Edgy MD

"I hate the Yankees," said reliever Pedro Beato, speaking as a native New Yorker, not out of any actual animosity for the crosstown rivals. "My family � I can tell there are no Yankees fans. Excellent. I'm doing well getting answers here. 1. Beltran at DH and Fartinez in right or the opposite? Grimmers says Fars for two and Beltran for one. OK. Give Carlos the middle game. 2. Would it be pointless to activate Angel Pagan in the midst of this series? Looks like a no-go. Pagan went 0-5 last night. 3. Can they reach these Yankee Stadium III walls? Remains to be seen. 4. How about Bay in center for a game? Are you that desperate? It was dumb question, but it was late. 5. Nick Evans: will you get some time against a lefty? Subbing him for Murphy and batting him fifth or sixth might be a great cahnfidence boost. Turning on one against Sabathia or Boone F. Logan even more so. 6. Is Josh Thole replacement-level guacamole? Will this be the series Terry tilts the job to Paulino? Remains to be seen. 7. Can Roosevelt Avenue Dickey answer the bell? Glad to see more folks than mice elf are watching this one closely. 8. Evans/Martinez/Turner/Pridie/Tejada -- will the big light make these guys look like the minor leaguers they were so recently? Would be very deflating if some of these guys got over-exposed. 9. Bobby Parnell, will you answer the bell? Threw a scoreless inning on Wednesday. Intimations are that the Mets aren't treating him like a major leaguer on rehab, but a guy with something to prove who needs to pitch his way back. That the Mets are that comfortable with their bullpen considering the state it was in just three weeks ago, or when Parnell was disabled, is amazin' 10. Pedro Beato --- will a writer try and pin you down on which team you were a fan of in your school boy days and your knee pants? Will you convince me that you have the right answer? Thank you, Pedro.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: "Don't get hit by a falling star" is one of those baseball truisms. Jim Riggleman said it in an an interview the other day, I believe he attributed it to... Joey Amalfitano? I agree, but what does it mean to "get hit" by one? To be forced to play them as they suck? To bench one and take all the shit from the fans? To have to pretend he's a great spiritual leader when he's disengaged and napping in the clubhouse? I think a good manager is confident enough to dodge the first and successful enough at personnel management to effectively impliment the second. In the case of the third, well, managers have been lying about Jeter's character for 15 years, so that's not going to go away.

My friend John Lowe of the Detroit Free Press reminded me of a classic thought uttered by Sparky Anderson years ago, when he considered what is the hardest thing for a team to overcome. His answer: �An aging star.� The Yankees have a bunch of them. Those aging stars have made 2011 an eventful year already, though the season is still young and the Yankees are, this minute, leading the wild-card race. There�s a whole lot of accomplishment on this team. It could be foolish to write them off. The fear-of-the-aging-star stuff always bugs me. Why are managers so afraid of this situation? You're going to get fired eventually anyhow. Rusty Staub was hitting fine (very fine) for the Mets in 1981, but the team came back from the strike and Joe Torre didn't see any point to trying to pass him off as a fielder anymore. He moved Kingman to first, Rusty to the bench, and he played three and a half more years and was part of the dawn of a new golden age for the team. Everybody happy and the star goes out in style, right?

Ten Questions for the Mets 1. Beltran at DH and Fartinez in right or the opposite? 2. Would it be pointless to activate Angel Pagan in the midst of this series? 3. Can they reach these Yankee Stadium III walls? 4. How about Bay in center for a game? Are you that desperate? 5. Nick Evans: will you get some time against a lefty? 6. Is Josh Thole replacement-level guacamole? Will this be the series Terry tilts the job to Paulino? 7. Can Roosevelt Avenue Dickey answer the bell? 8. Evans/Martinez/Turner/Pridie/Tejada -- will the big light make these guys look like the minor leaguers they were so recently? 9. Bobby Parnell, will you answer the bell? 10. Pedro Beato --- will a writer try and pin you down on which team you were a fan of in your school boy days and your knee pants? Will you convince me that you have the right answer?

