DVR Alerts!!!!

Some DVR Alerts for the coming days.   As is always the case, these movies are on Turner Classic Movies, and all times are Eastern.

Thursday, 8:00 PM: "Gone With the Wind" (1939)   Story of a bratty rich girl who endures a series of bad marriages because the effeminate guy she pines for pays her no heed and marries her goody-goody cousin.  Oh, and there is a war going on in the background.

Saturday, 2:00 PM: "Singin' in the Rain" (1952)  Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Conner, and Jean Hagen in this all-time classic about Hollywood when talkies replaced silent films.  Three of the great musical numbers ever in the movies: Singin' in the Rain, Good Morning, and Make 'em Laugh.  Hagen's performance as the silent star who gets left behind because of her abrasive/lousy voice is a classic, and it often gets overlooked when this movie is discussed.

Saturday, Midnight: "North by Northwest" (1959) Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in an Alfred Hitchcock classic with so many Hitchcock classic scenes: a murder at the United Nations, Grant in a cornfield and cropduster, Grant and Saint being chased over Mt, Rushmore.  Great movie.

Saturday (actually, Sunday morning), 2:30 AM: "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955) Spencer Tracy encountering some nasty small town secrets in trying to track down a war hero.

Monday (actually, Tuesday morning), 12;30 AM: "The Good-bye Girl" (1977) Romantic comedy written by the great Neil Simon starring Richard Dreyfuss, who won an Oscar for his part, and Marsha Mason.  Classic Simon lines:  "Your lips say no-no, but your eyes say yes-yes." and "I...don't....like...the...panties on the rod."

Tuesday, 6:00 PM: "My Favorite Year" (1982)  Yeah, I know, I just hyped this one with a DVR Alert last month, but if you ignored me then, here is another chance to see this terrific comedy about 1950's television with a fantastic performance by Peter O'Toole.

Some more great movies on TCM later in the month, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.   Keep watching this space.

"Zero Dark Thirty"

We finally made it out to see "Zero Dark Thirty" yesterday, and wow, what a movie!  As you probably know, this movie is all about the CIA's ten year hunt to track down and take down Osama Bin Laden.  You know how the movie ends, but that doesn't take away from the suspense and the overall excellence of the movie.

As you also may know, the movie has become controversial in its depiction of torture by Americans in interrogating detainees.  Is the movie an "endorsement" of these practices and/or a criticism of the ceasing of such tactics?  Director Katherine Bigelow says it is neither, merely a presentation of events, and the questions may have cost Bigelow a "Best Director" Oscar nomination, but regardless of all of that, this is one terrific movie, and the final 40 minutes or so when the team goes into Pakistan on their mission is fabulous.

Jessica Chastain as Maya, the CIA operative who devotes ten years to tracking down Bin Laden gets my vote for Best Actress Oscar.

Also in the movie is James Gandolfini as the CIA Director ("Leon Panetta" is not named in the movie, but Gandolfini has him down pat).  You may have thought that Gandolfini would be forever typecast as Tony Soprano, and you do remember him in that role, but he is completely believable as the CIA Director.  A small, but terrific performance.

On the subject of snubbed movie directors, did you all notice that Ben Affleck received the Best Director Award as bestowed by the Directors Guild of America two weeks ago?  Also, "Argo" was named Best Picture of the Year by the British Film Institute this weekend.  all signs are pointing to "Argo" winning the Best Picture Academy Award while it's director wasn't even nominated.  

Spring Training Begins

Other than a post on the changing of the team's Jolly Roger logo in 2014, I have come to realize that I have not issued a Grandstander post on the Pirates since the calendar turned to 2013.  Unbelievable.  However, today is the day that the Bucco pitchers and catchers reported to Pirate City in Bradenton, so I am compelled to write one today.  I will attempt to do so without once using the phrase "hope springs eternal."

So, what do you write about after 20 losing seasons, and after two seasons that started so promisingly only to see the team collapse, and to collapse in an historical fashion, in the final months of each of those seasons?  Part of my current anger with the Pirates as led by Neal Huntington has been their ability to suck all of the optimism right out of me, even at the dawn of Spring Training when hope spri....oops, sorry about that.

The Pirates off season was highlighted by major publicity gaffes when the minor league brain trust of the NHR (Neal Huntington Regime) issued deranged internal memos and led the minor leaguers in a series of Navy SEAL-type drills that may or may not have led to injury to some of these key young prospects.  This, along with that aforementioned collapse led to a comprehensive top-to-bottom one man review of all team operations by top man Bob Nutting, aka, Capt. Nuts, after which nothing much happened to change things other than than the hiring of some 70-something year old scout from that Yankees as a special advisor to GM Neal.  Oh, and the SEAL-type drills have been discontinued.  Maybe.

