The Best

Lebron James gives a graphic demonstration of what brought
down Jose Mesa and the 1997 Cleveland Indians.

With the Cleveland Cavaliers all but assured of having the best record in the East, and ahead of the Lakers for the best record in the NBA, I stopped to think back of the very few times in my lifetime that a Cleveland sports team had been the best team in its particular sport. It's a very short list. In fact, depending on the outcome of the NBA Finals (I would worry about jinxing them, but I'm from Cleveland, I'm sure they're already jinxed), this Cavs team has the potential to be the best Cleveland team I've ever rooted for (excluding the Force, of course - those dudes, ruled! Kaaaaiiiiiiii Haaskaaviiiiiiii!).

Herein, the brief respites in our era of mediocrity and worse (anyone remember the David Letterman telephone hotline skit from the late 80's/early 90's - "Synonyms for Cleveland Sportswriters"?: "Beaten, drubbed, lambasted, throttled, destroyed, vanquished, shellacked, thumped, whipped..."), those brief phoenix comets across our leaden-gray skies:

1a; 1b: 1995/1996 Indians

The one stat nugget from the 1995 team that always leaps to mind: the Indians 6,7,8 hitters of Jim Thome, Paul Sorrento, and Manny Ramirez had better stats than any other AL team's 3,4,5 hitters with the only exception of the Indians' own 3,4,5 of Carlos Baerga, Albert Belle, and Eddie Murray. Now that's a murderer's row, with Kenny Lofton at the top of the order, and Sandy Alomar at the bottom just for absolute overkill. Add to that the stat that the 1995 Indians were one of some small number of teams I'm too lazy to look up to ever lead the league in batting average and ERA, with stellar seasons from seasoned veterans Chuck Nagy, Orel Herschiser, and Dennis "El Presidente" Martinez, Jose Mesa's 46 saves at the back end, and you get an idea what a juggernaut this team was. All the 1996 team did was add Julio Franco's .322 average and Black Jack McDowell's 13 wins into the mix.

The 1995 team racked up 100 wins in a strike-shortened season of only 144 games, made the Jake the go-to destination in Cleveland and revitalized baseball in a town where it had nearly succumbed to apathy countless times since the late '60's. With electric crowds almost astonished that our lovable losers were suddenly lovable winners driving them on, the Indians bludgeoned the Red Sox in the division series (with the iconic "I got your motherfucking cork right here!" moment by Albert Belle, and Tony Peña's 13th inning shot being the highlights). As an encore, the bested the Mariners (who had "shocked the world vanquishing the goliath Yankees), Kenny Lofton scoring from second base on a Randy Johnson wild pitch still the single most exciting Indians play I've ever seen. Unfortunately they then ran into the one of the best 1-2-3 pitching staffs ever assembled in Maddox, Smoltz, and Glavine.

The 1996 team seemed less inspired if better on paper, and managed fewer wins in more games, before collapsing against the Baltimore Orioles in the Division Series, partly a factor of an aging starting pitching staff, and the first powder-residue-coated chinks appearing in the back end of a bullpen that would fail much more dramatically in the World Series the following season.

(Until I did a little research, I had forgotten how much I disliked the 1997 team, even before they suffered the most devastating loss of my lifetime (which is saying a lot). The whole tenor of the team changed going from Lofton to Grissom, Albert Belle to David Justice, and Eddie Murray to Matt Williams. Plus all the stop-gap platoon players like Tony Fernandez, Kevin Seitzer, Bip Roberts, Kevin Mitchell, Charles Nagy clone Chad Ogea (as if cloning Charles Nagy was a great idea), Albie "throwing gasoline on a fire" Lopez, John Smiley, Jeff Branson - a team that definitely proved the maxim that four quarters does not equal one dollar).

Albert Belle shows where he puts the cork (not pictured: Jason Grimsley).

3. 2008/2009 Cleveland Cavaliers

There is definitely the argument to be made that the 1988-89 Cavs were a better team than this year's version - other than BronBron, no starter from this team would crack the starting lineup
of Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, Larry Nance, and Ron Harper. The 88/89 team was as balanced as can be: Price, Daugherty, and Harper all averaging between 18.6 and 18.9 ppg, with Nance right behind at 17.2. Before I answer the question of how King James and the Four Fools (now Three Fool + Mo Williams) is a better team than Lenny Wilkens' Boys, go run yourself a bath, light some candles, put "Ride of the Valkyries" on the stereo, slide into the bath with a mimosa in one hand and a cigar in the other and spend however long you need imagining Lebron James playing on that 88/89 Cavs team, taking give-and-goes from Price and Daugherty, finding Harper with outlet passes, feeding Nance down low, King James putting up 35/12/8s every night, Lebron playing lockdown D on MJ, blocking his shot at the end of game 5, Lebron dunking on Patrick Ewing, knocking Bill Laimbeer flat on his back, outdueling Magic Johnson for the NBA title... okay, take all the time you need, I'll be here when you get back...

