Mark My Words

Cover of Saving the Queen, by William F. Buckley, 1976.

The back cover of Saving the Queen: William F. Buckley in his limo with one of his Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Talk about multitasking!

In the mid-1970’s, William F. Buckley decided that merely writing a newspaper column three times a week, hosting a weekly television show, and editing a biweekly magazine wasn’t quite enough frenetic activity for him, so he tried his hand at novel writing. Buckley spent two months every winter in Switzerland, and he figured that after skiing in the afternoon he should be able to bang out 1,500 words every day and thus by the end of his “vacation” have a draft of a novel. Since William F. Buckley seemed to have more energy than three people combined, this plan worked. Buckley’s first novel, Saving the Queen, was published in 1976, and it introduced the world to dashing CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Saving the Queen was a success, and Buckley would go on to pen 11 novels featuring Oakes.

Saving the Queen is a decent enough potboiler, but it doesn’t have the tension of great thrillers. Blackford Oakes is just too ridiculously perfect to be very entertaining, and everything falls together much too easily for him. Oakes saves the fictional Queen Caroline of Great Britain, and sleeps with her, all without breaking a sweat. Saving the Queen takes place in 1952, and someone close to the Queen is leaking information about the hydrogen bomb to the Soviets. Oakes’s mission is to find out who the mole is, and he figures that out far too easily, since it’s the only person he meets that is close to the Queen. Oh, and the Queen readily tells Oakes who amongst her inner circle has a suspiciously high curiosity level about the hydrogen bomb. Well, that was easy!

Buckley admitted that he deliberately made Oakes a flawless character, saying in a 1985 interview, “I made Blackford Oakes such a shining perfection to irritate, infuriate the critics, and I scored!” (Conversations with William F. Buckley, p. 91) That’s all well and good, but it makes Oakes a little, well, boring. He never says or does the wrong thing, so we never actually get worried for Oakes. Some critics at the time charged that Oakes was nothing more than an idealized version of William F. Buckley himself, but I don’t think that’s true. Although there are some surface similarities between Oakes and Buckley, they are quite different people. Buckley, who was himself briefly a CIA agent, also deliberately puts the CIA in the best possible light, since it was Buckley’s contention that the CIA was on the side of good, and the Soviets were on the bad side. There are no shades of grey in this book, only black and white. Buckley was writing about the CIA during a rather thorny time in the history of the agency, as the Rockefeller Commission, led by then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, was taking an interest in the legality and morality of the CIA’s actions. Even though his novel was set in the past, Buckley felt he had to address the Rockefeller Commission, and he does so in a clunky prologue and epilogue. Despite Buckley’s attempts to put a heroic gloss on the CIA, I found Boris Bolgin, the Russian NKVD agent, to be the most interesting character in the book. Bolgin’s main goals in life are avoiding having to express any political opinions of his own, and to never have his name mentioned to Stalin.

One problem I had with Saving the Queen is that all of the characters talk like William F. Buckley. While that means that everyone is fabulously intelligent and witty, with the vocabulary of an unabridged dictionary, it also means that the characters all sound the same, which makes the book a trifle dull.

Saving the Queen is a moderately entertaining thriller that I would recommend only to William F. Buckley fans or diehard Cold Warriors.

Conversations with William F. Buckley Jr., 2009.

William F. Buckley looking like a rock star riding his moped in New York City in the 1960's.

William F. Buckley at his desk.

I’ve written about William F. Buckley before on this blog, as I recently review his novel Saving the Queenand I wrote a very long piece about his fascinating book Overdrive, which chronicled a week in his fast-moving life. My political sympathies run to the opposite end of the spectrum from the late Mr. Buckley, but that does not preclude my enjoyment of his writings and his personal style. I’m also an admirer of his son Christopher, who has written many very funny satirical novels.

Having thus established my Buckley bona fides, I turn to the subject at hand: the 2009 book Conversations with William F. Buckley, Jr. It’s from the long-running “Literary Conversations Series” published by the University Press of Mississippi, and these volumes have proven to be endlessly fascinating for fans of the authors profiled. The University Press of Mississippi has done readers an immeasurable service through this series by rounding up these interviews and collecting them in one volume. The volume on William F. Buckley is shorter than those on other writers, as it runs just 186 pages.

The earliest interview in the book is from Playboy magazine in 1970, and it’s arguably the most interesting, as Buckley holds court on all manner of topics. The Playboy interview is also by far the longest included, as it runs for more than 40 pages. One of Buckley’s funniest quips from that interview is when he says that too many people are voting, and the interviewer asks him who he would exclude from voting. Buckley’s response is: “A while ago, George Gallup discovered that 25 percent or so of the American people had never heard of the United Nations. I think if we could find that 25 percent, they’d be reasonable candidates for temporary disenfranchisement.” (p.24) Buckley’s quote reminds me of Gore Vidal’s witty remark: “Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President. One hopes it is the same half.”

Most of the later interviews in the book discuss Buckley’s novel writing, so there is some repetition as Buckley describes his working methods again and again. The interviews that delve into politics the most are the Playboy interview and an interesting 1978 interview with The American Civil Liberties Review. The focus on Buckley’s novels makes sense given the interests of William F. Meehan III, the editor of the book, as he wrote a dissertation on Buckley’s fiction.

Conversations with William F. Buckley sheds more light on the fascinating personality of one of the 20^th century’s most prolific public intellectuals. Surprisingly enough, Buckley claimed that he didn’t enjoy writing, as he says in a 1978 interview, “I get pleasure out of having written. I like to paint. I don’t like writing, but there is a net satisfaction when it’s done.” (p.75) In another interview from 1978, Buckley shared the success of his famous productivity: “Deadlines. I have deadlines for everything. I find them liberating.” (p.69) Buckley expounded a little more in a 1983 interview: “I had three deadlines this weekend. And because they simply had to be done, they were done. And if you know that you’ve got to phone in six columns, they get phoned in. The people I pity are not the people who have deadlines, they’re the people who don’t have deadlines.” (p.84) That sounds easy enough, right? Just set some deadlines for yourself and you’ll soon be as productive as William F. Buckley. I think it helped that Buckley had a tremendous work ethic.

Throughout the book, Buckley comes across as smart, witty, funny, and someone who must have been a lot of fun to hang out with. I’d recommend Conversations with William F. Buckley to anyone with an interest in this fascinating, entertaining, sesquipedalian writer and thinker.

Album cover of "Avonmore," showing a young Bryan Ferry from the 1970's.

This is the cover image that Amazon showed for Bryan Ferry's "Avonmore" before it was released.

Bryan Ferry, mid-1970's, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary.

Bryan Ferry in 2014, still as handsome and well-dressed as ever.

Bryan Ferry’s 15^th solo studio album “Avonmore” was released last month, and it’s yet another excellent piece of smooth pop from the former Roxy Music frontman. Ferry’s music hasn’t changed a great deal since 1980 or so, when the rough edges got sanded off of Roxy Music, but he still puts out perfectly glossy, elegant records full of beautiful midnight ennui. Ferry’s solo albums since 1985’s “Boys and Girls” are usually as smooth as a pane of glass, and “Avonmore” is no exception to that.

“Avonmore” features eight new Ferry originals and two covers. Ferry is in great voice throughout the record. His voice has been burnished by the years, and that brings a certain melancholic quality to it that fits his songs very well. Ferry’s voice now sounds as world-weary as his songs have always been. “Avonmore” was produced by Ferry and Rhett Davies, who has worked with him off and on since the Roxy Music days. There are a lot of layers of sound going on, but “Avonmore” never feels overproduced. Ferry is supported by an all-star cast of musicians, including Nile Rodgers, Johnny Marr, Mark Knopfler, and Flea. Ferry’s son Tara plays drums on all of the songs, except for “Johnny and Mary,” and Ferry himself plays keyboards throughout the album.

The track listing for “Avonmore” is as follows:

“Loop De Li”: A catchy song, featuring some hallmarks of Roxy Music’s sound, like an oboe and a saxophone. Ferry’s lyrics tell the story of someone caught in a pattern or loop with no way out. Ferry sings, “Well I know you know/we’re killing time/we’re on an up down see-saw/loop de li.” A beautiful portrait of alienation.

“Midnight Train”: There are 9 guitarists on this song! But somehow it doesn’t sound overstuffed, just polished like a smooth river stone. “Midnight Train” is one of my favorite songs on the album. Ferry has a way of making lyrics that could sound like clichés sound fresh. The song is full of romantic yearning, as Ferry sings, “I’ll never know/the meaning of your kiss/midnight train/must it end/like this?” I can just imagine Ferry standing forlornly at a train station, waiting for his girlfriend to come back, looking sad and handsome in a trench coat smoking a cigarette.

“Soldier of Fortune”: Co-written with Johnny Marr, the guitarist from The Smiths. It has a laid-back insistence. Features some great guitar playing, this time from only 3 guitarists. As usual, Ferry is in pain in this song, as he sings, “I’m going out of my mind/and I won’t be back again.”

“Driving Me Wild”: This song has something of an ominous feeling, as Bryan sings in the first verse, “My heart is pounding/I’m trembling with rage/I’m wrestling with my demons/on every page.” A woman is driving him wild, and Ferry sinks deeper into anguish: “No dream will ever be the same/everything around me calls your name.” This song has one of my favorite lyrics on the album: “I’m dealing with a feeling/that nobody knows/an unkindness of ravens/a murder of crows.” I knew that the proper term for a gathering of crows is a “murder” but I had no idea until I heard this song that the term for a gathering of ravens is an “unkindness.” Those very loaded terms just add to the unease of the song.

“A Special Kind of Guy”: Ferry is once again lovelorn, as he wishes that he could have the love of the girl in this song. Ferry sings that she needs “A special kind of guy/would take you by the hand/for all the world to see/wish it could be me.” This song is a good showcase for Ferry’s piano and keyboard work. It’s a beautiful song, melancholy, elegant, and yearning.

“Avonmore”: This is one of my favorite songs on the album. There’s an intensity to the rhythm of the song that I really like, and that reminds me a little bit of the Roxy Music song “Both Ends Burning.” Once again, Ferry plays the yearning romantic, as he sings on this chorus: “I want a love that’s never ending/through all the thunder and the rain/but there’s no sense in pretending/I know I’ll never fall in love again.” Features a lovely saxophone solo from Richard White.

“Lost”: A slow ballad that features Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits on guitar. Another romantic song for late at night.

“One Night Stand”: A funky song about the possibility of finding love with that stranger on the dance floor. Like “Midnight Train,” this song also features 9 guitarists, but again it doesn’t feel like too much. Ferry sings, “In the mood and in the dark/can you mend that broken heart?” We don’t know what the answer will be, but I’m guessing from the melancholy nature of this album it’s probably no.

“Send in the Clowns”: Bryan Ferry singing Stephen Sondheim? Sure, why not. Ferry has always had success with unlikely cover versions, from the very beginning of his solo career. This is a lovely version of this standard from “A Little Night Music.” Ferry’s voice adds the necessary pathos, but he keeps it from going over the top. Nice trumpet solo from Enrico Tomasso.

“Johnny and Mary”: Ferry’s cover of Robert Palmer’s 1980 hit single jettisons the nervous, New Wave energy of the original, drastically slows it down, and strips the song down to its basics. It’s brilliant and beautiful, and it starts with just a murmuring synth line and finger snaps. This version was originally recorded for Norwegian DJ Todd Terje's album “It’s Album Time,” released in April, 2014. I really love Robert Palmer’s version of “Johnny and Mary,” so I was excited to hear what Bryan Ferry would do with it. I love the lyrics to this song, as Palmer paints a vivid picture of this couple: “Johnny’s always running around/trying to find certainty/he needs all the world to confirm/that he ain’t lonely/Mary counts the walls/knows he tires easily.” Ferry’s version plays up the paranoia in the song, inherent in lyrics like “Scared that he’ll be caught/without a second thought.” “Johnny and Mary” moves at a languid pace, stretching out over nearly seven minutes, and I find it mesmerizing. A great ending to a marvelous album.

My three favorite songs from “Avonmore” are “Midnight Train,” “Avonmore,” and “Johnny and Mary.” If you like Bryan Ferry or Roxy Music, go out and get “Avonmore,” pour yourself a drink, listen to it late at night and let the music wash over you.

Cover of Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, by Kostya Kennedy, 2014.

Pete Rose collecting hit number 4,192, breaking Ty Cobb's all-time record, September 11, 1985.

Special Topps cards from 1986 commemorating Rose passing Ty Cobb.

Pete Rose playing for the Phillies, illustrating why he was nicknamed "Charlie Hustle."

Rose during his brief stint with the Montreal Expos in 1984. He collected his 4,000th hit with the Expos.

