It's a light day in the baseball universe here in New York. Bill Madden reports that Don Mattingly will return as the Yankees' hitting coach in 2005. According to George King, Mel Stottlemyre will inform the Yankees later today whether or not he'll continue on as Joe Torre's pitching coach. What else? Um, it's still hard to fathom that the Red Sox won it all...(Dig it Dog, it really happened.) Oh, here's the latest thoughts from Derek Jacques, and Jay Jaffe. Check em out.

Em and I saw Alexander Payne's new movie "Sideways" this weekend, which features terrific work from Virginia Madsen, Thomas Haden Church, and the lead, Paul Giamatti. It's not a great movie, but the fact that it is uneven was kind of appealing. It's moving and tender, not nearly as ironic or arch as Payne's earlier work (which includes the hilarious "Election" as well as "Citizen Ruth" and "About Schmidt"). I've always liked Madsen. She was wonderful in an HBO movie about minor league baseball in the 1950s called "Long Gone," and she makes the most of her supporting role here. Giamatti is solid, once again playing a dour intellectual. (There is a shot of him with is real-life father, Bart that will stand out to baseball fans.) I'd say that the movie is worth your ten bucks.

I finally started reading Leo Durocher's autobiography "Nice Guys Finish Last" over the weekend. It was written with, er, by Ed Linn. Bill James loves the book and after reading just 15 pages I can see why. Durocher's voice is so clear and the book is compusively readable. I've always enjoyed Linn's work, so since I'm in a movie-frame-of-mind, I'm going to risk of being cheesy here, and present a bit I posted about about Linn's book, "Steinbrenner's Yankees" a few years ago:

Too bad that 70’s Retro is now passe. The Bronx Zoo Yankee team would make for a great bad movie. I picture it as a cross between “Slap Shot” and “Boogie Nights”; “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “The Turning Point.” The costumes and soundtrack alone would be worth the price of admission. Get a group of terrific spaz method actors, and you’re set.

Ed Linn’s book “Steinbrenner’s Yankees” details the Billy, George, Reggie years expertly, and provides excellent fodder for a script. Here is an example that caught my funny bone the other day.

It is spring training, 1977. Reggie has just brought his star with him to Yankee camp, after the Big Red Machine had swept the Yankees the year before. Already, the camp was fraught with tension. But Reggie doesn’t appear in this scene…

Cast of Characters:

George: Michael Gambon? No, Mark Holton who played Francis in “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” is more like it.

Gabe Paul: Think William Holden in “Network”

Billy Martin: Harry Dean Stanton

Yogi: Himself, or Joe Girardi.

Linn sets the scene:

Billy Martin was fired for the first time a week before the end of spring training, after the Mets had shut out the Yankees 6-0 in St. Petersburg, in a game that was telecast back to New York.

…George had been screaming all along that the team wasn’t prepared to open the season. And not without reason. Billy had always run a loose training camp, but this camp had been, [in the words of the immortal Mick the Quick] well-uh, rid-i-cu-lous. And for a great deal of laxness, George had only himself to blame.

Billy Martin’s marriage had broken up, and he was living a bachelor life several miles away in Boca Raton with his buddy Mickey Mantle. So he would drive to the practice field every morning, not always on time and not always without a lady companion. Gabe Paul had told him at the beginning that the team couldn’t stand that kind of thing, had in fact instructed him to move back into Fort Lauderdale and stay with the team and ride on the team bus. Whereupon Billy went over Gabe’s head to Steinbrenner, and George, being the great guy that he is, told Billy that it was perfectly okay, boys will be boys, enjoy.

With the team going so rotten, George was no longer in a mood to be so indulgent…Most of all, George wanted Billy on the practice field on time, and he wanted him on the team bus with the players.

Well, it was no great issue. The team was living in Tampa now, and Billy was living with them. But, still, he liked to drive back and forth from the ballpark with his coaches, so he could talk things over whiles the coaches made notes.

When George came striding toward the clubhouse after the Mets game, he was ripping mad. The Yankees had not only lost, they had been shut out. Instead of starting Reggie, as Billy had promised to, he had sent him in late in the game as a pinch hitter. Instead of playing the starting lineup all the way, as George had instructed him to, he had finished with a team of substitutes.

But if you want to know what George was really furious about, it was that he had discovered during the game that Billy had driven to the ballpark in a rental car.

Let’s imagine the following confrontation as a scene from The Bronx Zoo movie.

