Royals Rumblings - News for October 11, 2024

FYI: Rumblings was done before first pitch last night because I wanted to watch the game

Manager Matt Quatraro had high praise for the Kansas City Symphony:

“Some of the things that have been sent to me have been, you know, pretty emotional, to be honest,” Quatraro said. “My wife and I were watching some of the stuff in the hotel today, whether it was the crowd last night at arrowhead or the scene from Power & Light the other day, or even got a thing from the Kansas City Symphony that played ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.’

“So those things have all been sent to us, and I think it’s awesome. I mean, everywhere you go, just driving in here today, there’s a lot of royal stuff out on lawns and stuff like that. So that’s what you want. You want your community behind you, and you want to be behind them and give them something to cheer for.”

Any comments from Matthew LaMar, as our resident musician?

Also at The Star, they found out that a dog on TikTok picked the Yankees to win the ALDS. Man’s best friend, indeed:

The Corgi in question is Steph Furry, an adorable dog with 1.5 million followers on TikTok and 268,000 on Instagram who picks winners for major sporting events by making trick basketball shots. And in this case, the chubby little fella with stubby legs predicted the Yankees would win the American League Division Series in four games.

I guess Michael Massey is a bit of a weather geek. He and self-proclaimed weather geek Mike Trout should hang out. And if they talk hitting, so much the better.

Yesterday, former KC Star writer and current The Athletic writer Rustin Dodd penned a piece entitled “Postseason baseball returned to Kansas City. Now the Royals must win to survive”

At KMBC Channel 9, Andy Alcock wrote about the Royals turnaround this season.

In his first season with the Royals, Lugo has doubled that total with 16 and was named an All-Star.

“I’m not sure the Royals even expected him to have as good a year as he’s had. You know, he’s a mad scientist. He’s got nine, ten, eleven different pitches. You know, they have the PitchCom device on the belt where you can punch in what pitch you’re going to throw, but there’s only like four or five buttons. And so, some buttons, he’s got to push it twice or three times,” said Steve Stewart, in his seventeenth season with the Royals radio broadcast team.

“The fact he goes over 200 innings, he never really regressed in the way some thought he would. That’s why, you know, he’s one of the better pitchers in baseball,” said Jack Johnson, Sports Radio 810 personality and “Locked on Royals” podcaster.

Blogs? Craig and David posted Game 3 recaps and analysis yesterday:

• Craig Brown at Into the Fountains: ALDS Game Three: Stanton slays the Royals
• David Lesky at Inside the Crown ($): On the Brink

This was from earlier in the week, but I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet. At U.L.’s Toothpick, Darin Watson finished up his “This Date in Royals History 1984 Edition”. He also kindly gave us an update to his “The Complete A-Z Guide To Hating The Yankees”.

Blog Roundup?

• Matthew Robison at Farm to Fountains: Nine Walked Batters Lead to Another Royals Loss in the ALDS
• Colin Cerniglia at Kings of Kauffman: KC Royals need to contain Giancarlo Stanton as they face elimination in ALDS
• Sean Thorton at Bleeding Royal Blue: Let’s Breakdown some Royals/Yankees Hot Takes
• Jackson Roberts at Kansas City Royals on SI: Yankees Superstar Taunts Royals Fans Who Booed Him: ‘That’s The Reaction I Wanted’

A couple of stories around the league yesterday. Sorry, Tigers-Guardians wasn’t done before I finished this so I’m not sure how it went. I’m sure you all know.

The Pohlad family is looking to sell the Twins. The bidding probably starts around $1.5B:

Only the Steinbrenner family in New York and Jerry Reinsdorf of the White Sox have been stewards of their respective franchises as families for longer than the Pohlads have in Minnesota. Carl Pohlad, grandfather of Joe, led the initial purchase in ‘84 from the Griffith family, which had relocated the franchise from Washington D.C. to Minnesota in ‘61.

Old friend alert. Anyone know a team that could use help hitting?

The Qualifying Offer looks to be $21.05M next year. I wonder if anyone on the Royals could get an offer

Finally, many of the pictures coming out of Florida from Hurricane Milton are devastating. Not that baseball anywhere near the most important thing, but their stadium looked like this yesterday:

And there are now questions about what the Rays are going to do for a stadium for the next couple of years:

“Over the coming days and weeks, we expect to be able to assess the true condition of Tropicana Field,” the Rays said in a statement. “In the meantime, we are working with law enforcement to secure the building.”

The Rays likely aren’t going anywhere: A new $1.3 billion facility is planned to be built in the same area of St. Petersburg before the 2028 season. Tropicana Field is set to be demolished after the Rays finish the 2027 MLB season. So will it be worth the cost of repairing the stadium if it only has a three-year shelf life anyway?

We haven’t done movie reviews in literal months! Seriously: The last one was June! Look it up. In light of last week’s conversation about Universal and having a kid who is Minion age, we’re going to look at the Despicable Me franchise. Cool sidebar: In July, we saw Despicable Me 4 on the big screen at the TCL Chinese Theater while we were in Hollywood, which made both my son and I happy for different reasons.

