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Okay, here’s the last of our extended riffing on Fat City. From John Huston’s autobiography An Open Book:

I had done bits of films in the United States, but it was a long time since I’d made an entire picture there. Ray Stark was responsible for my reappearance on the American scene with Fat City, a novel by Leonard Gardner. “Fat City is a term jazz musicians used to designate success with a capital “S.” It’s about people who are beaten before they start but who never stop dreaming. Its main characters are two fights: one aging, slightly paunchy, who’s had his moment of glory in the ring who whose next stop is Skid Row, and his younger counterpart who’s headed in the same direction despite the living lesson before his eyes.

We had hope to have Marlon Brando play the part of the older fighter. Ray and I ment him in London. He had read the script and liked it, but refused to be pinned down, saying that he would call us by the end of the week. The time passed, we heard nothing. I despair at chasing actors, so we started looking elsewhere. (Some time later I heard Marlon had injured feelings at having been “passed over.”) The man we found was another actor whose star was rising–Stacy Keach. I had never met him, but when I found that he was making a picture in Spain, I went over and paid him a visit. There was a quality there. I also saw him in a beautiful, sadly neglected little film called The Traveling Executioner. His performance was exceptional, and I knew I was lucky to have him in Fat City.

Most of the other actors–apart from Jeff Bridges, who had a few pictures to his credit, and Susan Tyrell, who’d done some theater–were non-professional. som of the cast came right out of my own past–fighters I’d known in my youth. Others turned up in Stockton itself. I remember particularly one black man we pulled out of the onion fields to try for a part. In the film he was to walk side by side with Stacy, hoeing weeds in a tomato field and telling a long story about the break-up of his marriage. This old fellow came to my apartment and read for me, his eyes glued to the pages of the script. He read as though the words were his very own. I asked him whether he tought he could learn the part.

“I already have,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t read. I was just pretending.” Someone had read the part to him a few times, and he had memorized it.

Then there was an arrogant sixteen-year-old black kid from the local high school. When Muhammad Ali saw him on the screen during a special showing I had for him, he stood up and shouted, “Stop the picture! That’s me up there! Listen to that…that’s me! you hear?” The kid was that good.

We shot most of the picture of Stockton’s Skid Row. It’s now a thing of the past; they’ve wiped it out. I wonder where all the poor devils who inhabited have gone. They have to be somewhere. There were crummy little hotels; gaps between buildings like missing teeth; people–blacks and whites–standing around or sitting on orange crates; little gambling halls where they played for nickels and dimes. Many of the signs were in Chinese because the area had a large Chinese population. The police were very gentle with the derelicts. As long as they stayed within the sharply defined boundaries of the neighborhood, they could sleep in doorways, win bottle in hand; if they wandered out, the police simply shooed them back. They were completely harmless, defeated men.

Fat City had a great reception when it was first shown, at Cannes in 1972. After the screening I walked into an adjoining hall to meet the press, and they gave me a standing ovation. When that happened, i was sure it was going to be a success. But no. Wherever it was shown, it was beautifully reviewed, but audiences didn’t care for it. It’s a fine picture, no question–well conceived, well acted, made with deep love and considerable understanding on the part of everyone involved. I suppose the public simply found it too sad. It has at least one devoted fan: Ray Stark considers it the best picture he has ever produced.

When I was younger I used to day dream about being the good samaritan hero. I’d save an old lady from being hit by a car, or take a bullet for my girlfriend. Then I’d be in the papers and I would be humble. It spoke to my sense of insecurity. I felt that if I could be a hero, if I could prove myself, people would recognize me as a good guy. They would appreciate me.

A spell of Indian Summer hit New York yesterday. This morning, the humidity covered the autumn chill like a heavy wet blanket. The sun was shining. I walked out of my apartment building, a block away to 238th street, and turned right. 238th street is a narrow block that runs downhill. I looked up and saw the fat bearded man that I see every morning on the far end of the block with his three small children waiting for the school bus. Today, he was in the middle of the block, having just walked out of his apartment building.

He walked to the curb and then crossed the street. His kids trailed behind him but didn’t go across the street. The smallest son, maybe five or six years old, was closest behind him. The boy wore a blue yarmulke that covered his head; he was weighed down from behind by his backpack. The boy stopped at the curb and watched his father. I was about thirty or forty feet away, looking downhill at them. I absent-mindedly watched the father and wondered what he was doing on the other side of the street.