On the personnel side, the team traded All-Star closer Joel Hanrahan because he was headed for arbitration where he would have been awarded a $7 million salary.  They signed a catcher, Russell Martin, who hit .211 for the Yankees last year, and in what is to me a perfect symbolic metaphor for the entire history of the NHR player development and acquisition strategy, they signed Francisco Liriano, a free agent pitcher with a broken arm.

On the face of it, I have no real problem with the Hanrahan trade.  A "closer" will emerge, be it Jason Grilli or someone else, who will get the job done.  Four players came to Pittsburgh from Boston in the deal and none of them overwhelms you.  If nothing else, "organizational depth", a battle cry of the NHR, will be enhanced. (Nice to know that the Indianapolis Indians will be strong this year.)  Martin, whatever he might have left in his tank, will be an improvement over Rod Barajas.  As for Liriano, who knows (a) when he'll be able to pitch, and (b) how effective he will be when he does?  According to Jim Sproule (Official American League Scout for The Grandstander), he's pretty much garbage.

But enough of that.  What can we look forward to and be excited about?  Let's break it down by position.

Outfield.  As with everything with the Pirates, you start with Andrew McCutchen.  He's the best player on the team.  He was an MVP candidate last year until he leveled off a bit in August and September.  No reason to think that he will be anything less than the All-Star caliber player he has been the last two season.  Starling Marte should get the job in left field from the get-go, and I think that he could be a quality major league player.  Right field becomes a guessing game....Jerry Sands, Travis Snyder, Jose Tabata, even Garrett Jones.  Snyder was a key acquisition at the deadline last year, but he was injured and didn't show a whole lot.  I think he gets first crack at keeping the job.

Infield.  Pedro Alvarez was the key question coming into last season.  He is not a question this year.  He hit 30 home runs last year and he will not be a "bust", and that was a strong possibility as recently as April of last season.  He needs to be more consistent and avoid those 2-for-40 stretches that seemed to always follow amazingly torrid stretches when he'd hit six homers in eight games.  It would be nice if he cut down on the strike outs, but if he hits 30-35 HR's and gets a bit more consistent, I'll live with the K's.  At first base, Garrett Jones had a coming out year last year when he was used as a platoon player (only 74 of 475 AB's were against lefties), and he produced big time.  The team needs to find the complimentary RH hitting first baseman to platoon with him.  That could be Gaby Sanchaz, Sands, or one of the several dozen or so "outfielder/first baseman" they seem to have on the roster.  One cautionary note:  Jones is up for arbitration and could be headed for a $7 million or so salary, which means he could be sent packing by GM Neal at the orders of Capt. Nuts.  Neil Walker had a terrific year last year until a back injury put him pretty much on the shelf for the last six weeks or so of the season.  Not so coincidentally, this is when the team started going in the tank, too.  I know a little bit about bad backs, so I worry about Walker and his health situation, and I hope that this is not the beginning of a downward spiral for him.  At short stop, Clint Barmes returns.  Whoopee.

Catcher.  In his blog today, Bob Smizik points out that the Pirates have not drafted a catcher who has played in a single major league game, since the Cam Bonifay Regime drafted Ryan Doumit in 2000.  THIRTEEN YEARS AGO!!!!  Sorry, but that is just pathetic.  Anyway, Russell Martin now becomes the overpaid, multi-million dollar stop gap. Maybe he'll succeed where the likes of Barajas, Chris Snyder, Benito Santiago and other forgettable backstops failed. 

Pitching.  Here we go, here's the basket where the NHR has placed all the eggs.  Some bullet point thoughts:

