August 10, 2010

August 10, 2010

So, in case you were wondering why the Yankees didn’t use this past weekend’s wrap-around four game series with the Red Sox to bury them in the standings, I can hip you to a few things. Even three out of four would have left those Sox nine games back in the loss column and ostensibly waiting til next year. But, see—we want them to suffer a little longer through the summer and their sold-out games as guys Beantown have never heard of, never wanted to hear of and hope they never, ever hear from again man crucial parts of their lineup and starting rotation.

Also, in the vaunted American League East are those newly invigorated Baltimore Orioles. For a once and long time proud franchise to have become a laughing stock is not good for baseball. So, I for one am happy to see the perhaps all-too-firm hand of Buck Showalter on the O’s tiller. And the team has responded although the return of Brian Roberts to second-base and, far more importantly, to the top of their lineup has probably played a big hand in the uptick. I also suspect the starting pitchers are somewhat afraid of Showalter and that’s probably helped stir them up. Sometimes sacking the manager is the best move.

Yesterday, Don Wakamatsu became the fifth manager let go this season, and really—it had to be expected. The Seattle Mariners who surprised a lot of people, including me, last season really looked like they had made some great moves (along with the suspect—the usually suspected Milton Bradley. Coincidentally, the San Francisco Giants who are surprising many with their pitching, the successful debut and integration of their clean-up hitting catcher, Buster Posey, are thinking of making a trade for Jose Guillen, who is, according to highly placed baseball sources, the second worst clubhouse cancer just this side of the aforementioned Bradley, so good luck there) to bolster the team for this year all crashed and burned. Much like the Yankees’ new additions this year (both during the hot-stove league and the hotter one leading up to the July 31st trade deadline, but I have confidence in the Big Puma aka Fat Elvis aka Lance Berkman) crashed and burned. I thought Chone Figgins cost himself a lot of money by not showing up to play his game during the 2009 post-season but the Mariners paid him anyway and that big contract, much like Beltre’s (who is, unfortunately for me as well as Seattle, ripping it up on his one-year contract for the Red Sox) which didn’t work out too well. Although Beltre did look very well fed after his term up in the Pacific North West.

Sometimes I wish I could fire the manager…

Which leads to a screenwriting update: today is supposed to be “the day” again. And although I’ve added “fool me twelve times” to the old adage, I have learned a little and didn’t even mark today’s date on the calendar. And I will elaborate in the Screentrade book, but I believe today is the day the CEO is supposed to come to me with either and offer or an official pass on my new spec script that they have been sitting on since April. They have set and postponed quite a number of meetings already; meetings where I had been told, some sort of an offer would be made. The CEO called me three times in one day a couple weeks back and told me she really, really needed a number from me and she would do her best to make it happen. And although I was fearful that I would ask for too little (and get an immediate, “Done/Deal” response) as it often my case, I was also afraid I would ask for too much (and get a, “I was thinking five-hundred dollars” kind of reply) but fortunately I needn’t have worried: she didn’t get back to me one way or the other.

I really felt like Bobbie in the scene from Taxi with the theatre critic.
But I finally got an email that I bet you can still smell the bullshit on. But if I read it correctly, the CEO (freshly back from what I am sure was a richly deserved holiday) will contact me today. And if I hold my breath, I won’t have to dye my hair blue this month. Keep you posted…