The beauty of history is that it teaches us where we have come from and gives an insight to where we should be going. At best, it reflects who we are; at worst, it highlights what we have still to learn. The beauty of cable television is that it sends us packets of history in neat little thirty-minute segments!
The beauty of baseball is far and deep and rich, and is tied to American history in many ways.
This winter, I am glad I have cable and history and baseball, because all three remind me that the Chicago Cubs are nothing but a team of hapless losers.
ESPN Classic recently aired game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series. You may recall that this was the game with the famous “Bartman Ball” incident. This was when a twenty-something fan reached for a foul ball that was heading toward the glove of a Cubs’ outfielder and knocked the ball out of reach. It was a beautiful moment! As the futility of the Cubs overflowed into a heartbreaking loss, the team went onto to lose game 7 of that series and continued the curse that keeps them from the World Series.
As an avid anti-Cub guy, I enjoyed viewing that game again, especially knowing what was coming. Now, I did not watch the entire replay – only the 6th through 8th innings as I knew the impending doom that was soon to be launched upon the Cubs and their fans. After all, I had the benefit of history’s spyglass pointing backward to that fall collapse.
Watching the moment felt the way it must feel when one sees their arch enemy falter, or how an ex-anything witnesses his or her former lover suffer some miserable embarrassment. It was sheer diabolical joy!
The Cubs are not all that our media frenzy fandom would make them out to be. They only have monumental national status because Chicago is a large city – see New York Yankees Rise to Prominence circa 1920-1935.
In 2009, when the Cubs were eliminated from the play-offs (again!), it marked a 101 year gap (chasm? void? black hole of futility?) between World Series Championships for the so-called "Lovable Losers." Yes, you read that correctly - the Cubs have not won the World Series since 1908!
Correct me if I am wrong, but that is longer than most Americans have been alive, longer than most technology has survived its usefulness and even longer than the Rolling Stones have been doing reunion tours. But, still, America loves the Northside Chicago Baseball Boys. Why?
Because we are afraid to call them what they are, and that is historic losers.
The moniker of "loveable losers" is an embarrassment to competition. Are the Pirates loved throughout the land for their now-record 17 straight losing seasons? No. Are the Indians the nation's darlings because they have not won the World Series since 1948? No! Do we adore the NY / San Francisco Giants for having not won baseball’s championship in 56 years? Of course not.
Yet all three teams are mocked endlessly by fans and pundits of the game while the Cubs are elevated to mythic status as Mistresses of the Diamond, as Charlatans of Cooperstown. Lest we forget to mention the Royals, Padres or Expos / Nationals, who have never won baseball's championship at all.
In short, losers are losers and the Cubs need to be called that -- LOSERS.
Call them chokers, perennial disappointments or yearly also-rans, but either term is a euphemism for L – O – S – E – R! They are no better than the Giants, Indians and Pirates, who, by the way, have won a combined 10 World Series titles since 1908. (I'm just saying.) It is time that baseball fans acknowledge the fact that the Cubs might never win the World Series again – goats be damned!
So the next time someone discusses the “friendly confines” of Wrigley Field (I was there in June of 1997 for a game and it was a nice outing but as cold as a Pittsburgh autumn; a.k.a. – not so friendly after all), please ask them why they root for classic losers. Or the next time someone admires Lou Piniella for his brash arrogance, I encourage you to remind them that he is at the helm of a group of losers!
Am I a bitter Pirates fan? No, not really. I embrace history. It is part of what makes baseball the great game that it is, the same magic that you just cannot explain to someone who is not a fan of our once national pastime. I am old enough to have attended a Pirates play-off game and I recall the 1979 World Series fondly. As well, I am often heard reminding people that the Pirates were once a proud and successful franchise, as were those same Royals and Expos.
In fact, had someone pulled a Rip Van Winkle in 1992 and awoken on June 27, 2009, they would have thought it was late October as the Pirates battled the Royals for a World Series title. But that was just Kansas City visiting PNC Park on a mild summer evening for interleague play, something no one knew of the last time the Pirates had a winning season...in 1992.
