Yes, I Will Be Watching The Super Bowl On Sunday

Along about the time that either the Steelers defense gagged it up against Jacksonville, or perhaps it was when Danny Amendola caught that TD pass from Tom Brady that secured yet another Patriots trip to the Super Bowl (and against Philadelphia, no less), anguished wailing was heard throughout Western Pennsylvania to the effect, "well, there is no way that I'm going to watch the Super Bowl now."

Well, I for one am going to be watching the Super Bowl, and here are some reasons why.

• For all of the problems it faces, player safety being chief among them, I still like to watch football when played at its highest levels.
• By record, the two best teams in their respective conferences are the opponents in this year's game.  In theory, at least, this should produce a competitive and compelling game.  We know that it doesn't always necessarily work out that way, but that's why you follow sports, isn't it?
• Love them or hate them, the New England Patriots are the preeminent football team of this generation.  They have the best coach and best quarterback in the history of the League, so, if you claim to be a football fan, why wouldn't you want to watch them play, even if you just want to see if someone else can beat them (besides Eli Manning and the Giants, that is).
• Justin Timberlake is sure to put on a terrific halftime show.
• How can you not like the Eagles, who lost Carson Wentz, their MVP candidate quarterback to injury late in the season, and have managed to make it this far with back-up QB Nick Foles?  I hate to make the obvious and over done Philadelphia-Rocky Balboa comparison, but, hey, it's low hanging fruit.
• The commercials.  Even if the game turns out to be a dud, everybody will still be talking about the commercials, and you don't want to be left out of the conversations in the week ahead, do you?
• Tom Brady is playing.  My grandfather saw Honus Wagner play baseball. My dad once saw Babe Ruth play baseball.  I saw Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays and Sandy Koufax play baseball and Jim Brown and Joe Greene play football.  Someday you will want to be able to tell your kids and grand kids that you saw Tom Brady play football.
• It will be your last chance to see any meaningful football played until September.

So there you have it.  I'll be in front of the tube come Sunday at 6:30.  

Oh, and a prediction.  I went 2-0 in the Conference championship games, boosting my playoffs record to 6-4, so a winning record is assured.  Who am I picking?  How can you even doubt - the Patriots.  How can you pick against them?  They will pick up their sixth Lombardi Trophy, which will tie them with the Steelers in that department, and which will lead to mass numbers of Yinzers hurling themselves into the freezing waters of the Allegheny River come Sunday evening.

Oh, and, as always, watch, but don't bet.  

I also predict that 99% of those people who angrily and emphatically said that they will not watch the Super Bowl will end up watching it anyway.

Enjoy the game.

And On the Pirates Front.....

Our favorite baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, are in the news once again this past week:

• One of the Pirates NL Central rivals, the fellow small market Milwaukee Brewers, acquired outfielders Christian Yelich via trade from the Marlins and Lorenzo Cain via free agency.  Both are all-star caliber players and represent a long term payroll commitment in excess of $120 million from the Brewers.  The Brewers, who won 86 games last season, now become legitimate threats to the Cubs and Cardinals in the Central Division.  Just like the Pirates are not.
• Pitcher Nik Turley, one of Neal Huntington's dumpster dive acquisitions this off-season, has been hit with an 80 game suspension for PED usage. I now set the Over/Under for the number of games in which Turly will ever appear from the Pirates at One-Half Game.  
• Finally, I commend this full column that appeared in today's Post-Gazette, probably written by Joe Starkey, but we can't be sure because of the "byline strike" currently taking place among the PG's columnists and reporters.

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2018/01/26/pirates-offseason-moves-rumors-andrew-mccutchen-giants-gerrit-cole-mlb-revenue-sharing/stories/201801280091

• However, if you don't want to read the full column, allow me to cut and paste this verbatim response from Huntington to a question about the Pirates' recent trades posed by talk show hosts on The Fan this past week.  Honest-to-God, you just can't make up bullshit like this:

“Well, the Gerrit Cole trade, our internal projection model — and my guess is most of the external projection models — really wouldn’t change that much. We add Colin Moran, a left-handed-hitting third baseman with developing power … and we add what we believe is going to be a good major league starting pitcher in (Joe) Musgrove, and we add a good reliever in Michael Feliz, who, again, his metrics and his indicators are better than his surface ERA. It reminds us of guys we’ve had a lot of success with here, that have quality stuff, but the results are less than the indicators, and then eventually the indicators catch up to the actual, because stuff plays and strikeouts play.

