A Scary Time For A Crumbling Team

The Chicago White Sox are scaring people. The only problem is, instead of scaring opposing teams and fans as they did last year, they are scaring their own fans. This team has struggled since the All-Star break, going 4-11. That isn’t going to cut it when your team is in the postseason race. The trade deadline was looming and it looked as though the Sox were going to make an impact deal to correct their slide. The deadline has come and past, and no deal was made. The White Sox are going to stick it out with the roster they have and hope that their pitching and clutch hitting pull it together.

What is now really scaring White Sox fans is the fact that the Detroit Tigers are not going away. I thought it would be the Tigers who would stumble out of the All-Star break while the White Sox would be able to gain ground and eventually sprint past the young and inexperienced Tigers. This is not true anymore. Detroit appears as though they are going to win the AL Central. They currently have an 8.5 game lead on the Sox, and that is a lot of ground to make up with just under 60 games remaining on the schedule. Sure the Sox and Tigers face off ten more times this season. But that means the Sox would have to win all ten of those games and still be a game or two better than the Tigers the rest of the way out. That is a lot of pressure.

It appears that the Sox will be gearing toward the Wild Card, which is a tad bit frightening considering that means that they have to battle the New York Yankees or the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees made a huge deadline deal by acquiring Bobby Abreu and Corey Lidle from the Phillies. Abreu just adds to the already potent Yankees lineup and Lidle provides some depth in their starting rotation. Don’t get me wrong, the White Sox still have one of the best teams (if not the best team) on paper, but on paper doesn’t mean a thing. They have to start pitching and they have to start executing in the clutch and not rely on the home run so often. “And if they don’t do those things?” you may ask. Well, football season is just around the corner, and in football, your favorite team will always have a chance because of the extremely short schedule.

Calling It As I See It

So, I’m at my summer school class at Harper College, and a great question hits me. Why in the world are the “handicapped” stalls in the bathroom always the stall farthest from the door? Yes, occasionally the handicapped stall is the closest to the door, but more often then not it is the farthest stall from the door. We are supposed to be aiding the handicapped with these stalls, right? How in the world is it helping them by forcing them to roll, crutch or limp to the opposite end of the bathroom. It is time to accept these stalls for what they are, luxury stalls. More spacious, plenty of legroom, a hook on the back of the door for your coat/backpack/purse; they are built for those who love vanity. A perfect example of American luxury. Another question is how often have you seen a handicapped person in one of these handicapped stalls? For me it’s once, maybe twice and certainly no more than five. Yet I, a non-handicapped person save for about six months my sophomore year of high school, use these stalls with regularity. In my mind, the name change needs to be made official. “Luxury stalls” sounds more positive than “handicapped stalls” anyway.

The Tale of M. Night Shyamalan

On this one, I’m switching from my previous sports theme and maybe trying to expand the audience of this currently small-time blog. When my good friend Michael T, said he reads my blog, I began to consider that others of my friends may be doing the same, and some of them may be female. Perhaps they don’t want to read my insights on the NBA Draft or David Ortiz. So, this is something that might interest more people. I will begin to show a little more variety with these posts, maybe I’ll touch on something that can interest more people.

He was Hollywood’s young, rising star, but quickly has become an elaborate, and predictable sideshow in the eyes of his critics. M. Night Shyamalan has hit a wall. He wowed viewers with a gripping yarn about a child who can see the dead and then shocked us into numbness with his surprise ending in the film The Sixth Sense. He followed up that smashing success, which was number two at the box office in the year it was released, by bringing comic book characters to the real world in Unbreakable, which was another hit at the box office and with the critics. Two big-grossing films in a row gives a director enormous clout in Hollywood, and the fact that Shyamalan also wrote these films added to his growing fame. It is conceivable that a director could be handed a poor script to work with, but it seemed far less likely that Shyamalan could lose his magic.

