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.

What about Bob

Robert Redford has a movie coming out the end of the month. It's called The Old Man & The Gun. From the trailer, you can see Redford doing what he's always done: charming us with his talent, humor, intelligence and the twinkle that still shines in those knowing eyes.

The sad part is Redford, now a hard-to-believe 82-years old, has said he's retiring from acting after this film. Which got me to thinking that we're coming up fast on the end of an era.

Redford is one of the last of a golden generation of actors. Each time out, he gave us something different, but always intelligent whether he was in front of the camera or behind it. He never pandered to the audience, and you never got the feeling he was phoning it in for the payday. And while like all actors, some films were better than others, his instincts for quality material rarely failed him.

From Three Days of the Condor to All The President's Men to The Natural to The Way We Were to Ordinary People to Quiz Show to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and even to fluff like Indecent Proposal, we believed he was who he said he was.

Redford brought his best game every time out. And we showed up to see it.

I was talking to the wife years ago about Indecent Proposal. I said it was about someone who got to sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars. She said, "Great. Who do I have to pay?"

I realize each generation has its own stars, but really, will we feel the same way when Bruce Willis retires from cranking out the same movie over and over again? I'm guessing we won't.

As Roy Hobbes in The Natural, Redford said, "I've got to reach for the best that's in me." Somehow he always found it.

Thank you for sharing it with us.