To Two Absent Friends - Ray Liotta and Roger Angell

The Grandstander cannot let the month of May end without acknowledging the passage of two significant people through life's Departure Lounge.

The first is actor Ray Liotta, dead at the too young age of 67.

As Tony Kornheiser notched on his podcast last week, Liotta appeared in one of the greatest American movies ever,  Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" (1990).  In a cast that included Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Paul Sorvino, Liotta was the least among equals of the four leads, but he carried the movie, and was terrific in it as mobster turned informant Henry Hill, who ended up eating "egg noodles and ketchup like a schnook" in the witness protection program.  That movie, and Liotta's performance in it, is one of those that makes up drop the remote when you happen upon it on television, and you watch it until the conclusion.

Liotta's 120 acting credits in IMDb stretch back to 1980 and include afternoon sap operas, TV series, and TV movies, as well as feature films.  One of his interesting credits is the role of Sacha in a short lived TV series version of "Casablanca" in 1983 that ran for all of five episodes.  (That show starred David Soul as Rick, Hector Elizondo as Capt. Renaut, and Scatman Crothers as Sam, for you trivia buffs out there.)  He also played Shoeless Joe Jackson in 1989's "Field of Dreams".

I last saw Ray Liotta playing - what else? - a mobster in last year's Sopranos prequel "The Many Saints of Newark" and he might have been the best part of that movie.

He was a working actor to the very end.  He died in the Dominican Republic while fuming a movie on location.  A video tribute to Liotta from ABC News can be seen HERE.

********

Less surprising was the news of the death of writer Roger Angell at the age of 101.

Angell was primarily and New York City based writer for the New Yorker  magazine where he would, two or three times a year, contribute lengthy essays on the subject of baseball.   In 1972, a collection of those essays was published in book form.  The book was "The Summer Game".  It became a best seller, and Angell's fan base spread far beyond the readership of the  New Yorker from that point forward.   Other books followed, as did his inclusion in Ken Burns' "Baseball" documentary.  One of his more highly regraded essays documented the mystifying fall of Pirates pitcher Steve Blass.  In 2014, he was honored by the Baseball of Fame with its prestigious Spink Award for excellence in baseball writing.

Angell was of the "baseball-is-played-on-an-emerald-chessboard" school of writing, and sometimes you could get lost in the schmaltzy nature of that, but he was smart, witty, and, as was noted in just about every obit, lyrical when writing about the game.

RIP Ray Liotta and Roger Angell.

"Ain't Too Proud, The Life and Times of The Temptations"

 

The 2021-22 Broadway in Pittsburgh season came to a close last week with "Ain't Too Proud", the musical based upon the story of and the music of the Temptations.   It is a show that I have wanted to see ever since it opened on Broadway.  Marilyn and I even talked about traveling to New York to see it.  Alas, that was never to be, but the show finally arrived in Pittsburgh, and I finally got to see it.

I'll be brief....It is the music and that dance moves of The Temptations.  THE TEMPTATIONS!!!!!  Four Stars from The Grandstander.

How great it was to be back in the theater and seeing live performances once again.  Here is The Grandstander's Final Scorecard for the 2021-22 season.

1. Hamilton
2. Ain't Too Proud
3. To Kill A Mockingbird
4. Summer, The Donna Summer Musical
5. Pretty Woman
6. Oklahoma
7. The Band's Visit

I feel bad that To Kill A Mockingbird sits at #3 on the list.  As a straight play and not a musical, it really should be judged on a separate scale.  However, since the entire series is more a musical series/experience, The Temps get a slight, very slight, edge over Atticus Finch.

The subscription has been renewed for the 2022-23 season, and we look forward to seven more magical nights at the Benedum Center in the year ahead.

And how can I wrote about The Temptations without showing one of their legendary performances.   So get ready and watch it RIGHT HERE.

