Joe Pos on Vin Scully:

What Vincent Edward Scully first came to Los Angeles to broadcast Dodgers baseball games in 1958, he worried because he could not find the essence of the city. The center. The heart. He was 30 years old, and he had some clear ideas about what it took to call a baseball game. He thought it was important that the hometown baseball announcer know the hometown. So, he kept looking for this PLACE. That’s was how his mind worked then. There had to be a place. Back in New York, there was always a place.

Vin Scully heard life in New York City rhythms then — well, he had grown up in New York. He went to school in New York. He had worked with Red Barber in New York. And in New York there’s always a place, doesn’t matter if it’s Brooklyn or the Bronx, Harlem or Greenwich Village, Manhattan or Queens. There’s a place you go, where people gather, where decisions are made, where the energy pulses, where everything starts.

“In New York, for me, it was Toots Shor’s,” he says. That was the restaurant, of course, there on 51st street between 5th and 6th Avenues but closer to 6th. That was where things were always going on, where Vin could feel the city’s vibrations, its power. He might see Joe DiMaggio sitting with Marilyn Monroe. He might catch Frank Sinatra talking a little boxing. He might catch a glimpse or Ernest Hemingway or see Jackie Gleason hold court or see Judy Garland sitting in a corner. More than anything, though, he might hear what was happening in his town, what mattered, and Vin Scullly needed to know these things. He felt sure they made him a better baseball announcer.

Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories hits the shelves next week. Dig this interview with me over at New York Magazine.

Also, for all you NYC heads, I’ll be at the Gelf Varsity Letters series in Brooklyn next Thursday, October 7th. If you are around and available, represent, represent!

“The Social Network” is getting rave reviews. Check out this gusher from David Denby in The New Yorker:

“The Social Network,” directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, rushes through a coruscating series of exhilarations and desolations, triumphs and betrayals, and ends with what feels like darkness closing in on an isolated soul. This brilliantly entertaining and emotionally wrenching movie is built around a melancholy paradox: in 2003, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), a nineteen-year-old Harvard sophomore, invents Facebook and eventually creates a five-hundred-million-strong network of “friends,” but Zuckerberg is so egotistical, work-obsessed, and withdrawn that he can’t stay close to anyone; he blows off his only real pal, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), a fellow Jewish student at Harvard, who helps him launch the site. The movie is not a conventionally priggish tale of youthful innocence corrupted by riches; nor is it merely a sarcastic arrow shot into the heart of a poor little rich boy. Both themes are there, but the dramatic development of the material pushes beyond simplicities, and the portrait of Zuckerberg is many-sided and ambiguous; no two viewers will see him in quite the same way. The debate about the movie’s accuracy has already begun, but Fincher and Sorkin, selecting from known facts and then freely interpreting them, have created a work of art. Accuracy is now a secondary issue. In this extraordinary collaboration, the portrait of Zuckerberg, I would guess, was produced by a happy tension, even an opposition, between the two men—a tug-of-war between Fincher’s gleeful appreciation of an outsider who overturns the social order and Sorkin’s old-fashioned, humanist distaste for electronic friend-making and a world of virtual emotions. The result is a movie that is absolutely emblematic of its time and place. “The Social Network” is shrewdly perceptive about such things as class, manners, ethics, and the emptying out of self that accompanies a genius’s absorption in his work. It has the hard-charging excitement of a very recent revolution, the surge and sweep of big money moving fast and chewing people up in its wake.

Don’t you worry…

GQ interview with Tony Curtis…

We’re working on a new look for Banter and a beyond beta version accidentally appeared last night. We’re still trying to work out the kinks and get things back to normal. It’s completely my fault and I apologize for the disruption.

Rays, Royals tonight out in the heartland…

[Picture by J. Parthum, Fort Greene, BK]

Puff n Schtuff

Over at SI.com, our man Cliff takes a look at how the Award season will play out. AL MVP?

1. Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Tigers (1)

Season Stats: .328/.419/.624, 38 HRs, 126 RBIs

September has been Cabrera’s worst month this season by far, but his extraordinary consistency is starting to win out as he has heated back up over the last week and enters Monday night’s action with an active six-game hitting streak during which he has gone 9-for-23 with four home runs. Cabrera doesn’t do much outside of the batter’s box and plays for a team barely keeping its head above .500, but no other American Leaguer has produced at such an elite level so consistently throughout the 2010 season. Cabrera has also started all but six of the Tigers’ games this season.

2. Robinson Cano, 2B, Yankees (3)

Season Stats: .318/.379/.532, 28 HRs, 105 RBIs

Hamilton has far and away the superior rate stats, but due to their disparate playing time, Cano leads the injured Rangers’ outfielder in RBIs, hits, runs, and walks (!), and is just one double and three home runs shy of Hamilton’s season totals. Give Cano additional credit for playing a far more challenging position, striking out fewer times in more than an hundred extra plate appearances, and for simple reliability (he has started all but three of the Yankees’ games this year), and he slips past the former frontrunner in this race.

