TV Review: Doctor Who Flux (spoilers!)

 

TV Review: Doctor Who: Flux (spoilers)

 The Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who is coming to an end.  I have only two words.

Thank.  God.

Chibnall took over after Steven Moffat’s departure and was gifted a new Doctor in the guise of Jodie Whittaker, the first female Doctor. As with another of my favorite Doctors, Sylvester McCoy, I can only imagine how good she might have been had she been given any decent scripts to work with.

In the three seasons under Chibnall’s leadership, I have enjoyed exactly one episode, the Amazon parody Ker-Blam.  Based on IMBD ratings I am not alone; season 1 under Chibnall had an average episode rating of 6.1, which is not good, and in season 2 the average rating shot up to 6.2.  For his third season Chibnall rolled the dice and did a 6-part miniseries called Flux that was about . . . well, it was about 6 episodes long.  Beyond that I am not sure.  The series was Chibnall’s best season, producing the only two episodes that were rated higher than a 7 at IMDB, but I see the whole thing as a disaster.

To explain what I think are Chibnall’s deficiencies I will do something unfair and compare him to his predecessor, Steven Moffat.  Why is this unfair?  Because Moffat is a genius.  He has written some of the best Doctor Who episodes of all time, and on top of that won an Emmy for writing Sherlock.  Comparing a TV writer to Moffat is like comparing a short story writer to O. Henry. But both Moffat and Chibnall worked on Doctor Who, so there is room for overlap.

Moffat writes episodes that use the Doctor’s ability to travel in time, but unlike Chibnall he knows how to construct a linear narrative while having characters moving back and forth in time.  I am thinking of two of Moffat’s best Doctor Who episodes, The Girl in the Fireplace and Blink (possibly the best Doctor Who episode EVER).  In both of those episodes, despite the fact that events in the story occurred in a non-linear fashion, the plots played out as if they were linear.  There was a beginning, a middle, and an end to the story.  Moffat used the ability to move about in time to strengthen the structure of his narrative.

Chibnall, by contrast, just has character pop from one time to another because they can.  Chibnall is more interested in creating puzzlement than understanding; enjoying a good mystery is one thing, but to be deliberately obscure is not the same as good story telling.

The other attribute Steven Moffat brings to Doctor Who that Chibnall lacks is an emotional investment in what’s going on.  The Girl in the Fireplace pays off because Moffat builds an emotional connection between the Doctor and Madam du Pompadour (if you haven’t seen the episode, don’t ask; just go watch the episode).  Chibnall moves characters around like chess pieces, but it is never clear what we are supposed to feel about what is happening other than we should like the Doctor and hate her enemies.  I mean, we aren’t supposed to like Swarm and Azure (they have names!) but it is hard to emotionally invest in disliking someone who says their goal is to destroy all objects in the universe. At least they have goals.

There are a lot of other nitpicks I could raise about Flux (Spoilers!!!). I think it is cheap for Chibnall to have the Doctor transform into a Weeping Angel and then turn her back again and say it was only to make transporting her more convenient.  And then there is the small matter that at the end the Doctor commits triple genocide by allowing the Daleks, Cybermen, and Sontarans all to perish in the final push of the Flux.  The Fourth Doctor famously debated eliminating the Daleks in Genesis of the Daleks and decided that genocide was wrong, even of an evil race that did nothing but kill.  I guess the Doctor has changed her mind.  Oh, and a Sontaran is induced to commit treason for . . . chocolate?  Please.

Chibnall’s era isn’t quite over.  He is the showrunner for the New Year’s episode, which IMDB has little information on.  But he has produced the worst seasons of Doctor Who since the dreaded McCoy era, which was unable to recover from the damage done by the even worse Colin Baker era. The show went off the air in 1989 until it was brilliant revived by Russell T. Davies in 2006. 

Davies will re-assume showrunner duties of Doctor Who after Chibnall steps down.  All I can say is that he has his work cut out for him again.

Les Dodgers est mort

 Les Dodgers est mort

 

Let me begin by saying that, as a boy, I grew up loving the Dodgers even though I was raised in Northern California.  This was the late 1960’s and the ‘70s, and I preferred the Dodgers’ emphasis on pitching, defense, and speed over the Giants emphasis on power.  And for most of my life the Dodgers have been the more successful franchise, at least until the Giants turned their trifecta of championships in the 2010s.

But at some point, I realized that I was, as Jerry Seinfeld said, rooting for laundry.  The ideological differences between the teams eventually disappeared as players and management came and went.  Recently, I’ve come to look on the Dodgers as the West Coast Yankees, overdogs who win because they have more money and then demand to be praised because they are so smart and so determined.

