Geoffrey Rush, Kirk Gibson and Terry Pendleton

One foregone conclusion about tonight's Oscars is that Christian Bale is going to win the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance in The Fighter.

He's terrific in the film and he does everything you'd expect in an Oscar performance.

He is electric when he is on screen, stealing the spotlight from the star (the underrated performance by Mark Wahlberg.)

He does an accent. (A flawless Mass-Hole voice!)
He plays an addict. (Always Oscar bait.)
He does a physical transformantion. (He looks like he should play The Riddler, not Batman.)

All of the stats are there for him.

While I would not be upset if Bale wins (as I said before, he IS marvelous in the film) I would argue that the award should go to Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech. Seeing that this is Sully Baseball and not Sully Oscars, I will make my case with a baseball analogy.

Rush, who already has an Oscar on his mantle for Shine, brought the quality of The King's Speech up merely by his presence. Without his performance as Lionel Logue, that movie is just a made for TV movie with compressed history and a lot of people saying expositional dialogue.

But Rush turns what could have been a big pile of nothing (a spoiled man stutters... I hope he doesn't!) into a funny, engaging drama.

It's kind of like the season that Kirk Gibson had with the 1988 Dodgers. Or Terry Pendleton's season for Atlanta in 1991. Both players joined a team that looked rudderless and a mess the year before. They both brought a sense of professionalism to the clubhouse.

The entire team raised the level of their game. Improbably the Dodgers won it all with Gibson getting big hit after big hit (including the greatest home run in World Series history.)

Pendleton's Braves went from last to first and took Game 7 of the World Series to extra innings. (If Lonne Smith hadn't falled for a decoy play, Pendleton would have driven in the go ahead run.

Both players won the MVP even though they didn't have the flashiest stats. Darryl Strawberry or Kevin McReynolds put up gaudier numbers than Gibson in 1988. And Barry Bonds on paper looked like the winner over Pendleton in 1991.

And both players had lots of help from their teammates. Orel Hershiser had one of the great pitching seasons of all time in '88. And Tom Glevine was the 1991 Cy Young winner.

But the Award looked justified because of the clear influence those two players had on their entire team.

Kind of like Geoffrey Rush. Of course he had help. There were great performances by Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce and Michael Gambon among others. And the techincal qualities of the film were fine, if not spectacular.

But the film has become an unlikely box office hit and will probably win the big prize. And I think that Rush, like Gibson and Pendleton, raised the quality in ways that is greater than the stats.

Cristian Bale is like Strawberry, McReynolds and Bonds. He has the stats and I understand why he'll probably get the award. But Rush? He's got the intangibles.

He gets his uniform dirty.
And if he wins the Oscar, lots of people will say "I can't believe what I just saw."

Yet another inning for Bobby Cox to regret

Back in 2007, I wrote about the post season innings that Bobby Cox must grumble and grind his teeth over.

Whether it was Lonnie Smith not scoring on Terry Pendleton's double or Leyritz's homer or the Astros come back in 2005... there have been many innings where if the breaks went slightly differently, Bobby Cox might have more than one World Series ring.

Well throw tonight's top of the 9th on the pile.
If the Braves get that last out, they have the Giants on the ropes and the NLCS would be in their sites.

Now?
They are staring at elimination and a bittersweet ending for Bobby Cox's career.

Read those inning recaps.

I'm not even a Braves fan and it breaks my heart.
Should give Brooks Conrad some relief to know he is in good company.

Hall of Fame voters in 2014 are on notice

In the past two days, the Hall of Fame ballot of 2014 just got very interesting.

On Thursday Tom Glavine officially retired, joining the Braves front office. His last game was indeed with the Rome Braves!

On Friday Frank Thomas hung up his spikes and began the process of mending any hard feelings with the White Sox. He'll have his number retired in Chicago and probably have his image painted on the outfield wall.

