BCB After Dark: Gates to the West

Welcome back to BCB After Dark: the afterparty for night owls, early-risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Bring your own beverage. We’ll waive the corkage fee. The opening act is about to start anytime now.

BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.

You may have noticed that there was no BCB After Dark last night. At least I hope you noticed. There was an unplanned systemwide shutdown here last night, the details of which are unimportant. What is important is that I had already written last night’s BCB AD, but I was unable to schedule it. So what follows is what I had planned for last night with modifications so I’m not talking about Tuesday’s game as if it happened a few hours ago. If I missed a modification I had to make, I apologize in advance.

If you’re still wanting to talk about this afternoon’s game, you can continue to do so here. How about that Justin Steele? He looks like a keeper right now.

On Monday/Tuesday I asked who you think is going to win the NL East and with a runaway 70% of the vote, you said the Atlanta Braves. I’m really puzzled by that outcome. It would not have surprised me to see the Braves win the vote with 38%, but 70% seems out of whack in a pretty close division.

On Tuesday nights/Wednesday mornings, I don’t go into a lot of jazz and old movies, but if you want to skip ahead to where ask you who is going to win the NL West, you can do so now. Yes, I know this is a day later. But this is the early Wednesday After Dark.

If you were to list the superstars of jazz of the 21st Century, saxophonist Joshua Redman might be the first one on the list. Here’s the title track from his 2019 album with the Joshua Redman Quartet, “Come What May.” It’s kind of a mellow one to help you relax before you drift off to sleep. Or maybe help you wake up slowly. I don’t know when you’re reading this.

I don’t normally talk about movies on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, (again, I know it’s a day later) but I did want to say something about the death of Norman Lloyd on Tuesday at the age of 106. When I was an undergraduate many, many years ago, I did a seminar thesis on the Federal Theater Project of the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal in the Great Depression. One of the things that the FTP did was create something called “Living Newspapers,” which were theatrical portrayals of the important news items of the day. Orson Welles and John Houseman were involved in those and that was also where Lloyd got his start in acting. I remember reading about the Living Newspapers and noticing an actor named Norman Lloyd in them. I wondered “Is that the old doctor on St. Elsewhere?” which was still on the air at that time. I checked and of course, it was the same man.

Lloyd got his start in the movies in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur in 1942. His final film was 2015’s Trainwreck. He was “soft” blacklisted from Hollywood in the 1950s, so he returned to the stage where the blacklist wasn’t in effect. But when Alfred Hitchcock started his TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he wanted Lloyd as a producer and director. The network raised objections, but Hitchcock simply said “I want him,” and that was all it took to end his blacklist. It makes you wonder what would have happened if more Hollywood big names had stood up for the blacklisted artists.

He had a long and terrific career and we are the better for having seen him on the stage, screen and television. So rest in peace, Norman Lloyd, and thanks for the memories.

Today’s question is who is going to win the NL West. I’m pretty sure that if I asked this question at the beginning of the season, the Dodgers would win in a landslide and the few dissenting votes would go to the Padres. But here we are, about 36 games into the season, and the Giants are tied with the Cardinals for the best record in baseball. (At least they were after Tuesday night’s games.) The Dodgers, whom many were saying had a chance to be the greatest team of all-time, have slumped and have fallen into third place.

So which of those three teams is going to win the West? Or are you one of those romantics who still think the Diamondbacks or Rockies are going to win it?

We’ll see you again tomorrow night with a special Thursday night/Friday morning edititon and I’ll ask you about the NL Central.