Yanks Lose ALCS, 3 Games to 2

Photos: Jose Altuve's Gem Mint 10 rookie card, from my collection.

Yanks lose 4-0 and go home as the Houston Astros move on to the World Series. So despite Judge's 50+ homers, a high-powered offense, and getting past the heavily-favored Indians, the Yanks go home. What. A Damn. Shame.

Jeff Bagwell and Ivan Rodriguez

Photos: from my own collection

A little side note before we begin: Bagwell signed one of the most player-friendly contracts ever. In 2005, he had 100 at-bats and 25 hits, and for this he got paid $18,000,000. Yes, that's 18 million bucks. That's $720,000 per base hit. Yes. What most professionals get paid in 10 years, he got per base hit, just in 2005. But it gets better. In 2006, he got paid over $19,000,000. Yes, 19 million bucks. That was #1 for all of baseball that year. He got paid more than anybody. For how many hits? 0. That's right, 0. He was injured and couldn't play, but that money was guaranteed. Like Pablo Sandoval last year for the Sox, he got paid $19M in 2006 not to play. For his career, he made over $128,000,000. Today, because of 10 years of inflation, that would be worth $169,000,000--an increase in 10 years of $41 million. And all he had to do was sit down and watch it happen. $41 million for doing nothing more than counting his money. If I ever hit it big doing anything, I want his agent.

And a little side note about Ivan Rodriguez: He's the 2nd catcher I've ever heard of nicknamed Pudge, and both guys are in the HOF. You should be ashamed of yourself if you don't know the name of the other guy.

See Bagwell's stats here.

See Rodriguez's stats here.

The Cards

Anyway, these two cards--both from the 1991 Topps Traded Set--are in PSA Gem Mint 10 Condition and can be had at decent prices.

My Rodriguez card cost $22.67 total, including shipping. This was a decent buy, as I saw some for about $2 to $5 less, but I also saw it go for a heckuva lot more than that. Some of those bought prices were crazy--up to $40+ for a card worth about $20. Craziness. There were a few who paid overall a couple of bucks less, and a couple of bucks more, than I did. I got this one from a Woonsocket place, not too far from my neck in the woods, and it was delivered the next day. I might drive up there sometime and check out his store. His ebay handle is rwm8218, and it was at a good price at next-day delivery, so if you're in New England and you're looking for cards, and you want it fast, give him a look on ebay. I was the only one who bid on this one, and the bidding started at $20--which is about average for the card--so his store on ebay is still small enough that you're not bidding against a ton of people. This is a highly sort after card, since Rodriguez just made the Hall of Fame, so the fact that it's been selling for more, but that I was the only one to bid on it at the asking price, tells you something. Sure, by pressing Sold Listings on ebay you can see that the top one sold for $20 +$2.67 shipping--that's me--and then the next one says it sold for $39.99 + shipping--that's the crazy one. Others sold for about $15 + shipping, so they paid a little less than I did, but that's followed by some $22 to $27 buys, all of whom paid more. So mine was about average, discarding the crazy high one and a crazy low one. As Rodriguez is just in the HOF, I expect this card to go up a little, so this will prove to be a slightly better than average buy.

The Bagwell card cost me $29.01 from someone in California. In all honesty, I made a rookie mistake here: I didn't look at the shipping before I bid. Had I done so, and seen that it was $4, I wouldn't have bought this. Overall I paid about $5 more than many, and about $5 less than a few. Overall, an average buy, not a steal, because of the shipping. I had first seen it at rwm8218, where it sold for $20, and someone else was the only bidder. That was a helluva price, a nice steal, better than the deal I got on his Rodriguez card and a helluva better deal than I got here. I'm still happy with the buy, and as Bagwell is just in the HOF as well, this will go up, so it'll prove to be an average buy, probably. But the lesson, again: If you want a deal, it's usually in the shipping, not in the price. Grrrrrrrrrrr...

So, the players...

Bagwell--if you're old enough, you already know this--was infamously traded by the Red Sox to Houston in 1990 for Larry Anderson, an average relief pitcher who'd had a helluva year in 1989, which overinflated his value. The Sox were constant losers in the playoffs--usually to the Oakland A's at the time--and were trying to get over the hump and advance further in the playoffs. They also had a 1st baseman at the time named Mo Vaughn, who was a consistent home run threat until he ate himself into an Angels uniform and then his career quickly ended. (All the Lady visits didn't help.) Anyway, Bagwell was a 1st baseman / DH type, which the Sox had a lot of, so they dealt him.

