Critical Commentary: "Dangerous Book..." and "The Death of Stalin"

Submitted for your approval, a TV Series and a Movie.

First, the TV series, "The Dangerous Book for Boys".

We stumbled upon this one by accident.  It debuted just last week on Amazon Prime.  It is the story about a family - a single mother of three middle school aged boys - that is facing life after the death of her husband and the boys' father. As the series opens, the death has already occurred, and we see that the boys' grandmother resides with them and, showing up in episode one is the twin brother of the deceased father.  We also learn that prior to his death, the Dad prepared a book, "The Dangerous Book for Boys", to help his sons navigate throughout life in his absence.  How to  Talk to Girls, How to Build a Treehouse, and How to Play Poker are some of the lessons, and each is played out to illustrate a life lesson for the boys.

There are a lot of sitcom elements here - Grandma is an ex-hippie from the sixties, and the uncle is a wacky, but lovable ne'er do well - but what the show does well is addressing the issues that confront families when a loved one dies.  How do we talk about the person who died?  What happens to the kids in school after someone dies?  How does a Mom who never had to pay the bills even try to cope with such a new responsibility?  How is grief different for a child, a spouse, and mother, and a sibling?

It is a sweet and serio-comic look at a topic that is all too pervasive, but is not often talked about until, of course, such a death visits itself upon a family.  It is a short series, only six half-hour episodes.  We watched it in two nights, and were sorry when it ended.  Sure hope that it will come back for another season.

Four stars all the way from The Grandstander.

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Now the movie.  

It is 1953.  USSR dictator Josef Stalin has just died, and the band of Commies who comprised Stalin's court have to decide what happens next and who will take over governing the Soviet Union.

The filmmakers play this power struggle for laughs while not hiding what a treacherous band of murderers and criminals they were.  To call this a "dark comedy" would be putting it mildly.  As we left the movie, Marilyn expressed her disdain for it because what was funny about Stalin and the oppression and terror that he embodied?  I certainly can't argue the point.

I will say, though, that seeing Steve Buscemi playing Nikita Khrushchev was funny.  Picture Carl Showalter, the inept kidnapper/killer that Buscemi played in the movie "Fargo", as the ultimate cold warrior Khrushchev.  What can I say, but that it is a terrific performance.

Two and 1/2 stars from The Grandstander.

Monday, Monday.....

Sporting thoughts......

Hello, friends.

Patrick Reed wins The Masters, A Tradition Like No Other (cue schmaltzy music) (I believe I had that!), and if tradition holds that The Masters always produces great drama on Sunday, yesterday certainly fit the bill.  Leading by three strokes after the third round, Reed played the final round in only one under par and held on for a one stroke win, but the drama was provided by.... 

• Eventual third place finisher Jordan Spieth who was nine shots behind after three rounds, shot -8 on Sunday and was actually tied for the lead after his 16th hole.
• Eventual second place finisher Rickey Fowler who birdied  the eighteenth hole, which forced Reed to sink a tricky three footer for par on 18 to avoid a playoff.
• Rory McIlroy who was looking for a career grand slam and was three shots behind Reed at the beginning, had a chance to tie for the lead when he missed a makeable put for eagle on the second hole.  He seemed to lose his mojo right then, faded (+2 on Sunday) and finished T-5.

And now all of the post-Masters write ups are telling us that Reed is basically an unlikeable guy, and his victory was a rather joyless one amongst the folks at Augusta....the other players don't like him, he's estranged from his parents, he bounced through two colleges and was accused of stealing and cheating.  No word on whether or not he had anything to do with kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, but give it time.

Sometimes you just get to know too much about people.

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We all know that the Pirates, 7-2 and in first place by two games, have gotten off to their best start in a zillion years.  It's been fun to watch, I must say.  Some initial takes on the team.

Good:

• Gregory Polanco with 3 home runs, 13 RBI, and an OPS well in excess of 1.000.
• Six of the eight starters are hitting over .300
• Newcomers Colin Moran and Corey Dickerson both playing really well.
• Jameson Taillon is 2-0 with a 1.26 ERA, and a WHIP of 0.49.  This includes an absolute masterpiece complete game, one hit shut out yesterday.

