When the NHL announced their idea for an international competition, I thought two things: first, this is just for money; and second, this is to try and placate the players and fans when NHL players no longer are allowed to play in the Olympics.
The World Cup of Hockey is like the Conference Championship games in college football – unnecessary and contrary to the regular season. All international competitions have suffered, even the Olympics since the end of the Cold War; the best players in many sports are playing for all to see. They aren’t rumors like the old Russians and East Germans were. And while the Canadians and some of the Europeans have taken this seriously, the Americans don’t really care, as evidenced by their 0-3 record and early exit from the tournament (more on that in a moment).
It probably means the most to the Canadians, to whom hockey is sacrosanct; they have taken one of the best coaches (Toronto’s Mike Babcock) and surrounded him with the most star studded team imaginable. Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Corey Price, the superstar keep coming. The US had a good team, but not like Canada, and for the country, this is their version of national pride. To many of us, let’s get the NHL season started already. Plus, the additional games, again like the Olympics makes one worry about the possibility of injury, which makes participation more risky.
As to the Americans, we should have expected a poor showing and quick exit. While the ultimate responsibility for losing rests with the players, USA Hockey chose Columbus Blue Jackets Head Coach John Tortorella to head the national team. Even though he coached a Stanley Cup champion in Tampa Bay in 2003-2004, he has worn out his welcome in Tampa Bay, the Rangers and Canucks. He is best known as a blow hard whose yelling works for one season, and then the team, especially the veterans tune him out and stop playing for him. Worse, he has the tendency to throw players under the bus to the media, preferring to coach players through the press instead of talking to them like men.
Tortorella started out by reacting to the Colin Kaepernick national anthem protest by announcing that if any player did that during the tournament, he would bench them for the rest of the game. Of course, the likelihood was always much reduced since there are many fewer African-Americans playing hockey than in football. But leave it to Tortorella to make a controversy where there hadn’t been in the first place.
However, there was one comment that was out of line. Phil Kessel, an American left behind because he has the reputation of being an elite scorer who is lazy and unmotivated in the rest of the game, he Tweeted a snide comment once the US had been eliminated from the tournament “Just sitting around the house with my dog. Felt like I should be doing something important but can’t put my finger on it.” Kessel has been considered the most overrated player in the NHL, but got some vindication by being on the Pittsburgh Stanley Cup champions (it should be noted that when he was traded by Toronto, many hockey pundits predicted that he would be a scoring machine on the first or second lines centered by Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, but Kessel had 26 goals and 33 assists, his lowest point total since 2007-2008 (not counting the lockout shortened 2012-2013 campaign.) He ended up on the third line because he couldn’t keep up with Crosby and Malkin. So now, the little bastard is chirping because he got his name on the Cup. A lot of the US guys say they’ll remember Kessel’s tasteless Tweet. I’m certainly not for retaliation, but this shows what kind of person Kessel is. Doesn’t surprise me one bit.
As I write this, the Americans are at home, and it looks like Canada is steamrolling to victory in this sham of a tournament. The only other issue of note is that the games have been carried on ESPN, which hasn’t broadcast hockey in over a decade. When the “Worldwide Leader” had hockey, the game was treated like a poor dumb stepchild – games were usually late at night, there were only a couple of games per week, overshadowed by all of the other sports ESPN covers. Some have posed that this might mark a return of hockey to ESPN, but honestly, NBC/NBC Sports Network have done a pretty good job of covering hockey. Now if they could only get rid of Mike Milbury and Pierre McGwire, it would be even better.
As I wrote above, let’s get this tournament over with without any serious injuries, and let’s get to the NHL season.

For 16 of the past 18 years, I have ventured north of the border to attend the Toronto International Film Festival. It is a mix of big budget films and international superstars shoulder to shoulder with small independent releases and documentaries looking for distribution. However, this is a movie party where the public is not only invited, but generally welcomed (of course, the more money you spend gives you more access). While seeing fewer films than in the past: 13 compared with an average of 15, I think I still held up my end fairly well.