“So that trade, the projection models, we actually got a little bit better in some, a little bit worse in others, but it did not have a strong impact on our projected win total, which is not good enough to be in the postseason as we sit here today but on the edge …

“With only replacing Andrew, or replacing Andrew, with a reliever, potentially, that one does cost us wins in the projection model. It still leaves us on the outside looking in at the projection model of the postseason. It’s actually pretty close to where we were in ’13, ’14, ’15 and actually worse than where we were projected to be in ’16 and ’17. So what that means is we’ve added some variability with our veteran players that we’re anticipating bouncing back and our young players that we’re anticipating getting better. They’re not all going to do that, but we believe, much like like ’13, ’14 and ’15, we have some things go in our direction, we can do what the Twins and Brewers did a year ago. We can do what the Pirates did in ’13 and find ourselves in a playoff hunt and do that sooner than later.

“So it’s not really an either-or. It wasn’t, ‘We’re out of it with no chance regardless,’ and it wasn’t it eliminated our playoff odds. They stayed pretty much the same with those two trades, the second trade knocking us back a little bit, yes.”

• Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?  As a Pirates fan, this makes me fell a LOT better about the upcoming season.  How about you?

To Absent Friends - Mort Walker

The Grandstander, a faithful reader of the daily comic strips, or "the funnies", today notes the passing of Mort Walker at the age of 94.

Mort Walker with his famous creation

1923-2018

Walker, as the photo above indicates, is the creator of the coming strip "Beetle Bailey", a daily strip that has been running in newspapers around the world continuously since 1950.  According to his obituary, the strip's gag-a-day format was a marked departure from the serial-style strips that dominated the comics pages at the time.  Amazingly, Walker continued, with some assistance, to pen the artwork and write the gags for all 68 years of its run.  The strip, along with another of his creations "Hi and Lois", will continue to run and be authored by two of Walker's sons.

In 1942, Walker, who always aspired to be a cartoonist, was drafted into the US Army and served in Italy during World War II.  "Little did I realize," Walker later said, "that I was about to get almost four years of free research."  This paragraph from his obituary in the Washington Post goes on to tell this story:

He eventually found himself in charge of 10,000 German prisoners in a POW camp in Italy. At the end of the war, he helped oversee the destruction of binoculars and watches from an ordnance depot in Naples. His job was to make sure nobody stole anything before it was destroyed. “I began to realize,” he wrote in the memoir, “that army humor writes itself.”

RIP Mort Walker.

We See "Wicked"

"Wicked" opened on Broadway in 2003 and is still, almost a  full fifteen years later, packing the house in New York.  It has been staged in over a dozen countries, and it tours the USA endlessly.  It is currently enjoying its fourth visit to Pittsburgh as part of the Broadway Series, and last night Marilyn and I saw this show for the very first time.

It seems that almost everyone we know who is of a mind to attend such shows has seen "Wicked" at least once, and many have seen it several times.  When it was announced that it would be playing here again, we purchased tickets, bought the Original Cast Recording to familiarize ourselves with the music, and waited for January 25 to roll around.  Oh, and it was obvious, that those in the audience who were like us, seeing it for the first time, were probably in the minority.

So, how did we like it?

Simple answer - we loved it!  It is the back story to "The Wizard of Oz", the classic book and movie with which everyone is familiar.  How did Elphaba become the Wicked Witch of the West?  How did Galinda become Glinda, the Good Witch?  Did you know that the Wicked Witch had a sister named Nessarose (I did not), and whatever became of her?  And just how is it that Elphaba has green skin?  And just how does Dorothy and her little dog become a part of this whole narrative?

All of these questions are answered in a simply spectacular production that features amazing performances by the actresses playing Elphaba and Glinda.  These roles were created on Broadway back in 2003 by Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, respectively.  Menzel won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, one of three Tonys that the original show won (it had ten Tony nominations back in 2004).  The leads in this production are Mary Kate Morrissey as Elphaba and Ginna Claire Mason as Glinda.  While their names may not be familiar to you, when you read their biographies in the Playbill, you see that both of them, along with everyone else in the cast, have theatrical credits a mile long.  The talent level of these folks is simply amazing.

There are great songs throughout the show, but we especially liked "The Wizard and I" and "I'm Not That Girl", sung by Elphaba, the popular "Popular" sung by Glinda,  the spectacular "Defying Gravity" that closes the first act, and the fabulous eleven o'clock number, "For Good" sung by both Elphaba and Glinda.

