I understand how Elizabeth is feeling, Joe, and I'm sorry her senior year has turned out this way. It seems she has a good perspective on it all, but that only goes so far. If I heard you correctly on a recent Poscast, you mentioned that she is planning to go to KU in the Fall. Hopefully that goes off without a hitch, and gives her something to focus on other than how high school ended for her. KU is my alma mater, and my daughter is a sophomore there, so while I'm sure you have family and friends in Kansas to help her, if ever have any KU Dad questions, feel free to give me a shout.
Fun Fact: Robert Conrad, who played Jim West in the original television series, arrived at the 20th Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony to collect in person three Razzies the film won in order to express his objections to the film.
Hey Joe! If E likes history have her look up small pox. And how people coped. Bit of a back handed compliment to say we seemed to be better then when everyone accepted these things are part of life. And ‘part of life’ for that one meant 1 out of 3. Remind her even Uncle Abe — in middle of Civil War — had to quarantine. Talk about a writers dream, the Guy had a line for everything.
Interesting comparison to the Fast and Furious movies. I have absolutely no desire to see those, but in coronavirus days, I've been watching more movies, and I've seen some intense action films and I don't know what to make of them. One is Mission Impossible: Fallout, another is John Wick #2, the third is Snowpiercer. MI: Fallout has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is touted as the best action movie of all time. Wick 2 has an 89% tomatometer score, and a cult hit. Snowpiercer has a 94% and was directed by Korean film great Bong Joon-ho.
All three of them involve killing of hundreds of people and people doing impossible things to stay alive. How are these movies so enjoyable?
Joe, your perspective on what your daughter has encountered during her senior year brought back uncomfortable feelings still harboured as my son was tackling his final year in High school while his parents were locked in battle during an untimely divorce. Comparing apples to oranges but...results are eerily the same. Junior was robbed of fulfilling senior experience... imposed on him by parents....not a pandemic!
Joe, I'm in China so we've been in a lockdown for months already. The regularity of the baseball 100 dripping in has been a little drop of goodness through this time. I don't want to get overly dramatic but it's value has been more than just the pleasure of the content. And the addition of the favourite players is a genius touch - a fine meal made better.
Thank you so much for your personal comment. It was inspirational. And I'm sure your getting tired of folks telling you how great your Baseball 100 has been, but too bad; you'll just have to live with our eternal gratitude and admiration. And btw, I think that the Wild Wild West movie is one of the top 100 worst movies of all time and was probably the second biggest disappointment of any movie I went to see ever, behind only all the sequels to the first (fantastic) Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
Joe, after you take a well-deserved break, I bet people would love to read a "Behind the Music" of assembling the top 100. Did you decide the rankings up front or on the fly? How did you do the research to find under-reported stories? How much (if at all) did the commentariat influence the work as it proceeded? Etc.
Thanks again for some great reading during some difficult times. (even if covid-19 hadn't happened, things still would've been rough for baseball, we'd be neck deep in sign stealing news).
The spider mech villain in Wild Wild West is a result of a directive from producer Jon Peters. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_West#Writing). He tried to get Kevin Smith to include a spider villain in his scrapped Superman script and get Neil Gaiman to include one in a Sandman adaptation.
1. Regarding WWW the movie: apparently my wife went to see that the day it came out when she was in High School. She thought it was terrible. When she got home, she learned her beloved cat had been hit and killed by a car.
1.a. I'm lucky enough to never have seen it
2. WHAT WAS THE MEAL?
3. Thank you SO much for the baseball 100! It is definitely some of your best writing. People I share an essay or two with, people who aren't necessarily even on the Athletic subscription list let alone Pos superfans, invariably ask me words to the effect of "when will it come out in book form"? It'll be one of the coolest baseball books of all time, when it does. (I hope that it will also nod to Shadowball and your Favorite Players entries as well.)
Joe, I remember watching “The Wild, Wild West” on TV, back in the day. My mother told me, “It’s camp!” when I didn’t understand something—but it didn’t look like my understanding of a camp (day camp, for instance)(or in relation to TV, “F Troop or “Hogan’s Heroes”).
When I bought tickets to see the movie for my family, I thought it would be fun. Kevin Kline, Will Smith. Ugh What a disappointment! I’m sorry you spent 42 minutes. And thank you for the personal stories. Your writing—and knowing you are writing, brings me joy.
Joe, Thank you for everything you write. The Baseball 100 is keeping me sane as a substitute for spring training and the start of the season.