Neither Glavine nor Thomas played in the bigs in 2009 so their clock to Cooperstown started when the 2008 season ended... which means they will be eligible to be elected in 2014, along with Glavine's former teammate Greg Maddux (who retired at the end of 2008.)

So if you have a Hall of Fame vote in the year 2014, know that Sully Baseball is watching you.

I want to see Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and Frank Thomas to get 100% of the vote on the first ballot.

They are all no brainers.

Glavine won 2 Cy Young Awards. (He would have won more if not for Maddux. Four other times he finished in the top 3 in the Cy Young vote. ) He won 305 games and won 20 games 5 times in an age of bullpen specialists. He pitched for 21+ seasons. And he was the MVP of the 1995 World Series, throwing 8 innings of 1 hit ball as the Braves won their only World Series in Atlanta.

There is no argument against that resume. He's got the stats. He has the longevity. He's got the dominance. He's got the post season honors. And his Cy Young winning season in 1991 helped transform the laughable Braves franchise into a powerhouse.

He's a Hall of Famer. We all know it.


Maddux also has an eye popping resume.

In an age when winning 300 games is supposed to be impossible, he won 355. He won 4 Cy Youngs in a row. From 1989 to 2000 he was in the top 5 of the Cy Young vote nine times.

No matter what stats you use to judge a pitcher, Maddux dominated. He consistently led the league in wins, ERA, innings pitched and won 18 Gold Gloves. When batters were juicing up, he'd post ERAs under 2.00. He had the best walks to innings pitched percentage in the league nine times. He would consistently have the best adjusted ERA+ in the league. I don't even know what that means, but it impresses me.

Who can vote against him?


And who would DARE vote against Thomas?

The Big Hurt was a top 5 MVP candidate in 1991... and he was a top 5 MVP candidate in 2006. And he picked up a pair of MVPs along the way.

If you like traditional stats, he was consistently a 30-40 home run guy, driving in 100+ runs 11 times and winning a batting title. If you are more of a sabermetrics guy, then he was a big slugger who drew 100 walks 10 times. Four times he finished the season with the highest OPS and four other times finished in the top 5.

He arrived in 1990 when the White Sox were beyond irrelevant and only a few years removed from a proposed move to Tampa. In Thomas' 17 years with the White Sox, he played on 12 teams with winning records including 3 division champs. Ironically the Big Hurt was too hurt to play in the 2005 World Series, but the White Sox progression from also rans to champs began with Thomas.

And oh yeah, he also helped lead Oakland to the ALCS in 2006. And along with Griffey seems to be the only big slugger from this era who wasn't linked to PEDs, which makes his 521 homers seem even more impressive.


What possible argument could ANYONE have against these guys?

What, Maddux didn't get enough saves?
Glavine wasn't a good enough hockey player?
Thomas appeared in the movie Mr. Baseball, and you didn't like it?

No excuses.

These are three guys who put up the numbers, can be identified with a team and did it over the long haul and without major scandals.

And don't pull the whole "Hey, if Babe Ruth didn't get 100% of the vote than nobody can" nonsense.

Not to go all Susan Powter on you, but we need to stop the insanity.

The craziness that had Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford and Warren Spahn not make it on the first ballot has to stop.

The madness that got some people to NOT vote for Rickey Henderson has to end now!

If you have a vote in 2014, you WILL put these three on your ballot.

And if you left anyone of them off your ballot, your Hall of Fame voting privileges will be revoked.


By whom? BY ME!

I've got 4 years to get the power. I am working on it. I already have a blog. I already know people who work in baseball.

In four years I will have enough power to examine your ballots and say "You left Maddux off. I am taking your vote away."

Four years is enough time to to gain a lot of power.

Don't believe me? When 2004 started, did you know who Barack Obama and Sarah Palin were?

Didn't think so.

And my aim for power isn't quite as high as theirs.

So can we get Glavine, Maddux and Thomas in the Hall with 100% of the vote. YES WE CAN!

And is Sully watching you?
You betcha.