Pete Rose is baseball’s all-time leader in hits, games, at-bats, and plate appearances. He’s 6^th all-time in runs scored, 2^ndin doubles, and 7^th in total bases. Rose led the league in hits 7 times, doubles 5 times, runs scored 4 times, won 3 batting titles, was the 1963 NL Rookie of the Year, and the 1973 NL MVP. He was a 17-time All-Star, and made the All-Star team at 5 different positions, a record that will most likely never be broken.

Pete Rose played in his last major league game in 1986 and has been banned from major league baseball since 1989, yet he might still be baseball’s most divisive figure. Lots of ink has been spilled over Rose in the past 25 years, and Kostya Kennedy’s 2014 book Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, is the latest attempt to dissect the life and career of baseball’s all-time hit leader.

Kennedy does a good job of analyzing the different parts of Rose’s life, with detours into the history of Cincinnati, and Pete’s relationship with his brother Dave.A highlight of the book was the section on the baseball career of Rose’s son Pete Rose Jr., who played professional baseball from 1989 until 2009, accumulating just 16 plate appearances and 2 hits in the major leagues in 1997. Like his father, Rose Jr. is a player with a tremendous work ethic. Pete Rose Jr. is now a manager in independent baseball, continuing his love affair with the game.

Pete Rose: An American Dilemma assumes a great deal of familiarity with Rose’s playing career, as it jumps around in chronology and doesn’t cover every year of Rose’s 24-year playing career. I was already quite familiar with Rose’s career, but I wish the book had provided more context for Rose’s remarkable accomplishments.

Throughout the book, Kennedy never really comes down on one side or the other, for or against Rose. Does he think Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame? Does he think that Pete Rose should be reinstated? Kennedy never really says. Kennedy is harsh on Rose throughout the book, yet he clearly feels that the Hall of Fame’s treatment of Rose was unfair when it singled him out and changed the rules in 1991 so he wouldn’t appear on the ballot. The new rule stated that anyone on baseball’s ineligible list could not appear on the ballot for the Hall of Fame. Since Rose was the only player on the ineligible list, the rule change was obviously targeted at him. The Hall of Fame clearly didn’t want to deal with the possibility of Rose being voted into the Hall of Fame while at the same time being banned from baseball, which seems like the biggest oxymoron imaginable.

Pete Rose’s behavior since 1989 is oftentimes incomprehensible to rational people. When it became clear during Major League Baseball’s investigation of his gambling habits that Rose would be banned, Rose and his lawyers fought for a paragraph in the document banning Rose that said he neither admitted nor denied having bet on baseball. This was a ridiculous assertion to make, and I don’t understand why then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti allowed such unclear language into the final document. If Rose wasn’t admitting that he bet on baseball, why was he being banned? If Rose hadn’t bet on baseball, why did he accept the ban? Major League Baseball should have forced Rose to admit in 1989 that he did bet on baseball. Instead, Rose lied for 15 years, not telling the truth and admitting that he bet on baseball until the release of his 2004 autobiography, My Prison Without Bars.

If Pete Rose were a smarter guy he might have been reinstated and be back in baseball by now. But I think he’s a dumb guy who really doesn’t get what he did wrong. He knows that he broke the rules, but he’s never seemed ashamed that he broke the rules. As Kennedy says, Rose isn’t sorry for what he did, he’s only sorry that he got caught. Rose’s half-hearted apologies have never seemed sincere.

In my opinion, in order to have any chance of getting back into baseball, Rose needed to do three things:

1. Come clean and tell the whole truth about betting on baseball

2. Apologize for betting on baseball

3. Stay as far away from gambling as possible

Rose has failed miserably at those three tasks, as he didn’t tell the truth or apologize until 2004, and he spends most of his time in Las Vegas, signing autographs at memorabilia shops. But signing his name for money has proven to be most lucrative for Rose, as according to Kennedy, Rose pulls down a guaranteed income of $70,000 a month in Las Vegas. Rose also might not have told the whole truth in 2004, when he said he bet on baseball “four or five times a week.” He amended that to saying in 2007 that he bet on baseball “every night.” Is there anything else Rose is saving for his next book?

Pete Rose is a contradiction. On one hand, he seems guileless, unflinchingly honest, and yet he lied about betting on baseball for 15 years. During his playing career, Rose was extremely savvy about cultivating his image as “Charlie Hustle,” by always running to first base on a walk, and always sliding into bases headfirst, whether it was necessary or not. But since he was banned from baseball, Rose seems tone-deaf to how he comes off to the public.

Part of me likes Pete Rose. He was a great baseball player, someone who gave it his all out there on the field every single day he played. I met Pete Rose at a baseball card show to get his autograph, and he seemed like a nice guy in the thirty seconds I talked to him. I even watched his terrible reality show on TLC, “Hits and Mrs.” But he’s also a jerk who bet on baseball and doesn’t really seem to get why that’s such a big deal. And that’s the contradiction of Pete Rose. I think that Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame as a player, but I don’t think Rose should be in the Hall of Fame as long as he’s banned from baseball. I know that the Hall of Fame and Major League Baseball are different organizations, but for me, personally, if you’re banned from one, why should you be in the other?

If you’re interested in Pete Rose’s baseball career, and his post-baseball life, you should read Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. It’s a great introduction to one of baseball’s most controversial figures.

Jim Kaat pitched for an amazing 25 seasons.

Tony Oliva, with the Twins in the 1960's. Oliva won 3 AL batting titles.

Me and Tony O, 2012. He is one of the nicest athletes I've ever met.

Gil Hodges, first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Ken Boyer, third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Like many baseball fans, I was disappointed when the Golden Era Committee for the Hall of Fame announced on December 8^ththat no one had been elected to the Hall of Fame. The Golden Era Committee examined players who made their primary contribution to baseball between 1947 and 1972. The Committee had nine players on their ballot, along with former Cincinnati Reds general manager Bob Howsam.

Baseball writer Joe Posnanski had a great post about the math behind the Golden Era Committee, and why it was almost impossible for them to elect anyone. The members of the committee were limited to voting for just four players, which lessened the chance of anyone being elected.

As a Minnesota Twins fan, I really wanted to see Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat get elected. In my Hall of Fame philosophy, I’m more of a “big Hall” kind of guy. I feel that there are a number of really excellent players who deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, like Jim Kaat, Tommy John, Vada Pinson, Al Oliver, Ted Simmons, Tim Raines, Dave Parker, and Fred McGriff. That being said, there are a number of players in the Hall of Fame who I think don’t belong. I don’t think they should be removed from the Hall of Fame, but I think they were bad choices. Most of these players were selected by some form of the Veterans Committee. My list of Hall of Famers who don’t belong would include: Chick Hafey, Jesse Haines, Fred Lindstrom, Travis Jackson, George Kelly, George Kell, Addie Joss, Rick Ferrell, Ray Schalk, and Dave Bancroft.

It annoys me when people say or write things like “The Hall of Fame is for players like Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.” Well, yes, but it’s also for players like Billy Williams, Goose Goslin, and Bert Blyleven. There are 211 players in the Hall of Fame. Obviously, not all of them can be as great as Mays and Mantle. You can have a Hall of Fame in your mind that is only made up of Mays, Mantle, Hank Aaron, and other players who were first-ballot, no doubt about it Hall of Famers, as long as you know that your Hall of Fame does not bear any resemblance to the actual Hall of Fame. You can’t stick your head in the sand and pretend that the bottom barrel HOFers don’t exist. But, at the same time, we shouldn’t use those bottom barrel players as benchmarks for who to elect in the future. If we start putting in everyone who is better than the worst Hall of Famer, we’ll have a Hall of Fame that will be overstuffed.

The “Golden Era” ballot of 2014 was full of very good candidates who all have their pluses and minuses. You can make really good arguments for or against all of these players. Here are my thoughts on the candidates on the ballot, except for Bob Howsam, who I don’t have an opinion on. I don’t think executives should be on the same ballot as players.

Dick Allen: No matter where Dick Allen played, controversy followed him. Allen was one of the best sluggers of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. But injuries and Allen’s knack for pissing off every team he ever played for led to him playing his last game at the age of 35. I understand that Allen was a really great player, and he was definitely one of the best players in baseball from 1964-1974, but his counting numbers are really low for the Hall of Fame. Allen finished his career with just 1,848 hits and 1,119 RBIs. There are 178 players who have played from 1901 to the present who have more than 1,800 hits and 1,100 RBIs, which doesn’t exactly scream “elite player.” Allen’s Hall of Fame case is all about his hitting, as he was at best an indifferent fielder. He has negative fielding WAR for every season except 1964, when he has a paltry 0.3. I get that Allen’s peak as a player was really high, but I just have a problem with putting someone in the Hall whose counting stats look like Lee May’s.

There’s a great bio of Dick Allen on the SABR website, which helped me understand more about some of the controversies surrounding Allen’s career:

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/92ed657e

Ken Boyer: From 1956-64, Boyer was one of the game’s best third basemen, putting up 8 seasons of 90+ RBIs, and leading the NL in RBIs in 1964 with 119, the same year he won the MVP award and led the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series. Boyer’s peak is very impressive, but unfortunately the magic quickly faded, and Boyer’s career from 1965-69 was undistinguished. I think Boyer was a great player, but for me he falls short of being a Hall of Famer.

Gil Hodges: Another great player with a terrific peak but a shorter career, Hodges was the slugging first baseman for the “Boys of Summer” Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950’s. Hodges put up 7 consecutive seasons of 100+ RBIs, and when he ended his playing career in 1963 his 370 home runs were good for 10^th on the all-time list. Hodges faded quickly after his age 35 season in 1959. Hodges has been one of the most discussed Hall of Fame candidates, as he has consistently fallen just short of election time and again. In his 15 years on the BBWAA ballot, Hodges was named on more than 50% of the ballots 11 times, so it’s pretty crazy that he didn’t get in. As Joe Posnanski points out in this excellent blog post, every player who has received 50% of the BBWAA vote, except for Hodges and Jack Morris, has been eventually elected to the Hall of Fame, either by the BBWAA or by some incarnation of the Veterans Committee. Everybody liked Gil Hodges, and by all accounts he was a really great guy, which you think would have helped him get elected to the Hall. Hodges also managed the “Miracle Mets” in 1969, and he died young, of a sudden heart attack at age 47 in 1972. He was considered one of the best fielding first baseman of his era, winning 3 Gold Gloves, even though the award wasn’t established until 1957. For me, Hodges falls just short of a Hall of Fame career.

Jim Kaat: One of the most durable pitchers ever, Kaat pitched for 25 seasons, from 1959 to 1983. At 283 wins, he fell short of the magic number of 300, and I think that has kept him out of the Hall. Let’s say, hypothetically, that Kaat lost one close game every year of his career. If we could give Kaat that one more win for each year of his career, he’d be at 308 wins and would be in the Hall of Fame for sure. So if Kaat would have been a Hall of Famer with just 17 more wins, why is he not a Hall of Famer at 283 wins? I don’t know exactly how sportswriters would answer that question, but I have some ideas. Kaat was not an overpowering pitcher, and he didn’t have much of a peak to his career. He was a compiler, putting up big numbers through longevity, not sheer dominance. He wasn’t Tom Seaver. Kaat won 16 Gold Gloves in a row, and he was such a good athlete that he was used as a pinch-hitter or pinch-runner in 106 games during his career. Unfortunately, Kaat got injured during the 1972 season while pinch-running, and that no doubt cost him several wins, as he was 10-2 with a 2.06 ERA when he got injured. Kaat might have lost some support for the Hall of Fame because he spent the last five years of his career as a swingman alternating between the bullpen and spot starting. Voters might have seen Kaat as just hanging on too long trying to get to 300 wins. Personally, I would love to see Jim Kaat in the Hall of Fame. He was a great pitcher and he’s been a great broadcaster for many years.

Minnie Minoso: While some fans might remember Minoso for his publicity stunt pinch-hitting appearances with the White Sox in 1976 and 1980, he was actually one of the best players in the American League during the 1950’s. Like practically every other player on this ballot, Minoso faded quickly after age 35, which is ironic, given his late-career pinch-hitting appearances. But during his prime, Minoso was a 9-time All-Star, and a three time Gold Glove winner. Minoso also finished 4^th in the MVP voting 4 times. Oh, and he has the same number of 100+ RBI seasons as Mickey Mantle: 4. Should Minoso be in the Hall? Again, I think he falls just short.

Tony Oliva: Tony O is one of the nicest guys I have ever met. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Tony several times over the past few years, and he always has a huge smile on his face, ready to talk about baseball or the cold Minnesota weather. My favorite story about meeting Tony was one cold April day when my wife and I were walking to our seats at Target Field. We had just passed Tony O’s Cuban sandwich stand, and I was telling my wife what a great player Tony Oliva was in his prime. And then of a sudden, as if on cue, Tony O was right there at the next section of seats! It was pretty cool. So I admit, I’m a Twins fan, and I’m biased, I’d love to see Tony Oliva elected to the Hall of Fame. He was a great player and he’s a really wonderful person. I know that Oliva’s peak as a player was short, but he was one of the best hitters in baseball during the offensively challenged 1960’s. If Oliva hadn’t gotten injured and messed up his knee in 1971, I think he would have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago. Despite the brevity of Oliva’s career, he had many highlights, as he was an 8-time All-Star, won three batting titles, led the league in hits five times, and in doubles three times.

