The Bronx Is Burning (split from "All Star Game?")

[Farmer Ted]

The Teds had a chance to catch up on some HBO programming last night (Entourage and Flight of the Conchords). We flipped to the HR derby to see what was going on. Heard one BACK, BACK, BACK from Berman and promptly changed channels. Was hoping to tape the first episode of Bronx is Burning last night but the friggin derby went long.

[metirish]

I watched the Bronx is Burning......I dunno,thought Oliver Platt and John Turturro looked just goofy playing Steinbrenner and Martin,I wanted to laugh every time Platt/Steinbrenner huffed and puffed.

When Steinbrenner approached Martin in the managers office after losing the 76 WS and vowed to never again be humiliated like that because" this is my team now" is sounded so fucking childish..

[Benjamin Grimm]

Although he's too old to play him, I sometimes think of Billy Martin when I see Harry Dean Stanton.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Once and future Mets personnel depicted in Bronx is Burning:

Mike Torrez, played by Tim Keinath




Willie Randolph, played by Dock Pollard



I know there's more than this, but that's all I'm getting online.

[Frayed Knot]

]When Steinbrenner approached Martin in the managers office after losing the 76 WS and vowed to never again be humiliated like that because" this is my team now" is sounded so fucking childish.

Hence, it's perfect.

[metirish]

Yeah I suppose it is,I should set the scene better.

Reds sweep MFY's in the WS,Steinbrenner is furious in the owners box,storms down to the locker room looking for Billy,finds him alone and crying in his office(i think),for a second I thought Steinbrenner was going to comfort him but of course Steinbrenner lays the blame firmly on him with a " how could you do this to me"...

[Benjamin Grimm]

The thought of watching 61* made me want to gag, so I didn't. (Billy Crystal gets a lot of credit for that gag impulse.)

As for Bronx, the book sounds like it might be interesting, and I may one day read it, but I don't think I want to watch the made-for-TV movie. It sounds to me like one of those things where Cybil Sheppard plays Martha Stewart.

[MFS62]

The Bronx is Burning seems to be decent fodder for a spinoff thread about that show.
Can one of the mods please cut the appropriate posts from this thread into the new one?

Thanks,
Later

[Frayed Knot]

The book was a terrific history of that tumultuous year in NYC: riots, blackouts, mayoral races, Son of Sam, etc; with the ongoing Yanqui season weaving its way through the narrative. Baseball is cool in that way in that the everyday nature of it makes it a part of everyday life as opposed to football which becomes a once-a-week escape from it.

This mini-series, being an ESPN production and all, is going to be more like the story of the '77 Yankee season with the goings on in the city as the backdrop instead of the other way around.

I'll probably record the first couple and watch them when I get around to it even though my expectations aren't too high. ESPN has made movies/series out of Pete Rose, Dale Earnhardt, Bobby Knight and a few others and none were too well received.

[MFS62]

Thanks for splitting this.

I somehow got on the mailing list of a company called Polling Point. I occasionally get emails asking me to participate in on-line polls. Many of them are political. Others are market research polls, involving such things as electronics products, phone/cable services and health foods.
Last week I got one about "television".

As I got into it, it asked my television viewing habits, the networks I watch and if I'm a sports fan. The survey then presented poll questions about ESPN in general, and specifically The Bronx is Burning.

The questions included such things as:
had I seen the ads for the show
Had I paid attention to the ads
Had the ads made me want to watch the show
Do I know who will be sponsoring the show
Does knowing that make me want to do more or less business with that sponsor


Finally, there was a space for general comments. I wrote:
"As a Mets fan, why should I care about a show depicting an entire season of Yankee angst?"
(I didn't know the book was about what was going on in the City as well as with the team.)

It'll be interesting to see if I get invited to participate in future surveys.

Later

[Vic Sage]

I tuned in to ESPN at 10 to see the show and got stuck watching the HR derby, which i have no interest in. Aggravated, I switched over to FSNY to watch the Knicks summer league game (which was highly entertaining by the way... the kid Chandler looked terrific!).

Bonehead move by ESPN... highly publicized mini-series gets delayed about an hour? They should have showed it either before the derby or on another night where they didn't have some open-ended show leading into it. Now i didn't see the 1st episode, so its highly unlikely i'll watch any of the rest.

[DocTee]

It's gotta be better than that insipid series they ran about a fictional big-league football team--"Playmakers" was horrid.

[soupcan]

I stayed up to watch 'The Bronx Is Burning' and thought it was really good.

Oliver Platt and Turturro were excellent.

Sunjata ('Franco' from 'Rescue Me') is I think the name of the actor playing Reggie and while he isn't as well cast as some of the others (the guy playing Munson for instance was as close to a dead ringer - no pun intended - for the guy as you can get), he definitely grew on me.

After the episode was over they did a 3 minute 'backstory' on the writer who did the 'Sport Magazine' piece on Reggie that was the origin of the 'straw that stirs the drink' comment.

In the episode that writer played himself and commented on the interview he had with Reggie afterwards.

