IdahoBert

I watch some “art house“ films, not a lot but some, and I just watched the independent 2017 film Columbus shot entirely on location in Columbus, Indiana. This southern Indiana town is recognized worldwide for its stunning modernist architecture, a fact of supreme indifference to most of its citizens. In fact, this was entirely lost on me when I visited Columbus several times when I lived in nearby Bloomington. Now 50 years too late I get it. Would’ve could’ve should’ve… Casey, a 19 year-old librarian who is going nowhere and whose mom is a recovering meth addict, finds solace in architecture when she looks at a building in her hometown for the hundredth time and finally senses its serene healing beauty. It sounds overwrought and painfully sensitive, but the film makes you a believer. She befriends Jin, played by Korean actor John Cho, who is in town standing watch at the hospital over his dying father, a famous architecture scholar. The story of their friendship is not sentimental or cloying, but honest and authentic. They bond over this common passion for architecture and help each other move on to the next stage in their lives. It’s very believable and nothing at all like a schmaltzy Hallmark film. The queen of Indie films Parker Posey is in it too. Every shot in the film is magnificent and breathtakingly composed.

Even Keith Law doesn’t hate us anymore or so I’ve heard it rumored.

They are people worried about optics because they themselves are kind of shallow and in search of things to gab about. It’s hard to believe, though, that this is cause for any serious consternation. I think it’s interesting that 80% of the seats are sold, and most of them are sold to corporations. I’m curious as to why they’re not selling single seat tickets probably because people complained that the amenities they were paying for are not available which is a fair complaint.

The Tigers Have a Problem Behind Home Plate It’s not the catcher, it’s the rows of empty seats visible on all broadcasts for the best team in baseball By Jay Murray The Detroit Tigers are the best team in baseball, and confidence about their team is oozing out of Metro Detroit. “Even when they’re down a run late in a game, I know they’re going to come back and win,” said Jerry Yatooma, a former college baseball player and current coach for Livonia Stevenson High School’s baseball program. But one nagging question has plagued the Tigers through the first 57 games: Why can’t the Tigers fill the seats behind home plate? Burning up the call lines on talk radio and getting considerable engagement on social media is the glaring sight of empty seats directly behind home plate, and within clear view of every Tigers home broadcast. Newly constructed for the 2025 season, the home plate seating mirrors the corporate-tier high ticket box seats most MLB teams now have in their ballparks. The New York Yankees ignited the trend over a decade ago when they installed first-class seating behind home plate and began drawing celebrities to nationally televised games. Most teams followed suit, and prior to this season, the Tigers were one of only three teams without a Home Plate Club seating level. However, the Tigers have seemingly been unable to fill those seats, even for the sacred home opener when the entire downtown was ablaze with excitement and hope that the late 2024 playoff run wasn’t a fluke. I reached out to the team for answers. According to my source—a Detroit Tigers official asking not to be named—the Tigers front office is well aware of the controversy around the empty home plate seats. The team has apparently been less than happy with its coverage—particularly on FM 97.1 The Ticket. My source stated 80% of the Home Plate Club seats have been sold for the season, but the team has run into a secondary issue: The private and all-inclusive dining area for those with Club seating tickets is not yet open. The dining area located behind and under the Home Plate seating area is completed, but not yet operational. Currently, Home Plate Club members must walk up to the concourse to a reserved area located along the right field line, a decent walk. My source assured me the permanent Home Plate Club could open any day and will be operational before the All-Star Break. But the empty seats seen on local and national telecasts is creating embarrassing optics for the team at the top of the league. Acknowledging the the optics of empty seats, my source stated that often-floated immediate fixes—such as allowing young families to sit in the seats on a game-by-game basis—are not feasible. “We can’t hand-pick families or individuals to come down and sit in those seats only to have the club members show up in the fifth or sixth inning and demand their seats back,” the official said. The seats are exorbitantly priced for even upper-middle-class Tigers fans. Seat packages range in price from $10,500 to $40,000, and are sold in quarter-, half-, or full-season packages. Single-game tickets in the Home Plate Club, sold individually at the start of the season, are no longer for sale, according to my source. No explanation for that switch was given. With an eye on charitable giving and public relations, the Detroit Tigers do control an unspecified number of seats in the Home Plate Club they use to seat low-income families, wounded veterans, and other charity groups, and in collaboration with the State of Michigan. My source stated those initiatives will continue and expand in the future. Currently, the bulk of the Home Plate Seats are owned by several unnamed corporations and businesses, but suggestions for how to fill them abound. One possibility floated by multiple Tigers fans I spoke with was putting local celebrities into those seats to draw out the corporate and CEO class for games. The notion assumes that it wouldn’t be hard to induce any number of Detroit Lions, Red Wings, or Pistons into those seats, creating a pull for club members to get their asses into the seats they paid for. Famous Tigers fans span the country and echelons of the upper crust: Jack White, Bob Seger, Kid Rock, Eminem, J.K. Simmons, Tim Allen. Hell, they could even stick Tom Selleck in a Hawaiian shirt and do a Magnum PI night. This can’t be that hard, and our pride over the best team in baseball is on the line. Mark Nold, COO of Ambulatory Anesthesia Solutions headquartered in Metro Detroit, a lifelong Detroiter and Tigers fan from birth, was beyond excited by the team’s recent success. He purchased a suite for himself and close personal friends this season. “When the Tigers are winning, this city is electric,” Nold said. “This could be the year we’ve all been waiting for.”

