Today’s Thoughts
The Outsiders - Left Handed Pitcher
It might have been a safer decision to begin my look at the top 10 players at each position that are not in the Hall Of Fame with left handed pitchers rather than righties. After all, this one doesn’t lead with players who tarnished their reputations because of PED allegations or by just being a general a**hole. Oh well, fortune favors the bold. Quick reminder - for the purpose of this exercise I lean towards pitchers who were dominant for a short time rather than those who provided reliable production over a longer period. To put it another way, I’m going with someone who was a top-5 pitcher over a 5-year stretch rather than a top-15 pitcher over a 10-year stretch. As always, your mileage may vary.
That’s not to say those sorts of workhorses are not valuable. I’m sure that you can picture in your mind several classic crafty lefties who changed speeds, worked the corners, and left hitters shaking their heads in disbelief as they walk back to the dugout following a weak pop up or a soft grounder. This one was tough to cut down to 10. I could have easily included Vida Blue, or Jerry Koosman, or quintessential crafty lefty Jamie Moyer. Here goes: (accompanying stats are career ERA+ & career bWAR)
Billy Pierce (119, 53.2)
Ron Guidry (119, 47.8)
Johan Santana (136, 51.7)
Sam McDowell (112, 41.8)
Cliff Lee (118, 43.2)
Preacher Roe (116, 29.7)
Mark Langston (107, 50.1)
Fernando Valenzuela (104, 41.5)
Eddie Lopat (116, 32.2)
Wilbur Wood (114, 50.0)
Billy Pierce’s best years took place both pre-Cy Young Award & in the time when there were not separate awards for each league. He could have conceivably won the prizes in both 1953 & 1955, had the award existed yet. He would likely be better known today with that hardware, but his timing was just a bit off. Guidry did memorably win it in 1978; that was one of those seasons in which he was so dominant that people will talk about that year as long as people continue to talk about baseball. He didn’t have his first full season until his age 26 season, so his career totals are not as strong as they could have been, but he was one of the AL’s top pitchers for almost a full decade.
Santana’s reign at the top was shorter, but arguably more spectacular. He won 2 Cy Young awards in 2004 & 2006, and could have easily won it in 2005 as well. Shoulder trouble brought his career to a screeching halt, but he did throw the first no-hitter in Mets history, albeit one tainted by a missed umpiring call. McDowell led the AL in strikeouts 5 times in a 6 year span, surpassing 300 K’s twice.
I may have ranked Lee a bit too highly; he was wildly inconsistent from season to season, but his great seasons were brilliant. Roe was one of the top pitchers for the Boys Of Summer Brooklyn Dodgers, although he was retired by the time they finally won the 1955 World Series. He received MVP votes in 4 different seasons.
Langston was an ace pitcher & strikeout artist for some bad Mariners teams who unfortunately became better known for being the player that the Expos traded Randy Johnson for. Valenzuela of course was one of the greatest phenomenons that the game has ever seen. Perhaps due to overuse his last good year was in his age 26 season, but no one who was around at the time will ever forget Fernandomania. Lopat was a key component of the Yankee squads that won a record 5 consecutive World Series.
I decided to go with Wood as #10, and not just because we should seize any opportunity to honor a knuckleball pitcher. He showed a near superhuman durability; over a 5 year period he averaged 336 innings pitched per season. He pitched for some pretty mediocre White Sox teams, so not only did he win 20 games 4 times but he also lost 20 twice, including going 24-20 in 1973.
Next week I’ll take a look at the greatest catchers that are not in the Hall. After all, these pitchers need someone to throw to. As Casey Stengel said, otherwise there will be a lot of passed balls.
Classic SNL Recap - Season 5 Premiere
Season 5 of SNL was the first time I had the reaction shared by every fan of the show at some point - oh no, ____ has left! The show will never be the same! I wasn’t old enough to be a regular viewer when Chevy Chase left, so the departures of Dan Aykroyd & John Belushi were the first ones that hit me hard. Their absences were even more crucial because the show in this early era was much more reliant on recurring sketches; either Aykroyd or Belushi were prominent parts of the vast majority of repeat bits. The consensus of my specific focus group of my own friends & classmates was simple. They can’t do this or this anymore? The show is gonna suck!