• I'd love to believe that A.J. Burnett, at 36, will duplicate the season he had last year, but will/can he?
• I'd love to believe that First Half J-Mac and not Second Half J-Mac is the real J-Mac, but is he?
• Nice that the team was able to re-sign Jeff Karstens after he was DFA'd, but why weren't 29 other teams anxious to sign him as a relatively cheap free agent when they had the opportunity? 
• I am excited about having Wandy Rodriguez for a full season.  Really.
• Charlie Morton, who showed signs of being a really nice pitcher in 2011, comes back from Tommy John surgery, probably in June.  What kind of pitcher will he be?
• Liriano, from what I've read, may not be ready to pitch until June.  Maybe he'll be the young phee-nom he was with the Twins all those years ago, but I'm thinking if he's as good as Kevin Correia was last year, the Pirates will be lucky.
• Kyle McPherson and Jeff Locke, two of the young gun prospects, may fight it out for the fifth starting spot.  These are the kinds of guys who come up through the system and HAVE to make good for the "Plan" of the Pirates to work.  In brief major league tries so far, they haven't shown the goods yet.
• Bullpen.  Something will emerge here.  This is one thing that Huntington appears to be able to do each year.  If Grilli can't do the job that Hanrahan has done, someone will emerge to get those last three outs when needed.
• You notice that I have yet to mention Gerritt Cole, the Overall #1 of two years ago.  No matter what happens in Spring Training, I fully expect Cole to start the season in Indy, but if he shows anything, anything at all in Indy, I expect that Cole will be the first guy called up to start when someone falters or is injured.  Even then, there is always the chance that the Pirates, in an effort to delay Cole's arbitration eligibility, will NOT bring Cole up, even if it is obvious he should be called up.  If THAT happens, my frustration will reach the breaking point, and I may burn tickets on Federal Street at the foot of the Stargell statue!

So, in the end, am I excited that Spring Training has started and we'll soon be hearing some Grapefruit games on the radio?  Of course I am!  Will this be the year the losing streak stops (and say it with me now, "the longest losing season streak in North American professional sports history")?  I will wait until the conclusion of Spring Training to attempt to give an answer to that question.  As I have said before, the fact that I can no longer generate unbridled optimism at the start of Spring Training is perhaps the biggest wrong that has been perpetrated upon me by the NHR.

"The Shame of College Sports"

I am currently reading an anthology, "The Best American Sportswriting 2012" (available a few weeks ago for $1.99 as a Kindle "Deal of the Day"!), and included was a story called "The Shame of College Sports" by Taylor Branch.  This is a very lengthy article that appeared in the August 2011 issue of The Atlantic.  While it is a long article, I would highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of sports, and, particularly, college sports.  

It goes to great length exposing what a hypocritical and self-serving organization the NCAA is, how they have used the oxymoronic term student-athlete for their own selfish purposes, and how the very last people they care about and serve are all of the student-athletes themselves.  It may make you feel just a bit different whenever the NCAA airs all of those cloying commercials during the NCAA basketball tournament this coming March.

Check it out here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/308643/

Pitt Reels in the Recruits

Thanks to my friend Dan Bonk (Official Golden Panther to The Grandstander), I was able to attend the big National Letter of Intent Day event that Pitt held at Heinz Field last night.

Paul Chryst and his staff officially landed 27 recruits for the 2013 recruiting class, and a lot of great hoopla surrounded the announcement.  As Dan puts it, this event, along with the hoopla surrounding the NFL Draft, is one of the great "Non-Events" on the sports calendar,  but, what the hell, it's fun, and what's the value of following a team if you can't have a little unbridled optimism once in awhile.  

The way the deal worked last night, Chryst opened the show by thanking everyone for coming (and there was probably a couple of thousand people there) and their support. He then introduced each position coach who then talked about each of the kids, or, excuse me, each of the Young Men, who will be coming to Pitt this Fall.  Of course, every recruit was a tremendous football player with great "upside", and all were outstanding Young Men who came from Great Families.  When it was all said and done, you figure that Pitt should probably end up winning 45 games or so over the next four years.

We were the shown video game films from the high schools of each of the 27 Young Men who will be coming to Pitt. It got a little tedious, to be honest, but one thing I noticed was that on everyone of those tapes, the kid that was being highlighted was always, and I mean always, either the biggest or the fastest kid - and sometimes both - on the field.  The only problem is that now these 27 kids will now be competing with and against other kids who were the biggest and fastest kids on their high school fields.

I hope that ALL of these kids work out for Pitt, that they all become All-Americans, Heisman finalists, and/or first round NFL Draft picks, but the reality is that some of these kids won't make it.  Some will drop out of school for various reasons, some won't be good enough to play on the Division I-A level, and one or two may get arrested.  I don't know what the percentage is that makes for a really good recruiting class, but I'm thinking if seven or eight of those kids become solid two or three year starters, with one or two being solid NFL prospects, Chryst and his staff will probably be pretty happy with it.

In the meantime, as a brand new season ticket holder, I enjoyed last evening's event, and am looking forward to Pitt kicking it off in the ACC come Fall.

The PGA Tour Turns Back the Clock

Most people think that the PGA tour doesn't really begin until The Masters (A Tradition Like No Other), but, in fact, the golfers have been teeing it up since the first weekend in January, but it's kind of gotten lost in the shuffle of the NFL Playoffs.  Until, that is, the past two weeks.