I’ve never been to a four-star restaurant. Might be fun to try one day if I ever win the lottery.

In the Times, Sam Sifton gives Del Posto, the coveted four-star rating:

GREAT restaurants may start out that way. But an extraordinary restaurant generally develops only over time, the product of prolonged artistic risk and managerial attention. An extraordinary restaurant uses the threat of failure first as a spur to improvement, then as a vision of unimaginable calamity. An extraordinary restaurant can transcend the identity of its owners or chef or concept.

And of course an extraordinary restaurant serves food that leads to gasps and laughter, to serious discussion and demands for more of that, please, now. The point of fine dining is intense pleasure. For the customer, at any rate, an extraordinary restaurant should never be work.

Over at the Pinstriped Bible, Cliff, Steven and Stephani say Bring on the Rangers. Jay’s like, nah, bring on the Twins.

Another Hollywood Legend Passes: Tony Curtis, R.I.P.

Wednesday was a sad day for cinephiles — Arthur Penn, the visionary director of Bonnie and Clyde, passed away at 88. As well as being one of the great American filmmakers of the 60s and 70s, Penn also knew tremendous success directing for the stage, as well as television. Dave Kehr has a fairly comprehensive and thoughtful obituary in the New York Times. Roger Ebert also weighs in with a warm tribute. From Kehr’s piece, here’s a quote from Paul Schrader that nicely states what the fuss is all about:

“Arthur Penn brought the sensibility of ’60s European art films to American movies,” the writer-director Paul Schrader said. “He paved the way for the new generation of American directors who came out of film schools.”

Penn was not simply a stylist, but a director who got the best out of his actors: think of Gene Hackman in the brilliant, underrated neo-noir Night Moves, or Jack Nicholson, wonderfully underplaying to Marlon Brando’s outlandish dandy of a gunslinger in The Missouri Breaks.  (Heck, he even got something out of Arlo Guthrie in Alice’s Restaurant.)

However, Penn will no doubt best be remembered for Bonnie and Clyde, a film usually attached to words like “seminal,” “revolutionary” and “watershed.” It not only indelibly altered Hollywood movies, but movie criticism as well. The vastly different reactions of old guard critics like the Times’ Bosley Crowther (who loathed it) to those of “young turks” like Ebert and Pauline Kael (in her first piece for The New Yorker) marked a new attitude in American film criticism to match the new films and younger audiences filling late 60s theaters. It’s also worth noting that it’s success essentially saved Warren Beatty’s career and launched Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman and Gene Wilder as movie stars. Looking back 40 plus years later, it’s easy to appreciate what a vivid and vital movie Bonnie and Clyde remains, if decades of copycats have taken away the shock that 1967 audiences felt.

It will be interesting to read more comments on Penn’s life and work as they roll in from his collaborators and directors he inspired (I’m especially curious to hear from Beatty and Martin Scorsese).  Now that 3D and CGI have too often become a substitute for substance in the cinema, it’s sad to see another master go.

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Bronx Banter Productions presents

JAVY & THE STRIKE ZONE:

Thin Chalk Line Between Love and Hate

(Rated R for scenes of extreme, graphic violence against baseballs thrown by Javier Vazquez)

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EXT. ROGERS CENTRE, TORONTO, NIGHT.

JAVIER VAZQUEZ [34, fit, haunted eyes] stands on the mound, tossing warm-up pitches, listless. The STRIKE ZONE [ageless, flirty, too beautiful to trust] approaches, stands at home plate. Waits for him to notice. Vazquez looks over, flinches.

STRIKE ZONE: Hi, Javy. Good to see you. It’s been a while.

Long, awkward pause.

STRIKE ZONE: I’ve missed you–

JAVY: Don’t.

Behind the Strike Zone, FRANCISCO CERVELLI busily cleans the plate and pretends not to listen, embarrassed.

STRIKE ZONE: Oh, Javy. We were so good together – you know we were.

JAVY: It hasn’t been good for a long time now.

STRIKE ZONE: If only we hadn’t left the National League… we were happy there.

JAVY: Look, I just, I can’t be with you anymore. I don’t want to get hurt again.

STRIKE ZONE: How many times do I have to tell you that I’m sorry? Give me one more chance.

JAVY: After everything… how can I trust you now?

STRIKE ZONE: Please. Just come back, Javy. It’ll be different this time.

Vazquez looks at his shoes, at Cervelli, at the stands. Trying to control his emotions.

JAVY: Dave Eiland says–

STRIKE ZONE: Dave Eiland doesn’t know me, Javy. Not like you do.