The second son, taller, though not by much, than his brother, watched his father too but didn’t stop at the curb.  Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw a car coming down the hill. The boy didn’t stop so I shouted. I don’t remember what I said but I said it loudly enough for the boy to stop dead in his tracks. The car came to a halt too. And everything was quiet. It was like pressing pause on a VCR. It was about to happen and then it didn’t.

Everyone was awake now.

The father, standing on the other side of the street, looked at me and then at his son. “What is the matter with you,” he said in a thick accent that I couldn’t place. “I said to stay there.”

I looked at the driver of the car, a metallic-blue sedan. She was in her forties I guessed. She looked back at me, a flat expression on her face. I looked down and exhaled. I thought of the boy, seeing me tomorrow, and every day after that, mortified at my presence, a reminder of his carelessness. Then again, maybe he’d already forgotten about me.

I apologized to the boy. And then, to the father, “I just wanted to get his attention.” The father said something back but I don’t remember what it was. I looked at the driver again, she turned back ahead and the car rolled away.

She would have hit the boy if I hadn’t said anything. I thought about the anxiety that parents must live with every day and I started to sweat as I walked away. I imagined the impact, the reaction on the father’s face, the blood, screaming. I thought of the boy in rehab learning to walk again, a funeral.

I didn’t feel special. I felt unsure and insignificant. I had a thought to walk back home, wake up my wife and hug her but I kept walking down the hill. I thought about how safe and small my life is and how everything can change in a moment. I didn’t speak but I could feel my voice going away, like water down the drain.

I didn’t feel heroic. I felt like I was going to be sick.

After today’s game, the Yanks are done with the Angels and the west coast for now. 

AJ looks to put together another solid start.

Hell with the beach balls, let’s go Yan-Kees.

by Hank Waddles

I am optimistic to a fault. There are some things that I worry about, I suppose, but in general I assume that everything’s going to work out for the best. Perhaps that’s what drew me to baseball as a boy. Baseball is a game of hope, much more so than any other sport out there, in the long term as much as the short. If you’ve ever watched until the last pitch with your team down seven runs or thought about your team’s playoff rotation in the early days of March, you know what I mean. Baseball is hope.

Except when the Yankees are playing the Angels. I can’t explain what happens to me when these two teams hook up, especially when the games are in Anaheim. Take Tuesday night, for instance. A normal person would’ve looked at that early 5-0 lead and felt confident. The optimist would note that Ervin Santana was getting hit hard and that Chad Gaudin looked remarkably like a number four starter, but the pessimist would answer that Santana’s diving changeup had led to seven early strikeouts and that Gaudin was, well, Chad Gaudin.

The optimist would look at all those two-out, two-strike counts and head for the kitchen to grab a snack, but instead I sat nailed the couch, certain something bad was on the way. Sure enough, something bad usually was. It started in the fateful fifth, when an Angel hitter worked a full count after two were already out. (The name on the jersey said Figgins, but we all know it could’ve been any of a dozen pesky Angles, all cut from the same bedeviling cloth. In fact, I’m not sure why they don’t just stitch ECKSTEIN on everyone’s back and be done with it.) Rather than striking out and grabbing his glove, Figgins lofted a pop fly to right which slithered around the foul pole. It was cheaper than any Yankee Stadium home run, which seemed just about right. Damn those Angels.

Two batters later, our old friend Bobby Abreu earned another full count, but Gaudin walked him, and to borrow a phrase from Vin Scully, the Angels finally had a look at the game. Up next was Vlad Guerrero, who quickly hacked his way to an 0-2 count. If ever there were a time to throw a pitch about two feet off the plate, this was it, but instead Gaudin spun a little breaking ball belt high across the center of the plate. The only surprise was that the ball stayed in the park. Minutes earlier Gaudin had been a single pitch away from five shutout innings and a shot at a win; now he was walking slowly to the bench.

Vulture Aceves quickly got out of the fifth inning, but the Angels kept chipping away, scoring their third run when pinch hitter Gary Matthews, Jr., lined an 0-2 (!) pitch to right, and their fourth when Abreu drew a bases-loaded walk on a 3-2 pitch. In the eighth, Yankee-killer Howie Kendrick reached on an error by Canó, then took off for second on the first pitch and kept going to third when Posada’s throw sailed into the outfield. Moments later Kendrick was trotting in behind a Macier Izturis single, and the game was tied. Damn those Angels.