Season 5 was the weakest in that first golden era, but when I rewatched it a few years back when I got the DVD box set I found that it wasn’t quite as bad as I had remembered. As always, any episode was dependent on the strength of the host & there were enough strong hosts this season to keep the show afloat. When there was a poor choice, however, oof! I almost admire the way the show fully embraced weirdness this season; often a premise usually saved until 12:50 would wind up airing in the first half hour instead. Lorne also made the interesting choice to not fully replace Aykroyd and Belushi. Instead, several of the writers - notably the male writers, keeping the tradition of SNL sexism alive - were used as featured players. A few episodes into the season Harry Shearer, who briefly appears in this season premiere, would be added as the official 6th member of the cast.
Season 5 began in the safe hands of Steve Martin - with Eat To the Beat era Blondie as musical guest - and this episode includes some moments that viewers of a certain age remember well all these years later. This brings us back to a time where we searched for Popes in a pizza, and wondered what the hell is that? The cold open focused on what was one of the biggest news stories at the time; Pope John Paul II’s recent American tour. The sketch treated it like a rock tour; with assorted religious figures (including Gilda Radner as The Singing Nun) attempting to get past security into the backstage area. One of Bill Murray’s recurring characters was a slick record company exec named Jerry Aldini. Here he was Monsignor Aldini, aghast that he was not on the list. The sketch concluded with Martin himself briefly appearing as the pontiff.
Out of necessity SNL now needed to rebuild its backbench of recurring bits, and one well that the show often revisited in season 5 was a series of sketches built around historical re-enactments. (One example was the infamous Roman vomitorium sketch, which just might be the single low point of the first 5 seasons.) This week presented a sketch focusing on the Vandals. In this premise they were not portrayed as the actual nomadic tribe, but as vandals in the way that we recognize the term today. The set was a Roman encampment which had been TP’d overnight, and Al Franken’s character placed a flaming bag of dog poop outside the tent of Steve Martin’s centurion.
I really liked the Great Moments In Rock History sketch. In this, Paul Shaffer’s Don Kirshner introduced a rockumentary which depicted a crucial musical moment. In this case it was the moment when Carole King (Laraine Newman) finished composing You’ve Got a Friend. In this scenario Martin as her boyfriend was about to leave her apartment. He asked to stay the night but she insisted that she needed the solitude to complete the song. As she is heard singing the song Martin is stabbed by a mugger and proceeds to bleed to death on her stoop. “Just call out my name” “Carole!” Dark, but funny.
Father Guido Sarducci appeared almost weekly this season, and he was on Update to wrap up the Pope’s tour. He decried the commercialization of the event, more specifically the fact that the Pope wasn’t making any residuals off of the merchandise. It was then that Sarducci introduced the Find the Popes In the Pizza contest. He showed a photo of a pizza in which all 200+ popes were supposedly hidden among the sauce and toppings. He asked viewers to place a sheet of tracing paper over their TV screens & then gave them 60 seconds to circle as many popes as they could find. Whoever ID’s the most wins a prize - a commemorative button.
The episode ended with 2 highlights - a lot of the regular features may be gone, but there was no stopping Mr. Bill. This week featured the introduction of his girlfriend Miss Sally, who unfortunately was in just as much danger from Mr. Hands & Sluggo as Mr. Bill & Spot were. Finally, there was What The Hell Is That? That one was a perfect example of the singer, not the song. The sketch consisted of little more than Martin & Murray looking at an unseen offscreen object & asking what it could possibly be. Martin’s hick & Murray’s wino made something out of what probably looked like nothing on the written page.
Next week I’ll look at the midsaeson episode & fortunately it was another one hosted by a regular. It will be Chevy Chase time yet again. Let’s see if the rest of the cast makes their collective hatred of the guy obvious.
Banner #18
On Monday evening the Boston Celtics broke their tie with the Lakers. With their 18th championships they are once again the NBA franchise with the most titles. They did so in dominating fashion; not only did they have the best regular season record by a large margin, but they only lost 3 games during their playoff run. While it’s true that they benefitted to some extent by the fact that many of their Eastern Conference rivals suffered injuries to at least one key player - which ignores the fact that the Celtics themselves were without the services of Kristaps Porzingis for a long stretch - they were clearly the best team in the league all year. They have absolutely nothing to apologize for.