Just a terrific show, and we certainly understand why people keep going back to see it ("I want to see this again." - Marilyn Sproule).  It was interesting, though, to see what the almighty critics had to say about "Wicked" when it first opened.  In doing some research before writing this post, I stumbled across this article from the Daily Beast written in 2013 to mark the show's tenth Broadway anniversary:

What did critics think of the Broadway blockbuster Wicked when it opened in 2003?

An “overproduced, overblown, confusingly dark and laboriously ambitious jumble,” ruled Newsday. “The show’s twenty-two songs were written by Stephen Schwartz, and not one of them is memorable,” wrote The New Yorker. Perhaps The New York Times carried the most damning review: “Wicked does not, alas, speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway musical.”

Oh, well, what did they know back in 2003?  Nothing that those high and mighty New York critics said could have stopped "Wicked" from becoming so popular....lar.

Anyway, following a year where we saw great shows - "In The Heights", "Beautiful", and, of course, "Hamilton", we got our theatrical year of 2018 off to a great start with "Wicked".  Can't wait to see it again someday.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

From the first balcony of the Bendedum

just before curtain time.

Critical Commentary - "Jumanji, Welcome To the Jungle"

It is that time of the year when Hollywood is showcasing all of it's serious, awards worthy movies, and we have been doing our part to see those movies.  You know, "Darkest Hour", "The Post", "I, Tonya".  We've been trying to see them all, and they are great movies, but it has been interesting to note that for at least the last three weeks none of those films have led the pack in box office receipts.  Nope, that movie, the one that people are actually paying money to go see has been this one....

So, we decided to forgo serious and important movies, and take this one in yesterday.  Let me tell you, this movie will never win any awards, and, yes, it was silly, but it was also funny, charming, and entertaining.  Isn't that what it's supposed to be all about?

It's all about a bunch of misfit high school kids who somehow get transported into a video game (told you it was silly) and are transformed into the bodies of Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black (who has to act like a teen aged girl), and Karen Gillan, with whom I was not familiar, but was totally charming.  It also featured an interesting cameo by an unbilled actor at the end.  I won't spoil it for you.  

Former pro wrestler Johnson has really found his niche as  an action movie actor ("I love The Rock" said Mrs. Grandstander as we left the theater), and he and Hart make a great team, as the two of them did in "Central Intelligence" a few years ago.  They could be this generation's Hope and Crosby or Martin and Lewis.

"Jumanji, Welcome to the Jungle" is mindless entertainment, to be sure, but it's fun, and you could even take your kids to see it with you and not be uncomfortable about it.

Two and one-half stars from The Grandstander.

Hart, Johnson, Gillan, and Black

Oscar Nominations Thoughts

Of course I have thoughts and comments on the Academy Awards nominations.....

• Nine Best Picture nominations.  I have seen five of them ("Darkest Hour", "Dunkirk", "Lady Bird", "The Post", "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri").  Of the four I have not seen, I will make it a point to see "Get Out" and "Phantom Thread".  "Call me By Your Name" and "The Shape of Water" hold no interest for me.
• I have seen only one of the Best Actor nominees, Gary Oldman, but that seems to be the only nominee that is going to matter this year.
• I have seen four of the Best Actress nominees.  Based on early returns, this one would appear to be in the bag for Frances McDormand, and while I didn't care for the movie, there is no denying the performance that McDormand gave.  Her little speech to the Catholic priest was chilling.
• If I had a vote, though, my vote for Best Actress would go to Saoirse Ronan for "Lady Bird". That the same actress who played an Irish immigrant in "Brooklyn" a few years ago can now convincingly play a 17 year old American high school student is nothing sort of remarkable.
• Meryl Streep scores her 21st Oscar nomination.  Heard a line on a podcast the other day saying that the only person in America who has anything that comes even close to that is Tom Brady.  Good line.
• Denzel Washington, a terrific actor, scores a Best Actor nomination for a move, "Roman J. Israel, Esq." that was in an out of theaters in about a week.  Did anyone actually SEE that movie?
• Best Supporting Actor award, again, based on early returns, would appear to go to Sam Rockwell for "Three Billboards".  However, in my own opinion, he wasn't even the best supporting actor in his own movie.  That would go to Woody Harrelson.  Rockwell's character, an incompetent, drunken, racist cop was played so broadly as to almost be a cartoon character.
• Do you think that Christopher Plummer's nomination was an indirect shot at the now disgraced Kevin Spacey, whom Plummer replaced in "All The Money In The World"?
• Allison Janney will probably win the Best Supporting Actress Award although Laurie Metcalf's performance was better.  However, the fact that Holly Hunter of "The Big Sick" did not get a nomination kind of diminishes this category for me. Her performance was better than both Janney's (which, like Rockwell's part, was also almost cartoonish) or Metcalf's.
• Interesting omissions for Best Director were Steven Speilberg ("The Post") and Martin McDonagh ("Three Billboards").
• An interesting person to watch for on Oscar night will be Greta Gerwig.  She is nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for "Lady Bird".   She could be the beneficiary, if that is the right word, of the Times Up movement that is sweeping Hollywood currently.
• That Original Screenplay category is an interesting to watch.  Emily V. Gordan and Kumail Nanjiani are nominated for "The Big Sick" which just might have been the best movie that I saw all last year, certainly in the top three, but it got no other love from the Academy.  Jordan Peele for "Get Out" and Gerwig were also nominated for Best Director, and this could be the way to reward either an African American (remember the #oscarssowhite controversy of a few years ago?) or a woman.  Also nominated is Martin McDonagh, who didn't get a Director nomination.  The other nominees are Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor for "The Shape of Water", a movie about a fish-man.  Like I said, an interesting category.
• I am not making any official predictions yet, but if I had to pick one right now in a category that doesn't appear to have a shoe-in candidate, I am going to say that the Academy will recognize "Dunkirk" by awarding the Best Director award to Christopher Nolan.

