Vic Sage

Terry said Jose asked before the game to be taken out if he got a hit, and so Collins met that request, because �he deserves that respect. However, Collins says he felt terrible about the move, knowing fans paid good money to see him play. great, Yogi. throw Reyes under the bus just as the season ends and contract negotiations are going to start. You couldn't have taken the bullet on this, ya ****bunter? Or better yet, just shut up?

Second of all, there is no victory without honor. And there's nothing honorable about winning a batting title on your ass. Third of all, you're suggesting this is Jose's initiative, which it may be, but it's Terry's move. this, and this.

Vic Sage wrote: TransMonk wrote: Collins said that if Reyes gets two early hits, he'll probably be pulled so for an ovation (goodbye). is this his attempt to kiss Jose's ass, to try and help the contract process for the offseason? it's bullshit, but whatever, Yogi. Ted Williams' head is spinning in its freezer.

TransMonk wrote: Collins said that if Reyes gets two early hits, he'll probably be pulled so for an ovation (goodbye). is this his attempt to kiss Jose's ass, to try and help the contract process for the offseason? it's bullshit, but whatever, Yogi. Ted Williams' head is spinning in its freezer.

Ceetar wrote: Collins gets his extension. This is disappointing a little. I wish they'd retained some of that 'flexibility' Sandy used to talk about... this. i'm already sick of TCBY (That ****Bunting Yahoo)... but to avoid having to repeat that offensive appellation over and over for 2 more years, i'm just going to call him "TCBY" or "Yogurt" instead. Maybe "Yogi" for short. yeah, Terry Collins will now be referred to as "Yogi". This should confuse just about everybody.

MFS is out of the running. It's down to me and Monk.

you mean like the "He-man Yankee Haters club"? sign me up!

There's a moment i love toward the end. the movie keeps its focus on the core story: the resistance to the team's construction, their early failures, and their turnaround, the run for the record before coming up short, and Beane's coming to terms with his own past. So it doesn't dramatize one of the great scenes in the book, where they prepare for the minor league draft. It would have stopped the story dead in in its tracks. Also, it would have repeated the earlier scene with the scouts, as they are arguing over what free agents to pursue, serving an identical function in the narrative. So i agree that it was not a scene the movie needed, or could even reasonably include. But they still found a way to reference it, while giving the movie a touching denoument. Beane is upset because they lost in the playoffs again, and so Brand/DePodesta shows him a clip of their fat catching prospect, Jeremy Brown (the one the book spent much time on, as the focus of the draft debate), as he plays a game in the minors. He gets a hit but is such a bad base runner, he falls down rounding first. What he didn't realize was he had hit a homerun. so he gets up, dusts himself off and rounds the bases. This is Brand/DePodesta's message to Beane: Billy, you fell down rounding first but what you don't realize is, you hit a home run. Boston offered to make you the highest paid GM in sports, other franchises will emulate what we've done here, we've changed the game. It reminds me of the end of CAMELOT, where Arthur is in despair about having to go to war against his best friend Lancelot, while the woman he loved has confined herself to a nunnery after betraying him. And there, on the eve of battle, he comes across a boy who wants to be a knight, inspired only by the stories he's heard about the nobility and principles of Arthur's roundtable. This boy, he realizes, is his real victory. And so he tells the boy to stay safe behind the lines, and grow up to retell the tales to his own children for, as long as that fair time is remembered, it may come again. The power of myth. It gets me every time. And so here, the knight thinks he has failed not realizing that, in lighting the darkness, he has already succeeded. "oh, but that's not what REALLY happened!" oh shut up.

based on what we saw of Howe in NY, i'd say Hoffman's portrayal of him is not the least unfair and probably accurate. It makes him out to be a quiet, calm, professional and unexceptional but competent manager who is doggedly determined not to buckle under to his GM's farfetched theories, since he's working on a 1-year deal and will need to find another organization to hire him some day. That he is, in the story's "moneyball" view, wrong-headed in his philosophy doesn't demean him, particularly, but mirrors can be so damned upsetting sometimes.

It may make for a nice tale, but it's not the real story of that team. like all good storytellers, they lie the truth and don't let facts get in the way.

not superfluous. his relationship to his ex-wife and daughter humanizes him, and gives him more of a reason to stay in Oakland (near her, rather than east coast). The daughter's song provides a funny and touching coda, as he listens to her sing about what a "loser" he is.