Bagwell was brought up immediately and won the Rookie of the Year Award, and then an MVP a few years later, and played 15 years--a short career derailed due to a bad back and shoulder--for Houston. He and Biggio made Houston legit for a few years, really put them on the map. They've been mostly legit since, with a few hiccup years in there. The bottom line about Bagwell--and you should see his stats here--is that he played the vast percentage of his team's games over the years, hitting more homers and drawing more walks than any 1st baseman, consistently, in the National League. His on-base %, RBIs, walks and his homerun totals are amongst the best ever, and baseball-reference.com's JAWS shows him to be the 6th best 1st baseman ever, after the likes of Gehrig, Foxx, Pujols and Cap Anson (and Roger Conor, and look at that guy's stats, please, because I know you've never heard of him), and higher than Miguel Cabrera (after 14 years) and Frank Thomas--which is damn impressive. If you're younger, you may not have ever heard of Bagwell because he played in Houston and because he was very, very quiet and shy to the media. Had he been a Yankee or Red Sox, he'd be a household name today. There is the steroid taint on him, of course, and he did balloon from a stick to King Kong, but don't get me started about how HOF writers shouldn't moralize, because I can show you that probably 85% or more of the best players of his era used. I don't condone it, of course, and it is extremely unhealthy for you...His election, and Piazza's, means that the writers are officially ready to open the door for players of this era who probably used. Bagwell was never accused officially, nor officially caught, using steroids, ever. Those whispers means he made it to the HOF on his 7th try when he should've made it on his first. JAWS says he was a better player in his career than Miguel Cabrera is now. Think about that for a second. He was the best quiet player I ever saw. If he and Biggio, who had over 3,000 hits and got on base almost as frequently, had had any quality players in the lineup with them at all consistently over the years, the Astros would've been a playoff powerhouse. Alas, not the case, and they rarely had the pitching as well. I've been making the Bagwell for the HOF case for a few years, as you know if you've read this blog, so I'm glad he's in.

Ivan Rodriguez--Pudge--also had the steroid whispers follow him around, mostly because of his remarkable durability at the toughest baseball position. People my age remember him as the only guy we've ever seen who crouched behind the plate with his right leg stretched out all the way, his left knee on the ground. From this truly unique position--without moving from it--he could throw out runners trying to steal second with a career-long consistency over 46%. Most years he was over 50% and 60%. For those of you who don't know, today 35% is fair and 40% is good. Most years he was between 50% to 60%. He won 13 Gold Gloves as a catcher, including 10 straight. Take that defense--by far the best all-time at that position--and throw in almost 3,000 hits. He finished with over 2,800 hits, but would have had well over 3,000 had he played any other position. He was so good defensively that he was maybe the best hitting catcher never moved away from the position, because you would waste all that ability putting him anywhere else, including DH. Even Yogi Berra played a ton of games in left field, and Piazza played some at first. In 21 years, Rodriguez played just 57 games at DH and just 8 at 1st base. He played 2,427 games behind the plate, the most ever. That, from a guy who had almost 3,000 hits, is remarkable. Rodriguez always--and I mean every day--played the game with a huge Cheshire Cat smile, and a lot of happiness and energy. He never complained about anything--as well he shouldn't, also having made more than $122,000,000 for his career, or over $156M with inflation since his retirement. You should see his stats here, and you can see the money at the end of the page. All stats and dollar figures for this entry via baseball-reference.com. That website has him as the #3 catcher of all-time, behind Bench and Carter. We remember him from the Texas Rangers, of course, but in his spare time in 2003 he helped the Marlins win the World Series, which I actually remember. He had the NLCS of his life that year, and won its MVP, mostly with his bat.

Both guys were quiet, though Pudge's defense made him look flashy. I watched the careers of both guys, who both started in 1991, and I'm happy as hell to see them in the Hall, especially Pudge.

By the way, Pudge #1 was Carlton Fisk. You knew that, right?

The Conjuring 2

Photo: the movie's poster, from t3.gstatic.com

My review of the first Conjuring movie is here.

I visited the house in the first Conjuring movie. You can read about that here. There are lots of creepy photos of gravestones and crypt doors, too.

This was a good scare of a movie, perhaps better than the first. I can't remember the last time I was actually spooked in a theater, but I exclaimed something out loud during one of the scenes. (I never talk during movies, and usually tar and feather those who do. And I never get jolted at them, either. I tend to figure them out pretty quick, too, like when I saw The Sixth Sense and knew right after he got shot that he was dead thereafter. I mean, the kid said he saw dead people, for God's sake.) James Wan, the director, is especially good, I noticed, at showing something you expect to be scared by, then not being scared by that thing (because nothing's there, but you're a veteran of these movies, so you expect there to be, but Wan knows that, so purposely doesn't put anything there), and then when the camera slowly pans back to where it had been, something jumps out at you. That's what happened when I said something out loud. The instant is when the little girl is watching television--and it's not when something was in the television, either. Just next to it.

The story starts at the home of the clairvoyants--or mediums, or whatever exactly it is they say they are. (Actually, it really starts in the Amityville Horror house. You know you've seen and read a lot about this stuff when you see just the outside of the house in the opening shot, and think, "Oh, it starts in Amityville, with Ronald DeFeo killing his family." I also remembered the house was owned by the Lutzes and that the book was written by Jay Anson. I really should go on Jeopardy one of these days. By the way, I also thought, "As you know, Amity means friendship," but of course that's another movie.) One of them keeps seeing this really spooky-looking nun with barracuda teeth and dirty smock--ironic, considering how Christian the two say they are. (In fact, they technically work for the Church in this movie.) This nun-demon is harassing one of them, and they agree to stop their investigations.

