This, That, and The Other.....

Time to clean out the Mental In-Box with some thoughts and opinions that have been accumulating.....

"Killers of the Flower Moon"

A major motion picture release coming this Fall is "Killers of the Flower Moon."  Directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jesse Plemons.  Three and a half hours long, and already the darling of the film festival circuit.  Can't wait see it, and to prepare, I just finished reading the 2017 book by David Grann that inspired it.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, oil was discovered on the tribal lands of the Osage Indian tribe in what is now Oklahoma.  This made the Osage Indians among the wealthiest people in America.  This fact pissed off a lot of white people, and soon the Osage were being murdered because of it.  A Bureau of Investigation agent named Tom White was dispatched to Oklahoma by his Washington DC based boss, a young guy named J. Edgar Hoover, to crack the case.  He did, and the Bureau of Investigation was soon to become the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in large part due to the work down by White on this case.  Hoover remained for another fifty years.

The Osage murders had become a largely forgotten piece of history, even Hoover's thirst for PR for the FBI had pushed it aside when bragging about its glorious victories over crime in America glossed over it.  This was largely due, most likely, to the victims:  Native Americans.  The FBI marginalized them as many minorities have been in the course of our history.  The best part of the book was the third part when author Grann went into a first person narrative describing the scope of his research, the interviews that he did, and learned that the full nature of the crimes against the Osage were even greater than was first thought.

The Grandstander gives the book Three Stars, and I am look forward with high expectations  for the movie when it is released in October.

"BlackBerry"

Back in the early 2000's, did you have a BlackBerry communications device for your job?  It was so revolutionary:  it was phone that you could hold in the palm of your hand and on which you could send and receive email!!  I had one and I positively hated it, and thank God I retired just as the business world was on the cusp of everyone getting smart phones and thus being tied to their jobs 24/7, and ruining forever the concept of Work/Life Balance.  But enough bout me.

This Canadian movie tells the story of the BlackBerry.  From the computer nerds who invented it, to the hard charging business guy who marketed it, to how it came to dominated this new world, to how this Canadian company came to be crushed by some company in California named Apple and its answer to the BlackBerry, the iPhone.  The tagline for the movie, "Work Hard. Fail Harder.", tells is all.

The "hard charging business guy" referred to was a guy named Jim Balsillie.  Hockey fans in Pittsburgh will remember him as the guy who tried to buy the Penguins back in the early'00s with the express purpose of moving them to Hamilton, Ontario.    That part of the story is covered in some detail in this movie.  As an aside, threats such as these to move the Penguins, including some by Mario Lemieux himself, did lead to the construction of a new arena in Pittsburgh, so I guess we can thank Balsillie for that at least.  An American actor named Glenn Howerton played Balisillie, and he was terrific in the part.

A good movie upon which The Grandstander bestows Three Stars.

Henry Davis

Back in 2021, the Pittsburgh Pirates used the overall Number One draft pick and selected Henry Davis, a catcher from the University of Louisville.  Less than two seasons later, Davis has arrived in Pittsburgh and it looks like he's here to stay.  He can hit - notwithstanding a recent 0-for-24 slump, which he broke last night with a single and a home run - and has shown some signs of power.  However, he has played all but one inning - ONE - in the outfield and not at catcher.   Mostly, he has played in right field.  This of course has brought about the usual griping among the cognoscenti....."only the Pirates would draft a catcher with the overall #1 pick and then never play him in that position."

It's not a complaint without some validity, and Davis' play in right field has oft times been, shall we say, adventurous, but I am coming around to the opinion that maybe, just maybe, the Pirates might be doing something right here.  One thing Davis has shown in right field has been a cannon of a throwing arm.  In back to back games against the Phillies last week, he made two throws that, if not Clemente-like, were enough to show me that it might be worthwhile to have the team work with Davis in the off season and spring training to improve his more basic outfield skills.  A throwing arm like that belongs in right field.  Of course much of this depends on how well Endy Rodriguez develops as a catcher.  There are a lot of moving parts to decisions like this, but Davis just might be a long term answer for the Bucs as an outfielder.

Pirates Over/Under 67.5 Wins

The Pirates sit this morning at 49-60.  For us OVER betters to cash in, they will have to go 19-34 (.358) the rest of the way to get that 68th win.  That .358 clip, interestingly enough, is the exact same percentage that they have been playing at since that wondrous 20-8 start.  They are 29-52 (.358) since then.