In his third major film, Signs, he didn’t lose that magic at all. He took a different spin on the alien-invasion story by focusing on a rural family, the average family in most people’s eyes. It was a refreshing look at what is becoming an over-used plot in Hollywood. Normally an invasion film focuses on some aspect of the government, where the viewer is all knowing as to what is happening. Shyamalan presents confusion, and doubt in his tale, which seems like a much more likely scenario in the real world. Are aliens really invading the planet? Is what the viewer is asking himself or herself throughout the film, and as usual, Shyamalan reveals all the answers in a twist of an ending. At this point, Shyamalan had reached legend-like status in Hollywood. It was his third major success, and his name, not just the intrigue from his movie trailers was beginning to draw people to his movies. The film was pegged as M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, much like “A Steven Spielberg film” or “The fourth film by Quentin Tarantino.”

After Signs is where Shyamalan has appeared to begin to struggle with film. Or more specifically, film writing. His fourth film was The Village, a film that I enjoyed for its technical aspects, and for the revelation at the end, but did lack in the dialogue and was not as nearly suspenseful as his previous three films. And now, he brings us A Lady in the Water, which has been torn apart since the first trailers hit the Internet. I have not seen the movie yet, but I am planning on seeing it, because, technically speaking, I think Shyamalan is still a film genius.

What I think has gone wrong with Shyamalan is that he has hit a wall in his writing. It has happened to the best writers; it has probably happened to all writers, myself included. I took a poetry class this past year at college, and I was writing so much, that eventually I just hit a wall. I had nothing left, and I would come up with an idea that I thought would be good, but I couldn’t find the words that would make it right. I think the same has happened to Shyamalan. The idea behind The Village was superb in my mind, but he couldn’t quite get the words right along the way. He has always had his struggles, for example his dialogue has always left something to be desired in all of his films, but his technical feats with camera angles and that mysterious element of suspense have always been able to overcome that. I think his visual tricks are beginning to wear thin on the viewers and the holes in his stores are beginning to be pointed out more and more. I see him right now like I see author Dan Brown. They are both great at what they do, and I will still see/read whatever they put out (for the time being), but both have begun to fall victim to their own great formulas. If you read all four of Brown’s novels you realize that they all are written under the same formula, so the “surprises” and “twists” don’t have the same impact that they would normally have. The same is true for Shyamalan now. He is going to confuse you, be very vague in the beginning and middle of his films, and flash a lot of nifty camera angles (by the way, how he reveals himself, he appears in all his films, in The Village, as well as a murder scene, are worth the price of renting the movie, they are amazing scenes) so you, the viewer don’t get bored with what is going on in the plot. He’ll have you thinking one thing, leading you on, and then at the end of the film, something different will be true, or something that you never even considered to be true will emerge as a fact in his plot line. Yes, you will be surprised by watching all of his movies (even though I haven’t seen the latest, I’m betting on a twist at the end), but he is becoming predictable with that writing technique. I think that for his next film, he should really surprise the audience and change his storytelling technique, and maybe not throw us a twist at the end. That could be his biggest surprise of all.

Handing Out Awards and Predicting the Second Half

The first half of the baseball season is gone and it is time to dish out the awards of the first half and some predictions for the second half. Some major questions are around baseball: will the Detroit Tigers maintain their great play and keep the best record in baseball? Will the Yankees miss the playoffs? Will the Cincinnati Reds make the playoffs in the National League, even with the bizarre trade they made today? Who will win the Western divisions, both AL and NL?


Awards First, Predictions Later

First, the awards of the first half:

AL MVP: David Ortiz Boston Red Sox. Slugger Jim Thome of my hometown Chicago White Sox is a sentimental pick in my heart, but Ortiz has the better numbers and always comes through with huge hits for the Red Sox. Breaking it down, I think Boston would be in more trouble than Chicago if they were missing Ortiz than if the White Sox were missing Thome. Boston is built around Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, and getting those two at bat with some runners on base. The White Sox have more power from top-to-bottom this year compared to Boston.