I'll just reiterate what i said in June, in this thread... viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16309 ...where 18 out of 21 of you "liked Terry" and i was the sole "dislike" vote Terry the ****bunter is just another in the recent string of smallballers filling out our lineup card and i'm so sick of it, i can't even READ about a game (much less watch one) without getting pissed off at something he does or doesn't do. I'm not saying he's worse than Willie or Jerry in this regard, but the cumulative effect has worn me down to the nub.

themetfairy wrote: Aaron Sorkin never lets the facts get in the way of a good story. The Moneyball principles were being used way before the 2002 season. And how can you tell the story of that season without acknowledging that the team had the 2000 Cy Young runner-up (Hudson), the 2001 Cy Young runner-up (Mulder), the 2002 Cy Young Award winner (Zito) and the 2002 MVP (Tejada)? That said, it was an entertaining film. first of all, Sorkin was the third writer brought in on the project, and really was brought in to punch up the dialogue more than structure the story. so the crack about sorkin is just factually incorrect. secondly, as Michael Lewis himself pointed out in an interview with Costas, the drafting of Hudson and Zito was as much due to a "moneyball" analysis as anything else in the story... they were hardly "can't miss" scouting wet dreams. But in any event, the story was about the players Beane decided to bring in that season and why. they weren't making a "Bull Durham" sports comedy about all the guys on the team. they were telling a story about an idea, a philosophy. which is a hard thing to do; they would've had a much easier time doing it almost any other way. so good on them.

Edgy DC wrote: Me neither, but Sage --- who was in fact championing this film years ago --- has. Sage has what?

here's the Lumet thread: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=15938 Treat Williams is great in this movie, one of Lumet's best. � Prince of the City (1981) � harkening back to the corrupt cops of his SERPICO days, this is another true crime adaptation with all kinds of complex notions of guilt and responsibility that had become a hallmark theme of his work by this time, with the complicated morality tale played out in naturalistic terms against Lumet�s beloved NYC backdrop. His 1st Oscar nom for writing, but no nom for directing? Boo!

A quiet, contemplative, deliberately paced movie with much to say, that avoids most (if not all) sports movie cliches. I liked it alot. And Pitt's perf as aging jock seemed pitch-perfect, working well off of goofball gone straight Jonah Hill. Just enough baseball to keep it a baseball movie and not a business movie. and it makes a folk hero out of Scott Hatteberg.

I can't imagine many worse options That demonstrates a dearth of imagination on your part. What i can't imagine are Mets fans who don't routinely shutter at the memory of substantially worse, higher-paid, less healthy, much older starters with far less potential than Pelfrey who have littered the Mets' rotation throughout the history of the franchise. let's make a list, chronologically. I'll start: Roger Craig - 62-63 Al Jackson - 62-65 Galen Cisco - 63-65 Tracy Stallard - 63-64 Jack Fisher - 64-67 Bob Shaw - 66-67 ok, i'm bored already.

TransMonk wrote: I've had the feeling since spring that some team would offer him stupid money that the Mets won't match. I still feel that way. ditto.

for the record, here's my updated list: [u:apk3qcg7]Top �Baker�s Dozen� baseball movies (theatrical features):[/u:apk3qcg7] 1. Bull Durham 2. Field of dreams 3. The Natural 4. The Bad News Bears 5. Moneyball 6. Bang the Drum Slowly 7. The Rookie 8. The Sandlot 9. Major league 10. Eight Men Out 11. Fever Pitch 12. Pride of the Yankees 13. Bingo Long & the Traveling All-Stars

wasn't there a thread on Baseball movies? i remember doing research; probably lost in the Great Cataclysm.

What does being a hard worker mean anyway? i'm just guessing here, but i might think that phrase means he works hard.

What has he done to jusitfy a spot on the Mets roster in '12? it's not what he's done, it's what he is... property under team control. If they find somebody better at a cheaper price, or a trade partner who see more value in him than Sandy does, he'll be replaced. The rest is scapegoating. Yeah, he sucked this year. He has sucked less in past years, and he's young enough to suck less in future years. I won't miss him if he's gone, but non-tendering him is an emotional reaction, not good business judgment. While i expect that of fans, I would expect more of Sandy.

Edgy DC wrote: Sending messages to each other through the media, despite the easy availability of face-to-face contact, is a time-honored --- if not particularly courageous --- tradition among ballplayers. IMO, Straw's statements to the media have absolutely nothing to do with trying to send Reyes a message and everything to do with Straw's ongoing efforts to repair his own fatally damaged reputation. "oh, i loved NY, what was i thinking to ever leave?" is not career guidance, its PR.

Centerfield wrote: If the biggest criticism of our homegrown superstar is that he's an all around swell guy, give me that any day of the week. He could sulk. He could openly complain. He could hint to ownership that if the fences aren't brought in and some protection in the lineup isn't provided he's bolting when his contract is up. Instead, he stays out of trouble and wants to be a Met for life. this. exactly this.

TB pitching best antidote to a MFY post-season. go Rays!