Cup of Coffee: April 15, 2024

Good morning!

Today we laugh at some trash talk, congratulate a guy for doing a dumb thing in a slightly smarter fashion than most do, regret not knocking on wood, talk about Spencer Strider’s injury and Ippei surrendering himself, talk about what people didn’t talk all that much about when Dwight Gooden’s number got retired yesterday, and we play some fantasy baseball. Like, real fantasy baseball.

In Other Stuff I talk about soccer for the first time in a good bit, but don’t worry, it’s relatable enough for non-soccer fans too. Also: Nike strikes again, a rich person insensitively cosplayed as a poor person, and I regret to inform you that I watched “The Hunt for Red October” again and will, once again, be talking about it.

Personally, I give your chance at reading all of this . . . one chance in three.

*chews meat*

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Pirates 9, Phillies 2: Jack Suwinski hit a grand slam and Andrew McCutchen hit is 300th career homer. He was also credited with a steal of home when he was the front end of a double steal on which J.T. Realmuto airmailed the ball to center field while trying to nail the trailing runner. If I was a crazy billionaire I’d hire someone to analyze every steal of home in baseball history to see how many of them were horseshit like that as opposed to cool Jackie Robinson-in-the-World-Series-style straight steals of home. I bet it’s north of 75%. When my researcher was done with that I’d have them do a horseshit check on inside-the-park home runs to see how many were outfielder mistakes as opposed to a function of hit placement and wheels. I have lots of great ideas. I just need some money to see them through.

Red Sox 5, Angels 4: Masataka Yoshida, Tyler O’Neill, and Triston Casas went deep. Kenley Jansen was shaky but he got the 424th save of his career. That ties him with John Franco for fifth most in major league history. He’ll likely catch the fourth-place guy, Francisco Rodríguez (437), this season too. After that it’s Lee Smith (478), Trevor Hoffman (601), and Mariano Himself (658). I’ll give him a chance at Smith, but he’s not going higher than that I don’t figure.

Orioles 6, Brewers 4: Corbin Burnes faced his old team and allowed two earned runs in five innings. Jackson Holliday got his first big league hit in the seventh inning, used some wheels to take an extra base on a subsequent single, and then scored the tie-breaking run. He’s still hitting just .067, but I figure it’ll get better. Colton Cowser, Cedric Mullins, and Ryan O’Hearn homered as the O’s avoid the sweep.

Blue Jays 5, Rockies 0: José Berríos continues his early season roll, tossing seven shutout innings while allowing only two hits and picking up his third win. He’s got a 1.05 ERA in four starts and has tossed 15.2 consecutive scoreless innings. Justin Turner had three hits and three RBI to help the Jays take two of three.

Atlanta 9, Marlins 7: Atlanta had a four-run lead in the fourth but blew that by the sixth when Miami went up by two. That’s when Marcell Ozuna took over, doubling in a run in the seventh to bring Atlanta to within one. Then, in the ninth inning, with two out and two men on and Atlanta down to their final strike, Ozuna jacked a three-run shot to center. The Fish went down in order in the bottom half to give Atlanta the series. Ozuna, a former Marlin and resident of Miami, went 7-for-12, homered twice and drove in eight runs in the series. Home cookin’ does a man good I guess.

Mets 2, Royals 1: Rookie José Butto tossed six scoreless and struck out nine for the Mets. He pretty much had to given that Cole Ragans did the same for the Royals in a game that stayed scoreless into the eighth. Harrison Bader singled in a run that inning after which Brandon Nimmo drew a four-pitch walk with the bases loaded to give New York what turned out to be the winning margin. Also yesterday: the Mets retired Dwight Gooden’s number 16. I have more on that down in the Daily Briefing. If you got really excited and nostalgic about that, well, you may want to skip what I wrote below because I do not come here to praise him.

Tigers 4, Twins 3: Minnesota was shutting out Detroit behind a strong outing from starter Bailey Ober (6 IP, 3 H, 0 ER), but in the bottom of the eighth Javier Báez hit a solo shot, Mark Canha doubled in two, and Spencer Torkelson hit a bloop single to bring Canha home. The win was A.J. Hinch’s 800th as a manager, though it was only his 319th for a team that has not been documented to be systematically cheating during his tenure.