My existential crisis came to a head this season as the plucky SF Giants unexpectedly took the lead in the National League West despite having a payroll seemingly 1% of the Dodgers.  Not that the Dodgers gave up; when they were in second place at the trade deadline, they simply picked up Max Scherzer and Trey Turner, a future Hall of Famer and an All-Star.  Surely that would enable them to win another division title.

But it wasn’t enough, and the 106-win Dodgers had to settle for the Wild Card behind the 107-win Giants (the over/under on Giant wins at the start of the season had been 75).  Beating the Cardinals in a one-game play-in game, the Dodgers and Giants then had their first post-season meeting ever.  On the day of the first game, 5 of the 6 people I saw on ESPN said the Dodgers would obviously win, because they had better hitting and better pitching.  Of course, if they had better hitting and pitching, then why did the Giants win the division and the season series with the Dodgers?  As Geoffrey Rush’s character said in Shakespeare In Love, “It’s a mystery.”

The Dodgers did win the series but had to eke out winning two elimination games, the last one by one run thanks in part to a bad third strike call. Now all the Dodgers had to do to get to the World Series was crush the Atlanta Braves, who won 18 fewer regular season games.  No problem.

Then the wheels came off.  The Dodgers had already lost Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer to the world’s longest domestic violence investigation, then they lost Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw to injury, then in Game 6 they lost Max Scherzer to a dead arm. They had lost Max Muncy before the post-season, then lost Trey Turner and Justin Turner to injury.  The Dodgers, whose roster had been so overstocked that they had All-Stars coming off the bench most games, ran out Walker Buehler on short rest because of a depleted starting rotation and lost game 6 of the NLCS to a Braves team that won 18 fewer games in the regular season.

Were the Braves the best team in the National League?  Probably not.  Both the Giants and the Dodgers were clearly superior, but since MLB insisted on a post-season format that had the two best teams play each other in the first round the result was like the two fighting fish Blofeld owned in From Russia With Love who exhausted each other, allowing the weaker but smarter fish that stayed out of the fight to then kill the victor.  Some would argue that the Brewers were a better team and were undone by key relief pitcher and 2020 Rookie of the Year Devin Williams stupidly breaking his hand while celebrating them winning their division.

So, we have a World Series featuring a team with a racist logo and name against a team that recently won a World Series by admittedly cheating.  Not a great combo.  It’s too bad MLB just couldn’t slip to a Dodgers-Giants World Series, convention be damned.

TV Review: Lucifer season 6 (spoilers)

 

TV Review—Lucifer Season 6 (spoilers!)

 An end is come; the end is come.  Ezekiel 7:6

It seemed only fitting to begin a review if the TV series Lucifer with a quote from the main character’s least favorite work of fiction.  Of course the TV show Lucifer has shown a knack for resurrection that the main character never manifested; it was killed after three seasons by Fox, came back for two seasons on Netflix, and then Netflix decided that wasn’t enough and gave it another season.  But it looks like this is definitely the end for Lucifer.

And frankly, it may be time.  Season six was a letdown; not bad by any standard, but a step downward from the dizzying heights the show had reached in season 5.  The show fell back on some old habits that it had cast off and relied a little too much on an appealing cast and a reputation for making bat-shit crazy decisions.  The result was a satisfying conclusion, but one that was less interesting than it might have been.

Season 5 ended with an angelic battle for the right to sit on the celestial throne as, well, God, with Lucifer (Tom Ellis) coming out the victor.  Season 6 starts with Lucifer finding excuses for delaying his ascension.  This is an old failing of the show during its time on FOX; either the producers or the network would come up with any old excuse to keep Lucifer and his love, Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German), from progressing in their relationship. I understand that the relationship couldn’t have been allowed to progress too fast—I remember as a fan of the series Chuck that fans wanted Chuck and Sarah to hook up immediately, which would have ruined the show.  The problem was that the reasons for the one-step-forward/two-steps-back plotting were frustratingly arbitrary.  So it is here, where Lucifer has literally battled a host of angels to become God but now he has second thoughts, just because.

The main plot of season 6 is the appearance of a fearsome young woman named Rory who is an angel whose wings are steel-tipped razors and who bears a grudge against Lucifer.  The explanation of who she turns out to be is the one genius inspiration of the season, and I won’t spoil it here.  The ten episodes wind along pleasantly enough, but the plot moves ahead in fits and starts with character motivation seemingly arbitrary.  The show does fall back on another unfortunate habit; I used to joke in seasons 1 and 2 that not only did the show not know how real cops solved crimes, but they also didn’t seem to know how fictional cops solve crimes.  The show’s stupid gene reappears as a major plot point is that a prisoner serving time for murder is able to escape simply because his cell door didn’t completely shut, as if there would be no other locked doors between his cell and the outside world.