I have a suggestion for one of your bad movie nights. It's "Xanadu", a movie musical made in 1980 starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly. The plot is pretty crazy, a Greek muse (Olivia Newton-John) comes to life to inspire an album-cover artist to pursue his dream of opening a roller disco. Along the way, the album-cover artist also becomes friends with a former big-band leader (Gene Kelly) who also provides life counsel to the artist. The movie also features music by ELO and The Tubes. The film was adapted into a pretty good Broadway musical (it was nominated for a Tony) but the movie is awful.
"I believe this is some of the best work I’ve done in my life"
Obviously you meant that in context of the BB100. And -- as an every day regular (and commenter) there -- I can attest that I agree. Hell, my agreement with this sentence in the section of this post relating to the BB100 is the sole reason I hit Ctrl-C and got it ready for pasting into quotation marks.
But then I got to the next section. The personal one. And the tears started flowing. And what you said really hit me. 'Cause it's exactly what I've been saying to my own son. And thinking about. It's real. It's true. And it's wonderful, marvelous, incredible prose:
"So here’s what I told her: Feel sad. Feel angry. Feel scared. It’s OK. It’s more than OK — it’s necessary.
We’re living through history. People will be studying this in schools for years and years to come — “your kids,” I told her, “will be studying this” — and what will that story be? We don’t know. But we will write this story, one way or another. The Americans who lived through The Depression didn’t know how it would end … or if it would end. The Americans who lived through World War II didn’t anticipate D-Day or know it would end in victory.
They just kept going. Hope kept them going. There’s reason to have hope. I have faith in our scientists. I have faith in the dedication of medical professionals. I have faith that, differences aside, we care enough about each other that we will pull through whatever this ends up being … together.
I’m not going to tell you that faith doesn’t get shaken a little bit each day. It does.
But then I remember what Buck O’Neil always said: There are so many more good people than not."
Keep on keeping on, man. And thanks for sharing a bit of yourself as you do.
I think your readership would like to know: what was the wild west-themed dinner paired with this particular film? I think the dinner menu should be in the stats, alongside the rotten tomatoes ranking, and how long you made it before bailing ... loving the Baseball 100! Thank you!
I understand how Elizabeth is feeling, Joe, and I'm sorry her senior year has turned out this way. It seems she has a good perspective on it all, but that only goes so far. If I heard you correctly on a recent Poscast, you mentioned that she is planning to go to KU in the Fall. Hopefully that goes off without a hitch, and gives her something to focus on other than how high school ended for her. KU is my alma mater, and my daughter is a sophomore there, so while I'm sure you have family and friends in Kansas to help her, if ever have any KU Dad questions, feel free to give me a shout.
Fun Fact: Robert Conrad, who played Jim West in the original television series, arrived at the 20th Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony to collect in person three Razzies the film won in order to express his objections to the film.
Hey Joe! If E likes history have her look up small pox. And how people coped. Bit of a back handed compliment to say we seemed to be better then when everyone accepted these things are part of life. And ‘part of life’ for that one meant 1 out of 3. Remind her even Uncle Abe — in middle of Civil War — had to quarantine. Talk about a writers dream, the Guy had a line for everything.
Interesting comparison to the Fast and Furious movies. I have absolutely no desire to see those, but in coronavirus days, I've been watching more movies, and I've seen some intense action films and I don't know what to make of them. One is Mission Impossible: Fallout, another is John Wick #2, the third is Snowpiercer. MI: Fallout has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is touted as the best action movie of all time. Wick 2 has an 89% tomatometer score, and a cult hit. Snowpiercer has a 94% and was directed by Korean film great Bong Joon-ho.
All three of them involve killing of hundreds of people and people doing impossible things to stay alive. How are these movies so enjoyable?
Joe, your perspective on what your daughter has encountered during her senior year brought back uncomfortable feelings still harboured as my son was tackling his final year in High school while his parents were locked in battle during an untimely divorce. Comparing apples to oranges but...results are eerily the same. Junior was robbed of fulfilling senior experience... imposed on him by parents....not a pandemic!
Joe, I'm in China so we've been in a lockdown for months already. The regularity of the baseball 100 dripping in has been a little drop of goodness through this time. I don't want to get overly dramatic but it's value has been more than just the pleasure of the content. And the addition of the favourite players is a genius touch - a fine meal made better.