Guardians 8, Yankees 7: I sort of hate it when a bunch of runs are scored in extra innings because it reminds me that the Manfred Man is basically bullshit, but that’s the game we have, unfortunately. We had it here at least, as it was tied at five following the end of regulation play. Anthony Rizzo singled in two in the top of the tenth to put New York up but Cleveland stormed back in the bottom half. If you can call a Manfred Man-scoring fielder’s choice, another run-scoring fielder’s choice, and then a walkoff sac fly “storming.” The Yankees bullpen has been the team’s strong suit for several years but thanks in large part to injuries it’s the team’s biggest weakness so far. They just haven’t had anyone who can come in and get a couple of big strikeouts when necessary.

Rays 9, Giants 4: Blake Snell got lit the hell up again, this time allowing seven runs on six hits in four innings and that was not a hole the Giants had any hope of climbing out of. Amed Rosario hit a two-run shot and René Pinto hit a three-run drive off of the reigning Cy Young winner. Pinto later hit a solo shot off a reliever to give him a two-jack, four-RBI day. After the game Snell said, “I need to get better. I just got to get in the zone and attack.” I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

Reds 11, White Sox 4: Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Nick Martini each homered and drove in four runs and three runs, respectively, as the Reds completed the three-game sweep. The White Sox were outscored 27-5 in the series and are now 2-13 on the season, having scored only 34 runs. What’s more, per subscriber, Friend of the Newsletter, and White Sox fan Chris Jaffe, the White Sox franchise is now exactly .500 since Jerry Reinsdorf bought the team in 1981, with 3,376 wins and 3,376 losses. The last time they were .500 under Reinsdorf was back on June 13, 1991, when they were 813-813. They peaked at 176 games over .500 on August 26, 2012 and have been sliding for 12 years. Sell the team, Jerry.

Astros 8, Rangers 5: Jose Altuve hit two homers, both off of Rangers starter Nate Eovaldi, who Altuve has owned over the years. Marcus Semien homered and drove in four in a losing cause. Houston is 4-3 against Texas this year. They’re 2-8 against everyone else.

Athletics 7, Nationals 6: Washington had a 6-1 lead entering the bottom of the sixth but then Oakland put up a six-spot to take the lead and that score held the rest of the way. Tyler Nevin and Lawrence Buter hit run-scoring singles during the rally. A run scored on a wild pitch as well. Abraham Toro knocked in the go-ahead runs with a two-run single. Oakland takes two of three. They also took two of three in each of their last two series to give them a respectable-for-them 7-9 record.

Cubs 3, Mariners 2: Michael Busch hit a two-run homer to put the Cubs up 3-0 in the fourth. It was Busch’s fourth game in a row in which he has gone yard. The Cubs’ franchise record for consecutive games with a home run is five, held by four players, with Christopher Morel being the most recent to do it. Chicago’s other run scored on a Luis Castillo error which means that that run was not earned. Pretty clever of Castillo. Now if he could just find a way to pitch better because the M’s ace is 0-4 with a 5.82 ERA on the young season.

Diamondbacks 5, Cardinals 0: Zac Gallen tossed six shutout innings and two relievers combined to no-hit St. Louis for the final three frames. All of the Diamondbacks runs came in the fifth via a Jace Peterson sacrifice fly, a Jake McCarthy RBI double, a two-run single from Corbin Carroll, and a wild pitch from Cards reliever Andre Pallante. All five of those runs were charged to starter Miles Mikolas who had been cruising before that inning. Life comes at you fast I suppose.

Padres 6, Dodgers 3: Down in the first item in today’s Daily Briefing, I share an item which involves Jurickson Profar. When you read it, forget that he was the hero of this game, clearing the bases with a three-run double in the seventh to break a 3-3 tie and ultimately give San Diego the ballgame. Pretend instead that the key to the game was the Dodgers pitchers walking 14 batters. Which they did. And, actually, no need to pretend here, as that’s also a very big reason why the Padres won this game.

The Daily Briefing

I laughed

The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres on Saturday night behind a strong pitching performance from Gavin Stone. Indeed, Stone had a perfect game going for several innings. All of which made it weird when, in the fifth inning, Jurickson Profar took issue with an inside pitch and began chirping at Stone and catcher Will Smith, leading to the benches clearing. For what it’s worth, no punches were thrown. It was all jawing. Yawn.

Profar pretty clearly thought Stone was throwing at him because he had squared to bunt on a previous pitch, with the implication being that he thought Stone took offense to the unwritten Thou Shalt Not Break Up A No-Hitter With A Bunt rule. Except it was a close game and, more importantly, why on Earth would Stone want to retaliate for his perfect game almost being broken up by a bunt by . . . breaking up his perfect game with a plunked batter? That makes no sense. To his credit, Profar came to realize that later, telling reporters after the game that, yeah, Stone wouldn’t try to hit him with a perfect game on the line. He said it was just a “heat of the moment” kind of thing.

Will Smith was less diplomatic, saying of Profar"I don't know why we would have thrown at him . . . he's kind of irrelevant."

I run hot and cold on trash talk, but that one made me laugh out loud.

Great Moments in Anger Management 

Texas Rangers left-hander Brock Burke was placed on the injured list on Saturday with a fractured hand. He suffered the injury on Friday night after he punched a wall in frustration following his poor outing against the Houston Astros.

We seem to get one of these almost every year. It’s an impossibly dumb way for a pitcher to hurt himself, of course, but kudos to Burke for being somewhat less dumb than the other guys who have done this: he punched the wall with his non-pitching hand. Which, because a pitcher has to field as well as throw is still bad, but it’s not as bad as doing so with your moneymaker.

Carlos Correa goes on the IL

Last week I shared video of a great Carlos Correa relay throw which nailed Shohei Ohtani at the plate. In response one of you commented that it was so great to see a healthy Correa.

Welp:

The Minnesota Twins placed shortstop Carlos Correa on the 10-day injured list Saturday with a right oblique strain. Correa suffered the injury in Friday night's 8-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers

Correa, 29, was seen grabbing at his right side during a third-inning at-bat. He eventually struck out and was removed from the lineup.

"It's like a gut punch," Twins outfielder Byron Buxton said after the game.

I don’t knock on wood and I’m not the sort of person who believes that our words can actually manifest phenomena in the world, but stuff like this makes me think twice about such things.

Spencer Strider has season-ending surgery

As feared, Atlanta ace Spencer Strider will miss the rest of the season after undergoing surgery to repair the UCL in his right elbow.

The good news is that they performed an internal brace procedure as opposed to Tommy John surgery, so the recovery time is shorter. He’ll still miss the whole season but there is a much better chance of him being ready at or near the start of 2025 then he would’ve had if he’d had TJ.

Still, tough break for both him and the ballclub. Which, based on how much of the last week without him has gone, will involve them having to bash their way to victory more often than they otherwise might’ve. At least they have a lot of guys who can bash.

Ippei Mizuhara surrendered himself, released on bail

The day after he was charged with bank fraud for stealing $16 million from Shohei Ohtani, Ippei Mizuhara appeared in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Friday and surrendered himself to authorities. He was released on $25,000 bond. His next hearing is on May 9.

Mizuhara was ordered to surrender his passport, to abstain from gambling, to attend a program to treat gambling addiction, to have no contact whatsoever with Shohei Ohtani, and to seek employment and remain employed. That last one could be tough given that he allegedly used his top and possibly only skill, interpreting/translating, in a deceitful manner in order to commit fraud, but I suppose there the world always needs ditch-diggers, sandwich artists, and Walmart greeters.

The maximum sentence for felony bank fraud is 30 years. Though following his court appearance his attorney issued a statement saying that Mizuhara “is continuing to cooperate with the legal process and is hopeful that he can reach an agreement with the government to resolve this case as quickly as possible so that he can take responsibility.” The statement also said that Mizuhara “wishes to apologize to Mr. Ohtani, the Dodgers, Major League Baseball, and his family. As noted in court, he is also eager to seek treatment for his gambling.” All of that obviously suggests that Mizuhara is gonna negotiate a plea deal pretty damn quickly, which will likely end up in him receiving a far, far shorter prison sentence. That restitution order is gonna be a lulu, but it’s not like he’ll ever be able to pay it.

What I’m really waiting for now is to see what Ohtani does with his agency, CAA, which, as I discussed on Friday, seems to really have screwed the pooch in all of this. My guess is that, like almost everything else in his life, Ohtani will try to handle it super quietly, but if you run into Nez Balelo digging a ditch, making you a sandwich, or saying hi to you when you walk into Walmart, you’ll have your answer.

