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shkspr · 6 years ago

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The Gospel according to David and Michael

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Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s darkly comic novel about the battle between good and evil, comes to Amazon Prime this spring. To mark the occasion, the British stars of this hugely anticipated show — Michael Sheen and David Tennant — take New York in style. HAYLEY CAMPBELL meets them.

It’s Sunday morning in New York City and it’s snowing outside the warm, jazz-filled Beekman hotel, where a 50th-birthday balloon has been trapped for months at the apex of the glass atrium at the top of one of the city’s first skyscrapers. One thousand New Year’s Eve balloons have risen and fallen in the time this one silver balloon has taken to not die. If the apocalypse were to arrive tomorrow, this balloon would survive along with the cockroaches, the deep-sea fish, and the angel and the demon who tried to avert the disaster. If the prophecies of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s cult novel Good Omens prove to be correct, this balloon would bob high above their heads as it is doing now — above Michael Sheen and David Tennant, light and dark, good and evil, an angel and a demon sitting either side of me in lower Manhattan, eating eggs.

I last saw these two together in 2017, in the middle of London’s Battersea Park, shooting some early scenes of their hugely anticipated television show. Good Omens is about the birth of Satan, the coming of the End Times, and an angel (Aziraphale — who has been living on Earth since the dawn of creation and is currently working in a bookshop avoiding selling books because he really just likes to collect them) and a demon (Crowley — who used to be known as Crawly, the snake who tempted Eve with the apple). The pair have spent so much time on earth that they’ve come to quite like it, and don’t much fancy the idea of it all ending. The novel was published in 1990 and has gone on to become so loved that it is rare to see a pristine copy in the world: copies of Good Omens almost always come pre-dunked in tea. Shortly before his death from Alzheimer’s in early 2015, Pratchett wrote an email to his collaborator Gaiman asking him to take it to the screen, to do it properly. “I’m making it for Terry,” says Gaiman. “I wanted to make the thing that Terry would have liked.”

Sheen and Tennant star as the angelic and demonic representatives of their respective head offices, Heaven and Hell, along with a knee-weakening list of stars including Jon Hamm as the archangel Gabriel, Spinal Tap’s Michael McKean as the last of a once proud witchfinder army, and Frances McDormand as the voice of God. There’s Miranda Richardson, Jack Whitehall, three quarters of the League of Gentlemen, and Nick Offerman as the father of the Antichrist (sort of). The cast list reads like someone collecting acting talent to put on an ark ready for a biblical flood.

For months, we have tried to get them together again to talk about the end of the world. But life and work had them circling the globe separately, unmatchable as opposing magnets. Sheen is currently in New York filming The Good Fight, in which he plays a Machiavellian lawyer, and Tennant has flown in on the red-eye from Phoenix, Arizona, where he was appearing at the Ace Comic Con, mobbed by Doctor Who fans. Both of them have, since they last saw each other, grown beards. Tennant is ecstatic about the beards, and both are thrilled to see each other, and New York, again.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in New York over the years now,” says Sheen. “But still there’s times where you look at something and you think it just looks so incredibly beautiful, or strange, or filmic. It never loses that sense of unreality. I love being able to take it in by walking through the streets. Los Angeles feels like everything happens indoors, whereas here in New York, everything happens outdoors.”

“I do like New York,” adds Tennant. “I love a big city, and I love a busy city.”

Tennant and Sheen have bumped into each other before, both appearing in Stephen Fry’s 2003 film Bright Young Things, but they were never in the same scene. Sheen voice a character in an episode of Doctor Who written by Gaiman, but by then Tennant’s Doctor had regenerated. They tend to go for similar roles so there’s rarely a chance for them to both be cast — it’s usually one or the other. Gaiman, the author and showrunner of Good Omens, selected Sheen for the role. “I’ve known Michael for about a decade and one of the things that always impressed me about him was his goodness,” he says. “He’s just very good. He radiates goodness and lovability. I was always fascinated by the fact that he tends to play characters who, at least on the outside, are sort of brittle and perhaps a little damaged or dangerous.”

Selecting an actor to play the BMW driving, skinny-jeans-wearing demon was an equally tricky task. “For David, I was writing episode three and there is a scene set in a church. I had to bring Crowley on and suddenly I knew exactly how I needed that scene to be done in order to work: with him coming down the aisle hopping from foot to foot, going ‘ow ow ow ow ow!’ like he’s at the beach in bare feet. Only David Tennant could do that right. People seemed baffled when it was announced that they were cast because they’re a similar kind of actor, but the similarities between them felt so incredibly right when you’re building this kind of thing.”

Tennant and Sheen joke that when the theatre production of Good Omens (hold your horses, there isn’t one) travels the world, they will swap roles every night, even though Sheen says he couldn’t imagine it the other way around: “Ultimately I don’t think I can pull off cool,” he says, as Tennant scoffs in disbelief. “I think it just suits my natural being, that I’m kind of a worrier, and a little bit too anal for my own good. Things annoy me if they’re not quite right. And yet I like to think of myself as being a good person. So all of that hypocrisy and finickiness seems to lend itself to the natural rhythm of Aziraphale.”

“I love that you describe Crowley as cool,” laughs Tennant. “I think he thinks he’s cool, but isn’t.”

Tennant is adamant that having Gaiman as a showrunner is the pin that is holding this strange world together, one that is “tonally sort of nebulous”, but definitely very funny, and one that would benefit from a bingewatch to take it in all at once (all six episodes will be available on Amazon at once and later the BBC will broadcast them week-by-week). “I think if anyone else was running this they would’ve normalised it, would’ve made it saner, and would’ve ironed out some of the quirks of it,” he says. “Neil’s been fantastically clever at making it televisual where he had to, but it still has the madness, the impracticality of the book.”

Plus, there’s the fact that Gaiman is 50 per cent of the book. Because of that, his casting choices landed a little more softly in the world of Good Omens fandom. But Sheen and Tennant aren’t too worried about being unwelcome: they have in their short time as Aziraphale and Crowley discovered that Good Omens fans may be devoted to the point of madness (the cosplay and pornographic fan fiction has already begun), but they are certainly kind. “I have found that Neil’s work is almost like the Arthurian sword in the stone,” says Sheen. “You can only pull the sword out if you are pure of heart. And I think you only like Neil’s stuff if there’s something about you that means you won’t be mean to people on the whole.”

“I think that’s true of Doctor Who fans as well,” says Tennant. “If your mind is set in that way, then you have a generosity of spirit. And there’s quite an overlap between the two fandoms.”

They seem almost wistful until I bring up the airfield. Days after filming during a cold snap in Battersea Park, where we huddled like penguins around glowing heaters in tents, production moved to an airfield outside London where they had built a fake Soho to house Aziraphale’s bookshop. It was the place that changed everyone’s idea of what ‘cold’ actually meant, but it also became the ultimate green room of all time. Both of them look wide-eyed at the mention of the place, for both reasons.