JAVY: I need time to think.

STRIKE ZONE: We don’t have any more time! The playoffs start next week, and if you don’t want to be with me, I know Ivan Nova does.

JAVY: You wouldn’t.

STRIKE ZONE: Just look at yourself, Javy. What are you without me?

Vazquez stares deep into the Strike Zone’s eyes.

STRIKE ZONE: Come here, baby. Touch me.

[Vazquez looks for a long moment… sets, and hurls a fastball right down the middle. TRAVIS SNYDER, JOHN BUCK, and AARON HILL hit home runs. The Yankees lose to the Blue Jays, 8-4.]

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Let’s all hope we don’t see Vazquez pitch in the playoffs, or I may end up writing a full-length horror film.

On the plus side:

-Alex Rodriguez hit his 30th home run – the 14th time he’s done so (tied for most all-time with one Barry Lamar Bonds), and the 13th consecutive season, which is a record.

-There was also a lovely-seeming pregame ceremony honoring outgoing Toronto manager Cito Gaston, who is retiring on his own terms and earned himself an outpouring of affection from Toronto fans. (I say lovely-seeming because YES didn’t show all of it, and I got home too late for most of what they did show). But I was especially pleased to see that many of the Blue Jays players, by way of a tribute, were wearing fake mustaches to honor their skipper — indeed, Travis Snyder was still wearing his when he hit his home run, which might have been a little insult-to-injury, if it wasn’t so awesome.

If Joe Torre had retired, and gotten a proper sendoff, I wonder what the team would’ve done to honor him. Hold cups of green tea? Look inscrutable? Signal to the bullpen for Scott Proctor?

Javy and the Yanks look to catch the Rays.

Sic ’em champ.

[Picture by Bags]

Part One of “The 10th Inning,” Ken Burn’s two-part follow up to “Baseball” aired on PBS last night. “The Bottom of the 10th” is tonight.

I reviewed the show for SI.com. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. The Yankee Dynasty is represented nicely though I’m sure most of you wanted more (and there’s no sugar-coating Ken’s allegiance to the Red Sox, though it should also be noted that co-writer, producer and director, Lynn Novick, is a Yankee fan). The focus is on the ’96 Yanks, not ’98, a fair choice in terms of drama, though they didn’t mention Frank Torre.

There’s a ton on the Sox in “The Bottom of the 10th,” but Burns is never vicious–he doesn’t show the infamous slap play by Alex Rodriguez, for instance. I’d forgotten that David Ortiz won both Games 4 and 5 in ’04, man, totally blacked that out. This was the first time I’ve watched replays. Ortizzle’s name is noticeably missing from a list of stars associated with taking PEDS (Manny’s on it).

The baseball stuff is good. Plenty to debate, of course, but that’s fun part. Jonah Keri will be pleased that the ’94 Expos made the cut. I didn’t know from Mike Barnicle before watching the show and enjoyed his talking head interviews, even if they were ham-handed in spots. Then I read up on him and feel guilty for liking him so much.

But something felt off with the filmmaking. The Florentine films style—panning and fading over still photographs–is commonly known as “The Burns Effect.” I was talking to a friend recently who said, “How can you not jump the shark after you become a pre-set on iMovie?” I get his point but the Burns style doesn’t bother me because it works. You don’t look for every artist to be innovator, after all. I wouldn’t want Elmore Leonard to be anything but Elmore Leonard.

But I’m not sure that the Burns style  is ideally suited to journalism. Nothing is more frustating than the music. In “The 8th Inning” and “The 9th Inning,” Burns used period source music as a character in the story. But here, over and over again, I was distracted by the music selections. I thought they got in the way of the story. Most of the tracks aren’t bad pieces of music on their own, but they just don’t have much to do with the topic at hand. And they have nothing to do with what was on the radio at the time.

Burns does use James Brown and Tower of Power. This record from The Incredible Bongo Band opens the show:

P.E. and The Beastie Boys and the White Stripes are used but otherwise, there’s too much smooth jazz and strumming guitars, where songs like “Nothing Shocking,” by Jane’s Addiction or the Red Hot Chili Peppers version of “Higher Ground,” or any number of radio hits would have been interesting choices. There’s cool cuts from the Red Garland Trio and Wynton Marsalis, but Burns misses out on using Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” in the Mariano Rivera segment, an oversight than can only be excused by budget considerations And even when music choices work thematically like with David Bowie’s “Fame,” they are obvious, not to mention dated.

But that’s me. And I expect fireworks from Burns and company every time out. Still, “The 10th Inning” is certainly worth watching.

I’m curious to know what you think. Charlie Pierce weighed in this morning, and here is the Times’ review (which borders on being mean).

