soupcan

riiiight, that was it. Piazza and Sam Champion bought a house in the Hamptons together.

According to a guy I know whose little brother saw him in close proximity to a sexually ambiguous bar in lower Manhattan a few years back. Took it too far, huh?

May 13, 2008 TV Sports �Zen of Bobby V� Follows a Familiar Face in a Foreign Land By RICHARD SANDOMIR The Bobby Valentine on view in the documentary �The Zen of Bobby V� is both familiar and alien to those who recall him managing the Mets and the Texas Rangers. As the manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines, he is still loquacious and maddening, a grand ham who cannot accept losing. And he still gets cranky with reporters, who are much kinder in Japan. Now he speaks Japanese pretty well. He rides his bike around Chiba. He is mobbed wherever he goes. A beer and a hamburger are named for him. He lectures to universities about leadership, which he says Japanese baseball needs to survive. �Commitment and passion transcend language,� he said in the documentary, describing his style while playing down his skills with the Japanese language. �A commander can take a group into battle without saying a word.� (Still, he is shown uttering many words.) He remains an intriguing, polarizing and amusing character, who is seen ballroom dancing on the field on one of many promotional nights at the Marines� stadium. But as connected as he is to his job � his second stint with the Marines � it is impossible to watch him without sensing a bit of the expatriate�s loneliness, like Bill Murray�s character, an American film star in Tokyo, in �Lost in Translation.� Manager Bobby Valentine at a shrine in his honor near Tokyo. � The Valentine documentary (shown Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern, on ESPN2) owes its existence to three New York University film students. The students � Andrew Jenks, Jonah Quickmire Pettigrew and Andrew Muscato � spent seven months with Valentine and the Marines, living in a hotel in Chiba and traveling with the team. The 90 minutes culled from 500 hours of footage show Valentine as an unlikely idol in a country that is not his own at a time when some of the best Japanese players are signing to play in the country of his birth. The interest in Valentine began a few years ago when Jenks, then an 18-year-old freshman, read an article about him and was immediately smitten. �The idea of Bobby V as a superstar halfway across the world sounded cool,� he said by telephone. He e-mailed Valentine, who Jenks said responded by saying that �as long as I accurately portrayed what was going on and didn�t make something outdated like �Mr. Baseball,� he�d be all for it.� But without a natural avenue to pitch the Valentine idea, he and Pettigrew moved on to make �Andrew Jenks, Room 335.� Jenks, then 19, moved into a nursing home in Florida and mingled with its elderly residents. The film was acquired by HBO and was first shown in January on its Cinemax network, where it will be repeated on May 24. With one documentary done, the group pitched ESPN on a rugby film, which the network rejected. But ESPN liked the one on Valentine. �They said, �Bring Bobby and bring a budget,� � said Muscato, who on Monday was studying for a test the next day on the history of the Roman empire. On Wednesday, he and Pettigrew are to graduate. Jenks kept Valentine updated on his idea but first met him when he, Muscato and Pettigrew, now 21, got together at Valentine�s sports bar in Stamford, Conn., in December 2006. �He told us it would be difficult to make the film in Japan,� said Jenks, who has a year left at N.Y.U. �He said access is very restricted, that you can�t just interview players whenever you want. He detailed how difficult it would be. He even used the word impossible. But he�s a big fan of the underdog and liked the fact that we were kids.� Muscato, 22, recalled that Valentine suggested using old photos and footage. �We said we could only do it if we followed you in the country all season,� he said. �He kept saying it couldn�t be done, and we said we wanted to do it. I think that appealed to him.� Jenks declined to say how much financing ESPN provided. But John Skipper, ESPN�s executive vice president for content, said Monday that �The Zen of Bobby V� suited the empire�s strategy shift from producing dramatic films for a few million dollars each, like �Ruffian� or �Hustle,� to making documentaries for a few hundred thousand. �I can make a lot of documentaries for the price of one �3,� � he said, referring to the network�s film about Dale Earnhardt. � The N.Y.U. group picked a fortunate time to follow Valentine and the Marines with its two cameras (sometimes on one bicycle while Valentine pedaled his). The Marines went to the Pacific League playoffs, but struggled enough so that Valentine could look miserable, toss inanimate objects and contemplate whether he loves baseball as much as he loves his wife, Mary, who visits every other month. But viewers may be as intrigued by the culture of Japanese baseball: fans who seem to chant and sing nonstop, rigorous hours-long practices, players who wonder how they will adapt to the United States if they sign with a M.L.B. team, and the pep rally where Valentine, who turns 58 on Tuesday, sings, �We love, love, love, love the Marines.� E-mail: sportsbiz@nytimes.com

That's what I'm hoping for.

Is Racer X in the movie?

Carter and Dykstra were my faves.

It was cold out there. First time I've taken the 7 train out there this season. Where's the train platform at Shea!? That was a shock to the system. Nationals clapping in the dugout and cheering in unison after each pitch that was a ball was just weird. I guess Figgy didn't appreciate it either calling them a 'Girls Softball Team'. My son's friend got a ball from the batboy - the actual game balls they are using this year have that 'Shea Stadium 1964-2008' logo stamped on them. Pretty cool move. I'm 0-3 this year. Yay.

I was there until the 7th (I had an excuse - two 11 year-olds on a school night in tow), and I was perplexed by the Milledge booing. I mean I guess I can understand it - visiting player and all but its not like the guy chose to leave. The other booing towards the Mets, I thought, was clearly focused on the subpar play of the team as opposed to any one player. In fact, when Figgy finally came out of the game I was expecting him to be booed but he really wasn't. A smattering here and there but nothing extreme.

'Stevie Jeets' Crackin' me up.

Because it ain't gonna be 40 degrees for too much longer...

I've heard its just awful.

Now that's good trivia.

Where'd you find that?

Marlon?

See, now I'm kicking myself for not making the crack I wanted too about you hitchhiking to Albany.

Well no, but he noticed the various Metly items lying around and told her that he played minor league ball for the Mets. His partner, she said, was very obviously stoned. Grant Roberts maybe...?

According to my wife, this guy was in my house fixing my AC today.

="AG/DC"]A ten-run inning by the Mets of that era, featuring a homer of any stripe by Doug Flynn, was the equivelant of Urkel scoring with a chick, and fireworks were insanely appropriate. If you had them already cued up, and didn't set them off, it would be miserly. Absolutely 100% correct, however my memory is that the fireworks were set off just after Flynn crossed the plate. Sort of like instead of raising the apple - the non-existent apple at that time in Mets history. Looking back it just seems odd that they would set off fireworks during play. But I'm pretty certain they did.

Why are the arrows above the bird different on the shirt than they are from the Ramones logo? Any significance?

Saw it Sat. Night. Great superhero flick. Best so far. Enjoyed it very much. As to Vlad's question about the last-last scene: If you are not a superfan of Marvel comic books and don't really know the characters and their history except through the movies, then the scene is not awesome and won't mean much to you at all. It's 30 seconds of 2 guys talking. If you are a superfan - it's great and has a lot of meaning. I went with a friend and we waited and waited for the credits to end. After the scene I had a big grin on my face and he looked at me and said "why'd we have to wait for that?"

I'm going tonight - wife tells me rain is supposed to stop at 8:00.

Totally awesome. Love it. Left the thread before I finished reading it to go order mine. Excellent job guys.

Its a competetion between you and me then. So far I'm up to 2.