“That blasted airfield! It was blasted in every sense of the word,” says Tennant. “But the great joy was you had all the cast together at once. Between takes we had this big trailer where they would blast the heaters and we’d go and recover.”

“We’d drink hot chocolate, tell stories, and watch TV,” beams Sheen, who says the thing he misses most about the UK is the fact that he can mention The Flumps and people actually know what that is.

“But the only TV channel that would work was some version of Turner Classic Movies,” says Tennant. “Ancient old movies on a loop. Michael McKean would just sit there telling us stories about people he knew or about some sort of terrible Hollywood lifestyle they’d once lived.”

Though it took months to get them both in the same room in the same city, it is a genuine treat to see Sheen and Tennant together. They seem to prop each other up, to fill the space where the other is not, in both acting and conversing. Neither steps on the other’s toes. Above all, they seem to have a deep respect for one another. “It genuinely made me sad when we stopped filming,” says Sheen. “I didn’t want to not be doing it any more.” Good Omens makes you wonder why nobody thought of putting them together sooner. It is the strangest buddy story so far, the one just before the end of the world, starring the most unlikely pals who for some reason quite like each other — mostly because they’ve just been posted here a bit too long by their superiors so they have more in common with each other than they do with Heaven or Hell — and, crucially, quite like us. It’s the kind of thing that makes you believe the world is worth saving.

#p.txt #good omens #david #michael #gomens #you know a bitch wrote this out as a public service #sorry if ur on mobile :// c'est longue #david tennant #michael sheen

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Best Movies Coming to Netflix in July 2021

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Movies are back. It at least feels that way when you see the numbers that films like F9 and A Quiet Place Part II are earning. But more than just the thrill of going back to theaters, July signals what is typically considered to be the height of the summer movie season. On a hot evening, there are few things better than some cold air conditioning and a colder drink of your choice while escapism plays across a screen.

That can prove just as true at home as in theaters. And as luck would have it, Netflix is pretty stuffed with new streaming content this month. Below there are space adventures, comedies, dramas, and more than a few epics worth your attention, either as a revisit or new discovery. And we’ve rounded them up for your scrolling pleasure.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

July 1

When the first Austin Powers opened in 1997, it was intended to be as much a crude love letter to the popular cinema of the 1960s as a modern day raunchy laugh-fest. Now with the benefit of another 20 years’ worth of hindsight, Mike Myers and Jay Roach’s spoof of Bondmania is itself an amusing time capsule of 1990s comedy tropes. There’s Myers’ cartoonishly larger-than-life characters—beginning with Powers but most dementedly perfected with Dr. Evil, the comedian’s riff on Ernst Stavro Blofeld—as well as the pair’s embrace of what they considered to be the defining trappings of the late ‘90s.

The film’s nostalgia for the ‘60s and its value as a piece of kitsch ‘90s nostalgia makes this Austin Powers (and to a lesser extent the second movie, The Spy Who Shagged Me) a fascinating relic, as well as a genuinely funny lowbrow symphony of sex gags, bathroom humor, and multiple digs at British stereotypes, including bad teeth. In other words, it’s a good time if you don’t take it too seriously. Just avoid the third one, which is also coming to Netflix.

The Karate Kid (1984)

July 1

1984’s The Karate Kid is the cultural apex of Reagan America’s obsession with martial arts movies and Rocky-style underdog stories. It offered ’80s kids the ultimate fantasy of learning martial arts to defeat local bullies and finding time to squeeze in a love subplot along the way. Granted, the Cobra Kai series has thrown a wrench into this film’s seemingly simple morality tale, but just try not to root for Daniel by the time you reach arguably the greatest montage in movie history.

There’s also something eternally comforting about watching Pat Morita beat-up ’80s thugs while validating parents everywhere by suggesting that you to can one day grow up to be a great warrior if you just sweep the floor, wax the car, and paint the fence.

Love Actually

July 1

Christmas in July? Sure, why not. This Yuletide classic likely needs no introduction. Writer-director Richard Curtis’ Love Actually is the ultimate romantic comedy, stuffing every cliché and setup from a holiday bag of tricks into one beautifully wrapped package. Perhaps its greatest strength though is it mixes in a touch of the bitter with its sweet, and doesn’t hide the thorns in its bouquet of roses. Plus, its use of “All I Want for Christmas” is still a banger nearly 20 years on.

Admittedly, we aren’t particularly inclined to watch this in July ourselves, but if you don’t mind the Christmas of it all, there are few better rom-coms in your queue at the moment.

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

July 1

This adaptation of the Arthur Golden novel of the same name was one of the highest profile literary adaptations of the early 2000s. It’s the story of a young girl sold to a geisha house in the legendary Gion district of Kyoto who then grows up to be the most famous geisha of 1930s imperial Japan… right before the war. The film (like its source material) had controversy in its day due to having a somewhat exoticized view of Japanese customs, as well as for the casting of Chinese actresses Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi in the roles of icons of Japanese culture, with Zhang playing central geisha Sayuri.

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But whatever its shortcomings, Memoirs of a Geisha is still an exquisitely crafted melodrama that provides an often delicate window into one of he most graceful and misunderstood arts. The film won Oscars for its costumes, art direction, and cinematography for a reason. Plus whenever Zhang and the actually Japanese Ken Watanabe share the screen, unrequited sizzle is hot to the touch.

Mortal Kombat (1995)

July 1

Look, 1995’s Mortal Kombat isn’t a great movie in the classic sense of the word. Those looking for notable ’90s schlock might even have a better time with 1994’s Street Fighter and Raul Julia’s scene-stealing performance as General M. Bison.

Yet at a time when video game movies still struggle to capture the magic of the games themselves, Mortal Kombat stands tall as one of the few adaptations that feel like an essential companion piece. It might lack the blood and gore that helped make 1992’s Mortal Kombat arcade game a cultural touchstone, but it perfectly captures the campy, shameless joy that has defined this franchise for nearly 30 years.

Star Trek (2009)

July 1

The idea of a Star Trek movie reboot wasn’t greeted with universal enthusiasm when it was first announced but then J.J. Abrams delighted many fans by creating a Trek origin story that was both familiar and new. Chris Pine shone as the cocky Kirk, bickering with Zachary Quinto’s Vulcan Spock while trying to save the universe from a pesky Romulan (Eric Bana). This was a standalone that could be enjoyed by audiences completely ignorant of the Star Trek legacy which also achieved the feat of not annoying many long-term followers of the multiple series. It was a combination of humor, heart, action and a zingy cast that won the day – it’s still the best of the three Star Trek reboot movies to date.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2005)

July 1

Alongside Step Brothers, Tallageda Nights remains a a biting snapshot of the 2000s zeitgeist from writer-director Adam McKay. Eventually he would drop (most of) the crude smirks in favor of dramedies about the excesses of the Bush years via The Big Short (2013) and Dick Cheney biopic Vice (2018), however Talladega Nights remains a well-aged and damning satire of that brief time when “NASCAR Dads” were a thing, which is all the more impressive since it was filmed in the midst of such jingoistic fervor.