Until...

In Enfield, England, a really nasty old man of a ghost is haunting a woman and her two daughters and two sons. (The father abandoned them--all five of them! How come people like that are never the ones harassed?) This only happens after one of them messes with a handmade Ouija board, which I never recommend. Anyway, this old guy had died in their living room, in his favorite old recliner, which every old man has. (We called my father's black, held-together-by-thick-black-masking tape LAY-Z-BOY "The Knowledge Chair," for obvious reasons.) This old guy is in the habit of biting unsuspecting screaming people on their arms--though they find his retainer after the last one, and the biting stops. So he's harassing everyone, insisting the place is his--while others insist it's not anymore, because he's dead, and so will he please leave, and not let the door hit his arse on the way out?

He agrees to do that--without telling anyone--but then...Well, Houston, we have a problem.

So go see this one if you like this kind of thing. Like most decent scare flicks, this one won't make too much sense when you have a second afterwards to think about it, but it's a good scare while you're sitting there. I'd heard from a few reviews that the whole movie seemed a half hour too long. It didn't seem that way to me, and it didn't really drag, either, which is rare for this kind of thing.

One thing I really liked about it is that the movie doesn't pander to the audience. At the risk of sounding like a prude, there's no gratuitous violence, gore, or anything else. It has confidence in its ability to scare, and it doesn't assume the viewer's an idiot. There are the token nay-sayers (Franka Potente, from the first Jason Bourne film, and from Run, Lola, Run), and it's nice to see that they're smart as well, and not just token blowhards. In fact, Potente's character had a point: these things are often either fakes, or the person being possessed--usually an adolescent girl--has psychological or emotional damage and disabilities going on that have nothing to do with being possessed. (There's one on YouTube, a French girl from the 50s, that I play whenever I want to freak out my better half, who insists with vigor that I turn it off.) Anyway, these girls think they're possessed, so they're not faking, exactly, but the parents often know there's no actual possession going on, but they let the whole thing go on anyway because of a Munchhausen Syndrome, and...yeah, it's all a mess, and very hard to both prove and disprove. The girl in this movie looks and sounds like the one I'm talking about on YouTube, and I think some of The Exorcist is based on this girl as well.

I kept waiting for something else to happen, because the girl's behavior and voice mirrored the one I mention. When the slight twist happens, you may be a little let down like I was, as the movie comes full circle again, and if that was going to happen, why not just do so where they were, and not make these two have to travel across the Pond to get what they can get (and did get) just as well back home? Like I said, like most terror flicks, it's a house of cards if you think about it too much.

So don't do that. Go see it. You'll get your scare fix, and probably stronger than from the first one.

For more on the Enfield story, and for a fact vs. fiction article, go to http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/conjuring-2-enfield-poltergeist/

I'm most impressed by the tidbit at the bottom, which says that when the new family moved in, they almost as quickly moved out, staying for just a few months. This is unlike what the new families said of the Amityville house, and of the house mentioned in the first Conjuring, which I visited.

As a reminder, you can read about that here. There are a lot of pictures, including some creepy gravestones and crypt doors. My review of the first Conjuring movie is here.

Houston, We Had A Problem

Hey, everyone, long time, no see.  I don't think I've ever taken a one-week break from this blog since I started it, never mind two weeks!  No excuse for not at least publishing a couple of entries, for God's sake, but I have to admit that the following things happened in a three-day span a few weeks ago, and they've kept me busy:

--Crunch-time at the job; lots of things due that had to be done right, and on-time.  I did both of those, but that takes a lot outta ya when you don't sleep for a few straight days.

--Consistent and pounding migraines, which drove me to an ENT specialist, then to other specialists.  An MRI or two later, no terrible news, but acupuncture, massage, meditation and medication, and simple body exercises were in order.

--Gutting the whole bathroom, and replacing the boiler, of another place I rent out.  This cost just over five-figures.

--My first shipment of the magazine came in.  Lots of meeting up with family members and old friends in the last few weeks so they could get a copy.  That was lotsa fun--and I have to admit that I bought a $15 hand-made, blue, white, red and silver pen (writes blue) to autograph the magazine with.  And I lost it at a restaurant, and a week later, found it again.

--Mucho writing and reading.  I mean, that's what THIS is all for, right?

--Other things happening with family and at home, and an overall feeling of being worn-out.  Very worn-out.

BUT I'M BACK!!!

I'm back, feeling better, and ready to write more here, and the real stuff, and send more out, including a novel manuscript or two, and some nonfiction pieces, ready to get more and more stuff published, and :::insert Howard Dean rebel yell here:::

So thank you, everyone, for the kind emails you've sent, asking if I was okay.  (I was, mostly.)  And hello to my new fans, of the story, and/or of the blog.  Thanks for your patience and for hangin' in there with(out) me.

It's good to be back.