Ocean City Sojourn

Perhaps you noticed that The Grandstander has been inactive for the last several days.  That is due to the fact that Marilyn and I took leave of the Home Base last week to celebrate our birthdays in the resort town of Ocean City, New Jersey.  I first visited Ocean City in the Summer of 1971, and it was the site of many Sproule Family vacations into the early 1980's.  Marilyn and I made, as best as I can recollect, five trips to Ocean City early in our marriage, but we pretty much stopped going there when we began our annual trips to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Our last visit there came in 1996, so when we decided to take this birthday jaunt to Ocean City, we were also taking trip into the past.

I'm happy to report that Ocean City is largely unchanged.  The Boardwalk is still bright, noisy, and honky-tonkish:

I was bit dismayed to see some invasion of franchises on the Boardwalk - a Subway, a Dairy Queen, and, inexplicably, a Verizon Wireless store (never saw a soul in there) - but for the most part, it is still all t-shirt shops, carnival games, miniature golf, pizza, fudge, taffy, caramel corn, and funnel cake joints.  Real Americana!

Work has also been done to enlarge the beaches.  Don't ask me how they do that, but the beaches where we stayed were much deeper than I remember them being:

Our weather was absolutely terrific - high 70's/low 80's temps, no wind, no clouds.  We got to the beach every day, and were surprised at how crowded they were for weekdays in September after Labor Day.

We had some absolutely fabulous meals patronizing Spadafora's Clam Bar, the Tuckahoe Inn, the Happy Days Cafe, Luigi's Italian Restaurant, and, best of all, a place in Cape May called the Lobster House.  At the Lobster House, you place you order, wait for your number to be called, and then you eat your meal at outdoor tables along a wharf.  There are some great places to eat in Cape May, but if we ever go back there for an extended stay, I do believe that we will eat at the Lobster House every single day.

All in all, a great little getaway, and a nice exclamation point on what has been a nice summer for us.

Steelers Kick It Off for Real

As we have been told repeatedly, the Steelers kick off their 80th season in the National Football League tonight against the Broncos in Denver.  Since the team is celebrating this milestone season with those horrid throwback Three Stooges-style uniforms, I thought I would celebrate it with their old logo, one that I always thought was a pretty cool one.

When last we saw the Steelers playing a game that mattered, the Vaunted Dick LeBeau defense was being picked apart and shredded in Denver by that master of the quarterbacking arts, Tim Tebow.  Tonight they return to that same stadium and the Broncos have replaced Tebow with Peyton Manning, a slight upgrade in the position.  So, I don't have high hopes for how Rooney U. might fare in tonight's contest.  

As for how they will do over the course of the season, I think that they are a good enough team to win more games than they will lose, but will they be good enough to make the playoffs from a division that sent two other teams, the Ravens and Bengals, to the playoffs last season?  On the plus side, they have a great quarterback and a corps of very good, if not great, receivers. The offensive line was supposed to have been beefed up via the draft, but injuries have reared up among that corps, so will Roethlisberger continue to run for his life and get beat up continually?  I am also concerned with the running backs.  They are counting on Isaac Redman to replace an injured Rashard Mendenhall.  Redman has been okay as a short yardage guy and a fill in in the past, but it's still a question, in my mind anyway, if he can do it over the long haul. 

On defense, younger guys need to step up to replace guys like James Farrior and Aaron Smith, while guys like James Harrison and Troy Polamalu  are another year older.

Maybe this is a season where the team just takes a step backwards while retooling for another sustained stretch of Super Bowl caliber seasons down the road.  With a QB like Ben you can never count them out, and the Bengals can always be counted on to be, well, the Bengals, so you never know, but let's call it a 9-7 season with the team missing the Playoffs.  Hope I'm wrong.

Oh, one more thing, in my limited writing on the team during the practice game season, I continually talked about how everyone has been talking about Todd Hailey and the New Steelers Offense.  I'm done kicking that one around.  Let's see how the team actually plays on the field during the season.  I will leave the Glorification and/or the Bashing of the Offensive Coordinator up to the experts who call into The Fan everyday.

As for the rest of the NFL, last year I thought that I would boldly cover my butt by naming a group of eight to ten teams, one of which would be the eventual Super Bowl winner.  How could I be wrong if I did that, right?  However, I failed to include the New York Giants among that pack of sure fire Super Bowl contenders.  Amazing.   As for this year, what the hell, I'll be bold and predict that the Green Bay Packers will defeat the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl.

I am also anxiously awaiting to see who the NFL will choose to be the halftime act at the Super Bowl.  Early line favorites are The Beach Boys, Hall and Oates, and Duran Duran.  Since the Super Bowl will be in New Orleans, possible dark horse candidates to perform could be Louis Armstrong and Al Hirt.  The fact that both of those guys are dead shouldn't stand in the way of the NFL, considering what can be done with holograms these days.

As always, watch, but don't bet, and enjoy the football season!!

An Early Oscar Prediction

This morning's Post-Gazette featured a preview of the Fall movie releases, and one in particular caught my eye:  "Lincoln".  It is a serious movie about our 16th President.  It is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's award winning book, "Team of Rivals".  It stars Daniel Day-Lewis, who makes a movie once every three or four years, but when he does, he usually wins an Oscar, and it is directed  by Steven Spielberg, who is, well, STEVEN SPIELBERG.  

Do we really need to even have an Academy Awards ceremony next winter?

