substance-abuse issues, but grooming (or accusations thereof) is true villainy in the 2020s. Basically if your star is accused of such, you don’t have a movie. Not at the box office anyway.

It doesn’t help that “The Flash” was sloppy seconds. Two years earlier, Marvel released “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” in which, in the aftermath of a worldwide conflagration, the Avengers’ youngest hero, Spider-Man (Tom Holland), tries to correct a wrong and instead brings multiverses together—including past cinematic iterations of his own character (Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield). Fans went crazy for it. It opened at $260 million (second-biggest ever), grossed $814 million domestically (third-biggest) and $1.9 billion worldwide (sixth-biggest). 

Here, in the aftermath of a worldwide conflagration, the Justice League’s youngest hero, the Flash, tries to correct a wrong and instead brings multiverses together—including past cinematic iterations of Batman’s character (Michael Keaton). Fans couldn’t be bothered. It opened at $55 million, grossed $108 domestically and $270 worldwide.

The irony? “The Flash” is probably the best movie in the DCEU.

Uncooked spaghetti
Yes, not saying much.

Question: Did the Flash have a tragic upbringing in the comics? I don’t remember that, but I was never a Flash guy. I just remember the chemicals and lightning bolt—an idiotic origin recreated here.

But here, yes, tragedy. Mom (Maribel Verdu) was murdered, and Dad (Billy Crudup in “Justice League,” Ron Livingston now) was convicted of the crime. Barry knows he’s innocent, and so, determined to set him free, he studies law and becomes a criminal defense attorney.

Kidding. No, despite warnings from Batman (Ben Affleck), he decides to use the “speed force” to create a “chronobowl” and go back in time to make sure mom buys a can of tomatoes. You see, Mom was murdered when Dad was off buying those tomatoes, so Flash, within the chronobowl, puts them in her shopping cart, so…

Wait, wouldn’t that mean Dad would be home, too? So whoever killed mom might kill Dad? Or is the assumption that with the MAN at home, no one would dare enter. Seems a little sexist.  

Anyway, as we all know, and as Batman warned, you mess with time at your own (and our) peril. The can of tomatoes is the butterfly wings, and when Flash returns … Well, his first mistake is landing several years early to find his self unmarred by tragedy and annoyingly happy and unserious. He also realizes that this Barry never got a job at the police lab, so he’s not going to be there when lightning strikes and the chemicals pour over him. And if this Barry isn’t super-powered, how can he be? So he manufactures the event. Except even as Barry 2 get powers, Barry 1 loses his. Now, Barry 1, to quote a phrase, has no way home.

Oh, this is also the moment Gen. Zod (Michael Shannon) from “Man of Steel” is attacking Earth, so Flash is kind of needed. At least for that one kid he saved. Did we ever get closure on that? I thought it would lead to something—saving both the kid and his dad, or Dad still dies cuz life—but it’s never reintroduced, is it?

Barry still doesn’t realize he’s in a completely different timeline, so it’s up to this universe’s Batman (Michael Keaton) to explain it to him and us with strands of uncooked spaghetti: You’re creating not just a new future but a completely different past. I like how our first sense of this is when Barry mentions “Back to the Future” and Barry 2 exclaims “Eric Stoltz is chur boy in that movie!” Which, by the way, is a very Hollywood way of letting us know the space-time continuum is messed up. It’s not, “Well, Pres. Al Gore thinks…” It’s: Hey, they went through with the Eric Stoltz casting! And Michael J. Fox starred in “Footloose” and Kevin Bacon in “Top Gun”! And Tom Cruise Mapother IV became a priest! (Kidding, they don’t delve into what happened to Tom Cruise.)

So in this strand of spaghetti, there is no Kal-El—he doesn’t make it to Earth—but his cousin, Kara/Supergirl (Sasha Calle), does. Apparently she crashlands in Russia, and apparently the Russians are so stupid they don’t try to utilize this weapon—they imprison her away from the sun, in a deep, deep dungeon. But Batman and the two Flashes arrive to set her free. Forgot to mention: In the Batcave, they’ve recreated the chemical/lightning bolt thing, and original Barry has his powers back.

That was cool—seeing the Keaton-era Batcave recreated with its waterfall front. There’s a lot of such nostalgic stuff here. The first time we see Keaton as Batman and we get the Danny Elfman theme, I got shivers. Keaton repeats a couple of famous lines (“I’m Batman”; “Let’s get nuts”), but his tone is properly leavened with age and weariness. I liked that, too. And they still haven’t—or he hasn’t—figured out what to do post-Batman. Here, he’s basically become Howard Hughes: long hair, beard, half-crazed and alone in a dilapidated Wayne Manor.