Billy Pierce: Pierce was one of the best left-handed starting pitchers in the American League during the 1950’s. Pitching for the White Sox, Pierce led the league in wins in 1957, and won the ERA crown in 1955. Pierce was an excellent pitcher, and his career record of 211-169 is quite similar to Hall of Famer Don Drysdale, who had a record of 209-166. I think Pierce was very good, but not a Hall of Famer.

Luis Tiant: Tiant was a superb pitcher in the 1960’s, winning 21 games and leading the American League in ERA in 1968. After injuries sidelined him for much of 1970 and 1971, Tiant returned with an array of different windups and deliveries, and he was able to rejuvenate his career. Tiant went on to win 20 games for the Red Sox in 1973, 1974, and 1976. Unfortunately, Tiant did a number on my Minnesota Twins both coming and going, as the Twins gave up a young third baseman named Graig Nettles as part of the trade with the Cleveland Indians to acquire Tiant. Tiant dealt with injuries during 1970, his only season with the Twins, and the Twins released him at the end of spring training in 1971, just before he started his resurgence. Oops! I think Tiant should be in the Hall of Fame, he was a great pitcher who was overshadowed on the Hall of Fame ballot by the other great pitchers of the 1960’s and 70’s.

Maury Wills: Wills led the National League in stolen bases six years in a row, from 1960 to 1965, and he stole a then-record 104 bases in 1962. Wills got a late start, as he spent nine years in the minor leagues before finally breaking in with the Dodgers at the age of 26 in 1959. I don’t think Wills should be in the Hall of Fame. All he had to offer was speed, and while he put up a decent career batting average of .281, his OBP was .330 and his slugging percentage was .331. Okay, so Ozzie Smith’s slugging percentage was actually lower than his OBP, but Smith was a better player than Wills.

Those are my thoughts on the 2014 Golden Era Committee ballot. Hopefully the next time the Committee meets to vote on players from this era they actually elect someone.

Cover of Hustle, by Michael Sokolove, updated 2005 edition.

Pete Rose, after breaking Ty Cobb's all-time hit record. Padres first baseman Steve Garvey is behind him.

Pete Rose during his brief tenure as a Montreal Expo, 1984. Seeing him in an Expos uniform is just weird.

Pete Rose is a jerk who bet on baseball. That’s the conclusion I’m left with at the end of Michael Sokolove’s excellent 1990 book Hustle: The Myth, Life, and Lies of Pete Rose. Although Sokolove’s book is nearly twenty five years old, and appeared just a year after Rose was handed down a lifetime ban from baseball, it’s still an impressive piece of journalism. Sokolove did his homework, as he interviewed 112 people in the course of writing Hustle, and the book thoroughly covers Rose’s life and career. Hustle was reissued in 2005 with a new introduction, which covers Rose’s 2004 admission that he did bet on baseball. Sokolove writes of Rose’s behavior in 2004, “In the broadcast interviews he gave to promote the book, he could barely bring himself to express what sounded like true remorse. Sometimes he complained that he just wasn’t very good at saying he was sorry-a trait common in people who actually aren’t sorry.” (p.7)

I recently read Kostya Kennedy’s excellent 2014 book on Rose, Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, and while Kennedy’s book takes Rose’s story up to date, Sokolove’s Hustle is a more in-depth look at Rose’s gambling on baseball. Hustle is essential reading for any baseball fan.

Sokolove is tough on Rose, but the book is by no means a hatchet job. With that being said, I don’t know how anyone could read Hustle and still be on Rose’s side. Looking back, it’s rather ridiculous that Rose kept denying he bet on baseball until finally admitting it in 2004.

One of the best chapters in Hustle is “Playing the Press,” which details how Rose was able to keep sportswriters writing positive stories about him until the gambling scandal broke in 1989. Rose’s friendliness with sportswriters might have been a reason why sportswriters never wrote about Rose’s gambling problem until after the scandal began to break. Sportswriters loved Pete Rose, and even a baseball writer as smart as Bill James was an apologist for Pete Rose. In his 2001 book The New Bill James Historical Abstract, James spends six pages attacking the Dowd Report and casting doubt on the evidence that Rose bet on baseball. Of course, read today, it makes James sound foolish. It also makes it clear that James didn’t read Hustle.

Sokolove also details that major league baseball knew that Rose had a gambling problem long before 1989. Baseball had been investigating Rose since the early 1970’s, and while their investigation didn’t show that Rose was betting on baseball, it was clear that he was a big racetrack gambler. As Sokolove writes, “Before Rose was even halfway to Cobb’s hit record, the office of baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn had identified him as a problem gambler-and a probable violator of the game’s rules against gambling ‘associations.’” (p.199) For whatever reason, major league baseball didn’t want to touch Pete Rose, perhaps because of his standing as one of the most popular players in the game. However, Bowie Kuhn, commissioner of baseball from 1969-1984, was very tough on star players connected to gambling, as he handed down a three month suspension to pitcher Denny McLain in 1970 for associating with gamblers. Kuhn also handed out lifetime bans to living legends Willie Mays in 1980 and Mickey Mantle in 1983 for merely being greeters at casinos. Mantle and Mays were both reinstated by new commissioner Peter Ueberroth in 1985, perhaps the most popular decision any commissioner has ever made. So why wasn’t Kuhn tougher on Rose? If baseball was willing to act against Denny McLain, who was coming off of back to back Cy Young Awards, why didn’t baseball act against Pete Rose? There’s no easy answer to that question.

Throughout Hustle, Sokolove details the many ways in which Pete Rose didn’t expect the rules of life to apply to him. Rose lived a selfish life, with little regard for what the consequences might be. When those consequences never came, Rose was further emboldened in his bad behavior. One of the most shocking revelations of Hustle was the fact that Rose would never fully repay his gambling debts. When he began losing too much, he merely moved on to another bookie. Rose was lucky he never ended up with a broken hand from an irate bookie. Sokolove writes about Rose: “Rose continues to rail against the Dowd Report and major league baseball’s treatment of him because he truly believes he was treated unfairly. He wasn’t. He was treated, for the first time, like an adult, which was so unfamiliar to him that he mistook it for unfairness.” (p.291)

Sokolove also understands the contradiction of Pete Rose, and other athletes: that a man can be a great baseball player and at the same time be a terrible human being. Rose went to jail in 1990 for income tax evasion, and Sokolove writes in the afterword of the book, “What Pete Rose leaves to the game he loved, his legacy, is not romance but a disquieting reality: A man can belong both in the Hall of Fame and in federal prison.” (p.292)

I used to be more ambivalent about Pete Rose. I was 8 years old when he was banned from baseball. I knew that he was a great player, but I didn’t really have an opinion on whether or not he bet on baseball. As I got older, I assumed he probably had because why else would he have accepted the lifetime ban? When I was in college, around 1999 or 2000, I remember reading an article on Sports Illustrated’s website about the Dowd Report, and wanting the evidence that Rose had bet on baseball to be more compelling. Then when Rose finally admitted in 2004 that he did bet on baseball, I was disappointed in him for lying for so long. I remember watching Rose on “The Tonight Show” in 2004 and thinking to myself, “He just doesn’t understand that he did anything wrong, he doesn’t get it.” I softened a little on Rose when I watched his stupid reality show, “Hits and Mrs.” in 2013. But reading Hustle has made up my mind firmly on Pete Rose: he doesn’t deserve to be reinstated and let back into baseball. If and when Pete Rose ever truly changes his ways, maybe he can get back into baseball. But until then, he will remain on the outside looking in.

Big Hair and Plastic Grass, by Dan Epstein, 2010. That's Oscar Gamble with the amazing Afro.

Stars and Strikes, by Dan Epstein, 2014. Featuring Ralph Garr in shorts, and Mike Schmidt without a mustache.

The Russians, by Hedrick Smith, 1976.

Little Green Men, by Christopher Buckley, 1999.

How to Fight Presidents, by Daniel O'Brien, 2014.

Kirk Douglas promoting The Ragman's Son, 1988.

Ike's Bluff, by Evan Thomas, 2012.

Hustle, by Michael Sokolove, originally published in 1990, updated in 2005.

I had a very productive reading year, and I managed to read 27 books in 2014. Since it’s almost the end of 2014, and the end of the year is the prime time for best-of lists, here’s my list of the best books I read this year. (The links will take you to the full review of the book.)

Big Hair and Plastic Grassand Stars and Strikes, by Dan Epstein. Epstein is a great writer who has a big heart for both baseball and the 1970’s. I read both of his books about 1970’s baseball this year, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Big Hair and Plastic Grass is a season-by-season account of the 1970’s, and Epstein makes the larger-than-life personalities of the time come to life. Epstein writes that the decade of the 1970’s saw more changes in baseball than all the other decades before, and I have to agree with him. Stars and Strikes is an in-depth look at the 1976 season, and it’s a great portrait of a game on the edge of some huge changes, like free agency. Epstein’s enthusiasm for baseball and 1970’s pop culture comes through in both books, and I like that he clearly enjoys what he’s writing about. Reading Epstein’s books will make you want to buy a Pontiac Firebird with a t-roof, throw on some Eagles 8-tracks, and grow a mustache. You should follow his Facebook pages, in which he wittily wishes 1970’s baseball players a funky birthday.

The Russians, by Hedrick Smith. I read The Russians during this year’s Sochi Olympics, and the book helped me understand the contradictions of Russia much better. Even though Smith’s book was published in 1976, his insights into the Russian culture and character are still very relevant. Smith was the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times from 1971-74, and in 1974 he won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his articles about life in the Soviet Union. I was lucky enough to intern for Hedrick Smith during college in the fall of 2001, as he was finishing up the excellent documentary “Rediscovering Dave Brubeck.” In The Russians, Smith deftly exposes one of the many contradictions in Soviet society: that the supposedly classless society was actually just as stratified between the haves and have-nots as the West was, if not more so.

Little Green Men, by Christopher Buckley. Little Green Men is a tremendously funny satire. Christopher Buckley can make me laugh like few other authors can. When I read this book I really needed some laughs, and Little Green Men more than delivered. I wish there were a movie version with Stephen Colbert playing the book’s hero, the blowhard political commentator John Oliver Banion, who gets abducted by aliens and heads up the “Millennium Man March” on Washington.

How to Fight Presidents, by Daniel O’Brien. O’Brien mixes humor with historical fact in this book, which is a guide on how to fight former U.S. Presidents. The book assumes that you have to go back in time and engage them in hand to hand combat. This would be a daunting task, since most of our Presidents have been pretty badass. The chapter headings are hilarious. Two of my favorites are: “Thomas Jefferson just invented six different devices that can kill you,” and “Franklin Pierce is the Franklin Pierce of fighting, which is to say, he is a bad fighter.” If you’re a history buff, this book will make you laugh, and you’ll also learn something along the way. Like the one time when James Monroe threatened his secretary of the treasury with a set of fireplace tongs.

The Ragman’s Son, by Kirk Douglas. An excellent Hollywood autobiography, Douglas pulls no punches as he tells the story of how he rose from abject poverty to become one of the biggest movie stars of the 1950’s and beyond. The Ragman’s Son is written with honesty, and Douglas isn’t afraid to show the reader his faults, which makes it a great autobiography. Douglas is a complex man, and The Ragman’s Sonis a fascinating look at the life and mind of one of the greatest film actors of the last 60 years. Douglas just turned 98 in December, and old movie fans like me can be glad that he’s still with us.

Ike’s Bluff, by Evan Thomas. Evan Thomas’s 2012 book Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World, completely refutes the stereotype of Dwight Eisenhower as a caretaker president who only cared about his golf handicap. Thomas focuses his book exclusively on Eisenhower’s foreign policy, and he paints a portrait of an engaged leader who was extremely skilled at using psychology to get what he wanted. Thomas is incisive about Eisenhower’s complex personality, using excerpts from the medical diary of Howard Snyder, Eisenhower’s doctor, to shed light on Ike’s mood swings. Despite his seemingly endless patience at the bridge table, Ike had a terrible temper which he struggled to keep under control, and he once hurled a golf club at Dr. Snyder. I learned a lot about Eisenhower from Ike’s Bluff, and he comes off as a canny man who did his best to keep the Cold War from turning hot. The book is an excellent study of presidential leadership.