As I said at the outside, this will go down to the last week of the season.

Steelers Training Camp

I, along with my brother-in-law Jim Moellenbrock, spent this past Thursday afternoon at St, Vincent College in Latrobe, PA taking in Steelers Training camp.

I believe that the last time I was at a Steelers training camp in Latrobe was back in 1980, the year after their fourth Super Bowl win.  Somewhere in a dusty photo album, I am sure that I can come up with pics of Lynn Swann and John Stallworth.  The whole set-up at St Vincent has come a long way since 1980.  Among other things, you can now find a fully stocked pro shop filled with Steelers gear and apparel.  Following the dictum of the folks at Disney, what it costs to get in (free in the case of Steelers training camp) isn't nearly as important as what it costs to get out  of the place ($65 in my case for a new Steelers golf shirt).

Anyway, training camp can largely be a rather mundane affair.  Calisthenics, sprints, maybe some passing drills.  In the case of what we saw, Offense vs Defense in some drills from the two yard line were the highlights of the day, and even that was toned down a bit since no one was wearing pads on Wednesday.

So if you ask me "How did they look?", here is all I can tell you

• They looked big
• They looked fast
• George Pickens could be an All-Pro at WR this year

Still, a fun day, even with the god-awful heat that afternoon.  It's always great to see Rooney U out on the field.

Browns Helmet Decal

I watched very little of the Jets and Browns playing in the Hall of Fame game on Thursday night, but I watched long enough to notice this:

Yep, the Browns are honoring the late Jim Brown by wearing a #32 helmet decal this season. The Browns team that Jim Brown played for now plays as the Baltimore Ravens.  This Cleveland Browns team came into existence in 1999.  This Cleveland Browns team, with one or two exceptions, has pretty much stunk ever since 1999.  This Cleveland Browns team is owned by Jimmy and Dee Haslam.

This Cleveland Browns team should not be wearing Jim Brown's number.

Welcome to the Pirates, Henry Davis

Back in the Fall of 2020, when it became a fait accompli  that the Pirates would have the Number One overall pick in the 2021 Entry Draft, it was lead pipe lock that the pick would be spent on Vanderbilt University pitcher Kumar Rocker.  Best pitcher in college and a cinch to be an Ace #1 starter for any team.  Then it was well, maybe it'll be pitcher Jack Leiter, also from Vanderbilt and the  son of a former major league pitcher.  Either way, the Bucs would have pitcher around whom they could build a pennant winning pitching staff.

As months went on, other names began to surface.  This high school shortstop or that college outfielder and on and on.  Somehow, Pirates fans began to condition themselves that somehow, someway, the Pirates would screw up the whole deal.

Tonight they made the pick, and it was catcher Henry Davis from the University of Louisville.

Did, in fact, the Pirates screw it up?  I don't know, and neither does anyone else at this point.  Davis' college credentials are certainly solid, and God knows that the Pirates have lacked depth throughout their organization at the catcher position (among many other positions), so perhaps he'll be the goods.  The next Johnny Bench or Buster Posey or, and I'll settle for this, Jason Kendall.   Or maybe he'll fizzle like Brian Bullington or Tony Sanchez.  Judging a college or high school baseball player and projecting how he'll be three or four years later when he gets to the Majors is the biggest crapshoot in professional sports.

As a Pirates fan, I hope, I mean, I REALLY hope that this is the right pick and that Davis will be  star for the five or six years he'll be a Pirate before he becomes unaffordable to the Suits in the front office.  Let's also hope that among the couple of dozen players the Pirates draft over the next two days there will be five or six or seven players who can surround Davis and form a nucleus of teams that will contend for division titles, pennants, and reach the World Series.  Always remember, the Pirates didn't draft Dave Parker until the 14th round way back in 1970.

It will also be interesting to track the careers of Rocker and Leiter over the next decade or so.

********

The name Henry Davis stirred a memory for me, as I am sure it did for others, of a former linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Davis played 56 games for the Steelers from 1970-73 as Chuck Noll was transitioning the Steelers from the worst team in the NFL to a team that would fashion a Super Bowl Dynasty.  He passed away in 2000 at the age of 57.