All of this sets up the big battle with Zod, which our heroes lose. Yes, lose. Zod winds up terraforming Earth into Krypton 2 and we all die. Got that? Because of the can of tomatoes. So Flash 2 does the speed force/chronobowl thing to right things. But it happens again. And again. We just can’t beat this guy! And Flash 1 winds up in the Chronobowl with a monstrosity, which turns out to be him, or “Dark Flash,” the one who’s gone crazy from recreating the world forever. And the lesson is… ? Well, several. There are certain people that are focal points in time, and Barry figures he’s one, he’s the problem, and so is that can of tomatoes, and so he goes back again to remove it from the shopping cart.

Other lessons:

• “Not every problem has a solution.”
• “Don’t let your tragedy define you.”

The first quote is Barry 1 talking to Barry 2. Not a bad lesson. The second is—believe it or not—the Affleck Batman talking to Barry 1 at the beginning of the movie. Don’t let your tragedy define you? Sure thing, Bats.

Also, after all that, does Barry really learn his lesson? All this shit happens and he still mucks with the timeline. He moves the cans of tomatoes from the bottom shelf to the top so the surveillance camera in the store will capture his father’s face, leading to his acquittal. A little easy. I still think it would’ve made more sense for Barry to get a J.D.

I guess the other lesson DC/Warners wants to impart is that Superman can defeat Zod but Supergirl can’t. Seems a little sexist.

Whither the stars of 2010s indies
But I still enjoyed it. We get some poignant lines:

Kara: Why did you help me?
Barry: Because you needed help. 

Barry: We can’t bring you back, can we?
Batman: You already did.

Maybe the most poignant line is Barry’s realization that his mom will “always be alive somewhere in time.” That made me flash on Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” and the way the alien Tralfamadorian race perceived time: not moment to moment, the way we do, losing everything all the while, but all at once like a mountain range. So to their perception, people don’t leave us. They don’t die. They’re still right there. In that moment in time.

Speaking of: I liked seeing all the iterations of Superman—from George Reeves to Christopher Reeve to … is that Nicolas Cage? Right, the stupid 1990s Kevin Smith movie that was never made. It’s Eric Stoltz all over again. But why didn’t we get a CGI Kirk Alyn? Or Brandon Routh? Or Adam West or Val Kilmer? And there’s still a time-continuum glitch at the end of the movie, an unnecessary wuh-wuh moment, when Barry finally sees his Bruce Wayne again … and it’s not Ben Affleck but George Clooney! Ha?

There’s also a romantic interest subplot with Iris West (Kiersey Clemons), girl reporter, that goes nowhere.

In a way the movie was doubly nostalgic: Not just to the Michael Keaton-era Batman but to the young stars of early 2010s indies. It’s Ezra of “Perks”/“We Need to Talk About Kevin,” and Kiersey of “Dope,” and both these kids seemed on the rise back then. Then they got sucked into the DCEU. And here it is 10 years later and what happened? What the hell happened? It all seems wrong now. If only someone could go back in time and fix it.

Phyllis Coates was the third woman to portray Lois Lane (after radio star Joan Alexander and Noel Neill), the second live-action Lois (after Neill), and the first non-Minnesotan (from Wichita Falls, Texas). She died last week at age 96. 

Overall, Coates' Lois seemed more grown up and officious than Neill's. You feel you might get away with crossing Neill but not Coates. She was also the first actress to walk away from the role. After filming the B-movie “Superman and the Mole-Men” and the first season of the “Adventures of Superman” TV series, she gave it up and the role reverted to Neill again for the final five seasons. Looking through IMDb's photos, you get an idea why she might have done this: 

OK, so the first shot is classic Lois and the third shot is from a cheapie serial. But the other two are from “Supes.” Seems a girl reporter couldn't get through a 30-minute episode without giving the fetishists something to fetish about.

Looking over these photos, what's surprising is how different Coates can look from role to role: here blonde and Teutonic for “Jungle Drums of Africa”; there, suburban housefrau for an episode of “Leave It to Beaver”; young and coquetteish for her early pinups, and leggy for low-budget Republic serials. She always seemed smarter than her roles, but I guess that wasn't hard.

Though she ditched a great character for those sad Republic serials, she was part of one of the great unheralded moments in early superherodom. It's from the “Mole-Men” movie which wasn't even much of a movie—it's barely an hour long. At one point, the “Mole-Men” are discovered in an oil-drilling Texas town, and, being Texas, a lynch mob is quickly assembled. A rabble rouser rags on “them two reporters from back east” (Lois and Clark) and tells the crowd that no strangers are going to stop them. But one stranger does. After a gun goes off, an illegal alien named Superman says the following:

Whoever fired that shot nearly hit Miss Lane. Obviously none of you can be trusted with guns. So I’m going to take them away from you.

And he does.

Man, I'd love to watch this with an NRA crowd someday.

Before this weekend, the biggest domestic opening for a concert film belonged to “Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert,” which grossed $31 mil over three days back in Feb. 2008, on its way to a $65 million haul.

Before this weekend, the biggest domestic haul for a concert film belonged to “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” which took in $73 million during the early months of 2011.

Both records were shattered this weekend by Taylor Swift and her Eras Tour film, which has taken in (or is taking in) an estimated $95-$97 million in North America over three days.

