BCB After Dark: Not another no-no!

Welcome back to BCB After Dark: the hangout for night owls, early-risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Bring your own beverage. We’ll waive the cover charge. Please make yourself a regular. Please check your coat.

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.

The Cubs fell back to .500 tonight with a 4-3 loss to the Nationals. Honestly, I can’t get too upset about losing by one run on a night they were facing Max Scherzer. But they had chances to win and they didn’t cash in. So if you’re still mad about tonight’s loss, feel free to discuss it here.

Last time I asked you which of the Cubs rookie pitchers you are most excited about seeing and boy, did we get a great turnout. Thanks to everyone who voted. All five of them got significant votes but the winner with 40% of the vote was Keegan Thompson. Boy, am I glad I put him in my “other top prospects” list in my pre-season rankings. He also seems to have added some velocity in the missing season.

Second place with 35% was Adbert Alzolay, whose praises I’ve been singing for three or four years now.

Here’s the part where I talk about jazz and movies. You can skip to the baseball poll question at the end if you want. You won’t hurt my feelings.

Today’s cut is “Song For My Father” [VIDEO] by the Horace Silver Quintet. I am not real familiar with pianist Horace Silver outside of his work with the Jazz Messengers and Art Blakey, but the Jazz Messengers were always excellent and I found this clip by Silver and his own group from 1968 to be excellent as well.

I really don’t have the time to do two in-depth essays on an old movie a week with the minor league season underway. So I think I’m going to just do one on Monday for now and then throw out a movie question for discussion and let you people run with it.

Since this is a sports site, I thought I’d ask you to name your favorite sports film in different sports. I’m not going to dictate the sport (other than baseball), but the challenge is to name five sports and your favorite film from each sport. But you’ve got to do baseball since this is a Cubs site.

For example, here’s mine:

1. Baseball—The Bad News Bears (1976)
2. Hockey—Slap Shot
3. Basketball—Hoosiers
4. Football—Heaven Can Wait
5. Boxing—Raging Bull

OK, I’m going to admit that all five of those films were made between 1976 and 1986. But I’m not saying that those films are the “best” five, just my favorite. So I’m not disparaging other eras of sports filmmaking. In fact, there were several close calls for me that I decided to go with the one I listed in the end.

So now it’s your turn. Can you list your favorite film in five different sports?

OK, welcome back to those who skip the middle sections. Earlier tonight, Yankees pitcher Corey Kluber threw the second no-hitter in baseball in as many nights. It’s the sixth no-hitter of the season already and we’re only six weeks into the season. It’s the seventh no-hitter if you count Madison Bumgarner’s seven-inning no-hitter.

No-hitters are cool and all, but this is starting to get a little worrisome. As recently as 2005, there were no no-hitters in an entire season. The record for no-hitters in one season is seven, and we’re already to six and it’s not Memorial Day yet. Offense is way, way down all over baseball and that makes no-hitters a lot more likely.

This could just be an aftermath of the pandemic and pitchers being stronger. Or it could just be a fluke. It could also be that all six of the nine-inning no-hitters were against three teams: Seattle, Cleveland and Texas.

But more worrisome, it could be a sign we’re entering into a third “dead-ball” era, like the 1960s were the second dead-ball era. They fixed that by lowering the mound and instituting the DH. They can add the DH to the National League, I suppose, but I don’t think the mound can be lowered anymore. That’s why some people have spoken about moving the rubber back one to two feet. But no one knows what kind of effect that would have yet.

So what do you think? Are all these no-hitters a cool development and nothing to worry about? Or are they something you’re starting to get worried about?

I’ll see you again on Monday!