So enters Will Ferrell in one of his signature roles as a NASCAR driver and the quintessential ugly American who’s boastful of his ignorance and proud that his two sons are named “Walker” and “Texas Ranger.” He’d be almost irredeemable if the movie wasn’t so quotable and endearing with its sketch comedy absurdities. There’s a reason Ferrell and co-star John C. Reilly became a recurring thing after this lunacy. Plus, that ending where adherents of the homophobic humor of the mid-2000s found out the joke was on them? Still pretty satisfying.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

July 1

This is the movie that changed everything. Filmmakers had been experimenting with computer-generated visual effects for years, including director James Cameron with 1989’s The Abyss. But Cameron, as usual, upped his game with this 1991 action/sci-fi epic in which the main character — the villain — was a hybrid of live-action actor and CG visuals.

Those of us who saw T2 in the theater when it first came out can remember hearing the audience (and probably ourselves) audibly gasp as the T-1000 (an underrated and chilling Robert Patrick) slithered into his liquid metal form, creating a surreal and genuinely eerie moving target that not even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s brute strength could easily defeat. There were moments in this movie that remained seared into our brains for years as high points of what could be accomplished with CG.

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This writer prefers T2 to the original Terminator. It’s fashionable to go the other way, but the first movie, while excellent, is essentially a low-budget horror film, Schwarzenegger’s T-800 a somewhat more formidable stand-in for the usual unstoppable slasher. The characters in T2 are far more fleshed out, the action bigger and more spectacular, the stakes more grave and palpable. It was the first movie to cost more than $100 million but it felt like every penny was right there on the screen. And Cameron tied up his story ingeniously, making all the sequels and prequels, and sidequels since irrelevant and incoherent. We don’t need them; we have Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Underworld (2003)

July 1

Is Underworld a good movie? No, not really. Is it a scary movie, what with the vampires and werewolves? Not at all. Well, is it at least entertaining?! Absolutely. Never before has a B-studio actioner been so deliciously pretentious and delightful in its pomposity.

Every bit the product of early 2000s action movie clichés, right down to Kate Beckinsale’s oh-so tight leather number, Underworld excels in part because of the casting of talent like Beckinsale. A former Oxford student and star of the West End stage, she got her start in cinema by appearing in a Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare adaptation, and she brings a wholly unneeded (but welcome) conviction to this tale of vampire versus werewolves in a centuries-long feud. Shamelessly riffing on Romeo and Juliet, the film ups the British thespian pedigree with movie-stealing performances by Bill Nighy as a vampire patriarch and Michael Sheen (Beckinsale’s then-husband who she met in a production of The Seagull) as an angsty, tragic werewolf. It’s bizarre, overdone, and highly entertaining in addition to all the fang on fur action.

Snowpiercer (2013)

July 2

Before there was Parasite, there was Snowpiercer, the action-driven class parable brought to horrific and mesmerizing life by Oscar-winning Korean director Bong Joon-ho in 2013. The film is set in a future ice age in which the last of humanity survives on a train that circumnavigates a post-climate change Earth. The story follows Chris Evans‘ Curtis as he leads a revolt from the working class caboose to the upper class engine at the front of the train.

Loosely based on a French graphic novel, filmed in the Czech Republic as a Korean-Czech co-production, and featuring some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, with dialogue in both English and Korean, Snowpiercer is not only a truly international production that will keep Western audiences guessing, but it packs an ever effective social critique as we head further into an age of climate change and wealth inequality. Also, there is a scene in which Chris Evans slips on a fish.

The Beguiled (2017)

July 16

Sofia Coppola’s remake of the 1971 film of the same name (both are based on a Thomas Cullinan novel) is a somewhat slight yet undeniably intriguing addition to the filmmaker’s catalog. It’s the story of a wounded Union soldier being taken in by a Southern school for girls–stranded in the middle of the American Civil War–with salvation turning into damnation as the power dynamics between the sexes are tested. It is also an evocative piece of Southern Gothic with an ending that will stick with you. Top notch work from a cast that also includes Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, and Colin Farrell makes this a bit of an underrated gem.

The Twilight Saga

July 16

In July, not one, not two, not three, not even four, but all five of the movies adapted from Stephenie Meyer’s young adult phenomenon book series will be accessible on Netflix. Indulge in the nostalgia of Catherine Hardwicke’s faithful and comparatively intimate Twilight. Travel to Italy with a depressing Edward and Bella in New Moon. Lean into the horror absurdity of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 2. Or marathon all five for maximal escapism into a world where vegetarian vampires are the boyfriend ideal, the sun is always clouded, and the truly iconic emo-pop tunes never stop.

Django Unchained (2012)

July 24

The second film Quentin Tarantino won an Oscar for, Django Unchained remains a highly potent revenge fantasy where a Black former slave (Jamie Foxx) seeks to free his wife from Mississippian bondage and ends up wiping out the entire infrastructure of a plantation in the process. Brutal, dazzlingly verbose in dialogue, and highly triggering in every meaning of the word—including quickdraw shootouts—this is a Southern-fried Spaghetti Western at its finest.

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Perhaps its other great asset is a terrific cast of richly drawn characters, including Foxx as Django (the “D” is silent), Christoph Waltz as German dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz, Leonardo DiCaprio as sadistic slaveowner Calvin Candie, and Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen. While Waltz won a deserved Oscar for the film (his second from a Tarantino joint), it is Jackson’s turn as a house slave who becomes by far the most dangerous and cruel of Django’s adversaries who lingers in the memory years later…

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megaphonemonday · 8 years ago

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now we’re partners in crime

okay, back when I first posted situation: lost control, several people asked for a continuation and I told someone I would, but I am terrible, so this has been sitting in my drafts since November. my bad, my bad. here it is now at least.

read it on ao3

In retrospect, Mike probably shouldn’t have been the one to say, “What’s yours is mine,” because he definitely has more in the “mine” column than Ginny. After all, he’s a veteran catcher who’s only played for one team in his career. He’s put down roots in San Diego and, for people, roots mean collecting stuff.

Sure, his house is some kind of minimalist wet dream, but that’s what storage facilities are for. And closets. Even glass houses have closets.

Ginny, on the other hand, hasn’t lived in the Omni for years, but Mike’s not sure that she’s actually put any kind of personal touch on the bungalow she rents up in Encinitas. Not that he’s been there that often, it’s just that the only things Ginny can seem to collect contain high-performance lycra.