I'm sure that I shall be writing more on this topic as the day of the awards draw closer, and. of course, there will be my always highly anticipated "Watch, but don't bet" predictions post.  How many times will I be able to say, "I believe I had that"?

Championship Sunday Reflections

Comments and thoughts from yesterday's games.....

• In this space yesterday, I predicted victories for the Patriots and Eagles, so, I BELIEVE I HAD THAT!
• True, I did predict that the Pats would "crush" the Jaguars.  That didn't happen, but, somehow, the manner in which New England did win had to be far more soul crushing to the Jags and their supporters than a 30 point blow out would have been.
• When Jacksonville kicked a field goal to go up 20-10 early in the fourth quarter, I posted the following on Facebook (I really did; you can look it up): Jax up by 10, 14:52 to play. I’m STILL saying New England wins this.
• Say it with me....I believe I had that.  
• Actually, and I didn't post this, when NE scored at the end of the first half to cut the Jags lead to 14-10, I figured that Brady and Co. were going to do it again, which is why I made that post at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
• For some perverse reason, I found myself rooting for New England in that game.  Maybe it was because of the way Jacksonville handed it to the Steelers last week, or maybe it was because it seemed that the Jags were overly chesty early in in the game, or maybe it's because you just have to admire sustained greatness over time, which is what the Belichick-Brady Patriots are, or maybe because it's because my recently discovered cousin and friend Jan Spencer lives in Maine and roots for them.  That said, I still can't stand the constant shots of Bob Kraft and his blue shirts-with-white-collars in the owner's box.
• As bad as it was seeing the Steelers get beat by Jacksonville last week - and that was really bad - would it have been worse to see them go to Foxboro yesterday and lose to New England yet again (which you know would have been the result)?  That's your existential question for the day.
• By the time the Eagles-Vikings game came on at 6:40 PM, I was pretty well spent, and the Eagles took all of the excitement out of that one fairly quickly.  In fact, I was amazed at the relative ease in which the Vikings were dispatched in that one.  I even switched to the SAG Awards in the fourth quarter.
• The hand-wringing and woe-is-us talk is already starting among Steelers fans about how the Patriots may now equal the Steelers' total of six Super Bowl Championships.  Oh, the humanity!  If something like that is really that important to you, I suppose I should envy you, because you just must not have any real problems in your life.

I will end on a serious note.  Rob Gronkowski left the game in the second quarter after being concussed after taking an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit from a Jacksonville defensive back.  New England lost perhaps the best position player in the NFL for the rest of the game, and, who knows, maybe for the Super Bowl in two weeks.  Jacksonville lost 15 yards.  We have seen these kinds of hits take place week after week in NFL games.  If the NFL is serious, really serious, about player safety and trying to prevent concussions as much as possible, a 15 yard wrist slap is not enough.  The player delivering the illegal hit needs to be ejected from the game immediately.  No questions asked.  Apologists will say "but not all of those hits are deliberate", and that is no doubt true, but it shouldn't matter.  The player making the hit needs to be kicked out of the game. That is, if the NFL really means what it says about player safety.