I took the wife to see Jeff Bridges last night and he was unassuming and releaxed, tall and handsome, with the best head of hair this side of Ted Berg, and a winning, high-pitched, nerdy laugh. He talked about the anxiety some roles carry because they are so rich that “you don’t want to blow it. It’s like being a wide receiver and running a long route and the ball is thrown and you can see it and you’ve got it in your sights…” And you don’t want to blow it. Bridges said that was how he felt with the roll of Bad Blake in his new movie, Crazy Heart.

I was curious to know what movies he felt like he did drop the ball, where he didn’t achieve what he was looking for. I would have also liked to know more about his relationship with his brother, Beau. I asked him about the difference between being a stage actor and a film actor and he talked about his experience on the movie version of The Iceman Cometh, but he didn’t say why he has avoided the stage.

Bridges spoke lovingly about his parents and how they encouraged their kids to become actors. He said, “Acting is advanced pretending.” He also said that he goes out of his way to turn down work because of how much time it takes him away from his personal life and his family. He mentioned that he’d been away from home for 11 of the last 14 months, and that generally, by the end of a picture, he’s exhausted and just wants to return to being himself.

He did speak about how he approaches a role. First, by reading the script, and not only his character’s scenes but the entire script to know how the other characters feel about his character. Then he draws on his own experience and mostly friends, picking and choosing nuances. He said that for Starman, where he plays an alien who inhabits a human body, he leaned on a dancer friend who had very specific and articulated body language. He talked about learning how to imitate human gestures, and suddenly sat up and crossed his legs in a rigid manner. It was uncanny. In that brief moment, he was that alien again. It was subtle, just a slight physical gesture, but he had changed.

I received a VHS tape of the NFL Film’s Crunch Course production as a bonus for subscribing to Sports Illustrated. It was the last time I subscribed to the magazine, must have been ’86 or ’87. Back then, I loved professional football as much, if not more, than I loved baseball. And while my devotion to the NFL would not last much longer, the Crunch Course tape endures. It explains what attracted me to the game–violence. Glorious, cinematic, hyperbolic, violence.

In anticipation of the playoffs this weekend, here’s the entire show, in five segments.

Grrrrrr–ufff.

And that’s word to Kenny Easley.

We end the look back on ’90s Hip Hop with this classic joint from Kurious Jorge, Mike G of the Jungle Brothers and Sadat X.

Word is Bond lyric:

Peace to New York State and hard-working New Yorkers

Should baseball writers vote for the Hall of Fame? Buster Olney and Jeff Pearlman say no, and I think they are on to something.

Pearlman writes:

Most of us writers weren’t exactly the cool kids in school. We stunk at sports, failed at dating and rarely — if ever — got invited to the good parties. While our peers were making out with the cheerleaders, we were debating among ourselves whether the Yankees were wise to have traded Jerry Mumphrey to Houston for Omar Moreno (And I don’t care what Chris Katechis said — it was a horrible deal). Point is, even the eternally powerless crave power. In the world of baseball, few wands wield greater oomph than that of the BBWAA Hall vote.

And yet, after spending so many of my years itching to earn that elusive BBWAA Gold Card status, I can honestly say that I would rather work as Bieber’s “swagger coach” (frighteningly, he has one) than cast a vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

And then there is this from Olney (to read the entire story you have to subscribe to ESPN insider):

First and foremost, it’s a clear conflict of interest. As a writer, I should be reporting on the news and not making it. It’s Journalism 101 (I assume, since I was a history major). It’s not my place, as a reporter, to determine whether Andre Dawson is inducted into the Hall of Fame, no more than it would be for a Capitol Hill reporter to cast a vote on health-care legislation while reporting on it.

…The most important reason why the writers should not be voting is that it has become increasingly evident that the voters, as a group, don’t really have a clear understanding of what the standards for the Hall of Fame are, particularly in this time, as the ballot gains more and more players touched by the steroids issue.