Which Mike is more than happy to leave to Ginny. It’s a good look on her. Not so much on him.

All of this isn’t to say that he wouldn’t give her anything and everything she ever asked of him. Just. His divorce lawyer would probably kill him.

So, it’s a good thing that since the incident—which is the only way he can think of getting not-married in Vegas without losing his mind—Ginny’d only seemed to be interested in taking his peace and quiet.

Come to think of it, Ginny’s been over at his house so often, Mike has to wonder about what kind of cobwebs are collecting in that bungalow.

Not that he’s complaining. If Ginny wants to hang out with him, that’s fine. More than fine, if he’s being honest. And Mike makes it a point to rarely be honest about his feelings for Ginny Baker.

Because she still thinks they’re married.

And, yes, he’s had more than enough time to fix that particular misconception. He just hasn’t. Because he likes having her around all the time. He likes watching basketball on the couch with her and flipping through the newspaper with her feet in his lap. He likes having her around, and he’s pretty sure that will happen way less when she finds out he’s been lying to her for nearly a month.

Or, as good as lying, anyway. She’d asked about annulment procedures at some point on the bus ride back and he’d said they needed a marriage license to start, which was technically the truth. That there is no marriage license made out to Michael Lawson and Genevieve Baker didn’t have much effect on legal proceedings in the state of California.

Otherwise, she’s been pretty quiet on the subject. Unless Mike counted her endless, terrible jokes. Calling him Mr. Baker and telling him which pieces of furniture he has to leave her in the divorce.

He’s pretty sure she won’t find it quite so funny when she learns the truth, which is why he can never bring himself to laugh with her when she goes on a roll.

Jesus, how did my life come to this? Mike thinks as he pushes inside his house, laden with groceries. Of course, it’s not enough that Ginny’s invaded his space, she has to eat her way through his pantry, too. Though, it is at least comforting to know that she’s not starving. If he left her to her own devices, Mike’s pretty sure she might forget some days, especially since she trains less in the off season.

As far as he’s been able to tell, Ginny tends to embrace the “off” of off season, lazing around on the nearest flat surface. The number of times he’s come home since Vegas (and even before, if he’s honest) to find her snoozing on the couch or floating in the pool has gotten ridiculous.

She’s often around when he’d left the house, too, though.

Not today. He’d considered waiting for her to show up before going to the grocery store. Even considered calling her and asking her to come with, but told himself to stop being such a sap. It doesn’t matter that running errands with Ginny was more fun, he doesn’t need her around to accomplish everyday tasks.

That he wants her around is a given.

Mike fishes an apple out of the bag before putting the rest in the crisper. He takes a bite and glances out to his pool deck on the off chance that Ginny’s out there now.

He nearly chokes.

Ginny Baker had definitely gone for a swim while he was out. He can see droplets of water still gleaming on her skin. But currently, she’s spread out on her stomach, basking in the early afternoon sun.

In and of itself, it’s not so unusual. Mike would even say that he’s gotten pretty used to seeing her traipse around his house in her swimsuits. And yoga gear. And even his own clothes sometimes. (The reaction he’d had the first time he’d seen one of his plaid button ups wrapped around her lithe frame was eerily similar to the one he’s having now.) As used to it as a man can be without also having seen what’s underneath those swimsuits. Which is not at all a helpful thought.

Because Mike’s pretty sure Ginny’s not currently wearing one.

Why is she always naked when I’m least expecting it? he thinks miserably as his forehead thunks against the granite countertop.

Mike’s not sure if he should go out and let her know he’s here or stay here with his forehead pressed to the counter where he can’t see anything for the foreseeable future.

Then, an image of Ginny sauntering into his house with no shirt on floods his imagination. In his imagination, the idea is thoroughly appealing because he’d already be intimately familiar with all that skin and could put his hands and mouth on her the way he’s been aching to do for months. Years, even.

In real life, though, Mike wouldn’t be able to do anything other than turn away and point her towards a towel.

Wouldn’t be allowed to do anything else.

Because, as much time as he and Ginny have been spending with each other, he’s still not sure that she actually wants anything more. There was that moment, years ago, but almost nothing since then. Nothing as clear as that moment outside Boardner’s, anyway. No grand, romantic gestures, just an alarming decrease in personal space. They flirt, they tease, sure, but that’s just the way Baker and Lawson operate. They’re best friends and that’s enough. Enough that Mike hasn’t managed to screw up and tip his hand, at the very least.

Unless, of course, he counts deciding to elope in Vegas as tipping his hand.

And that’s the other thing. Mike can’t make a move while Ginny still thinks that they’re married. It’s created an unearned sense of intimacy. They spend practically all their time together now, and have been ever since they got back to San Diego. It’s like Ginny thinks they have to spend all their time together. What if she’s started developing feelings for him just because of that? How big of a creep would he be to capitalize on that? It’s beyond sketchy to make a move while Ginny’s operating under false pretenses.

Mike would never forgive himself if he let himself do that to her. He’s not sure he can forgive himself with the way things stand now.

So, he’s told himself that he’s not allowed to even think about kissing Ginny Baker until she knows the truth. (It hasn’t really worked out for him, but he always feels guilty as hell and guilt is a great motivator.)

Although the sight of Ginny sprawled out next to his pool might be an even better one. It’s been nothing short of a miracle that he’s managed to keep his hands to himself in the past month. Seeing her like this might break him.

Deciding to face the music, Mike lifts his head from the counter, abandons his apple, and heads out to the pool.

“Hey, Baker, you dead?” he calls on the approach, unwilling to startle her and potentially see something he shouldn’t.

She shifts, laughing low and hoarse and thank fuck. She’s wearing bikini bottoms. There’s a slight metallic sheen to them, but otherwise practically blend into her skin.

Mike’s trying to decide if he wants to kiss or kill the person who decided on that particular color for swimwear when Ginny shifts again and cranes her head around to look at him.

Her forearm presses the front of her bikini top to her chest, and Mike catches sight of the loose strings curled on the ground.

“Is that really the first question you ask when you find a woman laying out by your pool?” she snarks, squinting up at him.

“Yeah,” is his immediate reply, ignoring the way his heart skips a beat. “To be fair, though, last time she really was dead.”

That earns a sharp bark of laughter and Mike’s gotten used to the way it always makes him puff up with pride. He’s stopped feeling embarrassed by now.

Ginny levers herself up, somehow managing to keep her breasts covered. Which is a good thing, Mike tells himself firmly. He’s come to the conclusion that he really only wants to see Ginny Baker naked when he’s in a position to do something about it. And as long as she’s operating under the belief that they’re married, Mike’s decidedly not in a position to do anything about the way Ginny makes him feel.

Aside from telling her the truth, of course.

There’s no way he’s not going to hell for this.

“Where’d you hide the body?”