On Dwight Gooden’s number being retired

Yesterday the Mets retired Dwight Gooden’s number 16. It makes total sense to do that, obviously. While substance abuse and arm troubles derailed what, for a while at least, appeared to be a Hall of Fame-caliber career, Gooden was nonetheless the ace and one of the highest-profile players of some very good Mets teams which were and remain an indelible part of (relatively) recent baseball history. I have a very liberal number-retirement policy and I have no problem with teams not limiting things to Hall of Famers or the elite of the elite. Number retirements are for the fans too.

But as Gooden is honored, my hope is that all of Gooden’s legacy, just not his baseball accomplishments, is remembered. Including the bad things.

In this I am not talking about his substance abuse. That can happen to almost anyone and I don’t consider it to be some sort of moral failing which demands our judgment. I am mostly talking about the time a woman accused Gooden and two other Mets players -- Vince Coleman and Daryl Boston --of raping her during spring training in Florida in 1991. A police investigation ensued, but the three were never charged with a crime. The woman has since died, but her story, and the story of the extreme shadiness of many members of those late-80s/early-90s Mets teams, was told in intricate detail by Daniel Engber of Slate back in January 2020.

The story is not for the faint of heart or for those who may have difficulty reading accounts of rape or sexual assault, but it’s a compelling must-read if you missed it four years ago. Which, frankly, a lot of people did, as it came out just before the Houston Astros sign-stealing story broke after which the pandemic hit and the Gooden stuff was all but memory-holed, it seems.

The Mets teams of that era have become legendary. Sometimes for their greatness. Sometimes for how much greater they could have been but for any number of circumstances and self-inflicted wounds. Often for their color, their fire, or their panache.

What is not mentioned nearly enough, however, is just how odious, misogynistic, criminal and allegedly criminal so many of the players on those teams were. And in this I’m not just talking about a pathetic outlier like Lenny Dykstra or even Doc Gooden. There were men on that team who behaved pretty horribly and who, to this day, hold high-profile jobs and are generally treated like baseball royalty. But as the Slate article makes pretty clear, there was a whole hell of a lot of bad and I think it’s important for that to be remembered as well.

You have my sword. And you have my bat. And my glove.

Saw this on Twitter on Saturday evening:

This is not a bad effort, but I worry about Frodo's arm in right field. And putting a Hobbit at first base seems like a bad idea, because Pippin or Boromir are gonna airmail one on occasion and it’s not like Sam can stretch for it. Just asking for trouble.

The best suggestion I saw was to move Aragorn to third, move Boromir to first, and to stick Sam in left field. In the words of the person who suggested that, you “button up the infield defense and Legolas can cover pretty much the whole outfield with his speed anyway.” Hard to argue with that notion. And, as some folks demonstrated, it’s hard to resist coming up with your own ideas.

Next up: a Dragonlance baseball team. That Raistlin Majere doesn’t look like much, but he carries a big stick.

Other Stuff

Oof

I stopped writing about soccer in this space this year, mostly because I got the distinct impression that it was only really interesting to a few people but not insightful enough for anyone who knows much about it. In my day-to-day life I like to learn about new things and I never have any self-consciousness about not knowing too much about new things, but that mindset does not lend itself to compelling writing, so I figured I’d leave it alone for the most part.

Not that that’s the only reason. The fact that my Brentford Bees have been sort of miserable to watch this season has been a key contributing factor.

Brentford are in 15th place at the moment, and the only two teams between them and the relegation zone are there largely because they’ve had points deducted due to financial infractions. Brentford is seven points ahead of 18th place Luton Town and seems, for the moment anyway, to be safe of relegation due to that margin, but it’s been far too close for comfort for a while. I am finding, in my third year of Premier League fandom — the first two of which involved my plucky underdog rooting interest exceeding expectations! — that being on relegation watch sucks.

One of the more annoying Brentford losses came last month when the Bees dropped one to Burnley. Burnley was in the Premier League in 2021-22 when I began watching English football. They were awful that season and got relegated. They made it back this season but they stink again and are almost certain to be sent back down. Brentford has to beat clubs like that so losing 2-1, thanks in large part to getting a man sent off in the eighth damn minute, was not at all fun.

Yet I feel really, really bad for Burnley today because of this, which happened in their match against Brighton on Saturday:

For those who don’t click on videos or who are not 100% clear on what they just watched, the Burnley goalkeeper, Arijanet Muric, passed the ball to one of his defensemen and, when the defenseman felt pressure, he backpassed it to Muric to reset things. Except Muric simply missed the ball — he somehow let it roll under his cleats — and back into his own goal. The closest baseball equivalent I can think of is a catcher throwing the ball back to the mound after a pitch, the pitcher simply missing it, and the runner on third walking in to score. Except it’s worse, because (a) one goal in a football match is way, way more significant than one run in a baseball game; and (b) the result of one football match is way, way more significant than the result of one baseball game.

