he best hitters fail 7 out of 10 times

SIX out of ten. Getting tired of still seeing this, long after the concept of OBP has filtered into much (but not all) of the baseball universe.

Calm down, John. Old habits die hard. i still say that every once and a while.

Me too, actually. I dramatize for effect when I'm trying to explain saber principles to the uninitiated.

In the last thread about MB, there was some discussion about the Variety term "ankle" -- (and hoping that Pitt doesn’t ankle)

I heard it in a movie last night. Our local art theater is running a mini-series of films called "Bimbos, Beatniks and Bad Boys". Last night's show was Girls Town -- a typical teen exploitation movie from the era. This gem was from 1959 starring a 28 year old Mamie Van Doren* as a rebellious teen, a 22 yo Elinor Donahue of Father Knows Best fame as her 15yo sister (she looked pretty good, BTW). When MVD is first sent to "Girls Town", a half-orphanage, half pre-reform school, she's told that there are no walls or fences. In reply, she asks "What's to keep a girl from ankling away from this jail?". Lots of good hip lingo like that all throughout.

What a cast. Big band leader and then MVD husband Ray Anthony as a detective. Mel Torme! as the leader of a gang and a drag racer, kind of doing a hard case Mickey Rooney. Young Paul Anka plays a local night club singer. In what was the most hilarious scene, Anka decks Torme. I rated it a 1.5/4 but 4/4 for sheer fun and campiness.

* Note this post is baseball connected by consideration of MVD's Bo Belinsky connection. There are also a couple of shots of uniformed school girls playing gloveless softball, for those who dig the school girl uniform look. :)

EDIT: I forgot to mention that they showed a trailer from a 1963 movie with Jayne Mansfield, trying to capitalize on a Playboy shoot she did. This trailer had many shots of a topless Jayne. Let me say this: they were real, and they were spectacular. Mickey Hargitay was also in there -- he was quite the muscular dude.

Point 2: we got a little intro from one of the theater managers and one of the things he pointed out was that we were seeing an original print -- one that had been stored in a refrigerated vault. The B&W was wonderful -- tremendous contrasts and greys -- he said we can not make B&W like that any more because they used to use a lot of silver and that kind of film is just not available.

Last night I read the script that was linked here, and I think it would be a very good, very fun movie. Much of the stuff is fictional -- not just the characters, but some of the actual baseball events -- and much of it is sort of true but not quite accurate, but it was an entertaining story.

The Beane character is really much more Brad Pitt than Billy Beane. But that's fine. I'd like to see this movie made, I'd like to see this movie.

Edmundo, you must not have been an MST3K fan. That's one of my favorite episodes.

An all-time classic MST3K line came during the car chase scene in which the good guys are trying to hunt down Mel Torme's gang -- "Just follow the trail of scat!"

The script seemed interesting, although I was hugely underwhelmed with The Girlfriend Experience which swung me away from the Soderbergh camp. Although most of his stuff I haven't liked (GFE, K Street) has been improvised, so maybe I should give him some credit when working off a script.

BadDoc -- I saw a number of MST3K but was not religious about it. That Scat line is hilarious.

At least the movie made for a great blog post.

I'm sure that Moneyball would have focus grouped in the high boredom level.

There are also a couple of shots of uniformed school girls playing gloveless softball, for those who dig the school girl uniform look. :)

Not really ... but gloveless softball makes me horny!

And Elinor Donahue was always a real cutie. I'll never understand what Andy Taylor was thinking.

I heard it's getting reworked as The Curious Case of Billy Beane.


His #### doesn't work in the preseason.

The Beane character is really much more Brad Pitt than Billy Beane. But that's fine. I'd like to see this movie made, I'd like to see this movie.

This is essentially how I felt about it. Yeah, there were some parts that are going to rub you the wrong way if you're the kind of baseball fan that hangs around these parts. Little inaccuracies, some generally nonsensical stuff, but the story itself was pretty good. I want to see that movie.

edit:

SIX out of ten. Getting tired of still seeing this, long after the concept of OBP has filtered into much (but not all) of the baseball universe.

Oh, cmon. As nitpicky as this is, he's not even making that point to begin with. He's specifically referencing the cliche.