Her question knocks him right out of the thought process he’s gone over and over for weeks on end. Thankfully, the answer requires no thought at all. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Ginny groans at the bad joke, but Mike’s attention is taken up with the way she twists her arms behind her back to tie her top closed.

Fully covered—technically—Ginny makes for no less of a striking sight than she did scant minutes earlier. She unfolds herself, climbing to her feet and Mike isn’t sure where to look with the practical miles of skin on display. Her curly, unruly hair doesn’t even offer any coverage, piled messily on top of her head as it is.

No, it’s just Ginny, sun warm and practically glowing as she rolls her eyes at his terrible joke.

If they were really married, this is where he’d lean in and kiss her, let his hands wander over every inch of her, frankly, outrageous body. It wouldn’t be a surprise, but Mike can’t imagine ever getting to the point where he’s not stunned by Ginny, even in a universe where they’ve been married for years. It’s just not possible.

Of course, they’re not married, so Mike jerks his head toward the house, even as he makes the decision: he has to tell her. Today.

“You eaten lunch, yet?”

“And mess with the Lawson Organizational System?” she teases. “Definitely not.”

Mike grumbles as he leads his way into the kitchen. You have to tell her. You can’t go another day without telling her how you feel. “Not my fault you never had to take Home Ec, Baker.”

“Oh, please.” She hip checks him and Mike is torn between being unspeakably grateful and annoyed that he’s fully clothed and Ginny is... not. He settles for sticking his head in the refrigerator, hoping to cool down, thoughts racing. “It’s not like they made guys take Home Ec while you were in high school. When was that again? Back in the 50s?”

“I don’t have to make you lunch, you know,” he grumbles, even as he takes out sandwich fixings. You have to tell her. You have to tell her. You have to tell her. “I don’t even have to let you in my house.”

“Hey, what’s yours is mine, Lawson,” Ginny points out, boosting herself up onto the counter next to him and picking up his abandoned apple. She raises her eyebrows at the single bite taken out of it, but shrugs and adds her own.

Mike keeps his eyes firmly on the cutting board where he’s slicing up a cucumber. If he doesn’t, there’s a very good chance he’ll get distracted and end up slicing off his thumb or something. He’d never live it down.

“About that,” he says, hardly believing the words as they come out of his mouth. How many times had he resolved to tell her only to chicken out?

Not today.

“About what?” Ginny asks around a chunk of apple, cheeks full. He flicks an exasperated look at her but she just shrugs impishly and Mike has to look away from the way her breasts bounce slightly with the movement.

You’re going to hell. You’re going to hell. You’re going to hell.

You have to tell her. You have to tell her. You have to tell her.

“The whole married thing.”

“What whole married thing?”

God, she’s a brat. “Vegas,” he sighs, feeling like he might throw up because he’s not sure how mad she’s going to be. He’s seen Ginny pretty fucking angry, but it’s never been directed just at him. This will be. Still, Mike moves on to carving off slices of cheese from the block, hating the way his palms sweat as the moment of truth approaches.

“Ah. What about it?”

“Well,” he says, wincing and wishing he’d chosen a better moment, but in too deep to back out now, “we aren’t.”

“Huh?”

It hadn’t taken Ginny long to get used to the idea of being married to Mike. Honestly, by the time they got off the bus from Vegas, she’d adjusted. Sure, they would be nothing like a regular couple, but they were close already. Best friends, practically. Being married wouldn’t really change anything. They wouldn’t live together or kiss or any of the other things most married people do.

(Sex. Ginny meant sex. She might as well be honest about it to herself if no one else.

Really, it wasn’t her fault that it had been a while since she’d last had any. Trying to win the World Series was more than a full time job, thank you very much. Being in love with her captain didn’t help matters. It was hard to fall in bed with someone else when she knew there was someone else she wanted more.)

If, somehow, being married got her closer to crossing that line with Mike, Ginny wasn’t going to complain.

Before she could even come up with a good plan to make that happen, though, Evelyn waded in.

Ginny’d barely been back in her little, rented beach shack for 20 minutes before the banging on her door started. She’d groaned, wondering if she should pop some more Advil before dealing with her visitor. Funnily enough, sleeping on a moving vehicle with a hangover wasn’t the easiest thing and definitely didn’t actually do anything for the cloud of tequila-regret hazing her every thought. Ginny had been looking forward to a long nap in an actual bed.

Still, when a familiar voice called, “I know you’re in there, Ginny Baker! Open the damn door!” Ginny couldn’t very well ignore it.

“Ev,” she’d sighed, slumping against the door as pitifully as possible, “can we do this later?”

“Yeah, no,” her friend had replied, pushing a bottle of champagne into Ginny’s arms as she breezed into the bungalow. She’d dropped straight onto the couch and leveled Ginny with a mischievous look. “I hear congratulations are in order,” she’d grinned, patting the couch expectantly. “So, are you going to tell me what happened, or do I need to pull it out of you?”

Play it cool, Baker, Ginny’d commanded herself, gingerly shutting the door and shuffling over to Evelyn. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?” she’d tried to no great effect.

No great effect, of course, meaning a truly unimpressed stare from Evelyn. So, she’d caved.

“I’m sorry, Ev. It would have been nice if you could have been there, instead of just the guys. Not that I really remember any of it, but I’m sure I would have appreciated it. Forgive me?”

“Uh, sure. I mean,” here, she leveled Ginny with a stern look, “if you’d actually gotten married, this would be a very different conversation. Just know that when you have a real wedding, I will be there and my maid of honor dress will be beautiful.”

There was something in her tone that suggested more than just Evelyn’s disdain for a rushed, unplanned Vegas elopement when she said “actually.” Ginny nodded silently in agreement as she puzzled it over, head throbbing with the effort.

“Thank God for my husband managing to keep his head on straight and making sure everything was strictly ceremonial.” Evelyn rolled her eyes fondly and continued, “I mean it’s one thing for you not to think of a marriage license, but Mike’s been married before, he knows the deal. Blip definitely earned his welcome home. If you catch my drift.”

“Yeah,” Ginny’d murmured, ignoring Evelyn’s waggling eyebrows as her brain finally caught up with the conversation. She wasn’t married. How strange was it that the thought sent a pang through her chest? “Thank God for Blip.”

It should be a relief, was all Ginny could think when Evelyn finally left her in peace. It was all she can think for the next few days, in fact.

She’s never quite managed to convince herself that it’s the truth.

For his part, this is the first time Mike has brought up their non-elopement, and it’s been a month.

Ginny sits frozen on the counter as she takes in what he’s saying, brow furrowing in thought.

“Well, we aren’t,” he says, like this is new information. Like he’s trying to let her down easy.

Which, what?

It took her a while to get over the fact that he’d left that news for someone else to break to her, but Ginny eventually understood Mike’s silence on the matter to mean that he finds it too embarrassing to discuss. Which is an inclination she can sympathize with, even if she finds the situation funnier than not.

