Wouldn’t it be cool if everything was like a movie? Things would blow up for no reason, the good guys would always win, and you’d always get the girl. Sadly, life isn’t like that, but here at Off The Bench, we try to get close. In collaboration with a friend of the blog, we’ve gone over every 2012 Major League team and likened each to a movie:
Part 1 can be found here.
Philadelphia Phillies, Ocean’s 12: Ocean’s 11 was a phenomenal movie and seemed like great fun to make. A motley crew of stars came together, bought into a script, and enjoyed their way to a successful film. Ocean’s 12 was just not as good. The stars were back but the magic was gone; everyone was a little older and seemed to have lost their edge. The twist at the end revealed that all along they’d been cheating. I’m not going to call the 2012 Phillies a bunch of cheaters, but they did cheat their fans out of a good year. They’ve lost their magic and are just not as good as the preceding version. Injuries were a big story as the Phillies gambled and lost on the health of big stars like Chase Utley and Roy Hallday; maybe they would have done better with a players reward card. As far as I know Ocean’s 12 had no injuries to blame, but Bernie Mac got pneumonia in Oceans 13 and that was messed up. So I guess that makes the Phillies some combination of Ocean’s 12 and Ocean’s 13.
Toronto Blue Jays, Groundhog Day: Doesn’t it feel like you’ve seen this before? The Blue Jays are the same team year in and year out: not good, not terrible, just kind of mediocre. Groundhog Day is sort of like that both in its plot–it’s about a guy who relives the same day over and over again–and in the fact that it is a fairly unremarkable movie. Also, isn’t Bill Murray in this movie a lot like Jose Bautista in 2012. Both big stars with major accomplishments who were pretty good, but did not deliver their best performances?
LA Angels of Anaheim, Se7en: A very good movie that is eminently watchable but not an elite film. Though it features an star studded cast of Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow (and John C. McGinley, if you pay really close attention), when you think Se7en you think Kevin Spacey. Though largely unheralded, he stole the show. Similarly, Albert Pujols and Jared Weaver, one of the greatest hitters ever, and a perennial Cy Young contender, have both taken a back seat to 19 year old Mike Trout. Trout, who may very well become only the 3rd player ever to win the Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same year, IS the 2012 Angels. However, they are still out of the playoff picture at this point (though in the hunt) and are not an elite team by most measures.
Chicago White Sox, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Chicago Cubs, Lawrence of Arabia: My dad made me watch Lawrence of Arabia one Christmas when I was younger. I got news for you, it was boring. Just a lot of sand for what seems like an eternity. The Cubs are kind of like that. They might be the least watchable team in baseball this year. At least with other bad teams there’s a chance for a major implosion any second. The Cubs are just bad. Both the movie and the teams have their stars, guys who make you think that things are in good hands and everything is going to be ok. For Lawrence of Arabia, it’s Peter O’Toole; for the Cubs, it’s Theo Epstien. However, in both cases, prestige does not equal entertainment.
San Fransisco Giants, No Country for Old Men: No Country is known as a phenomenal movie, but is really only lauded by film students and those who truly appreciate the art of filmmaking. No words are spoken for the first 20 minutes; it’s definitely not the movie to turn on for inpiration the night before a big game. Similarly, the Giants are built upon the most boring of baseball philosophies. They try to out pitch you and hope they score enough runs. From time to time, no runs are scored for the first 20 innings and games can only be appreciated by baseball purists who enjoy watching a good changeup. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with either, but they are not the casual fan’s cup of tea.
Minnesotta Twins, The Parent Trap: The sad part is that The Parent Trap was selected mostly because I wanted to poke fun at the Twins and their name. I almost opted for the 1988 Danny DeVito-Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, but that yielded too much masculinity for the dopey 2012 Twins. The 2012 Twins are almost unwatchable. Joe Mauer is good (again), but not a captivating guy on the baseball field. The Parent Trap involved two twins trying to get their biological parents back together, something that might help the 2012 Twins: getting back to the stuff that made them successful way back when.