"Downton Abbey: A New Era"

 

When the smash hit British soap opera/TV series "Downton Abbey" came to the end of its run on Public Television in 2016, fans of the series agreed that it was perfect way to wrap up the series.  Loose ends were tied up, happy endings abounded, and there was the promise of good things the future for all the characters involved.  Everyone, including the producers and the actors, said "That's it.  No more 'Downton Abbey'."

Of course, we know what happened,  A "Downton Abbey" movie was released in 2019, and fans of the series flocked to it and loved it, including Mr. and Mrs. Grandstander.  Surely, however, that would be it.  Surely there would be no further need to make yet another Downton Abbey movie.  Surely, the producers and actors will have moved on and want no further part in such an obvious money grab.

Well, nothing speaks louder in Hollywood than money, and a new movie, "Downton Abbey: A New Era" was released yesterday.  And in a feat of utter disgust for this shameless and obvious greed, The Grandstander looked Julian Fellows right in the eye and proclaimed:

Yep, there we were, at the McCandless Cinemark on Opening Day, and loving every soapy, stiff-upper-lipped moment of it.

This one takes place at the dawn of the 1930's and after the joyful wedding of Tom Branson, the movie splits in to dual plot lines.  

Plot #1:  Lady Violet, played with the usual gusto by Maggie Smith, has inherited a gorgeous seaside villa in the south of France.  Who has bequeathed this to her and, more importantly and mysteriously, why has it been bequeathed to her?  Half of the family heads off the France to check into this whole thing, while we also see unfolding....

Plot #2:  A movie production company wants to use Downton Abbey for location shooting of a motion picture.  It is hard to say who is more horrified at the prospect of a bunch of grubby actors traipsing all over the estate and stealing the silverware, the stuffy Earl, his mother the Dowager, or the even snobbier servants. However, the studio is offering a lot of money for the use of the estate, and the Granthams actually need the money to fix the roof of the old castle.  Lady Mary stays behind to supervise the whole thing and finds herself smack in the middle of a dilemma lifted straight out of "Singin' In The Rain" with Mary playing the Debbie Reynolds part. No singing or dancing, of course.  Oh, and the filming of this movie-within-the-movie ends with a completely contrived "Hey, kids, let's put on a show" type of finale, but what the hell,  it's all a jolly good time.

No spoilers, but a dose of sadness comes with this iteration of the Downton Abbey Saga, but it is sadness that is overlaid with optimism as well.  

Plus, Lady Mary, played by the lovely Michelle Dockery, has made a 180 degree turn since this story began.  She started off as a spoiled, bitchy, brat, and has become a more than competent, compassionate, and selfless person.  She will obviously become the Grantham who will lead the family into the future as the middle part of the twentieth century approaches, and she won't need a man to help her do it, either.

I only wish that Lady Rose, as played by Lily James, was still a part of this tale, but - sigh - you can't have everything.

The Grandstander just can't help himself:  Four Stars for this one!

As far as the next Downton Abbey movie is concerned, it surely has to be centered around Edward VIII, Wallis Warefield Simpson, and that nasty bit of business surrounding the abdication, don't you think?

the 2022 Pirates, 40 Games In

Well, actually, the Pirates are only 37 games into the season, but a round number like 40 looks better in the headline, so, close enough for government work, as the saying goes.

The Pirates are not quite a quarter of the way into the season (23%), and they sit at 16-21, five games under .500, in third place in the NL Central, and on pace for a recored of 68-94.  That is a marginal improvement over last year's terrible club, but still nothing to celebrate.  Consider the following team stats:

.224 BA - 24th in MLB

.641 OPS - 26th in MLB

4.68 ERA - 27th in MLB

$66.2 million payroll - 28th in MLB

That last figure speaks volumes, but I'm not an economist, so I'll let you all draw your own conclusions.  Besides, the rankings in the three previous categories are depressing enough.