Not So Good:

• Until Taillon's gem yesterday, no Pirate starter had pitched into the seventh inning, and only one had completed as much as six innings.
• The bullpen, particularly, the middle relievers, has been shaky to awful.
• A limited bench that tells you that if any of the eight position regulars goes down for any considerable length of time, it will spell big trouble for the team.
• Base running continues to be an adventure for the Pirates.  I haven't watched every inning of all nine games, but I have already seen three rock headed blunders on the base paths, one each by Polanco, Starling Marte, and Josh Bell.  I mean, what is it with these guys?

Still and all, the 2018 season, albeit only one week old, has been a pleasant surprise for the Pirates and their fans.

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The 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs begin tomorrow night, so it's time for The Grandstander's Stanley Cup Preview.  Here it is:

The Pittsburgh Penguins to win their third consecutive Stanley Cup.  Probably will sweep all four of their playoff series.  Might be pushed to a fifth game in one or two of them, maybe.

You heard it here first, and, as always, watch, but don't bet.

Seriously, I have no idea how it will all shake out, but I look forward to the "exquisite torture" only Playoff Hockey can deliver. Remember the double overtime game seven in the conference final last year?  Exquisite torture.

And if the Pens somehow fall short this year, well, I'd say they've earned a pass from all of us after the last two seasons.

Enjoy!

Who Is Anthony Joshua?

This is a commentary upon how the sporting world has changed.

Buried deep within this past Sunday's sports pages of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was a single paragraph stating that Anthony Joshua defeated Joseph Parker in a twelve round unanimous decision to win the World Boxing Organization (WBO) Heavyweight Championship.  This goes along with the IBF, WBA, and IBO heavyweight titles that Joshua already held.  Unless there is yet another alphabet soup boxing organization of which I am not aware, this would seem to make Anthony Joshua the UNDISPUTED HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD, and until I saw that tiny item that was buried on page 12 of the sports section, I had never heard of him and would have had absolutely no idea as to who he was.

I bring this up because a case can be made that at some point in my lifetime, and certainly in the case of the generation of my parents' lifetime, the man who held the Heavyweight Championship was easily the most famous man in the sporting world.  A fight for the heavyweight title was the biggest event of any given calendar year.  In 2018, the name of the man who holds the title is unrecognizable, and the results of the title fight gets all of a single paragraph next to the high school swimming results in the Sunday paper.

(As an aside, I posed this "Who is Anthony Joshua" question only Facebook feed earlier today and asked anyone to identify him without resorting to the Google Machine.  After several hours and many guesses, only one guy could do it.)

The Champ

Just for the record, Anthony Joshua is a 28 year old Britisher.  He won a gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics, and has a professional record of 21-0, with 20 of his wins coming by knockout.

A graduate thesis could be written (and maybe someone has already done so) on why boxing, once one of the most popular sports in America, no longer holds that status, and can now best be described as a niche sport.  The lesson I suppose, is that just because you are on the top of the heap today, doesn't mean that you will be there forever.  I am sure that the guardians of the National Football League are well aware of that, and if they are not, they should be.

To Absent Friends - Rusty Staub

Rusty Staub

1944-2018

"Le Grande Orange"

Rusty Staub, one of the more dominant players of his era, died earlier this week, a few days shy of his 74th birthday.

Staub played for twenty-three seasons, 1963-85, for five different teams, Astros, Expos, Mets, Rangers, and Tigers.  He had a career batting average of .279, hit 292 home runs, and had 2,712 hits.  He was essentially the first great player of the Montreal Expos franchise, whose fans gave him that iconic French nickname, "Le Grande Orange".  He was guy I never liked to see come to bat against the Pirates in a critical situation.

Did you scoff when I said that he was one of the more dominant players of his era?  Baseball-Reference considers him "similar" to Tony Perez, Dave Parker, Brooks Robinson, Steve Garvey, and Al Oliver.  Pretty good company.

