Lockout Theatre: The real Lucy and Desi in "THE LONG, LONG TRAILER" (1953)

 A relatively short, short trailer for The Long, Long Trailer." (With an appearance by Ma Kettle herself, Majorie Main.) Lucy and Desi travel across America. 'Nuff said.

The annual IT IS HIGH classic: John Sterling in "THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS"

 

It's time for 10 Yankee Christmas wishes

As the big night nears, you can feel energy draining from the Yankiverse. The Mets have become NYC's "It Girl," and Tampa is the dominant variant in the AL East.

It's not impossible to imagine the Yankees - hogtied by contracts, egos, austerity and hubris - finishing last in their division. 

So here are 10 Christmas wishes unto the juju gods, who - frankly - owe us for last year's debacle. If five come true, I'll call it a success. 

In 2022, I would like to see: 

1. Yankee batters reduce their strikeout totals by 10 percent. We cannot field a team that whiffs 10-to-15 times per game.

2. Hitters bunt when opposing defenses go into outlandish over-shifts. There can no longer be excuses for batters who hit .200 and yet refuse to bunt.

3. Aaron Boone smash a water cooler. Full-tilt Pauly O'Neill. At least once.

4. John Sterling manage a game. Suzyn as bench coach. Boone can do play by play.

5. The Yankees not drain their farms for a wildcard birth. If by July 30, they are not contending for the Division, they should start thinking about next year.

6. Hal Steinbrenner put the team up for sale. He needs a soccer club.

7. Brian Cashman get a Rolex, plaque and promotion upstairs; the team should hire a GM from outside the organization.

8. Gary Sanchez and Miguel Andujar start over in new cities. They need to escape NYC. 

9. Brett Gardner retire with a day honoring him at Yankee Stadium. He should be put on a fast-track to become our next manager.

10.  The pandemic end, and the Yankiverse return to crazed, hysterical normalcy.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

By request: "Some days you can't get rid of a bomb!"

"They may be drinkers, Robin, but they're also human beings, and may be salvaged."

Lockout Theatre: THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST (1967)

A big budget bonanza for IT IS HIGH. 

Spies pursue the President's shrink (James Coburn) in this cult-classic black comedy about an all-powerful phone company run by robots. With Godfrey Cambridge, Pat Harrington, Will Geer, Arte Johnson and - drum roll, please - Barry "Eve of Destruction" McGuire!

The actual hippie band Clear Light plays a hippie band. Supposedly, the Grateful Dead turned down the role. This was the first movie greenlit by Paramount head Robert Evans, who later claimed to have been squeezed by the FBI for the way it was depicted. In fact, Evans changed "FBI" to "FBR." I bet that sure fooled 'em.

Here's the trailer.

Kudos to the owners: They scheduled their lockout to match the Omicron surge

Thanks to Covid, the American sports landscape is a mess: Players sidelined, coaches fired, stars called out for hypocrisy...  

Wait, no... that's normalcy. What's crazy are that major pro franchises - such as Duke, UCLA and North Carolina - are canceling games, leaving good money on the table... merely because of a global pandemic. 

Nevertheless, two crafty citadels of sportsmanship remain relatively untouched.  

1. MLB. Since December 2, the owners have practiced an airtight quarantine - aka a "lockout." By closing their facilities, these titans of science surely saved player lives. They don't allow athletes to congregate for workouts and news conferences, and they even canceled the front office getaway romps, also known as the Winter Meetings. 

I don't know what these scions of knowledge knew in advance, but their timing has been impeccable. 

2. NY football. I'm referring to the two wiliest sports franchises in America, the Jets and Giants. Somehow, these citadels of forethought recognized that 2021 would devolve into a tidal wave of viral mutations, and thus, they both executed near perfect tankings. 

If the NFL season were to end today - and it might - the Jets would draft 4th and 8th, while the Giants would hold picks numbers 5 and 6. That's what Joe Garagiola would call "a fine piece a' tankin.'"

Of course, either team might trade all its picks for a fading QB - the ghost of Craig Morton, if you're old enough to remember - but that's why we follow the teams: To see how they'll manage to muck it up. 

Remember: For Gilligan's Island to continue, the castaways always had to figure out some new and creative way to stay stranded. With two high picks, how will they do it? (I'm thinking they'll draft a big guy who turns out to be two midgets piggyback.) 

Anyway, congrats to all those who foresaw the utter meaninglessness of sports during crises of humanity. In the names of Ender Inciarte and Joe Don Looney, we salute you. 

Lockout Theatre: PLAYGIRL KILLER (1965)

Billed as Canada's first color horror movie, yet never released in America. (Cronenberg was just a kid.) 

Struggling artist William Kirwin cannot make his models keep still, so he does what anybody would do: He kills 'em and freezes the bodies. 

I mean, it's art, right?  

Described as "inept hilarity," this flick during the 1980s grew a following on late night TV. A highlight: Neil Sedaka sings "If You Don't Wanna, You Don't Hafta."

Worth the price of staying up.  

It's should be a grand and austere Christmas for Scrooge McSteinbrenner.

Friday night, Hal Steinbrenner will be visited by three ghosts. 

One will whisk Hal back to the Yankees under Joe Torre, celebrating their latest world championship. 

One will show Buck Showalter in real time, toasting his new job with the Mets and strategizing for opening day. 

The final ghost will transport Hal into a cold, dark, empty clubhouse and point its boney finger at a terrifying sight: A 2022 lineup card with Gary Sanchez batting third.

At that point, Hal will wake up in bed, go take a piss and then return to sleep by counting money. 

Yeesh. When did following the Yankees turn into doom-scrolling?

Whenever the Mets pull off a seemingly big move - as they did yesterday and have done since October - I'm temped to dismiss it by saying, "Yeah, but they're still the Mets." 

I'm not so sure any more. 

In 2004, the Redsocks and Yankees swapped positions in the celestial baseball juju incondibulum. Boston has owned us, ever since.  Nobody ever talks about the Yankees overtaking them at the season's end. That era is long gone.

Lately, the vibes surrounding the Mets and Yankees suggest another magnetic shifting of the poles. Under Showalter, the Mets shall be expected to win or else. Meanwhile, the Yankees seem incapable of change, regardless of the team's failure, because of contracts and old boy networks. They lack an owner who will hold management accountable.  

Those three ghosts Friday will get a surprise. After the visitations, Hal will think about his money, go take another piss and then return to sleep. The Kansas City-ification of the Yankees will continue.

EXTRAVAGANT OWNER HIRES REAL MANAGER Bronx disappears into black hole

Lockout Theatre: THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960)

The lucky lady is swimsuit model Betsy Jones-Moreland, one of three survivors of a global nuclear war. They go deep sea diving off the coast of Puerto Rico, then return to the surface to find everybody dead. 

Robert Towne - who later wrote Chinatown -is one of the two men left to fight over Betsy and repopulate the human species. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it. (By the way, Towne used the name "Edward Wain" in the credits. Was he concerned about future critiques?) 

This is one of three movies that Roger "King of the B's" Corman made in five weeks during a trip to Puerto Rico. It's now in the public domain. 

Yanks ink Ender Inciarte, the new Socrates Brito?

Funny, the things that happen during a holiday, off-season pandemic/ongoing political insurrection/labor lockout. Also, did I mention that it's pre-Golden Globes Fever and run-up to a Marvel Universe blockbuster breakout? So much happening! And now this: 

The Death Barge has signed former - (that is, four years ago) - all-star CF Ender Inciarte to a minor league contract, signaling that:

1. Cooperstown Cashman is - or at least was on Thursday - still going in to work.

2. The Yankees are pondering the possibility of Aaron Hicks in CF this year.

3. With their current lineup, the Yankees would win the 2018 world series.

4. Scranton looks stacked this year in the triple A Whachamacallit League.

5. There is a player named Ender Inciarte.

At this point - were this a normal world of shows on Broadway and mass orgies in the Villages - we would devote the rest of the day to imagining John Sterling's new HR call. I propose:

YOU'RE NO DEAD-ENDER! YOU'VE GOT HEART-Y, INCIARTE!

So... what is Ender Inciarte? A 31-year-old OF, released by the Reds in August, who hasn't hit a lick since the secret global pitchers' conspiracy figured him out. 

Last year, around now, we signed Socrates Brito, who hit .251 while patrolling the OF for Scranton. Over the season, the Yankees promoted everybody BUT Brito, who homered on opening day and then hit only eight more the rest of the way. But we had fun, thinking of the homer-hollers, right? So, where's that orgy, and do I need a fake voter registration to get in?

Lockout Theatre: HOMESICK FOR ST. PAULI (1963)

Donno WTF they're saying in this clip, but doesn't Jayne Mansfield look like a female ubermensch? 