On any given night, you can count on getting reasonably major league quality offense from only three players:  Ke'Bryan Hayes (.286, 9 RBI), Ben Gamel (.270, 3 HR, 15 RBI), and Daniel Vogelbach (.252, 6 HR, 14 RBI).  Brian Reynolds, the best player on the team last year and a guy who received MVP votes in 2021, is off to a miserable start at the plate, hitting .214 with 4 HR and 6 RBI., but you have to assume (hope?) that he will snap out of that.  After those four guys, though, the lineup is filled with guys hitting in the low .200's, and even below that.  Why, for example, is Yoshi Tsutsugo and his .167 BA still starting regularly, or, for that matter, why is he still on the team?

As for pitching, well, super prospect Mitch Keller, who seemed to be facing a shit-or-get-off-the-pot season is currently 1-5 with a 6.37 ERA, and he has been bumped to the bullpen.  He seems to be another super big pitching prospect for the Bucs who is just not going to pan out.  The best starting pitcher - and the Pirates did not have a starter win a game until the season was well over a month old - is journeyman Jose Quintana, 1-1, 2.94, and .194 BAA.  Given his status as an experienced veteran, if he keeps this up, he will surely be flipped at the trade deadline for, you guessed it, "prospects".  

There has been one element of this Pirate team that has proven to be both exciting and good - the back end of the bullpen, which consists of Chris Stratton (2-1, 5.40), Will Crowe (2-2, 2.74), and, especially, David Bednar (below).  Bednar is 0-0 with an ERA of 0.90, 27 K's in 20 IP, opponents are batting .132 against him, and he has eight saves in eight opportunities.  If the Bucs manage to have a lead after seven or eight innings, these guys, and Bednar especially, will hold it for them.  He is a sure fire All-Star at this point in the season.

I can only hope that as the season progresses, Ben Cherrington will begin to sprinkle in some of these young prospects that we have been hearing so much about for the last few years in real games on the major league level and start weeding out the guys who are placeholders.   I mean,  let us see Oneil Cruz and Roansy Contreras soon.  Throw us a bone to gnaw on as the team marches on, struggling to avoid another 100 loss season.

What A Day At The Ballpark!

One of the great baseball cliches of all time is that "Every time you go to a ball game, you might see something that you've never seen before."  Such was the case yesterday  when old pal Bill Tarrant and I and 10,557 other paying customers ambled over to PNC Park to watch the Pirates play the  Cincy Reds.  Surely a ball game between two of the worst teams in the National League would produce nothing but ennui, but, hey, it would be chance for two old friends to catch up and bullshit with each other for a couple of hours.

Predictably, the Pirates lineup struggled with Reds hotshot 21 year old prime prospect pitcher Hunter Greene, who was throwing a lot of pitches, albeit many of them at 100 mph.  At the same time, Pirates journeyman hurler Jose Quintana was not doing bad either, and neither team had managed to put a run across the plate.

After the fourth inning, you took note of the fact that Greene had yet to surrender a hit to the Pirates.  I don't think that there is anything in all of sports that builds up drama and tension like the inning by inning progress of a pitcher working on a no-hitter, and that was certainly the case yesterday as Greene completely stymied the Pirate bats.   As the innings piled up, there were two questions: (1) Would the Pirates ever manage to get a hit against Greene, and (2) given how the game is played today, would Reds manager David Bell leave his team's prized pitching prospect in the game as the pitch count kept climbing into the 80's, 90's, and finally topping 100 in the eighth inning.

Well, by now you know what happened.   Greene came out to pitch the eighth where he would be facing the lower half of the Pirates lineup, hardly a Murderers' Row.  After retiring the first batter, he walked two batters, and Bell went to the bullpen.  After another walk loaded the bases, Ke'Bryan Hayes hits a slow grounder to second, which was bobbled ever so slightly on the throw to the short stop for the second out, and Hayes beat out the throw to first.  No double play, and the run scores on a fielder's choice.  Bucs lead 1-0 and still haven't recorded a hit.  David Bednar comes out of the Pirates pen to retire the Reds in order in the ninth.  The Pirates win the game while the Reds throw an no-hitter.