And where she stops nobody knows.

Does it help or hurt that the movie didn't have any major studio involvement? She had it distributed via AMC Theaters, which is also obviously an exhibitor. Yesterday, checking which films were out there, I noticed the listings for AMC Pacific Place 11 in downtown Seattle seemed thin. That's because more than half the theaters were showing “The Eras Tour.” If you went to Pac Place, there were 21 viewings of Taylor Swift and 18 viewings of the other six movies playing.

(So why doesn't U.S. v. Paramount (1948) come into play? I believe in that case SCOTUS separated production from exhibition, not distribution. So it's cool.)

In second and fourth place at the domestic box office were some horror retreads: the second weekend of “The Exorcist: Believer,” which added $11 million for a $45 million gross; and the third weekend of “Saw X,” which added $5.7 for a $44 million domestic total. In third place was the third weekend of “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie” ($7/$49). 

So another medium conquered by Taylor Swift. Apparently it's a good film, too—100% on Rotten Tomatoes. But that list of big box-office concert films, at least the music portion of it, feels like another film festival in Hell to me. It's the lastest white teen craze (Bieber, Cyrus, One Direction, Katy Perry, Joan Brothers), or the latest Black standup star (Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Kevin Hart), with Micheal Jackson (“This Is It”) in between. I've seen the Michael (Second overall, or third now). Also Madonna's “Truth or Dare” (14th), “U2: Rattle and Hum” (19th), “Shine a Light” (22nd), “Stop Making Sense” (23rd). 

Anyway, Taylor seems like an improvement over Miley or Justin.

The 2023 Minnesota Twins are done, losing their ALDS to the Houston Astros three games to one before a hometown crowd. Not welcome but not exactly unexpected.

The 100+ win Orioles are also done (three and out against Texas), as are the 100+ win Dodgers (three and out against Arizona), and the 100+ win Braves are on the brink, down two games to one to Philadelphia. These things were unexpected. Kinda.

Last year, MLB restructured its playoff system to allow for two more teams, bringing the total up to 12; and to quiet concerns that this was making the long, 162-game season kind of irrelevant, they said the really good teams would get a bye in the first round so they wouldn't have to fight for their life in a best-of-three series. They could wait on the sidelines and watch. It's a reward!

But is it? Here's Joey Poz yesterday:

Sure, you get a first-round bye and the chance to line up your rotation... but you also have to sit around and get rusty for five days, which probably dulls the advantage (or perhaps, depending on who you're listening to, even puts you as a DISadvantage).

As of this moment, the five teams that won 92 or more games are 1-10 in the postseason, the one win being the Braves' miraculous comeback against the Phillies in NLDS Game 2.

And while he suggests that it may be a one-year blip, he adds, via asterisk, that in the NL last year, “the four teams that won 92-plus games went 3-10 in the playoffs, none of them winning a series.”

Wouldn't that be amazing? If, in restructuring the playoff systsem to give greater advantage to the better teams, MLB, in its continued quest for more postseason revenue, actually did the opposite? 

This should be the No. 1 topic for baseball fans everywhere.

“What seems clear enough is that Kendi and Minhaj both believed that they could reap all the rewards of the mass market and still maintain an edge and a sense of political purpose. And, while there are certainly differences between them—I don't agree with any of Kendi's prescriptions or, really, the concept of anti-racism, but I still believe he's a more sincere operator than Minhaj—they captured huge audiences filled, in large part, by well-intentioned white people who wanted a person of color to deliver the pabulum they wanted to hear.”

-- Jay Caspian Kang, “Ibram X. Kendi, Hasan Minhaj, and the Question of Selling Out,” on The New Yorker site

I hadn't heard about Ibram Kendi's problems (laying off much of the staff at his Center for Antiracist Research despite many millions in donations), and barely knew of him, to be honest; but I knew of Hasan Minhaj, I was just never a fan, so his controversy (fabricating stories of racism in his standup for greater moral authority) didn't exactly make me wring my hands. That said, “selling out” feels an odd way of getting at what connects these two. I think the quote above gets closer to it. Indeed, it made me flash on post-George Floyd, 2020, and how some white people were suddenly very, very earnest about establishing their anti-racist credentials and recommending X, Y or Z to watch, read or listen to. It got old fast. If it was ever young.

One over-recommended book was Robin Diangelo's “White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism,” whose very subtitle seems like a bulwark against criticism. I never read it, or even picked it up, I just remember asking someone for an example from the book. That example involved Jackie Robinson: How white people, according to Diangelo, think Robinson broke the color barrier because he was the first African American that was good enough to play in the Majors rather than the first that was allowed to play in the Majors.

Me, after a beat: Who the fuck thinks that?

Obviously I'm not the demographic here. I know too much about Jackie Robinson, for one, but it didn't take much. It wasn't work, learning about him and other race matters, but whatever non-work it was, a lot of people didn't do it; and then it felt like they wanted to lead the rest of us to where many of us had already been.