RIP Rusty Staub.

Welcome to Pittsburgh, Jeff Capel

With the Pirates Opening Day game in Detroit postponed a day, let's talk about basketball, specifically, basketball at the University of Pittsburgh.

Pitt introduced its new Head Basketball Coach, Jeff Capel, at a news conference yesterday.  Capel was a player at Duke University under Mike Krzyzewski, and head coach at both Oklahoma and Virginia Commonwealth, and, for the last seven years, the Associate Head Coach under Krzyzewski at Duke.  The announcement has been greeted positively by the media and even by the unbelievably finicky Pitt Hoops Fan Base, although I have not checked into the comments on some of the more radical Pitt fan sites on social media.

When it was first reported that it was going to be Capel, I expected that the reaction would be "Euww, who wants anybody associated with Duke?"  You know, all the people who who reside outside of Durham NC who can't stomach Coach K, Jay Bilas, and just about anyone else associated with what is arguably the best and most successful collage basketball program over the last thirty years.  Yeah, who would want that?

Surprisingly, though, this hire seems to be well received and AD Heather Lyke deserves much credit for being able to pull this one off.  Apparently, neither she nor the rest of the University athletic department were behaving like the Keystone Kops as many people in the talk radio world were portraying them.  And I give much credit to Pitt for staying away from the guy that "the fans" seemed to really want most: Sean Miller.  It says something good about Pitt that they chose not to go that particular route.

As we all know, though, being an assistant under a great head coach does not necessarily guarantee success, but it's a good place to start, so let us all hope that this works out well for both Pitt and Jeff Capel.

I will close with an absolute classic call that I heard on The Fan yesterday morning.  Morning host Colin Dunlap was talking to "Sam from New Castle" who was, of course bitching and moaning about the hiring of Capel.  Among the many of Capel's shortcomings, according to Sam, was that he, Capel, was "known cheater" while at Oklahoma.  When Dunlap then asked who Pitt should have hired, Sam's first choice was Rick Pittino.  How's that for logic?

Welcome to Pittsburgh, Coach.  Enjoy the Primanti sammitches and Iron City's n'at.

To Absent Friends - Linda Brown Thompson

Linda Brown Thompson

1942-2018

The key figure in what may well be the most significant and important case in the history of the United States Supreme Court, Linda Brown Thompson, died earlier this week at the age of 76.  

Linda Brown just wanted to attend the elementary school in her Topeka, Kansas, neighborhood with her friends, but, of course, due to the segregation laws in place at the time, she was unable to do so.  The legal proceedings that followed led to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in the case of Brown v. The Board of Education,  that struck down the "separate, but equal" (1894's Plessy v. Ferguson) doctrine that had governed such matters previous, and called for full integration of schools throughout the land.

Linda Brown went on to attend Washburn University and Kansas State University, and at time chaffed under the spotlight of being such a lofty historical figure.  However she did lead a life of activism, and in 1979 she led a fight along with the ACLU that said that the Topeka schools still were not fully integrated despite the Supreme Court ruling of 1954, a fight that was eventually upheld by the Court of Appeals in 1993.

History can be written by a humble Kansas school child.

RIP Linda Brown Thompson.

Pirates Preview Time!!!!

If you are a Pirates fan, 2017-18 was, to paraphrase The Bard, the winter of our discontent.  We all know what happened. The Pirates traded, or, depending on your point of view, dumped the salaries of their best pitcher, Gerrit Cole, and their best and most popular player and Face-of-the-Franchise Andrew McCutchen.  We all know the wailing and gnashing of teeth that followed, much of coming from this particular Grandstand.   

But that is all behind us now, Spring Training is about to conclude and Opening Day is a mere four days away.  And while we can bitch and moan about the Nutting-Coonelly-Huntington triumvirate all we want, I'll try and focus on the players that are here.  THEY all want to be in the major leagues, and THEY all want to succeed, so if THEY make the efforts needed to be successful, I will certainly be cheering them on, as I have for the fifty-nine previous incarnations of the Pirates that I have been following since that 1959 season, when I attended my first ballgame.  If they fall short because they just weren't as good as the other teams, well, then we can go back to the management of the team and what they have and have not done.