Friday, September 9, 2016

As in years past, I go up for the first weekend (TIFF begins annually on the Thursday after Labor Day and running until the second Sunday) staying into the middle of the week. I used to have an aggressive schedule on Friday, but more recently, I’ve taken Friday off to see friends, but this year, I arrived so early in the morning that I decided to get one midday film in. I could have seen the big budget remake of The Magnificent Seven, but director Antoine Fuqua, while a good technical director, is pure Hollywood (which explains the mediocre reviews the film is getting). So I decided to see Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary. Directed by John Scheinfeld (“The U.S. vs. John Lennon”), the film pulled together performance footage and as much home and family footage as could be found to discuss the life of the famed jazz saxophone player. It is interesting that the few radio interviews remaining of Coltrane were unusable, even using modern technological innovations, so the filmmaker got Denzel Washington to read from the print interviews he had given during his life.
As a former president of the jazz appreciation club at Northwestern, I was familiar with Coltrane’s work, especially the seminal work with Miles Davis and the first recordings as a leader. He lost me as his music got less melodic (I called it “squinking and sqonking sh%t”), and I never “got” the spirituality of the man and his music. Carlos Santana in particular is always quoted talking about the mysticism of the man, but I never understood it.
So, I decided to watch the film, which was a very good primer for people unfamiliar with the man and his music, but with many gems to the hard core fans. Again, I did not know what he was facing and while I knew he died young, I never followed his later years, as in that, I was fully enthralled and the film is a very entertaining bio-pic. However, I still find myself bewildered by the weirder late period and the “transcendence” of the music, but that’s just my opinion.
And I saw the biggest celebrity of the whole trip: coming out of the film, there was a documentary about climate change with Leonardo DiCaprio and Leo showed up. There was a lot of screaming. I took a couple of pictures and left.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Someone asked me why I was seeing Snowden at TIFF since it being widely released this same week, and the answer is simply that I’m fairly certain that director Oliver Stone wasn’t at any of the showings to introduce the film like he was at the screening at Toronto’s symphony hall, the Roy Thompson Hall.
I have seen the fine documentary “Citizenfour” but this was a straightforward dramatization of Snowden’s life going back to 2004, his work with the CIA and NSA with fine small performances by Nicholas Cage and Zachary Quinto. Unlike the documentary and as one would expect from a bigger budget Hollywood feature, much more time is devoted to the relationship between Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, an actor who has never done much for me, but is fine here) and his girlfriend played by Shallene Woodley.
Some reviews are disappointed by the restrained approach Stone gives the material, but while Stone’s opinion on whether Snowden is a hero or traitor is never in doubt, the verbal and visual pyrotechnics Stone has often used in the past would have overwhelmed the personal story he was telling. Also, Stone could use a hit, and this story gives Stone his first chance at a real crowd pleaser in years. Sometime, the business is as important as the show. Well done, especially if you don’t know the story well.
If these’s one thing that Canadians love, its hockey. In years past, I seen fine hockey films like the comedy “Goon” and the documentary “The Last Gladiators.’ Unfortunately, Hello Destroyer does not succeed like its predecessors.
Directed by Kevan Funk, the story follows minor league player Tyson Burr (played by Jared Abrahamson) and when I say follows, I mean FOLLOWS – every scene futures extreme close ups of the young man, beating the viewer over the head with the concept that this is his internal story. What the movie does well is in showing Burr making a hit on another player that leads to a severe injury. There was no intended malice even though the film starts out with the character in a hockey fight, and like real life, the hit just happens in a split second. The kid is suspended immediately, is kicked out of the house he was staying in because of the incident and eventually, he returns to his home, a small town in Canada somewhere. He is verbally abused by his father, gets a job in a slaughterhouse and tearing down his late grandparents’ dilapidated house. All the time, he is shunned by his ex-coach and team.
As I said above, this film tries to put you into the young man’s head, and to a certain extent, it works. Other people are like ghosts in his realm, and other than a brief friendship with a Indian coworker and a fair amount of drinking, there is nothing positive in this kid’s life. (It was strange that other then mothers, there were no other women in this story. Not that a romantic interest was needed, but a young man in his 20s would be chasing women somehow.)
The problem is that, like many young men, hockey players in particular, young Burr has little to say and other than a couple of breakdowns, he really isn’t all that interesting. I admit to not being a fan of internal mental breakdown stories (“Black Swan’” the film that did similar for the ballet world and earned Natalie Portman her Best Actress Oscar was a true bore to me.) The downbeat ending was obvious and when it came, I was as happy for me as I was sad for the young man.
One of the great Midnight movies of the past several years was director Chan-wook Park’s “Oldboy” a film of hyperkinetic energy, ultra-violence, and a twisted morality played up in the finish. It was so popular, it spurred an American remake helmed by Spike Lee starring Josh Brolin. His latest film had some buzz before getting to TIFF, and my familiarity with the director’s work made The Handmaiden a must see for me.
Set in the 1930s when Japan ruled Korea, a woman is hired to be the handmaiden to a Japanese woman whose uncle wants to marry her for her money. However, a young Korean con-man who is posing as Japanese plans on marrying the woman and then having her committed to an insane asylum and stealing away with the money. To pull off his plan, he gets a thief and pickpocket to take the handmaiden job, to help get the marriage to occur.
There are lots of plots and double-crosses, as one would expect from the man who directed Oldboy. However, instead of violence, sex was the weapon of choice for these characters. The film was beautifully filmed and held my attention throughout despite playing late in the evening.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