Anyway, I hope that time is over.

Some deaths make me wonder where the hell I’ve been. Jim Caple was a fun, breezy sportswriter that I read often, and when he went away, or I went elsewhere, I didn’t notice. He was there, and then wasn’t, and how come I didn’t realize it? How could I not hold onto that? One of my faults is wanting to hold onto too much, so why couldn’t I hold onto that?

(Another fault is the exact opposite: just leaving; just dropping it all and holding onto nothing. I’m not saying it makes sense.)

Caple didn’t just write like a person, he wrote like a person you wanted to be friends with. Our paths kept criss-crossing: He grew up in the Pacific Northwest, then moved to Minnesota and covered the Twins; I grew up in Minnesota, then moved to the Pac Northwest and cheered on the Mariners. He was already a big-name sportswriter, a founder of ESPN’s Page 2 humor pages, and its Off Base columnist, when I was writing for an alternative Mariners mag, The Grand Salami; but he, now living back here, still agreed to do a regular column for then-publisher Jon Wells. “You got Caple?” I said, impressed. “How did that happen?” I got a compliment back from him, too. Once, after news broke in 2004 that “Laverne & Shirley” alum David L. Lander was scouting for the M’s, I wrote a column parodying the dumb moves of GM Billy Bavasi as if it were an old episode of “L&S,” with Billy in the Lenny role. I remember hearing from Jon how impressed Caple was with the column. Or maybe he was just impressed that I was able to reach back in the memory banks and somehow find Laverne’s catchphrase for dishy guys: Vodeo-doh-doh. Maybe it was just that. But that was enough.

Caple died Sunday night, age 61, from ALS and dementia. His nephew has a nice tribute here. His colleague at The Athletic has a nice tribute here.

Here’s Caple’s column on 50 years of baseball memories. Here he is on first gloves and Jack Morris. When Mariners broadcaster Dave Niehaus died in 2012, Caple quoted his nephew: “I didn't know him, but it feels like I did.” Same with Caple.

Ask a Red Sox fan about Tim Wakefield's postseasons in 2003 and '04, and he might go “sucked” and “rocked,” respectively. In the 2003 ALCS, Game 7, he gave up Aaron Boone's walkoff homerun in the bottom of the 11th to end the season for the Sox and send the hated Yankees, yet again, to the World Series. And in the 2004 ALCS, Game 5, with the season on the line, he kept the Yankees scoreless for three tense innings, allowing the Sox to come back in the bottom of the 14th to win the game and send it back to New York. It was a crucial link in the chain, one of many, in their unprecedented comeback from a three-game deficit to take the best-of-seven series and end the so-called “Curse of the Bambino.” So: 2003 negative, 2004 positive.

Overall, though, Wakefield pitched much better in 2003. He started ALCS Game 1, went 6 innings, gave up 2 runs, got the win. Started Game 4, went 7, gave up 1, another W. Then in Game 7 they brought him in to face the Yanks in the bottom of the 10th: Matusi, Posada, Giambi. Ground out, fly out, fly out. But the BoSox could do nothing with Mariano, and in the bottom of the 11th Wakefield faced Boone, who pinch-ran for Rueben Sierra in the 8th, then stayed in the game. And we know what happened.

2004, meanwhile, began bumpy. Game 1, Sox down 6-0, he pitched an inning and gave up two. Game 3, he came on in the 4th, down 9-6, and allowed 5 runs in 3 1/3 in a 19-8 Yankee blowout. Yet in the crucial Game 5, he held the line. And that's what we remember. 

According to Joe Posnanski, Wakefield learned the knuckleball from his father. Or his father used the knuckleball to end games of catch he thought were going on too long. He figured making Tim chase after balls he couldn't catch was the way to do it. Instead Tim became intrigued with how to throw it, and mastered it, but never thought of it as anything more than a parlor trick. He was a first baseman at Florida Tech, drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, but couldn't hit A ball pitching and his career seemed done. And then? Then he was goofing around with his parlor trick and an old hand noticed.

Woody Huyke, who managed and coached in the Pirates organization for more than 30 years, happened to see it. Huyke had seen hundreds of players goofing off and throwing knuckleballs for fun, but Wakefield's knuckleball was something different, something explosive.

“I didn't say anything,” Huyke told the New Yorker's Ben McGrath. “I just played dumb. And then two days later we had an organizational meeting, because, you know, he was on the bubble as an infielder. I said, 'Before you let him go, I'd like to see him on the mound, 'cause he's got a good knuckleball.”

We could all use a Woody Huyke in life. Wakefield pitched for 19 years in the Majors, mostly for Boston, went 200-180 with a 4.41 ERA, and consternated batters and catchers alike with that explosive knuckleball. “And, as the famous line goes,” Posnanski writes, “Wake was a better person than pitcher. He won the Roberto Clemente Award for his work off the field. Cliches are cliches, but sometimes they are just true: To know Tim Wakefield was to love the guy.”