Despicable Me (2010) - I think a lot of people view the franchise as a shallow and vapid endeavor to sell yellow toys and make fart jokes, but I think that sells it short. It’s not top-tier Pixar great, but the original Despicable Me was good enough to launch Illumination studios and make the Minions part of the cultural vernacular. There are bits of cliches like the not-so-bad guy with a heart of gold, his mad scientist helper, or jokes about how villains have the same bank problems and parent issues as the rest of us. However, each is synthesized into something a bit unique here. Some slapstick-y (Gru failing to sneak into Vector’s HQ) or caper-y (Minions getting a unicorn) scenes go on too long and this continues throughout the series. However, when the movie is focused, it’s an excellent comedy - just maybe not as deep as parents might want. More importantly, there’s a definite emotional core with Gru and his three new daughters.

Despicable Me 2 (2013) - While the first movie is fairly tight, subsequent movies have more vestigial plots and diversions. The fart gun joke is a perfect encapsulation: in the first movie, it’s crude but the word “fart” is never mentioned and it’s kindof witty. In the sequel, this joke is beaten into the ground with a “twenty one fart gun salute”. Lucy, Silas Ramsbottom, and the AVL are all good adds to the franchise, though the plot throughout this movie is clunky. The villain misdirection was transparent and the final battle is a mess, even if emotionally satisfying. There’s not enough of the girls or Dr. Nefario, though the latter saves the day. Gru getting a girlfriend is a horribly cliche sequel plot they mostly pull it off. So, in the end, it feels very much like a sloppy sequel, giving the audience what they want in fanservice to make up for it.

Minions (2015) - Minions was a creative gamble in a lot of ways. There are parts of the movie that just don’t work, but did things in an interesting way to combat those risks. Gru and the girls are completely removed from the picture. This means our stars are three characters who don’t speak English and have limited emotional range. The writers do their best to highlight the personalities of leader Kevin, impulsive Stuart, and younger Bob. A lot of exposition is required so we get the history of the Minions as a species and the family going to Villain-Con. There, we get the over-the-top Scarlet Overkill and Herb. They also try to make the time period a character with music to match. Yes, too much of the Minions can be a bad thing and parts of the parts of the movie go long and feel aimless, like sketch comedy. However, I definitely credit them for trying something novel.

Despicable Me 3 (2017) - This might be the most disposable movie of the set (this or DM4). No one is mistaking these for Pixar movies that have appeal to kids but also major elements for adults. So I’m curious how they pitched the idea to have a washed up villain where major parts of his character rest on a cultural literacy of the 80s. So much happens in the movie but because none of it has time to breathe, it all feels like a plot contrivance with no depth. Gru basically had a mid-life crisis: he gets fired from the AVL, the minions quit, and he seeks solace in a long lost twin brother. While we’re separating Gru from all his anchors, we instead have a generic sequel-to-the-marriage plot where Lucy has to bond with the daughters and it’s not well done. Despicable Me is at its best when building bonds like when Gru and Dru are capering together. But instead, it insists on pushing characters apart even if, for instance, it makes sense that the Minions would want to work for someone evil. The franchise is getting stretched thinner and thinner, feeling more like a generic long episode of a TV show.

Minions: Rise of Gru (2022) - More than a decade and 5 movies in, this is the most complete movie that’s not the original. We’ve seen the 60s and 80s in the last two movies so this time, it’s the 70s. We finally are back to a good balance of Gru and the Minions while also having a fun introduction of Dr. Nefario. The Wild Knuckles arc from revenge to mentor works really well and fits Gru’s narrative. In the second half of the movie, the Minions get sidelined into the mindless Kung Fu plot that doesn’t really make sense. The final fight is good, but I’m conflicted about the denouement. Emotionally, it would have worked better for WK to remain dead and drive Gru’s character forward but I get why they didn’t want to kill a character that a lot of time was spent redeeming for the school-aged audience.

Despicable Me 4 (2024) - Have we talked about Pharrell Williams yet? The intro with “Double Life” was super catchy (see below) and somehow it’s only the third most memorable song he’s had from the series, behind “Despicable Me” and, of course, “Happy”. I suppose that explains how he’s getting a Lego movie biography next month (not joking). The core of our movie is yet another sequel cliche: Gru has a new baby! However, this one’s a son and, for the third straight movie, it shoves aside the girls, who were core to why the first movie was the best. We keep going back to the well of “supervillains are just like us only not” with Gru going to his class reunion. Once again, the Minions are separated from Gru, too. The Mega Minions plot is merely meh, though the tennis scene is hilarious. Like DM3, There are too many plots going on here and none can breath: the baby, Mega Minions, and Poppy. The last is a shame as the Poppy plot really works and the honey badger heist is a wonderful scene, reminding us that Gru is hyper-competent while also playfully echoing the mentor plot from Minions 2 forward. Finally, the contrivance of Gru fearing someone enough to go into witness protection? No, just no. Even if they tried to make it seem vaguely plausible, it’s be a stretch and they didn’t even put in the screen time work for that. It’s less of a mess than DM3, but that might be recency bias.

If we’re going to rank them, I think it goes something like this:

Despicable Me >> Minions 2 >> Despicable Me 2 > Minions >> Despicable Me 4 > Despicable Me 3

As mentioned above, the intro to Despicable Me 4 with Pharrell Williams “Double Life” is crazy catchy: