Any port in a storm

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Now, on with business.

This will, without question, be a baseball newsletter. That’s the point, yes? Baseball scores, baseball highlights, baseball opinions, baseball bullshit. That’s going to be the point of all of this, obviously.

But there are other things we’ll be talking about here too. Things like, “Columbo.”

I spend most of the offseason watching old TV shows and movies. Old Douglas Sirk melodramas. Film noirs. A ton of 1970s New Hollywood classics. When it’s TV it’s a steady diet of “The Rockford Files” and “Columbo.”

There’s something comforting about shows like those. TV dramas today are so full of tormented anti-heroes and comedic TV is so full of discomfort-driven quirky humor that seeing straightforward, genuinely warm, funny, and comfortable performances like you get from likable actors such as Peter Falk and Jim Garner stand out more than they once might’ve. It’s not nostalgia for me — I was too young when those shows were in their heyday to have experienced them first-hand, so I’m not living in the past — but they’re certainly comfort food now. Look at the goddamn world, after all, and ask yourself if you couldn’t use some comfort.

I go back and forth on which one of those two shows I prefer. “Rockford” is probably more conventionally entertaining and enjoyable. “Columbo” can be a bit more formulaic — it’s always a variation on the same “pretentious rich guy murderer’s hubris is his downfall” theme — but it’s a great formula and the production values and star power are always top notch.

Lately I’ve been on more of a “Columbo” jag. Since I’m not doing real recaps until Monday (see below for some fun) I decided last night to forego baseball and watch an episode.

It was “Any Old Port in a Storm,” a 1973 episode starring Donald Pleasance as the murderer of the week (note: this is not a spoiler. “Columbo” is not a “whodunnit.” It’s a “How’dTheyDoIt.” You see the murder in the first 10-15 minutes and the drama of the show is in Columbo and the killer playing cat and mouse).

This episode was set in the world of wine snobbery, with Pleasance owning a winery and spending most of the episode chewing the scenery in all the best ways. Like in the big set piece near the end, set in a restaurant, where he berates the staff for serving him a 1945 port which had been ruined due to being exposed to excessive heat, referring to it as “LIQUID FILTH!”