Hustle: The Myth, Life, and Lies of Pete Rose, by Michael Sokolove. Sokolove examines many different parts of Pete Rose’s life and career in this excellent book. One chapter deals with Rose’s close friendships with many sportswriters, which probably kept the media off of his back until his gambling scandal exploded in 1989. Sokolove understands the contradiction of Pete Rose, and other athletes: that a man can be a great baseball player and at the same time be a terrible human being. Hustle is essential reading for any baseball fan.

Blu-Ray cover for the 2014 release of The Fortune.

Publicity still for The Fortune, with Jack Nicholson and his ridiculous hairdo, Stockard Channing, and Warren Beatty, with his slicked back hair and Howard Hughes-like mustache.

A light moment from the set of The Fortune, with Jack Nicholson, Stockard Channing, and Warren Beatty.

Lobby card for The Fortune. While the print advertisements had Beatty's name before Nicholson's, and Nicholson's name higher than Beatty's, the credits at the beginning of the movie had Nicholson's name before Beatty's, and Beatty's name higher. I have no doubt that lawyers and agents worked for a long time to come up with that. A similar arrangement was made for the credits of The Towering Inferno, as both Steve McQueen and Paul Newman wanted top billing.

Did you know that in 1975, at the peak of their stardom, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson made a movie together? You probably didn’t, as the super-obscure movie The Fortune was not a hit at the time, and has languished in obscurity ever since then. It hadn’t been released on DVD until Twilight Time’s recent Blu-Ray edition came out in December, 2014. In addition to its two famous leading men, The Fortune also boasted a super-famous director, the great Mike Nichols. Unfortunately, none of these three movie legends could save The Fortune from being a very bad movie.

The Fortune is set in the late 1920’s, and what little plot there is centers around the Mann Act, a 1910 law meant to prevent prostitution by making it illegal to transport women over state lines for “immoral purposes.” The vague wording of the law meant that men could be prosecuted for bringing their girlfriends or mistresses across state lines. The Fortune’s super complicated plot has Stockard Channing running away from her husband to be with her lover Warren Beatty. However, because Beatty is already married, Channing marries Jack Nicholson, who is wanted for embezzlement and goes along with Beatty’s plan. Beatty poses as Channing’s brother to divert suspicion from him, since he’s violating the Mann Act. Although Channing is technically committing bigamy by marrying Nicholson, and isn’t Nicholson violating the Mann Act as well? The three characters go to Los Angeles, and tension mounts as the three share a bungalow. Eventually Beatty and Nicholson decide the best thing to do would be to murder Channing and split her large inheritance.

Sounds like a laugh riot, right? The main problem with The Fortune is that the script is really bad. None of the characters are fleshed out for you to care about them. If we were engaged more with the characters, we might find it funnier when Beatty and Nicholson are trying to kill Channing. But in order for that to work, you have to want them to kill her for some reason. She either needs to be an extremely unlikable character, or you need to sympathize with their characters so you want them to succeed. But Channing’s character isn’t unlikeable. She’s kind of boring, but you certainly don’t want her to be killed. So the movie doesn’t really work, for reasons that could be grasped in Screenwriting 101.

Beatty and Nicholson totally overplay their parts. I think they knew the script was crap, so they just cranked it up to 11. (Speaking of This Is Spinal Tap, look for Christopher Guest, who has a small role as “Boy Lover,” the guy who’s making out with his girlfriend in his car.) Beatty’s part is extremely difficult to play, as it’s just a one-note character who is constantly unhappy. He just yells and shouts at everyone. And you wonder, why did Stockard Channing fall in love with him? Why did he fall in love with her? The script certainly doesn’t give us a good answer. Stockard Channing does a fine job in her first starring role, but her part is underwritten.

Mike Nichols’ direction is probably the best part of the movie, as he uses long takes and some lovely tracking shots to enhance the artistry of The Fortune. Oddly enough, The Fortune feels very much like a stage play, even though it was an original screenplay by Carole Eastman, writing under the pseudonym “Adrien Joyce.” Eastman was a good friend of Jack Nicholson’s, and she wrote the screenplay for the classic Five Easy Pieces.

From what I’ve read about the production of The Fortune, it sounds like it was rushed into production before the script was finished. Columbia, the studio producing The Fortune, looked at the stars and the director and visions of dollar signs danced through their heads. Producer Don Devlin was someone who didn’t think the script was ready for filming. Devlin said, “None of them {Beatty, Nicholson, and Nichols} had studied the thing, and all of a sudden they were beginning to ask the questions that should have been asked six months or a year earlier.” (Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, by Peter Biskind, p.201)

The Fortune started filming just after production on Beatty’s movie Shampoo had wrapped. Beatty had been trying to get Shampoo made for several years, and it was a much more personal project for him. Beatty wasn’t focused on The Fortune, as he admitted: “I didn’t read The Fortune until the day I showed up to work.” (Biskind, p.201) Beatty was later dismissive of the movie, saying to film critic Gene Shalit “I don’t even want to remember that picture!” (Warren Beatty: A Private Man, by Suzanne Finstad, p.429)

Mike Nichols later said that he had “a little tickle in the back of your mind that something isn’t quite right” during the making of The Fortune. (Finstad, p.424) Nichols and screenwriter Carole Eastman had a difficult relationship, and he couldn’t get her to write an ending to the screenplay. Nichols said, “The script was like 345 pages, and it had no ending nor did it ever get an ending from Carole. I had to carve a story out of all those pages. Sort of like a butter sculpture at a wedding.” (Biskind, p.205)

While good friends Beatty and Nicholson got along very well during filming, Stockard Channing said that Beatty and Nicholson acted “like jerks.” (Biskind, p.206) Filming The Fortune was probably something of a baptism by fire for the young actress, as she had to play opposite two huge male stars.

The Fortune was not a hit when it was released in May of 1975, but ironically enough, 1975 would be a huge year for both Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, as Beatty’s hit Shampoo opened in February, and Nicholson’s iconic Oscar-winning performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was released in November. Columbia Pictures thought that The Fortune would beat Shampoo at the box office, but the opposite happened as Shampoo grossed $49 million to become the 5^th biggest movie at the box office in 1975, and The Fortune limped along to a gross of “under $12.5 million.” (Biskind, p.219) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was also a massive hit, grossing over $100 million on its way to becoming the 3^rd biggest hit of 1975, behind The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Jaws.

As for how The Fortune fits into the career and Warren Beatty’s filmography, Beatty’s character Nicky is yet another one of his dreamers and schemers. Nicky is Clyde Barrow, but without any charm or smarts. Asking Warren Beatty to play a character without any charm is a waste of his talents as an actor. Beatty is a gifted comedian, but in The Fortune there’s little comedy to be had. The Fortune once again sees Beatty in a period piece, and of his 22 movies, 8 of them are period pieces. Beatty’s period movies are: Splendor in the Grass, Bonnie and Clyde, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Shampoo, The Fortune, Reds, Dick Tracy, and Bugsy.

While reading about The Fortune, I came upon a great quote by the character actress Florence Stanley, who might have the funniest scenes in the film as the nosy landlady. Stanley had this to say about Warren Beatty: “When you talk to him, it’s like he doesn’t have anybody on his mind except you. There are certain people-and there are very few-that make the moment a moment. And when you’re with Warren, and you’re talking to him, that’s all there is. The connection is the magnetism, and his interest in you is so complete.” (Finstad, p. 498) I think that’s a very good assessment of the charm and charisma that made Warren Beatty such a successful actor.

Poster for Ramsey Lewis and Philip Bailey at the Dakota, 2015.

Ramsey Lewis playing "The Party's Over," at the Dakota Jazz Club, January 7, 2015. (Photo by Mark Taylor.)

The great jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis teamed up with Philip Bailey, the lead vocalist for Earth, Wind, and Fire at the Dakota Jazz Club last night, and it was a terrific show. I’ve been a fan of Ramsey Lewis’s piano playing for a long time, andI previously saw him at the Dakota in 2012. Lewis’s backing band, called his “electric band,” was the same group that appeared with him in 2012. They’re a great group, comprised of Tim Gant on keyboards, Henry Johnson on guitar, Joshua Ramos on bass, and Charles Heath on drums. Lewis has always been known for his great trios, starting in the 1950’s and 1960’s, with Eldee Young on bass and Redd Holt on drums, and Ramos and Heath continue the tradition. Johnson is an excellent soloist, with a clean, uncluttered sound that brings to mind great players like Wes Montgomery and Grant Green. Gant adds flourishes on keyboards and synthesizer that bring colorful accents to the music.

At the age of 79, Ramsey Lewis continues to shine on piano. Lewis’s playing is an exquisite blend of all different influences, from gospel, classical, and jazz, to soul, funk, and rhythm and blues. Lewis’s sound can be bluesy or soft and gentle, depending on the song. He opened the show with Duke Ellington’s classic “Satin Doll,” which showed off his group well, with an excellent solo from Henry Johnson on guitar. Next Lewis played a beautiful ballad version of “All My Love Belongs To You,” which was a hit for R&B singer Bull Moose Jackson in 1948. (Lewis told that audience that information.) I loved Lewis’s playing on “All My Love Belongs To You.” His ballad style is so gorgeous, I could listen to him play for hours. Lewis reached back to the past for his next song, “Black Orpheus Medley,” where he weaved together several songs from Luiz Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s score to the 1959 movie Black Orpheus, which helped usher in the bossa nova craze of the 1960’s. Lewis’s version of “Black Orpheus Medley” uses the song “Manha de Carnaval” as an anchor that he keeps coming back to. The entire group did a great job of switching dynamics as the medley moved from swinging songs to ballads.

After “Black Orpheus Medley” Philip Bailey came out and joined the group. Bailey played percussion and sang in his beautiful soulful voice. Bailey opened with a swinging version of the jazz standard “Caravan.” Bailey also sang an excellent version of the Antonio Carlos Jobim song “Wave,” which is one of my favorite Jobim songs. Bailey is a charismatic live performer, and he made sure the crowd stayed involved in the show. Bailey’s singing mixed very well with Lewis’s playing, and Lewis did a superb job of accompanying Bailey’s vocals. Bailey sang a fun medley of some of Earth, Wind and Fire’s biggest hits, which included crowd pleasers like “Shining Star,” and “September.” Lewis also played his biggest hits, “The In Crowd” and “Sun Goddess,” before coming back and closing the show with a lovely solo piano version of “The Party’s Over.” Lewis and Bailey have known each other for a long time, as Bailey appeared on Lewis’s classic 1974 album “Sun Goddess.” They clearly enjoy performing together. Lewis has a strong connection to Earth, Wind and Fire, as Maurice White, the group’s founder, replaced Redd Holt on drums in the Ramsey Lewis Trio in 1966. White played with Lewis for several years before leaving to start Earth, Wind and Fire.

Lewis and Bailey put on an excellent show, and if you’re a fan of Ramsey Lewis or of Earth, Wind and Fire, you’ll have a great time hearing some fantastic music.

Tyrone Power and Kim Novak in one of the first scenes of The Eddy Duchin Story, 1956. He looks like he's just out of college, right? Also, Tyrone Power had the most dramatically arched eyebrows this side of Sean Connery.

You can't tell from this sexy publicity still that Tyrone Power didn't like Kim Novak. Sadly, there's no scene like this in the movie.

Tyrone Power is flanked by his two wives in The Eddy Duchin Story. That's Victoria Shaw as Chiquita on the left, and Kim Novak as Marjorie on the right. Not a bad sandwich to be in the middle of.

The impossibly handsome Tyrone Power as the pianist Eddy Duchin.

The real Eddy Duchin, who was quite handsome himself.

In the 1950’s there were a number of biopics made about the lives of famous musicians. The Glenn Miller Story, starring Jimmy Stewart, kicked off the trend in 1954. The Benny Goodman Story and The Eddy Duchin Story followed in 1956, and 1959 saw the release of The Gene Krupa Story, with Sal Mineo as the jazz drummer. (Why didn’t someone make the Rudy Vallee Story?) I’m not sure why the genre of “bandleader biopics” suddenly became hot in the mid-1950’s. Perhaps it was nostalgia for the big band sounds that were rapidly becoming a thing of the past. By the time these movies were released even big stars like Duke Ellington and Count Basie were having trouble keeping their big bands on the road.

The Eddy Duchin Story, starring Tyrone Power and Kim Novak, was released in 1956 and was a big hit, becoming the 12^th highest grossing movie of that year. Eddy Duchin was a pianist and bandleader who had a very successful career in the 1930’s and 1940’s before tragically dying of leukemia in 1951 at the age of 41. Duchin was kind of a straight Liberace, a talented pianist who made ladies swoon while playing showy versions of light classical and jazz pieces. The Eddy Duchin Story is a melodramatic film that is also quite entertaining. Much of the film’s success rests on the charm and charisma of leading man Tyrone Power, who delivers an excellent performance.

