"Culling The Thoughts That Occur When You're Waiting For Something To Happen..." I rarely talk to Mexican food, mostly because I failed Senor Bravo's Spanish 110 my senior year at the University of Arizona.
Besides, when Mexican cuisine speaks, it often doesn't care much about what you have to say. It's usually the one doing all the chatting.
But when my pack of La Banderita soft tortillas shells told me the other night to check out "The Perfect Game" at www.theperfectgamemovie.com, I decided to listen.
After all, the phrase 'perfect game' is a rather large boast - be it athletic or cinematic.
"Perfect Game" is a rehashing of the 1957 Monterey Industrials, an impoverished band of pegadores from Monterey, Mexico. The Industrials defied unfathomable odds to win the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
Major motion pictures have been made based on much less premise. Ever see "Ed," the movie about a chimpanzee that joins a Major League team?
Besides, how could you go wrong with a movie that stars both Cheech Marin and Lou Gossett Jr.?
I cannot tell you whether or not the "Perfect Game" is blemish-free because no theaters in this area are showing it. Not helping matters is the film's advertising budget, which apparently was limited to packages of flatbread.
So last night's dinner didn't just get me talking, it also got me thinking: what is the quintessential sports movie moment?
- Roy Hobbs hitting the game-winning homer in "The Natural?"
- Benny "the Jet" Rodriguez out-running Hercules the angry dog in "The Sandlot?"
- Rudy Ruettiger getting the first and only sack of his career for Notre Dame in "Rudy?"
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Chris Snyder's catcher's mitt is apparently the Sun City of error; a place where guffaws go to retire.
The Arizona Diamondback catcher's current 217-game errorless streak is the third-longest stretch by a backstop in MLB history.
He squats behind Cleveland Indian Mike Redmond - who is still adding to his current streak of 249 games - and Mike Matheny who went 252 games without an error at the dish.
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Someone call University of Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea: my 2-year-old daughter is ready to become a Wildcat. I deduced that this morning watching her throw a Wiffleball in the living room.
How many times have you heard this one: "You gotta see the arm on my kid? Now, I know he's only (insert age here), but..."
I once sat next to a guy who used every available second of the 45-minute flight from Atlanta to Savannah, Ga., talking about his son, Aristotle. You read that correct. His son was named after a Greek deity.
Note to self: tell no one about the skills you use to pay the bills. Unless, of course, you got rich turning your kid into a sports superstar; as is the case with only a handful of parents these days.
Take the case of Internet-sensation Ariel Antigua, whose YouTube video of him swinging a bat and fielding ground balls is going more viral this week than the Hantavirus.
It we're to believe the Internet (and who doesn't?), then the 5 year old from Lyndhurst, N.J., is Joe Mauer reincarnate.
You be the judge. Is Ariel the Next A-Rod without a cool nickname yet or just another product of overbearing parenting?
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Baseball is a game that holds in high regard its etiquette, superstition and unwritten rules. Just ask New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who found out the hard way that pitchers hate it when you walk across thier mound between plays.
One of the more notorious superstitions is to never mention a no-hitter while one is in progress. But with technology dramatically re-sculpting our lives, do we need to re-evaluate how we prevent breaking the protocol of superstitions?
Human nature says we want to tell everyone in our rolodex when we're watching a no-hitter in progress.
Your buddy Gary in Orlando wants to make sure you heard it from him and not ESPN that Ubaldo Jiminez is blanking the Atlanta Braves.
When Yankees' hurler Phil Hughes cleared the seventh inning of a game against the Oakland Athletics on April 21 without yielding a hit, I rushed to Facebook to see which bozo would blab first.
The message board was silent, save for those kvetching about their lousy work day or those starving their cows on their virtual farms.
Is it acceptable to post on a social media that a pitcher is throwing a no-hitter?
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Speaking of the Bronx Bombers, the Yankees' cable conglomerate the YES Network has added a running pitch count to the scoreboard in the upper left-hand corner of its screen during game telecasts.
How much more information do we need filling up a screen? And what's the next thing that baseball eggheads need blocking the view of the game?
I'm still waiting to hear that some super-fan has named his kid 'Rhelob' in scoreboard homage to "runs, hits, erros and left-on-base."
Don't confuse Rhelob with Shelob of Lord of Ring fame. Either name will condemn your kid to a lifetime of wedgies, wet willies and the daunting rear admirals on the playground.
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