So, yeah, we went to the ball park yesterday and saw something that we had never seen before.  In fact, we saw something that, relatively speaking, very few people have ever seen.  Winning a game while being no-hit by the opposition is extremely rare.  Rarer than a perfect game.  Rarer than an unassisted triple play. Yesterday's game was only the sixth time in the Modern Era history of the game that this has been done.  The last time it happened was in 2008.

The beauty of baseball is that an insignificant game between two pretty bad teams still has the possibility of producing an amazing experience.  I'm glad that we were there for it.

 

To Absent Friends - Bob Lanier

The news of the death of Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Lanier brought me up a bit short yesterday, and it's hard to say why.  

Maybe it was because I remember Lanier as an unstoppable college basketball force at St. Bonaventure from 1968-70 when the Bonnies were regular opponents of the Duquesne Dukes at a time when Duquesne basketball was, well, certainly bigger than it is now.  I can specifically remember a Sunday afternoon game, on January 26, 1969 (I looked it up) at the Civic Arena that I attended with my brother Jim.  St. Bonaventure, led by Lanier, was heavily favored and the Dukes, led by the Nelson twins, Barry and Garry, Gary Major, Moe Barr, and Jarrett Durham upset the Bonnies 84-69 (Again, I looked it up).

Maybe it was because of that iconic scene in the movie "Airplane" when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar grabs the kid and says "you tell your Old Man to try dragging Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes every night..."  A Pop Culture tribute to Lanier's fourteen year NBA career spent with the Pistons and Bucks if ever this was one.

Maybe it's because of a number of family and friends who are Bonas alums that love their school and who are aware of what Lanier meant to the University.  My pal and loyal Bonnies alum John Carney said it best on Facebook this week:

RIP #31 - The Big Cat was one of the greats & his legacy at SBU cannot be overstated

Or maybe it was just the the memories that were stirred of me in high school watching one of the all-time greats playing the game.

A better tribute to Bob Lanier can be found here in this release from St. Bonaventure University.

2009.  Lanier returns to SBU when 

the court is renamed in his honor.

RIP Bob Lanier.

The Steelers and the 2022 Draft

No, I will not even try to tell you how the Steelers "did in the draft."  (A) I have no idea about any of these players, and (B) none of them have taken a single snap  against NFL competition, and it is then and only then, and probably not until 2024 or -25, that we will find out how the 2022 Draft aided the Steelers.

We all know that Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett was the Number 1 pick.  That's great and very exciting, and it you missed my thoughts on that selection at the time, here it is.

We don't really know what kind of pro QB Pickett is going to be, but based on what we have seen of him in five years at Pitt, there is plenty of reasons to be optimistic, and if he becomes a very good QB, or, dare I say it, a "franchise quarterback", for Rooney U for the next 10-12 years, then the 2022 Draft will be deemed an A+ Draft for the Steelers, regardless of what those other six draftees do.

About those other six guys.  The Steelers drafted.....

• Two wide receivers, George Pickens and Calvin Austin.  A definite need.  If they can play.
• A defensive end, DeMarvin Leal.  Cam Heyward is now 33 years old, and who knows what's up with Stephan Tuitt, so, yes, there is a need at this position.  If he can play.
• A combo tight end/fullback, Conner Heyward.  Could this brother combo spell the dissolution of another Steelers brothers set, TJ and Derek Watt?  If he can play.
• A linebacker, Mark Robinson.  Devin Bush, we hardly knew ye.  If he can play.
• Another quarterback, Chris Oladukun.  A very curious choice in light of the selection of Pickett in the first round.  Why would they select a second quarterback in the same draft?  No one is asking that question more, I guess, than Mason Rudolph.  Surely, the Steelers would not spend a draft choice, or "draft capital" as is the current buzz word,  just to acquire a training camp arm, so they must think that he can contribute.  If he can play.

Notice a common theme above?  We have to see if these guys are capable of playing and contributing on Sundays.  That process begins soon with the mini-camps and then back at St. Vincent's in July.