Some (not many) don’t vote for any candidate in their first year on the ballot, although the rules say they can. Some don’t vote for candidates because they didn’t like them personally, or because they
didn’t like how they played.

…The Hall of Fame should form its own committee that determines who gets a plaque. The plaques should include information, written in neutral language, about feats and achievements, and about bans and
suspensions and admissions.

Olney concludes that the process is not likely to change because of the heated debates that the Hall of Fame voting stirs every year. And really, when do you ever hear the same kind of enthusiasm about the Football or Basketball Hall of Fame? Heck, I enjoy arguing about the Hall even if I know it is an excercise in the absurd.

I guess we need the eggs.

Just a reminder about the evening with Jeff Bridges tomorrow at Lincoln Center. I’m a be there.

Dig this recent piece on Bridges from the L.A. Times:

For Bridges, the starting point for his career came fairly early — as an infant, he appeared in “The Company She Keeps” (1951), and the glare of klieg lights would be a constant part of his upbringing. By age 9, he was sharing the screen with his father, Lloyd, and brother, Beau, on television and the family business came naturally. Robert Duvall, a costar in “Crazy Heart” and one of the film’s producers, said Bridges has become one of the premier actors of his generation, and he did so with the unhurried air of a surfer strolling the packed sand of Zuma.

“There’s the Actors Studio in New York, everybody sitting around talking about Stanislavski, but that’s not Jeff,” [co-star, Robert] Duvall said. “This is a guy off the beaches of L.A. He learned from his father, that was his mentor, and he always seems so loose and relaxed — but he’s always prepared, and he brings so many surprises, like good actors do.”

Reports surfaced as early as mid-December that David Cone would not be returning to the YES Network booth for the 2K10 season. Phil Mushnick of the New York Post first reported the story, and the rumblings regarding the potential shuffle only increased.

In that initial article, Mushnick mentioned the possibility of Cone taking a position with the MLB Players Association. Rumors abound now that Cone does have an offer for an executive position at the MLBPA.

Cone confirmed one half of the speculation Wednesday, announcing that he would not be returning to YES. The Network’s official statement was released early yesterday afternoon.

Quotes from the respective parties read as follows:

CONE: “My YES deal was up at the end of the 2009 season, and I’ve chosen not to return in 2010 in order to spend more time with my family. If I do return to broadcasting, YES would be my first choice.”

YES: “David was a valued member of our team. He will be missed.”

Judging from the commentary of Joe Delessio at NYMag.com and many Banterers over the course of the week, Cone will be missed. Cone was a consensus “best analyst” choice on the YES roster. Personally, I enjoyed his take on pitching, his ability to recall Yankees history – an especially detailed review of Red Ruffing’s career during a Yankees-Red Sox telecast comes to mind – and the fact that you never quite knew what he would say next.

(more…)

Due to the vagaries of the holiday schedules, I’ve yet to comment publicly on the Yankees’ last major acquisition of the winter: the Javier Vazquez trade. So we’ll file this in the category of “better late than never.” On the one hand, I have to confess I’m not Vazquez’ biggest fan. His career has largely been a disappointment, based on the context of the ability he flashed as a young Montreal Expo seven or eight years ago. He’s had only two dominant seasons in his career—2003 and this past season—which isn’t sufficient for the kind of stuff he’s always had. He’s had a good career, no question, just not the kind of career that matches the talent of his right arm.

With that criticism out of the way, I cannot legitimately complain about the trade that brought him back to the Bronx. The Yankees simply did not give up that much to acquire a capable right-hander who would be a legitimate No. 2 starter on many staffs. Melky Cabrera is a serviceable ballplayer who will never be a star, Mike Dunn is a minor league pitching prospect who cannot start, and Arodys Vizcaino is a 19-year-old right-hander who has never pitched above the pitching-minded NY-Penn League. (As a frequent visitor to Oneonta and Utica, I’ve seen too many kid pitchers dominate this league before flaming out in tougher hitting environments.) Of the three, the only player that caused the Yankees any pain in surrendering was Vizcaino, but there is still so much distance—and so much uncertainty—between where he is now and his anticipated arrival in the major leagues.