He died Oct. 1, age 57, brain cancer. The New York Times headline is like my Boston fan: “Pitcher Who Helped Boston Break the Curse...”

Athletes get better with time. Training gets better, equipment gets better, diet gets better. Today, these guys are doing it 24/7 rather than in their spare time. At the turn of the 20th century, half of Major League Baseball seemed to be hinterland kids avoiding the coal mines who worked at grocery stores in the off-season. Back then, you needed spring training to actually get in shape. Now guys show up in better shape than the rest of the world. That's why amazing plays from the past don't seem so amazing today. 

An exception is Brooks Robinson.

Most of his plays in the 1970 World Series are still amazing—particularly the Lee May play. And that play mattered. That often gets lost in the discussion. It was Game 1, Oct. 10, 1970, and while the 108-win Orioles were favorites over the 102-win Cincinnati Reds, the Orioles had been prohibitive favorites the year before against the New York Mets and still lost in five. And they were losing this one, 3-0. Lee May was 2-2, a single and a 2-run homerun—he was making an early argument for MVP—and with the game now tied 3-3 in the sixth (on homeruns by Boog Powell and Elrod Hendricks), he furthered that argument with a lead-off double down the left field line.

Except, oh wait, not a double. The Orioles third baseman, Brooks Robinson, ranged to his right, stabbed the ball, and, from deep in foul territory, heaved a throw over to first base that nabbed May by half a step. (Video here.)

Even today you're like: Holy crap.

Here's how important that play was: The next two guys got on (walk, single) but didn't score. May certainly would've scored ahead of them, and maybe one or both would've scored since there would've been one fewer out against the Reds. But they didn't. And the next inning, the Orioles went ahead on a solo homerun ... by Brooks Robinson. That made it 4-3, Orioles, and that's how the first game ended. The O's wound up winning the Series in five, Brooks Robinson batted .429 with a 1.238 OPS, and made so many great plays at third, robbing the Reds again and again, that afterwards Pete Rose famously said: “Brooks Robinson belongs in a higher league.” He, not Lee May, was named MVP.

And here's the crucial inning on Baseball Reference's play-by-play chart:

Announcer Jim McIntyre: “Great day in the morning, what a play!” The history books: “Groundout: 3B-1B.”

You know who didn't get Pete Rose's memo about Brooksie? Topps. I guess they didn't have much competition back then, and didn't pay much for photographers, so this was Brooks' card the following season, my first real year of collecting cards, along with his World Series card:

In one he's (I guess?) striking out, in the other ... just what is that? A catcher looking for a contact lens? Someone imitating a turtle? It's like a grainy Bigfoot photo. “We think it's a baseball player but we're not sure.” And it's mostly infield dirt! No one had a zoom back then?

Brooks was my first Brooks—for a time, I actually thought his name was “Brook”—and one of two great Robinsons on the great 1966-71 Orioles team. As a Twins fan, that seemed totally unfair. We'll give you one Hall of Fame Robinson, but two? The other, Frank, won the 1966 World Series MVP, won the 1966 Triple Crown, and hit 586 career homers. It was a time of civil rights, when race was on everybody's mind, and they were asked about it a lot. Hey, two ballplayers, black and white, with the same last name? Surely, you two can solve the implacable American problem. Brooks' go-to was a joke: They were the same height, same weight, but you could tell them apart: “We wear different numbers,” he said. They joked about it in a Miller Lite commercial as well.

Brooks died last week of cardiovascular disease at the age of 86. He was, by all accounts, a beautiful man, open, friendly, classy. I've got a half-dozen quotes about him from Joe Posnanski's obit alone but I'll stick with the best of them. Brooks retired at the end of the 1977 season and they honored him at a banquet. This was shortly after Reggie Jackson hit three homeruns in the final game of the 1977 World Series, and there was a lot of buzz about that. Jackson had said that if he played in New York they'd name a candy bar after him, and now they were going to. And at the banquet, sportswriter Gordon Beard teed that up. He said: “Brooks never asked anyone to name a candy bar after him. In Baltimore, people name their children after him.”

From Joe Posnanski's end-of-regular-season column, going over the events of the last day—beginning with ...

Astros win again (because of course they do)

I had this feeling a couple of days ago when Aroldis Chapman had his ninth-inning meltdown, that it would end up costing the Texas Rangers the division title. I didn’t know HOW it would happen — I actually thought the most likely scenario was that the Mariners would sweep the Rangers — but something about that loss and, specifically, the role of Aroldis Chapman in it suggested some bad juju and a crushing finish to what has been a glorious season for the Rangers.

Well, the Mariners did not sweep — the Mariners have their own bad juju to deal with. But they did take three out of four, including Sunday’s gut-punch 1-0 victory, and the Astros woke up just in time to sweep the Diamondbacks (allowing just two runs in the three games) and now the Rangers are stuck trying to win a best-of-three series in Tampa Bay while the Astros get to sip martinis and wait for whoever wins that Twins-Blue Jays series.