PARKING LOT EXT. BALL PARK. FLORIDA

The Yankee players slowly make their way to the team bus. About half of the team has dragged ass out to the parking lot.

INT. STADIUM HALLWAY

The hallway is empty, but we hear oncoming footsteps.

George (off-screen): I don’t give a fuck. This shit has got to stop right now. Do you hear me, Gabe? I’ve got to stop it right now!

INT. LOCKER ROOM DOORS

George bursts in, followed by Gabe Paul. There are a few players still lingering, the clubhouse man and a few reporters remain as well. Billy is standing in the doorway of the manager’s office.

George: I want to talk to you right now. You lied to me!

Billy: I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear that shit anymore.

George: You heard what I said! That thing is going to stop right now!

Billy: You fat bastard, I don’t give a shit what you say. I’m going to do it my way.

George: You lied to me! You told me you were going to ride on the bus.

Billy: Fuck you, I’m not riding on any fucking buses. Get the fuck out of here.

Gabe: Hey…hey, watch yourself Billy.

Gabe steps toward Billy. George stands ten feet away, incredulous with fury.

Don’t…Billy, don’t…

George: (to himself) What did you say? What did you say?

Gabe: Billy, don’t talk to him like that.

Billy: Then YOU can tell that fat bastard to go fuck himself. Hear me? He can go fuck himself!

George: (Moving in) You don’t talk to me like that, goddammit! You don’t ever talk to me like that.

Billy: I’ll talk to anybody like that.

Billy turns and strides into the trainer’s room. George steams after him, Gabe by his side. We wait a beat and several players in towels, along with a couple of trainers, exit the trainer’s room. But they do not go far; the remaining men in the locker room sit still and enjoy the fireworks.

George: (os) You lied to me, and not only about the bus. You promised to play the starting team all the way today, and you fucking lied about that too.

INTERIOR: TRAINER’S ROOM

George and Billy stand at opposite sides of the trainer’s table in the middle of the room. Paul is behind George.

Billy: Don’t tell me how to manage my ball team, you lying sonofabitch. I’m the manager, and I’ll manage how I want to manage. It was an EXHIBITION game! An ex-hib-i-tion game. This is not a game where you leave your blood and guts on the field to win…There are things I gotta find out now!

George: Well, you should have already figured them out. That is what I’ve been telling you all along! The season begins in a week and you don’t have this goddamn team ready.

Billy: For christsakes George, you don’t prepare for a 162-game season the way you prepare for a 10-game football season.

Billy slams his fist in a bucket of ice water. The ice cubes splash up, and George gets soaked.

George: I ought to fire you! I should fire your ass right now.

George wipes his face and frantically digs ice cubes out of his jacket pockets.

Billy: You want to fire me, fire me! But leave me the fuck alone.

INT: LOCKER ROOM

Gabe Paul exits the trainer’s room and motions to one of the coaches.

INT. TRAINER’S ROOM

Billy and George are standing at opposite sides of the room. Billy is coiled; George fumes. Gabe walks in with Yogi.

George: (to Yogi) You’re the manager.

Yogi: Now take it easy, George.

George: You want to be the manager? You’re the manager.

Yogi: Billy’s a good manager. You don’t want to go doing anything because you’re mad now.

George: The job is yours!

CUT TO:

The Next morning.

INT. HOTEL HALLWAY.

We see George; brisk and manicured, walking down the empty hallway. He checks is watch, and knocks on Gabe Paul’s door.

CUT TO:

Gabe lets George in, and Steinbrenner barrels straight passed him.

INT. HOTEL HALLWAY

Billy Martin, pale and disheveled, walks down the same hallway. When he knocks on Gabe’s door, Billy looks around nervously.

CUT TO:

CLOSE UP: Gabe putting the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door.

CUT TO:

INTERIOR: YANKEE TEAM BUS

Billy Martin sits in the front seat of the crowded team bus. Art Fowler and Yogi Berra sit behind him.

According to Linn:

From then on, Billy rode the bus. And he never yelled at George in public again. But whenever Billy expected to be fired during the season, he would tell the writers that from the moment those ice cubes hit George’s face, he knew that his days as the manager of the New York Yankees were numbered.
Be that as it may, it was Gabe Paul who wanted to fire him the next time around and George Steinbrenner who saved him.

Cue: Organ Music.

Tune in again next time for more of the Bronx Zoo Chronicles.