Wild Card Play-In Game

I am surprisingly not a huge fan of the Wild Card play-in game for baseball. As I watch a great game between Oakland & Kansas City, though it's been an awesome game, all I can think about is how both teams #1 starters and bullpens are being exhausted for the series ahead of them. I really like both of these teams/franchises, but I can't figure out playing 162 games to find out who deserves to be in the playoffs and then having one game decide the merits of the other 162. PLUS you start your ACTUAL playoff series with your best pitcher sitting on the bench for the first two games. This game is in the 11th currently, meaning both teams have also utilized a decent portion of their bullpens too. How can an odd number of teams be allowed in the playoffs? Wasn't it revolutionary enough to have the wild card added in the first place so at least 4 teams had the opportunity for postseason play, eleviating the soul-crushing the Boston Red Sox felt for many years at the hands of New York. The almighty dollar is certainly at work to keep the 162 games more interesting and allow the playoff race to continue deeper into the season, allowing the Brewers to wait 158 games before being mathematically eliminated. I just don't like the one-game playoff. I realize that the wild card could have a one-game playoff, as did former divisional teams that were tied, but it's clearly not the same. I point out to when the Braves had a 13 game lead in the Wild Card, or something similar, only to lose in the one game playoff to the St. Louis Cardinals, BAIN of the N.L. Central. Of course they went on to win the World Series, but my contention is they never should have been able to play for it. I'm generally all about change and progressing the game, but this idea I can't get behind. It's one step away from being like basketball where over 50% of the league is in the playoffs, allowing a sub-.500 Bucks team to limp in some years, costing us a lottery opportunity, the true goal for any bad basketball team. I don't like the baseball playoffs getting watered down and the one deserving wild card team either eliminated, or, best case scenario, weakened, heading into the Divisional series. BUUDDDDD SEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG (kidding), but give Pete Rose a Presidential pardon of sorts on your way out.

Monuments Men: Not Monumental Enough

Monuments Men was a movie I saw a trailer for while at another movie and got very excited about. Bill Murray, Dan Goodman, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchette, and other VERY good actors, WHAT COULD GO WRONG? A movie with no direction (Clooney's job) is the correct answer. The movie never defines if it's a documentary-like film about the theft of the world's classic works by Nazi Germany. It never buys into being a comedy fully with all the seriousness around it. It tries to be too funny for you to take the serious parts with anything besides a grain of salt. SPOILER: Two guys die and I didn't know if there was going to be a joke, but there wasn't, and it made things weird. The movie has all these different elements floating around, but they come together like shit. The stars are all very solid, especially Murray (Standard) and I really like Clooney's character as well. It provided some HOPEFULLY accurate information about the theft of thousands of priceless artwork from not only cathedrals, museums, churches, but also from private Jewish collections. I hope at least it stayed accurate to that, but it tries too hard to be funny for me to appreciate the real parts of the film. Bottom Line: A cluttered 6.3 out of 10. It's on Starz, or something, so it's worth checking out for free because there was some historical value and good performances worth enjoying in fleeting moments.

Gotham= Shit Garbage

I thought the much hyped show Gotham would come to Fox and a network would learn from AMC, FX, and HBO to make a decent show since they have a ton of money to throw at these things. I love Donal Logue generally, and Jada Pinkett Smith seems too good for TV, you'll also recognize Ben McKenzie (The O.C.) & John Doman (THE WIRE!!!!) as well. I was unimpressed by Logue playing his standard bad-ass role for some reason. McKenzie just seems like a candy ass, but they make Jim Gordon act all tough and it doesn't come through well. Pinkett Smith is interesting as "Fish", but nothing amazing, just pretty good in the role. I love Doman as Carmine Falconi, but we'll see if his role gets more screen time moving forward. It doesn't seem to stay true to the comic with how Gordon and Dent (Logue) act. Dent is Logue's standard, as I mentioned already, being the tough and grizzled veteran policeman who is in with the bad dudes. He seems much more toned down than his Sons of Anarchy character, but Dent doesn't seem believable to me either. I don't like the stylized/ C.G.I backgrounds that don't seem realistic enough at all. This will be getting another chance, but I really don't see it panning out for me.

Ray Rice: Everyone Losing

Ray Rice's catastrophic life mistake of punching his wife in the face, I'm assuming while drinking, is detonating the NFL, Rice, & Goddell. Before the actual video of this thing leaked I envisioned this blowing over, Ray Rice going back to not being a useable NFL running back, and this being forgotten about besides to make off-color remarks during Ray Rice's said lackluster games. The video shouldn't have been needed to confirm what happened. It is rather bothersome that it took the video surfacing for parties involved to do something. It's unfortunate and awful, but it's a safe bet that it won't be the worst thing to happen in the NFL this season. Spousal abuse if awful, but I'm willing to bet someone may become paralyzed, die, or cause the death of another human being. It's days like this I despise ESPN and the 24 hour garbage they throw out. Analysis, highlights, pop-culture references, YES, but the dredging up stories and endlessly clubbing them to death is not what I signed up for. I stopped watching ESPN in college because I was sick of this shit. I didn't need to hear about what Tim Tebow was wearing while being a bad back-up quarterback every day. Sportscenter used to be about news, highlights, and funny people. Now it's pretty much awful and a giant ratings grab of reaching for whatever is trending on Twitter. The stories aren't real news and it's causing flashbacks of MTV when it actually played music videos and the transformation before it became a showcase for idiocy. Trying to bring this back after a quick rant is Ray Rice deserves prison, a suspension, but he also deserves the right to go back to work and earn his living again. An "indefinite" suspension while this is "investigated" and blows over is not fair to Ray Rice and his family, where I'm certain he's the primary wage earner. I don't think it's fair to punish NFL players (professional athletes) much harsher for criminal activities than a typical person. There certainly are jobs that would probably be ruined for spousal abuse, but football player should not be one of them. Their careers are enviably shorter than our average career arc, but this means the years of primary earnings are SUPER SHORT, especially for a player who was not a first round draft pick. Rice is in those primary earning periods where his wage will never be this high again. His contrition, enrollment in anger management classes, constant apologies, various people describing him as an outstanding member of the community and "the last person" they would have guessed to hit a woman. There's no excuse or justification for what he did, but let him try to move past it and not be the only thing that defines him for the rest of his life.