The movie begins with Duchin arriving in New York City in 1927 to play at the Central Park Casino. (The Central Park Casino was torn down in the 1930’s, and Tavern on the Green was used for filming.) Duchin is fresh off the bus from Boston, full of vigor and verve, until he discovers that the bandleader he thought had offered him a job was just being nice to him when he said, “If you’re ever in New York City, come say hi.” Oops. But all is not lost as society sweetheart Marjorie Oelrichs (Kim Novak) hears him playing and persuades the bandleader to hire Duchin. Of course, he becomes a big hit. Tyrone Power was really too old to play Duchin in these scenes, and he looks like the world’s oldest fraternity pledge. But Power makes up for it by projecting the youthful enthusiasm of a recent college graduate. Duchin and Marjorie soon fall in love and get married. Everything seems to be going great for Duchin. As we were watching the movie, my wife and I kept wondering what the conflict would be. Maybe her aunt and uncle won’t approve of her marriage to a piano player? Nope. Is he an alcoholic? Nope. Does he cheat on her? Nope. But then once they get married we learn Marjorie’s horrible secret: she’s afraid of the wind! Oh no! How can Eddy Duchin protect her from the wind? I’m not even joking about this, she’s afraid of the wind. It’s a good thing they don’t live in Chicago.

Marjorie gets pregnant, and then dies shortly after delivering a son, Peter. Bizarrely enough, the doctor specifically tells Eddy that her sudden, unexplained death has nothing to do with her childbirth. (The wind didn’t have anything to do with her death either.) The film is really weird about Marjorie and Eddy’s deaths. The film has both Marjorie and Eddy dying of weird unexplained illnesses. In real life Marjorie’s death was obviously connected to complications from her delivery, even though she didn’t die in childbirth. When Eddy suddenly gets ill at the end of the movie, doctors tell him that he will die soon, but it’s never stated that he has leukemia. The real-life Eddy Duchin knew he had leukemia. I don’t know why the film is so squeamish about this. But that’s getting ahead of the story. When Marjorie dies, Eddy doesn’t want anything to do with his son, letting Marjorie’s aunt and uncle bring him up.

Interesting side note: in real life Peter Duchin wasn’t raised by his great aunt and uncle, but by family friend W. Averell Harriman and his wife. W. Averell Harriman was just your average guy who was fabulously wealthy, was the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union during World War II, served as Secretary of Commerce under Harry Truman, ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for President in 1952 and 1956, and was Governor of New York for one term. You know, not someone who would be an interesting character to have in a movie. So why does the screenplay write Harriman out and change who raised Peter? My guess is that the studio didn’t want to be accused of playing politics by portraying a very active political figure as a character in a movie. At the time The Eddy Duchin Story was filmed in 1955, Harriman was Governor of New York, and about to run for President the next year. Including Harriman as a character in the movie would be a bit like making a movie now where Jeb Bush was a supporting character.

After serving in World War II, Eddy comes back to New York and starts to build his relationship with Peter. Peter is being raised by not-Averell Harriman and not-Averell Harriman’s wife and by family friend Chiquita. No, she’s not Carmen Miranda. Chiquita is a young woman in her 20’s who basically acts as Peter’s governess. Peter has developed a talent for playing the piano, and this becomes a bond between father and son. Eventually Eddy and the ridiculously named Chiquita marry, and then Eddy gets sick from his mystery illness and dies.

Tyrone Power spent 11 weeks learning how to make it look like he was actually playing the piano, and I was very impressed with his dedication. The movie doesn’t make use of trick shots where you only see someone’s hands on the keyboard. Power’s hard work paid off, as in almost all of the camera shots during the songs you see Power’s face, hands and the piano keyboard at the same time. Power was a friend of Eddy Duchin’s, and he said in an interview during filming, “The real tragedy of Duchin’s life was his dying at such a young age, only forty-two. I knew Eddy quite well. Working right here across from the hospital reminds me of how I used to visit him over there when he was a patient, toward the end.” (The Secret Life of Tyrone Power, by Hector Arce, p.258) Sadly, Tyrone Power would also die young, of a heart attack at age 44. Because Tyrone Power was one of the most impossibly handsome leading men of Hollywood’s Golden Age, I think it’s a law that all reviews of his movies have to make some comment about his looks. Here is mine: Power looks as handsome as ever in The Eddy Duchin Story, whether he’s wearing a tuxedo or a snazzy sweater. Power uses all of his movie star charm and charisma playing Eddy Duchin, and he makes the movie fun to watch. I examined Power's career in more detail in a post from last year.

I’m on record as saying that Kim Novak is one of my favorite actresses, as well as one of the most beautiful and sexy women on the planet, but she doesn’t do much in The Eddy Duchin Story. I wonder if Novak pissed off the director of photography, because she doesn’t look as beautiful as usual. Her wardrobe is pretty drab and boring. Tyrone Power did not get along with Novak during filming. All he said about her was “Confusion between temperament and bad manners is unfortunate.” (Arce, p.259) Ouch.

The Eddy Duchin Story is an enjoyable example of a big budget studio movie from the 1950’s. It may seem a little dated now, but it’s still quite good. The film was expertly directed by George Sidney, who helmed many big musicals of the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s like Anchors Aweigh, the first screen pairing of Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat, Kiss Me, Kate, Pal Joey, Bye Bye Birdie, and Viva Las Vegas. The Eddy Duchin Story also features lots of gorgeous location shots around Central Park and New York City, which makes it a visual treat.

Eddy Duchin’s son Peter went on to become a successful pianist and bandleader of his own. He still performs in and around New York City.

Mister Rogers with King Friday XIII, and the neighborhood trolley.

Fred Rogers, with his trademark cardigan sweater, singing "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

The World According to Mister Rogers, by Fred Rogers, 2003.

My favorite television show as a child was Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Sure, I liked Sesame Street a lot, but there was something special about Fred Rogers’ gentle show and the “Neighborhood of Make-Believe.” Mister Rogers didn’t do anything fancy or high tech on his television show, but through his calm and gentle demeanor, generations of children found a special friend who would show them how a Crayon was made, and also talk them through important topics like how to deal with anger and disappointment.

The book The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember was published shortly after Rogers’ death in 2003. It collects sayings and advice from Rogers about a number of different topics. I don’t know much about the private life of Fred Rogers, but based on Tom Junod’s excellent 1998 profile of Rogers for Esquire magazine, it seems clear that Rogers was the same kind, calm, loving and patient man off screen that he was on screen. “Mister Rogers” was not just a persona that he put on for the camera; it’s who Fred Rogers really was.

If you’re a fan of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, you’ll definitely enjoy reading The World According to Mister Rogers. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

“Who you are inside is what helps you make and do everything in life.” (p.19)

“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” (p.53)

“The greatest gift you ever give is your honest self.” (p.81)

“There is no normal life that is free of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems than can be the impetus for our growth.” (p.112)

“As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has-or ever will have-something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.” (p.137)

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.” (p.160)

Fred Rogers was important to many people who never met him personally, and the good work that he did still has an impact on people’s lives today. I’ll always be proud to have been a “neighbor” of Mister Rogers’.

Ted Kennedy, around 1970.

The only picture of Mary Jo Kopechne I've ever seen.

Cover of Black Water, by Joyce Carol Oates, 1992.

The Presidential aspirations of Ted Kennedy ended during the night of July 18-19, 1969, when Kennedy’s Oldsmobile went off a bridge on the island of Chappaquiddick, just off Martha’s Vineyard. Kennedy was able to get out of the car, but his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned in the upside down car. Kennedy did not report the accident to the police until the next morning, after the police had towed his car out of the water and found Kopechne’s body. The accident at Chappaquiddick would forever cast a pall over Ted Kennedy’s legacy.

Joyce Carol Oates published Black Water, a short novel based on the events of Chappaquiddick, in 1992. Black Water tells the story of Kelly Kelleher, an idealistic young woman who meets The Senator, as he is always referred to in the novel, at a party on an island off the coast of Maine on July 4, 1991. Kelly and The Senator start talking, hit it off, and leave the party together. On their drive to the ferry, The Senator is driving too fast, misses a turn, and his car lands in murky black water. The Senator escapes the car, but Kelly is unable to, and drowns. Black Water is told from Kelly’s perspective, and the book flashes back in time as Kelly slowly drowns, thinking that The Senator will come back to rescue her.

Black Water is written impressionistically, almost like a poem, as various lines repeat again and again in the short chapters. The novel gives a voice to the voiceless, as we observe the thoughts of this doomed young woman. It’s quite a good book, and it inevitably makes one think more about Mary Jo Kopechne. Who was this young woman who died so tragically? A great deal of mystery still surrounds the events of Chappaquiddick, and there’s very little information to be found about Mary Jo Kopechne. I’m a collector of books about the Kennedys, and I’ve only ever seen one photo of Kopechne. It’s the same 1962 college graduation photo that was on front pages the day after she died. Didn’t anyone take a photo of her during the next seven years?

Oates does little in Black Water to distinguish The Senator from Ted Kennedy. The Senator is meant to be a portrait of Ted Kennedy in 1991, so instead of the dashing young man Kennedy was at the time of Chappaquiddick in 1969, The Senator is in his mid-50’s, and is a bit disillusioned with politics. As he tells Kelly, “It makes me angry sometimes, it’s a visceral thing-how you come to despise your own words in your ears not because they aren’t genuine, but because they are; because you’ve said them so many times, your ‘principals,’ your ‘ideals’-and so damned little in the world has changed because of them.” (p.139-40) The physical descriptions of The Senator are clearly applicable to Kennedy: “That dimpled grin, the big chunky white teeth,” with eyes “the blue of washed glass.” (p.20) “And his broad handsome-battered face, the eyes so transparently blue, the nose just slightly venous but a straight nose, lapidary, like the jaws, the chin, the familiar profile.” (p.39)

In a 1992 interview with The New York Times, Oates said of the book, “I wanted the story to be somewhat mythical, the almost archetypal experience of a young woman who trusts an older man and whose trust is violated.” If Oates wanted Black Water to be mythical, then why did she stick so closely to the events of Chappaquiddick? Why not create a different, fictional scenario? If Oates’ interpretation of Chappaquiddick is that it was about a younger woman and an older man, I would disagree. Kennedy was only 8 years older than Kopechne, and Chappaquiddick was less about a man taking advantage of a woman than it was simply a terrible, tragic accident. Ted Kennedy certainly didn’t mean to drive off that bridge.

Black Water is a fascinating book, and a quick read at 150 pages. I would recommend it for anyone who is interested in Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick incident.

Cover of How the States Got Their Shapes, by Mark Stein, 2008.

Have you ever wondered why the Upper Peninsula of Michigan isn’t actually connected to the rest of Michigan? Why is South Dakota larger than North Dakota? Why is Delaware even a state? If these thoughts have ever crossed your mind, then Mark Stein’s 2008 book How the States Got Their Shapes is the book for you. Stein covers all of the borders of all 50 states, and tells us why those borders are where they are.

How the States Got Their Shapes is an interesting idea for a book and it provides the answers to some really good questions, but the execution isn’t all that it could be. While Stein’s writing is succinct and workmanlike, it’s rarely vibrant. It’s tough to summarize all of this information in just a few pages for each state, but the never ending treaties and colonial charters quickly become a blur. How the States Got Their Shapes is interesting as I was reading it, but there’s little that will stick with me for very long. The nature of the book means that there will inevitably be a fair amount of repetition, as you will read about disputes involving Connecticut under several different states. It’s probably read best in small doses, and not cover to cover.

But, those reservations aside, there are still many interesting facts in How the States Got Their Shapes. Some of my favorites are:

No one knows if North Dakota or South Dakota was admitted to the Union first. President Benjamin Harrison deliberately shuffled the statehood papers on his desk so he didn’t know in which order he signed them.

Wisconsin and Michigan had a border dispute about whether or not their border follows the East branch of the Montreal River or the West branch. This dispute has never been formally resolved, although I don’t think anyone in Wisconsin or Michigan is still that upset about it.

The town of Carter Lake, Iowa, is across the Missouri River from the rest of Iowa.

There are two tiny pieces of land on the New Jersey shore, just across the Delaware River, that actually belong to Delaware. This land was created when the Delaware River was dredged, but because they were created from areas on Delaware’s side of the river, they belong to Delaware.

The area of Washington, DC, was originally supposed to be a square, and it was for a while. But in 1846, upon learning that DC might outlaw the slave trade, Virginia took its land back.

The “Southwick Jog” is a tiny little bite that Massachusetts took out of Connecticut so Massachusetts could have access to the Congamond Lakes.

Michigan got its Upper Peninsula as compensation for losing land along Lake Michigan to Indiana and along Lake Erie to Ohio, in order that those two states would have ports on the Great Lakes. Ohio and Michigan even fought the so-called Toledo War over the port of Toledo. (It wasn’t really a war, more like just some bad feelings.)