What is wrong with baseball is obvious – it needs a salary cap. I am not the first to have said that, nor will I be the last. Until we as fans join together and outright boycott the game for an entire season, not much will change. Maybe the Yankees won’t win the World Series again in 2010. Maybe the Rays were a fluke in 2008. They might join the Cubs and not have a post-season appearance again until 2108. Either way, it won’t be the Cubs who will be sipping November Champagne this year. And for that, we should all come to the realization that the Cubs are Losers. Deal with it! I for one will celebrate the fact.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Snow-Snowing Away
I have the feeling that everyone wishes I would talk about the snow. (Everyone being an extremely relative term - considering I have all of a dozen readers at best.) But I am not going to do that. I don't want to talk about the snow. Just how do I have this alleged feeling? I don't know, but I think it has something to do with being a Kirk and using the Force in some quasi-related definition of irony.
I could discuss the record amounts of snowfall that have hit my hometown of Pittsburgh and the surrounding area, but I won't because D.C. and Philadelphia got walloped worse. I do think that Philly had it coming to them, though. After all, their baseball team allowed the Yankees to win the World Series. I'm just saying.
Most readers would expect me to tell my own story to somehow draw relevance to the bigger things in our lives. We want to connect in that way. We like to link our memories to the events of our shared human experience. If I were to do that, I would bore you with thoughts about my childhood when I recall in 1978 having only had school on Wednesdays for an entire winter. Or, of how I happened to move south in 1993 - the worst winter to have hit Western PA in decades. That would bore you, so I won't mention those facts.
I refuse to quote Mark Twain, who said, "Everyone complains about the weather, but no ever does anything about it." That is a great quote, and one that, based on how long ago Twain lived, shows that the human animal really has not changed all that much over the centuries. As much as we have evolved, we have stayed the same. There might be a Rush reference in there somewhere, but I won't quote either Twain or the Tom-Sawyer-boys, because they have all been quoted before.
Sorry, I just won't discuss the Blizzard of 2010 because it is a mundane topic. After all, the news has covered the event ad nauseum - from snow-packed streets to a plow that actually caught on fire! They have used news time to show a citizen fall, another complain and yet another remove newly accumulated snow from a car window. What gripping footage! I will not pay credence to events that are of nature which we somehow make into a news story. Writing about that would be as ridiculous as the news coverage itself.
Nor will I gain a cheap laugh by telling the story of the first voicemail we heard when our electricity was restored after 22 hours in the near-cold/near-dark of our house. Oh, you would love that one! The message was from our neighbor who is "wintering" in Florida, and she said that she has a snowblower in her garage that we are welcome to use! Great, just when we had finished 5 other driveways. Nope, I won't share that story because you will assume I am making it up.
As much as readers may wish, I will not justify the rambling complaints of my friends and co-workers. These same people who gripe and whine about the snow and the cold and the muck and the ice will be the same who complain in six months because it is too hot, too sticky, too humid or because they are too sun-burned. By then, it will not be the heat that bothers them, but the humidity. Then again, I have not heard a single person say, "Cold enough for you?" yet this winter.
As well, I will not waste valuable (well, again - a relative term) webspace wondering just why people make a rush on groceries at the earliest hint of an approaching storm. But we must give credit where credit is due. This time, the crazies got it right. Heading to the store to grab milk, bread and eggs the very minute WTK-whatever-station broadcast a coming storm was actually a good idea for the first time since 1993.
And, finally, I will not even scrape the ice of the age-old topic about exercise and hard work. I could ramble on about how good I feel after having shoveled snow amounts in the metric tonnage, but I will not do that either. I could remind myself that it is all about mind over matter, this exercise thing; how if I just motivate myself regularly I can in fact work harder to push myself further and to tone up, lose weight and get in shape. After all, if I can find enough energy to shovel during a snowfall of six days straight, I could definitely do it for a standard work-out routine. No one wants to read about that! Besides, if I were to write that fact, someone would undoubtedly use it against me in the future.