There has been lots of press about the film Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s film about the 1831 Nat Turner slave rebellion. It has gotten large positive buzz which has been stopped somewhat because of a rape arrest that Parker had in 1999 while a student at Penn State. The Fox News types pulled that out because of the subject matter of the film, and at TIFF on the previous Friday night, there were two showings of the film, one hour apart and apparently, the Toronto press tried to ask him questions about the incident in which Parker was aquitted, and Parker reportedly dodged the questions.
Obviously, rape is a nasty business and a nasty charge. Many people cannot even watch the films of Roman Polanski because of the rape conviction of an underage minor in the 1970s. Parker and his roommate, Jean McGianni Celestin (who has a co-writing credit on the film) were arrested and tried for raping a female. The woman says that she was intoxicated and unconscious when she was raped by the two men. Parker was found not guilty on all counts, but Celestin was convicted of sexual assault and received a six months-to-one year sentence. Celestin’s conviction was overturned in 2005 and he was granted a new trial. The accuser, who is white, was willing to testify at the new trial but the prosecutors declined because other witnesses had scattered all over the world. What actually happened is subject to question, but should someone who has been accused or charged of the heinous crime of rape never be able to do anything for the rest of his life? Unlike Polanski, he was aquitted – what should the film fan do?
While the situation is a moral quagmire, the film was very good and very well made. It looked very good. (Small point – Armie Hammer played the slave owner, but with the long beard, it was damn near impossible to tell him from Michael Fassbender, who played the evil slave master in 12 Years A Slave. While not as evil as Fassbender’s character, I kept wondering if it was Fassbender again.)
This was my 17th TIFF and back when I started going, the Indignant Wife and I were younger, we had no kids, and so we would go to the occasional Midnight Madness movie – a series annually at TIFF of violent dramas, comedies and horror movies. Now, I’m too old to go to a midnight movie, I do occasionally see one of the films when it plays at a more reasonable time. Such was the case with The Belko Experiment.
Reminding me a little of a movie I saw last year, High-Rise with Tom Hiddleston, this was an American film with B-list stars like Tony Goldwyn, Michael Rooker and John C. McGinley with a script by Guardians of the Galaxy writer and director James Gunn. Eighty Americans are locked in a high-rise corporate office in Bogota, Columbia and ordered by an unknown voice to start killing each other or the force would start killing people through an implant in everyone’s skulls.
Lots of killing follows as director Greg McLean and Gunn have obviously seen Japan’s Battle Royale and the Hunger Games films. It was kind of fun, but it seemed obvious who was going to win, and then it was set up for a sequel. Not bad but after awhile the carnage got to be repetitive.
Sometimes, a movie in the TIFF book or on the website just grabs you and you don’t know why. A Russian film, The Duelist did that for me. Filmed in IMAX, the film is set in Russia in the 1800s when there were still noblemen and aristocratic families and the way these men would settle differences was by duel. These noblemen being rich for the most part, could have someone take their place in the duel. Enter Yakoviev (Pyotr Fyodorov) who makes a great deal of money winning duels.
Is Yakoviev a nobleman? Why is he taking all of these duel assignments? Who are they coming from? Is Yakoviev even Yakoviev? This was an engaging, action-packed film that kept you guessing as to what was happening. The CGI used to recreate 19th Century St. Petersburg was flawless.
This was an excellent film.

