Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Movie Review: American Reunion



American Pie is back. 
Everyone has grown up, though not matured. Instead of watching teenagers acting obnoxious and sex-starved, American Reunion is about 30 years olds engaging in sophomoric debauchery. 
It doesn’t work.  
American Reunion is outrageous and dimwitted, but devoid of any humor. The storyline is odd, predictable and fails to deliver the least bit of entertainment. Truthfully, the film is like drinking hard alcohol all night: the gut rot gets progressively worse with each passing moment. 
Don’t bother going to the Reunion to see how everyone turned out. 

Pack Leaders

In baseball money starts -- unless it's attached to Vernon Wells or a back of the bullpen guy.
Yes, closers and only a select few players with unsightly contracts are excused from playing from the get-go. In the former's case, they are paid to preserve ninth inning leads and save games. As for the latter, well, Wells and others are such a detriment to the team's overall success, management feels it is far better to bench  them than witness incongruous, appalling failure time and time again.
Wells is owed $63 million over the next three seasons. He rarely sees the field because he can no longer hit for average or power and the Angels have MVP-candidate and rookie Mike Trout to take his place in the lineup.
Other teams aren't so lucky.
Since the end of the steroid era, pitching ERA has been much better. In the more potent American League, 18 hurlers have ERAs below 4.00. The National League has an incredible 39. Yet somehow, even with the changes to the game and better success rates among pitchers, Minnesota Twin Nick Blackburn struggles to record outs.
A 2008 ESPN piece suggests that one Mike Parrott had the sixth worst season ever among athletes in 1980,  and arguably owns the single worst pitching effort in MLB history. Parrott finished 1-16 with a 7.28 ERA for the Seattle Mariners. Opponents hit .356.
Photo Courtesy of talk-sports.net
Blackburn is paid $4.75 million this year to be just as woeful. League average is $3.31 million through 2011. In 18 starts, Blackburn owns a 7.33 ERA and .334 batting average against.
Need further proof of how bad that is? If an average hitter faced Blackburn all season, he would hold the fifth highest average in baseball and second highest in the AL.
Somehow the Twins do not have any other arms to start.
Speaking of not having other options, the Chicago White Sox have a player with the third most strikeouts among all active players and one of the best pitchers. Unfortunately, they aren't the same guy. Adam Dunn has 167 strikeouts in little more than 400 at-bats. Southpaw Chris Sale is 14-3 with a 2.60 ERA. He has struck out 132 in 138.2 innings. MLB's strikeout leader is Justin Verlander, who has 174.
The beefy first baseman slash designated hitter does not come cheap. Dunn signed a four-year, $56 million contract with Chicago prior to the 2011 season.
Last year he set a modern day record among qualified candidates by hitting .159. This year, Dunn's .209 average is hardly a godsend, though his 33 home runs pace all hitters.
Photo Courtesy of fixmlb.org
Again, Big Donkey's troubles stem from making contact. Over the first 32 games of the season he struck out at least once for a total of 47 times. For comparison sake, the longest hitting streak in baseball this season was 26 games.
The only good that can come from having to play these particular (and relatively) big budget flops is their potential to play each other fairly often as members of rival Central Division teams.
More head-to-head matchups and maybe Blackburn and Dunn will both return closer to league average, even if their salaries don't.