Dear readers: I get high and get by with a lot of help from my friends is a running theme in my life story. One of my dear friends recently sent me a new book of baseball poems, "The Ball Dreams Of The Sky." It more than lives up to enthusiastic blurbs from such notable baseball writers as Ira Berkow, Tims Kurkjian and Wiles, John Thorn, former MLB outfielder Shawn Green, Bobby Murcer's widow Kay, and many others.
"Ball Dreams" is the first collection by Henry Schipper, a veteran Hollywood writer and profilic producer of documentaries. Like all good poetry books, it will reward many re-readings. Schipper, raised in Holland, Michigan outside Detroit, is the son of Holocaust survivors and several of the poems deal poignantly with his family history. He always comes back to his love of baseball as mystery and consolation.
It is hard to select a particular favorite because they are all so thoughtful. I must say that his conversation poems, "Bat to Ball" and the bawdy "Bat and glove talking about a ball" are particularly memorable. So is his meditation on baseball's inevitable downer, "Slump". Schipper tosses us a nice curve when the title of his collection is not the title of a poem, but the closing lines to "Body and Soul":
"Both bat and glove dream of the ball;
the ball dreams of the sky."
A simple love of baseball is also conveyed in "Eephus," a sleeper indie hit by first time director Carson Lund. The setting is small town Douglas, Massachetts, south of Worcester and an hour west of Boston. The time is probably the early 1990s when the local Soldier's Field will be torn down after the season to be replaced by a school.
Anyone who has played softball with aging ardent players will relate to the competition. The mastery of Lund's direction is that we don't take sides for either team - it is just the game we are following as the autumn leaves are falling and watchers - not really fans - come by to observe. Lund has chosen his actors well, no names recognizable except to cineastes.
Bill "Spaceman" Lee does pitch a late inning as the tied game heads towards a climax. Lee is very good playing himself. (I'd like to believe he apologized to his onetime Red Sox manager, baseball lifer the late Don Zimmer, who he lampooned and nicknamed the Gerbil - I don't think he did.) A pleasant surprise is Joe Castiglione, recently inducted Hall of Fame Red Sox broadcaster, who does a convincing turn as a world-weary food cart driver. My only criticism of the film is that it drags in the later stages. It is one thing to experience as a player oncoming darkness on a field with no lights. As a moviegoer, there is nothing dramatic about approaching darkness.
I predict that Schipper's poems and Lund's film will stand the test of time. As for predictions for the upcoming MLB season, I don't have many. With so many injuries on so many teams, I remain an ardent Joaquin Andujarist. The late MLB pitcher memorably said: "There is only one word to understand baseball - 'Youneverknow!'"
I will say that I expect former Oriole outfielder Anthony Santander will hit well in his new uniform for the Blue Jays. Toronto plays the Birds seven times in the first weeks of the season - including later today Th Mar 27. The revenge element can never be ignored as long as the player sticks to his mechanics and doesn't try to do too much.
As for surprise teams - there are always a couple because of the long long season - I think the Athletics - temporarily in Sacramento until their move to Las Vegas by the end of the decade - will be improved. They have spent some money on experienced players and their youngsters played well in the last half of 2024. I do hope that when and if that new stadium in Las Vegas opens, they will have made room for a visiting team's bullpen - at last glance, such a "little thing" had not been included in the plans.
FINAL NOTES ON COLLEGE BASKETBALL:
*NYU'S Division III women Violets repeated as National Champions and their winning streak is now 62.
*NYU men's team lost its final to Trinity CT by 4 points.
*Coiumbia's women's team beat U of Washington in the First Four of Division I March Madness and lost to West Virginia by 19 in the second round.
*Wisconsin men cagers lost 91-89 in the second round to Brigham Young as all-Big Ten forward John Tonge could not get off a full shot because of superior defense by
Mawot Mag, the Australian graduate transfer who previously played at Rutgers.
**Wisconsin athletic pride was restored when the #1 seeded UW women's hockey team rallied from a 3-1 late deficit to beat Ohio State in OT.
Here are some closing TCM tips:
F Mar 28 12M (Sa Mar 29) "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950) John Huston directs a classic noir with Jean Hagen/Sterling Hayden/Sam Jaffe. Based on the W.R. Burnett novel.
Su Mar 30 1215A, 10A Noir Alley debuts "Count The Hours" (1953) Don Siegel directs Teresa Wright/MacDonald Carey - Talk about relevance: "A lawyer defends a migrant work in a sensational murder trial"
Su Mar 30 10PM "The Lady In Question" (1940) Charles Vidor directs Glenn Ford & Rita Hayworth six years before their memorable tussles in "Gilda"
Always remember: Take it easy but take it, and stay positive test negative (at least for as long as RFK Jr allows it)