Monday, September 12, 2016

I was supposed to see four films on this day, but I was tired and turned back two tickets. Still, the films I saw were very good and turned this into BBC day – two British films both in part produced by the Beeb.
Every year, it seems that I see a film about Nazis. Blind Spot (about Hitler’s personal secretary), Downfall, which was about the last three weeks in the bunker, and The Ninth Day about a priest released from a concentration camp to try and convince the local Catholic archdiocese to go along with the Nazis are three great films I’ve seen at TIFF over the years. Over the past two years, it has been films about the trials held in Germany in the 1960s to bring lower level former Nazis to justice that I’ve seen.
Denial is a different take on the subject. It is about an American professor and writer who is sued by a British Holocaust denier for libel. In a U.S. court, the denier, played by the always excellent Timothy Spall would have to prove he was libeled. In the U.K. the defendant must prove that it wasn’t libel. Rachel Weisz gave a very straightforward performance of the professor who is is being defended but not in a way she would like. Spall is typically excellent.
The rest of the cast was equally strong. Tom Wilkenson, a splendid character actor in both British and American movies, plays the barrister and as always was excellent. Two members of the BBC show Sherlock show up, but once they have been identified, it is easy to suspend disbelief for the story. Andrew Scott (Moriarty) plays the solicitor chosen for having defended Princess Diana in her divorce (in England, the solicitor does the leg work on the case and the barrister tries the case in court); he was fine. Mick Gatiss (cowriter on Sherlock and also Mycroft Holmes) played a Jewish Aushwitz historian and expert witness.
Director Mick Jackson (The Bodyguard, Volcano, L.A. Story, Temple Grandin) is an old pro, and he put the story on the screen with few frills and histrionics. This is a film that Hollywood and London do well – a straightforward tale of good and evil that can be a worthy Oscar contender. This probably isn’t that good (see Spotlight that I saw here last year); but very worth seeing.
I admit to having a crush on British actress Gemma Arterton. I first saw her in a comedy Tamara Drewe in 2010 and again at TIFF in Neil Jordan’s vampire film Byzantium. She is stunning and a decent actress (even being good in the not-very-good Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters film).
In Their Finest, she plays a woman looking for a job in London during the Blitz. Thinking she is applying for a secretarial job, she ends up as a scriptwriter for a film being made by the British government to try and lift spirits of the people (and perhaps get the U.S. into World War II).
This film is another love letter to filmmaking, with the great Bill Nighy playing an over-the-hill, once famous actor looking for a gig to match his ego.
This was also a very feminist movie – directed by Lone Scherfig (“An Education”) shows women having to perform many duties during the war with the men fighting. One of the characters is clearly a lesbian, but she is a fully drawn character, and the equal of the other players in the movie and in the making the movie-within-a-movie.
Eventually, Ms. Arterton’s character leaves her lover, falls in love with the other main screenwriter, but this is a film where, like life, indiscriminate things happen and while there is a general happy ending, it is only after arbitrary tragedies.
I was expecting a complete comedy and there are serious laughs in the picture, but there are certainly some tears that were allowed to come naturally.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