Texas Rangers, The Avengers: Bear with me as I flit freely between the film and the actual Avengers. The Avengers were so good they couldn’t lose. The collection of talent among heros was surprising in both its high end (Iron Man) and depth (Black Widow). Equally impressive was the cast’s depth from Robert Downey Jr. to that apparently-good looking guy who played Captain America. The same can be said for the Rangers. They are the most talented team in the majors in both the high end (Josh Hamilton) and depth throughout the organization (see Profar, Jurickson)
Milwaukee Brewers, Mission Impossible 4: Nobody really likes Tom Cruise any more after his craziness on Oprah’s couch and when he called Matt Lauer “glib.” Still, MI4 was an enjoyable film that continued the surprising series of impossibly (ha)vgood movies. Ryan Braun is the guy nobody really likes and the Brewers have been surprisingly good. Some staffers here still haven’t forgiven Mr. Braun for keeping his issues so far on the hush (others, who edited this post after the fact, love him dearly). Similarly, most of us didn’t see MI4, but Max says it was pretty good.
Cincinnati Reds, The King’s Speech: This movie was very good. In fact, it was the best movie of the year when it came out, winning best picture. It’s not an all-time great and no one would even think of considering it among the legends, but no one would say that it’s bad, either. Sounds like this years Reds. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, for both, the strengths are more prevalent. Both are very strong but far from unbeatable. According to Homer Bailey, maybe neither gets enough credit.
Washington Nationals, Training Day: When listing the best movies of all time, at the top usually sit (in some order) The Godfather, The Godfather 2, Shawshank Redemption, and Forrest Gump. Training Day is, in its own right, a fantastic movie that took home an Oscar for Best Picture. Compiling lists of the best teams in history will not include the 2012 Nationals, but they will likely have the best record in baseball and are, in their own right, a fantastic ball club.
Arizona Diamondbacks, Ironman 2: The first go around was great. Ironman was a popular and successful film; the Dbacks surprised everyone and made the playoffs last year. The second round? Not so much. People expected a lot from Ironman 2 but it really wasn’t very good. Not a disaster, but not that good. Same for the Dbacks. This season, they are currently one game over .500. Not a disaster, but not that good. There is that holdover feeling from last year that makes them relevant, but really they aren’t anything special.
Cleveland Indians, Major League 2: It turns out it’s hard to be creative for all 30 teams. The Major League series is about the Indians. That’s good enough. If we were doing TV shows though, Eastbound and Down. Chris Perez is Kenny Powers.
San Diego Padres, Up: Most grown men went into Up fully expecting the movie not to be their cup of tea. However, the movie turned out to be enjoyable insofar as it was endearing, well-made, and a good story. The Padres were fully expected to stink. In our season preview we had them at 73-89, last place in the NL West. Right now they’re 74-81 and in second to last place. But the bigger story with the Padres is that their future is bright, with a starting rotation that could become the storyline of 2013. Basically, they didn’t totally suck and there’s something to take away from this year.
Pittsburgh Pirates, Monty Python and The Holy Grail: 90% of this movie is unbelievable enjoyable. It’s hilarious, it’s classic, it keeps you entertained. The last 10% sucks. The ending is such a let down. They all get arrested? What? It’s funny the first time because it comes out of nowhere, but while the rest of the film is endlessly rewatchable, the ending leaves a sour and not-funny taste. Just like the Pirates! The Pirates are a team you want to root for. They’ve won nothing in almost two decades and were on pace to make a playoff push all summer. Then they just fell apart. It was interesting and sad last year, but this year it’s just annoying. Great year. Bad ending.
Kansas City Royals, Jumper: We wanted a movie that you thought could have an outside shot at being good, but then totally sucked. I’m not sure many of us thought that Jumper would be good, but it definitely had an outside shot at being watchable; a strangely-good-concept-turned-movie. The baseball world had higher expectations for the Royals than the critics did for Jumper, but neither was worth even half the price of admission.
– The Off The Bench Staff
Stat of the Day: It took an embarrassing week + for us to get it together and finish this post.
