Hey sport

In case you didn’t know, I’m not a sports guy. Never have been. I know what you’re thinking: “But Jeff, you have such a ripped, awesome physique I would’ve thought you’d been playing sports all your life.”

First of all, thank you for noticing. And second, no.

But for some reason, once a year, during the World Series, I become an armchair fan. Especially when it’s the Dodgers v. Yankees.

Suddenly, I’m an expert on when and when not to take a swing. Miraculously I can call the pitches better than the umpires. I’m even starting to be fluent in the players’ names.

Then again, “Mookie” is kind of hard to forget.

I don’t go as far as wearing the team jersey, but I do yell at the tv from the comfort of my reading chair.

The cruel tease of my career (laughing for using the word “career”) is that at every agency I ever worked at without exception, I was always the copywriter who got assigned the sports tie-ins for clients. It's safe to say the most research I ever did for anything was going to the glossary for whatever sport I was writing about so I could speak in the language of the realm.

I do however love movies about baseball. Major League, A League of Their Own, The Natural, Moneyball, Bull Durham, The Rookie and, of course, Field Of Dreams.

For seven games a year, if the series goes that long, I’m all in.

When it comes to this post, it's the bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded. So instead of some snappy line or bad joke about covering the bases, I’ll leave you with my favorite speech ever about the sport, courtesy of the late, great James Earl Jones.

Now if I could just get the wife to bring me a Dodger dog.

The luckiest actor alive Part 2: Channing Tatum

Astonishing charisma. Gritty realism. Award-winning performances. Channing Tatum has none of these.

What he did have is what every other good looking kid from Alabama who spent weekends at the local movie house had: a Greyhound bus ticket and a dream.

Unfortunately his dream is every movie lover's nightmare.

Performance after endlessly dull performance, Tatum walks through movies, smiling and posing then calling it "acting." It's a bad imitation of the male stars he used to see in that dingy Alabama theater. It's also the way he thinks the character would act, if the character were a bored and boring individual getting by on his good looks alone. It's what I like to call "model acting." He knows how to walk around and look good. Worse, he thinks that's enough, just like it was when he modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch.

Every one has to start somewhere. But Ricky Martin's She Bangs video? Some people will do anything for $400.

You have to wonder who he has pictures of, or who he took pictures with. It's hard to figure out how the Hollywood fame lottery works. There are a million guys who look good and actually can act, but maybe they don't play the game as well as Tatum does.

It is amazing how many different types can be lucky in Hollywood. My last luckiest actor post was about Jonah Hill, who'll certainly never be mistaken for Channing Tatum. But at least, as he proved in Moneyball, has some acting talent besides being the funny fat guy.

He can also be the serious fat guy.

Tatum is quoted as saying, "I've been able to explore life, and through exploring it I've found that I love art, I love writing, I love acting, I love all the things that make sense to me."

I just wish it made sense to the rest of us.