NL MVP: Albert Pujols St. Louis Cardinals. Pujols was putting up ridiculous numbers before his injury, and even since he returned his numbers are still some of the best in the league. The guy is a hitting machine. There are a few other options in the NL (David Wright and Carlos Beltran of the Mets, and Lance Berkman of the Houston Astros) but Pujols is the pick, he is the most valuable to his team (they really suffered when he was injured).

AL Cy Young: Francisco Liriano Minnesota Twins. Right now, today, he is the best pitcher in the game. His numbers are ridiculous, 10-1 with an ERA under two in the ridiculously loaded American League. Roy Halladay, Johan Santana, Jon Pappelbon and Jose Contreras are all candidates as well, but at the moment it is tough to go against Liriano.

NL Cy Young: Tom Glavine New York Mets. The Mets are the best team in the NL and Glavine is at the top of their rotation, and as of right now he has better numbers than staff-mate Pedro Martinez. NL All-Star Game starter Brad Penny was a close second, but his Dodgers haven’t been as good as the Mets have, I give the nod to Glavine for the first half.

AL Rookie of the Year: Francisco Liriano Minnesota Twins. I picked him for the Cy Young, how can I not pick him for Rookie of the Year? Pappelbon is close, but Liriano passed him in the recent weeks.

NL Rookie of the Year: Dan Uggla Florida Marlins. I love how this guy plays, he is the total package, and a big part of a very good up-and-coming Marlins team.

Predictions

There is a ton of time for something to happen in the second half of the baseball season. Who will make a run like the Oakland A’s teams of the past and the Cleveland Indians last year? Will there be a giant collapse and what will happen in the always-exciting Wild Card races?

Here are my division winners and Wild Card picks

AL East: Boston Red Sox. They have a better team than both the Yankees and Blue Jays, not to mention the best clutch hitter in the game, David Ortiz. He is a huge X-factor. Alex Rodriguez is great for the Yankees, but he just doesn’t seem as clutch as Ortiz or Manny Ramirez. With those two in the lineup and Pappelbon at the end, I’ll go with the Sox.

AL Central: Chicago White Sox. Yes, the Tigers are the current leaders, but I’m going with the more experienced White Sox team. The White Sox have more firepower in their lineup, and they have played the Tigers great head-to-head so far (5-1). With 10 games left against Detroit, I like the Sox chance to erase their current two game deficit.

AL West: The wild, wild west. Oakland and Texas are currently all square and the dead-last Mariners are just two and a half games back, with the Angels sandwiched in between, but I think the A’s have the best shot down the stretch. They have notoriously made second half runs (usually in the month of August) and they have much better hitting than the Rangers do (not to mention that Rich Harden should be back soon for the A’s).

AL Wild Card: Detroit Tigers. I think they will fall off a little in the second part of the season, and that the White Sox can catch them for the division, but I think Detroit will be good enough to beat out the Yankees, Blue Jays, Rangers and the surging Twins for the Wild Card.

NL East: New York Mets. Currently a 12 game lead, and I don’t think anybody is going to chase them down. The NL East is just too weak this year.

NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals. Despite their recent struggles with the pitching staff I think they can slug their way to the NL Central crown. This is less of picking the Cardinals and more not picking anybody else. I don’t fully believe in the Reds, especially with them dealing away Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez for some bullpen arms. Milwaukee and Houston are both currently below .500 and I don’t think they will run down St. Louis. It’s the Cardinals by default.

NL West: Colorado Rockies. This is the most fun division race to watch. Just five games separates first from last, and the NL is so wide open that whoever gets in could have a legitimate shot at reaching the World Series. I’m going with the youthful Rockies for a playoff change-of-pace and because you can’t tell me they won’t go.

NL Wild Card: A really interesting race. I’ll go with the Los Angeles Dodgers edging out the Houston Astros. The NL Wild Card is going to be a lot of fun to watch though.