One commodity that the Steelers didn't draft was an offensive lineman, the position that most people felt was the teams greatest need.  Now they did address that with some free agent signings prior to the draft, and maybe they'll find a gem among the undrafted free agents that they signed after the draft.  Still, protecting Pickett and Mitch Trubisky, and opening holes for Najee Harris, still seems to be the second biggest question mark - after who will be the quarterback - as they head into training camp.

Finally, did you all see the full page ad that Kenny Pickett posted in last Sunday's sports section?   He certainly has been saying and doing all of the right things since he became a Steeler, which, come to think about it, was exactly the way he handled himself during his years at Pitt.  Here it is in case you missed it.

Two Nights At The Opera

Well, actually, it was two nights at the theater, but the title above is a play on a great Marx Brothers movie, so how can you pass that up?

Yes, twice in a seven day span, we took in a live theatrical performance, both of them straight plays.

The first show was part of the Broadway Pittsburgh series, "To Kill A Mockingham", Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's landmark 1960 novel.  Just about everyone is familiar with the story of "To Kill A Mockingbird" either because it was assigned reading in high school or because of the 1962 movie that starred Gregory Peck as southern lawyer Atticus Finch.

Sorkin's play was highly acclaimed when it opened on Broadway a few years back, and this touring production was terrific as well.  The story and message of Lee's novel is timeless, and this adaptation is an excellent presentation of that story.  I imagine that it won't be long until high schools will be performing this play  as well.

One of the big hooks of this show was that Richard Thomas, young John-Boy Walton himself, starred as Atticus Finch.  Thomas is now 70 years old.  He looks at least 15 years younger, and was great in the role.  However, as I scanned the Playbill prior to the opening curtain, the name of one actor listed far down in the billing caught my eye: Mary Badham.  The name might be familiar to movie fans.  Badham, who will turn 70 later this year, was nine years old when she earned an Academy Award nomination for playing the role of Scout Finch in the "To Kill A Mockingbird" movie in 1962.  In this production, she played Mrs. Dubose, a crotchety old lady neighbor of the Finches.

Badham virtually retired from acting - IMDB shows only seven credits for her - after two single episode TV roles and two film roles after Mockingbird.  After 1966, she virtually disappeared from the profession when she then appeared in a 2005 and a 2019 featured film, both of which you never heard of.   What has she been doing all these years, what has prompted her to return to spotlight, and why wasn't her involvement in this production publicized in the press as the show came to town?

Four Stars from The Grandstander of this play.

The second show that we saw was an adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Murder On The Orient Express", presented at the O'Reilly Theater by the Pittsburgh Public Theater.  Just about everyone knows the story of MOTOE, if not from the book  then from two excellent movies that have been made of this great mystery.  The play has been pared down for the stage, out notably, eight suspects instead of twelve, but this mystery and the sheer fun of this classic whodunit remains the same.  

Martin Giles, a local Pittsburgh actor and director played the juicy role of Hercule Poirot with great gusto, but the two most interesting members of the cast were two venerable war horses (and I use that term with the utmost respect) of the Pittsburgh theatrical community, actresses Helena Ruoti and Lenora Nemetz.  Both of these women have national credits on their resumes, but they are Pittsburgh natives and based here, and if you have gone to PPT and Pittsburgh CLO productions, you have seen them many times.   Nemetz, who is now 72 years old, was the star of this show.  She played "Mrs Hubbard", the role that was played by Lauren Bacall and Michell Pfeiffer in the film versions, and she stole the show.

The Grandstander gave this one Three Stars.

Just as important as the show itself was being able to return to the Pittsburgh Public Theater and the O'Reilly.   I had not been there since pre-pandemic days when Marilyn and I saw "A Few Good Men" back in 2019.  The O'Reilly Theater remains one of the very best places anywhere to see a play.

As for the Broadway Pittsburgh series, here is how I rank the productions of this 2021-22 Season:

1. Hamilton
2. To Kill A Mockingbird
3. Summer, The Donna Summer Musical
4. Pretty Woman
5. Oklahoma
6. The Band's Visit

The season wraps up in two weeks with "Ain't Too Proud, The Life and Times of the Temptations."