TTH 5/11/26

Freaks and Geeks Rewatch - Carded and Discarded

Years ago TV Guide put together one of those 100 greatest episodes of all time lists, and Carded and Discarded was the representative from Freaks & Geeks. At the time I would have heartily agreed with that. It was my favorite episode on initial viewing, mostly because it was so damn funny. It still is, and still holds up, but now I would be more likely to select one of the episodes which heavily analyzed the characters. Not to say that this isn’t an outstanding hour of TV. Overloaded with guest appearances from familiar faces - including the return of Ben Foster’s Eli - it also has the best cold open in F&G history.

This is the one in which Mr. Rosso attempts to relate to the freaks by taking out his acoustic guitar and performing I’m Eighteen for them. Their reactions are a mixture of embarrassment and horror, except for Nick of course. He can’t help himself; it’s an Alice Cooper song, man, so he starts playing the air drums. After the meeting Rosso pulls Lindsay aside to tell her that she is risking her shot at making it into a good college and that she is throwing her future away by spending so much time with a group of friends whom she is better than.

The freaks half of the episode revolves around yet another rite of passage - the process of obtaining a fake ID. The statute of limitations has expired by now, so I can feel comfortable in sharing my own tale. Everyone in New York knew the place to get your ID: the old Playland arcade in Times Square. The funny thing is that they looked so fake, and every bartender and bouncer in NYC must have seen thousands of Playland ID’s and could spot them from a mile away. Yet those IDs presented enough plausible deniability that it was enough to gain admittance into a bar or club.

I’m sure most teens who grew up in large cities had similar go-to venues. In a suburb such as where our heroes lived it took more effort. The freaks heard that a great local band was playing in town this weekend, so they would need to get IDs to get into the bar where the gig was taking place. Well, everyone except Kim, who already had one. Daniel did once as well, but it was confiscated after he was unable to confirm his astrological sign to the bouncer. So, the rest of the gang would need to purchase IDs. Fortunately enough, Lindsay had just received a large amount of cash as a present from a relative, so she could bankroll the quest.

Back in the Weir household, Harold was excited because he had gotten his hands on an old board game that he used to love to play; a game called Pit. It was a stock trading game, which sounds mostly like an excuse for the players to yell at each other. In his mind, it was a perfect bonding exercise for the family on a Friday night. Both Lindsay and Sam bailed, saying that they had plans for this Friday. His impulse was to order the kids to stay home and play, but Jean pulled him aside and gently gave him the “if you love them set them free” speech. The parents played the game, but Harold realized that the game was not as fun with only 2 players. Either that, or the game was lame to begin with. With an empty house and nothing else to do, the Weir parents had no other option but to go upstairs and have sex.

In this week’s Sam plot, biology class was interrupted by the addition of a new student in class, a cute transfer student named Maureen who had just moved into town from Florida. The looks on the faces of each boy in class as she chose her seat were precious. In the next scene Sam, Neal, and Bill are headed to their usual table in the cafeteria only to find Maureen already sitting there alone. She offers to leave but they insist that she stay, correctly figuring that they’ve got it made if they become the first group that she befriends. Now, all they need to do is keep her away from the cool kids.

As for Lindsay and crew, their first stop is with the guy who had sold Daniel his earlier ID. (On a side note, in a later scene Kim takes a look at his legitimate ID and discovers that he is already 18. Daniel admits that he had been left back twice.) It’s at a men’s clothing store, where the store manager (Joel Hodgson!) directs them towards a salesman (Jason Schwartzman!) who will be the source of the false documents. He carefully looks at Lindsay, Daniel, Nick, and Ken so that he can memorize their faces. It’s a big red flag when he simply describes each person as having brown hair and brown eyes; not exactly memorizing the minute details of their faces.

The next day Schwartzman hands out the IDs. Ken’s ID states that he is a mustachioed man named Jesus. That beats the others; they all have photos of Asian people on their cards. They refuse to accept them and demand their money back. All of them except Ken, who believes he can pass himself off as a Jesus. They are now in a pickle, as the show is the next day. That’s when Lindsay remembers she might have a source.