(and love the newsletters)
Thank you so much for your personal comment. It was inspirational. And I'm sure your getting tired of folks telling you how great your Baseball 100 has been, but too bad; you'll just have to live with our eternal gratitude and admiration. And btw, I think that the Wild Wild West movie is one of the top 100 worst movies of all time and was probably the second biggest disappointment of any movie I went to see ever, behind only all the sequels to the first (fantastic) Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
Joe, after you take a well-deserved break, I bet people would love to read a "Behind the Music" of assembling the top 100. Did you decide the rankings up front or on the fly? How did you do the research to find under-reported stories? How much (if at all) did the commentariat influence the work as it proceeded? Etc.
Thanks again for some great reading during some difficult times. (even if covid-19 hadn't happened, things still would've been rough for baseball, we'd be neck deep in sign stealing news).
I never saw this movie (thankfully) but I always thought it should have used Kool Moe Dee's Wild Wild West as the theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auhwI00iKWg
The spider mech villain in Wild Wild West is a result of a directive from producer Jon Peters. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_West#Writing). He tried to get Kevin Smith to include a spider villain in his scrapped Superman script and get Neil Gaiman to include one in a Sandman adaptation.
1. Regarding WWW the movie: apparently my wife went to see that the day it came out when she was in High School. She thought it was terrible. When she got home, she learned her beloved cat had been hit and killed by a car.
1.a. I'm lucky enough to never have seen it
2. WHAT WAS THE MEAL?
3. Thank you SO much for the baseball 100! It is definitely some of your best writing. People I share an essay or two with, people who aren't necessarily even on the Athletic subscription list let alone Pos superfans, invariably ask me words to the effect of "when will it come out in book form"? It'll be one of the coolest baseball books of all time, when it does. (I hope that it will also nod to Shadowball and your Favorite Players entries as well.)
Thank you again!
Do you have to subscribe to The Athletic in addition to this to read the Baseball 100?
Yes
Joe, I remember watching “The Wild, Wild West” on TV, back in the day. My mother told me, “It’s camp!” when I didn’t understand something—but it didn’t look like my understanding of a camp (day camp, for instance)(or in relation to TV, “F Troop or “Hogan’s Heroes”).
When I bought tickets to see the movie for my family, I thought it would be fun. Kevin Kline, Will Smith. Ugh What a disappointment! I’m sorry you spent 42 minutes. And thank you for the personal stories. Your writing—and knowing you are writing, brings me joy.
Joe, Thank you for everything you write. The Baseball 100 is keeping me sane as a substitute for spring training and the start of the season.
I have a suggestion for one of your bad movie nights. It's "Xanadu", a movie musical made in 1980 starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly. The plot is pretty crazy, a Greek muse (Olivia Newton-John) comes to life to inspire an album-cover artist to pursue his dream of opening a roller disco. Along the way, the album-cover artist also becomes friends with a former big-band leader (Gene Kelly) who also provides life counsel to the artist. The movie also features music by ELO and The Tubes. The film was adapted into a pretty good Broadway musical (it was nominated for a Tony) but the movie is awful.
"I believe this is some of the best work I’ve done in my life"
Obviously you meant that in context of the BB100. And -- as an every day regular (and commenter) there -- I can attest that I agree. Hell, my agreement with this sentence in the section of this post relating to the BB100 is the sole reason I hit Ctrl-C and got it ready for pasting into quotation marks.
But then I got to the next section. The personal one. And the tears started flowing. And what you said really hit me. 'Cause it's exactly what I've been saying to my own son. And thinking about. It's real. It's true. And it's wonderful, marvelous, incredible prose:
"So here’s what I told her: Feel sad. Feel angry. Feel scared. It’s OK. It’s more than OK — it’s necessary.
We’re living through history. People will be studying this in schools for years and years to come — “your kids,” I told her, “will be studying this” — and what will that story be? We don’t know. But we will write this story, one way or another. The Americans who lived through The Depression didn’t know how it would end … or if it would end. The Americans who lived through World War II didn’t anticipate D-Day or know it would end in victory.
They just kept going. Hope kept them going. There’s reason to have hope. I have faith in our scientists. I have faith in the dedication of medical professionals. I have faith that, differences aside, we care enough about each other that we will pull through whatever this ends up being … together.
I’m not going to tell you that faith doesn’t get shaken a little bit each day. It does.
But then I remember what Buck O’Neil always said: There are so many more good people than not."
Keep on keeping on, man. And thanks for sharing a bit of yourself as you do.
(And now back to the BB100.)
I think your readership would like to know: what was the wild west-themed dinner paired with this particular film? I think the dinner menu should be in the stats, alongside the rotten tomatoes ranking, and how long you made it before bailing ... loving the Baseball 100! Thank you!
We definitely want to know!