For me, the key to the trade was acquiring Vazquez without having to surrender Nick Swisher, whose contract was probably too rich for Atlanta’s thinning bloodstream. Giving up Swisher in this deal would have been a mistake; his regular season power, his versatility, and his infusion of enthusiasm have been forgotten too quickly by too many media types who only want to dwell on the postseason or some ridiculous notion of staid and serious Yankee professionalism. Would the Yankees really have been comfortable opening the season with an outfield of Brett Gardner (left field), Curtis Granderson (center field), and Cabrera (right field)—and Rule 5 pickup Jamie Hoffmann in reserve? I wouldn’t.

(more…)

Sticking in the mid-90s, here’s a couple of dusty cuts.

A remix from the Liks:

Early DJ Spinna production:

Bert Blyeleven, my he sure does stimulate some discussion, don’t he? Leading the Bert-for-the-Hall-of-Fame charge is my pal Rich Lederer, who is nothing if not committed to the cause.

Five more votes, Rodney! Bert is almost there.

Sticking with mid-90s underground Hip Hop, this tune will always stick with me. I remember first hearing it on late-night college radio–the NYU show (with Mr. Mayhem & DJ Riz), and the Stretch and Bob Show–a perfect groove record:

…and here is the original.

The Hall of Fame announcement comes at 2 p.m. today. My guess is that Roberto Alomar will make it in. After that, I’ve no idea, though I figure Barry Larkin, Andre Dawson and Bert Blyeleven will all receive considerable support.

Update: Dawson is in. Bert gets 74.2 percent of the vote, Alomar, 73. C’mon.

Over at SI.com, Cliff takes a look at the big Matt Holliday signing:

Even in light of Holliday’s new contract, the Cardinals have very few contractual commitments in the coming years. The only other Cardinal guaranteed more than $1 million beyond 2011 is Kyle Lohse, who will earn just under $12 million in 2012, the final year of his ill-conceived four-year extension, the handiwork of current GM John Mozeliak. Aces Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter and All-Star catcher Yadier Molina all have club options for 2012 (for $9 million, $15 million, and $7 million, respectively) with Wainwright having an additional $12 million option for 2013. If all three stay healthy, the Cardinals are unlikely to find better bargains on the open market, but if the team picks up all three options, they’ll have roughly $60 million committed to five players in 2012, and with Pujols a potential $30 million player, they could surpass their 2009 payroll on just six players. That means the Cardinals are either going to have to significantly increase their payroll, pinch pennies everywhere other than first base and left field, or bid goodbye to Pujols after 2011 if not before.

It’s flatly inconceivable that the Cardinals would sacrifice their ability to keep Pujols, who is not only the face of the franchise but the best player in the game and one of the ten greatest hitters of all time, for Holliday, a solid all-around player but one who comes with significant questions about his true level of production given the effects of his home ballparks prior to his arrival in St. Louis. The most likely scenario, really the only one that makes sense, is an increase in payroll. Even with young players such as Colby Rasmus, Brendan Ryan, and David Freese in the starting lineup, with more than $40 million annually committed to just two players, the Cardinals will be hard pressed to field a balanced team and keep team payroll under $100 million.

Willie Mitchell, one of the great music producers of all-time, died yesterday. Mitchell was a trumpet player and a band leader but is most famous for his work with Hi Studios in Memphis, notably his production for singer Al Green.

For more on Mitchell, let me share the following from Peter Guralnick’s seminal study of southern soul music, Sweet Soul Music.

[Mitchell] had mastered the technology of recording, developed his own distinctive bass sound (a Willie Mitchell production is immediately recognizable for its “bottom”), and found in the eight-track, tube-amplified Ampex recorder that Hi already possessed machinery in which he could place an almost mystical belief.