If those are the kind of historical tidbits you like, How the States Got Their Shapes is the book for you.

Cover of Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts, 2014.

First Consul Bonaparte, painting by Antoine-Jean Gros, 1802.

Historian and author Andrew Roberts.

Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821. More than 70,500 days have passed since his death, and yet more than 70,500 books have been published with Napoleon’s name in the title. What is it about Napoleon that future generations have continued to find so fascinating? In his 2014 book Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts chronicles Napoleon’s life from cradle to grave and gives us lots of insight as to what made Napoleon such an interesting figure. Roberts’ epic biography is an amazing piece of work. By the end of the book you come to feel as though you know Napoleon. Roberts is the first biographer of Napoleon’s to use his 33,000 surviving letters, which have been published over the last few years for the first time. Roberts does an excellent job of showing how compartmentalized Napoleon’s mind was, and how he was able to focus on so many different things. The term “micromanager” might well have been coined to describe Napoleon, as he penned letters on topics ranging from military strategy to settling disputes between stage-hands of the Paris Opera.

Roberts peels away the layers of myth attached to Napoleon’s life, so he becomes more than just the stiff figure from historical paintings, he actually feels like a real person. Napoleon must have had an extraordinary charisma in person, as it seems as though everyone who met him was greatly charmed by him. Even Frederick Maitland, the British captain who accepted Napoleon’s surrender and who ferried him to exile on St. Helena, had kind words to say about him, writing of him: “…to such an extent did he possess the power of pleasing that there are few people who could have sat at the same table as him for nearly a month, as I did, without feeling a sensation of pity, allied perhaps to regret, that a man possessed of so many fascinating qualities, and who had held so high a station in life, should be reduced to the situation in which I saw him.” (Roberts, p.777)

In Napoleon: A Life, we get to see all the different sides of Napoleon. We see the egotistical conqueror, but we also glimpse Napoleon’s sarcastic sense of humor and his indefatigable work ethic. Roberts has crafted a book that is a pleasure to read, and all 810 pages are gripping. Every military campaign that Napoleon embarked upon could easily fill an entire book by itself, but Roberts does an excellent job of bringing us the essentials. Roberts has visited nearly every battlefield that Napoleon fought on, and this depth of research makes the book rich and vibrant.

If you want to read a biography about a truly fascinating man, pick up Napoleon: A Life.

Cover of Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts, 2014.

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, painting by Jacques-Louis David, 1812. According to the clock behind Napoleon, it's about 4:13AM. He's been awake all night working hard to keep you safe, French Empire! This painting is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

In the course of reading Andrew Roberts’ excellent biography Napoleon: A Life, I learned a lot of random facts about Napoleon Bonaparte. Rather than try to fit them all into my review of the book, I thought it would make more sense to dedicate this post to sharing some of these fascinating Napoleonic tidbits.

Napoleon wrote more than 33,000 letters during his 51 years on earth. (p.xxxii)

“More books have been written with Napoleon in the title than there have been days since his death in 1821.” That’s at least 70,500 books. (p.xxxii)

“Napoleon represented the Enlightenment on horseback. His letters show a charm, humor, and a capacity for candid self-appraisal…He personified the best parts of the French Revolution, the ones that have survived and infused European life ever since.” (p.xxxii)

When someone asked Napoleon why he didn’t take Frederick the Great’s sword when he visited Sans Souci, he replied, “Because I had my own.” (p.xxxv)

Napoleon wrote a novella in 1795 called Clisson and Eugenie. (p.62)

Napoleon took 167 “savants,” an assortment of scientists and intellectuals, with him on his 1798 campaign to Egypt. Perhaps their most significant discovery was the Rosetta Stone, which allowed hieroglyphics to be translated. (p.165)

During the first 3 months of 1807, Napoleon wrote 1,715 letters, an average of 19 letters per day. “Half went to military figures…and the rest were on diplomatic, administrative, family or personal matters. The subject of shoes and boots generated sixty-three letters.” (p.435)

Napoleon had either twenty-one or twenty-two mistresses that we know of. (p.437)

Napoleon once involved himself in a dispute between stage-hands at the Paris Opera. There was an argument over who was responsible for dropping a singer from a mechanical cloud and breaking her arm. Napoleon supported the deputy rather than the head stage-hand, writing, “I always support the underdog.” (p.449)

Johann Gottfried Schadow’s 1795 statue of Queen Louise of Prussia and her sister Frederike “was determined to be too erotic for public display.” (p. 460) Reading that sent me immediately to Google images, and fortunately we can all see the sculpture here.

Napoleon was never seen to be drunk. He only drank Chambertin wine. He ate his meals quickly, usually in less than ten minutes. (p.470)

After a long night of work, Napoleon would sometimes take his secretaries out for hot chocolate. This was one of my favorite facts from the whole book. (p.471)

Napoleon loved long hot baths. (p.471)

During the battle of Wagram in 1809, Napoleon took a 10 minute nap. He won the battle. (p.523)

After the battle of Borodino, Napoleon said, “After a victory there are no enemies, only men.” (p.609)

“Long ago it was said that priests and doctors render death painful.” Napoleon, in a letter to his brother Joseph. (p.698)

“I need to be comforted by the members of my family, but as a rule I get nothing but vexation from that quarter.” Napoleon, in a letter to Marie Louise, his second wife, when he thought that this brother Joseph was trying to sleep with her. (p.706)

During his first exile, while Napoleon was on the island of Elba, he “reorganized his new kingdom’s defenses,…read voraciously,…played with his pet monkey Jenar,…reformed customs and excise,…repaired the barracks, built a hospital, planted vineyards, paved parts of Portoferraio for the first time and irrigated land. He also organized regular rubbish collections, passed a law prohibiting children from sleeping more than five to a bed, set up a court of appeal and an inspectorate to widen roads and build bridges…His attention to the tiniest details was undimmed, even extending to the kind of bread he wanted fed to his hunting dogs.” (p.723)

“I do not allow myself to be governed by advice.” Napoleon, to General Antoine Drouot, who was trying to persuade him to stay in exile on Elba. (p.730)

When Napoleon left Elba, he didn’t really have to escape; he just seems to have left. I guess he was on Scout’s Honor to stay there. (p.730)

When he got an invitation on St. Helena addressed to “General Bonaparte,” he said, “Send the card to the addressee; the last I heard of him was at the Pyramids and Mount Tabor.” (p.784-5)

The only medical operation Napoleon ever underwent was having one of his teeth removed on St. Helena. (p.793)

Those are just some of the many things I learned about Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the most fascinating men in history, while reading Napoleon: A Life.

The 2015 Hall of Famers. From left to right, Craig Biggio, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, and John Smoltz. Holy crap, Randy Johnson is tall.

This is the coolest picture ever. Tim Raines at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, 1980's. This is before they finished the roof that never worked right.

Mike Mussina throwing some heat for the Orioles.

For the first time since 1955, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted four players into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year. It was not much of a surprise that Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez easily cleared the hurdle of being named on 75% of the ballots. I was a little surprised that John Smoltz was a first-ballot choice as well, as he was named on 82.9% of the ballots. I thought that Smoltz would be an interesting Hall of Fame case to watch, since he had success as both a starter and a closer, but he didn’t have enough counting stats in either role to make him a sure thing. The BBWAA has had a tough time lately electing pitchers with fewer than 300 wins, but this year two of them, Martinez and Smoltz, made it in. I think that Smoltz is a fine selection for the Hall, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had been around 50-60% this year, and been elected in a year or two. I’m very happy that Craig Biggio finally got in on his third try, after falling just two votes short last year. I really don’t know why Biggio wasn’t a first-ballot Hall of Famer. It sounds like voters might have shied away from him because of rumors of steroid use. From what I read, the steroid allegations against Biggio come down to one writer saying, “I think Roger Clemens took steroids, and some other Astros did too.” Hey, sportswriter, do you have more proof than that? “Um, nope.” Biggio was a good power hitter, as he’s 5^th on the all-time doubles list, and he has more than 1,000 extra base hits. But he never hit more than 26 home runs in a season. And Biggio is listed as being 5’11” and 185 pounds. He’s not exactly the muscle-bound hulk that we think of as being a steroid user.

The problem with allegations of steroid use is that we will simply never know for sure whether players from the pre-testing era used steroids unless that player admits they did. And that’s a difficult thing to admit. It’s an issue that voters for the Hall of Fame have had to wrestle with in the last few years, and they will continue to wrestle with it as players from that era appear on the ballot. I can understand a lot of different arguments both for and against players accused of using steroids. Personally, if I were a member of the BBWAA voting for the Hall of Fame, I would not vote for someone that I thought used steroids. Of course, this brings up the question, how do I know? Well, based on all the allegations against Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, I think they both used steroids, and I would not vote for them for the Hall of Fame. Of course, by voting for Frank Thomas or Craig Biggio or Mike Piazza, I might be voting for someone who was a steroid user who just got away with it. Those are the risks you take. The baseball writers who annoy me the most are the guys who say, “Hey, I’m not a gatekeeper; I don’t know who used and who didn’t.” Yes, I agree that we don’t know who used and who didn’t, but you ARE a gatekeeper! You are one of the people who get to vote for the Hall of Fame, that makes you one of the gatekeepers! You can use your votes however you want, but the fact remains that you are one of the people who opens or closes the gate to the Hall of Fame. Just accept the responsibility.

For players who didn’t make it in this year, things look good for Mike Piazza, who jumped from 62.2% to 69.9% this year, putting him within range of 75%. Piazza should be elected in 2016, or 2017 at the latest. Tim Raines also made an encouraging jump, from 46.1% to 55%. Raines only has two more years on the ballot under the new HOF voting rules, so maybe those who were on the fence about him finally voted for him. I would like to see Raines voted in, so hopefully he can make the leap in the next two years. Raines has always been overshadowed by Rickey Henderson, who had the same set of skills as Raines, but just did everything a little bit better than Raines. Raines also spent the last six year of his career as a part-time player. He was still a good player, but he didn’t pass any milestones that would make him a lock for the Hall of Fame. By which I mean that Raines didn’t get to 3,000 hits. Side note: Are there any milestones besides 300 wins and 3,000 hits that really make a player a lock for the Hall of Fame? I don’t think there are. But playing until he was 42 did allow Tim Raines to play alongside his son, Tim Raines, Jr., for the 2001 Baltimore Orioles.

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds both continue to hold steady at about 35% of the vote. They haven’t gained at all in three years on the ballot, so at this point it doesn’t look likely that they will get into the Hall. I assume that last year’s rule change, which stated that players will be on the ballot for 10 years instead of 15, was aimed at getting the steroid guys off the ballot as quickly as possible. That being said, I think it makes sense to shorten the voting time. Let’s have those arguments about Tim Raines and Jack Morris spread out over 10 years rather than 15. And let’s spare guys like Don Mattingly and Alan Trammell those five extra years of lingering on the ballot with no chance of getting in. (Although I do think Trammell should get elected. Maybe the Veterans’ Committee will put him in.)

Mike Mussina increased his total slightly, from 20.3% to 24.6%, but he still has a long way to go. I think Mussina deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Mussina was an excellent pitcher throughout his career, but he doesn’t have the peak that Pedro Martinez had. Of course, few pitchers have had a peak like Pedro’s, but Mussina was more quietly excellent. Mussina won 15 or more games in a season 11 times, but it wasn’t until 2008, his last season, when he finally won 20 games. Mussina chose to go out on top rather than hang around for another 2 or 3 years and try to get to 300 wins. Had he done so, he also would have surpassed 3,000 strikeouts. I think something that hurts Mussina is that he just doesn’t have a very high profile. Although Mussina was the subject, along with Tom Glavine, of John Feinstein’s 2008 book Living on the Black. Maybe the most exciting fact about Mussina off the field is that he appeared in a documentary about crossword puzzles. Mussina’s lifetime winning percentage is the same as Jim Palmer’s, and Mussina has a higher winning percentage than Juan Marichal, Tom Seaver, Phil Niekro, Steve Carlton, Don Sutton, Nolan Ryan, Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine. Hopefully the writers will see the light and vote him in.

Fred McGriff continues to suffer from a serious lack of support. I’d like to see the “Crime Dog” in the Hall, but he’s never even reached 25% of the vote. I would think that McGriff’s numbers, which are presumably untainted by steroid use, would appeal to voters weary of roided-up sluggers like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds, but it hasn’t happened.

I was surprised that Gary Sheffield didn’t do better on his first ballot, as he got just 11.7% of the vote. The dude has 509 home runs, 1,676 RBIs, and an OPS+ of 140. Why were voters not enthusiastic about him? I was surprised that Nomar Garciaparra got enough votes to stay on the ballot for next year. Nomar is one of those players who had a few truly great seasons, but just didn’t have enough of them to be a Hall of Famer. I was a little surprised that Carlos Delgado didn’t get enough votes to stay on the ballot. He hit 473 home runs! I know that’s not enough to be a Hall of Famer, but Delgado was an excellent player.

