062 - Remember, Remember the First of November
A chilling, thrilling account of my Saturday night betwixt baseball and Bob Odenkirk
“FUCK!” I screamed aloud, to myself, in the middle of Kenn’s Broome Street Bar, fifteen minutes into the second day of the eleventh month in the two thousand and twenty-fifth year since the immaculate conception of Jesus “Hymie” Christ.
The final outs of the 150th Major League Baseball season had just been recorded on a broken-bat chopper up the middle hit by Alejandro Kirk of the Toronto Blue Jays and fielded by Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who stepped on second base (“There’s one!”) and threw to Freddie Freeman at first (“There’s two!”) to complete a World Series-sealing double play for LA in front of 44,000 stunned Canadians at the retractable roof stadium in downtown Toronto formerly forever known as the SkyDome.1
I had popped in to catch the end of the game, after missing the first 8 1/2 innings due to a scheduling conflict. Earlier in the week, I had purchased tickets to the New York premiere of The Room Returns! — a movie I did not know existed until I saw it publicized on Instagram, earlier in the week — at the Roxy Cinema for November 1st. A shot-for-shot, line-for-line remake of writer/director/actor Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 cinematic masterpiece The Room, starring comedy hero Bob Odenkirk as Wiseau’s Johnny — with a cast Q&A to follow? Sorry, Sandy Koufax, I wasn’t going to miss this for the world… or the World Series.2
Shot entirely in a single day (January 10, 2023) on a no-string budget with an all-volunteer cast and crew in service of producing the film as a fundraiser for actingforacause.org (whose founder Brando Crawford conceived of, acted in, and directed it), The Room Returns! is a remarkable work of high art whose mere completion stands as a staggering accomplishment.
Recreating a 99-minute feature film in a single day on a green-screen set — without rehearsals — meant most scenes were captured in one take, with the cast cold-reading from off-camera teleprompters. Despite the many constraints on a production already burdened by its own self-awareness (comedians earnestly paying tribute to an earnest dramatic effort that inadvertently produced the greatest comedy of all-time), this Room redux was deftly directed and sharply acted.
Odenkirk delivered a career-crowning performance as Johnny, attending to the script’s idiosyncratic syntax and Wiseau’s extraterrestrial emotional expressions with deadpan precision and a devotion to the source material, a dedication clearly shared by the tremendously gifted actors portraying Lisa, Mark, Denny, Claudette, Mike, Michelle, Peter, Susan, Steven, and the Florist.
The light touches in The Room Returns! that deviate from the original make the homage all the richer. To note: The Room’s gratuitous and bizarrely overwrought sex scenes have been replaced with title cards that linger on screen for the same excruciating duration as their antecedents. The inherent goofiness of the “rooftop football” scene — in which the guys very normally toss the pigskin back and forth, on the roof — gets boosted by a Tim & Eric-esque composite editing technique that allows the football to seamfully pass from one man to another. And Greg Sestero, The Room’s line producer and the ur-“Mark,” makes an enjoyable cameo as the gun-toting, drug dealer who “wants his fucking money” from Denny, played to perfection by Parkland shooting survivor Cameron Kasky (who admitted in the Q&A that he had completely forgotten working on the film).
The result is a loving and laugh-filled tribute dressed in all the chaotic glory of its origin story and obvious handicaps, and I’m glad I went — despite the absence of IRL Odenkirk, whose flight to New York was canceled amid air traffic controller shortages due to the ongoing government shutdown. THANKS OBAMA!
Busting out of the Roxy, I checked my phone to see the Blue Jays up 4-3 on the heavily favored Blue Crew heading into the 9th. By the time I could locate a nightlife establishment in SoHo that deigned to display “sportsball” on “television,” the Dodgers had tied it on a Miguel Rojas solo blast. The Jays were now batting in the bottom of the 144th of what would ultimately be 146 innings played in this 2025 World Series.3 It was hard to recall a more ball-to-ball, wall-to-wall, front-to-back, back-and-forth, hard-fought, high-strung Fall Classic than this one. The gutsy pitching. The clutch hitting. The stupendous defense, with more perfect throws and picks to nail runners on base or at home in one series than seemingly all season.
