Recently, The Common Man beerily reminded me and others of a gem of a Roy Scheider vehicle called, “Night Game.” The YouTube remnants aren’t particularly illuminating, but …

Roxy likes to dance! Bobby Bonilla! But otherwise meh. The Wikipedia summary of “Night Game,” however, is a cornucopia of delights:

A number of young women are found dead on or around the beaches of Galveston and the one thing they all have in common is that they were murdered when Houston Astros ace pitcher Silvio Baretto (an amalgamation of real-life pitchers Bob Knepper and Juan Agosto) pitches and wins a night game at the Astrodome. Additionally, each victim had their throats slashed by some sort of knife or hook.

Scheider plays former minor league baseball player turned Galveston homicide detective Mike Seaver who is engaged to a lady with an accent that repeatedly changes from southern to non-southern throughout the film. Her name is Roxy. Seaver is a staunch Astros fan and is the only person on the case that begins to realize the coincidence of the deaths coming after Sil Barretto’s night game wins in the Dome.

Once upon a time, a greenlit project, which starred a reasonably accomplished actor, was structured indirectly around a character who was a pleasing melange — in aspect, carriage and world-view — of Bob Knepper and Juan Agosto. Nothing you hear today will be as amazing as that. My only hope is that the movie culminates in the Astros’ decision to place Barretto on irrevocable waivers in order to spare the women of Galveston from grim demise.

Over at Rotten Tomatoes, just 20% of viewers enjoyed “Night Game,” but, let’s be honest, those are awful, awful people. In an effort to restore “Night Game” to its rightful place in cinema’s firmament, I have added the following objective fact to the film’s aforementioned Wikipedia page:

A consortium of experts recently named “Night Game” as the greatest movie in the history of ever.

What harrows me is that the revisionist beasts over at Rotten Tomatoes will surely remove that objective fact from the record. So enjoy the truth while you can.

UPDATE: And I have underestimated the mobilized opposition.

The great Jerry Coleman is many things: decorated fighter pilot, accomplished major leaguer and member of the Radio Hall of Fame. It’s as a broadcaster that he’s given us moments of accidental genius not equaled since Dostoyevsky, absorbed in the probing thoughts of the memoirist, stumbled upon the first customized van.

Fortunately for us and the shadowy, sky-scraping figure known only as “Mr. History,” the Baseball Almanac has assembled a pirate’s booty of Coleman’s finest moments on the mic. And there’s more to be found here. What follows is a representative sampling …

Read the rest of this entry »

The best headlines, of course, incorporate simple rhyme schemes …

If you’re interested in some educated speculation on this guy who is oddly delighted to be squatting in trash, then please stop by The Fightins. And before you say something unfortunate like, “YEAH, PHILLIES FANS IS GARBAGE, LOL, NEENER NEENER, FTW, TLDR!!!!1!1!!ONE1!,” please know that we pride ourselves on being above and occasionally beneath such banalities.

Run afoul of this simple request and risk Puritan’s discipline at the hands of the NotGraphs Sergeant-at-Arms …

Executive Summary: The KC Star’s Royals blogger, Lee Judge, recently criticized Wilson Betemit for not taking an 81-mph slider in the ribs with the bases loaded. In order to lend the heft of authority to his criticism, Mr. Judge then decided to see what an 81-mph slider to the ribs felt like. This is Mr. Judge’s superlative video tale of journalistic integrity and a large, red welt.