So as much as you and every other reader would like to have read about my views on THE STORM, I am sorry but I cannot and will not do that. Maybe next year when we have a serious and substantial storm I will rant about winter. For now, I will just bid you good day and get back out there with shovel in hand. I mean, really, what is 26 inches of snow over 6 days when you have multiple driveways to clear?
I could discuss the record amounts of snowfall that have hit my hometown of Pittsburgh and the surrounding area, but I won't because D.C. and Philadelphia got walloped worse. I do think that Philly had it coming to them, though. After all, their baseball team allowed the Yankees to win the World Series. I'm just saying.
Most readers would expect me to tell my own story to somehow draw relevance to the bigger things in our lives. We want to connect in that way. We like to link our memories to the events of our shared human experience. If I were to do that, I would bore you with thoughts about my childhood when I recall in 1978 having only had school on Wednesdays for an entire winter. Or, of how I happened to move south in 1993 - the worst winter to have hit Western PA in decades. That would bore you, so I won't mention those facts.
I refuse to quote Mark Twain, who said, "Everyone complains about the weather, but no ever does anything about it." That is a great quote, and one that, based on how long ago Twain lived, shows that the human animal really has not changed all that much over the centuries. As much as we have evolved, we have stayed the same. There might be a Rush reference in there somewhere, but I won't quote either Twain or the Tom-Sawyer-boys, because they have all been quoted before.
Sorry, I just won't discuss the Blizzard of 2010 because it is a mundane topic. After all, the news has covered the event ad nauseum - from snow-packed streets to a plow that actually caught on fire! They have used news time to show a citizen fall, another complain and yet another remove newly accumulated snow from a car window. What gripping footage! I will not pay credence to events that are of nature which we somehow make into a news story. Writing about that would be as ridiculous as the news coverage itself.
Nor will I gain a cheap laugh by telling the story of the first voicemail we heard when our electricity was restored after 22 hours in the near-cold/near-dark of our house. Oh, you would love that one! The message was from our neighbor who is "wintering" in Florida, and she said that she has a snowblower in her garage that we are welcome to use! Great, just when we had finished 5 other driveways. Nope, I won't share that story because you will assume I am making it up.
As much as readers may wish, I will not justify the rambling complaints of my friends and co-workers. These same people who gripe and whine about the snow and the cold and the muck and the ice will be the same who complain in six months because it is too hot, too sticky, too humid or because they are too sun-burned. By then, it will not be the heat that bothers them, but the humidity. Then again, I have not heard a single person say, "Cold enough for you?" yet this winter.
As well, I will not waste valuable (well, again - a relative term) webspace wondering just why people make a rush on groceries at the earliest hint of an approaching storm. But we must give credit where credit is due. This time, the crazies got it right. Heading to the store to grab milk, bread and eggs the very minute WTK-whatever-station broadcast a coming storm was actually a good idea for the first time since 1993.
And, finally, I will not even scrape the ice of the age-old topic about exercise and hard work. I could ramble on about how good I feel after having shoveled snow amounts in the metric tonnage, but I will not do that either. I could remind myself that it is all about mind over matter, this exercise thing; how if I just motivate myself regularly I can in fact work harder to push myself further and to tone up, lose weight and get in shape. After all, if I can find enough energy to shovel during a snowfall of six days straight, I could definitely do it for a standard work-out routine. No one wants to read about that! Besides, if I were to write that fact, someone would undoubtedly use it against me in the future.
So as much as you and every other reader would like to have read about my views on THE STORM, I am sorry but I cannot and will not do that. Maybe next year when we have a serious and substantial storm I will rant about winter. For now, I will just bid you good day and get back out there with shovel in hand. I mean, really, what is 26 inches of snow over 6 days when you have multiple driveways to clear?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Top One-Liners from Non-Sports Movies
Sadly, when the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, a slice of Americana passed away. Namely, those of us loyal (or somewhat loyal…or bandwagon loyal) to the “Red Sox Nation” now have nothing to moan about because the team ended the dreaded “Curse of the Bambino” over five years ago. And it will be long before we hear talk of the poor Red Sox fans who have gone their whole lives without seeing their team win. Hell, there are fourteen and seventeen-year old kids right here in Pittsburgh who haven’t experienced a winning season, yet alone a play-off race as fans of our Pirates!
