Saturday, May 28, 2011

2,000 LEFT TURNS & GOMER PYLE ALL IN ONE!!!

Well, the unofficial start of the summer season is here and, though summer doesn't really start until the third week in June, Mother Nature has made it feel more like August than the end of May. The LSF hates summer weather and thanks whoever had the intelligence and foresight to invent air-conditioning. Back when I was a kid the only AC was at the movie theaters who all seemed to have a blue sign with snow covered mountains telling you that it was cool inside. The sign beckoned us and we gladly paid our 25 cents so that, for a few hours, we could escape the oppressive heat and humidity. Once inside, we were more than likely treated to a western, filmed in the new technicolor or a WWII story. When the LSF was in his formative years, the "Big One" had only been over for a few years and Hollywood was churning out a gazillion war movies for our entertainment.

I was amazed at how John Wayne could at the same time be wiping out the Japs at Iwo Jima while storming the beaches at Normandy, but he could and did and in his spare time found a way to solve the problem of the non-exploding torpedoes his sub carried. Wayne was portrayed as a man's man, almost single-handedly winning the war. Wayne was a fraud boys and girls. While some of Hollywood's biggest stars served, he ducked putting on a uniform for real and was never in harm's way for real.

Being Memorial Day Weekend, TCM is doing the war movie thing, which pleases me greatly. Tonight is submarine night and I've already watched Run Silent Run Deep, am now listening to Destination Tokyo, starring Cary Grant and John Garfield, and will later watch Torpedo Run, starring James Garner and Edmond O'Brien. I love the old black and white war movies, especially the submarine films. Warner Bros. put out a ton of them with an ensemble cast that always had the same actors in every film. These films were all about good versus evil - black versus white with no shades of gray. We were the good guys and, even though some of the favorite characters never made it back, we always found a way to use American ingenuity and superiority to win the day. If it were only that simple.

I did check in with the Phillies who managed to commit three errors, almost blowing a win against the Madoffs. The good guys held on and won 6-3, but they were sloppy. A win is a win however, and it was nice to see Dom Brown contribute since he has yet to show me that he can hit big league pitching the way we need him to. Perhaps the Phillies were looking past the Madoffs to the trip into Pittsburgh at the end of the road trip where they will have to overcome my newly beloved team - The Pirates. Superstar must have forgot his bats so he struck out twice in what is looking like a quest to set a new single season strikeout record.

Speaking of bats, last night I watched "Jews and Baseball," a history of Jews in the majors, and couldn't help but compare the bat that Hank Greenberg used with what Superstar and others use today. Greenberg's bats look like a telephone pole compared to the toothpicks used today, and it didn't seem to affect his bat speed at all (and he didn't break his bat every other at bat). The Mick was shown striking out against Sandy Koufax in the 1963 World Series, and it took two bat boys to lift his club back to the dugout. In that game, Koufax struck out fifteen Yankees to set a series record. My point is that today's players are pussies compared to those guys. I never saw Mantle wear batting gloves and Willie Mays would have rather died than wear body armor like Superstar does. I never saw anyone back then use leg armor either. If you hit a foul ball off your foot, you shook it off and got back in the box waiting for some chin music - which was expected and part of the game.

You all know how I feel about pitch counts and that kind of pussy shit. Maybe the managers of that era couldn't count, but pitch counts didn't exist when Koufax, Drysdale, Gibson, or Palmer took the mound. There were no guys who only pitched against lefthanders or whatever - you just pitched, and then pitched again in three days. Nobody had to get stretched out either. Today's athletes are bigger stronger, faster, and in better shape from year round training than the guys from back in my day, but it seems as if they spend more time on the DL these days than they do playing.

If you have the chance you ought to watch "Jews and Baseball." Even if you are not Jewish you will marvel at the great players shown, and will see the game before it was fucked up with astro turf, domed stadia, and the dreaded DH. The first DH is profiled in Mike Bloomberg who in 1973 had that distinction while playing for the Yankees. In case you hadn't figured it out, I do not like the DH. Shit, if we had it here, then Cliff Lee would not have had the chance to hit the ground rule double the other night against the Reds and we would have probably lost that game.

Being that it is Memorial Day Weekend, they are having a party out there in Indiana - where men are men and the sheep are just plain scared (Someone from the Hoosier state told me that gem). This is the big one if you are into auto racing, and who will not have a tear in their eye when Gomer Pyle does his rendition of "Back Home In Indiana" just prior to the call of start your engines? After that, be prepared for watching 2,000 left turns as 33 drivers attempt to avoid a fiery crash while trying to win the Borg-Warner cup and the bottle of milk that goes with it. My friend Bob is all excited since his favorite driver, Danica Patrick, is joined by another woman in the quest for the trophy. Bob is a very sick guy in that he, an east coast guy who has never been to an auto race in his life, has a poster of Patrick displayed in his office.

In a previous life, the LSF has been to a few races - sprint cars to be exact. My recollection of watching these races is that they were OK, but the noise level was much too loud for my comfort. I imagine that the noise at the Indy 500 would make the noise from sprint cars seem like a whisper, and that doesn't include the roar of the 1/2 million people packed into the Brickyard. While I am not a fan of these types of things, and want nothing to do with crowds of that size, I appreciate the traditions involved and hope that a Brazilian doesn't win the thing again.

I will be at a traditional barbecue in the park with some nice folks and plenty of good food, including the best mac and cheese on the planet. I'll be watching the true national pastime - gluttony in action, all to the background of some fine r&b music. You may hear country shit at an auto race, but not at a holiday cook out in a city park. Whatever you are doing this weekend, have a great time - don't drink too much and I'll touch base with you on the other side of the weekend.

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