I don't know. This is supposed to be a standout amoung the Ford films, but it's problematic. Wayne is an embittered itinerant Civl War vet who heads back to his old Texas town to set a spell with his brother's family. His brother has a teenage daughter, a pre-teen son, a tween daughter, and a young adult 1/8 Indian adoptee son-ish guy that Wayne himself had rescued as a baby from a Comanche raid. Wayne's characters usually run the gamut from code hero to paladin to misunderstood braveheart to last-of-his-breed legend. But here he's a real asshole anti-hero and gets to stretch a little beyond his limited acting pallette. He hates the Comanch so much that it keeps him up at night. Were you ever nice to one? Then he hates you too! Are you a comanche who's not a coldblooded killer? Bullshit. No such thing. He shoots Buffalo and leaves them to die just to warm himself with the thought of one more starving Indian. He comes across an Indian corpse and shoots his dead eyes out because, he explains, Indian spirits need their eyes to find the spirit kingdom in the afterlife. And that's the kind of dick we're dealing with. When a raiding party runs off with the herd of a neighboring Swedish Texan rancher, he's enlisted into a pursuing party of Rangers, but then his brother's home gets raided while he's out playing cop and the only survivors are the two girls, carried off into God knows what. You can imagine how pissed this guy is. But he doesn't go crazy. He lets it burn. Slowly. Holy fuck this guy. And that's where we get the title. He rides in search of the girls, along with the octaroon adoptee son (and boy, does that kid get some shit) and the Swede's son --- also the sweetheart of the teenager. And that's what we've got. For five years they ride in pursuit of a warchief named Scar (!!). Other Ford movies can be more charitable to the Indians, painting the calvary in a mixed light, protraying the exploitations of the US Indian agents as so hateful that the tribesmen had little choice but to go to war. But the bitter racism of Wayne's character in this movie is unambiguous, and it can't help but infect the tone of the movie at large. Wayne's that iconic a dude. There's probably a lot of messages in here deeper than I'm describing --- about the burdens men carry, about living beyond tragedy, about fathers and sons --- but they're sublimated in a movie about how them seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" need to be scalped but good. Plus it's supposed to be in Texas, but Ford's clearly further west shooting under the same buttes he always likes to shoot under. Then there's the colorful townsfolk that the film occasionally switches back to --- the Swedes and a preacher/marshall guy with a funny hat, and the town halfwit. The comic relief in Ford films can often feel a little forced when contrasted with the bloody work of his heroes, but here, while this Wayne-monster --- with his spirit broken to bits multiple times over --- is on a gruesome five-year vendetta, it feels almost insulting. Anyhow, some of the most beautiful Western scenery on film is here, starting with shot one, and some typically great stunt-riding. And it's all wrapped up in a complicated and problematic picture. What did you think?

"Yea, um, dank you very much, Mistuh President." I say the Mets choose Chris Rock. "The Mets select.. Cody Stephens? Didn't they pick him two rounds ago? I swear this is the eighth mutha fuckin' Cody this team has picked. Do we have a special Cody scout? Where they findin' all these Codys?"

Good stuff here. None of us really forsaw the pretty foreseeable process of Turner getting the call after the Mets rode Emaus around the block a few times. What ever happened to Chris Shelton?

John Wayne is a lot dickier than he is in his other movies.