Those two are NOT the same thing.

One: It's very cute that Joe thought the Mariners would sweep. He just doesn't know what it's like to be us. 

Two: Well, I guess he knows it a little: “the Mariners have their own bad juju to deal with.”

Three: I wrote about all this on Tim's and my Section 327 Substack. Basically: Yay, we kept the Rangers from winning the title! Crap, we let the Astros win the title again! There's no winning, even when we win.

Four: It is astonishing how much those two are not the same thing.

WARNING: SPOILERS

Is Zack Snyder the Leni Riefenstahl of the Trump era?

I know, I know, that’s such an unfair question. Riefenstahl was actually talented.

Kidding! No, it’s a totally unfair comparison … yet somehow I keep returning to it. It’s that grandiose superman posturing—this time with an actual Superman (Henry Cavill)—but full of disphittery, befitting Trump and his era. Remember the opening to “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, and the way Colbert’s right-wing pundit landed in a three-point crouch and then rose majestically? It was so perfectly stupid I thought he killed that move for all time, but apparently it’s tough to kill stupid. Snyder must return to the move a dozen times in this film.

Both men, Zack and Trump, lost their battles and then sic’ed their minions on the power structure to overturn the results. Trump’s big play was the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A TV game show host and gasbag real estate mogul attempted to violently overthrow American democracy … and very nearly succeeded. And still might.

Snyder did succeed. This movie is the result.

Mother Boxes?
I have more sympathy for Snyder, of course, but it has limits. His rebellion involved artistic differences. He had a vision, the corporation took it away from him during a time of tragedy, he marshalled forces on social media (#ReleaseTheSnyderCut), and the suits relented. But it’s not like the people in charge disliked his vision; they disliked the returns on investment. They’d given him the most valuable superhero IP in the world and he returned with “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” which grossed about half of what “The Avengers” did. Stupid may be tough to kill but dipshit only goes so far at the box office. All in all, Zack’s vision probably cost Warner Bros. more than a billion dollars. So if you’re a CEO or CFO, and even if you’re among the dipshits who put him in charge in the first place, you probably lose a little patience. You probably think, “Hey, what about that ‘Avengers’ guy? He still available?”

And that was the theatrically released “Justice League,” begun with Snyder’s heavy hand, finished with Joss Whedon’s light comedic touch, not “BvS”-awful but not good. Not a triumph.

And now, with his name not only above the title but possessing it, we get “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” It took me about 10 tries to finally force it down. I could only handle scenes like this for so long:

Steppenwolf: DeSaad! I call to thee!
[DeSaad appears in the wall of rock]
DeSaad: Steppenwolf, have you begun the conquest? …You still owe the great one 50,000 more worlds. He will hear your plea when you pay your debt.
Steppenwolf: The Mother Boxes will be found and united. No protectors here. No Lanterns, no Kryptonian. This world will fall, like all the others.
DeSaad: For Darkseid. [Vanishes in the wall of rock]
Steppenwolf: For Darkseid.

It’s not just the “thee” and the bowing, and the appearing and disappearing in a wall of rock, it’s those names. I think of a kid in the back row of English class sketching the logos of heavy metal bands onto his notebook. DeSaad. Steppenwolf. Cool! And yes, those names came out of Jack Kirby’s “New Gods” comic books, the ones he made at DC in the early 1970s when he jumped to DC—and possibly jumped the shark—so it’s not completely Snyder’s fault. Question: Is the Whedon-Snyder dynamic not far off from the Lee-Kirby one? Stan Lee had a lighter, comedic touch, which meshed with Kirby’s monumental but often ponderous approach, and for a time they worked well together. Obviously there was no such Whedon-Snyder dynamic since they never worked together, let alone well, but the comic book industry does seem full of this split: the witty ones with a ready wink, and the ponderous ones that want to brood on rooftops in the rain.

Alright, what exactly is “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” about?

Well, there’s an enemy coming. They were actually here eons ago, during “The Age of Heroes.” Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) tells Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) about it at the end of Part 2 of this movie. The part called “The Age of Heroes”:

Diana: As Darkseid waged war on Earth, he found a secret there. A power hidden in the infinity of space. He called forth mystics who worshipped and controlled three objects: the Mother Boxes.
Bruce: Mother Boxes?
Diana: Indestructible living machines made from a science so advanced it looks like sorcery. To conquer, three Boxes have to join and synchronize into the Unity. The Unity cleanses a planet with fire, transforming it into a copy of the enemy’s world. All who live become servants of Darkseid, alive but drained of life: parademons.

I like imagining Affleck practicing his line. “‘MOTHER Boxes?’ ‘Mother BOXes ?’ Wait, maybe just ‘Mother…?’ and let it trail off? Right?”