One bullet that was dodged was that the show does what a lot of long-running shows do, give cast members a shot at directing.  The results can be indifferent (the episode of The X-Files directed by Gillian Anderson was a low point) but here the results are positive.  DB Woodside (Amenadiel) does a good job capturing the visual style of Lucifer in the episode he directed, and Kevin Alejandro (Dan) had already proven to be an excellent director on episodes he directed in prior seasons.

The ending . . . what to say about the ending, other than it rivals All That Jazz as the longest death scene since Carmen.  But, given that the bulk of the final episode featured only Lucifer and Chloe, it was nice to show all the other characters progressing with their lives.  There is even a nice shout out at the end to the episode Off the Record, my pick for the best single episode of Lucifer.

If I was to pick an MVP for season 6 it would be Rachel Harris as Dr. Linda Martin, Lucifer’s long, long suffering therapist.  One of the first things I liked about Lucifer was that he wasn’t just about sleeping with gorgeous models, he enthusiastically agreed to have sex with Harris’ Dr. Linda even though she is in her late 40’s and could hardly be called leggy (don’t get me wrong, I think Harris is gorgeous, but by tv standards she should be playing someone’s mom).  She had the best running plot thread in season 6, her writing a book entitled Sympathy for the Devil, and she always managed to be funny without ever seeming to try.  I also like the fact that the show once again demonstrated that she is a “middle-aged” woman with a healthy sex drive as she is shown waking up from a drunken hook up after Maze’s (Leslie Anne-Brandt) wedding.

When one of my favorite series, Angel, was unceremoniously canceled, I reacted to the fan demands that it continue with the observation that anyone who had watched the show should realize that living forever is not necessarily a good thing. I will miss Lucifer, a show that started weak and somehow got better; few shows do that.  But a show as imaginative and audacious as Lucifer had to run the well dry at some point, and that point seems to have come.  Adieu Lucifer!  I will keep watching you on Netflix as long as the good lord is willing.

 

Field of Dreams game connects modern fans to the distant past -- 1989

 

Field of Dreams game connects modern fans to the distant past -- 1989

 

Baseball has one advantage over football and basketball—mythology.  Other sports have their Halls of Fame, legendary players, and iconic heroes, but only baseball has Gods.  MLB’s governance in recent years seems to have lacked a certain je ne sais quoi that the commissioners of the NFL and NBA have been able to tap into, but that’s partly the nature of the game; in the NFL, every week is an event, while in baseball, every game is just 162nd of the trudge to the finish line.

Where baseball’s advantage shows up is in movies.  Pick the greatest baseball film of all time, and you’ve got Pride of the Yankees, Eight Men Out, The Natural, A League of Their Own, and the Kevin Costner trifecta of Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, and For the Love of the Game.  All these films revere the game of baseball, and most got Oscar nominations.  The best football movie of all time is probably North Dallas Forty, which is cynical and hardly holds the sport up to any ideal.  Basketball does have Hooisers, but after that the next best basketball film is either the original Space Jam or The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh.  The best soccer film of all time is Bend it Like Beckham.

During the regular season, it is hard to focus on any single baseball game as an event worthy of attention.  Back when only one team from each league made the post-season, a sample size of 162 was needed to sift the wheat from the chaff.  Now that 10 teams make the post-season, maybe a smaller sample size would accomplish the task.

August 12^th was the first in-season event (other than the All-Star Game, which has come to rely on the Home Run Derby for noteworthiness more than the actual game) the MLB has attempted in a very long time.  They linked the event to a movie that was released before most current players were born, 1989’s Field of Dreams.  They staged a baseball game in an Iowa cornfield, and it was a game that counted in the standings and not an exhibition, like football’s Hall of Fame Game.

A lot could have gone wrong.  Baseball’s reliance on nostalgia could have been misplaced.  Recollection of the movie could have been weaker than MLB anticipated.  The visual of baseball players walking out of a cornfield and onto a baseball diamond could have come off as, well, corny.  But it worked.  Everything worked. 