The sad reality is that a great one-liner from a movie is now null and void. Well, at least to sports fans it might have been a great line. You see, sports like art reflects life, reflects sports, reflects art, reflects life...whatever. But, seriously, many of our films remind us about how we feel as a people. Our American conscious is revealed through the films we watch, those we love and hate, and those we choose to quote. (If it happens to be Monty Python, the ones we quote ad nauseam until we are kicked out of a friend’s apartment while viewing, but that is another story.)
Now, as thoughts of baseball return and the Red Sox’ Championship banner flies high over Fenway Park, let’s take a look at great sports lines from non-sports movies, and end it with a Requiem for the Greatest Sports One-Liner From a Non-Sports Movie Ever...as now registered dead by those same Red Sox.
The precept is simple – the general story-line of the film is not along the lines of Bull Durham, Slapshot or Remember the Titans, but rather just any variety of subjects in which a sports one-liner works its way into the film, and those one-liners deserve mentioning.
In shameless self-promotion mode, allow me to mention that I recently wondered about my own writing and came across this idea. In a play I wrote a few years back, a grumpy old man is asked “Isn’t it a glorious day?” on a given New Years Day in the 20th Century. The play is set in Baltimore, MD, and for better or worse is entitled, West of Hell. (And is available for production or for movie rights, by the way!) The old man’s response is what got me thinking about great sports commentaries found in films not about sports. To that question, “Isn’t it a glorious day?”, he replies to his erstwhile pseudo-niece, “There hasn’t been a glorious day in Baltimore since the Colts left!” Ravens fans who choose to unite against me, be damned! Onto the list!
If movies are a collective reflection of our culture, then maybe we can learn something from movies that make up a fun (or stupid) list. After all, this is the only list left to be made for a top-100 or top-10 of anything. However, in devotion to football, we’ll go for a touchdown (plus the assumed point after) equivalent of the Top Ten Format. So here goes...the Top SEVEN Greatest Sports One-Liners From Non-Sports Movies:
Strange Brew (Honorable Mention) – In this early 1980s Canadian caper, the McKenzie Brothers find themselves suited up in a good-versus-evil game of ice hockey at one point in the film. The one-liner deserves mention because it is a great line from a sports moment in a non-sports film. (Talk about your hierarchy!) One brother in black as goalie approaches the other in white as a shooter and breathes through his dark, empirical mask, stating, “Luke, I am your father. Give into the dark side, you knob.” A beer lover’s movie with hockey and a Star Wars reference deserves at least an honorable mention – the proverbial two-point conversion on our touchdown scale.
7) Catch Me if You Can – This one gets bottom-billing because it even dares to mention the Yankees. Christopher Walken plays father to son Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank William Avignale Sr. and Jr., respectively. Walken asks his son, “Do you know why the Yankees always win?” The son answers, “Because they have Mickey Mantle.” Dad rebuts his claim, “No, it’s the pinstripes. The other teams are so stunned by how good they look that they are in awe before they even play the game.” Frank Jr. buys the false logic entirely in admiration of his father’s scheming ways, and later invokes the phrase in an attempt to one-up Tom Hanks as FBI man Carl Hanratty. DiCaprio poses, “Do you know why the Yankees win all the time?” “No, Frank, I don’t. Why?” utters Hanks in a Bronx dialect we haven’t heard often enough from him. “Because of their pinstripes.” The telephone silence is given pause by Hanks who quips, “You are wrong – the Yankees win because they have Mickey Mantle.”