One of the most arresting films I’ve seen over the years was Nobody Knows, a film about kids left on their own in an apartment when the mother left them to try and survive alone. Being Japanese, this was especially interesting since one never thinks of this occurring in an Asian household. It played TIFF in 2004 but I was unable to attend – I saw it later. Three years ago, I saw another film by director Hirokazu Koreeda called “Like Father, Like Son,” another family melodrama about what would happen if two boys, born at the same time in the same hospital were switched accidentally. One family was a well-to-do but very driven household with the father expecting great things from his son.
The other son went to a poor family but were more boisterous and outwardly happy. Once the mistake was found, they tried to switch the boys back. It was a very good film about fathers, sons, expectations among them.
So, I looked forward to seeing Mr. Koreeda’s latest film, “After The Storm.” In this film, a man who once won critical acclaim for writing a novel is supposedly working as a privite detective on family cases, but most of the time, he is a gambler, and not a very good one. He has an ex-wife and son; is badly behind on child support; and seems to always be one step from either redemption or falling back into the abyss again.
The story, which was filmed in a housing project when the director once lived, centers around the man, his mother who lives in the building, his sister who has a couple of children and spends more time with the mother. This is another slice-of-life picture where there are no explosions, no deaths, just day-to-day life.
I was going to skip another film, but fortunately, laziness was set aside as I attended Bleed For This, the story of boxer Vinny Pazienza. I was still an avid boxing fan when Pazienza fought and I remembered him being in a car accident, suffering a broken bone in his neck, but coming back to fight again. Ben Younger, who had stepped away from Hollywood after directing the excellent Boiler Room, was the director who saw something in the story that he wanted to bring out.
Miles Teller, the young drummer from Whiplash, played Pazienza and was utterly convincing in the role. The rest of the cast, playing real people, was mostly actors we have seen before in other roles, but were still good. Aaron Eckhart played Kevni Rooney, Pazienza’s trainer who had fallen out of favor after training then having issues with Mike Tyson. The great Ciaran Hines played Angelo Pazienza and was solid as usual. Katey Sagal (Married With Children) was utterly convincing as Pazienza’s very religious mother who spent fights in a small closet surrounded by religious icons. And Ted Levine (Silence of the Lambs) was unrecognizable as fight promoter Lou Duva.
The film was in no doubt aided by having Martin Scorsese as an Executive Producer, but this was no Raging Bull. It was filmed in a mere 24 days, in Pazienza’s home town of Providence, RI. The ending fight against Roberto Duran was common fight sequencing, but it remained interesting. As a character study, it was good.
One of the films I looked most forward to was Birth of the Dragon. In 1964, there was a legendary fight between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man, kung-fu master in San Francisco. Kung-fu masters didn’t like Lee teaching martial arts to non-Asians and Wong Jack Man looked to disappear after showing ego and hurting someone in a fight back in China.
This film, one of the first Hollywood kung-fu movies in a very long time, looks great and the performances by the Asian actors were fine. Phillip Ng played Bruce Lee and it was a bold statement by the filmmakers to make him a brash, braggart. So often Lee is portrayed as a saint, but not here – he is not all that likable. (What is also interesting is whether the project had the support of the Lee family – I question I posed in the Q&A but not answered. In the film, Lee mentions his wife Linda as being Caucasian, but her character never appears in the film. As one who knows quite a lot about Lee, it was jarring since she not only studies with her husband, she was reportedly a constant presence in the do-jo.) Yu Xia played Wong Jack Man and he brought a dignity and sadness to his part. The fight sequences were excellent and the story left the outcome of the fight mysterious.
Unfortunately, this film suffers from what I like to call the “Candace Bergen in Gandhi syndrome.” Why does a film about non-whites have to have a white character not only as witness, but as major force in the plot. Very blond, very white Billy Magnussen plays fictitious character Steve McKee (trying to play off Steve McQueen?). Magnussen’s character is a student of first Lee, then Man, falls in love with a Chinese girl and helps set up the fight in order to free her. It was ludicrous to the point of insanity. It was #Oscarssowhite all over again.
The film is worth seeing but with a huge reservation.
Over the years, I have seen a number of Asian cop movies, most of them ending in extreme violence, going all the way back to the John Woo/Chow Yun Fat classics The Killer and Hard Boiled. The introduction I read in the festival materials for director Sung-su Kim’s Asura: City of Madness looked very interesting and reminded me of an Asian Miller’s Crossing. Kim directed Musa: The Warrior.
A corrupt cop (Jung Woo-sung), who has done a lot of dirty work for the city of Annam’s mayor to help pay for the hospitalization of his terminally ill wife. He gets pressured by a ruthless prosecutor to cooperate in an investigation of the mayor. The cop gets his partner to start doing some of the work for the mayor as the sop tries to find a way to survive playing both sides. The mayor, played by Hwang Jung-min, is one of the most manipulative over-the-top villains I’ve seen in a long time.
It’s hard to keep the story straight especially in following the cop – is he working for the mayor? The prosecutor? Himself? As expected, the film ends with a blood bath of epic proportions. A decent movie, but it felt like I had seen this film before.