…It has been said that Green in later years would spend more than a hundred hours on a vocal part, putting together, note by burbling note, each little comment and countercomment to elegantly stated melody, and while “Let’s Stay Together” appears to have been assembled a little more spontaneously than that, it conveys the same decorative filigree, the same sort of layered elegance with which Willie Mitchell and Al Green would soon take soul music–real, unabashed, wholehearted soul music–to quiet, luxuriantly appointed places it had never seen before.

“Well, you see, after we had done ‘Tired of Being Alone’ and ‘I Can’t Get Next to You,’ I said, ‘Al, look, we got to soften you up some.’ I said, ‘You got to whisper. You got to cut the lighter music. The melody has got to be good. You got to sing it soft. If we can get the dynamic bottom on it and make some sense with pretty changes, then we going to be there.’ He said, ‘Man, I can’t sing that way. That’s too soft. That ain’t going to sound like no man singing.’ We had the damnedest fights, but I think ‘Let’s Stay Together’ really sold him that I had the right direction for him musically, ’cause, see, all the things I told him turned out to be true. Like ‘Let’s Stay Together’ he didn’t like at all, but when we put it out, it was gold in two weeks. So we softened and softened and softened.

Here’s a little something from Mitchell that will be familiar to the hip hop heads out there:

We’ll never see the likes of Randy Johnson again. The image of this enormous man, who resembled a pre-historic serpant on the mound, hair flying, limbs flailing, as if backed by the wailing guitars of Satan’s house band, will be impossible to erase from our collective memory. He was one of the greatest starting pitchers I’ve ever seen in his prime–along with Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, and Greg Maddux–as well as one of the most viscerally intimidating. He was downright frightening, almost to the point of being comic. But he wasn’t a fool, and  it was hard to laugh too tough when he was stuffing up the Yankees’ asses, first with Seattle and then Arizona. That he was able to harness all of his moving parts, his wildness–both physical and emotional–and become an all-time great pitcher is one of the great feats of the past twenty-five years.

One of a kind, as they say. With an all-time moniker: The Big Unit.  I don’t know if  many fans will exactly miss him, but nobody is sure to  forget him.

[Painting by Viasta Volcano]

Check out this wonderful first-person essay by Pat Jordan from Men’s Journal. Jordan writes how he learned about money from his father, a professional grifter:

In many ways, I am my father’s son. once, in my 60s, I told my father, in his 90s, that I was not much like him. “How so?” he asked. I said, “I never gamble.” He laughed, a dismissive laugh, and said, “You? A freelance writer for 40 years?” He was right. He had taught me how to con people early in my life. I used that knowledge in my late 20s to hustle pool like him. I wore construction clothes at lunchtime. I conned my marks into spotting me the eight and nine in nine ball, and if I lost I always went to the men’s room, climbed out a window, and left without paying. A lesson from the old man. “Always check the men’s-room window before you play,” he said. “Because even if you lose, you’re not gonna pay.” Years later, when I became a writer, I conned editors into giving me assignments. “You got to find out what they want,” he said, “then give it to them. Tell them anything they want to hear to get the assignment, then write it the way you want.”

He taught me so many things that became a part of my life, that determined how I lived my life. He taught me that only a fool believes in perfect justice. “There’s no such thing as an accident,” he said. “You’re supposed to know the other guy always runs the stop sign.” He taught me that a man never quits no matter how defeated he feels, that a man always has to have the courage of his suffering. And most important, he taught me that “there are only three vices in this world, kid: broads, booze, and gambling, and if you’re gonna do it right, pick one and stick to it.” I was in my 20s, with a wife and three kids, and there wasn’t much room in my life for vice. Years later, however, I had more than a passing acquaintance with one of those, and it wasn’t booze or gambling.

But in the one way that really mattered, to me anyway, I was not much like Dad at all. I never had his purity of understanding of the true nature of money. That has always shamed me. I have been burdened, conflicted, cursed, you might say, by my own fearful need to hoard money to forestall that looming disaster always around the bend, the foreclosed house from my youth.