More on Modell

The obit for Art Modell from the New York Times that was reprinted in the Post-Gazette made interesting reading today.  ( I was amazed to see that Modell was a high school drop out.) Not surprisingly, for all of his accomplishments, and there were many, the obit led with the fact that he moved the Browns out of Cleveland to Baltimore in 1995, forever earning him the enmity of the the community that he was so much a part of for the previous 35 years or so.

I lived in the Cleveland area from 1974-78 at a time when the City of Cleveland was pretty much a national joke.  The Cuyahoga River caught on fire and the Mayor, Ralph Perk, set his hair on fire while using a blow torch at some trade show (you can look it up!).  Amidst all of that, there was no stronger booster of Cleveland and the Northeast Ohio region that Art Modell.  In addition to owning the Browns, Modell was a staunch supporter of the the Cleveland Symphony and all of the Arts in the area, as well as serving on various civic boards and charities.  He was a true pillar of the community.  Once he took the Browns away, though, he was poison and he was never able to return to Cleveland again.  I get the anger of the City over having "their" team (but let's face it; teams belong to the owners, not the fans. See Dodgers, Brooklyn), but the whole episode is kind of sad, when you think about it.  Almost Shakespearean. 

And I know that no Cleveland Brown fan will agree with that, and I get that.

Pheasant Ridge, Pitt, An Absent Friend

Three quickies:

I had a most enjoyable round of golf today at Pheasant Ridge Golf Course in Gibsonia.  It was the first time that I had played at Pheasant Ridge, and I really liked the course.  It is one that i would definitely like to play again.  I played fairly well (103) by my standards, but the best part of the day was playing once again, for the first time in several years, with former co-worker and long time golf partner Bill H.  A truly fun day.

As an aside, one drawback to Pheasant Ridge was that there were no water coolers on the course.  This is not unique to Pheasant Ridge, as I have noticed that water jugs on golf courses this summer have gone the way of metal spikes.  You just don't see them anymore, and I think that this is not-so-nice treatment of the paying customers.

I am looking forward to watching Pitt play the Cincy Bearcats tonight.  An important game for the Panthers after that very poor showing against Youngstown State last week.  

Absent Friend:  Art Modell died today at the age of 87.  Once he bought the Cleveland Browns from Paul Brown back in the 1960's, Modell became one of the movers and shakers in the NFL, but for all of that, he will be remembered foremost for moving the Browns out of Cleveland to Baltimore.  The City of Cleveland never has and no doubt never will forgive that sin.

A Disgrace at PNC Park

Astros 5 - Pirates 1.

A guy who was pitching in the Mexican League earlier in the year was made to look like a reincarnated combination of Larry Dierker/Nolan Ryan/Roy Oswalt by the Pirates pathetic line up today.  Only five hits against some stiff named Edgar Gonzalez and an Astros bullpen consisting of Moe, Larry, and Curly.

Correction:  Moe, Larry, and Curly were playing short stop, catcher, and first base for the Pirates.

Astros first baseman Brett Wallace was made to look like a reincarnated Jeff Bagwell by Jeff Locke.

I was there today.  Spent $32 for the privilege, plus parking, plus the overpriced ballpark food.   It was as awful as anything I had seen the Pirates put out in the depths of the John Russell administration.

A Pirates team that fancies itself a post-season contender, with a chance to shake off an awful weekend in Milwaukee, came up against a team that is not just bad, but historically bad, and they laid down and died.  It was nothing short of pathetic.  I don't know how they're looking in a mirror in that clubhouse tonight.

So it comes down to this. Two more games with the Astros, and then three with the Cubs, another lousy team, over the weekend.  Unless they win all five of those games, seriously, all five of them, kiss the wild card hopes good-bye. The goal then becomes winning 82 games and ending the streak, and if it comes to that, they are going to be seriously challenged to do so,  Twenty-eight games left to play, and they now need to go 12-16 in those games.  If you told me a month ago that winning a minimum of 82 games would be a challenge for this team, I'd have said you were crazy, but, now, well, I'm the one saying it..

Two player specific comments:

1. I guess we can hold off on that automatic induction into Cooperstown for Brock Holt.  I don't want to be harsh on the kid, but some were getting a bit carried away after he had two hits on Sunday.  And just for the record, as long as Walker is still hurt, I'd rather see Holt than Josh Harrison playing at second.
2. Gaby Sanchez is proving to be an extremely annoying player.  In addition to being not very good (0-for-4 today with two pathetic strike outs), he is maddening to watch at the plate.  After each pitch, he steps out of the box, adjusts his batting gloves (even if he hadn't swung on the pitch), walks around, kicks dirt off of his spikes.  He took 20 to 25 seconds doing this crap between pitches today.  I timed him.  This would be maddening if he was hitting .280 with 20 home runs.  That he does it with his current level of production is intolerable.  Doesn't baseball have rules about this kind of stuff?

OK.  The challenge is very clear.  They have to win the next five games against these two lousy teams.  They HAVE to.

To Absent Friends: Hal David

Lyricist Hal David passed away this week at the age of 91.  If you've never heard of Hal David, perhaps you've heard of his most frequent and famous collaborator, composer Burt Bacharach.  If this is STILL not ringing a bell for you, then be assured that you have heard their work for the music of Bacharach and David provided a soundtrack to America in the 1960's and beyond as surely as did Lennon and McCartney, Paul Simon, Brian Wilson, or Bob Dylan.  

Bacharach and David won an Oscar for the song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", but their work was best interpreted by the great Dionne Warwick.  Trying to pick "the best" or a "favorite" Bacharach/David/Warwick song is almost an impossible task for there were so many of them.  Allow me to leave you with one of my favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5xHNapTONo

RIP Hal David.