But then a funny thing happened. Brett Gardner walked up to the plate to lead off the ninth inning, and my optimism returned. “If Gardner gets on base here, the Yankees will win,” I told myself. “He’ll steal second on the first pitch and someone will knock him in.” I had it almost right.

Gardner singled and stole second on the secondpitch. The Yankees managed to survive some questionable bunting decisions (Jeter squared on a 3-0 pitch, but I have to believe he was taking all the way, and Damon followed with a risky two-strike bunt that pushed the runners to second and third) and A-Rod game up with a chance to win the game. He turned on the first pitch he saw from Darren Oliver, sending a sac fly to left and plating Gardner with the winning run.

Rivera closed up shop, and my optimistic heart started pumping again. Instead of worrying about a sweep, I was now expecting A.J. Burnett to bring home a series win with a good start on Wednesday. Instead of worrying about the division lead, I noted that the Yankees had clinched a playoff spot, ending our long national nightmare. Instead of obsessing on the Angels, I thought about the Twins and Tigers and a path to the World Series.

Is it too early for that? Of course not. Baseball is hope.

The Yanks are on the brink of clinching a playoff spot. Why not tonight? Yeah, I know Chad Gaudin is pitching but the Yanks have to pick it up one of these nights.

Why not tonight in the land of light and sun?

Go git ’em, dudes.  Let’s Go Yan-kees!

Last Friday night, Emma and I talked to Pete Hamill before a showing of Fat City at the Film Forum. I asked him about Pete Dexter (Hamill wrote the introduction to Paper Trails, a collection of Dexter’s columns and magazine articles). He said he’d gotten a copy of Spooner, Dexter’s eighth novel, but had not read it yet. Hamill told us that he’s got a couple of months left on a novel of his own and that it is his policy not to read anything by someone as good as Dexter while he’s writing.

And Pete Dexter is scary good.

Hamill’s story made me feel better about myself because a month ago, when I was working a story for SI.com, I picked up Dexter’s novel, Train, and read the first three pages. I put it down not knowing whether to be inspired or depressed. Of course it is crazy for a young writer like me to compare myself with a master like Dexter, but Hamill’s point is well taken–he only reads translations while he’s writing and will save the likes of Dexter for when he’s finished.

When I handed my SI piece in,  I landed a copy of Spooner. And I didn’t feel intimidated. I felt elated.

I rarely read fiction. I did read novels in high school and college–I remember my dad hipping me to John O’Hara. I read Brideshead Revisited to impress a teacher who refused to be impressed with me. I went through a Faulkner phase, a Graham Greene period, and I became familiar with writers and their place in history. But I haven’t been drawn to short stories or novels for the past fifteen years.

Lately, though, as I talk to writers about writing, novelists keep coming up, so I’ve made some attempts to get back into fiction. I started but did not finish five novels this summer. I forced my way through Fat City, which was not pleasurable even if I was happy that I did it. Recently, I spoke to a friend who has the same aversion to fiction and he said he’s just learning how to luxuriate in a novel.

Then I read Spooner, and I was entranced. I read it on the subway to work, walking down the street, waiting in line for lunch, and standing in the shower. In some ways, it felt like the first novel I’d ever read because I couldn’t help but look at it for the plumbing–the technique–as much as I did for the story.

I made many small discoveries for myself–how to transition from one time period to another, like Dexter does in Chapter 21, how to use evocative and clear images, like when Dexter describes the corpse of an obese congressman:

The congressman looked vaguely uncomfortable, his hair unmussed and perfect, decked out in a pinstriped Brooks Brothers suit which, truth be told, did him no favors, figure-wise, an effect enhanced perhaps by the fact that he was barefoot, his feet a color of blue similar to the hanging meat, and swollen well beyond the recognizable shape of human feet, as if they had been squeezed out of the pants’ legs like toothpaste.

Dexter’s voice is clear, true, and very funny. Reading the book reminded me of watching Mariano Rivera pitch. Dexter’s prose is seemingly effortless, it washes over you so smoothly, that it is easy to forget how much skill and craft are involved.