She is grateful that she hadn’t called Amelia on the bus, though. How mortifying would it have been to tell her agent about the colossal fuck up she’d made and arrive back in San Diego to Amelia and the team of lawyers she certainly would have hired, only to have to tell her, “Just kidding! We somehow managed to screw up a Vegas elopement!”

Yeah, that would have gone over well.

Sometimes, to test her theory about Mike’s embarrassment, she’d bring it up as a joke, call him Mr. Baker or take half his sandwich and tell him he shouldn’t have married her if he didn’t want this happening when he tried to protest. Without fail, he’d wince and get moody with her for a while. Classic Lawson mortification.

Which would have been fine if he didn’t also get moody and grumpy when she tried to pull back and give him some space.

Ginny has her suspicions about it all, but it doesn’t feel like the kind of thing that she can just come out and ask.

“Hey, are you by any chance in love with me? Because I love you. I’ll even forgive you for making Evelyn tell me we’re not married if you consider resolving this sexual tension between us immediately and then promising to love me forever,” just doesn’t strike the right tone, she think.

Even if it’s true.

And she is increasingly sure that it is true. Especially as she takes his odd, guilty look and this confession into account and adds it to everything else she’s observed over the past month.

Like, when he doesn’t think she's paying attention, Mike will look at her like he's in awe. Not the awe of her fans, who see her more as some untouchable marker, but awe of her. Just Ginny. Much as it warms her, it makes her fidget and wish that he’d just say something. But if wishing made things so, Ginny’d have a much better WHIP and probably like four puppies. But she doesn’t and her wishes go unfulfilled.

Not that she stops suspecting that maybe Mike feels something for her, at least a little bit, too.

And not just because they went and tried to get married.

But that is definitely part of it.

By this point, splashes of memory from that night in Vegas have come back to her: Mike’s arm wrapped around her waist, his beard catching in her hair, his gaze heavy and longing. All before anyone even mentioned a wedding chapel. Honestly, it felt like their everyday interactions, just less guarded and more honest. Ginny was pretty sure she has the tequila to thank on that front. She’s absolutely sure that it hadn’t taken much convincing to get send them careening down the aisle, though.

She thinks that he even kissed her at some point.

Not the smack she’d laid on his cheek in the chapel. Not with their hooting and hollering teammates for witnesses. No, much later, after they’d shaken off the entourage and stumbled back to her room.

It’s hazy, even after weeks of trying to fill in what happened before and after, but still detailed enough to make her burn with remembering.

She’d collapsed with her back against the wall, safely tucked in her room, and not questioning Mike’s presence. After all, he was her husband. She’d just stood there, grinning tipsily up at him. He’d grinned back, picking up her left hand and rubbing his thumb over his ring on her finger.

“Mrs. Lawson,” he’d breathed, rocking into her space. It didn’t matter if it was a drunken sway or a deliberate move, Ginny’s breath hitched. His other hand found her hip and she was so happy that they were anchored together against the spin of the room.

Her free hand inched up his chest to rest on his shoulder. “Only if that makes you Mr. Baker,” she’d replied, giggling at the thought of flirting with her husband. This, or something like it, was what she’d wanted for so long and he was finally hers.

“Yeah,” he’d grinned, looming a little closer and smile splitting wider when Ginny’s head thunked against the wall as she tracked the movement, “I can do that.”

And then, he kissed her.

When the memory came, she’d been trying to fall asleep, somewhere on the edge of consciousness and oblivion. In a flash, she’d bolted upright, half sure that she’d just woken herself up from a dream fueled by wishful thinking. But the soft prickle of his beard against her face and the pressure of his fingertips on her hips were too vivid to have come just from dreaming.

But once she remembered, Ginny couldn’t stop thinking about it, blushing nearly every time Mike touched her, thrown back into that Vegas hotel room.

Which is a problem. Because she and Mike are practically always touching each other; easy, casual affection between friends and teammates.

(Ginny is so used to not thinking about how she isn’t nearly as affectionate with her other teammates, that it’s strange to realize it doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter that she thinks of Mike differently now. He’s retired.)

Just, this time, it had led to them getting married.

Almost married.

Whatever.

In all honesty, she’s not sure if talking about it is going to help, though Mike has apparently made up his mind on the subject. They’ve gotten along pretty well without talking about it, in all fairness, but nothing’s really changed. Aside from an awareness that if things had gone slightly differently, she could actually be entitled to half his stuff. Not just in the jokes she tosses out to test the waters every so often.

Tests that inevitably meet with a surly Mike and an exasperated Ginny.

Of course, maybe she shouldn’t be surprised that Mike Lawson doesn’t process emotions like any other human being. She’s known him for years. He’s a disaster when it comes to emotions. It isn’t as if the man was a fully grown adult or anything.

Well, it isn’t as if Ginny’s going to let something as insignificant as a non-wedding get in the way of what she wants.

And she wants Mike Lawson.

Even with her nearly bare ass seated on his kitchen counter, mouth half-full of apple and with him staring her down like he’s just admitted to kicking a puppy, she wants him.

Ginny swallows and wonders what she’s missing and how they got there.

Well, she can answer half of that, at least.

It started out pretty simply, actually. She’d figured that the more time she spent with him, the more time Mike had to get over himself and finally make a move on her. A move that would end with them in a relationship. The way they’d both wanted for years now, but hadn’t acted on out of professionalism. She’d do it herself, but Mike was the one being weird. Clearly, he had some things to figure out before they could really do this.

That had been easy enough; she already spent an inordinate amount of time with him. She’d never bothered to buy property and put down real (estate) roots in San Diego since she’d already had Mike’s house at her disposal. It had a pool and an air hockey table, a fully stocked fridge, and a whole cable package that Ginny was pretty sure Mike only subscribed to for the extra ESPN coverage.

Why would she buy her own house when she had all that?

That it also came complete with the man she was in love with was only a bonus.

(Really, it was a wonder she hadn’t gotten drunk and tried to elope with him before this.)

Unfortunately, Mike had taken her increased presence in his house entirely in stride. He’d come back from errands to find her on his couch and simply make her lift up her legs so he could sit, too. She’d show up with take out and another movie she’d never seen and he’d figure out the DVD player he’d somehow never used.

All that changed was more frequent trips to the grocery store. He’d started dragging her along on those, though, claiming that if she was going to complain about his snacks, she might as well just pick them out herself.

Running errands with Mike was disgustingly domestic. Ginny went every chance she could. Even though Ginny knew they weren’t married and Mike knew they weren’t married, it still felt like they were, or could be at least. They’d tease and joke their way through the aisles, giggling like kids and drawing their fair share of indulgent smiles and shocked recognition. Mostly, all it took was a conspiratorial smile and they were left alone. Everyone liked feeling like they were in on a secret.