Lebron James reverses his stance on windmills as a source of

alternative energy.

Okay, hope you enjoyed that. Now, start with the records - the 88/89 squad finished 57-25, 6 games back of the Pistons, tied with the Lakers for the second best record in the league, and 19-11 in their own division. This Cavs team is on pace to go 67-15, with a chance still at winning 69 games, is a ridiculous 35-1 at home, 11-3 vs. the division, and 25-4 against the Western Conference. The most games they've lost in any month was going 10-4 in January.

The 88/89 Cavs lost to a 47-35 Michael Jordan Bulls team where no other Bull would have cracked the Cavs lineup either (no, not even Scottie Pippen, only in his second year and averaging 14.2 ppg), so it's really not that much of a stretch to say LBJ could have taken them down as well.

If you believed the sports media, the only existing shot of the Cavs 1988/89 season.

Secondly, this season that Lebron James is putting up is one for the ages. I can bombard you with stats, but just try this one on for size: According to ESPN's Bill Simmons Lebron is going to be "the first player since they started keeping track of blocks and steals in 1973 to finish in the top three in scoring AND lead his team in total points, assists, steals, blocks and rebounds AND win more than 60 games." If that isn't an MVP season, I don't know what is.

The question, as several recent articles point out, isn't even how Lebron's season compares with his peers - there is no comparison there. The question is how LBJ compares with names such as Jordan, Bird, Magic, and Robertson.

As fun as it was to watch (and listen to Joe Tait announce) the Price, Daugherty, Nance, Harper team (and as tragic as it is that the worst trade ever - Harper for Danny Ferry - made this the only season we could enjoy this lineup), the 08/09 King James Cavs team is clearly the best Cavs team of all time.

4. 1986 Browns

Kind of a fudge, since they were only the best team in the AFC, not the NFL, as both the Giants and Bears were 14-2 that year, and the Redskins were 12-4 also (goddamn, but the NFC was ridiculous back then). But didn't want to leave Bernie and the boys off. They were such a fun team to watch until you know, that D-word happened, led by some guy whose name rhymes with Horse-Face.

They had one of the league's most balanced and explosive offenses, finally unleashing Kosar and adding him to a running attack of Mack and Byner that had each racked up 1,000 yard seasons in '85. Slaughter and Langhorne were third only to Rice/Clark and Duper/Clayton as wide receiver tandems, with Ozzie Newsome and Brian Brennan added to drive defenses insane. Underneath that mullet of Cobra curls, Kosar possessed the most gifted offensive minds pass through Cleveland since Paul Brown, but was unfortunately saddled his whole career with the most timid (Marty-ball), the most elderly (Bud Carson) and the most zombiefied (Belichick) offensive minds working in pro football. The guy was better drawing plays in the dirt than any clipboard-toter he ever played for.

Blitzing defenses are the disease. He's the cure.

The defense featured the best duo of shut-down corners in the league in Hanford "Top Dawg" Dixon and Frank Minnifield, excellent linebackers in Clay Matthews and Chip Banks, and a solid line of Puzzoli, Carl Hairston, and Sam Clancy. Add in Gerald "Ice Cube" McNeil and this was one very exciting team, with the double-overtime playoff win against the Jets still my favorite Browns memory. They showed it the other day on NFL Films (in what must have been some court ordered restitution for the countless years that the only Cleveland games shown on TV were "Willie Mays' Catch", "The Shot", "The Drive", "The Fumble" and "Cocaine Addled Jose Mesa Blows the Whole Fucking World Series 2 Outs Away From Ending 49 Years of Misery (Catchy Name Still Pending)") and I had forgotten how damn exciting it was, down 10 points with four minutes to go, Kosar rallies the Browns to an incredible victory. I forget what happened the next game. They must have lost, I guess.

Seriously, I have no memory of this.

5. Everybody else

You have to admit, after that group, doesn't it all run into a gray, soupy mass of also-rans, near-contenders, heartbreakers, "if only"s, and other varieties of runt dogs, stray cats, and hobbling platypuses?

Anyway, I really don't have a great closing for this other than to say, go Cavs, I hope you find some way to not break our hearts, but really we're from Cleveland, we kind of expect it, and we'll be quite content nuzzling you to our collective sports bosom if you wind up an almost, just-about but-not-quite, snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory band of lovable losers. Right up until Lebron leaves for the Brooklyn Nets in 2010, and the team moves to Las Vegas in 2011. At which point you're dead to us. But for now go Cavs!

yay.