She sings in German, along with accordions and glockenspiels. Normally, you don't get around here. Co-star Freddy Quinn was an Elvis impersonator. This was one of Jayne's less successful projects after "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter," her 1957 smash hit. You might say she was heading for a crash.

RIP, Jayne. She were so much smarter than Hollywood wanted. 

Clint Frazier's sad story suggests a failed Yankee system of trust. Did they have no Ted Lasso?

Yesterday, former Yankee prodigal son Clint Frazier revealed he has struggled intermittently for four years with concussion symptoms, after hitting an outfield wall in early 2018. 

It's a grim and troubling postscript to Frazier's Yankee career, which once formed the bedrock of our fantasies. Yank fans foresaw Frazier as the longtime LF complement to Aaron Judge, a slugger who would also hit for average, and together they would propel this team through the 2020s. 

Instead - as we all know - Frazier struggled through a nightmare 2021, finally pulling the plug June 30 due to "dizzy spells." He's now a Cub, happily married, and - I fear - a future poster child for failed Yankee expectations, Exhibit A, whenever someone wants to justify trading prospects. (See GALLO, JOEY.)  

But here's the most distressing part of his story: 

Throughout much of his battle, Frazier didn't tell the Yankees what was going on inside his head. 

In the Short Porch podcast, to Kristie Ackert of the Daily News, Frazier paints a harrowing picture of his mental health after the first concussion. 

"I was severely symptomatic with some of these past issues that I was having. I was like, 'We gotta pick the pace up. I need help. I need serious fuckin' help.'"

When the symptoms returned in 2019, Frazier kept it to himself. 

“They weren’t aware, that was on me. I was trying to continue to play. So I didn’t tell them. And then I showed up to spring training and started to feel better, and then it kind of, like, came back, because I had an instance where I bumped the wall again. I went into the whole season feeling that exact way.”

Last I looked, the Yankees had two hitting coaches - (this year, they'll have three) - plus a battalion of scouts, trainers, shrinks, dealers, agents, hookers and hangers-on. They field a team of 25, a roster of 40, a front office roughly the size of Rhode Island, and an army of sycophants that would fill the Serengeti. And yet, there was no one Frazier could tell?

Wow. I mean... yikes. Is an MLB clubhouse that cutthroat? 

Here, you've got a guy literally falling apart, and he felt that he had to go it alone? I've always pictured Aaron Boone as a "players' manager." He never rips a Yankee in public, always sympathizes, talks up his troops. Now, I wonder. Frazier couldn't go to the manager, or anybody else in the dark tower?

Of course, the Yankees can rightfully blame Frazier's problems on Frazier. (Frazier does, himself.) The guy always exuded an aura of confidence, almost arrogance - perhaps reading too many press clippings? When Frazier was standing on first after a single, his grin would fill the stadium. Maybe he just bought into our fantasies? I dunno. Sad, though. I really wanted him to be a star. Whenever he homers for the Cubs, I'm going to feel a mix of happiness and despair. 

And along with pitching, catching, centerfield, first base and a shortstop, could it be that the Yankees need a Ted Lasso? 

Lockout Theatre: HELL ON WHEELS (1967)

Ace grease monkey John Ashley tries to escape the shadow of his racecar driver bro, Marty Robbins - yes, THE Marty "Out in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl" Robbins - by opening his own chop shop. He gets mixed up with bootleggers and - surprise - it's a high-speed chase.

The Stoneman Family and Connie Smith play themselves. Marty sings "No Tears, Milady." It was shot in Nashville, where the gang got to meet Charlie Pride.

(Warning: This movie contains Gig Perreau.) 

“Next year, when you’re in the box in April and it’s cold and it’s 20 degrees, you go … ‘Hmm … I wonder if this is a dead ball or a juiced ball? What’s the league comin’ at us today with?"

Funny, the things that spill out of a lockout...

Free agent Andrew Rizzo recently went on a podcast rant about MLB owners' balls and -frankly - it's disgusting. 

Turns out, each owner has two balls: One dead, one juiced. And if you're the Players Union, which means sleeping with management, you never know which ball you're gonna get. Isn't that disgusting? And for the last two years, MLB has secretly altered the fabric of the game by using the widely divergent balls.

The players have noticed. Independent analysts have noticed. You'd need lead blinders to think the gambling industry - of which MLB is up to its eyeballs in sleaze - hasn't noticed. The perkiness of the ball affects every aspect of the game - from Gerrit Cole's spin rate to Gleyber Torres' HR power.