Spooner is an autobiographical novel. In the acknowledgments, Dexter writes, “The book by the way is a novel, not in any sense a memoir, but is nevertheless based loosely on the events and characters from my own life.”  Spooner gets into trouble often as a kid–he pisses in a neighbor’s shoes, sits on an ant hill, almost kills the star play on his high school baseball team during practice.

He grows up to become a reporter and then a columnist, like Dexter. He works in Philadelphia were he is involved in a brutal bar fight that leaves him half-dead. The heavyweight boxer, Randall “Tex” Cobb was Dexter’s good friend. He too was involved in that fight, and Cobb is fictionalized in Spooner.

A few years ago, Steve Volk wrote a good profile on Dexter for Philadelphia Weekly:

The way Dexter explains it, the beat down he suffered is an anecdote he feels personally if not publicly free from. “If I was going over the top 100 most important experiences in my life, that night would probably be somewhere in there. But it wouldn’t make the top 25.”

His brother Tom also thinks the event’s influence has been overstated. “When you look at everything in its totality,” he says, “what happened, what he’s done and everything since then–being married for almost 30 years, raising a child, all those things in life and all the achievements, I think that night was maybe a little turn in the road, but I don’t think it was formative or transformative. Everything since then is just stuff he worked for.”

The beating and its aftermath does play a critical part in Spooner. It is the incident that effectively sobers Spooner up. In the second half of the book, he is constantly holding himself back, trying to do the mature thing (he doesn’t respond to a provocative letter from his mother, resists the temptation to assault a thoughtless neighbor). Spooner doesn’t want his true nature to destroy his family, doesn’t want to push his wife to the edge like he did when he was beaten in that bar in Philly. When he realizes how much he loves his wife and their daughter, Spooner gets scared for the first time in his life–the thought of losing them terrifies him.

This turn of events really go to me. I feel that way all the time about my wife.

The narrative is sprawling, some characters that you think might play a more important part (like Spooner’s siblings), don’t. It doesn’t feel like a perfect book, and that’s part of what I like about it.  It is touching and hilarious and absurd, but it is never cheap. During some tense moments, I found myself skimming ahead just to make sure nothing horrific happened to any of the lead characters. When I was assured that there were no two-bit John Irving twists of fate, relieved, I went back and continued reading slowly again. How did my friend put it? I learned how to luxuriate in a novel.

In the end, the book is about how difficult it is for men to express their feelings of gratitude and love for each other. One time, Dexter wrote a column about sitting on an airplane next to a distraught ten-year-old boy. The kid’s mother had put him on the plane, and he was on his way to visit his grandparents. But he had forgotten to tell his mother that he loved her, and now he couldn’t stop crying. “And I knew what was pulling at him,” Dexter wrote. “The same thing pulls at me too. The worry that things have been left unclear.”

Spooner loves his step-father Calmer to no end, but is unable to tell him as much. And Calmer doesn’t give him an in. If Dexter was never able to express this to his step-father, I have no way of knowing of course, but the relationship he creates between Spooner and Calmer is a love story. The book is a love poem, a tribute to Calmer. Spooner is forever trying to find a way to draw closer to the man who showed him infinite patience and understanding.

He can’t bridge the gap. Dexter does–with empathy and grace.

He brings it all home.

Chyll Will makes Hank Waddles a star.

Is God Needed a DJ.

That was the subject line of an e-mail I received yesterday from my friend Jared Boxx, co-owner of  Big City Records, sharing the sad news that DJ Roc Raida has died. Jared writes:

Letting friends know about this tragic loss, for us, for hip hop and especially for his family. Visiting Raida at his home in May, one thing was clear, he was really excited about his new love for this certain style of martial arts. You could see his years of dedication to the art of turntablism had matured into the daily mastering of this martial arts. It made perfect sense, the practice, the competitiveness and achieving the degrees of difficulty was all elements he was familiar with in his years of DJ-ing. I quickly saw how important & loved he was by his wife & children, & how life in Maryland was keeping them all happy. Raida was involved in a freak accident during a competition a few weeks back & suffered a spinal cord injury. He was cared for immediately, & received multiple surgeries in the days that followed. Though word traveled that things we’re looking better, I was told today he has succumbed to his injuries & has said goodbye to us.

He brought the art form to another level, his own way, in his own style, a true original, that will be greatly missed.