For those unfamiliar with the movie, Field of Dreams was based on a fantasy novel by W. P. Kinsella about a farmer in Iowa who hears a voice in his cornfield tell him to plow under the corn and build a ballpark.  The farmer, played by Costner, obeys the voice, because who wouldn’t obey a disembodied voice?  After he builds the ballpark, a ghostly figure in a baseball uniform emerges from the remains of the cornfield, and it is Shoeless Joe Jackson, the legendary ballplayer who was banned for life for participating in the fixing of the 1919 World Series (debate still rages over whether he actually participated in the fixing, or if he meant to but was really bad at trying not to be great).  Other former baseball greats join him, and eventually there is a phantom baseball game every day.  The bank threatens to foreclose on the property, but James Earl Jones delivers one of the greatest monologues in movie history about how people love baseball’s past so much they will pay to watch old time ghost players. Capitalism saves the day.

The film was a breakout hit for director Phil Alden Robinson, who was nominated for an Oscar for adapting the screenplay.  The film also picked up Oscar nominations for Best Picture and for Best Score.  The studio had such low expectations they opened it in only 4 theaters, but it went on to gross $64 million in the United States. The movie was also the last screen appearance of Burt Lancaster.

The Field of Dreams Game, planned for 2020 but postponed because of, you know, recreated the ball players emerging from the cornfield. Unfortunately, they replaced the fences for the game, which was understandable, but I had been looking forward to outfielders disappearing into the stalks chasing homers. Because there were no bleachers in the outfield or along the first base side attendance was limited to around 4,000.  Both teams, the visiting Yankees and home White Sox, flew in that day and left that evening, to resume the series in Chicago Saturday.

It helped that the game was entertaining, with good pitching early on then fireworks late.   The Yankees came back from a three-run deficit in the 9^th inning on home runs by Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, but in a Hollywood ending the White Sox won the game in the bottom of the 9^th with a walk off homer by Tim Anderson.  Two other games Thursday featured one team scoring 17 runs; thank goodness the Field of Dreams Game had better pitching than that.

I still have faith that baseball will continue to connect with fans, even though the ubiquity of “three true outcomes” makes it difficult to appreciate the game.  One of the biggest problems is that during the season baseball fades into the wallpaper, while ESPN shows have talking heads argue over football and basketball year-round.  This was a major step that baseball can come up with ideas that put its best foot forward and continue to create mythology for another 150 years.

Lucifer Season 5.2--Good to have the Devil back

 

TV Review: Lucifer Season 5.2—The Devil is Still Alive and Kicking

 The aging process of a TV show is hard to anticipate.  Some shows come out strong after a long crafting period, but then have no where to go but down (Twin Peaks, Heroes).  Some start weak and then find their legs after growing pains (Parks & Recreation, Legend of Tomorrow).  Shows showing continued growth and creativity in their fifth season are unusual.

Lucifer started off with some problems.  The first season took time to establish the relationship between The Devil AKA Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis) and LA Police Detective Chloe Decker, whose main characteristic was the repeated statement that she had starred in a raunchy sex comedy when she was a teenager.  The season revolved around a police scandal summed up by the word “Palmetto” and if you played a drinking game and took a swig of something alcoholic when ever that word was uttered, you’d be blitzed before the end of any episode.

The show got more creative in season 2 when they introduced Tricia Helfer as the Earthly body inhabited by the Goddess of All Creation (God’s wife and Lucifer’s mother).  The creators said they checked with the Bible and found no mention of Lucifer’s mother and decided the character was free to be utilized.  The cases of the week, the murders assigned to Detective Decker and her ex-husband Dan (Kevin Alejandro) faded into the background and the philosophical issues of the Devil living on Earth took more prominence.  The rest of the cast (DB Woodside as Lucifer’s brother Amenadiel, Lesley-Ann Brandt as his assistant Mazikeen, Rachel Harris as Lucifer’s psychiatrist Linda) was fleshed out and the storytelling got more confident.  Season 3 introduced Biblical character Caine, and Season 4 added Eve to the mix.  Season 5 introduced Lucifer’s twin brother Michael (Ellis doing a passable American accent) and the first half of the season ended with the appearance of Lucifer’s father, better known as God.

If you make The Almighty Divine Creator of the Universe a character in your TV show, you’d better find an actor who can carry the role.  Lucifer nails the casting with Dennis Haysbert, now known for his insurance commercial but once cast as the President of the United States in the series 24.  He was credible as the President even though he was African American and this was pre-Obama (some have speculated that Obama’s election owed some thanks to Haysbert for making a Black president seem credible; at the time a critic said that if Haysbert changed his name to David Palmer [his character’s name on 24] and ran for President he’d probably win).  There was also an issue with cast-member Woodside, who reportedly lobbied for an African American actor in the role as his father since a Caucasian actress had played his mother.