And yet, the drama would build even greater. The tension would ratchet ever higher. The vicarious thrill I had been chasing as a Mets fan rooting for the Blue Jays was now transmogrifying into a nauseating, vicarious anxiety.4 My partiality for MLB’s lone north-of-the-border franchise lay not only in the simple fact that they happened to be the “anyone playing the Dodgers” in this moment. I genuinely love the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada — its people, poutine, and shoe museums — and I’ve long felt personally connected to streets and places like Trinity Bellwoods, Ossington, Spadina, Sneaky Dee’s, Comedy Bar, the Rivoli, The Annex and The Danforth thanks to my many dear friends running through the Six who have been rooting so hard for this team for so long.5
It helps that it’s been a fun team to follow over the past decade, going back to the back-to-back ALCS appearances of late-stage Joey Bats, prime Josh Donaldson, old hosses Dickey and Buehrle handing the reins to Stroman and Sanchez, pre-assault Osuna dominating out of the pen, and J.A. Happ becoming the unlikeliest member of the 20-win club since Rick Helling… to the more recent emergence of homegrown stars Vlad Jr. and Bo Bichette, who — with dearly departed Cavan Biggio — made Toronto’s 2019 club the answer to this favorite bit of baseball trivia: What team holds the record for most second-generation big leaguers to make their MLB debuts in the same season?
Back to the action… I already felt like I was going to barf, when this happened: Andy Pages, who started Game 7 on the bench after managing just one hit in his previous sixteen at-bats, is subbed into center field specifically for his defense with bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the ninth — and makes a spectacular, running catch while colliding with his neighbor in left,6 saving the Dodgers’ season and crushing Canadian spirit.
And then this happened: who else but Will Smith gets jiggy with a Shane Bieber hanging slider with two outs in the top of the 11th, giving LA their first lead of the game — and the only one they’d need.
But then, a new hope: Vladdy Daddy leads off the bottom of the 146th with a ferocious double laced down the left field line. He’s moved over to third on a flawless sacrifice bunt by Isiah Kiner-Falefa — answer to this newly-minted trivia question: Who was the first player of Samoan descent to appear in a World Series? Addison Barger walks on four pitches, and Alejandro Kirk — who had come up in the 9th with a chance to walk it off, but was instead forced to walk to first on a hit by a pitch — was back in the box with another shot at writing his name into baseball immortality, in the same set and setting where Joe touched ‘em all, all those years ago…
But alas, the broken-bat slap. The 6-6-3 double play. The Dodgers win, again.
In hindsight, my uncharacteristic, publicly shouted expletive had less to do with heartbreak by proxy for my Jays-loving friends, or righteous anger towards baseball’s new Evil Empire and the first repeat champs since the prior sinister administration (the Y2K Yankees).
I cursed the heavens because… well, that was it. That was all, folks. Another season was in the books — with all its screaming liners and sweeping sliders and daringly stretched doubles and gingerly stolen bases and diving-stops-in-the-hole and pinch-hit grand slams and plays-at-the-plate and game-ending twin killings — leaving another long, dark winter in its wake.
What now? Until the diamond dirt begins to thaw with those tentative first steps of pitchers and catchers come February, I’ll be warming my tuchus by the hot stove… watching football and basketball, I guess?
Fuck. I’m going to miss baseball.
Formally known since 2005 as the “Rogers Centre” after the multi-billion dollar telecommunications conglomerate who purchased the team and its stadium, initiating a highly contemptible corporate rebrand.
As if I even paused for a millisecond to think about anything other than immediately securing my seat at the Roxy, let alone considering the timing of Game 7 (if necessary). And it wasn’t supposed to even BE necessary! Coming home up 3-2 on the Dodgers after taking two of three on the road, I had pegged the Jays to close it out in Game 6! Regardless, I was acting on pure animal instinct when I purchased those tickets, snatching them from the jaws of “SOLD OUT,” and even if Daft Punk were playing at my house, I’d have left them at home for The Room X Odenkirk.
Good for 20 innings of bonus baseball, largely thanks to the effective doubleheader played in Game 3.
My partiality for Toronto wasn’t simply because they happened to be the “anyone playing the Dodgers.” I genuinely love the city of Toronto — its people, poutine, and shoe museums — and I’ve long had personal ties to places like Trinity-Bellwoods, Ossington, The Annex and The Danforth thanks to my many dear friends who are from the Six and who live there and who have been rooting so hard for this team for so long.
Shoutout James, Tom, Tim, Chris, Aaron, and especially Adnan — who is BEAMING right now at the mention of his name, pumping his fist and saying, “Yes! Rags! My guy!”
Kiké “My Name’s Not a Slur (I Swear)” Hernandez can be seen in the replay covering his face in shame — and perhaps beginning to cry — thinking he missed the catch, and the ball dropped, and the game was over.