Category Archives: Movies, TV and such

Other baseball movies that need to happen

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After Moneyball drew widespread acclaim and pretty good box office, baseball movies seem to be having a renaissance.A movie on Jackie Robinson is in the works (with Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey and Chadwick Boseman starring as Jackie). Disney is working on a movie about the two Indian pitchers that the Pirates signed after they came over to the states after winning a reality TV show. Ben Affleck is trying to make a movie on the infamous Mike Kekich/Fritz Peterson “wife swap” (Kekich isn’t happy). And now his brother, Casey, is apparently trying to make a movie about Josh Hamilton.

Hamilton’s tale, of course, is perfect for a movie, as it could draw so many different types of people in. Every baseball fan would go to it just because it’s a baseball movie, everybody loves an underdog story, the struggles with substance abuse would play well with critics if done right and Hamilton’s faith would bring in church groups. Of course, there’s the slight problem that the story isn’t done yet: how do you end it? With him winning America’s hearts (but not the trophy) in that Yankee Stadium home run derby? With the 4-home run game? Had that home run of his in Game 6 last season won it for the Rangers, that would have been perfect, but then the Cardinals made their comeback.

But anyway, I’m getting off-topic. The thing with baseball is that there are so many stories that would make great movies. Here are some that should be considered (after the jump):

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Jeff Kent on Survivor… and other retired ballplayers who should do “reality” TV

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Jeff Kent is one of the greatest hitting second-basemen of all time (he leads the position in career homers), and a likely future Hall of Famer. He also infamously fought Barry Bonds in the dugout once.  He is also, according to some sources, going to be on the next season of Survivor. It is not without precedent: he previously took part in Superstars, and Survivor had Jimmy Johnson in 2010.

This leads to the humorous question of what other retired ballplayers should partake in reality TV. Hey, not every post can be about injuries, prospects, the World Baseball Classic or stupid comic books from the 1940s.

(JUMP)

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Baseball Players who are within Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

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We all probably know about the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It posits that Kevin Bacon is the center of the Hollywood universe, and that basically any actor is within seven movies of him. Technically, this isn’t true: Dennis Hopper is the “center” of the IMDB database, at least when you only count movies. However, you get the idea, and it gives us a good example of how the Degrees of Bacon works:

Dennis Hopper was in Cannes Man with Lloyd Kaufman, who was in Super with Kevin Bacon, thus Dennis Hopper’s Bacon Number is 2.

But what does this have to do with baseball? Well, you see, throughout history, baseball players have had some roles in movies. So let’s see how many degrees of Kevin Bacon baseball players are after the jump. As you’ll see they usually don’t need to travel far, although I’m sure I’ll be able to find something that is relatively far away from Bacon, right? Right?

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The Blight of the TV Blackout

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The greatest bane of the Major League Baseball fan in existence is not high ticket prices, competitive imbalance or rainy days. It is the dreadfully antiquated blackout policies of Major League Baseball on television. Drawn up long before the internet, national cable networks and Extra Innings packages, they, as they are currently drawn up, do little to benefit the teams they are meant to and do everything to annoy, enrage and inconvenience fans. It’s so bad, in fact, that some people are suing MLB over it.

(More after the break)

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The Return of Costas to Postseason Baseball?

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News item: TBS will air the two Wild Card play-in games. In addition, MLB Network will air two games of the Division Series.

Comment: Besides the fact that this makes MLB Network even more important (it already was getting close to eating and breathing), this also could mean that Bob Costas, one of the signature voices of sports broadcasting, will once again be calling October baseball, if only for two games. Costas has done select games on MLB Network since the station started, as well as hosting various shows and calling in to give analysis whenever a extremely major story happens. Sadly, due to the stupid MLB TV blackout map, I haven’t been able to see that many of them, as the games he’s covered usually have the Yankees or Mets (after all, Costas still needs to be close to 30 Rockefeller Center once football season starts). But with MLB Network now having some post-season play, not only will Costas possibly be calling baseball for the entire nation (blackout be damned), but he’d be calling postseason baseball. I only have the vaguest recollections of his postseason work, with the exception of the occasional MLB Network classic game, but I’m sure most would agree that the possibility of him calling postseason baseball can only be a good thing for all parties involved.

ADDED LATER: The NY Times confirms that Costas will do one of MLB Network’s games. Matt Vasgersian will do the other.

Great Bats in History

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Josh Hamilton’s bat is dead.

No, I don’t mean his hitting ability, I mean his bat. Literally. It cracked a bit over the weekend. But this was no ordinary bat. It will go down in history as one of the great bats of baseball lore. It hit eight home runs, including four in a game, during one of the greatest weeks in hitting history. Such was it’s reputation that, before being sent to Cooperstown, the Rangers let people pay $5 (to charity) to pose with it on Monday. 

A few things about the bat:

-It’s a H359 Louisville Slugger. It was made to Hamilton’s specifications after he signed an exclusive deal to use the company’s bats. It’s made of M9 maple and is 35 inches long.

-Befitting Hamilton, who credits his religion with helping him defeat the substance abuse that nearly killed him, he has a Bible notation emblazoned upon his bats: Jeremiah 29:11. I looked that up, and here it is-

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

So now that we know of this great baseball bat, what about some of the other great baseball bats in history? Read on to find out about some of them.

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Random Thoughts (Mainly on movies)

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And now, time for some random things. I don’t mean things like suddenly typing out random numbers and letters like, I dunno, CHJCSKSUTX4M or something. I mean, just a few things that are on my mind that aren’t baseball-related.

  • Go see The Avengers. It is very well done and a ton of fun. One of the most entertaining movies in years, especially if you’ve seen all of the other Marvel movies.
  • That said, I wish Marvel and Disney had the rights to Spider-Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, etc. Marvel had sold the license to make movies of those characters before making superhero movies became big, so now they find themselves being able to have only some of their superheroes in their movie universe.
  • I mean, how awesome would a Spider-Man/Daredevil or Hulk/Wolverine movie be? Extremely awesome, that’s what.
  • Now, to Warner Brothers and DC Comics: I want my Justice League movie. Now. And it had better be as good if not better than Avengers. If it isn’t, you will have failed us all.
  • The NBA playoffs take too long and have too many teams in it. Also, it has all the parity of a seesaw with an anvil on one side. Only way any upsets ever happen are when people like Derrick Rose get hurt.
  • It’s getting hot up here, and that means air conditioners are coming out of storage. Good thing too, I’ve always found it harder to sleep when it’s hot than harder to sleep when it is cold.
  • I like the move by the Buffalo Bills to get Vince Young. Always good to have somebody experienced as a backup.
  • Happy Mothers’ Day to all the moms out there, including my own mother!