Haysbert is perfect.  He has a deep, commanding voice that invites obedience, but a genial manner that bespeaks the softer side of God.  He fits right in with the family dynamics established by the show, intimidating mortals like Chloe and Linda, puzzling his son Amenadiel, and infuriating Lucifer. 

I have watched the first two episodes of season 5.2, and I am pleased to report that the creativity Lucifer’s writers have displayed in the past is in full force.  The first episode milks the family dynamics to the max, with God summoning a thunderstorm to quell the squabbling.  Linda keeps poking God to assure his existence and tries to duck out on family dinner, Amenadiel becomes depressed when he is told his son with Linda is human, not angelic, and a murder at a mini-golf course is solved (yawn).

Episode 2 is the long teased, long awaited musical episode.  Musical episodes are tricky; except for Buffy the Vampire Slayer few series attempting one have cleared the bar.  The one, titled Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam, isn’t quite up to the Buffy musical but it is the closest I’ve seen since the Scrubs musical episode My Musical.  It starts with a great cover of Wicked Game by Ellis, followed by a rousing group sing of Queen’s another One Bites the Dust at the murder scene.  The musical numbers get a little less on the nose as the episode progresses (Linda singing “Just the Two of Us” to her baby is somewhat generic; I half expected her to break into "What if God Was One of Us" at one point) but the cast steps up, especially Alejandro who continues to show comedic chops undreamt of in season 1 (Dan is worried because he slept with the woman whose body was inhabited by God’s ex-wife, and he is not reassured by Amenadiel when he tells Dan that his father is probably not happy with that fact and that God is sort of vengeful). 

Lucifer has been a tad erratic over its run, but shows that push creative boundaries often are (again, see Legends of Tomorrow).  Since moving from Fox to Netflix the show has embraced shedding the broadcast shackles (not to mention clothes), and coming up with some innovative fight scenes.  This freedom seems to have invigorated the writing staff, and Lucifer continues to be one of the most surprising shows being produced.

If you have been a fan of Lucifer, catch season 5.2.  If not, take my advice and watch the pilot then skip to season 1 episode 1 and go from there.  You’ll have a Devil of a good time (sorry, the Devil made me do it.)

Tim Tebow: Tight End--it makes sense

 I have rarely seen such unanimity about a decision by a coach or manager among the intelligentsia on ESPN.  Usually there is always a debate, a difference of opinion, because controversy and clash help ratings.  But almost everyone on ESPN was in agreement—Urban Meyer is an idiot for signing Tim Tebow as a tight end. 

“Oh,” they wailed, “He’s too old!  He hasn’t played football in years!  He’s never played tight end!  There is no way he can be successful!”  One person on ESPN opined that this was just another example of Tim Tebow’s privileged position.

To that last comment I have to ask, “Really?  Privileged?”  This was a guy who was an incredible athlete, who won a Heisman Award and two national championships.  He was such an inspirational leader, his school engraved one of his locker room speeches on one of its walls (although not everyone loved it).  You keep hearing how bad he was at quarterback, so I guess every defensive back in the SEC must have been horribly incompetent to explain his two national championships.

Yet despite being one of the most successful college quarterbacks in history, he wasn’t chosen in the draft until the 25^th pick by the Denver Broncos.  After a year as backup, Tebow took over as the Bronco’s starter in 2011 when the team was 1-3.  All Tebow did was take them to the playoffs, and then win the first game in the playoffs. 

How was Tebow thanked?  Did they throw him a parade?  Did they build a statue to him?  No, the next year they traded him to the New York Jets for two low-round draft picks.  He bounced around the league but never was a full-time starter anywhere else and was washed up after only 3 seasons in the NFL.

He was then privileged to join the New York Mets’ farm system and try and make it to the Majors in baseball.  His “privilege” was to bounce between A ball, AA ball and AAA ball for four seasons, never making it to “The Show” despite the fact that jersey sales possibly would have paid his rookie salary.  Four years of minor league baseball is no one’s idea of “privilege.”

But are the haters right?  Does Tebow have any business signing as a tight end in the NFL?  Let me ask a few questions:

Did the Jacksonville Jaguars just draft Trevor Lawrence, the most heavily hype QB prospect since Y.A. Tittle strapped on a helmet?

Do you think Tim Tebow could tell Lawrence something about The Gospel According to Urban Meyer, Tebow’s coach in college and now the coach of the Jaguars?

Do you think Tebow has any wisdom to share about making the transition from highly successful college player to being a tackling dummy for Aaron Darnold and JJ Watt in the NFL?

Do you think having Tebow in the Jaguars’ training camp will take a little of the spotlight off of Lawrence as he learns a pro-style offence?