I should maybe look into it but my hometown pay per which is a McClatchy paper charges $30 a month. That’s what it will be. It’s not worth it to me.

I get it, hardcopy newspapers are going away and they have to be able to pay the bills somehow, but I can’t justify subscribing to even one let alone two Detroit area newspapers online when all I want to do is read an occasional story about the Detroit Tigers. I miss just being able to click on a link.

I’m just glad I got to see Gleyber 11 years ago when he was 17 playing for the Boise Hawks when they were a Cubs short season team in the Northwest League. He looked as good as a major leaguer in the infield. He was promoted to Boise for the last week of the season.

Additionally, the final season of Stranger Things, titled "Stranger Things 5," will be released on Netflix in three parts over the holiday season. Volume 1, featuring the first four episodes, will drop on November 26th (the day before Thanksgiving). Volume 2, with three episodes, will be released on Christmas Day, December 25th. The final episode, "Volume 3," will premiere on New Year's Eve, December 31st. This marks a shift from the typical full-season release, with the final episode being a standalone event. I understand some of the episodes will be as long as a full length movie

All sorts of great science fiction will be returning soon. Season 3 of Apple TV+'s sci-fi series "Foundation" will premiere on Friday, July 11, 2025. The first two seasons are incredible. This third season was delayed by the writers strike as well as by foot dragging from studio execs who demanded drastic budget cuts which led showrunner David S. Goyer to resign. He’ll still be writing scripts, but he won’t be doing any directing or organizing all the minutiae so I don’t know how good it’s going to be. Basically, they got rid of the the genius that made it work. Season 3 of Paramount+’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will premiere on Thursday, July 17, 2025, with the first two episodes being released back-to-back. The show resonates with the best aspects of the original series and it honestly makes my heart sing. The cast is just phenomenal. The second season of Peacemaker will premiere on August 21, 2025, on Max. The season is set to feature John Cena reprising his role as Christopher Smith/Peacemaker. I loved this quirky surprising show. Fallout Season 2, set to premiere in December 2025 on Amazon Prime Video, will continue the story from the first season, taking viewers to the Mojave Wasteland and the post-apocalyptic city of New Vegas. It was a really gripping program and I hope more of the same continues.

This is an excellent summary. It’s what makes them interesting and surprising.

This is true, but lots of people are going to dis Detroit no matter what just because. It’s probably good to carry around a grudge about this. It makes rubbing their nose in it sweeter.

The Tigers have only scored 6 or more runs 2 times in the last 23 games. In the previous 23 games, they scored 6 runs or more 14 times. They are still winning, but they’re not winning that way.

Barring rainouts, the Tigers are going to have Mondays off three weeks in a row, which will be good to restore the bullpen.

Too bad that the Tigers are going to have to face the Orioles now that they’re not sucking having won 10 of their last 13 and 7 of their last 8.

Totally I don’t really blame them, but you have to be careful about this kind of griping.

More runs sure would be a pleasant occurrence

Apparently, the Cubs philosophy of using the team is different from what AJ does because the Tigers faced a hitter who hadn’t seen action in days and the pitcher right now hasn’t seen action in eight days.

On mlb.tv I really dislike the ads that look like the picture is buffering badly because the idea is to get me to notice the ad and I do.

I’d like to see Javy get back his home run swing.

Javy with a major league jump to snare a ball for one out.

Don’t blow the lead bullpen.

What’s really annoying is when the umpire does one of those completely flamboyant third strike calls when he’s almost doing the Macarena and the ball is 3 inches out of the strike zone.

2-run hit for Riley

Just by my eye, the Cubs seem to be acting really entitled about this strike calling thing and that just doesn’t seem to work well with this umpiring crew.