For this week's summary, I've chosen to compare each important league event to a famous movie or work of literature. Obviously, this is pretty similar to what Freund brilliantly did last week, but in order to avoid any accusations of plagiarism, I have refrained from using any quotes from Last of the Mohicans (which is unfortunate, because my description of the Float it - Salisbury Steaks match up would have involved the final "He is Unkus! . . . but once, we were here" speech, with Kellan in the role of Chingatchkook, Iafe as Hawkeye and A-Rod as Madeline Stowe - which obviously would have been awesome - but Freund ruined that for everyone).
The Matchups
"Why couldn´t you just put down the bunny?" - Cameron Powe, Con Air
Shirts of Jack Bradfield 7
Fastballs for Breakfast 3
In this matchup, GM Jaques' offense played the role of Cameron Powe (Nicolas Cage, in what in retrospect I should have voted as his greatest performance), mercilessly beating down on Fastballs with a 51-18-58-11-306 offensive line analogous to Powe's legs and arms (which, due to their extreme strength and martial arts training are legally considered deadly weapons). The Fastball's Cyrus the Virus-style offense put up a valiant, if evil, fight, but eventually succumbed. On the pitching side, GM Hoffman managed a Steve Buscemi-style escape. After enjoying a tea-party with a young girl and her dolls (Aaron Harang, Max Scherzer and Randy Johnson), Hoffman´s pìtchers refrained from murdering them, but were instead content to escape up 3-2 in the pitching categories.
"Rage, Goddess, sing to me of the rage of Achilles . . ." - The Iliad
The Scuffie McGee 10
The Hot Ice Conservators 0
This battle of titans is perhaps best compared to the epic confrontation between Achilles (The Scuffie McGee and GM Sigel) and Hector (The Hot Ice Conservators and GM Kreicher). I considered simply citing the movie Troy, but that battle scene between Achilles and Hector, though sweet enough to make Brian Finn himself declare that he would totally do Brad Pitt, doesn't quite reflect the sheer dominance of Scuffie's 10-0 defeat of his arch-rival. Perhaps most key to the Iliad comparison is the fact that, just as Hector attempted to flee Achilles - running three times around the walls of Troy before being tricked by Athena into facing his doom - GM Kreicher was similarly reluctant to face his foe, starting only 6 pitchers in a week where he clearly had nothing to lose by starting his full 9. In his "Achilles fights the river" moment, GM Sigel showed no mercy to his weaker foe, picking up and starting Kyle Lohse on Sunday to secure the shutout. Shortly thereafter, GM Kreicher declared his team to be in rebuilding mode, a sad end for a once-great hero. It appears the Hellenes no longer need fear Hector's deadly spear.
Float It 6
Salisbury Steaks 4
In a matchup that GM Iafe desribed as "sloppier than a pair of gorilla tits left out in the rain" Float It defeated the Salisbury Steaks 6-4. The battle called to mind the epic rain-soaked confrontation between Simba and Scar in the thrilling finale to The Lion King. In the end, of course, Simba is too noble to avenge the death of his father and refuses to kill his uncle, allowing the hyenas - in this case, Huston Street, who picked up a vulture win (see the scavenger parallels! Obviously, the comparison isn´t perfect because Kellan won wins 6-3, but imagine if the difference had been based entirely on vulture wins. Now that would have been something.) - to viciously eat Iafe alive.
Garey Busey is Chet Steadman 5
Cracker Jacks 4
"This isn´t about your Field's medal, you mathematical dick. It's about the boy!" Robin Williams, Good Will Hunting
In this dramatic scene from Good Will Hunting, two old friends/rivals square off over the fate a young man's mind, if not his very soul. Robin Williams was always the smarter of the two, but, perhaps lacking that killer instinct, he was never able to achieve the success that other guy (who plays Bootstrap Bill in the Pirates of Carribean movies, whatever his name is) did, sinking into a low-paying job at Bunker Hill Community College while the other guy polishes his Fields medal at MIT. Similarly, the Cracker Jacks have some fine players on their team - including first-half sensation Josh Hamilton (Ben Affleck) - but they were unable to win this test of wills, falling to the flashier, if heartless, Gary Busey squad 5-4. Time will tell if GM Sands ultimately wins out, allowing David Wright to go "see about a girl" (Carlos Beltran).
Harry Stamper: "Grace, I know I promised you I was coming home."
Grace Stamper: "I-I don't under-understand."
Harry Stamper: [sighs] "Looks like I'm gonna have to break that promise."
- Liv Tyler and Bruce Willis, Armageddon
Road Babes 9
The Three R's 1
So says Bruce Willis to his daughter - a teary-eyed Liv Tyler - before blowing up a nuclear bomb on the giant asteroid that otherwise would have destroyed all life on earth. Pretend, now, that Willis had failed (the nuke still blows him up and kills him, but doesn't deter the asteroid from its original course, smashing to the earth and killing nearly everyone exept for a few scattered survivors) and what would you have? OK, Deep Impact - but that movie sucked and didn't have any quotes quite as powerful as the one above. You would also have this matchup between the Road Babes and the Three R´s. GM Nicholas Freund's squad brought an Armageddon-like 62 runs, 22 Hrs, 64 RBIs and 340 average, which, coupled with a strong pitching performance, annihilated GM Houghteling's over-matched team in every category but one. The Three R's clung desperately to the stolen base category (just as Elijah Wood and his pregnant(?) girlfriend clung to the top of a medium-sized hill in Deep Impact), and in doing so not only avoided the ignominy of a 10-0 loss, but also ensured that the human race as we know it can go on, at least for another day.
Other League Events from the past week:
"Judge Ito! Have some of my burrito!" Pauly Shore, Jury Duty
The premise of this 1995 Pauly Shore classic is that Shore - an out of work male stripper assigned to the jury in a murder trial - tries to delay the resolution of the trial so that he can continue to receive the benefits that come with being a sequestered. He invents outlandish and outrageous reasons to refuse to declare the murderer guilty, with hilarious results. Similarly, in the Murphy Memorial League last week, a poll question that one would think would easily be answered the same way by all members of our "jury" ("Would you sleep with a ready and willing college sophomore?") inexplicably recieved a stunning pair of votes in the negative. One can be attributed to Hoffman, who presumably, in anticipation of his coming marriage, has allowed China (the Tia Carrere of this analogy?) to monitor all of his internet use, and this felt uncomfortable voting as his heart told him to (Is it ironic, Hoffman, that you voted "no," but that, when you first met China, she herself was a college sophomore? I think it is, but I've never quite grasped how irony works). The other vote remains unaccounted for, but I have chosen to believe that Freund mistakenly voted while high and trying to order food online (which I've heard you can now do on the Information Superhighway). For the record, not that this had any impact on my vote, but as far as I know there is no age of consent in South America.
"If we all go for the blonde and block each other, not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends, but they will all give us the cold shoulder because no on likes to be second choice. But what if none of us goes for the blonde? We won't get in each other's way and we won't insult the other girls. It's the only way to win. It's the only way we all get laid." - John Nash, A Beautiful Mind
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