Grind City Media

Jason Sudeikis promoting Ted Lasso

Weekend Guide 🎬 Friday, August 7

TV, movies and…cookies?

Fri-Day! Yes! And as you roll into the weekend, here’s a quick guide with a few things worthy of your precious free time…

Believe

I write to you late at night, from a dark hotel room in an anonymous Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. My kid goes back to school next week, and after a long summer where I was mostly absent, dealing with family illness, I wanted to give my son at least a few days of fun. So, we decamped to the Most Magical Place on Earth, which it turns out may also be one of the most expensive places on Earth. Hey, magic don’t come cheap.

We spent all day today bouncing from ride to ride and concession stand to concession stand, then came back to our room just as the sky opened up over central Florida. Everyone else couldn’t wait to start planning for tomorrow. Me? I just wanted to watch the newly released season of “Ted Lasso.”

If you’ve never watched “Ted Lasso,” the best way I can describe it is that it’s a show with a lot of heart. It’s about sports, but it’s not really a sports show. Yes, the titular character is the coach of a soccer team, but he’s so ill-informed about soccer that mainly he’s teaching those in his orbit about life, either intentionally or, more frequently, unintentionally.

I began watching “Ted Lasso” right around the time I started coaching the Grizzlies’ esports team. Luckily for me, none of them watched “Ted Lasso,” so I unapologetically stole from the show. When a player messed up, I would ask which animal has the shortest memory. The goldfish! Well, at least according to Ted.

Eventually, I got a picture of a goldfish, and if someone was having a bad day, I’d stick the picture of the goldfish on their desk, as a more tangible reminder to move on. (Eventually, one of the veteran players gently informed me that getting the goldfish just meant you were playing badly, so maybe it would be better to forget the visual aid. We did.)

When I coached my son’s little league team, one day I asked the kids to tell me which animal had the shortest memory. “An elephant!” one kid blurted out. “No!” I quickly responded.

I don’t know much about the new season of “Ted Lasso,” other than he’s now coaching a women’s team. Which should be a great pivot—Ted coaching in the Premier League had gone about as far as it could go. I don’t know if there will be much this season about X’s and O’s, but I’m hopeful we’ll get a lot about life. Which has been the one thing “Ted Lasso” has always delivered upon.

Trade Deadline

One of the things I’ve learned over my years working in and around professional sports is that sometimes fans have trouble seeing the bigger picture. Fans want to win now, which I totally understand. I want my teams to win now also! But there are times when teams make moves that make us feel as though they aren’t prioritizing winning at the highest levels.

Over the weekend, dozens of Major League Baseball teams made trades at the deadline, and most of the better teams in MLB went hard after pitching. My favorite team, the Atlanta Braves, has one of the better records in baseball, despite having a pitching staff decimated by injuries. This was our last chance before the season’s stretch run to not only add an arm that could play a huge role in the postseason, but also to keep up with all the other teams feasting on the buffet of arms that became available.

Instead, the Braves mostly just sat it out, choosing not to trade any minor league prospects who might one day be productive, in exchange for an arm that could surely help right now. Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos met the media this week and gave various answers about feeling like the team was good enough and they didn’t need to make a splashy move for the sake of making a move. After all, the Braves are in first place! They’ve been in first place almost all season!

It made me think about if whether it would be worth making some sort of deal even if it was just for the sake of the fans. Two lower level prospects for a good veteran arm down the stretch? Come on, I’d do that. But then you’re making moves for what other people think, not what you’re thinking. Then again, if you think this Braves team with one elite starting pitcher is going to win anything in the postseason, have I got news for you.

So, I understand patience, and I get trying to see and embrace the bigger picture. I just think sometimes you have to throw your fans a bone and go out and make a move. Instead, sometimes it feels like we’re just getting fed more of the same.

Great New Day

While some of my Grind City Media colleagues planned their weekends around going to see the new Spider-Man movie (shoutout Bennett and CJ), I’ve always been more of a Batman guy, appreciating a man who goes out and fights crime without any super powers, just armed with a lot of anger. But thanks to a confluence of events, I was able to go to the movies by myself the other night, so I went to the new flick Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

More than anything, I had fun. It was a fun movie, filmed in a fun way, with a fun storyline and a lot of fun fights and stunts. Going to generalize here, but for the most part, I don’t like movies that are about people talking—if I want to see people talking, I’ll go to a restaurant or jump on a Zoom. If I’m paying $20 and sitting in the dark, I better get explosions and special effects and stuff I can’t see in everyday life. Spider-Man gave me that and more.

Odds and Ends…

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Lang Whitaker

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