That concludes my thoughts on the 2015 voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame. I’m already excited for next year’s ballot, which will feature first-ballot Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. The only question about Griffey next year is how high his percentage will be.

My battered paperback copy of Ted Kennedy: Profile of a Survivor, by William H. Honan, 1972.

Senator Ted Kennedy in 1971.

A really strange drawing of Ted Kennedy on the cover of Time magazine in November 1971. This was when Kennedy was touring the country on behalf of other political candidates, as chronicled by Honan in the book.

Ted Kennedy survived numerous traumas during the 1960’s. In 1963 his brother, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated. In 1964 Ted survived a plane crash that left him hospitalized for several months. In 1968 his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated. In 1969, Ted drove his car off of a bridge on Chappaquiddick, and his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne drowned. It’s altogether fitting that journalist and author William H. Honan titled his 1972 book Ted Kennedy:Profile of a Survivor.

Honan’s book isn’t a biography of Kennedy, but rather sketches of Kennedy that illuminate different aspects of his personality. Honan wrote three articles about Kennedy for The New York Times Magazine in 1969, 1970, and 1971, and these articles form the basis of Profile of a Survivor. When I was doing research about the Chappaquiddick incident for my recent review of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel Black Water, I read some excerpts from Profile of a Survivor, and they piqued my interest enough to read the entire book. Honan had excellent access to Ted Kennedy during a time when Kennedy’s career was in flux, which makes Profile of a Survivor an interesting read.

After Bobby’s assassination and again after Chappaquiddick, Ted Kennedy thought seriously about giving up public life. It would have been easy for him to simply not run for re-election to the Senate in 1970 and do something else with his life. Friends worried about Ted’s safety urged him to seek the protective cloak of a life lived away from the glare of the spotlight. After losing two of his brothers to assassination, no one would have blamed Ted Kennedy for turning away from public life. But he didn’t, and I think it’s a measure of his strength and courage that he simply kept going. Honan reveals in the book that Kennedy received 355 death threats between 1963 and 1971. (p.39) In an interview with Kennedy, Honan bluntly says, “Your running for President, this member of your family said, would be an unfair temptation to all the disturbed people in this country. Do you look at it that way?” Kennedy responded, “No, I don’t. If you took it lightly and said there was nothing to it, you’d be a fool. On the other hand, if you worried about it all the time, you’d be valueless. So you have to bring these two things into balance and make an evaluation. And you have to think of what this means in terms of the other people in your life.” (p.41)

Honan makes it clear throughout the book that he thinks that Kennedy will run for President in 1972. Of course, history quickly proved Honan wrong, as Kennedy did not run for the Democratic nomination in 1972. And Kennedy turned down George McGovern, the eventual Democratic nominee, when McGovern offered him the Vice Presidential spot on the ticket. The fact that Kennedy did not run for President in 1972 inevitably makes Profile of a Survivor dated, as Honan tries to spin Kennedy’s statements denying that he’s running into evidence that Kennedy will run. Honan even sees Ted’s wearing a pair of cufflinks that belonged to JFK as a sign that he will run for President. (p.21) Nevertheless, the book is an interesting study of Kennedy during a turbulent time.

It’s clear throughout Profile of a Survivor that the pain of losing his brothers was still close to the surface for Ted Kennedy. In 1971 Kennedy lost his position as majority whip of the Senate. Honan asked him if this defeat had hurt. Kennedy responded by saying, “There’s something about me I had hoped you would understand. I can’t be bruised. I can’t be hurt anymore. After what’s happened to me, things like that just don’t touch me, they don’t get to me.” (p.35)

Kennedy’s ambivalence about politics during this period of his life comes through in an interview he gave to Honan in 1970, as he was running for re-election to the Senate. “I don’t mean that campaigning is without rewards. I meet people. There is great warmth, and that’s always a pleasure to experience. But a lot of the thrill, and the, well, the sort of…excitement is gone for me. I expect it to be gone forever.” (p.95)

Honan followed Kennedy around as Kennedy toured several states in late 1971, his first big speaking engagements for other candidates since his re-election to the Senate the year before. Honan thought the trip was a way of Kennedy testing the waters for a possible Presidential run the next year. In his speeches Kennedy attacked the Nixon administration, and one wonders if they were an inspiration for Robert Redford’s character Bill McKay’s campaign speech in the 1972 film The Candidate. Kennedy’s speech includes the lines, “Nixon said he would bring America together, and two hundred million people said Amen. That promise lies broken now, broken like all the others, shattered by an administration that has set black against white, rich against poor, old against young, business against labor, north against south.” (p.55) These lines in Kennedy’s speech are strikingly similar to this one that Bill McKay delivers in The Candidate.

Ultimately, Ted Kennedy only ran for President once, when he challenged President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980. Kennedy’s campaign was probably best described as pointless, as even he didn’t seem to know why he was running. Even though his campaign was obviously a lost cause, Kennedy kept pressing until the Democratic convention, and even then he tried to change the rules of the convention to allow delegates to break away from their chosen candidate after the first ballot. However, Kennedy’s concession speech at the convention was one of the highlights of his career. At the end of the speech Kennedy said, “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” Had Kennedy been so eloquent during the campaign he might have fared better. Seen from the vantage point of history, Kennedy’s best chance at becoming President was probably in 1976, when Jimmy Carter defeated incumbent Gerald Ford. But would Kennedy have won had he run in 1976? It’s impossible to say, obviously, since it didn’t actually happen. A Kennedy victory in 1976 would by no means have been a sure thing, as Carter’s margin of victory over Ford was actually quite small. But discontent with Ford’s pardon of Nixon, and with Republicans in general, plus Kennedy’s charisma might have sent him to the White House.

Ted Kennedy was granted the one thing his brothers were not: the gift of time. Ted was more patient than Jack and Bobby, and he was a much better Senator than either of them. One of my favorite anecdotes about the Kennedy brothers dates from the time when both Bobby and Ted were in the Senate. They were sitting in the middle of some endless committee hearing, and a bored Bobby passed a note to Ted that read, “Do we have to sit here and listen to this?” Ted wrote back, “Yes.” Ted understood how the Senate worked, and he worked hard to become an extremely effective lawmaker. Kennedy remained in the Senate until the end of his life in 2009, always fighting for what he believed in.

My well-worn paperback copy of Cruising Speed, by William F. Buckley, 1971. Yes, that's my shelf of books by William Buckley and his son Christopher. (Photo by Mark Taylor.)

William F. Buckley at his desk.

On December 5, 1970, while at a nightclub with Truman Capote, William F. Buckley decided to write a journal covering one week in his life. This experiment ultimately resulted in the highly entertaining book Cruising Speed: A Documentary, published in September, 1971. Buckley would later revisit this same formula in his excellent 1983 book Overdrive, which I previously reviewed here.

Cruising Speed covers the week of November 30^th to December 6^th, 1970. This was an exciting time for Buckley, as the previous month his older brother James was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. Buckley was a uniquely busy man, as he was writing a nationally syndicated newspaper column three times a week, hosting Firing Line, a weekly television show about current events, and editing the bi-weekly magazine that he had founded, National Review.

Buckley encounters many different people throughout the course of the week, from former heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney, who “has been a very old friend and supporter of NR,” (p.27) to Otto Von Hapsburg, heir to the thrones of Austria and Hungary, who asks Buckley “whether I would join a very small organization that meets two or three times a year, in Europe usually, but sometimes in America, to discuss deeply, and off the record, public policies affecting the future of the West.” (p.150) William F. Buckley led a remarkable life, and the nine page index at the end of Cruising Speed gives some idea of his varied pursuits and interests. Someone should really write annotated versions of Cruising Speed and Overdrive, so future readers will know who all of these people Buckley interacts with were, instead of having to constantly look them up on Wikipedia.

One of the more interesting tidbits that came up in the course of Buckley’s week is a letter from Edgar Eisenhower, Dwight’s older brother, concerning the foundation of John T. Gaty. Gaty was a businessman from Wichita, Kansas, who bequeathed a significant part of his estate to a foundation that would support conservative organizations. The trustees that Gaty named to the foundation included Buckley, J. Edgar Hoover, Edgar Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, John Tower, and other prominent conservatives. Incredibly, all of these men meet in Wichita once a year for ten years to distribute money from the foundation. (Hoover never attended, sending an alternate in his place.) Someone should really write a book about the Gaty trust, as a fascinating footnote to the nascent conservative movement.

Buckley’s excellent sense of humor is on display throughout the book, and perhaps my favorite humorous anecdote from Cruising Speed is the story that Buckley tells about a friend of his who was entertaining guests from France. Buckley’s friend turned on Firing Line, as Buckley was interviewing Hugh Hefner. There was a problem with the sound on the TV, so everyone watched in silence. When the sound came on, the French visitors were shocked as they had concluded from the body language of the two men that Buckley was the libertine publisher of Playboy magazine, and Hugh Hefner was the conservative Republican writer. (p.53)

Throughout both Cruising Speed and Overdrive you see how much William F. Buckley enjoyed his life. At the very end of Cruising Speed Buckley writes that his friend John Kenneth Galbraith, the liberal economist, urged Buckley to give up his newspaper column, Firing Line, and National Review, to enter academia and write books. (p.229) Unsurprisingly, Buckley turns down Galbraith’s suggestion. It’s clear that Buckley loved all of the different things that he did, and if he had just focused on one thing, he probably wouldn’t have been happy. I suspect that Buckley enjoyed the challenge of keeping all of those balls up in the air.

I wish that we saw more of how Buckley wrote, but he was able to write so quickly that maybe he didn’t have much to say about his writing process. On the Wednesday covered in Cruising Speed, Buckley is late delivering his column, so he has to go to the offices of his syndicate, which he only does when the column must be written immediately. He writes it in half an hour. There are many excellent passages throughout Cruising Speed, and one concerns dealing with writers and artists as editor of National Review, “…what it comes down to is this-that concerning certain things, everyone is inaccessible to reason, and the trick is to find out what those things are, and simply accept the given in the situation.” (p.6) That’s a great piece of advice, and not just for editors.

After Cruising Speedwas published an interviewer asked Buckley “Don’t you think it a bit much to write an entire book devoted to the events of a single week?” Buckley’s tongue in cheek response was “I don’t know. John Keats devoted an entire ode to a single Grecian urn.” (Quote from Overdrive, by William F. Buckley, p.154)I wish more people would write books like Cruising Speed, as I would be fascinated to read what a week in the life of other public figures is like. I suppose that now, in the never-ending news cycles of 2015, one might encounter more resistance to the idea, and get more flack for being so supremely solipsistic. The interesting thing about both Cruising Speed and Overdrive is that while they both look into Buckley’s life, they are not overly confessional. Although Buckley does catalog some personal faults, as he writes, "I do not know why my memory is so bad, or for that matter why I read so slowly." (p.57) I find it difficult to believe that William F. Buckley did anything slowly, but there you have it. Buckley tell us that book critic Isabel Paterson thinks these problems stem from him not learning to read until the age of 6 or 7, which is also when he began speaking English, his first language having been Spanish.

Cruising Speed humanizes Buckley. Even if you disagree with his politics you get to see his incredible work ethic and the humanity that animated his work. As Malcolm Muggeridge once said of Buckley “What Buckley has is a sort of sparkle and grace, equally in his speaking, writing, and television appearances. It is not just a question of agreeing with Buckley. Rather, it is that in our time free minds are desperately rare and precious, and in him I detect one.”

Book cover of Napoleon: A Biography, by Frank McLynn, 1997. The painting is Napoleon Crossing the Alps, by Napoleon's favorite painter, Jacques-Louis David.

While I was reading Andrew Roberts’ excellent 2014 biography of Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon: A Life, I was also reading Frank McLynn’s 1997 book Napoleon: A Biography on my Kindle. So I’ve been a little immersed in the Napoleonic era as of late, and I might be suffering from Napoleon overload. McLynn’s book isn’t as good as Roberts’, but it’s still an excellent treatment of a fascinating figure.

McLynn is a psychological biographer who published a biography of Carl Jung the same year Napoleon: A Biography came out. McLynn’s constant psychoanalyzing of Napoleon became tiring as the book went on, and I could have used a little less psychoanalytic theory. The book starts slowly, as McLynn spends a lot of time on Napoleon’s childhood. But the pace picks up once Napoleon’s life becomes more interesting. McLynn is not as strong a military historian as Roberts, but McLynn focuses more on Spain and the Peninsular War, and those chapters are excellent. McLynn sees the “Spanish ulcer” as being the moment when things began to go wrong for Napoleon. I agree with McLynn, Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808 was a classic example of overreaching. Napoleon should have realized that just because you can do something doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Spain had a weak monarch, and it was easy for Napoleon to invade and claim Spain for his own, but it proved to be a foolish idea, as the Spanish began a fierce guerilla war that sapped money and soldiers from France at the same time that Russia was rearming and preparing to fight Napoleon again.