I try not to go too overboard discussing legacy after the playoffs. 2 months ago Jayson Tatum was universally regarded as a top-10 player, maybe even top 5. That is still the case and would have remained the case even if Boston had fallen short. There are plenty of NBA legends that were unable to win a ring. That fact does not diminish their careers one iota. And good for Finals MVP Jaylen Brown. For years he has been a walking trade rumor, partially due to whispers that the Brown/Tatum pairing could only go so far, partially due to the fact that his salary matches up for any potential trade for a star. The Celtics stuck with him, and they’re glad that they did.
I do always feel a tinge of sympathy for a player who was a part of a team for years but got traded away just before they took that final step. Poor Marcus Smart. The guy used to dye his hair green, but he had to watch his former teammates celebrate from afar.
I’ll also give a shout-out to Al Horford. He has been a terrific player for a long time, and I believe he is a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate. Being that Hall voters have shown a propensity for including role players from championship teams, he might have solidified his chances. (I think Jrue Holiday is already in.) At this stage of his career Horford is only the 5th or 6th most important Celtic, but in his prime he played at an All-Star level year after year. The dude just turned 38, so who knows if this was his final NBA act. If so, there’s no better way to go out.
The Oscar Mulligan - 1986
Best Picture: Platoon
Other Nominees: Children Of a Lesser God, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Mission, A Room With a View
Children Of a Lesser God was a terrific movie - another key entry in the Imperial Era Of William Hurt - but a revote of the 1986 race comes down to 2 movies made by directors that the mob has turned on, for different reasons. For Oliver Stone it’s not just that his politics turns off a lot of people, it’s also that it comes with the “you can’t comprehend how much smarter I am than you” attitude. He seems like an exhausting guy to be around. Plus, what was the last good movie that he has made? Nixon?
Woody Allen, on the other hand, is just a repulsive human. The separate the artist from the art belief only goes so far in his case, being that so much of his work contains a bit of autobiography to it. When you see him acting with his real life paramour, you feel like you’re watching him & not a character. That goes double in this case. He was with Mia Farrow at the time and we all know how horribly that story turned out. Hannah and Her Sisters is one of his better movies, but I think that the parts of it that have aged poorly take it out of the running.
Which means that Platoon is still the deserving winner. Stone based it somewhat on his experiences in Vietnam, with Charlie Sheen acting as the Stone stand in at the height of his initial burst of fame. Heavy in its use of symbolism, Sheen is torn between the two sergeants in his platoon, a literal angel & devil on each shoulder. In a bit of inspired casting, Willem Dafoe played the more angelic of the two. Let’s face it, Dafoe has the face that he has. When you see him a movie, you can easily guess the sort of character that he is portraying. Not here, he was a peaceful stoner. SPOILER ALERT - the depiction of his death was intentionally Christlike in its imagery. Tom Berenger was the monster, a literally battle-scarred veteran.
Platoon was another one of those movies heavily populated with actors in the early stages of their careers. Hello, Forest Whitaker. Good to see you, John C. McGinley. Wait a second, is that Johnny Depp? Why is Kevin Dillon setting a villager’s hut on fire?
Platoon was certainly not the first high profile film about Vietnam, but soon after its success a huge wave of films set there began to emerge. Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill, Casualties Of War, Stone’s own Born On the Fourth Of July. The battle scenes were frighteningly intense, and they conveyed very well how much of a nightmare jungle warfare is. Oliver Stone may be a pain in the ass, but he really produced something special with Platoon.
We’ve Lost A GOAT
Yesterday evening we heard the sad news that Willie Mays has died. I need a little more time to put together my thoughts that can do him proper justice, so I’ll have more to say on Friday. It was at the end of his career, so it wasn’t the real Willie Mays, but at least I can say that I was fortunate enough to have seen him play in person. Man, I would have loved to have been able to see him at his peak.
Closing Laughs
Hopefully wherever you may be you are able to remain cool and hydrated. Have a great day everybody! See you on Friday.