Back in the day, the inhabitants of Earth—Atlanteans, Amazonians and humans—united and beat back Darkseid for the first time in any universe ever. Yay, us! The bad guys were in such retreat they left the Mother Boxes behind, so they’re still here, one with each group, asleep. But oops, now with Superman dead (thanks, Batman!), they’re waking up and calling to Steppenwolf, who shows up with his parademons, who, per above, are actually just victims, aren’t they? God, that’s sad. Meanwhile, Steppenwolf may seem like a superbaddie with a horned head and no dick, but he’s just a lieutenant to a lieutenant. The real enemy is Darkseid who barely gets screentime in this four-hour monstrosity.

For some reason, they have Batman recruit everybody—though I guess Diana is the one who asks Cyborg (Ray Fisher), the former college quarterback whose superscientist dad (Joe Morton) turns him into a half man-half machine to save his life after a car accident. Dad also gives him the power to control nuclear arsenals and financial markets. “The fate of the world will literally rest in your hands,” he tells him. Wow. And some dads don’t even trust their sons with the car.

Is Cyborg grateful for this power? Or to be alive? Of course not. He’s a teen; he’s bitter. Dad never attended his football games, see, and his beloved mother was killed in the car accident that maimed him, and he’s wondering if his existence is a gift at all—alive but not, dead but not—and I’m just kidding about this last part. At least he doesn’t annunciate any existential concerns. He just broods in the shadows, and when Diana asks him to help save the world, he says “Fuck the world.” Not exactly the words you want to hear from a kid who can control nuclear arsenals.

Aquaman (Jason Momoa) also wants no part of any defense of Earth. He saves Icelandic sailors, knocks back whiskey, then returns to the sea in jeans—which has to be uncomfortable. He has douchebag dialogue with Batman. It’s from “Part 1: Don’t Count On It, Batman”:

Aquaman: Don’t count on it, Batman.
Batman: Why not?
Aquaman: Because I don’t like you coming here, digging into my business, getting into my life. I want to be left alone.
Batman: They won’t leave you alone.

Sorry, that last line is mine. That’s the obvious rejoinder but Bruce doesn’t go there, he just says something stupid. And when Aquaman says “Strong man is strongest alone,” Bruce doesn’t say the obvious, “They are stronger,” he brings up how Superman and he fought side by side, and Superman died, which proves Aquaman’s exact point. Jesus, Bruce are you really this dumb? 

The only one who agrees to join the Justice League right away is the Flash (Ezra Miller), who says, “I need … friends.” (Hold onto that thought, Ezra.)

Wait, so white people immediately agree to help humanity while the people of color don’t? And Zack Snyder and his minions accused Joss Whedon of racism?

Anyway, after Steppenwolf gets the first two Mother Boxes, he only needs the third to destroy the world, but it’s the Justice League who has it. By now, the BIPOC community has joined, so there’s five, but is that enough? We get a discussion about how Mother Boxes are “change machines,” and, as fire can change a house into smoke, these things can change smoke back into a house. Flash: “Who’s gonna say it?” Which is when Cyborg creates a holographic image of Superman brought back to life.

That was good bit. I liked that. I also liked them in the Batcave, with Flash being us going “Cool! Batcave!” I liked the Marc McClure cameo. That made me happy. So there are some things in Zack’s movie I liked.

When they bring Supes back to life, he doesn’t remember them, or his credo, or his personality, but he does remember how to fly and use heat vision and all that, and he’s this close to killing Batman, just incinerating him, when, oh, there’s Lois Lane (Amy Adams), who’s been brooding with cups of coffee throughout the first half of the film. Good thing she happened by. And love returns. And Supes joins the Justice League.

Well, not yet. First, he has to return to Smallville with Lois, visit his own grave (Clark’s), and hear how the family farm was foreclosed on by the bank. And somehow Mom (Diane Lane) just happens to drive by at this exact moment? I thought she was in Metropolis? How far is Smallville from Metropolis anyway? How many of these coincidences are you doing, Zack?

The cheer-worthiest moment in the history of ever
I do think Zack’s final battle is better than Joss’. In the Whedon version, the parademons fed on fear, and when Supes and WW destroy Steppenwolf’s sword he becomes fearful and so they fed on him. Burn. There’s also overlong stuff about a staunch Russian family, and a final idiot Batman vs. Flash footrace that recalled the 1960s comics but didn’t fit the whole “world nearly ending” vibe. 

Here, Batman and Aquaman fight back the parademons, Cyborg tries to enter the Unity to turn it off (or something) but needs a nudge from a supercharged Flash. But oh no! One of the parademons has wounded Flash! And the Unity has started! Except wounded, and with his father’s words ringing in his ears (“Make your own future, make your own past, it’s all … right … now”), the Flash turns back time! He enters the speed force! You remember that, don’t you? It was voted the No. 1 “Cheer Moment” at the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony. By the Academy? No, by dipshits online. For 2021 movies? No, for all time. No moment in any movie ever made us cheer more than that one. If you’re wondering what a definition of a cult is, that's it: voting for “The Flash enters the speed force” as the cheer-worthiest moment in the history of cinema. 