Millie has a cousin with a shady past, and Lindsay talks her into giving her his contact info. Lindsay, Daniel, & Ken go to his run down house, complete with a rooster in the yard. The cousin (Kevin Corrigan!) has a photo studio set up in his house, which includes a laminating machine. He points out that not just anyone can get their hands on one of those. He also uncomfortably hits on Lindsay, telling her that he remembered her when she was a little girl and creepily tells her how hot she is now that she is all grown up. Nick gallantly sticks up for her, warning him to stay away from his girlfriend. In response the cousin doubles the price they had agreed upon, but at least everyone now has their phony ID’s.

Sam and friends meanwhile have to stave off the cool crowd, correctly surmising that Maureen is out of their league. If a different clique gets their hands on her, it’s game over for the geeks. To their horror they see Maureen talking to cheerleader Vicki. Eli just happens to be walking by, so Neal exploits Eli’s innocence by telling him that Vicki doesn’t think Three’s Company is a funny show. Eli immediately steps in to tell Vicki how wrong she is, which is enough of a distraction for Maureen to rejoin the geeks.

The trio + Maureen then spend a day firing off model rockets. Yes, there are jokes about the size of Bill’s rocket. After Maureen departs they head back to the Weir house where they have convinced themselves that one of them is fated to become Maureen’s boyfriend, but who is the one who “gets” to have her? They use the lottery method; each of their names is placed in a hat, and Bill blindly selects the winner. That winner is Bill himself. Neal discovers that Bill has cheated by slightly wetting the slip of paper with his name, but the decision has been made.

The next problem is that Maureen has been invited to a party at Vicki’s house on Saturday. The geeks’ only option is to show her such a good time on Friday that whatever fun she has on Saturday would pale in comparison. After consulting with wisened sage Harris, they decide to take her to an all you can eat ribs place. Neal and Bill give her the secret to eating as many ribs as possible. Neal warns her not to fill up on bread. Bill says that the trick is to eat so fast that your brain doesn’t know how full you are. They bribe their waiter (David Koechner!) into bringing the food to the table as quickly as possible by promising a 20% tip. They all have a great time, and realize that Maureen is one of them when they notice that she doctored the wording on the board which lists the daily specials to read “butt.” They’ve done their part, what will happen Saturday?

Meanwhile, Lindsay and crew arrive at the bar to see the hot band. This, despite the fact that the bouncer could tell that the ID’s were fake, but the venue was desperate to fill the house. The band takes the stage, and the lead singer is Mr. Rosso! He may be the cool faculty member, but he is still an authority figure, so he can’t indulge his students drinking underage. After completing a rendition of We’re An American Band, he embarrasses the freaks by asking the house to shine a spotlight on them and requesting that the staff serve them a round of their finest pop.

The episode ends on Monday in the cafeteria. Maureen asked the geeks if they didn’t mind if she would sit on the cheerleaders table. She invites them to join in, but the geeks realize that would tamper with the natural order of things. Their “breakup” with Maureen is on good terms; she is a sweet natured girl but she belongs with the cooler crowd. With a newly empty seat at the table, Eli asks if he can sit with them. Perhaps realizing that he needs to make things right with Eli for taking advantage of his guileless nature earlier, Neal gladly invites Eli to join them, and as the episode fades to black they are in a deep conversation about Three’s Company, specifically about which of the two women is the more attractive one. (For the record, I was Team Joyce DeWitt all the way.)

Looking At Some Numbers

Continuing my look at the greatest Met to wear each uniform number, this set begins with one of the tougher choices.

7 - How many bonus points does a championship pedigree earn? Ed Kranepool was a quintessential Met; he made his major league debut in the franchise’s inaugural season mere weeks after he graduated from high school and was a Met for 18 seasons, most of which he spent wearing #7. He was on the 1969 Miracles, and a Bronx native with a deep New York accent to boot. Hard to get more New Yawk than Krane. As much of a fan favorite as he was, he was merely a platoon first baseman and later in his career an ace pinch hitter. José Reyes, by contrast, was a legitimately great player and the first Met to win a National League batting crown. There was a period in which the single most exciting play in baseball was a Reyes line drive into the gap as he would run it out into a triple. Due respect to Kranepool, but he is the runner-up. The best Met #7 is José Reyes. At the same time let us not forget that the reason he was available to return to the Mets at the end of his career is because the Rockies released him following a domestic violence suspension. If you feel that disqualifies him I will not argue with you.