I remember seeing Raida the first time I visited Fat Beats, back when it was on ninth street below street level. This was in the fall of 1995. The store was cramped and not knowing my way around, I felt intimidated. Sinister, who was part of the X-Men DJ crew with Raida, was there, and he was friendly. I recalled being relieved that everyone wasn’t going to give me a hard time with their too-cool-for-school record shop front.

Raida was there too. He stood quietly in a corner sipping from a bottle of Heineken. He was the kind of guy who looked as if he was always holding back a smile, the corners of his mouth curled ever so slightly as if he was in on a joke that nobody else knew from. I spoke with him years later on a few occasions at The Sound Library and found him to be a good dude. I greatly admired his ability and creativity as a DJ.

I was sorry to hear this news.

Big football day in New York as the Yanks try to leave Seattle with a win. Time to come out slammin’, hackin, and mashin.

Bring it on, boys.

By Hank Waddles

If you missed last night’s game at Safeco Field, the only thing you really need to know is that the season almost came crashing down like so much Seattle rain when Franklin Gutiérrez smashed a line drive off CC Sabathia’s chest with two out in the bottom of the fifth inning. The ball ricocheted over to third base, but Alex Rodríguez didn’t even seem to look at Gutiérrez, instead racing to the mound along with Jeter to check on the big fella. My first thought was that the ball had surely snapped his collar bone, and I struggled to push from my mind the image of A.J. Burnett taking the ball to open the playoffs. Thankfully, Sabathia had been hit square in the chest, and immediately signaled that he was fine. Even so, with the Yanks having just stretched their lead to a comfortable 6-0 by scoring four in the top half of the inning (more on that later), I fully expected that CC’s night was over. Better safe than sorry, right?

But Sabathia shooed Girardi away without even bothering with a warm-up pitch, then cruised through the rest of the fifth as well as the sixth and seventh on his way to a league-leading 18th win. With Beckett’s well-documented struggles and Verlander’s Metrodome disaster, only Sabathia, King Felix, and Zack Greinke remain in the race for the Cy Young. Sure, Greinke will get a lot of deserving support, as will Hernández, but when was the last time either of those guys pitched in a game that really mattered?

But back to the game. As good as CC was, it didn’t matter too much what the hitters did, but they did a lot, putting to rest all of last night’s silliness about how the team might respond after Rivera’s blown save. Johnny Damon rapped out another three hits, Robinson Canó added four of his own, and even Francisco Cervelli added two. Wouldn’t he look good on the post season roster, Joe?

But the big story was Mark Teixeira, who either almost hit for the cycle or almost hit three homeruns, depending on how you want to look at it. He launched a drive to the depths of centerfield in the first inning, and just as it was about to scrape over the wall, Gutiérrez reached over and flipped it back into play, missing the catch but allowing Big Tex to lumber all the way to third for his third triple this week. He then hit a three-run homer to right in the fifth and followed that up with a broken-bat single in the seventh, leaving him just a double shy of the cycle when he led off the ninth inning. Batting from the right side for the first time on the night, Teixeira rocked a Luke French changeup towards the gap in left center. Certainly a double, maybe more.

In Girardi’s presser he’d later reveal that Jeter was yelling for the ball to get down and hit the wall, but Tex had simply gotten too much of it, and it soared deep into the night and over the fence. As Teixeira smirked his way around the bases, everything seemed back to normal. Another win. Even though the Red Sox keep rolling, and the Angels are looming next week, things still look good. The magic numbers are dwindling (9 for the division, 2 for the wild card), and it’s almost time to start resting some regulars and juggling the starters to line them up for the post season.

Also, now’s the time of year when we can start looking at a few milestones. Robby Canó’s four hits upped his season total to 193. Jeter’s at 196, meaning the Yankees will likely have two players topping the 200-hit mark for the first time since 2002 when Bernie Williams and Alfonso Soriano turned the trick. Also, Hideki Matsui hit his 26th home run of the season, and I mention this for two reasons. One, he set the record for most home runs by a Yankee designated hitter, which is quite a mouthful. (I was a bit disappointed that the YES crew didn’t interview his parents or the scout who signed him in Japan, but maybe that’s coming during Sunday’s game.) More importantly, though, I’ll never get tired of the shtick that Jeter pulls whenever Matsui homers. You know how it goes. Jeter stands on the top step, staring at Matsui as he trots towards the dugout, maintaining a stony expression until the last minute when he breaks into a grin. Sure, the pie-in-the-face is nice, the helmet-bouquet-toss is clever, but this little thing, the Captain giving some shit to another veteran, just might be my favorite. I love this team, and I really, really can’t wait for October.