I remember the first time the Yankees played the Angels in New York in 2004. Early in the game, Benjie Molina was up and hit a soft grounder to third. Alex Rodriguez fielded the ball but couldn’t get it out of his glove. He double-then tripled-clutched. By the time he got rid of it, he was behind the pitchers mound. He still got Molina by plenty. He could have practically run to first and beat him.

It looked unintentional on Rodriguez’s part but the effect was comic. Only Molina was not laughing and he gave Rodriguez a piece of his mind when the Yankees’ third baseman came to bat.

I couldn’t help but think back on this scene after reading Ted Berg’s piece, Mets, Molina continue slowest-ever game of Chicken.

Here’s a gut-bucket Indie Rap classic from the mid-90s.

…the Super like in your building…

Rob Neyer on the Beltre deal:

Is Beltre worth $9 million? Yeah. If you believe in most of the fielding metrics, anyway. Beltre was worth more than $9 million last season when he was hurt and spent five weeks on the disabled list. Usually — when he’s not hurt and not spending weeks on the DL — Beltre is worth far more than $9 million.

You’re going to see this deal referred to as a steal in some quarters. Unless you’re a doctor with an intimate knowledge of Beltre’s current physiology, you really can’t know that. But the Red Sox had half-a-hole at third base, and now they don’t have any holes at all. It must be a good feeling, to know in early January that you’re essentially ready for a 95-win season.

Fack Youk asks the question: Is Javier Vazquez unclutch?

To say that he can’t handle New York not only gives too much weight to a small sample size but requires a jump that conflates the pressure of in-game situations to be analogous to the demands of pitching for one franchise or another.

…Even if you grant that Vazquez gets worse under pressure and will pitch worse just by virtue of being a Yankee, he’s still likely to be better than league average and throw more than 200 innings. It would be extremely difficult to do that and not add significant value to a team regardless of how his performance is distributed by leverage.

And of course, there’s a big difference between “hasn’t” and “can’t”. I’m willing to say that Vazquez certainly hasn’t pitched well under pressure in his career, but not that he can’t. He clearly had a great year in Atlanta and some of that has been attributed to an improved change up, giving him a second pitch to miss bats with in addition to his curveball. FanGraphs shows that his curveball was what stood out last year, but his change up looked to be improved as well.

Finally, over at Lo-Hud, Chad Jennings, profiles the Yankees’ bullpen. “Jonathan Albaladejo could show up in spring training throwing 122 mph fastballs for strikes, and Rivera would still be the closer.”

Nice.

No, not this one…

This one.

The Red Sox sign Beltre to a one-year deal.

Beltre is a slick fielder with some pop in his bat. This move has been talked about for the better part of a month.

Geoff Dyer wrote an interesting piece about Americans over the weekend in the Book Review:

The archetypal American abroad is perceived as loud and crass even though actually existing American tourists are distinguished by the way they address bus drivers and bartenders as “sir” and are effusive in their thanks when any small service is rendered. We look on with some confusion at these encounters because, on the one hand, the Americans seem a bit country-bumpkinish, and, on the other, good manners are a form of sophistication.

Granted, these visiting Americans often seem to have loud voices, but on closer examination, it’s a little subtler than that. Americans have no fear of being overheard. Civic life in Britain is predicated on the idea that everyone just about conceals his loathing of everyone else. To open your mouth is to risk offending someone. So we mutter and mumble as if surrounded by informers or, more exactly, as if they are living in our heads. In America the right to free speech is exercised freely and cordially. The basic assumption is that nothing you say will offend anyone else because, deep down, everyone is agreed on the premise that America is better than anyplace else.

…Like many Europeans, I always feel good about myself in America; I feel appreciated, liked. It took a while to realize that this had nothing to do with me. It was about the people who made me feel this way: it was about charm. Yes, this is the bright secret of life in the United States: Americans are not just friendly and polite — they are also charming. And the most charming thing of all is that it rarely looks like charm.

Terrific stuff. Oh, and Dyer once wrote a wonderful collection of fictional essays about Jazz, But Beautiful. If you are a Jazz fan, this book belongs in your collection.