Quickies.....

Saw the British movie "Eye in the Sky" yesterday.  Best way to describe it is as "the anatomy of a drone strike".  Starred Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, and Alan Rickman.  Extremely suspenseful and a view of some of the very scary stuff that makes up modern warfare.  

This movie gets a full four stars from The Grandstander.  See it.

********

The Pirates are off to a nice start, and last night's  eleven inning win over the Cardinals is an example of why we follow sports, and baseball in particular.  Sloppy defense and mediocre pitching from both teams for five innings, then six innings of amazing bullpen work from both teams.  

Kyle Lobstein pitches the tenth and eleventh innings and gets his first win as a Pirate, but it was almost ulcer-inducing.  He seemed to fall behind 2-0 or 3-0 on every batter, gave up a check swing opposite field double to some guy named Hazelbaker, then gets Yadi Molina to hit into a double play, and falling behind in the count again, he strikes out the side (around a walk) in the eleventh.  Then he gets the W after Jordy Mercer's walk off single.

As I say, this is why we watch sports.

********

Like most of you I participated in an NCAA bracket pool that had fifty-some entries, and I finished in dead last place.  Not a tie for last place, but all alone in last place.  Four years ago, I won this same pool, and I maintain that finishing last takes just as much skill, knowledge, and luck (bad luck in this case) as finishing in first place.

*******

Speaking of the NCAA Tournament, I won't try to write about that absolutely fantastic 77-74 win by Villanova over North Carolina.  I mean, really, what can you say? Not just one, but two unbelievable shots in the final six seconds of that game.  It was one for the ages.

Not nearly as exciting, but perhaps much more impressive, was watching the Connecticut women's team run through and dominate the Women's tourney.  Their smallest margin of victory was 21 points.  The fact that no other team has been able to challenge them in the last four seasons (74 wins in a row, all by double digits) raises many questions and some problems for the women's game, but that takes nothing away from how well and sweetly they play the game.

Breanna Stewart is a marvel.

********

Watching the Cardinals and Pirates on the MLB Network last night was interesting in that it was the St. Louis telecast that MLB carried.  I would want a steady diet of it, but it's interesting to hear the other team's announcers.  I don't know the name of the play-by-play guy, but Al Hrabovsky was the color guy, and they were quite good.  Very respectful of the Pirates.  I liked it.