8 - This is an easy one. It’s Gary Carter. One of the stars of the 1986 champs, he played at a near MVP level for the first 2 seasons of his Mets tenure, plus he had the first hit to start the 10th inning rally in Game 6. Age hit him hard and he declined rapidly, but those first two seasons are more than enough. His number has not been formally retired, but it’s essentially out of circulation. No player has worn #8 in 25 years. In fact, so few Mets have worn that number that it’s tough to choose a runner-up. Yogi Berra played a handful of games at the end of his career and then served as a coach and manager for a decade, so by default I’ll go with Yogi.

9 - If I wanted to be mischievous I would award this to George “The Stork” Theodore; talk about a guy who made a deep connection with the fans. The serious answer is Brandon Nimmo. It’s something of a surprise that he never made an All-Star team, but he was accomplished enough to have merited an appearance or two. The runner-up would be Todd Hundley; his 41 home run season in 1996 was one of the high points in an otherwise gloomy era in team history.

10 - There aren’t many good choices here. I could have given it to either Rusty Staub or Rey Ordóñez, but I have already acknowledged them for different numbers they had worn. Because he produced a spectacular defensive play in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS which will appear on highlight reels in perpetuity, my answer is Endy Chávez. The fact that that game didn’t end in the way I had wished doesn’t take anything away from that catch. The runner-up is the poor man’s Wade Boggs, the line drive machine Dave Magadan.

11 - With an affectionate tip of the cap to Lenny Randle, this comes down to platoon infielders who had played on the team’s 2 championship teams. Either of the two would be an equally valid choice, but the unexpected magic of the 1969 club is enough to give it to Wayne Garrett. That makes Tim Teufel the runner-up.

12 - It’s usually better to wait until the end of a player’s tenure so that it can be judged in its totality, but by this point Francisco Lindor has done more than enough to win the honor. His grand slam home run in the clinching game of the 2024 NLDS was the single most exciting moment that I was in the stadium to witness. The runner-up is one of the toughest MF’s to ever wear the orange and blue, John Stearns.

13 - Or, who is the least superstitious player in team history? Billy Wagner spent a portion of his Hall Of Fame career as #13 in your scorecard, but Edgardo Alfonzo was with the team longer, and he put together a more distinguished body of work. He might have been my favorite player on those turn of the century Mets teams. Wags is a worthy runner-up.

14 - Only 3 players have worn this number, as it was retired for Gil Hodges shortly after his sudden death. Fortunately, in addition to managing the 1969 team, Hodges was also one of those 3 players to wear 14, so this one is an easy call. I’ll leave the runner-up spot vacant for this number. The other 2 were Ron Swoboda, who wore it in his rookie season, and Ken Boyer, who was played a season and a half with the Mets towards the end of his career.

Lottery Fever… Catch It!

The NBA draft lottery took place yesterday, the final lottery which will be held under the current format. It will remain to be seen if the new format, which is yet to be formalized, will discourage the blatant tanking that took place this season. The results of this year’s drawing are as follows.

I’m not sure how to feel about this. The tanking was so egregious - largely because this year’s draft is deep at the top of the first round - that it feels dirty to reward any of these teams. Take the winning Wizards as an example. They traded for Trae Young and Anthony Davis at the deadline. That’s good. They sat both players for the remainder of the year with injuries. Young only played 5 games for Washington, Davis never suited up once. That’s not good. We’ll have to take their words for it that these injuries actually were serious enough to warrant the lengthy shutdowns. Be as skeptical as you wish. The Wizards played the long game, & the #1 pick was their reward. There has been a lot of discourse this season about the ethics of refusing to compete. The problem is that because a full third of the league stopped trying, it is hard to find a team to root for.

