Archive for Review

This past weekend, my good friend Will Smith joined me in a private public screening (as in, we paid to watch the movie behind closed doors, but the theater was filled with strangers) of Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt.

However, I must say the film’s pace surprised me — the book Moneyball actually felt much faster-paced in its 301-page glory — and though I rather liked the film (see Rob Neyer’s review for an opinion much like mine), it never hurts to spice up a Hollywood movie with extra love and action scenes — and maybe a Michael Bay credit.

Suggested Change #1: Replace Jonah Hill with Danny Glover.

We all know Hill played a nerdier version of Paul DePosta, but why couldn’t Danny Glover have brought a little grit to the role?

Glover, instead of working with the Cleveland Indians front office, could have been a wise janitor for the Tribe who doesn’t take crap from the players and lives in a broom closet under the press box until Beane has a protracted, dramatic conversation with Glover in a rain-drenched Progressive Field. The conversation would go like this:

“You don’t need big names to win,” Glover’s character would say.

“What do you mean?” Beane would ask over the roaring rain.

“I can build you a team, using numbers, spreadsheets, and mother’s basements. But what do I know? I’m just an old, beat-up janitor.”

“If I gave the keys to my kingdom, what would be your first move?”

“An efficient manager,” Glover says, snatching his mop and turning away, “never gives out his secrets.”

“Well then you might as well tell me,” Beane says, tugging a fedora over his brow, “because I just hired you to be the Assistant GM of the Oakland Athletics.”
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Just your typical Triple-A lifer.

If only Fernando Perez was a better ball player. Then again, if he was, it might be unfair to the rest of the men in the world. He’s — forgive the fawning — an excellent renaissance man even without good baseball results at the time being.

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What Billy Butler will look like when you see him on September 5th, 2011.

If ever, for the rest of your life, you go to the Royals-A’s game on September 5th, 2011, your experience will assuredly unfold exactly like this:

1. You’ll wake up, entirely healthy, in a small bed in Berkeley, California.

2. You’ll have an apple turnover and Americano at Berkeley’s Caffe Strada. Regarding the turnover, you’ll think, “I wonder how much longer I can eat these for breakfast without consequence?” The answer, unbeknownst to you, is “Slightly over a year ago.”

3. In a brief phone conversation with your wife, she’ll inform you that a husband you both know has left a wife you both know for one of his undergraduate students. Regarding this information, your first and least attractive thought will be “That probably lowers the bar, in terms of my wife’s expectations of me.”

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One fine day I got a notion that reviewing baseball video games – in an effort to find the best ones of all time – might be a cool idea. After showing one to Mr. Cistulli, he agreed. Thus today I bring you the first in a series of baseball video game reviews, with notes to help dictate the future form.

Vitals:
Game: Triple Play 2002
Platform: Playstation 2
Developer: EA Sports
Modes: Single Game, Season, Playoffs, and Home Run Derby
Cool Feature: DVD Extras (Luis Gonzalez motion capture)

Columnist Note:
For games that have video footage online, a video would go here.

Categories
Realism: 3/10.
Graphics: 7/10.
Difficulty: 7/10.
Details: 6/10.
Playability: 5/10.
Intangibles: 35/50.          
Total Score: 63/100 (D)

For this first review, let me break down each of the categories a little bit. For realism, I like to think in terms of “could this be a way a game would reasonably play out?” For graphics, it’s definitely relative to the time the game was put out. Difficulty is pretty self-explanatory; is the game extraordinarily easy or hard, or somewhere in between? For playability, I like to think of it as the ‘play again’ factor; would you play it over and over again? For me, for intangibles it was really to get it on a scale of 100, and to help to try quantify some ‘feel’ to the game (and also to help get a Jeterian element into the mix).

To set a few ground rules:
Game will be played with teams of Mr. Warne’s choosing.
Game will be played on a medium skill level.
Game is played in exhibition or single game mode.
No player movement allowed (if applicable).
No part of the game will be simulated.
Game can not be restarted, except in instance of system freeze.
If my wife asks, I am working.

With all these rules considered, if any reader suggests one that should be added, it shall be considered.

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Woody Allen says in 1977’s Annie Hall that we’re “always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because it’s real difficult in life.”

In the relevant scene of that film, we’ve just witnessed Allen’s character Alvy Singer directing a play in which Singer has rewritten a breakup between himself and the titular Hall (played by Diane Keaton), such that she rushes after, and professes her love for, him.

For Allen’s Singer, the potential outcomes are binary in nature: either Annie does or doesn’t leave him. The former is what happens; the latter is what happens — what is perfected — in art.

The sort of perfect we find in the three drawings above, courtesy of (male man) Erin Wong, is different. Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays and Sandy Koufax are, by most accounts, the closest thing that baseball has seen to perfect. There are details that could be edited — maybe DiMaggio’s personal life could’ve been less turbulent, maybe Mays wouldn’t’ve had an age-42 season, maybe Koufax’s brilliance could’ve lasted a couple-few more years — but one could also make the argument that these imperfections actually make each player’s respective resume even more striking.

But achieving — or, at least, gesturing towards — perfection isn’t always a case of choosing one of two outcomes in a binary relationship. Rather, Wong’s pictures are a product of a desire to re-see players whose respective mythologies are well known to the point of being tired.

Wong’s drawings — like a batter totally at ease with his own weaknesses — don’t try to do too much. Rather, they seem to ask simple questions. “What would Joe DiMaggio look like were he crossed with an older Ed Sullivan?” “What would Sandy Koufax look like were he thinking the words ‘I know something you don’t know’?” “What if gravity had only a minimal effect on Willie Mays’ hat?”