Making it all worse, of course, is that lowly Burnley was actually beating a very good Brighton-Hove Albion club at the time. The outcome wasn’t certain yet, as there were still 14+ minutes to play, but they were up 0-1 and it was totally possible for them to have hung and picked up those three critical points. Instead they managed a draw and only got the one.

Also making it worse was the fact that, exactly one week before, Muric was responsible for a nearly as dubious play when, trying to clear the ball in a match against Everton, he kicked it right into opposing player Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s foot and it ricocheted back into the Burnley goal:

The match ended in a 1-0 Everton win.

Again, you cannot say for sure what might have happened in the rest of the game, but if Burnley is to stay in the Premier League — a long shot as it is — Everton losing is pretty damn important to them.

I know they’re professional athletes and that they are all wired differently than we are. I also presume that goalkeepers, like relief pitchers, have to have short memories if they expect to last in the game. But after the week he just had, dear God, I hope someone is checking in on Arijanet Muric every hour or so. I just wanna hug him.

Nike strikes again 

I’m still having a difficult time getting my mind around just how badly Nike screwed up the baseball uniforms, but don’t sleep on what it’s doing to Olympic athletic wear. At least the clothing that women’s track and field competitors are expected to be wearing during this summer’s games.

Last week Nike released a photo of two mannequins, one male and one female, wearing the new USA tack and field kit. The female mannequin is shown wearing an extremely high-cut pantyline:

The image led to criticism from several athletes for what they, not unreasonably, saw as the prioritization of skimpiness over function. Here’s former Olympic track and field medalist Lauren Fleshman, going off on the uniforms on her Instagram account:

“I’m sorry, but show me one WNBA or NWSL team who would enthusiastically support this kit. This is for Olympic Track and Field. Professional athletes should be able to compete without dedicating brain space to constant pube vigilance or the mental gymnastics of having every vulnerable piece of your body on display. Women’s kits should be in service to performance, mentally and physically. If this outfit was truly beneficial to physical performance, men would wear it.

“This is not an elite athletic kit for track and field. This is a costume born of patriarchal forces that are no longer welcome or needed to get eyes on women’s sports. ... Stop making it harder for half the population @nike @teamusa @usatf.”

U.S. long jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall was more succinct: “Wait my hoo haa is gonna be out.” Which, yeah, that’s the crux of it.

Thankfully, Nike subsequently announced that there will be shorts options for track and field athletes who do not wish to wear the brief/unitard version which would require a Brazilian wax. That’s nice, but it’s also the case that Nike led with the skimpy uniforms that seem far more calculated to attract prurient gazes than to optimize athletic performance. That’s what it’d prefer women wear I reckon.

After the run they’ve been on lately, I also reckon that someone needs to stage an intervention in Beaverton.

Because you think that poor is cool

Nicola Peltz Beckham is the daughter of billionaire financier Nelson Peltz, who recently tried to take over the Disney board. She is married to Brooklyn Beckham, the son of the extraordinarily wealthy David and Victoria Beckham. This, of course, makes her extraordinarily wealthy as well and means that her life has, almost certainly, never known a moment of financial strain or the sorts of hardships which spin out of financial strain, let alone abject poverty.

So of course she recently wrote, directed, and starred in a movie, “Lola,” about an impoverished family with characters who are both perpetrators and victims of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and who suffer from alcoholism and drug addiction. There is also a storyline in which a lot of bad things happen to a trans character.

Which, to be sure, are not things one must have personally experienced in order to make a movie about them, but based on the review of it in The Guardian, it’s pretty clear that Peltz Beckham has no idea about her subject matter, which results in a movie that is, essentially, poverty porn that presents “like trauma bulbs spaced out neatly on a string of lights” and which is clearly aimed to make Peltz Beckham look good. It’s one of the more damning takedowns of a movie I’ve seen in a long time.