Perhaps in a fair world, the Hornets should have won the top pick. They went for it and made it into the play-in tournament. Maybe the Indiana Pacers should have won it. They were bad this year not because of tanking, but because Tyrese Haliburton was out all year with a torn Achilles, only the first of an epidemic of serious injuries the team suffered. Too bad for them that the balls did not bounce their way; they had traded their first round pick in the Ivica Zubac trade, but it was only top 4 protected. The lottery resulted in their landing at #5, so that pick went to the Clippers.

Time will tell if the new lottery format will result in a reduction in tanking. It will be hard to gauge; the next couple of drafts don’t appear to be as strong as this one promises to be so there is not as much of an incentive to tank. Regardless, the lack of effort that so many teams put into giving an honest effort this season was embarrassing. Thank goodness it’s over. Maybe. Hopefully.

Bobby Cox

Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox died this weekend at the age of 84. He managed for 29 seasons, 25 of them with the Atlanta Braves, and in that time he led the team to 1 World Series title, 5 National League pennants, and 15 division titles, including 1 with the Toronto Blue Jays. As an aside, Cox died in the same week as former Braves owner Ted Turner and former Braves broadcaster John Sterling. What a brutal week for Atlanta baseball. Cox finished his career with a total of 2,504 regular season wins. That ranks 4th all time.

One must also be honest about Bobby Cox. I understand wanting to not speak ill of the dead, particularly on a national telecast with a league partner, but I cringed when in Fox’s pregame show Kevin Burkhardt said that no one ever had a bad word to say about him. Well, he was once arrested for domestic violence, although his wife did not press charges. Cox is the career leader for most managerial ejections. That doesn’t sound like a colorful quirk in the light of those events. Sure, it’s laudable that he stuck up for his players, but that many ejections showed that he had an explosive temper, a temper which manifested itself with severe consequences in his off field life at least once. The 162 ejections aren’t very funny now, are they?

I bring this up not to bury Cox. He and his wife remained married, so it’s very possible that it was a regrettable one time incident, or even a simple misunderstanding. But if law enforcement needed to get involved, it was clearly a serious matter. Bobby Cox was one of the great managers in baseball history, but he was no saint and it would be a disservice to pretend that he was.

50 Years Ago - Station To Station

Station To Station was the album with which David Bowie introduced his Thin White Duke persona. He was well known for making some drastic changes to both his image and his music throughout his career, but in this case one could find a natural progression from one album to the next. His previous album, Young Americans, was his take on American soul music. His next album would be the first in his Berlin trilogy. In Station To Station he maintained that soulful feel, but here there was more of a cold detachment. This was a stop on the road from emotional Philadelphia to stoic Berlin.

Part of that iciness is due to the fact that he recorded the album shortly after his debut movie role as an alien in The Man Who Fell To Earth, so he was still in alien mode as he was laying down tracks. Well, that and his later admission that he was heavily using cocaine at the time. The result was an album which sounded like an otherworldly being trying to mimic human behavior.

It is a sleek, short album. There are only 6 songs on the record, including the 10 minute long title track. There are a few ringers such as Earl Slick and Roy Bittan appearing on the record, but for the most part the studio band consisted of the musicians who would back Bowie up for the next several years: Carlos Alomar, George Murray, and Dennis Davis. Other than the album closer, a cover of Wild Is the Wind, the songs are all Bowie originals.

Golden Years is the biggest hit from the collection, and it is representative of the album as a whole. It has a multi-layered vocal track, as well as the semi-soulful feel which I described earlier. A better example of that musical characteristics is found in the song Stay, but that vibe is part of the reason why I hesitate to rank this album among Bowie’s very best. There isn’t the passion that I would prefer to hear, it’s just a little too distant for my taste. My favorite song on the record is the one which comes closest to kicking into second gear, TVC 15. It has more life to it than anything else on the record.

As I mentioned, the following year Bowie would enter a new phase in his career as he would collaborate with Tony Visconti and Brian Eno on a trio of albums recorded in Berlin. Station To Station was a solid album, but not a great one, and it would serve as a fitting end to a major chapter in David Bowie’s career.

Closing Laughs

That’s enough for today. Hope you all had an enjoyable and relaxing weekend. Catch you again on Wednesday. Have a wonderful day!