The answer to all of these questions is, “Duh!”  Tim Tebow will be an asset to Urban Meyer and Trevor Lawrence even if he never plays a down at tight end in a regular season game.  If nothing else, he can be a cautionary tale to a young man who has also won a Heisman Trophy and now dreams of NFL glory. 

I doubt Tim Tebow will make it to the Pro Bowl as a tight end.  I doubt he will be on the Jaguars’ opening day roster.  I do not doubt his leadership, or that he can help Trevor Lawrence get something Tim Tebow never got in the NFL—respect.

Tom Brady's best decision

 

There is an extensive literature about the possibility of an individual selling their soul to an entity (let’s just refer to this entity The Devil) in exchange for their heart’s desire.  That may be fame, wealth, love, success with members of the opposite sex, or anything else humans want; use your imagination.  Usually in these fictional tales, the deal ends up badly for the dealmaker, because The Devil is a difficult entity to outwit.  If you sell your soul for immortality, be sure to add eternal youth or you’ll be a decrepit old coot for a very long time.  If you wish for fame, you’ll be the best-known person in the world, but then someone else will take your place because all fame is fleeting.  Anyone wanting an abject lessen on the subject should watch the film Bedazzled (the original Dudley Moore/Peter Cook version, not the vastly inferior American remake).

If there is one person on the planet I’d suspect of having made such a deal, it would be Tom Brady.  A physically unprepossessing back-up quarterback in college, he was somehow drafted in the 6^th round of the NFL draft.  He warmed the bench until the starting QB for the Patriots, a Pro Bowl caliber quarterback named Drew Bledsoe, suffered a horrific injury, making Brady the starter.  He led the team to a Super Bowl, and suddenly that old axiom about football players not losing their jobs due to an injury was out the door, as was Bledsoe. 

You know the rest.  Tom Brady has played in 18% of all the Super Bowls ever.  He has won more Super Bowls than any franchise in the NFL.  He married a gorgeous supermodel who makes millions of dollars a year for being beautiful.  There have been the occasional bumps—modest injuries, Spygate, Deflategate, inexplicably Eli Manning twice—but he has bounced back from every trial stronger than before.  And now he has done what many said was impossible, winning his 7^th Super Bowl at the age of 43, and age that is probably five years beyond what used to be considered the productive life span of a quarterback.  At 43 George Blanda was called “The Ageless Wonder” and he was primarily a kicker.

With all the praise being heaped upon Tom Brady after Tampa Bay’s triumph in Super Bowl LV, there is one thing that I don’t think is getting enough praise.  A year ago Tom Brady had a decision to make, one of the most significant ones of his life.  Should he stay with the familiar New England Patriots and Bill Belichick, a combination that had led to the Patriots winning 17 division titles in 19 years, or should he seek his fortunes elsewhere?  And if the latter, where?  Los Angeles has good weather and two NFL teams, one (the Chargers) that was in need of a new quarterback.  The Raiders were opening a new venue in glitzy Las Vegas.  Several other teams (Vikings, Bears) had flirted with the playoffs but were maybe only missing a quarterback with some magic to go all the way.

Tom Brady chose the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that had gone 7-9 the year before and had a young quarterback named Jameis Winston who had won the Heisman Trophy, been selected first overall in the draft (unlike Brady who had been chosen 199^th), and had thrown for over 5,000 yards and 30 touchdowns the year before.  He also threw 30 interceptions, but he was a mobile quarterback which is the current rage in desirable QB talents; Tom Brady, for all his training, is about as immobile as a quarterback can be.

I won’t do the research, but I believe that no one in the major media outlets predicted Brady would choose to become Tampa Tom.  What was it that made Tom look at a franchise whose best years were far, far behind them and decide that they gave him the best chance of winning a Super Bowl NOW?  Did he know he could attract Rob Gronkowski from retirement, and Antonio Brown from his exile?  Did he know that he could work with Coach Bruce Arians to develop an offense that would suit his playing style?

The results certainly looked iffy at the midpoint of the season.  The Bucs started off at an unimpressive 7-5, including an embarrassing loss to the Super Bowl favorite Kansas City Chiefs and two solid losses to division-rival New Orleans.  They came off their bye week and did what they had to do, going undefeated the rest of the season to gain a tenuous hold on a wild card spot in the playoffs.  Then, in order to win it all, they had to beat future Hall of Famer Drew Brees and the Saints for a third time, beat future Hall of Famer and eventual league MVP Arron Rogers, and then beat possible future Hal of Famer and former MVP Patrick Mahomes, who had a 25-1 record since becoming the Chiefs’ signal caller.  I won’t mention that they also had to beat a sub-.500 Washington team with its third string QB.