6) Coming to America – Eddie Murphy playing multiple characters offers a great one-liner for our list. In the Barber Shop scene, the old men, mostly played by Murphy in a make-up and costume frenzy, are arguing over who is the greatest boxer of all-time. One man proclaims it is the original and real Rocky, to which another replies, “Rocky Marciano, Rocky Marciano! Every time you talk about boxing a white man’s gotta bring up Rocky Marciano!” Very subtly, an older barber shop patron reminds us about Marciano: “He beat Joe Louis’ ass!” While the hilarity of the moment in particular and the barber shop banter in general make the film what it is, that line is a guaranteed laugh every time.
5) Dragnet – We offer Tom Hanks again, this time earlier in his career as a new detective in Los Angeles who must deal with an anal-retentive partner, Agent Friday played by Dan Akroyd. Upon taking his job more seriously, Hanks avows: “I’m gonna clean up this town – better schools, safer streets, a good hockey team!” While it doesn’t target sports, per se, it sure makes for a great line; and the Kings made the Stanley Cup Finals a few years later back in 1993. Hmmmm...Besides, who can pass on Akroyd and Hanks dressed as pagan love partners in a later scene?
4) City Slickers – This one requires a visual reminder. Billy Crystal and the boys are sitting around a campfire, the sun just setting in the vast open west; they are sipping coffee and discussing who was a better right fielder, Roberto Clemente or Hank Aaron. (Obviously it was Clemente, but I digress.) The woman in the film says, “You guys and your sports! I mean who cares who played – third base – for Pittsburgh – in 1960?” She asks this effortlessly, portraying quite well the “I am just searching blindly for crap no one would ever know” attitude to suggest the randomness of the possibilities. The men, of course, race each other to the answer and without missing a beat, they immediately claim, “Don Hoak.” And each argues that they said it first! This one gets a special “moving up the charts with a bullet” designation for referencing our beloved Pirates not once, but twice.
3) Heathers – A GREAT movie, seriously. Just top dollar entertainment, dark comedy for the deeply cynical and outright hilarity for those who hated high school. After Christian Slater’s character has shot two football players dead and staged it as a gay-love-suicide pact, Heather, played by Wynona Ryder, ponders the believability of football players being gay. Slater replies, “Come on, this is OHIO! If you’re not playing football, you might as well be wearing a dress!” It speaks for itself.
2) Good Morning Vietnam – In a very close play at second, Robin Williams and his sergeant cohort just miss the top spot with this clever baseball reference. Set in Vietnam, Adrian Cronauer is subjected to the whims of an over-aggressive sergeant. After Cronauer has pushed the limits of insubordination, the "Sarge" points to the stripes on his uniform and says to Williams, “Does three up, three down mean anything to you?” Williams, playing the sharp-mouthed wisecrack character whom he made famous in the film based on the real Cronauer replies, “End of an Inning?”
1) Malice – Rounding third to head for home, the single greatest sports one-liner ever, at least from a non-sports movie. It invokes all things men hope for, epitomizes all great sarcasm, and volleys up the ultimate answer about what a man wants rather than what a woman expects upon rebuttal to a rejection. And the Red Sox went and ruined it for all of us! In a film with a bizarre plot about wronged love, a staged hysterectomy and a psychotic Alec Baldwin (which of his roles aren’t?) drawing Nicole Kidman into a love tryst that leaves Bill Pullman reeling, the scene is nearly perfect. The couple meets at a restaurant after all things have unraveled in their once happy lives. Their marriage is ruined, his life is in disrepair, and she is attempting to justify this other-worldly scenario that she has created in order to be with her lover, Baldwin, instead of her husband. Pullman, playing the jilted husband, boils over in a quiet, concentrated rage that lets her know he won’t be had. Kidman attempts with all heart in her intentions to save their friendship and part ways amicably. She asks him, “What is it you want?” Pullman’s character poses a classic Brando-esque pause, considers the question and retorts: “I want what all men want – I want the Red Sox to win the World Series!”
So, for what is worth we now have a touchdown’s worth of one-liners from non-sports movies to keep our interest piqued. I wonder if it is possible to conjure up a top-ten list of great one-liners about rock and roll in movies that are not about music...