As scandals go, this one is as under-appreciated as Phil Lesh's bass work with the Grateful Dead. Remember back when Tom Brady and the New England Patriots were caught deflating footballs? Remember the outrage surrounding his suspension? This is arguably worse, and it's just starting to bloom.  

Of course, the owners blame Covid. Viruses don't sue for libel. The owners say ballmaker Rawlings ran out of balls, so different balls were sourced, and hey, fans, whaddaya want - for games to be played with condom-encased Milk Duds? Nobody knew which ball was being used, so it was fair, right? And that's Chinatown, Jake. 

I suppose in a dystopian way - the world ending, democracy in peril, etc. - you get a few Mulligans, right? Still, we're not talking about Major League Cornhole. (Imagine the outcry if the beanbags were altered.) And now, here we have Honest Andrew Rizzo asking a fundamental question: 

Did the high-profile Yankees, staples of nationally televised games, face more juiced balls than others?

"Are we goin’ the Iowa game where the balls were flying out like they were golf balls, or are we gonna go Wrigley Field in April with the wind blowing in?’ … The big games, you know you’re getting the juiced balls, for sure.”

Hmm. Does Rizzo know something? I suspect he's not the lone conspiracist in the union ranks. Generally, the Yankees see more network games than anyone else - a vestige of their former glory. If that means a different ball, well, it's not fair. Not by a longshot. 

Funny, the things that spill out during a lockout. 

Lockout Theatre: BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA (1966)

Seriously, do you need to know more?

John Carradine plays Drac for the first time in 21 years. Filmed in Shock-O-Rama, it was co-featured with Jesse James vs. Frankenstein's Daughter...  

I vaguely remember seeing this at the Capital Theater in Waverly, NY. Every kid in town turned out. Bedlam. As soon as the lights died and the curtains separated, we climbed onto our seats, threw candy at the screen and screamed with all our might for the next two hours. To that point, I'm not sure I ever felt so alive. (Afterwards, ran all the way home.) Here's the trailer.

Hal speaks on a subject he's passionate about. (Note: It's not the Yankees.)

This weekend, Hal Steinbrenner had one of his p.r. flunkies write up a quote to celebrate his recent moment of success in pro sports. It's worth studying. Said the man we call "Food Stamps..." 

 “The New York Yankees applaud the entire NYCFC organization for bringing the MLS Cup home to the great city of New York."

Of course, the sport is soccer. Forget baseball. The Yankees have not been bringing home any cups, belts, trophies, flasks, jugs, commemorative boots or cowbells.

"Since NYCFC’s founding, we have been extremely proud partners with City Football Group, which truly sets the standard in world football."

Basically, the Yankees rent out their stadium, a reminder that - despite all the public money that went into building Yankee Stadium - Hal owns it.

"We especially offer our heartfelt congratulations to City Football Group’s dedicated leadership team, including Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, CEO Ferran Soriano and Board Member Marty Edelman, who is also Vice Chairman of NYCFC, as well as all of the NYCFC staff members who contributed to this incredible group effort."

Hal congratulates the owners, his fellow billionaires, and mentions not one player. 

"As an NYCFC Board Member, I want to recognize my colleagues on the board for the roles they played in this tremendous accomplishment."

Basically, he's applauding himself. Who'll ever forget the great plays those board members made in securing the Cup! It'd be like him congratulating Randy Levine and Rudy Giuliani for a Yankee world championship - (if, course, we ever win one again.)

Apologies to Barry McGuire... Sing along to EVE OF CHRISTMAS

The Fox News tree, it is explodin.'

Tucker flairin’, Trump unloadin,’

They re-write laws just to keep us all from votin,’

You don't believe in science, but what’s that phone you’re totin?'

They say even the Jordan River’s got ballots floatin,’

But you tell me over and over and over again my friend,

How you don't believe we're on the eve...

     of Christmas…

#

Yeah, Bitcoin’s so high, I feel like celebratin’

I’m sitting here, self-vaccinatin.'
Podcast experts say we don’t need no protectin’

Handful of senators selling ivermectin,

Stockings hung with care, they bring no inspiration.
Bags full of goodies priced high from inflation,

This holiday scene is just too frustratin,’
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend

Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve...
of Christmas

 #

See this air fryer? It was made in Red China.

I bought it in a CVS in Selma, Alabama.

Jeff Bezos may go up for three hours in space

But when tax time comes, he won’t pay a trace,

The wavin’ of the guns, the playin’ to the base,

Meet your next baby-sitter, and hope it’s not Matt Gaetz.

And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,

You don’t believe we’re on the eve...
of Christmas.

