(no subject)

I found this delightful little gem today courtesy of Cursed to First:

Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Chris Duffy suffered a mild concussion Saturday after being hit in the head by a pitch from Boston right-hander Curt Schilling in the fourth inning.

Beth's entry on the subject has this to say:

Clearly Schilling is throwing at people on purpose--he has said as much repeatedly. After pasting the kid upside the head, he did suffer controlwise in the next few innings, but I don't really think the two are related. That pitch to Duffy was obviously deliberate.

Beth's take on this pitch is the only thing I have to go on, because you know what?

That is the only place I have seen this discussed.

And that bothers me. Not as much as Schilling apparently hanging out with Runelvys Hernandez over the offseason, and believe me I'll get to that, but it bothers me. Curt Schilling deliberately nails some poor rookie in the head and no one has anything to say about it? This is not news? Why not?

Last July, there was a brawl between the Tigers and the Royals. It was a most excellent brawl, complete with an angry starting pitcher needing five guys to hold him back and an enthusiastic piledriving, but here's how it started:

Runelvys Hernandez threw a purpose pitch at Carlos Guillen's head. Guillen came out of the game with a concussion. What is not well-known beyond the Tigers fanbase is that during the brawl, Guillen was so dazed that he did not know what was happening, and for weeks after, he suffered severe headaches. Last I heard, he didn't remember the incident, and I see no reason why that would have changed.

We don't know yet, obviously, what long-term effect this hit will have on Duffy. I hope he'll be fine. But if Schilling hit him on purpose, then tell me, please: What makes him any different from Hernandez? The willingness to put another man's well-being on the line, the ready disrespect for the game, the batter, his team, your team, your job - that is what it is to throw at someone's head. Hernandez did it, and now Schilling has done it.

I have to draw the line here. The mentality of "yeah, but it was my guy who did it" cannot apply here for me. He hurt that kid. I'll never see him the same again.

So how is this not news?

(no subject)

An obvious movie lesson that has been brought to my attention by The Libertine:

If a movie lets you spend any time thinking about whether you like it or not, it loses.

I spent most of The Libertine thinking three things: "What the hell is going on?" "Man, Johnny Depp is always awesome," and, "So is this understated intelligence or just boring?" (Toward the end, I was also begging Depp's character to shut up, because Hamlet levels of longwindedness much? Really. Stop talking. You haven't said anything new for the last hour. Shut it.)

The movie frustrated me because it had potential - there's a good political story in there, which I think is supposed to be Plot A, but it's hard to tell because the movie never really gels - but it was all lost in the bad storytelling. I left feeling like it expected me to know about the Duke of Rochester already, so it didn't waste time on pertinent details that would have brought the story together. Hi, I went to an American public school. I don't know shit about this guy or about the court he was part of or the king who was ruling. And that really shouldn't matter, because a well-told story should give you everything you need to know, but with The Libertine it was like I kept blinking and missing the scenes that advanced the plot. There's spoonfeeding, and then there's letting the audience in on what's going on, you know?

There were scenes where I was completely engaged, and scenes where I was just out of it because I wasn't sure what was happening. "Wait, what, when did he - dammit!" The former tells me that there was a good movie in there somewhere, and the latter tells me that stronger storytelling could have brought it out. Nothing in movies drives me crazier than wasted potential.

The movie does, however, have the major-brownie-points bonus of reuniting Johnny Depp and Jack Davenport. So there is that. =D