It was nice.

Unfortunately, nice hadn’t gotten Mike Lawson to make a move.

Neither had early morning yoga by the pool. Or stealing his clothes and wearing them more than hers. Or essentially refusing to leave his house; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been back to the bungalow for more than a change of clothes.

(Ginny’s at her wit’s end. How has nothing worked? The only thing that the passing weeks have done is deepen her suspicion—and, really, that’s all it is: a suspicion—that Mike feels the same way about her that she feels about him.

It’s a million things, the way he’ll give her a moon-eyed stare before laughing at a joke, the way he always saves the last potsticker for her, the way he’ll rub her feet without her even asking.

She suspects he knows it, too, but something is holding him back, and Ginny isn’t sure how much longer she can go without pressing him into a wall and having her way with him.

But she wants to know what’s going on in his head first.)

Of course it’s this fucking bikini that gets him to break.

Evelyn had thrust it into her arms the last time they’d gone shopping.

Ginny’d taken one look at the shimmering bronze and looked back at her friend skeptically.

“Trust me,” Evelyn grinned.

And Ginny has never been more grateful that she did.

From the first flash of desire that crossed Mike’s face when she looked up at him to the way that he’s carefully looking away from her, Ginny’d known that Evelyn was right.

What else is new?

So, of course it’s the skimpy bronze bikini that’s the straw to break Mike Lawson’s back. The thing that finally gets him to make a move. Not that this really seems like Mike trying to make a move.

It seems more like Mike confessing his sins.

“We aren’t,” he repeats, like that means something on its own, though pieces start to come together in her mind and a hazy theory begins to form. Mike purposefully lays the knife down and leans heavily on the counter, his shoulders hunching around his ears.

“We aren’t what?”

Mike sighs and scrubs a hand over his beard. He leaves the bristles sticking every which way and Ginny has the sudden urge to smooth them back into place. She doesn’t, unsure of whether or not she’ll ever get the full story if she puts her hands on him now.

“Married,” he admits, hardly loud enough for her to hear.

Ginny stares. Of course they aren’t married. Does he not realize that she knows that? He looks guilty as hell, which pretty much answers it for her.

Oh, he’s gonna pay for that.

Ginny makes her eyes go wide and her lips part in shock. Mike looks even more pained and she feels more sympathy than self-righteousness at the wince. She doesn’t say anything, though, waits to see what kind of explanation he can have for this, thoughts racing and heart pounding.

“I’m so sorry. I should have told you right away, just—” he scrubs his hand over his face again. Why does he keep messing with the beard? she thinks distantly. “Do you know how hard it is for me to think straight around you? Sometimes, you’ll smile at me and every conscious thought I have falls straight out of my head.”

Finally, he looks her in the eyes and there is so much guilt and distress in his, it almost overshadows the hope. Ginny’s breath catches in her throat.

“At first, I was so sure that I’d tell you the next time I saw you, but I never did. And the longer it went on, the harder it became to potentially give up this.”

“This?” she asks, voice inexplicably hoarse.

He laughs, dry and a little dark. “This. Me coming home and finding you somewhere in the house, like you belong here. Because you do belong here. And I can’t believe that I’ve maybe ruined it all by keeping my stupid mouth shut for so long. I’m so sorry, Ginny.”

How ridiculous is it that this is actually making her sad? She’s known that they weren’t married for a month, but Mike looks so absolutely wretched as he tells her. His head hangs low and her heartstrings pull for him.

Even though he’s apparently been keeping secrets from her. Or thinks he has.

Jesus, this is confusing.

He looks so worried that Ginny drops her act, shrugging casually and swiping a slice of cucumber from the cutting board. “Yeah, I knew we weren’t actually married, old man.”

Silence reigns in the kitchen for a moment.

Mike opens his mouth. Closes it. Clears his throat and finally says, “What.”

“I knew that we didn’t get married. Evelyn told me right after we got back from Vegas."

“Evelyn.”

“Told me, yes. Although I think she thought I already knew.” He’s still staring at her in disbelief and Ginny rolls her eyes. “Help me out here, Mike. What part are you having trouble with?”

“That you’re still here.”

A pang tears its way to her heart. Even in the face of her annoyance, Ginny can’t stand to see Mike look so utterly ashamed. He won’t even look at her, stares instead at his hands gripping the granite countertop. Gently, she loosens the grip of his near hand and threads her fingers with his. She tugs. Tugs until he uproots himself and drifts to stand before her.

She scoots forward and tenderly brushes his beard back into order, ignoring the way Mike finally raises his eyes to stare at her. She’s aware of it, though. Aware of the way her knees bracket his hips and just how little she’s wearing as his body heat leeches against her skin. She’s aware of the fact that she’s already forgiven him and will probably laugh about this much sooner than he will.

She’s aware that she loves him and is finally sure he loves her, too.

“Of course I’m still here,” she says, patting his cheek with a smile. “I haven’t had a chance to take you for all you’re worth yet.”

He narrows his eyes at her, but Ginny knows he’s smothering the smirk that wants to curl over his mouth. Tentatively, his big hands settle on her legs and Ginny smiles her encouragement. Like that, his palms glide up the bare skin and she has to bite her lip to hold in the sigh that wants to escape.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” he murmurs, following the trajectory of his hands and leaning into her.

“It means you’re not getting rid of me until you file for divorce,” she returns, leaning into him, too.

“That might be tricky,” he points out, finally grinning, “since we’re not married.”

“That’s all right. I’ll wait.”

And then, she kisses him.

And this time, she remembers everything.

#bawson fic #bawson #pitch fic #Ginny Baker #Mike Lawson #i wrote something #idk friends #i really went through it with this one #apparently so did #mike's self-esteem #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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junker-town · 7 years ago

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Grant Brisbee presents Grant Brisbee’s 10 favorite Grant Brisbee articles from 2017

A collection of the stories that I’d like you to remember at least once more.

I opened last year’s year-end review with a string of mewling complaints about how bad 2016 was. Buddy, I’m here from the future, and it can get worse. The catch phrase at the end of 2016 was “It can only go up from here!” The catch phrase at the end of 2017 is “as I fall deeper into the abyss, inching closer to a lonely death, know that I hated each and every one of you,” and boy if it doesn’t roll off the tongue. This isn’t going to get better. Stop pretending like the end of the calendar year is going to fix anything. We’re trapped. All of us. We’re going to start using each other for food soon, and I’m okay with t

Whoops, ha ha, got a little dark, anyway, 2017 was also a year in which I wrote a bunch of dumb baseball articles. Some of them I liked! The end of the year always seems like a fine time to share them with you, and it will help you forget about ... you know ... the other stuff. The everywhere things. Baseball is important because it makes you forget about what’s important, and I love it so.