Mr Sabathia is on the hill tonight in Seattle as the Yanks look to bounce back from last night’s loss. That one smarted but a small, superstitious part of me was relieved, figuring that Mo was going to have to blow one sooner or later and better now than in October. The Red Sox are charging, so while we know the Yanks will be in the playoffs, the division is not locked-up yet.

How ’bout a win tonight?

Go git ’em boys!

“Sometimes you only get to win one championship.” –Leonard Gardner

Did you ever rent a movie and then return it without watching it?

I’ve rented John Huston’s Fat City at least twice in my life but never watched it. I can’t explain why. Chalk it up to my mood at the time. After all, Huston is one of my favorite directors and Jeff Bridges one of my favorite actors.

Fat City is based on Leonard Gardner’s novel of the same name. The book is less than 200 pages long, and the story is almost unbearably grim. It is about boxing and drinking in Stockton, California. It is about losers losing. And although the prose is lean and clear, it is also dense–you can almost feel how much effort went into making it so direct and spare.

It was a tough book for me to get through, even though it wasn’t long. I read it because I thought it would be good for me not because I enjoyed it. I admired the artistry–the writing was superb, but I found the story bleak and depressing. When I finished it, I thought, Now, there is a world I don’t need to visit again. No wonder I never watched the movie.

I felt compelled to read the book because Huston’s movie started a two-week run at the Film Forum last night. George Kimball and Pete Hamill introduced the movie and then stuck around to answer questions when it was over. Hamill said that Gardner’s novel is one of the three best boxing novels ever written, along with The Professional by W.C. Heinz, and The Harder they Fall by Budd Schulberg. Kimball who is a walking encyclopedia of boxing knowledge talked about how Huston cast boxers and non-actors in the movie, how he insisted that it be shot in Stockton to preserve the book’s authenticity, how the producer Ray Stark wanted to fire the DP, the great Conrad Hall, because the scenes inside the bars were so dark.

Kimball also tried to explain the biggest question about Gardner (one that Gardner is probably asked daily)–why was Fat City the only book he ever wrote? Gardner continued to write short stories and journalism–I remember reading a piece he did for Inside Sports on the first Leonard-Duran fight–and eventually went to Hollywood to write for television. David Milch taught Fat City when he was at Yale and got Gardner work on NYPD Blue, which proves that Milch isn’t all bad (although he famously ripped-off Pete Dexter’s novel Deadwood for his TV series).

Kimball didn’t know the exact reason why Gardner has never written another book. He said Gardner’s never offered a reason and he’s never  pressed him for one. Kimball’s guess is that Gardner wrote such a perfectly realized book in Fat City that he figured could never reach that height again. So why bother trying?  Kimball said that Fat City was 400 pages long and Gardner kept honing it, pairing it down, like a master chef making a reduction.

Whatever the reason, it is easy to see why Huston was attracted to the story.  Hamill said that Huston spent his life making one movie for the studio and then one for himself. And this was one of his personal movies. He has great affection for the characters and the place and while he captures the unhappiness of Gardner’s book, I think the movie is has far more humor. There was some funny banter in the book but it didn’t come across as amusing to me. But the moment we see Nicholas Colasanto (better known to my generation as Coach from Cheers), the sound of his voice is warming, and cuts into the despair. So does the soundtrack.

Huston’s directorial style is also an ideal fit for Gardner’s prose. I remember once reading an article about Huston in American Film when he was making his final film, The Dead (another personal project). His son Tony was surprised at how skilled his father’s camera technique was.  And the old man said, “It’s what I do best, yet no critic has ever remarked on it. That’s exactly as it should be. If they noticed it, it wouldn’t be any good.”

In Huston’s movies–The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Prizzi’s Honor–you don’t notice the style, you follow the story. Gardner, who wrote the screenplay with Huston, was blessed to have this man in his corner. The boxing scenes are strong. You feel close to the action, but nothing is forced or stylistic–it’s not like the Rocky movies or Raging Bull. In fact, you can see the ropes in the frame often, putting us just outside of the ring. The boxers sometimes look clunky but since they aren’t supposed to be great fighters, it works. And in Keach’s big fight scene you can feel the fighter’s exhaustion, their bodies getting heavy, by the second round.