It’s not unusual to hear people say art is dead because everything has been done. What sort of conceit does it require to imagine that one’s age would be the one to kill an immortal thing? In its own, small way, Wong’s drawings make it clear that art isn’t dead, won’t die. All it requires is the desire to ask small questions and the technical skill to answer those questions in the relevant medium.

With so much of his time being spent executing things, today’s busy executive isn’t always in a position to enjoy every single game every single night on the entire baseball schedule. It’s to address this situation, undoubtedly, that Major League Baseball offers condensed games at their Media Center landing page.

The author has spent some time forming opinions about these condensed games, so that you don’t have to. Here they are (i.e. the aforementioned opinions), delivered in an authoritative voice via the magic of bullet point.

Regard:

• The first thing one will note is that the condensed games are delivered sans commentary — i.e. with natural ballpark sounds only. This is perhaps the best thing about them. Though commentary — especially when deliverd by broadcasters like Vin Scully or (in this author’s opinion) Len Kasper or Don Orsillo/Jerry Remy — though commentary certainly has its place, the quality of it is pretty uneven across the league. And while calls of dramatic plays can certainly enhance the experience of same, commentary is generally most effective during the game’s more subdued intervals. As the condensed games are composed almost exclusively by action, it’s a pleasure to participate in the ballpark sounds alone.

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A southpaw of suds.

Beer is worth traveling for. Most times its to your nearest bar with crafts on tap, but many times its to your nearest beer festival with brewers plying their wares.

Some times it’s worth traveling to a ballpark for a non-baseball-reason. Not all of the ballparks boast only mass-brewed urine waters. Your rare stadium makes beer a priority and features suds worthy of a pilgrimage.

San Diego’s PetCo Park is just one such stadium.

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The author wouldn’t mind faire-ing a couple of bises with the French First Lady.

If there’s anything more annoying than a young, childless person spending two-plus weeks in the South of France at the height of summer, it’s to hear that same young, childless person complain about spending two-plus weeks in the South of France at the height of summer.

Because, it’s a fact, reader: the South of France is an exercise in charm. The women are almost uniformly beautiful*; the weather is warm and dry; the vin is equal parts delicious and affordable; and the picturesque, winding rues are absurd in their picturesque-ness and winding-osity. Moreoever, an inability to understand the native language means that one is free from accidentally overhearing inane conversations that might interfere with the traveler’s illusions about this land of milk and fine honeys.

*Led, notably, by First Lady-cum-supermodel-cum-heiress-cum-classically-trained-musician Carla Bruni.

For the baseballing enthusiast, however, there’s a small sable cloud attached to the vast expanse of silver lining that is this wonderland of sophistication and perpetual drunkeness — namely, the difficulty in ever watching even a second of live baseball.

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On Thursday night, July 14, America’s elected officials took a much deserved break from trying to figure out what to do with all that debt, and took part in the most American of activities: baseball.

The 50th annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game was played at Nationals Stadium last week, and, thanks to a pair of well-educated NotGraphs readers, what you’ll find below is a brilliant review of the Democrats’ 8-2 victory, their third in a row since 2009, after they, the rest of the country, and, well, the world, took it on the chin from the Republicans for eight straight — and long — years.

Huge political props go out to Dara and Noah for their review. Thank you kindly, and long live the American spirit.

Even the participants in the annual Congressional Baseball Game are aware that it’s a slightly pathetic event. The only Baseball Hall of Famer who’s ever appeared in the game, former senator Jim Bunning, is not a member of the Congressional Baseball Hall of Fame, and the game program prominently features a quote from former Congressman Marty Russo calling it “the one thing that’s left where members (of Congress) get to have fun together.” Nonetheless, the 2011 game, played last Thursday at Nationals Park, managed a crowd of a few thousand Congressional staffers, interns, and hometown fans nostalgic for the lovable bumbling of the past few Nationals seasons. But fans on the left-field (aisle?) side were in for a pleasant surprise. The Democrats turned in an impressingly not-incompetent performance, winning 8-2 on the strength of a legitimate gem from pitcher Cedric Richmond.

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They are not always terrifying arid deathscapes with low humidity, hungry fauna and heavy-handed political undertones.

I’ve spent the greater part of the past week consumed entertained by Out of the Park 12, the new baseball simulation computer game by the folks who brought you Out of the Park 11 and ten other quality titles.  Before I send up their meticulous craftsmanship for gentle ridicule, I should disclose that Out of the Park 12 is a really fine game, and I’ve written a review that says as much, in addition to trumpeting my ability to transform the 1977 expansion Seattle Mariners into World Champions.

Obviously, baseball simulators put the power in the gamer’s hands, much in the same way that flight simulators, WOPR, and the Power Glove have in the past.  In my mind, however, one of the most appealing aspects of the genre is that these games tend to create a surreal, shadowy universe where most, but not all, of the usual rules of the baseball world apply.  The experience is almost akin to being thrown into a Bradbury short story where there are still lemonade stands and elementary schools, but the sun only comes out once every seven years.   Only fun!

After all, don’t we all want to visit (but not live in) a universe where the following trade takes place?  (Note: enlargination is vital for appreciating the condensed humor below.  Proceed accordingly.)

In fact, if you happen to organize a small writing group that meets bi-weekly at a local coffee shop, I encourage you to use this picture as a prompt: “write a two page short-short story that takes place on the morning of March 31, 2011, as the city of Chicago lies in rubble.”  Bonus points for including Jim Hendry screaming in anguish at the cloudless sky, a pair of broken eyeglasses in one hand.

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