Baseball Again

It is that magical time of the year again - baseball season once again. It is so magical it revives this poor sad blog! well - this year it does; last year I didn't manage it. 2020 and 2021 I didn't manage it, 2020 because it was in the middle of the plague and who knows when there would be any baseball to care about - 21? I blame the patheticness of the Red Sox in 2020. And of course both those years were heavily influenced by the lingering impact of the most disgraceful episode in recent Boston sports history - Mookie! Who trades Mookie Betts! Jesus Christ!

I have not forgiven them.

But Mookie has 2 more rings, and the Sox do not appear to be as pathetic as recently - so - we shall try it again. Not that I follow baseball closely enough to have much to offer - but I won't let that stop me. Here we go!

AL East:

1. New York - not that I like it, but they have players, pitchers, and money - why not? who is going to beat them? well - a couple teams might - but probably not. One never gives up hope though.

2. Boston - there's no good reason for picking them this high, but I will anyway. They were back to mediocrity last year - they developed some pitching, they developed a number of decent young position players - and they have some high end prospects on the farm - Campbell, Anthony, Mayer. They traded for Crochet, they anted up for Bregman, they are probably going to make poor Raffy Devers DHG after all, which will make the team stronger in every way. They are intriguing - maybe even exciting! Duran is exciting. The pitching could be - though it is still too reliant on some fragile arms - Crochet? Houck? Buehler? all good - all fragile. So - things could go spectacularly wrong; but they could also go very well. And odds are they will be more fun, as those young guys develop - even if they stink, they won't stink forever.

3. Baltimore - they have a ton of great young talent; they have had a hard time keeping a fully functional pitching staff on the field. It could all click again, and they could be dominant again - though I would have thought that last year and they were just really good. So - gonna have to play the games I guess.

4. Toronto - they have talent; I don't know if they are good enough to beat anyone. But they might. I mean - between my lack of familiarity with the current teams and their own tendency toward wild variability, there will be a lot of throwing up of the hands this year. Like here!

5. Tampa Bay - hey, playing in a minor league park might help them more than it hurts! I doubt it.

AL Central:

1. Detroit - any reason for this, other than they were wonderfully overachievers last year? And Skubal? Maybe not, but that's a start.

2. Kansas City - they also wildly overachieved (though I saw people calling this one before the season started, and I believed it.) Lugo, Wacha, et al, created stability on the hill; and Bobby Witt Jr is pretty fucking amazing. They still feel like a fun underdog, but maybe with some experience - why not?

3. Cleveland - there's a lot of talent here too, though they seem unwilling to let the team get too good. Jose Ramirez is still shockingly underrated. They should continue to do pretty well. Though - this whole division feels like a bunch of dark horses - one 0or two fo them will perform, the rest - might not.

4. Minnesota might even contend. I don't know. They should beat Chicago though.

5. Chicago White Sox - oh yeah. They can't be any worse, anyway.

AL West:

1. Texas - this may not be justified by anything other than - they won the world series; they sagged rather badly the next year - they could bounce back! Some players underperformed last year - they still have some real talent - why not? Maybe Jacob DeGrom won't be hurt all year - which might be enough to win the division by himself. It's not a bad bet, I think.

2. Houston - I think - are they any good? Kyle Tucker and Bregman are gone - Altuve and Alvarez are still there - they have pitching - they should be fine. They don't feel like powerhouses though.

3. Seattle - they keep flirting with being really good; great pitching, some excellent talent - will they put it all together? Maybe? An awful lot of baseball feels like this muddly middle, all of a sudden. At least other than the Dodgers, Braves and maybe the Phillies?

4. Oakland - they were supposed to be one fo the worst teams in baseball history last year, but the White Sox beat them to the punch. They have some interesting players. They are out of Oakland - is that good or bad? (Bad, overall, but who knows, it might be liberating, after the fuckery surrounding that franchise the last few years.) 

5. LA Angels - the poor bastards. I hope Mike Trout can be healthy again for a couple years. I don't expect him to have anything around him, but come on! give the man something.

National League:

NL East:

1. Atlanta - they are pretty damned good. If Acuna and Strider are back, they should be one fo the teams to beat - even without them, they are very strong.

2. Philadelphia - why not. Harper and Turner and Wheeler and the like are still solid, make a good team. They are not going anywhere. 

3. NY Mets - hey, maybe Soto puts them over the top. More likely, they go through their usual high drama, middle of the pack season, with disappointment and vitriol the primary themes. They seem to draw that stuff.

4. Washington - they seem to be trying to rebuild a team.

5. Miami - they don't.

NL Central:

1. Milwaukee - they win every year, why not this one?

2. Cincinnati - any reason for this? Terry Francona and Ely De la Cruz? This is a very boring division, so why not? Francona might be the difference.