The sad reality is that a great one-liner from a movie is now null and void. Well, at least to sports fans it might have been a great line. You see, sports like art reflects life, reflects sports, reflects art, reflects life...whatever. But, seriously, many of our films remind us about how we feel as a people. Our American conscious is revealed through the films we watch, those we love and hate, and those we choose to quote. (If it happens to be Monty Python, the ones we quote ad nauseam until we are kicked out of a friend’s apartment while viewing, but that is another story.)
Now, as thoughts of baseball return and the Red Sox’ Championship banner flies high over Fenway Park, let’s take a look at great sports lines from non-sports movies, and end it with a Requiem for the Greatest Sports One-Liner From a Non-Sports Movie Ever...as now registered dead by those same Red Sox.
The precept is simple – the general story-line of the film is not along the lines of Bull Durham, Slapshot or Remember the Titans, but rather just any variety of subjects in which a sports one-liner works its way into the film, and those one-liners deserve mentioning.
In shameless self-promotion mode, allow me to mention that I recently wondered about my own writing and came across this idea. In a play I wrote a few years back, a grumpy old man is asked “Isn’t it a glorious day?” on a given New Years Day in the 20th Century. The play is set in Baltimore, MD, and for better or worse is entitled, West of Hell. (And is available for production or for movie rights, by the way!) The old man’s response is what got me thinking about great sports commentaries found in films not about sports. To that question, “Isn’t it a glorious day?”, he replies to his erstwhile pseudo-niece, “There hasn’t been a glorious day in Baltimore since the Colts left!” Ravens fans who choose to unite against me, be damned! Onto the list!
If movies are a collective reflection of our culture, then maybe we can learn something from movies that make up a fun (or stupid) list. After all, this is the only list left to be made for a top-100 or top-10 of anything. However, in devotion to football, we’ll go for a touchdown (plus the assumed point after) equivalent of the Top Ten Format. So here goes...the Top SEVEN Greatest Sports One-Liners From Non-Sports Movies:
Strange Brew (Honorable Mention) – In this early 1980s Canadian caper, the McKenzie Brothers find themselves suited up in a good-versus-evil game of ice hockey at one point in the film. The one-liner deserves mention because it is a great line from a sports moment in a non-sports film. (Talk about your hierarchy!) One brother in black as goalie approaches the other in white as a shooter and breathes through his dark, empirical mask, stating, “Luke, I am your father. Give into the dark side, you knob.” A beer lover’s movie with hockey and a Star Wars reference deserves at least an honorable mention – the proverbial two-point conversion on our touchdown scale.
7) Catch Me if You Can – This one gets bottom-billing because it even dares to mention the Yankees. Christopher Walken plays father to son Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank William Avignale Sr. and Jr., respectively. Walken asks his son, “Do you know why the Yankees always win?” The son answers, “Because they have Mickey Mantle.” Dad rebuts his claim, “No, it’s the pinstripes. The other teams are so stunned by how good they look that they are in awe before they even play the game.” Frank Jr. buys the false logic entirely in admiration of his father’s scheming ways, and later invokes the phrase in an attempt to one-up Tom Hanks as FBI man Carl Hanratty. DiCaprio poses, “Do you know why the Yankees win all the time?” “No, Frank, I don’t. Why?” utters Hanks in a Bronx dialect we haven’t heard often enough from him. “Because of their pinstripes.” The telephone silence is given pause by Hanks who quips, “You are wrong – the Yankees win because they have Mickey Mantle.”
6) Coming to America – Eddie Murphy playing multiple characters offers a great one-liner for our list. In the Barber Shop scene, the old men, mostly played by Murphy in a make-up and costume frenzy, are arguing over who is the greatest boxer of all-time. One man proclaims it is the original and real Rocky, to which another replies, “Rocky Marciano, Rocky Marciano! Every time you talk about boxing a white man’s gotta bring up Rocky Marciano!” Very subtly, an older barber shop patron reminds us about Marciano: “He beat Joe Louis’ ass!” While the hilarity of the moment in particular and the barber shop banter in general make the film what it is, that line is a guaranteed laugh every time.