Was anyone in America as smart as Tom Brady to see that Tom Brady + Tamp Bay Buccaneers = instant championship?  That what that team needed was a change of culture from the most successful and driven QB of all time, a few new pieces that would want to play with Brady, and a risk-averse QB who could temper his coaches’ inane motto of “No risky, no bisky”?  If there was anyone else who saw what Tampa Tom saw, I don’t know his or her name.

I am still put off by Brady holding practices that violated COVID protocols, and then declaring that there was nothing to fear from a virus (he might want to talk to the families of the over 400,000 people in America who have died from COVID about what to be afraid of).  But in the wake of a Super Bowl trophy, what’s a little pandemic among teammates?

In the end, it’s like the time on The Simpsons when someone asked movie star Rainer Wolfcastle how he slept at night.  He replied, “On top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies.”  Tom only has Giselle Bunchen to sleep with, but I imagine that’s sufficient.

No one gets into the Hall of Fame, no one should care

 

If the hold an election for the Hall of Fame and nobody wins, does it still count?

For the ninth time in its history the Baseball Hall of Fame held their annual selection vote and no one received the 75% necessary to enter the hallowed halls of the Hall.  Despite what you may have heard, the reason isn’t steroids.

First of all, I don’t see the failure to select someone as a negative.  It proves the Hall has some standards for admission, and won’t admit some mediocre player like Harold Baines just to avoid having no entrants (I hate to harp on the selection of Baines, who by all accounts was a nice guy, but his selection in 2019 was the worst choice for induction since the selection of Jesse Haines).  Some years there will be multiple no-brainers eligible five years after retirement; in other years the choices will be more . . . subtle.  But no entrant this year means they have some standards.

Also, it isn’t like they can’t hold an induction ceremony, since they cancelled last year’s due to COVID.   So people can still gather in Cooperstown in July and watch Derek Jeter and Larry Walker give their speeches, a long as they maintain social distance.

The main thrust among the talking heads on ESPN is that the reason for the failure to elect anyone in 2021 is the hypocrisy of keeping out Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens for alleged steroids use.  The flaw in that argument is that, if not for the steroids allegations, they would have been elected on their first ballot nine years ago.  So leave the debate over steroid users for another day.

The other elephant in the room is Curt Schilling, who support hovers just below the 75% threshold.  Some call Schilling an obvious first ballot Hall of Famer, which I think is overselling it a bit.  He won 216 games, while Jim Kaat won 283 games and won 16 Gold Gloves, yet he isn’t in the Hall.  If Schilling wanted to be a first ballot no-brainer, he should have won some more games.

But he did have a Hall of Fame type career, and his post-season heroics elevate his candidacy above those of players who made no impression at all in the playoffs or World Series.  The problem is that Schilling himself has publicized his bigoted and homophobic views; when Schilling complains that “they” have ruined his reputation, he should really look in a mirror.  But should that keep him out of the Hall?

Lots of players are in the Hall despite being racists, bigots, and what not.  The had the name of the man who enforced the segregation of African Americans, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, on the MVP trophies until last year.  As troubling as Schilling’s beliefs are, the Hall is supposed to reflect the history of baseball, and that history includes Schilling’s bloody sock. 

There is a “character” clause in the Hall of Fame voting rules, but what counts as character?  Should it only apply to the game, and not what people do in their private lives?  Was it cheating to use amphetamines in the 1960’s and 70’s, as many players did?  Are all the members of the 2019 Huston Astros ineligible for the Hall of Fame because the team won a World Series because they cheated?  If it applies to activities outside the realm of baseball, what is over the line?  One accusation of spousal abuse, or does there have to be a long running pattern?  Is one DUI enough to keep Todd Helton out, or must there be repeat offenses?

If the Hall starts keeping out players because of a single incidence or allegation of wrongdoing, then the Hall will become like the San Francisco commission on school names that decided that Abraham Lincoln was evil and didn’t deserve to have a school named after him because he didn’t treat Indigenous-Americans nicely. 

I enjoy Hall of Fame debates, because they can be so multi-faceted.  How much do we discount stats from players who played in Colorado?  How much weight do we give to Gold Glove winners (Jim Kaat won 16 Gold Gloves in addition to 283 games, so they must not count for much)?  How much does post-season heroics add to a resume?  But when you start wading in to whether someone is worthy of being in the Hall of Fame, I am not sure there are clear standards.

In the movie 61*, Billy Crystal’s recreation of the Maris/Mantle duel for the home run title in 1961, there is a depiction of Yankee fans being asked who “deserved” to break Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season.  This is a stupid question; the person who “deserves” to break it is the man who does. 