MTV - Getting it Wrong Since at Least 1992

MTV has started a list of "Greatest Movie Badasses of All Time". The first one is Boba Fett. Coincidentally, Bill Simmons has an article today about being underrated. The basic premise is that with today's omnipresent internet buzz, no one can be truly underrated because no one slips under the radar anymore, and that the majority of the time, the person gets called underrated so often they become overrated. I think you can see where I'm going with this.

The entire mythos of Boba Fett, the most egregious Star Wars fanboy circle-jerk in a community famous for its tireless dedication to circle-jerking, is based on what? Five things? The suit looked cool, he was a bounty hunter of few words, his action figure would sink and then float, he had some history of wanton "disintegrations", and he tailed Han Solo to Bespin. That's it.

The first three can't be debated, but neither are they enough to confer "Greatest Movie Badass" status. Greatest Star Wars action figure status, maybe, but that's not the debate before us today.

The last two: how good a bounty hunter is he if he is so renknowned for disintegrations that Darth Vader has to specifically warn him against it this time around? Sure, if you were hired as "Designated Disintegrator", but no, the job description of bounty hunter sort of presumes you bring them back alive - that's why it's a harder job than assassin. And the tailing? Okay, points for being patient, and intuitive enough to guess that Han Solo may have hidden the Milennium Falcon in the trash dump, but when you think of the definition of badass are the words "patient" and "intuitive" the first ones to leap to mind?

Han Solo is clearly the coolest motherfucker to ever wear a vest and cavalry pants, and the guy who captures him would clearly be a badass, but sorry MTV, Boba Fett isn't the guy. Boba Fett plays "follow that car" to Cloud City, then drops a dime to the Imperial Solo Finder Hotline, but it's the Sith Lord himself who actually snatches the scoundrel's scoundrel at his banquet of evil (with help of course from the traitorous Malt Liquor Man, but don't get me started on him). How in the name of the Dark Side does Boba Fett get ranked above Darth Vader on a Movie Badasses List in the first place?

Any consideration of Boba Fett as a Movie Badass has to begin and end with Empire. Every frame of film shot of Monsieur Fett since Empire has only served to make him ridiculous (making him a microcosm of the whole franchise, but again don't get me started - and don't think about bringing in Expanded Universe bullshit, Nerdy McCosplay - MTV's ground rule is movie badasses; nobody cares how cool Boba Fett was in a novel only you and your Bochi speaking friends have read.) Whatever cool Boba Fett might have exhibited in Empire is taken away ten-thousand-fold in every subsequent film. Boba Fett has a jet pack? Awesome! Jet pack only gets used when struck accidentally, careening him into Jabba's sail barge and thus into the dyspeptic maw of the Sarlacc (with a girlish yelp no less)? Oh. We're going to learn about Boba Fett's origins? Hey that sounds like an opportunity for some cinematic badassery! This is Boba Fett?


Hey, he looks pretty cool. Not as badass without the helmet, but... What do you mean it's the kid? The kid's Boba Fett? Oh, um, yeah. Okay. The kid's whiny and obnoxious and from New Zealand? Yeah, three words also not to be in found in the definition of badass.

Try again, MTV.

America Never Sleeps

There is no snooze button on crime. While Superman, Batman, the three different Spider-men are in their PJs in the Fortress of Solitude, while Zorro is still catching some Zs, Captain America is at his post by 8 am, rain or shine.

(This is the first in a long-anticipated (by me) photo journal of that kooky, zany, wacky world we call Hollywood. Look for future posts on the Ham Sandwich Report.

This Week in Monkey News

Great, first they give the monkeys robot arms, now they're fucking mobile! It's just like Escape from the Planet of the Apes, except this time for some reason Ricardo Montalban is Japanese and dressed like a train conductor.



Start the countdown to Armageddon. Cute, cute Armageddon.

Should Superman Go Dark?

Interesting article at MTV.com today:


Here's my reply:

The best "dark" Superman story? "The Incredibles". Disavowed by the world he's sworn to protect, forced into a life on tedious monotony, unable to fulfil his destiny, so fixated on his lost glory that he can't appreciate the love of his family - that's pretty dark. And then when he is finally free to pursue heroism again he finds that those he loves are his greatest vulnerability.

Unfortunately, "Superman Returns" had a chance to have such a profound storyline, and completely dropped the ball (other than making Superman a deadbeat dad to a disabled kid, which is really dark, but unintentionally so). Superman gone from Earth for six years to visit his dead homeworld returns to find... that nothing has changed, and in fact somehow Lois Lane instead of six years older is somehow younger (she must have been one of those tragic pregnant highschoolers/veteran newspaper reporters you read so much about these days).

