The Pervert

I suppose I could write about the trade the Yankees made yesterday acquiring Nick Swisher and the impact it might have on the Angels' ability to re-sign Mark Teixeira, but I don't think I have anything new to add to the 50 other articles already written on other sites.  Instead, this story has nothing to do with the Angels, or baseball for that matter, but for some reason I was thinking about it this morning.

A long time ago, in fact, a completely different lifetime ago, I was stationed in Grand Prairie Texas with the Marines.  In 1983, I was 21 years-old, married, and looking back on it...naively happy.  My wife's sister was leaving to go back to California after spending some time with us and as the three of us were sitting in the airport waiting area, (those were the days when people could go to the airline gate without a ticket or strip search), waiting for the boarding announcement, we noticed three other people sitting across the aisle from us...a man and two women.  For some reason there weren't a lot of people there waiting with us, maybe we were early or something, but they were sitting directly across from us without any interference from other passengers.  As we sat there waiting for my sister-in-law to board the plane, my wife noticed the guy was looking at us.  Not looking as in "I'm bored, what can I look at" type looking, but staring...creepy-like staring.  We sat there for maybe 10 minutes and this guy just kept looking.  At one point my wife leans over and tells her sister, "If he sits next to you, ask the stewardess for another seat.  He looks like a pervert." 

Being in the Marines, one of my favorite movies at the time was "The Great Santini" about a Marine pilot, played by Robert Duvall.  Since it was one of my favorite movies, and I'm kinda a movie person who'll watch a movie over and over again, I'd seen it at least 10 times.  So, it's now my turn to lean over and say something, and I say, "He looks like the Great Santini".  And my wife replies, "No, he looks like a pervert."

Needless to say, that was no pervert, it was Robert Duvall.  Apparently he had been in Texas filming his next movie, "Tender Mercies" and was probably thinking "When are these people going to come over here and bother me for an autograph" or something like that.  Here was a guy who had been in two of the greatest movies ever made, "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part 2", and uttered two of the most famous lines of dialogue in film history (From "Apocalypse Now"):

Kilgore: Smell that? You smell that?
Lance: What?
Kilgore: Napalm, son. Nothing in the world smells like that.
[kneels]
Kilgore: I love the smell of napalm in the morning...the smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory.

and...

Kilgore: Charlie don't surf!

But to us, anytime we saw him in a movie, "Hey, there's the pervert!".

Daily Notes:

• Okay, here's my take on yesterday's trade between the Yankees and White Sox.  According to Yankee GM Brian Cashman, Nick Swisher's their new first baseman.  If that's the case, that's very good news for the Angels and their fans, as the Yankees may have pulled themselves out of the Teixeira sweepstakes and are focused on the free agent pitching market.  This doesn't guarantee a return to the Halos, but it does weaken his agent Scott Boras' position to play the Yankees and Angels against each other.  It probably now comes down to the Angels and Red Sox as Teix's landing spot.
• Read about the Tigers possibly looking to trade Magglio Ordonez.  In this article, it's stated the best first is with the Angels because of their depth at catcher and shortstop, a couple of needs the Tigers have.  The debate over at Halo's Heaven is how much of a career decline Ordonez is in and if he's better than Kendry Morales, who he'd likely replace in the line-up.  My feeling is Ordonez would be a big upgrade over Morales in 2009, but at 3 more years at $17M, Ordonez may be a liability and roadblock in the two seasons after.  I say go for it if the deal is right and worry about 2010 after next season.  Angel fans want a World Series win and Ordonez is a step in that direction.
• So much for rumors I hear about.  Yesterday I wrote that the Marlins were going to trade Kevin Gregg (and Jeremy Hermida) to the Angels, and shortly after I posted that, he was traded...to the Chicago Cubs.  With that trade the Cubs have said good-bye to last season's closer Kerry Wood.  Another Wood in Anaheim?
• According to this posting, Randy Johnson isn't in the Angels plans.  To bad, I thought he'd be a great fit in the Halo rotation as their #5 guy, plus the bonus of his likely to get his 300th victory this season (he needs 5 wins).
• Today's the day teams can make offers to other teams' free agents.