As Clint Eastwood’s character in Unforgiven said, “Deserves got nothin’ to do with it.”

 

Newsflash: Doug Pederson lied

There is a story I once heard that I love so much I have never dared to attempt to confirm it.  When Nick Saban was coach of the Miami Dolphins, the coaching job at Alabama became available.  Supposedly someone asked him whether he was going to take the job, and he insisted he would remain the coach at Miami.  A week later, he was the head coach at Alabama.  When asked why he lied, he allegedly replied, “I didn’t lie, I said something that, in retrospect, turned out to be inaccurate.”

Phooey.  Doug Pederson lied.

Often proving someone lied is a complicated undertaking, involving intense research, uncovering sources, and using precise logic to parse what someone said.  What Doug Pederson said was, “I was trying to win the game; and I put my third string quarterback in to play in the fourth quarter of a three-point game because I wanted to give him some snaps.”  Those two statements are prima facia evidence of a lie.

The outrage over Pederson’s statements has been two-fold; some people object to him lying (or at least not putting more effort into lying more credibly), while others are distressed that not trying to win a game hurts the integrity of the game.  Oh, and there are New York Giants fans who are livid that their 6-10 football team was denied a chance to host an NFC playoff game.

The last is easily dismissed; if you want to host a playoff game, then win more than 6 games.  But the first two are worthy of discussion as to whether they are a fundamental breech of protocol in the National Football League.

Coaches lie all the time.  Coaches may say with a straight face that even though the team is 1-6 they expect to make the playoffs.  Coaches may reassure a player that he won’t lose his job because he got injured (I’m sure someone said that to Drew Bledsoe when he was taken out for an injury and replaced by a kid named Tom Brady).  But these are just examples of things that in retrospect turned out to be inaccurate. 

Pederson was NOT playing to win.  What coach, down by three points with a quarter to play, would think of putting in the third string quarterback as a way of increasing his team’s chance of winning, when the first and second string quarterbacks are both healthy?  The lie is so transparent, it becomes an insult.  How stupid do you think we are, to tell us you were trying to win because Nick Sudfeld is a much better QB than Jalen Hurts?  Of course, if Pederson honestly thinks that Nick Sudfeld is a better QB than Jalen Hurts, then it raises a new set of questions about Doug Pederson’s qualifications.

There is some speculation that Pederson was ordered to throw the game by the GM or the team’s owner, in order to get the 6^th draft pick instead of the 9^th.  If that is true, then Pederson should have said, “The owner told me not to win the game.  If you have any further questions, ask him.” 

Let’s skip over the blatant lying and look at the other source of disgust, the fact that Pederson wasn’t trying to win the game, he was trying to put the Eagles draft pick at #6 instead of #9.   Other teams, like the Steelers who had locked in their playoff slot, rested starters and lost to the Browns.  If they don’t try to win, why should we criticize Doug Pederson for doing what’s in the franchise’s best interest?

But the Steelers weren’t trying to lose, as the closeness of the Brown’s two-point win demonstrates.  They weren’t broken up about losing, but they were playing to win in the context that the week 17 game meant very little, and the first-round playoff game meant a lot.  Pederson pulled the Eagles’ starting QB with 12 minutes to play and down by three, and also didn’t go for a Hail Mary on the last play of the game.  That’s not resting starters, that is sabotaging the outcome.

And his reason wasn’t because Jalen Hurts was injured, or too tired to continue.  He wanted Nick Sudfeld to “get some snaps.”  First, why do you care if your third string QB gets playing time?  Do you really expect him to compete for the starting job next year with Hurts and Wentz?  Second, if you want him to get snaps, why wasn’t he put in at the end of the Cowboys game the week before, when the Eagles were down 30-17 in the 4^th quarter, instead of a winnable game when the Eagles were down only by three at the start of the 4^th quarter?  Third, why not take Sudfeld out after his interception and lost fumble?  Hadn’t you seen enough at that point to remember why Sudfeld is NOT your starter?

Of course, you might have put Wentz in at that point, but he’d already been scratched despite being perfectly healthy.  He probably needed a game off given how hard he’d been working in his new role as the back-up QB.

And what did Pederson gain by giving Sudfeld “some snaps”?  His credibility is shot, his players have denounced him, and he lost a winnable game.  Was it worth it to give Nick Sudfeld “some snaps”?  I doubt it.  Now we need to wait and see if it lost him his job.  If the owner doesn’t fire him, then maybe we do know where the order to throw the game came from.