Oh, and over at Deadspin, dig this memoir piece I wrote about working for Burns back in the spring of 1994:

Ken got a kick out of turning people on to the things that moved him. When Willie Morris appeared in episode five of Baseball, talking about listening to games on the radio, I asked Ken who he was, and that was my introduction to Morris and his classic memoir, North Toward Home. I found a copy immediately and the book made a lasting impression on me. Ken was an avid music fan and hipped me to Lester Young and Booker T and the M.G.’s. During our car ride north, I tried to get him to dig some rap records — I remember playing him “Passin’ Me By” by the Pharcyde — but he couldn’t get past the lack of melody. Then, he took out a cassette and played what he called the best version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was Marvin Gaye, singing at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game, and Ken was right.

[Photo Credit: J. Parthum]

Over at Baseball Prospectus, “Friend of Banter” Jay Jaffe looks at the “Disaster Starts” of A.J. Burnett:

Burnett is in a six-way tie for the major league lead in disaster starts, with eight. As originally defined by former Baseball Prospectus columnist Jim Baker, a disaster start is one in which a starter allows as many or more runs as innings pitched. It’s the ugly flip side of a quality start, one in which a pitcher goes at least six innings while allowing three or fewer runs—a disaster because teams rarely win such games, and because they often burn through their bullpens just trying to find enough mops and buckets to get through nine innings.

Occasionally, the disaster start definition is limited to allowing more runs as innings pitched, and because the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index makes querying the latter definition much easier than the former one, we’ll stick with that for the purposes of this dumpster dive. Here’s the 2010 leaderboard, the Masters of Disaster:

Rk	Player	Team	DS	Team W-L	IP/GS	RA
1	Paul Maholm	PIT	8	0-8	3.3	19.91
	A.J. Burnett	NYA	8	0-8	3.4	18.67
	Scott Kazmir	LAA	8	0-8	4.5	13.38
	Jonathon Niese	NYN	8	2-6	4.4	12.99
	Kyle Kendrick	PHI	8	3-5	4.0	12.79
	Justin Masterson	CLE	8	0-8	4.8	12.08
7	Charlie Morton	PIT	7	0-7	2.9	20.80
	Joe Saunders	2TM	7	1-6	3.7	17.18
	Kyle Lohse	SLN	7	0-7	3.8	16.41
	Brian Matusz	BAL	7	2-5	3.3	15.26
	Brad Bergesen	BAL	7	1-6	3.8	15.19
	Nick Blackburn	MIN	7	1-6	3.8	14.70
	Matt Garza	TBA	7	1-6	4.2	13.04
	Javier Vazquez	NYA	7	3-4	4.2	11.83

. . . While it’s cold comfort to Yankees fans at the moment—perhaps less so now that they’ve clinched a playoff spot—the recently hapless Burnett rates as a pretty good pitcher in the grand scheme of things. Coming into this year, he’d put up a 3.83 ERA and 8.8 K/9 since 2004. He still misses bats at an above-average clip, his SIERA (4.42) is around league-average, but his BABIP (.323) is inflated; basically, he’s in a rut compounded by some bad luck. Thanks to the spaced-out schedule, he’s unlikely to get a first-round playoff start. He may just have painted his last disasterpiece of the season.

Check out this lovely tribute to the late Paul Hemphill by Richard Hyatt:

I ended up at the Atlanta Constitution writing sports. A colleague told me about a former pitcher for the town baseball team in LaGrange. He had made Ripley’s Believe Or Not by pitching both games of a doubleheader — tossing a no-hitter in one game and a one-hitter in the other.

By the time I visited him in the old mill village in LaGrange, Scoopie Chappell’s baseball exploits were relegated to aging scrapbooks and stories he told at the beer joint down the hill. I wrote a feature story about him for the Sunday Journal-Constitution.

The article got me a phone call from Paul Hemphill. He wanted Scoopie’s phone number and directions to his house. Hemphill was researching a book about minor league baseball and he figured Scoopie was someone he wanted to visit.

The non-fiction book never materialized but Long Gone did. To me it is the quintessential baseball novel and equally good as an HBO film. It came out in 1987 and you’ll find Bull Durham — as good as it is — is a ripoff of Hemphill’s book.

Scoopie morphed into Stud Cantrell, played on the screen by CSI’s William Petersen. The character of Stud is as good as you’ll find in any work of fiction. In the movie, there’s even a speaking role for Teller — the small mute half of Penn & Teller.

If you haven’t read the book, do. If you haven’t seen the movie, find it.

Amen. William Petersen’s Stud Cantrell is closer to Paul Newman in “Slap Shot” than it is to Costner in “Bull Durham.” The ending of the movie is corny but the rest of it sings. And Hemphill’s novel is a beaut.

Bridges and the Coen brothers, together again.

The Rays are good, really good. But their park is empty. Ken Belson has the depressing details in the Times.