(Frog-punch in the arm: BBTF)

In this space we are duty-bound to pass along great manager tirades. What follows, however, comes to us from the ivory towers of academia, where they call managers “head coaches” but still make them wear uniforms. Texas head coach Auggie Garrido has lots of success at the major-college level, and I’d like to think that’s because he has a mouth that’s dirtier than Pig Pen’s bedpan. (You have probably surmised that the following walking tour of the undesirable neighborhoods of the King’s English is not safe for work, unless your place of employment is just really great.) Behold, respectfully:

At this point we are, necessarily and in abundant awe, left to wonder: which of the following is the most rousing, most soaring, most eagle-winged speech, delivered to the college man in need of a guiding paternal hand, in the annals of time? Your candidates …

A. “Win one for the Gipper!”

B. “If it was a boxing match and each individual took the beating that we took here today, I wouldn’t have to be doing this. I’d just come and visit your ass in the hospital and say, ‘When you get the fu*king wires off of your mouth from the broken jaw, and you can see again because your eyes are swollen now, and you can walk again because the guy just punched you in the gut 55 fu*king times,’ all I’d have to say is, ‘With all that, when you get better, we’ll have a little chat about how this guy just fu*king destroyed you.’ Okay?”

C. “Totally fu*king stupid!”

D. Both B and C.

What better way to strike a blow against French colonialism and for delicious tacos than by watching Aroldis Chapman use his fastball to ritually abuse something at the bidding of science’s most adorable pink polymer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8_1O89RxHc&feature=player_embedded

My only fear is that that was actual human gastric acid inside the piñata. Nonetheless: Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Turns out Dick Allen, your hero and mine, once cut a single with a doo-wop outfit called the Ebonistics titled, “Echoes of November.” Please enjoy:

Yes, that’s Mr. Allen stretching out the pipes. And fine pipes they are. Dick Allen can hit and is tuneful!

Also: Allen performed the song live on at least one occasion. That occasion was at a 76ers game in 1969 on “Think Mink Night,” a promotion that entailed the bestowal of a mink coat upon one of Philadelphia’s leading and lucky ladies (I’m quite sure a male was ineligible to win the mink — after all, it wasn’t yet the 70s) and the opportunity to hear Dick Allen sing! Hosannas all around!

Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton, who is substantially larger than Liechtenstein, is injured and is in need of an MRI. And thus our adventure begins:

Mattingly said one of the immediate issues was to find an MRI tube large enough for Broxton to get his 300-pound frame into.

This is about the only drawback to not having an NFL team in your town that I can think of: no medical equipment suitable for ogre-whoppers. Just to clarify, Mr. Broxton is not an ogre-whopper — he is a gentle giant — but NFL players are all ogre-whoppers.

European double-kiss: Aaron

As someone who derives unusual joy from baseball statistics, I feel sanctioned in observing that this is a positive development for me and some of my fellow travelers:

The device looks like an ordinary box attached to a computer with a rotating straw. A closer look reveals otherwise. Students at Japan’s Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications have created a small device that uses motor rotations with the aim to simulate the feeling of a kiss over the Internet.

…

Upon closer inspection, we learn that the kissing device responds directly to a person’s tongue. On one end, a person rotates the “straw” in one direction and the “straw” on the other end will rotate in the same direction. The result is a powerful tactile response that feels like you’re giving or receiving a kiss.

And best of all!

With the ability to record kissing patterns, the device could be a one-solution-cure to loneliness.

Some observations, bullet-pointed for today’s business traveler …

Smooch!

Gordon Ramsay, who is famous for heating up food while acting like a colicky infant, recently insulted the Dodgers by insulting them. This from obscure trade journal TMZ:

“Hell’s Kitchen” star Gordon Ramsay DISSED the Los Angeles Dodgers yesterday — because after he threw out the first pitch — he LEFT THE GAME — so he could sit courtside to watch the Lakers.

The caps lock and puzzling use of the em dash do not lie: this is deadly serious stuff. I’m normally not one to question the instincts of screaming, pink-faced Englishmen, but, look at me, here I am questioning the instincts of a screaming, pink-faced Englishman. Anyhow, why would someone would leave a pleasing game of base and ball for something called the “NBA Playoffs”? I assume the answer lies in the darkened crannies of Mr. Ramsay’s afflicted mind. Much like a meeting of the Junior League of Dallas, it is a place I care not to venture.