Just watched We Are Marshall

I've never seen it for that reason. The two schools merged were not a white and a black school. It was just two rival schools that hated one-another -- and Alexandria, VA, a small southern town? Ummmm....no. Truth is, the schools in Alexandria were desegregated some years before they were merged into TC. Williams.

 

Some of that's coming back to me, but I didn't know all of that. I'm wondering how I got a 95 on the paper now. ...

 

I've always liked 'Titans' because it reminds me of my hometown, where the white and black schools merged and won back-to-back small-school state championships in Florida in the same time setting as the movie. (Granted, massive white flight, but among the white players who stayed was a lineman who signed with Florida. Also on team was Derrick Ramsey, a QB then but later a Super Bowl tight end with Raiders and Patriots.)

 

Change T.C. Williams and Alexandria to "Small school and town in Florida" and you have a good, true to the facts movie.

 

Hey don't forget that Connie Britton also played the coach's wife in the movie just like she does on the TV show.

The best movie ever I need to give Monday Night Mayhem and the story of Howard Cosell and how they had more action in the booth then on the field. I know its a made for tv movie but it was a great movie.

 

The Cutting Edge is the only sports movie worth watching . . .

 

I assume you probably have already, but if you haven't, dig up a copy of "The Hustler's Handbook" by Ed Linn and Bill Veeck, which devotes quite a lengthy chapter to the diary of Harry Grabiner, the secretary (in today's terminology he would be the GM) of the White Sox in 1919, which goes into many details not found in Asinof's book.

One thing pointed out in the Bill James Historical Abstract (first edition), which also had a lengthy chapter on the scandal, is that the White Sox payroll was a little deceptive because it included the $15,000 salary of Eddie Collins (whose guaranteed contract had been bought from the Athletics in the middle of the Federal League war), which made him one of the half-dozen highest-paid players in the league. Once you got past that $15,000, that left 16-18 players to cut up not very much money.

Comiskey's average salary might have been OK, but his median salary was chicken scratch.

 

You are correct, sir. Collins' $15,000 salary (which he had written into his contract when he was sold by Connie Mack) and Schalk's $8,000 skewed the average much higher than it actually was. The Sox's median salary was indeed chicken scratch.

However, the point remains: that chicken-scratch median was in line with every other American League club and, arguably, was among the highest. (It's hard to be certain of all the numbers, because some weren't documented by the league office.)

Comiskey did underpay his stars relative to the rest of the league, but some of that can be attributed to the fact that Cobb and his ilk were able to restructure their deals -- for a LOT more money; $12-15K then $20K for Cobb, $18.5K for Speaker -- due to the threat of piracy from the Federal League. Jackson, who was as big a star as any of them, was sold by Cleveland in 1915 and never had a chance to negotiate with leverage from the Feds. So he was underpaid by THAT standard, but there were very few players getting that kind of money. Those guys were exceptions.

As for the others ... Cicotte didn't command that kind of money until 1917, and by then he was ancient. Weaver was a skilled negotiator and got a sweet three-year deal (for $7,250 per, and no 10-day clause) from Comiskey before the 1919 season that made him among the highest-paid infielders in the league. So Weaver wasn't underpaid by any means.

The only guys who could stake a claim to that complaint were Williams and Felsch, but the former wasn't a full-time starter until 1919 and Felsch had only been in the league since 1915. Relative to their experience, they were paid maybe a little below-average, but not by much.

Good stuff, Starman.

 

It is also not true that Hawk Harrelson bleated "Yeeeesss!" into a megaphone when Chick Gandil finished off Game 6 with a game-winning single.

It IS true that Jay Mariotti did not go in the locker room after the game and that Cincinnati manager Pat Moran was tackled in the coaches' box by a drunk White Sox fan.

 

A "Remember the Titans" that made my eyes roll was the "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, good bye ... " at Bertier's funeral.
I didn't like the movie all that much either, and around everyone else, I felt Elaine on the "Seinfeld" episode about "The English Patient."

 

I'm surprised that was her reaction. I read the book as well and loved it, but man, seeing those dinosaurs onscreen for the first time was flat-out amazing. They had never looked nearly that realistic in any other film in cinema history. It really was like looking at a live dinosaur for the first time. For that, I could forgive any differences between the book and the movie.

That said, I didn't think the movie was all that different from the book. Sure, they had to leave out a few parts (including an action sequence with the T-Rex trying to get at Timmy, Lex and Dr. Grant while they rode down a river in a raft and Pterodactyls attacking them in the same raft), but that's to be expected when you try to turn a 500-page book into a movie whose script is probably only about 120 pages.

The film version of 'The Lost World,' on the other hand, had nothing more to do with the book than the title, which is a shame since the book was pretty darn good.

 

Jerry Reinsdorf DID provide the players flat Asti Spumanti on the heels of the 1917 championship . . . NOT after clinching the 1919 pennant, as depicted in the movie.