5) Dragnet – We offer Tom Hanks again, this time earlier in his career as a new detective in Los Angeles who must deal with an anal-retentive partner, Agent Friday played by Dan Akroyd. Upon taking his job more seriously, Hanks avows: “I’m gonna clean up this town – better schools, safer streets, a good hockey team!” While it doesn’t target sports, per se, it sure makes for a great line; and the Kings made the Stanley Cup Finals a few years later back in 1993. Hmmmm...Besides, who can pass on Akroyd and Hanks dressed as pagan love partners in a later scene?
4) City Slickers – This one requires a visual reminder. Billy Crystal and the boys are sitting around a campfire, the sun just setting in the vast open west; they are sipping coffee and discussing who was a better right fielder, Roberto Clemente or Hank Aaron. (Obviously it was Clemente, but I digress.) The woman in the film says, “You guys and your sports! I mean who cares who played – third base – for Pittsburgh – in 1960?” She asks this effortlessly, portraying quite well the “I am just searching blindly for crap no one would ever know” attitude to suggest the randomness of the possibilities. The men, of course, race each other to the answer and without missing a beat, they immediately claim, “Don Hoak.” And each argues that they said it first! This one gets a special “moving up the charts with a bullet” designation for referencing our beloved Pirates not once, but twice.
3) Heathers – A GREAT movie, seriously. Just top dollar entertainment, dark comedy for the deeply cynical and outright hilarity for those who hated high school. After Christian Slater’s character has shot two football players dead and staged it as a gay-love-suicide pact, Heather, played by Wynona Ryder, ponders the believability of football players being gay. Slater replies, “Come on, this is OHIO! If you’re not playing football, you might as well be wearing a dress!” It speaks for itself.
2) Good Morning Vietnam – In a very close play at second, Robin Williams and his sergeant cohort just miss the top spot with this clever baseball reference. Set in Vietnam, Adrian Cronauer is subjected to the whims of an over-aggressive sergeant. After Cronauer has pushed the limits of insubordination, the "Sarge" points to the stripes on his uniform and says to Williams, “Does three up, three down mean anything to you?” Williams, playing the sharp-mouthed wisecrack character whom he made famous in the film based on the real Cronauer replies, “End of an Inning?”
1) Malice – Rounding third to head for home, the single greatest sports one-liner ever, at least from a non-sports movie. It invokes all things men hope for, epitomizes all great sarcasm, and volleys up the ultimate answer about what a man wants rather than what a woman expects upon rebuttal to a rejection. And the Red Sox went and ruined it for all of us! In a film with a bizarre plot about wronged love, a staged hysterectomy and a psychotic Alec Baldwin (which of his roles aren’t?) drawing Nicole Kidman into a love tryst that leaves Bill Pullman reeling, the scene is nearly perfect. The couple meets at a restaurant after all things have unraveled in their once happy lives. Their marriage is ruined, his life is in disrepair, and she is attempting to justify this other-worldly scenario that she has created in order to be with her lover, Baldwin, instead of her husband. Pullman, playing the jilted husband, boils over in a quiet, concentrated rage that lets her know he won’t be had. Kidman attempts with all heart in her intentions to save their friendship and part ways amicably. She asks him, “What is it you want?” Pullman’s character poses a classic Brando-esque pause, considers the question and retorts: “I want what all men want – I want the Red Sox to win the World Series!”
* * *
And with that, a Requiem. Farewell great one-liner from a movie of little substance that no one will remember beyond these words. Bon voyage, Curse of the Bambino. Perhaps in a few years we’ll have reason to celebrate as the Pirates toast a Championship season and Barry Bonds has retired with only an asterisk after having past Hank Aaron on baseball’s all-time home run list. Unlike Malice, Aaron may be safe atop that list for years to come after all.
So, for what is worth we now have a touchdown’s worth of one-liners from non-sports movies to keep our interest piqued. I wonder if it is possible to conjure up a top-ten list of great one-liners about rock and roll in movies that are not about music...
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