Well, at least Zack got to tell the “Justice League” he always wanted to tell. Done and—

Oh, not over yet?

No. Zack has to tee up the sequel that will never be made, about how Darkseid is going to attack Earth “using the old ways.” Then Cyborg has to listen to the tape his father made for him. And the bank doesn’t foreclose on the Kent farm because Bruce buys the bank. Haw! Couldn’t Bruce have just bought the Kent farm? No, because that wouldn’t be douchebag cool. It has to make you go “Haw!” 

And there’s Supes back in Metropolis again, pretending to have a secret identity. “Hey, didn’t Clark die around the same time as Superman?” “Yeah.” “And wasn’t he reborn around the same time as Superman?” “Yeah. Your point?” “Oh, nothing. Kinda funny is all.”

Anyway, finally over.

Sorry, this is Zack. We also get Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) breaking free from Arkham Asylum (or, more accurately, not being there), and hanging on a yacht and telling a one-eyed guy that Batman is really … Bruce Wayne! Then we’re in a post-apocalyptic world? And Batman is being taunted by the Joker (Jared Leto)? And Aquaman and Lois Lane are dead? But of course it’s all a dream. Bruce wakes up, he’s introduced to the Martian Manhunter, who tells him his mom and dad would be proud, and how the Earth wouldn’t have been united without him. Me: The Earth??? It was six people. Did anyone else factor in? We don’t even get a “There are always men like you” moment.

Seriously, I wonder about Zack. I wonder what he thinks of us mere mortals. He’s not only teeing up sequels that will never be made, he tees up his Ayn Rand project with a headline about an architect.

But he did it. He triumphantly willed this movie into existence. He smited his enemies, landed in a three-point crouch and rose majestically. Like a dipshit.

Yesterday, the Seattle Mariners were eliminated on the second-to-last game of the season, and I watched most of it because it was on network TV. I'd watched nothing of the two previous very exciting games (a walk-off two-run double from J.P. Crawford and an 8-0 win capped by a grand slam from J.P. Crawford) since they were on cable, and who has cable in 2023? One of these days I'll set up a VPN yadda yadda so I can watch the baseball games Major League Baseball won't let me watch—won't let me pay to watch—unless, of course, I pay an exorbitant sum like $90 a month. To recap: The entire MLB package is about $30 a month but of course the Mariners are blacked out in Seattle, so I'd need a special streaming service which costs like $90 per month to see those games. I refuse. But if I just VPNed it with a different zip code I'd be good. Next year. Wait till next year. 

Anyway, it was interesting seeing the Mariners on big-screen TV—“Oh, so that's what Sam Haggerty looks like”—but mostly it was just depressing. Luis Castillo's slider kept sliding out of the strike zone, tempting no one, and in the 3rd, the second time through the order, he gave up a leadoff walk to Marcus Semien, then got Seager to fly out and Grossman to strike out ... and that was his last out of the 2023 season. After that, nickel and diming. An infield roller to third that Eugenio Suarez made a nice one-handed play on but safe. Single up the middle to plate a run, a walk to reload the bases, a single to right, a single to right, then another walk to reload the bases, and that was it for Luis. We brought in Matt Brash to face Semien again, and, as they say, Brash got his man: a line shot to right that Dylan Moore made a beautiful Superman catch on, which mercifully ended the inning.

We had a chance in the 5th. Single, fly out, single, and then it was J.P. again, down 5-0, but he blooped one into center right and slammed his bat in frustration. Except it was perfectly placed: second base, right field and center field all converged and missed, and Siemen kind of hurt himself in the tumble, and it reminded me of J.P.'s hit last October in our incredible victory against the Blue Jays. Could it happen again? It couldn't. Julio, who's been lax in September, hit a 1-0 can-of-corn to left, then Gino grounded out and there went the season. We got two more hits: A two-out Kelenic single in the 6th and a Gino solo shot in the 8th, but mostly we went without a struggle, 6-1. I missed the very end, opting to see the 1977 movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” at SIFF Egyptian.

Joe Posnanski, who, in March, threw caution to the wind and predicted a Mariners pennant, summed it up thus:

And the Mariners' roller coaster season, which looked so blah (they had a losing record on July 15) and then looked so promising (they were in first place for 11 lovely days in late August and early September) will now end. If they were in the American League Central, they would have clinched the division title days ago. If they were in the National League, they would be the No. 2 wild card. But they are neither of those things, and if my dog could talk, I'd be a TV star.

I think Joe means if the Mariners were in the AL Central without the Twins, since the two teams have identical records, but otherwise yes. Once again we have the best record for any team not going to the postseason—and a better record than a few going:

Cold comfort. In a way, it's amazing we did as well as we did. Not much of a fan of the manager, Scott Servais, and while I like our young core lineup (Julio, Cal, J.P.), overall the Mariners strike out too much, are a bit streaky, and the role players don't play enough of a role. We have too many role players and need better ones. Next year. Wait till next year.