This promises to be a brutal battle for fourth place, with the Mets sitting one game behind the Nats, and the Nats sitting one game behind .500. Wilson Ramos has come along at catcher and has now displaced Ivan Rodriguez (and slowed his Quixotic quest fo 3,000 hits), starting 24 of 41 games to the quarterpole. Ramos is outdoing Josh Thole in simultaneously coming along as a catcher and a hitter, posting a .756 OPS. (Maybe having a veteran partner will help Thole.) He in fact is the only Nat regular besides Jason Werth to post an OPS+ over 100, matching Werth's 108 figure. So take him not lightly. Though he has but two homers, the lineup juggling Nats have e'en been experimenting of late with Ramos in the cleanup spot --- the only rookie in the majors afforded that honor so far this season. �I was surprised when I saw my name in the cleanup spot,� Ramos said. �A couple days ago, I was struggling. For me today, it�s the start of a new season. I don�t care about what happened before. I�m going to concentrate on tonight, keep working hard. I�m excited for today to see my name in the cleanup spot.� For what it's worth, the Pirates batted .100 hitter Matt Diaz cleanup the same night. He bats righty, came over for Matt Capps, and demonstrated that the Nats know one thing if nothing else --- good relievers are over-valued in the trade market, and only grow more so as the deadline approaches. Don't take him lightly. Don't dread him, for Pete's sake, but don't take him lightly. Let's talk first base.

The names change, but the defense is always wanting.

Burke Bandenhop cut some swinging sides for Blue Note in the mid-fifties.

Guys, you're his familia. Act like it.

"An Epic Event."

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Internet buzz says it's the Cosmic Cube, though I noticed nothing cube-like in that box. I'll have to look for a screen shot online so I can take a fresh look. I thought it was funny to see Samuel L. Jackson walking around with a glowing mysterious thing in a briefcase again.

Didn't make much sense to me. I don't know what happens to me, but a lot of times in sci-fi/fantasy, we get to the climax, and I have no idea what's going on. I mean I know who the good guy and the bad guy are but I don't understand what they're doing and why. I'm gonig to make a great old man. -- Huh? Wha'? -- Quiet, grandpa!

I'll come in late like Ray Charles did then and mention that a good way to get these guys is to get into their bullpen as early as possible.

Don't have a lot of Houston music. But I have the Drells. [youtube:jkofzm1o]Wro3bqi4Eb8[/youtube:jkofzm1o]

Reyes is leading the league in doubles plus the sort of hits that would be mere doubles for a lesser man.

Looks like it wil after September 15.

The starting catcher for the Astros is Humberto Quintero, a righty batter with really big arms. He's nonetheless displaying a lack of power production that defies both his strength and home park, with zerio homers this year and 13 in his 323-game big-league career. Catchers can be like that. Maybe it'll come. He only started one game at Citi and went 0-3. He controls the running game well and he's got a Brad Ausmus-like nose for picking runners off, so be on your toes. He's a Venezuealan of a Euro-Indian complexion. Good plate blocker, too: Wifey: Michelle Backing him up is J.R. (Justin Richard) Towles, whose probably good on D also, because he's a career .201 hitter. But hol' on. Something's amiss. Because that .201 includes a .271 / .386 / .458 // .844 line in 59 plate appearances this season. So maybe he's turning a corner at 27. Maybe he's taking the job away from Quintero. I dunno. He looks kind of scrawny for a catcher, not unlike a petty thief/closet homosexual from a petty cop show that gets in over his head messing around with the big boys, know what I mean? He's handsome, but a little pretty and a little nervous he's about to be found out. Twitchy, you know? Cops in the seventies could see right through a guy like that. Anyhow, back in 2008 he ran with a girl named Brittany who seemed silly short for him and, well, jailbaitishly young-lookin' at the time. What's going on at first base?

Craig Biggio: retired.

So, if I remember the history of this character right, Thor origingally wasn't really THOR Thor, but a doctor who finds the hammer and becomes endowed with the power of the deity. As the character evolves, he starts talking fruity, making Norse references, and running afoul of Loki, while other characters from Norse pantheon start making appearances. The editors realized that they had gradually changed the character from a mortal who got lucky to the god himself, so they came up with this explanation that he was always Thor, but was walking the earth in some magic amnesiac exile, and when it was time for him to re-awaken, a spell he placed on the hammer would summon him to find it and reclaim his destiny. Something like that, right? Do I have it right at all? And is that sort of what's going on in the movie? That Blake isn't doesn't kow he's really the guy until a switch goes on and reminds him?

Kisses to you, too. Oh, and... re-sign Beltran NOW!!!!

Other outlets are reporting that Cohen is out the door.

Willie and Trey Harris.