I was 12 that summer and away at summer camp so I was not in the thick of those sweltering tumultuous few months but I remember those Yankee teams well and seeing the Abe Beame press conferences and The Daily News' .'44 Caliber Killer' headlines definitely brought me back. I was waiting to see some green and white police cars with the dome-type lights on the roof careening through Harlem.

Good stuff, I really liked it.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Good show, 'Can. Rarely do the media recall that, for the greater part of the manhunt, he was tagged as "The 44-Caliber Killer." Few serial killers get one name that scary. Berkowitz got two.

Seventy-six, I think, was my Dad's first year as a detective. An early theory on the 44-Caliber Killer spree was that he was a renegade mobster, and he was tailing mid-level wise guys.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

There was a Dave Kingman snippet as part of a MFY-NYM spring training game.

[Guest Iubitul]

Had to love the Jason Giambi cameo...

[soupcan]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: There was a Dave Kingman snippet as part of a MFY-NYM spring training game.

You mean the overhead shot of #26 swinging at the plate?

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Yeah. It had to be, meant to be, Sky King.

No mention of a handsome young actor playing Fran Healy? He didn't speak with a slight high pitch Boston accent so I didn't buy it. Plus he was insightful.

Healy and Munson both appearedin scenes wearing their hats backwards -- the time-honored movie trick of indicating they were catchers.

[G-Fafif]

Healy is listed as a consulting producer or something showbizzy. Glad Fran is gettin' paid for being Fran.

Painting the visitors' clubhouse at Al Lang orange and blue was a nice touch (though it could have been red and white for the Cardinals, come to think of it).

Book is pretty good. Yankees are not really the focus of it. Jonathan Mahler devoted a segment of it to the Seaver trade, which is the most resonant reason to remember the summer of '77 (ladies and gentlemen, Queens grew quiet).

The more buffoonish they make Big Stein, the better.

When I first heard of the .44 Caliber Killer at 14, I thought it was an overwrought nickname the News pinned on Jackson. I wasn't paying attention.

[G-Fafif]

="Johnny Dickshot"]Healy and Munson both appeared in scenes wearing their hats backwards -- the time-honored movie trick of indicating they were catchers.

In "For Love of the Game," Catcher John C. Reilly did not wear his Tigers cap backwards but he did wear it away from the ballpark, which is considered a major faux pas. During the replacement player gig in '95, a couple of Yankee temps went to a Fort Lauderdale mall rocking their team-approved headgear and Buck Showalter's coaches went nuts...you just don't do that!

Reilly could have worn a fruit basket on his head. "For Love of the Game" was quite possibly the worst baseball movie ever.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Though that's a hard claim to make, it certainly wasn't good.

I'd choose it over Mr. 3000 for instance.

You'd be disapponted to hear, Yancy, that 61* is pretty good.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I have heard good things about 61*.

But I still don't want to watch it.

[G-Fafif]

Edgy DC wrote: Though that's a hard claim to make, it certainly wasn't good. I'd choose it over Mr. 3000 for instance. You'd be disapponted to hear, Yancy, that 61* is pretty good.

"Mr. 3000" was dreadful (the Brewers played three home series against the Astros in September, for example), but it was garden-variety dreadful. "For Love of the Game" was overwrought Yankee-loving crap that got just about everything wrong. Costner driving to Yankee Stadium even though he's that day's pitcher for Detroit (and isn't from New York)? The scared rookie being sent up for his first at-bat as the potential last out in a perfect game? The frigging inability of the witless screenwriter to have the bartender at JFK who hates the Yankees not utter four simple words: "I'm a Mets fan"? Lakeland, Fla. being portrayed as a beachside paradise? The mere idea that a ballplayer needs to give his thumbs-up on a trade at the end of September?

Geez I hate that movie more than a thousand "Slugger's Wife"s. (Good soundtrack, though.)

[G-Fafif]

="Yancy Street Gang"]I have heard good things about 61*. But I still don't want to watch it.

It really isn't bad but it's not good enough to not let go of that particular "I won't watch" conviction. Why encourage Billy Crystal?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, the idea is to encourage him to do good, thought-out, subly painted, honorable things and not to do Forget Paris, America's Sweethearts, and such.

He likes the Yankees. Too bad. But if he's going to make a movie out of it, at least give him credit for depicting the self-destructive cultural hipocrisy in the stands, and the ambiguious characters of icons like Mantle and DiMaggio.

[G-Fafif]

Good thoughts. But nah. The less Billy Crystal making 62*, 63* and so on, the better.

How awkward are those McGwire scenes now?

[seawolf17]

I loved "Forget Paris."

[soupcan]

G-Fafif wrote: ..."For Love of the Game" was quite possibly the worst baseball movie ever.

Meanwhile it is my wife's most favorite baseball movie...

Such is my lot in life.

[stevejrogers]

G-Fafif wrote: Good thoughts. But nah. The less Billy Crystal making 62*, 63* and so on, the better. How awkward are those McGwire scenes now?

Insanely awkward. But I'll just give the movie the fact that it was made in (IIRC) 2001, despite everyone "knowing" about McGwire since the late '80s

[stevejrogers]

G-Fafif wrote: The more buffoonish they make Big Stein, the better.

HA! Everytime Platt spoke I kept thinking of Larry David's "Steinbrenner" from Seinfeld.