Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Deep Thoughts

Steven Soderbergh to try and make another baseball movie

“Yeah, I have another idea for a baseball movie that actually doesn’t have any baseball in it,” the “Informant!” filmmaker revealed to us recently and more than a bit cryptically. “I am going to see MLB when I’m in New York to talk to them about it.”

Soderbergh understandably dodged our follow-up questions like a runner on third caught in a botched suicide squeeze, but he did offer a few key tidbits of information: The film will focus on a real-life baseball player (asked if the player’s name would be recognizable to fans, he said “yes”), it follows a story that goes far beyond the diamond and is sensitive enough that he feels the need to get Major League Baseball’s blessing.

“It’s a true story,” explained the Oscar-winning filmmaker. “I don’t want to jinx it, because it would involve life rights. I want to talk to [MLB] and say ‘If I did a movie on this subject, would you be cool with this? What kind of cooperation can I expect?’”

The Phillies can’t hold on to their rings

A masked fan ejected from a Phillies playoff game is charged with stealing three World Series rings from a ballpark office. The Phillies have now had four such rings stolen since winning the title last year. Police say 22-year-old Matthew Mervine of Berlin, N.J., was videotaped taking the rings Thursday. They say he had also left his contact information on a job application.

The purloined rings are cheaper models of the $11,000 rings given to players. They are worth about $1,100 and intended for scouts.

Apparently, Mervine, who wore a rubber skull mask to yesterday's game against the Rockies, found his way to the Phillies offices after being kicked out of the game with other fans who were being too boisterous, police said. He'd been wearing a skull mask and calling himself "Rockie Killer."

In the office, he put his mask and rally towel down on a desk, but after picking them up, he also picked up the envelope with the rings, police said. He was arrested at his home at 24 Coleman Rd. in Berlin, and all three rings were recovered.

Roy Clark to the Nats?

This is how you reflect on sports failure, kids

Nine-hundred and eighty times out of a thousand Matt Holliday catches the ball. Seven-hundred and eighty times out of a thousand a batter facing Ryan Franklin doesn't reach base safely. If I keep saying that he sucks he can't suck. None of it matters in that one instant except to remind us, to insist to us, that baseball isn't always like this, that normally it meets our expectations halfway.

Right now the best part about the 2009 season is that it's happened—that we lived through and talked about two proposed Matt Holliday trades, 29 Chris Carpenter starts, the birth of a new, scrappier middle infield, an incredible run away from our natural rivals—and that it's still happening. It animated another summer with possibility and discussion and mustaches, and it's gotten us into fall with the potential for one more improbable attempt at keeping things going. I would rather the baseball season never end; failing that, I'd like to see it through Saturday.

NBC Comment of the Day

An article by Craig Calcaterra is like a fart. It stinks, but it will soon go away!

My Morning in Exile

And That Happened: Division Series

Did you know: the 1995-99 Braves (a) had the best record in the league five years in a row (matching the 1949-53 Yankees) and (b) won 9 of their 13 post-season series. An incredible team with a fine post-season record.