The strongest part of the book might be the chapters about Napoleon’s slow downfall. McLynn writes of Napoleon in 1807, “Until Eylau Napoleon had rarely put a foot wrong on a battlefield. After it, with some rare and brilliant exceptions, his touch was much less sure.” The 1812 Russian campaign was a slow descent into hell, and it is clear that Napoleon did not adequately plan for anything going wrong. McLynn writes, “But the worst mistake was the failure to think through logistical problems, admittedly almost insurmountable in an army of 600,000. Everything was underestimated: the speed at which armies could march, the amount of food that could be obtained en route, the poor state of the roads.” Incredibly, the French lost more men on the way to Moscow than on the retreat.

Napoleon’s time in exile on St. Helena is covered in detail, and those passages show us a man who still had his dignity, although everything else had been taken from him. Napoleon was peevish over the insistence of the British that he be addressed in exile as “General Bonaparte,” rather than “Emperor.” He once said, “They may as well call me Archbishop, for I was head of the Church as well as the army.” McLynn has some excellent quotes from Napoleon on St. Helena. Napoleon once said to one of his retinue, “Don’t you think that when I wake in the night I don’t have dark moments, when I remember what I was and what I am now?” When he was suffering from his final illness, showing his usual stoicism, he said, “I am quite happy not to have religion. I do not suffer from chimerical fears.” Although the official explanation for Napoleon’s death was stomach cancer, many historians have argued with this over the years. McLynn puts forward a theory that Napoleon was slowly poisoned by arsenic.

McLynn ably defends Bonaparte from charges of being a dictator, as he writes, “His sensibility was light years away from that of a Hitler or a Stalin, and indeed he can be faulted for not being ruthless enough at times. His indulgence of his worthless family and his repeated pardoning of the treacherous Bernadotte, the duplicitous Talleyrand and the treasonable Fouché are only the most obvious examples. Napoleon had the temperament of an old-style autocrat but not that of a modern totalitarian dictator.”

Napoleon: A Biography is full of insightful quotes and anecdotes. Three of my favorite quotes from the book are the following: (I don’t have page numbers because my Kindle only tells me what location I’m on in the book, and it seems somewhat silly to write, “Location 10245 of 15527.”)

When Jean-Andoche Junot’s father asked him, “Who is this unknown General Bonaparte?” Junot had replied: “He is the sort of man of whom Nature is sparing and who only appears on earth at intervals of centuries.”

“He was clearly the most extraordinary man I ever saw, and I believe the most extraordinary that has lived in our age, or for many ages.”-Charles Maurice Talleyrand, who ironically enough, was one of the most duplicitous members of Napoleon’s government.

Describing Emperor Francis of Austria, Napoleon’s future father-in-law, McLynn writes, “The Emperor Francis was a pathetic figure who spent his time making toffee or endlessly stamping blank sheets of parchment with specimens from his huge collection of seals.” Reading this quote really makes me want to learn more about Francis.

If you’re looking for a good one-volume cradle to grave study of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon: A Biography, is a very good place to start.

Poster for Mickey One, starring Warren Beatty, 1965.

Warren Beatty and Alexandra Stewart on the set of Mickey One.

Warren Beatty as Mickey One, a paranoid stand-up comedian.

In Mickey One, Warren Beatty plays a stand-up comedian who goes on the run from the Mob and ends up in Chicago. Does that sound like an interesting premise for a movie? Sure. Unfortunately, Mickey One is pretentious, self-consciously artistic, and needlessly opaque.

Director Arthur Penn was heavily influenced by the French New Wave films of the time, and Mickey One comes off as paint by numbers surrealism. Is there a mysterious mute character? Check. Are there tons of close ups of ugly people to get across your contempt for humanity? Check.

The audience is never invested enough in Mickey’s story to really care what happens to him. Perhaps the most successful part of the movie is the opening credit sequence, which introduces us to Beatty’s character, a high-living nightclub comedian who suddenly has to split town when he owes the Mob a lot of money over a gambling debt. He ends up in Chicago and steals a Social Security card. The name on the card is Mickey, and when a worker can’t pronounce the last name, he dubs Beatty “Mickey One,” which is how he’s known for the rest of the movie. Mickey starts working as a comedian again, and he meets Jenny, (the gorgeous Alexandra Stewart) a sweet girl who accepts his many eccentricities. Given the chance to play a classier nightclub owned by Ed Castle (Hurd Hatfield) Mickey must overcome his paranoia and embrace life again.

Part of the problem with Mickey One is that we never know if Mickey is crazy or not. Is he really in danger? Are there really people out to get him? We never really find out. While I understand that the ambiguity in this matter was deliberate, I don’t think it’s the best choice for involving viewers in the narrative. If you want me to care about Mickey, you need to do one of two things. If he is really in danger, you need to demonstrate that so that I will care about Mickey’s survival. If he isn’t in danger and is really just slowly going insane, then you need to show his mental deterioration in a more clear way, so that I will care about Mickey’s survival. But Penn decided to leave it up to the viewers to decide which interpretation is correct, which leads to a movie without much tension.

Part of the problem with Mickey One is the script, and the character of Mickey. As played by Beatty, he’s another callow jerk, just like every other character Beatty had played to this point, with the exception of Bud Stamper in Splendor in the Grass. Mickey is unlikeable and unrelatable, and his stand-up jokes aren’t funny at all. That might be part of the point, I suppose. Mickey is a jerk to Jenny when he first meets her, and he’s very lucky that she talks to him at all. With the rage that Mickey quickly displays, most women wouldn’t have given him the time of day.

Beatty doesn’t give a good performance as Mickey. He isn’t acting, he’s “acting.” He sometimes lapses into a sort of “tough guy” voice that isn’t his real voice. He’s still hung up on his James Dean mannerisms, and he hasn’t yet developed his own style of film acting. That would come later, when he played Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde. Also, Beatty was hamstrung by the fact that nearly all of his early characters lack any humor or charm. Two of the things that Warren Beatty does best on screen are humor and charm, and when he’s asked to play someone without those qualities, his performance suffers.

The supporting cast does as good a job as they can. Alexandra Stewart is beautiful and sexy in that mid-1960’s art movie way, with her long straight hair and perfectly chiseled cheekbones. Stewart’s performance is low-key, but effective, and she is the rock that the neurotic Mickey leans on. Hurd Hatfield gives an excellent performance as nightclub owner Ed Castle, who eats only organic food. I don’t know if the audience is supposed to think that Castle is gay or not, but Hatfield gives him just enough insistent charm to make us wonder why he likes Mickey so much. Franchot Tone, most well-known for starring in Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935, has a small role as Ruby Lapp, who tells Mickey in the beginning of the movie that the Mob is after him. Fun fact, Tone was married to Joan Crawford from 1935-39. And on the poster for Mickey One Tone gets the coveted “and” billing, plus he also gets his name in a box. If you’re name isn’t above the title, the next best thing is to have your name in a box. Japanese actor Kamatari Fujiwara, a favorite actor of Akira Kurosawa’s, plays the mute character known only as “The Artist,” who keeps showing up and wordlessly beckoning Mickey to join him. “The Artist” also creates a self-destructive sculpture that is a reference to Jean Tinguely’s famous sculpture, “Homage to New York,” which partially self-destructed in the garden outside of MOMA in 1960. In real life, as in the movie, the fire department had to come to extinguish the blaze created by the sculpture. The scene where Mickey and Jenny watch the sculpture self-destruct was filmed in the skating rink at the then brand-new Marina City apartment complex. Since Mickey One was filmed in 1964, the year that Marina City was completed, it must have been the first movie to make use of these Chicago icons.

Behind the scenes, Mickey One was a difficult shoot. Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty did not see eye to eye. In a 1972 interview Beatty said, “We had a lot of trouble on that film because I didn’t know what the hell Arthur was trying to do. I didn’t know what Penn wanted…I’m not sure that he knew himself.” (Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, by Peter Biskind, p.69) In a 1967 article in Cahiers du Cinema, Penn said, “Warren did not want to play the role the way I wanted him to play it.” (Warren Beatty: A Private Man, by Suzanne Finstad, p.317) Penn also later said of Beatty, “At that stage in the game, I don’t think Warren was as adept an actor as he later became.” (Biskind, p.69) During filming Penn forced Beatty to perform multiple takes of numerous scenes, which ironically enough, would later become Beatty’s preferred way of working as a director. In what must have been a highlight for Penn, both Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, the heavy hitters of the French New Wave, visited the set of Mickey One.

To the surprise of no one, Mickey One was a commercial and critical flop when it was released in September 1965. Warren Beatty later humorously told author Mark Harris, “The morning after Mickey One opened, I called the studio and said, how did it do? They said, it did thirteen dollars. I said, is that good?” (Pictures at a Revolution, by Mark Harris, p.137) Beatty also said of the movie, “It was a very good picture, but nobody understood it.” (Finstad, p.347)

Associate producer Harrison Starr said of Mickey One, “I thought we should have looked hard and found an extraordinarily eccentric guy who had still a sufficient charisma to hold the center of the film. Warren was almost too big for the film.” (Finstad, p.314) Even Peter Biskind, who really, really likes Warren Beatty, writes in his biography of Beatty: “This was one of the worst performances of Beatty’s career.” (Biskind, p.69)

1964 was a difficult year for Warren Beatty. He needed to come up with another hit movie, and he had hired Woody Allen to write the screenplay that would eventually become What’s New, Pussycat? Beatty had high hopes for the screenplay, but was annoyed when his part started getting smaller and Allen’s part kept getting bigger. When Beatty objected to producer Charles Feldman casting his girlfriend Capucine in a large role in the film, he dropped out. Beatty thought that they couldn’t do the movie without him, and that Feldman would woo him back and give Beatty what he wanted. No dice, as Beatty was replaced with Peter O’Toole, who was a much bigger star than Beatty in 1964. Of course, much to Beatty’s chagrin, What’s New, Pussycat? went on to become the huge hit that he so sorely needed. Incidentally, the film’s title comes from Beatty’s preferred way of starting a conversation with members of the opposite sex. The What’s New, Pussycat? debacle had taught Beatty one thing: that in order to get what he wanted, he would have to become a producer.

Beatty suffered through lots of bad publicity in 1964, as he was named as a corespondent in the divorce of Leslie Caron and her husband, British theater director Peter Hall. Beatty had met Caron just before rehearsals for Mickey One started. They quickly began a relationship, and she visited him on the Chicago set of Mickey One. (The Chicago studios where Mickey One was filmed eventually became Oprah’s studios.) Caron’s marriage to Peter Hall was pretty much over before Beatty came into the picture, but Beatty took the blame for breaking them up. A nasty custody fight over Hall and Caron’s two children followed, and Beatty temporarily took up residence in England with Caron while the legal battle played out. Caron’s divorce was the reason that Beatty’s next movie, Promise Her Anything, in which he co-starred with Caron, was filmed in England, even though it was set in New York City.

Even though Mickey One was not a successful film, there was still something good that came out of it. The best thing that Mickey One did was to bring Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn together, as they would collaborate again on a much more brilliant film that would play a significant part in altering 20^th century cinema: 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde.

Book Review: Saving the Queen, by William F. Buckley (1976)

Book Review: Conversations with William F. Buckley, Jr. edited by William F. Meehan III (2009)

Album Review: Bryan Ferry, "Avonmore" (2014)

Book Review: Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, by Kostya Kennedy (2014)

Recapping the 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame Golden Era Committee Ballot

Book Review: Hustle: The Myth, Life, and Lies of Pete Rose, by Michael Sokolove (1990)

The Best Books I Read in 2014

The Films of Warren Beatty: The Fortune, starring Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Stockard Channing, directed by Mike Nichols (1975)

Concert Review: Ramsey Lewis and Philip Bailey at the Dakota Jazz Club

Movie Review: The Eddy Duchin Story, starring Tyrone Power and Kim Novak (1956)

Book Review: The World According to Mister Rogers, by Fred Rogers (2003)

Ted Kennedy, Chappquiddick, and Joyce Carol Oates' novel Black Water (1992)

Book Review: How the States Got Their Shapes, by Mark Stein (2008)

Book Review: Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts (2014)

Fun Facts I Learned from Andrew Roberts' book Napoleon: A Life (2014)

Thoughts on the 2015 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

Book Review: Ted Kennedy: Profile of a Survivor, by William H. Honan (1972)

Book Review: Cruising Speed: A Documentary, by William F. Buckley (1971)

Book Review: Napoleon: A Biography, by Frank McLynn (1997)

The Films of Warren Beatty: Mickey One starring Warren Beatty and Alexandra Stewart, directed by Arthur Penn (1965)