Here are Grant Brisbee’s favorite Grant Brisbee articles of the year, presented by me, Grant Brisbee:

10. Mariners-Angels comeback

This is one of my favorite genres, where I methodically scrutinize a baseball game using grainy screenshots and the occasional GIF. That reads like sarcasm, but I’m absolutely serious. There’s something about diving into the minutiae of a single game and remembering that every foul ball is a hitter not doing his job as well as he wants, and that those are usually in front of every important hit. It will never fail to blow my mind.

This comeback was extra special because it happened against the Mariners, who had an absurd comeback of their own the previous year. They had earned this kind of pain.

I’m not sure about the rest of the pain the Mariners have accumulated, though. That probably exists because of something you did.

9. Defenestrating the Eric Thames hypocrisy

In which Jake Arrieta’s pitching coach hints that an out-of-nowhere success story must be dirty because he came out of nowhere. The pitching coach of Jake Arrieta, who arrived from Baltimore on a bus with a suitcase that had a hole in it and then became one of the best pitchers in baseball.

The pointless PED speculation was stupid then, and it’s stupid now. Sometimes it’s fun to get righteous. This was one of those times.

8. Bryce Harper vs. Hunter Strickland

By most accounts, Strickland is actually a sweet feller. Respected by his teammates, nice to the fans, et cetera. But he sure is a dingus on the mound sometimes. There was no reason for him to throw at Bryce Harper, but boys will be boys. And boys are complete jackasses. We just had a bunch of boys over for a holiday party, and we had paver stones flipped over, a pogo stick thrown into a tomato plant, and a chair that ended up on the roof. As the father of two sweet, perfect girls, these kinds of surprises completely foreign to me, and I must reiterate that boys are complete jackasses. Especially these two baseball boys.

Anyway, the fight was funny because Bryce Harper looked extraordinarily silly throwing his helmet into right field, and I can watch it all day.

7. We’ll miss you, intentional walks

I love dumb baseball stuff. Intentional walks gave us the potential for dumb baseball stuff. Now there’s less dumb baseball stuff. You should be offended, too.

This was written before having that feeling of “Wait, what just h ... oh, right, the walk thing” 50 times during the season. It was always annoying, and I’ll never get used to it. But at least we shaved six seconds off every other game.

6. The Oral History of Tom Brady on the Expos

I write a lot of dumb things, but there’s a special spot in my heart for the dumbest. This piece of historical fiction was certainly the dumbest, featuring a one-note joke that Tom Brady would have made the Expos a successful franchise and a baseball institution.

Except I had all sorts of fun writing it and sucking different characters into my story, like a shirtless Pat Burrell and Montreal’s most popular basketball hero, Kevin Durant. It’s dumb, but it’s already written, so you might as well get dumb along with me.

5. Game 2 of the World Series

I was so convinced that this was going to be the wildest baseball game I would see for a decade. People tried to tell me that Game 7 of the 2016 World Series was wilder, but that’s only because of the stakes inherent in a double-elimination game. Otherwise, that was a sloppy mess of a game with a couple of lead changes. A classic, to be sure. But it wasn’t like Game 2.

There was a fire outside of Dodger Stadium and the whole place smelled like ash. I can’t stress that enough, and it certainly added to the scene, especially when some dude jumped into the Astros bullpen. In retrospect, they probably should have let him throw a few pitches, just to gauge the arm speed.

It was a blast to watch and a blast to write, especially considering that it was going to be the wildest baseball game I would watch for at least 72 hours.

4. Game 5 of the World Series

HOME RUNS. They found shrapnel from this game in operating rooms eight miles away. It was a dumb abomination of a baseball game that we’ll be talking about for years. My favorite part might be remembering that it was once a calm, mellow game with Clayton Kershaw in complete control. Or it might be this:

When you hit the HR ball so hard it explodes on impact http://pic.twitter.com/DDDtJANBaw

— That Dude (@cjzer0) October 30, 2017

I think the national audience had to see a replay to pick up on the fact that the ball landed near the pyrotechnic display, but at the ballpark it was an immediate realization, and it was perfect. That game was baseball exploding. Here’s video proof.

3. Here comes the pizza’s 10th anniversary

I wasn’t a huge Here Comes the Pizza guy. I’d seen the video once or twice, but that was about it. Marc Normandin kept bugging me, though. “Hey, you gonna write about the anniversary?” “The anniversary of Here Comes the Pizza is coming up, you have plans?” So I dug into the video a little more.

And I came out of it a convert. Man, what a stupid and delightful moment in time that was captured perfectly by the perfect announcers to have describing it. A lot of stars had to line up for this moment.

There had to be a dude willing to throw his pizza at another human being, for example.

2. The Marlins are so weird, they ruined the thesis of this feature

The history of Miami baseball — before they had Major League Baseball, even — is strange and painful. I used the horribamazing home run sculpture as a metaphor for it, and I was proud of how it turned out.

The thesis was this: Miami baseball is about to stop being strange and painful because new owners are coming, and they’ll realize how stupid it is to put this city through another painful, PR disaster of a rebuild.

Welp.

Still, a lot of the other points hold. Kind of. I mean, if you squint.

1. The Astros were the perfect team for Houston

This feature came after the first two games of the ALDS, when we weren’t sure if the Astros were going to last more than a few days in the postseason. If I had it to do over again, it would have been something that was published after Game 7, but there was no way to know.

In retrospect, there probably should have been a way to know. This team was special, and I loved following them. The Yuli Gurriel dumbassery took a litle sheen off the perfect story, but there’s still a lot to love about the composition and timing of this team. I loved the moment George Springer, the Connecticut-born son of Panamanian and Puerto Rican immigrants, took the field with a gigantic Texas flag before Game 1 of the ALDS, exhorting the crowd and helping them forget about the pain that was all around them. It was incredibly Houston, a mish-mash of circumstances and realities that didn’t have to make sense, but ultimately did.

Houston is a strange, ugly, beautiful town that probably shouldn’t exist. This team was perfect for them.

Bonus: My favorite headlines from 2017

7. 3 questions about the Cubs coach who is dressed as a Juggalo lawyer

6. Pantless ruffian interrupts Giants-Brewers game, gets beans mashed into infield dirt

5. No, that Cubs player wasn’t flipping off the President of the United States

4. Aaron Judge was doubled off first and called out, but then he was safe after video review, but then he was about to be called out on appeal, so he was thrown trying to steal second, look, just take our word for it

3. Michael Jordan was more denim than man in 1993, and these pictures prove it

2. The Oakland A’s Twitter account told Wendy’s that its hamburgers cause diarrhea

1. Jeffrey Loria reportedly has agreement to sell Miami Marlins

Happy New Year, everybody! It probably won’t get better, but at least baseball will be as silly as ever, and we can use it to ignore everything. It’s as good a plan as any.

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