How much more profound would it have been for Superman to return to Earth to find that while he was chasing the memory of a world that no longer exists, the home that had adopted him as their own was passing him by? Instead of six years, make it the actual 30 years since Superman II, cast Margot Kidder again (I'm only being slightly facetious). Now Superman is a man with no home - so caught up in the fate of Krypton that he lost Earth. That's Superman's greatest weakness - as much as he wants to be from Earth, he will always be an alien, and the people he strives so hard to protect will eventually succumb to their own human mortality and there's nothing he can do about it. His power is his prison.

Further, Superman is a hopeful character because he is meant to embody all that is great about America. America itself is such a darker concept now than it was during Superman's Golden Era that it should darken Superman correspondingly. The best "dark" Superman I've read is in "The Dark Knight Returns". Frank Miller captured the essence that if Superman serves as America's greatest weapon, than he is inevitably colored by how America chooses to use that weapon. If Superman is trapped between following the orders of his adopted homeland or following his moral code, Superman would gain some of the complexity that has lifted the Batman reboot into epic status.

Trumbo

I saw an amazing movie last night - "Trumbo". It's a documentary version of a play by Christopher Trumbo, about his father, one of the "Hollywood Ten" blacklisted during the Red Scare.



It's made up mostly of letters written by Dalton Trumbo during his exile, read by Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Brian Dennehy, Joan Allen, Michael Douglas, Paul Giammati, David Stathairn, Liam Neeson, and Josh Lucas. The letters are eloquent, witty, scathing telegrams from the hell to which self-professed patriots had sent him.



I'm ashamed of how little I knew about Dalton Trumbo before I saw the movie. I knew that he wrote a lot of great movies, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee by Joseph McCarthy, was blacklisted, won an Oscar under an alias, and that Kirk Douglas had demanded that the studio give him credit for "Spartacus".

I also knew ephemera such as he often wrote in a bathtub and had a totally bitchin' mustache. Right off the bat, he's my kinda guy.



What I didn't know was how much he, and the others tainted by the Red Scare, suffered and endured fighting for the Constitutional Rights those selfsame "patriots" had sworn to uphold. I had a nebulous understanding that his case represented the Samuel Johnson maxim "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But I didn't know what a clarion voice Trumbo was for the very ideals upon which this country was founded. I had a vague sense of the parallels to today, but it took his words to light them in such stark relief.

I wonder how many times America can make the mistake of silencing its true patriots before the American dream stinks like rotten meat or explodes. I wonder how many times we can hear the bugle sound alarm before we answer its call.

Dalton Trumbo is the America I want to believe is still possible. Dalton Trumbo is the me I want to believe is still possible.

Stand up!

How do you cut a Ham Sandwich three ways?

This week is just about the most drab collection of lifeless lunchmeats to ever grace the Ham Sandwich Report. Okay, so this is only the second week of the blog, but it sounds more dramatic that way. And it certainly is the least exciting slate of films this Winter Ham Sandwich Season.

Our first anemic contender is the bloody yet bloodless Prom Night. Horror's can't-miss streak has come to a (pardon the pun) screeching halt. And horror remakes have fared even worse. Variety has evidently taken the week off from making actual predictions, and rather boredly calls for something "in the mid-high teens." The LA Times is placing a lot of faith in its tracking of teen girls (something my parole officer says is explicitly off-limits) and predicts $18 - $20 million. Can you really place that much confidence in the plans of teenage girls? Is there a more mercurial group? I say no, and place my chips firmly on $13 million, - make sure to bring your own apple or Little Debbie Square, we've got another Lunchables.

Fox Searchlight is trying to push Street Kings as a gritty, hard-edged combination of New Jack City and Colors. The high-water mark would have to be David Ayers' personal best, Training Day's opening of $20 million. But Training Day had Denzel Washington's bravura, King Kong scenery chomping, Oscar-winning performance. Street Kings has Keanu Reeves. Umm, whoa? The LA Times calls for $10 - $12 million. Variety waves a sleepy, dismissive hand at "not much more than Prom Night" and promptly resumes its nap. I'm feeling pessimistic and call for the low end of that spectrum, $10 million, not even a lunchable, maybe a past its expiration date Slim Jim and three strips of String Cheese.

The remaining morsels, the odd olive, baby gherkin or limp leaf of iceberg lettuce will be snapped up by the holdovers. All in all, if you walked into a party and saw this lame tray of cold cuts, you'd walk right back out the door. Maybe the LA Times has the right idea, I'm going to sleep. The tally:

Prom Night:
Client #9: $12 million
Me: $13 million
The LA Times: $18 - $20 million
Variety: "the mid-high teens" *yawns*

Street Kings:
Client #9: $12 million
Me: $10 million
The LA Times: $18 - $20 million
Variety: "just let me sleep five more minutes, 'kay?"