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Opening Day Is Too Early, But The Poetry of "The Ball Dreams Of The Sky" & the Indie Movie "Eephus" Will Last For Many Seasons To Come + TCM Tips

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)

 

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Breaking News! Sat night Mar 22 10PM TCM underrated "Angels in the Outfield" (1951) + Updates on Columbia Women & Wisconsin Men Basketball

I usually end my blogs with TCM tips. But time is of the essence now. You're in for a treat tomorrow night Mar 22.

 TCM airs the original - accept no substitutes! - "Angels in the Outfield" from MGM in 1951.  It is directed by Clarence Brown, the man who learned his craft in early days of

silent movies from Maurice Tourneur [father of the Noir director Jacques Tourneur ["Out of the Past", "Easy Living" the 1949 version and many more], Clarence Brown became the man whose craft made Greta Garbo a star and later shepherded Elizabeth Taylor in her first films.

 

"Angels" stars Paul Douglas, a onetime pro football player and NBC announcer/sportscaster who made his acting name in the Broadway version of "Born Yesterday". He plays Guffy McGovern, the crusty manager of the tailend Pittsburgh Pirates who becomes a winner thanks to the human touch of 24-year-old Janet Leigh playing a Household Hints reporter for a Pittsburgh newspaper. (Pgh natives will love the on-location photography of Forbes Field and its environs - Ralph Kiner hits a home run in one scene and Sam Narron, one of the 8 Narrons in pro ball, has a line as s first base coach.) Douglas's biggest help comes from the orphan girl Bridget played by 8-year-old Donna Corcoran who didn't become the next Shirley Temple but she lives in posterity for this believable part. 

 

Bridget sees angels in the outfield helping the Pirates win games.  Her supervising nuns are played by Spring Byington and Ellen Corby. Keenan Wynn plays a nasty broadcaster as only this talented actor can. He leads a crusade to ban Guffy from baseball for being loony enough to see angels. (Bat Guano in "Dr. Strangelove" was a few years ahead in Wynn's future.)

 

James Whitmore is the uncredited voice of angel Gabriel, coach of the Heavenly Choir.   I can't fail to mention Bruce Bennett who plays aging pitcher Saul Hellman/ Bennett is probably the best athlete ever to play in the movies (he won the silver medal in the shot put in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics and earlier played for Washington Huskies n 1926 Rose Bowl.)  Bennett was notable opposite Ida Lupino in "The Man I Love" (1946) and vital to the success of "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1946). 

If you disagree on my enthusiasm for this film, feel free to make comments. 

 

If this film is not enough for the first Sat night of spring, before "Angels" there is a 15-minute short, "Donkey Baseball" (1935), one of promoter Ray Doan's many hustles during the Great Depression.  After "Angels", Babe Ruth stars in a 1936 short, "Home Run on the Keys" with Rez Confrey who made a hit with "Kitten on the Keys".  Babe is trying to sell a song about baseball to the radio.  Have not seen this one and it could be a hoot.   

 

AND NOW SOME EXCITING NYC HOOPS NEWS! 

At 4p today Fri Mar 21 NYU men's basketball team plays for Division III title against Trinity from Hartford CT. Also at 4P the women go for their second straight title and their 62nd win in a row in a rematch against Smith of Northampton MA.  Use your search engines to find where you can see these games.

 

My Columbia women's team won their First Four game in thrilling fashion last night (Th Mar 20).  Trailing by 13 at the half, aggressive defense and timely offense pulled

off a 63-60 victory.  Next up tomorrow Sa Mar 22 at 2P on ESPNEWS is West Virginia University.  Followed by Harvard, conquerors of Columbia in the Ivy League tourney.

 

Wisconsin Badger men live on with a Saturday match against tough Brigham Young tomorrow (Sa Mar 22) 745P CBS - all times are EDT.

It has been a dream college season for yours truly.  Columbia women were expected to do well and they have exceeded expectations.

Wisconsin men were picked for 12th in the now-18-team Big Ten.  The Badgers are proof that players with the help of coaching preparation win games, not pundits or fans.

But how we love to root them on.

 

More next time on today's MLB which opened the season in Tokyo earlier this week with two predictable wins of the Dodgers over the Cubs.  Baseball should

open the season in Cincinnati where it used to for many many years.  And if they claim that Jackie Robinson's debut game on April 15 1947 was the greatest

moment in the sport's history, why not start the season then?  Of course, the powers don't believe that about JR's debut. They even purged that story from their website as "DEI infected" until they were shamed to return it. 

 

But I will not end this post on a down snarky note.  "It's not my style," Ricky Nelson says to John Wayne in "Rio Bravo".  Instead I will give the last word to

Columbia women's coach Megan Griffith in the post-game presser after the 63-60 win over Washington:

"I like to teach young people how to do hard things together - maybe it's something missing in today's society."

 

Amen sister!  Until next time, stay positive test negative and take it easy but take it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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