As, that’s my take on TIFF 2016. As always, here is my summary of films I saw this year. In general, there was only one I really didn’t like:

13. Hello Destroyer
12. The Belko Experiment
11. Asura: City of Madness
10. Birth of the Dragon
9. Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary
8. After The Storm
7. Bleed For This
6. Denial
5. Their Finest
4. The Handmaiden
3. Snowden
2. The Duelist
1. Birth of a Nation

That’s it for another Festival. I can’t wait for 2017!

For whatever reason, sports has long been perceived as being very patriotic. The National Anthem is played before most games, many franchises do good work for veteran’s charities. As we found out awhile ago, the Defense Department was paying teams to have veterans at games and to promote militarism, showing that sports owners have more respect for money than the country.
The phony patriots, Tea Partiers and Republicans, who are always the first ones to proclaim themselves uber-patriots are constantly on the lookout for instances when someone doesn’t give their complete attention with hands over hearts for the National Anthem. U.S. gymnast Gabby Douglas was criticized to tears when, after helping win the team gymnastics Gold medal at the recent Rio Olympics, was the only member of the team who didn’t have her hand over her heart. The racists and super-patriots came down in all their indignation to Ms. Douglas.
The Fox News crowd always needs something to be upset about and someone to hate, and so, over the weekend, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick gave them a new target. At last weekend’s 49ers-Green Bay Packers exhibition game, Kaepernick refused to stand for the National Anthem. Kaepernick refused to stand because he believes the U.S. oppresses African-Americans and other racial minorities. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told the NFL Network. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”
Already, I’ve started to see my less tolerant acquaintances on Facebook calling him names that I will not repeat here. My question is: isn’t the “American Way” supposed to include people with lots of different viewpoints? Does no one ever wonder why Right to bear arms is the second amendment, not the first, which of course is freedom of speech? That is the fundamental flaw in this group of people – “I am a super patriot, and if you aren’t completely on board – no complaints about the government allowed (unless I do it, of course) and you must be completely in lock step with my beliefs.” Of course, this means a continuation of the status quo, with white males at the top of the pecking order – no minorities or women allowed.
I have admitted that I am conflicted when the National Anthem is played at sporting events and in other places. (I never sing the National Anthem, but I do sing the Canadian National Anthem at hockey games. I tell people it’s because the Canadian anthem is better than the U.S. anthem, which is a shorthanded, non confrontational way of not singing. I do stand up and take off my hat however; and no hand over the heart.)
Considering how my ancestors were treated and how people of color are being treated in this country every day, I have ambivalent feelings towards America. I have been able to do pretty well in this country – nice job, good family, nice place to live. Still, I could be gunned down at any moment by an over zealous police officer or killed by a vigilante because I wore a hoodie. I have been stopped for driving while black.
So, while I think there might be different ways to protest that Kaepernick is doing, I comment the young man. He says that he plans on continuing his silent protest, and I’m sure that Commissioner Roger Goodell will chime in on the subject: fines, suspensions could occur because there’s nothing that the NFL protects more than its clean, All-American image. In fact there has been no more condescending official towards African-American players than Goodell, who thinks he’s the Great White Father or something, having to keep the “darkies” under control.
What’s more American than that?

