Bronx Tories

Full disclosure: Author is a Red Sox fan. Now, onto the commentary. The vast majority of Baseball TV coverage is around the diamond, say 75% on pitcher and batter, maybe more. Usually low angles, with fans as the backdrop to Jeter and CC and company. It's been impossible to miss those fans. Self-respecting Yankee fans are intense, passionate and sometimes vulgar in an endearing, inebriated sort of way. Say what you will about manners, but they definitely care.

Well, ummm...have you seen the fans that are in majority of the shots? and thanks to Hi-Def, you almost get to know them. Yea, the plutocrats in the blue suits, at least those still in their seats. Yeah, those seats, the seats surrounded by a freakin moat to keep regular citizens out. On the phone, sipping (and I mean SIPPING) an occasional beer, talking business with other captains of industry, checking their watches, and then quietly exiting, emphasis on the word quiet, slipping into their limos for the ride back to Gotham. I don't think they raised the decibel meter once during these three games in the Bronx vs Texas.

On a personal note, I've been binging on schadendreude for most of these 6 games, and I actually feel for the real Yankee fans that are not only suffering a horsewhipping from the irrepressible Texas Rangers, but that their fandom is being represented for all the country to see by a bunch of Bernie Madoffs. Oh, I don't really feel for you Pinstripers. If you build a huge monument to greed and excess, they will come. You got what you paid for. And if a guy dressed as Cliff Lee knocks on your door this Halloween, be afraid, be very afraid.

Enjoy the off-season, it'll be here any minute.

New credibility for Fast Times

Took a recent trip down memory lane to the 80's via the cult classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High. In spite of its nonsensical themes embodied by the immortal Sean Penn, director Amy Heffering actually accomplished historical significance, something along the lines of George Lucas in American Graffiti. Now, you may want to debate what kind of turmoil was facing the free love/stoner set that was attending high school in the early 1980's in southern California, but there were lots of tough choices, especially for the females, to find a popular niche back then. I propose that this is a bookend film to Graffiti, and as Lucas captured the search for significance of the adolescents in the James Dean era, Heffering does the same in the Cheech and Chong 80's. A huge thumbs up to Penn for actually mastering Cheech's genre. His fantasy dream of being interviewed on national televsion after winning the surfing competition belongs in a time capsule in the Smithsonian. Bring plenty of Kleenex for the inescapable laughter it will generate.