In case you missed it, two weeks ago Tiger Woods won, and in pretty much Tiger-like fashion, the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.  This was the eighth time that Woods has won a tournament at Torrey Pines.  This past weekend out in Scottsdale, Phil Mickelson went wire to wire in a beatdown of the rest of the field, including a round of 60!

I don't think that we will ever see the dominant Tiger Woods of the early part of this 21st century, but let's remember that he did win three tournaments last year, and he looked pretty damn good two weeks ago.  Of course, Woods has set major championships as his standard, so the big question about him is always, will he ever win another Major, and if so will he break Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 Majors (he has 14)?  My thought - yes, he will win another Major, sometime, but, no, he will not break Jack's record.

Mickelson has reached an age, he is 42, where guys just don't win with regularity on the big Tour.  I'm not sure how many more performances like we saw this past weekend Phil has left in him.  Still, his performance last weekend, and Woods' the week before, does tantalize you with hopes of Tiger-Lefty showdowns at Augusta and the US Open later in the year.

Speaking of Mickelson, how did you like the pity party he threw for himself about how he was getting screwed by the tax laws on the Federal and the State of California levels.  My heart really ached for him.  By the way, he made $45 million in 2012.  I would happily trade him my income and taxes for his income and taxes.  Guys who have grown up in the life of country clubs and elite amateur and then professional golf, they really have a handle on the real world, don't they?

Some of the biggest off the course news this year was the signing of Rory McIlroy, the current #1 in the world, to a mega-millions deal by Nike.  In case you haven't seen it yet, Nike has produced this cool commercial featuring their two big guns.  Interestingly enough, Woods and McIlroy were NOT together when this commercial was produced.  A triumph of clever film editing.

The Super Bowl....and Other Thoughts

For the first time in many years, we watched this years Super Bowl while attending a Super Bowl Party, and many thanks to Fred Shugars (The Official Actuary of The Grandstander) and his wife, Susan, for hosting a really fun evening.  If you know Fred, you will not be surprised to know that this party included a number of betting games for which Fred keeps voluminous statistics.  I am happy to report that we did not come away empty handed:  Marilyn won $20 in a block pool for having the first quarter, and I won $1.93 for correctly predicting that Baltimore would win the coin toss (I shared the $27 pot with 13 other people).

Watching the game in a crowded home with a lot of people present is certainly a different experience.  It is fun in that there is a lot of noise and cheering and it makes for a very cool  atmosphere.  On the other hand, you do miss on a lot of the commentary that is made in the course of the telecast, but, upon reflection, who cares?  The conversation with friends as you watch the game more than makes up for missing the bon mots of Solomon Wilcotts and Phil Simms.

On the down side, though, you do miss out on the commercials, which, to many, is almost as much fun as the game itself.  I did record the game on our DVR and may run through it at some point today just to see the commercials.  Or maybe not.

The Halftime Show.  Beyonce is certainly a beautiful and talented woman and fun to watch, and it's nice to see that the NFL has abandoned the Geezers that have appeared in recent years, but do we really need all the pyrotechnics?   The consensus at the parety last night was to either (a) bring back Marching Bands, or (b) a Dog and a Frisbee.

As for the game itself, it sure appeared that this was going to be a monumental blowout reminiscent of Cowboys vs. Bills type Super Bowls of years gone by, but the Forty-Niners rallied, as they had in their previous playoff games, and turned it into one hell of a ball game.  No need for me to recount the details for if you are reading this, you are no doubt well aware of what happened.  Hats off to both teams for putting on a great show.

I have to tell you that I really got a kick out of the black out at the Super Dome that delayed the game for 35 minutes in the third quarter.  Knowing how image conscious the NFL is and how staged everything is at the Super Bowl, I just loved picturing all of the Suits in the NFL PR offices positively losing their minds over this turn of events.  Wonder how they'll do at next year's game in New Jersey if there's a blizzard or single degree temperatures during there Showcase Game?

As for a local angle, Steelers fans can come off the suicide watch list since the Niners were unable to get their sixth Lombardi Trophy.  On the other hand, their is no doubt deep despair in Steelers Nation because, as Bloggin' Bob Smizik points out today, it is now an indisputable fact that the Steelers are now no longer the "Team to Beat" in the AFC North.

And one final note, I did call this one correctly for the Ravens, and my record for this post season ends at 5-6.  Over the past three NFL post-seasons, I stand at 18-15.