This part of it, however, talking about the film’s premiere as opposed to the movie itself, may be the most damning part of it all, particularly given the trans character storyline:

That lifestyle was on full display on the Lola red carpet. Peltz Beckham and her co-star and brother Will both shared a photo on Instagram of them posing with their father Nelson and Elon Musk, who attended the premiere. The nearly $200bn net worth pictured, an almost unfathomable amount of money, felt like a mockery of the film’s themes. Further, Musk, who has an estranged trans daughter, joked that he was there “with friends thinking about companies to acquire”, implying the premiere itself served as a great place for the rich to get richer.

Like I said, you don’t have to have lived the life experiences of characters you create for a book, a song, or a movie. Fiction is fiction. But if you don’t have those experiences you had better damn well approach the material from an informed, empathetic, and respectful place. And you sure as hell shouldn’t be partying it up at the premier with a stupid, callous, transphobe who happens to be the richest person on the planet. Indeed, it’s the sort of thing that should have ‘em all lined up against a wall.

I would like to have seen Montana

Everyone has that one movie where, if it happens to be on while they’re flipping around, they must watch until the end. “Goodfellas” is a common choice along those lines for folks of a certain age, but there are a number of others. My top choice in this category is “The Hunt for Red October.” If you’ve been reading my recaps for a while, you know I quote that one a hell of a lot.

I suppose it’s even more than “watching if I come across it.” It’s a movie which, if I simply think about it or see a reference to it, I have to seek it out and turn it on, even if I wasn’t watching TV to begin with. That’s probably why I’ve seen it approximately 579 times.

This happened Saturday evening. I was on Facebook and one of those movie trivia pages that often get suggested to me had a thing about how, originally, Captain Marko Ramius was to be played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, but he dropped out and was replaced by Sean Connery. Those two, it just so happened, played opposite one another in the 1983 Bond film “Never Say Never Again,” but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that, upon reading the Facebook article, the movie was in my head and that was that. So I watched it once again.

For what it’s worth, I actually got something out of watching it this time even though, as stated, it was my approximately 579th time doing so. Two somethings, actually.

First, there’s an undersea location — a rock formation I assume — referenced a couple of times in the movie called “Thor’s Twins.” I have seen “The Hunt for Red October” multiple times since the “Thor” MCU movies have come out but this is the first time I realized that a movie that references “Thor’s Twins” features two actors, Sam Neill and Stellan Skarsgård, who appeared in “Thor” MCU movies. This truly matters, I realize.

The second thing: while falling down various “Red October” Wikipedia holes, I learned that the film’s director John McTiernan — who also directed “Die Hard,” and “Predator,” among other films — served nearly a year in federal prison in 2013-14 based on a false statements/perjury charge arising out of an FBI investigation into the crooked Hollywood private detective Anthony Pellicano.

You should read that whole section of his Wikipedia page to see how utterly stupid McTiernan was to wind up with a criminal beef out of this, but the short version is that Pellicano was busted for, among a bunch of other things, illegally wiretapping people. McTiernan had hired him at one point and the feds talked to him about it, just as they talked to any number of Pelicano’s clients about it. Unlike most of them, however, McTiernan lied.

Criminal proceedings against McTiernan lasted over seven years, in large part because he continued to lie even after he was handed a fairly lenient plea deal that, for some reason, he wanted to get out of. In the end he actually got his guilty plea withdrawn but then the prosecutors took him to trial and got an even longer prison sentence than McTiernan had faced under the plea. He later went bankrupt because (a) he spent tons of money defending himself in the years-long case; and (b) the whole affair kept him from taking on more movie work. For all of the success he had in the 80s and 90s, the dude hasn’t directed a movie since before all of that went down. It was just a tour de force in bad decisions.

The funniest thing about that criminal case, though, was what led McTiernan to hire Pellicano in the first place. From Wikipedia:

On April 3, 2006, McTiernan was charged in federal court with making a false statement to an FBI investigator in February 2006 about his hiring of the private investigator Anthony Pellicano to illegally wiretap Charles Roven, the producer of his film “Rollerball,” around August 2000. McTiernan had been in a disagreement with Roven about what type of film “Rollerball” should be, and had hired Pellicano to investigate Roven's intentions and actions.

Imagine going to literal federal prison — ruining your life, your career, and your personal finances — because, dammit, you had a VISION for a “Rollerball” remake starring Chris Klein and LL Cool J and DID NOT want the suits at the studio to interfere with it. Imagine that being what upends everything.

Anyway, that was my Saturday night. Wild as always.

Have a great day everyone.

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