Stacey Keach and Jeff Bridges are terrific (so when is Bridges not terrific?). There is a dignity to the characters, no matter how laid-out they are.  There is a tremendous shot, a long take, when Keach and his trainers and their wives leave the arena after a fight, followed by a broken-down Mexican fighter that illustrates this beautifully.

Keach wears a silver braclet in the movie that was exactly like the kind my father wore during that period, when I was a young kid. But my old man was a middle-class drunk, so the comparisons end there. However, the bar scenes, the life of drunks, rang true and reminded me of my father’s alcoholism.  There is a lot of drinking during the day, and Kimball remarked on the blinding light that greets you once you stumble out into the daylight. Like when you come out of a movie theater in the middle of the day–but more woozy and disorienting.

It is that kind of touch that makes Huston’s movie effective. Nothing much happens in the story. But it feels authentic, taking the essence of Gardner’s book and making it into a story for the screen.

Okay, so this isn’t really funk but still, you don’t have to be on Soul Train to dance to it.

Pete Abraham is leaving town. He’s accepted a job with the Boston Globe and will be returning home to cover the Red Sox. The future of his Yankee blog, which has become a staple in this small corner of the blogosphere, without warning, is uncertain. Someone will take his place of course, but the Pete Abe era of Yankee coverage is over. And that comes as an unpleasant shock.

Congratulations are in order. Because Pete has served us well. Spoiled us, really–which is only fitting, being Yankee fans and all. He was the first beat writer in New York to embrace the concept of blogging. He got it as a way of communicating with the world–how to be engaging, candid, informational, compulsive. It didn’t take any stroke of genuis on his part to post uncut audio from the locker rooms just common sense, a feel for what the audience wants. Nobody else took advantage and Pete ran with it. He’s made a name for himself.

It hard for Yankee fans on the web not to go to his site numrous times each day.

Pete’s gain is our loss, sure, but this is still great news. He deserves it. After all, how could he pass up a chance like this? Even as the newspaper business crumbles and morphs into something different, the Boston Globe is Big Time and you don’t pass up a chance at Pay Dirt when it comes your way. Not an easy cherce–he’s leaving behind some great pals in Tyler Kepner and Mark Feinsand and Sweeny Murti–just the right one.

In a few weeks, Pete will be blogging about the Red Sox, which sure is a funky turn of events–I feel like a dog with its head tilted to the side in wonderment. How will Sox fans will take to him at first? Will his Lo-Hud readership feel betrayed? Blogging for the Enemy. I’m curious to see how it plays out.

In the meantime, a gaping hole now exists in Yankee coverage on-line. River Avenue Blues does a stellar job with information and insight, and there are any number of other engaging Yankee sites, but who is going to replace Pete?

It can’t just be anybody. It has to be someone who loves to interact with his audience the way Pete does, who is willing to feed our insatiable appetitte for information, for the news, for what’s shakin’–Now. I’m not saying it can’t be done. In fact, there is an opportunity for a new voice inside the press box to step in and fill the void. But the bar is set and it is set high. Pete has left his stamp on how the Yankees are covered and how we follow them.

So, a toast. You earned it, big fella. Glad to see you bringing all home.

Leo Durocher, a fabulously uncouth so-and-so, is one of the most memorable characters in baseball history. His autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last, written by Ed Linn is one of my favorite sports books. I remember Bill James pointing it out in one of his old books, and if I recall correctly, he praised Linn’s abilities as a ghost-writer (Linn also penned Veeck as in Wreck, a book with Ted Williams and one with the bank-robber Willie Sutton). Linn had a terrific ability to capture each distinct voice.

Anyhow, it goes without saying that Nice Guys Finish Last is a classic that belongs on any self-respecting sport fan’s bookshelf. Fortunately, you don’t have to go hunting too far for a copy these days, as it has just been re-issued by the University of Chicago Press.

Diggum.

Henry Gibson, one of the great character actors of all-time has passed away.

Raise a glass, spill some on the floor, whatever you like. But a moment please, for a fine actor.