But before any analysis, let's recognize the two new "Faces of the Franchise" as described in the Post-Gazette's season preview write up today, Josh Bell and Jameson Taillon.

Bell arrived last year as a full time player and hit 26 home runs.  Taillon struggled with non-baseball health issues last season, but it has been apparent since he arrived in Pittsburgh two seasons ago that he has the goods to be a top of the line starting pitcher in the big leagues.  Pirates fans, these are your leaders going forward.

So what are we to make of the chances for your 2018 Pittsburgh Pirates?  Me?  I am more pessimistic than I am optimistic, but, call me a Kool-Ade drinker, but I do see some positive signs.

The outfield will consist of Starling Marte (.362 BA, 1.047 OPS in spring training),  Gregory Polanco (.326 and .998), and newcomer Corey Dickerson (.325 and .800).  That's pretty damn good if spring training stats mean anything, which, of course, we know they do not.  Still, we know that serious trust issues exist where Marte and Polanco are concerned.  We know what perhaps they can do, but we also saw what happened last year, so who knows which versions of those guys will show up.   Dickerson was an all-star last year for the Rays, but he had a big drop off in the second half of the season.  The potential is there for a good to very good outfield, but it could just as easily go the other way, too.  And if one of those guys get injured, the roster as it is comprised today has no fourth outfielder, other than some combination of Adam Frazier, Sean Rodriguez, and Jose Osuna, who are all infielders by trade.  Having no fourth outfielder killed this team in 2017.  Will it happen in again in 2018?

In the infield, Bell (.283 and .899) is as close to a sure thing that the Pirates have in this  lineup.  A lot is being expected of third baseman Colin Moran, obtained from Houston in the Cole trade.  Moran is hitting .346 and .793 with 10 RBI this spring.  That is hopeful to be sure.  Jordy Mercer and Josh Harrison are not having a spring that, to use Neal Huntington's new favorite expression, lives up to the backs of their baseball cards, but we know who and what those guys are and if they perform as they have in the past, that will be okay.  Harrison and Mercer are also, it should be noted, prime candidates to be traded by the July 31 deadline date.

Francisco Cervelli is having a good spring at .375 and 1.224, but the big question is can he stay healthy and catch 130-140 games.  There's a drop-off behind him at that position.

But it is the pitching where the biggest questions rise for the Bucs.  Taillon has had a solid spring with a 2.79 ERA albeit in only 9.2 innings pitched.  It is the other four projected starters that cause you to gulp a bit....Ivan Nova (4.85), Trevor Williams (5.54), Chad Kuhl (8.27), and Joe Musgrove, also obtained in the Cole trade, (10.80, but only 6.2 IP).  Felipe Rivero is a good closer, but it is the all the usual suspects between the starters and Rivero as Huntington and Clint Hurdle cobble together the '18 version of the bullpen.  Again, spring training stats don't mean anything, and both Williams and Kuhl have shown signs of being, if not aces, at  least decent big league starting pitchers.  The team is pinning a lot on Musgrove, but I'm betting he won't be nearly as good as the guy he is replacing in the rotation, Gerrit Cole.

What does it all mean?  Well, the Pirates won 75 games last year, and if you set that as the over/under number for wins for this team, I would have to bet the Under.  I'll predict 73 wins for them in 2018.  Any number of wins over last season's total of 75 would have to be a surprise, and if they should exceed a .500 record, then Clint Hurdle should be the Manager of the Year.

Is this going to stop me from following the Pirates? Nah.  As upset as I was and still am with the direction the team took this past off season, I just can't bring myself to swear off of them for good because of it. The Pirates are just too deeply embedded in my DNA.  Again, I am not happy with how things went this off-season, and they are going to really have to play well to re-earn my usual annual commitment of going to see 12-15 games a season.   

Again, none of this is the fault of the Pirates players, and I will be pulling for them.  As for the guys in the suits, that's another story.

As always......LET'S GO BUCS!!!!