In the old days, stadiums were permanent. Once they were built, they were used for years. Also, just as solid was the name. Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Soldier Field – no matter the year or event, that was the name and everyone knew what the name was.
Then came the 1990s and another source of revenue was to sell naming rights to the stadium. Corporations who couldn’t really buy a sports team, clamored for the ability to advertise at stadiums. Yes, there is signage in most stadiums, but the corporation can say they are bigger boosters of the team by naming the stadium after the company. Locally in Chicago, the first two stadiums to sell rights were the “new” Chicago Stadium, which the Wirtz family sold the naming rights to United Airlines which is still the name today. Second was the new Comiskey Park. It wasn’t known as Comiskey Park for long (although many old-timers I know still call it Comiskey Park; in 2003, the White Sox struck a naming-rights deal with U.S. Cellular for $68 million over 20 years. The park’s name was changed to U.S. Cellular Field, much to the displeasure of fans and the family of founding team owner Charles A. Comiskey. I never complained much about the naming rights because most of the $68 million went into necessary improvements to the park. Once again, the State of Illinois and the White Sox were unlucky; they built the last park before Baltimore’s Camden Yards, which set the standard for stadiums for years, having an old-fashioned look and quirky field dimensions. Instead, they used the blueprints of the former popular stadiums, which were Three Rivers and other round stadiums of the 1970s. The Cell was a big, dull stadium with a very steep upper deck. The U.S. Cellular money helped improve the stadium instead of all going into White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s pockets.
The name because a bit of an albatross locally when Sprint bought U.S. Cellular’s service in Chicago in 2013, making the stadium name of diminished marketing value. Reportedly, the team approached U.S. Cellular to end the deal early and find a new stadium sponsor, according to Brooks Boyer, White Sox senior vice president of sales and marketing.
So, the team announced yesterday that the team had reached a 13-year agreement to rename the stadium Guaranteed Rate Field beginning November 1. Guaranteed Rate is one of the largest home lenders in the U.S. even though, I think, many people had never heard of it (I certainly never have before). The amount of money the name will cost was not disclosed.
All over town, fans have scoffed at the name. Rick Morrissey in the Sun-Times said that “there couldn’t be a worse name for a stadium.” The Bears and Cubs have mocked the name on social media. “Guaranteed Seats,” said one. “Guaranteed Losses” was the first thing I thought of. News of the name change triggered immediate bemusement on social media with the hashtag #BetterSoxStadiumNames trending in Chicago. Fans won’t care if the team wins, but with the club stuck in mediocrity, this gives fans something to talk about since there’s nothing to say about the product on the field.
Once again, the latest American League baseball park is the subject of consternation and jokes. But the White Sox and the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority (ISFA), don’t care. They are laughing to the bank.

It’s easy to just get down on athletes when they do something wrong: PEDs, drugs, spousal abuse, and I’m not here to absolve these people from their actions, but there are some whose downfall is just sad, in great part because they were cast in a role their parents wanted, not themselves.
We hear all of the time of the tennis parents: Jennifer Capriati’s folks, Michael Chang’s parents, Mary Pierce’s and Steffi Graf’s fathers. The parents are the poster cases for how not to raise your children. We have also NHL defenseman Jack Jackson’s parents who bankrupted their highly paid son. Still, I don’t know if anyone had parents worse than Todd Marinovich.
Marinovich’s dad started him working as a quarterback as a little kid, drilling him on throwing the football, footwork, reading defenses, the like. He even got into USC, which was a powerhouse program at the time. Everything else, including anything that Marinovich might have wanted to do, was secondary to Daddy and his drive and his desire to live vicariously through his son.
Marinovich was drafted in the first round by the local L.A. Raiders and was even the starter early in his career, but drug problems derailed his NFL career. He also played in the Canadian Football League and the Arena League. He never panned out, in great part due to his drug habit. And this week, Marinovich was arrested for possession of meth in Irvine, CA. An Irvine PD spokesperson tld TMZ.coms they got a call about a naked man on the Venta Spur walking trail on Friday night; officers eventually found Marinovich in a nearby backyard. Marinovich was still naked when cops arrived, and was reportedly cooperative. Cops searched the area and found a brown bag containing meth, weed and Todd’s I.D. He was arrested and cited for possession of a controlled substance, trespassing, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana. Marinovich has since been released.
I’m not even going to discuss the idiocy of arresting people who want to get high (the “War on Drugs” has been an abject failure other than arresting people of color in high numbers). People are going to get high regardless – make it legal and tax it. In other words make drug use a public health issue instead of a criminal issue.
Anyway, knowing what kind of childhood and adolescence Marinovich had, I can’t help to feel for him somewhat. One internet article says that Marinovich is the road map for current quarterback prodigy Johnny Manziel. Perhaps, the writer is correct, and we will one day look back on Manziel like we do Marinovich or Ryan Leaf, currently doing time in prison.
Again, I cannot and will not put all of the blame for Marinovich’s transgressions (or Leaf’s or Manziel’s) on their parents, or coaches, or even friends and teammates. It rests with them, and they are paying high prices for it. It doesn’t make it less sad.