3. St Louis - if it matters.

4. Chicago - I am trying to muster any interest in finding out who they have. Kyle Tucker! there you go! Pete Crow Armstrong, a name that deserves a couple wins all by itself!

5. Pittsburg - I don't know any reason to think they will be any good, but I sure hope they are. Paul Skenes? All right - that makes them a team to watch once in a while. You also hope to heck they get a team behind him worthy of him.

NL West:

1. Los Angeles - I mean, obviously. Why not? Mookie! Shohei! Freddie Freeman! all right. Everyone has been whining all winter about how they break all competitive balance, though it's not like the NY teams can't spend a buck when they want to, though usually not with quite such impact. And this is baseball - you can throw money at it, but that isn't going to win everything every year. They play the games. But that said - I don't care. I'd as soon see them win as anyone - they seem to have a knack not only for spending money, and spending it on worthy ball players - but spending it in a way that makes watching them more fun! Have the Yankees at their spendingest ever been fun? Hell no! Some of the crazier red sox teams were fun - a lot of the Boston winners were fun. Were the Astros fun when they were dominating the game? Not terribly. Were the 90s Braves fun? I mean - yes, from a purist perspective, but what's best about the Dodgers is that they are a purist's team - who can't love Mookie or Freddie Freeman, as old fashioned, fundamentally sound, ball players? as well as being genuinely a showtime team - or a Shoheitime team, if you know what I mean and you better. So yeah - let em win. If the Sox can't (and they probably can't), give Mookie ring number 4! and let them trade for Mike Trout at the deadline. 

2. San Diego - they are pretty good too, truth to tell. They get forgotten, but they are likely to be hanging around at the end.

3. Arizona - another pretty good team, with a why not shot at winning.

4. San Francisco - not so sure abouyt them, though.

5. Colorado - thank god for the White Sox, huh?

Well - there you have it. Very random this year, with spotty knowledge and maybe a bit more indifference than in the past. But hey - it's still a beautiful game.

I'll be rooting for the Red Sox, hoping they give a good accounting of themselves - and won't be rooting against the Dodgers, no matter how much money they have. Save my ire for the Yankees and Mets, the traditional enemies. 

David Lynch

Has died, aged 78. He was one of the great ones - the greatest American director since Hawks and Capra, I'd say - and absolutely central to how I came to love the movies. Blue Velvet, I think, might have been the first film I saw that made me think that films could be as completely satisfying, emotionally, intellectually, aesthetically, as a great book or piece of music. He was one of the first directors I noticed as a director - along with Kubrick, Eisenstein, maybe Godard, Kurosawa, Scorsese. I was an odd cinephile - I started as an auteurist art film snob, and moved from there to a much broader love of movies. (Though I suppose I am still an auteurist art film snob, if push comes to shove.) Still - Lynch was definitive. 

There was a stretch, mid 90s, where he slipped back some in my estimation. I moved away from some of my youthful formalism - I fell under the sway of the Capras and Cassavetes and Altmans of the world. Then I saw Elephant Man at Coolidge Corner one day, the first time I'd see it on a big screen, and saw it on the Coolidge's gorgeous big screen - that changed things. The beauty of that film, its humanity, its clear moral and ethical positions, its empathy - it snapped me back to paying attention to what Lynch put on screen. Straight Story followed, and sealed it. Gorgeous films; lessons in empathy - which most of his films are. 

The later films finished the process, won me back, pushed him to the top. I loved Mulholland Drive; I worship Inland Empire. It came out and I saw it twice in two days, then again a couple weeks later. I kept returning to it. It sealed his place at the top of the pile - even if I'd still say Blue Velvet is his masterpiece. All that happened against when the Twin Peaks continuation happened - I loved that almost as much. I didn't write about it as much - I haven't been writing much on this blog in the last few years. But it holds up. And gets right at what I think makes him so great - the artistry, the surrealism, the dadaism, the formal brilliance of his work; but also its empathy - and the way it weaves empathy and horror together. 

Lynch is uncanny, unheimlich, as the Germans might have it. Horror comes from the home, the family, the everyday - what destroys us comes from what sustains us and protects us. It's there is all his films - homes that are poisoned, coming apart from within - but with a real sense of possibility and loss. They are all about families being ripped apart - Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, all the Twin Peaks iterations, Lost Highway, Straight Story, Inland Empire - family as comfort and horror. It's a theme a lot of my favorite filmmakers share - Ozu, Capra notably - and Lynch is worthy of them. 

He was, in short, one of the great ones. And every bit as interesting as a person. I will miss him.