Yankee Advent Calendar #1

Ho. Ho. Ho. It’s just twelve days until Christmas! I think. Close enough anyway, and time to open the first door of our 2021 Yankee Themed Advent Calendar!  

Each day there will be a link to a special Yankee Themed Treat! 

What could the first one be? Well, here's a hint.  Every generation puts forth a savior. One who looks to the heavens for inspiration and strength.  One who will lead us from this wilderness and into the promised land.    

https://tinyurl.com/2p97vucb

Have we all been doing Brian Cashman a grave injustice???

 

Perusing our 2021 organizational statistics in these lockout days, searching for any last, stray vestige of hope, I came across this surprising fact:

In 2021, the combined record of your New York Yankees' farm teams was 388-264, .595—a higher percentage than that for the Yanks' system in any recent season and perhaps anytime, ever, though records are woefully incomplete.  

Of the club's 6 farm teams, every one had a winning record, and 4—the Somerset Patriots in the Double-A Northeast League, the Hudson Valley Renegades in the High-A East League, the unfortunately monikered Tampa Tarpons in the Low-A Southeast League (oh, the romance of these new minor leagues!), and the Florida Complex League Yankees, in the Florida It's Complicated League—all finished first. 

Could we have been unfair to our favorite rappelling, street-sleeping elf? Could Brian Cashman have quietly, cunningly built a cracker-jack farm system right under our noses? Could the Yanks really be loaded for bear, and Red Sock, and Ray, in the years just ahead?

OR...could it be that their record just looks better because the Yanks are playing older, more experienced guys in many of these minor-league affiliates?  

In other words, is it the real thing, or is it just fantasy? Is it live, or is it Memorex? 

Let's take a look!

In 2021, the average ages for position players first, then pitchers, were as follows at each Yankees farm club:

Scranton (AAA):  26.7  26.9

Somerset (AA):  23.5  24.6

Hudson Valley (High A): 22.6  23.6

Tampa (Low A): 21.6  22.4

FCL Yankees: 20.4  21.1

Dominican Summer League Yankees 1:  18.6  19.1

Dominican Summer League Yankees 2:  18.8  19.2

So, how does this compare with 2017, the recent gold standard, when not only our boys in the Bronx revived, but so did the whole system? Back when life was tender and no one wept except the willow, filling our heads (all right, my head), with thoughts of a dynasty in the borning? 

In 2017, of the Yanks' 9 farm teams com, 5—Scranton, Trenton, Tampa, Staten Island, and one of their Gulf Coast League teams—finished first, and one, Pulaski, grabbed a title in the playoffs.  

These were average ages:

Scranton (AAA):  25.1  25.2

Trenton (AA):  23.4  23.5

Tampa (High A):  23.0  23.3

Charleston (Low A):  20.4  22.1

Staten Island (Low A):  21.5  22.2

Pulaski (Rookie):  19.5  21.7

Gulf Coast League Yankees West:  19.2  20.6

Gulf Coast League Yankees East:  19.2  20.3

Dominican Summer League Yankees:  17.8  18.5

And there you have it. Sadly, it seems that this year's high-flying, over-achieving, Wonder Farm System is (yet another) Cashman mirage. Hell, the average age at Scranton got so high I suspect half the team was already checking into the best way to fill the Medicare hole that Joe Namath is always telling us about.

At almost every level in 2021, the Yankees got "better" by simply stocking the pond with older players, many of whom had already shot their bolt. 

Not to mention the fact, of course, that they once again followed the herd in MLB, by eliminating one-third of their farm teams, and doubling down on young players in the DR—although, if you'll note, even their Dominican players got older. Yet another economy designed almost wholly to fatten Steinbrenner bank accounts.

That 2017 system never did quite live up to its promise. But it did include the likes of Miggy, Higgy, Gleyber Torres, Nasty Nestor Cortes, Domingo German, Thairo Estrada, Mike Ford, Dustin Fowler, Clint Fowler, Chad Green, Loaisiga, McBroom(!), McKinney, Jordan Montgomery, Brigadoon Refsnyder, Justus Sheffield, Tyler Wade, and Garret Whitlock—among others.

It's amazing how many of these players we managed to squander or ruin. But hey, at least the talent was there.

Today? Well, we've got Volpe and the Oswalds (already patented for my garage-band name), Cabrera and Peraza, and that's about it, folks. Not a truly promising pitcher in the whole system. 

Back to wondering if there will be a season in 2022. Back to wondering if that will matter.