Tag: Memphis Redbirds

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From My Seat Sports

“The Other Nolan”

Nolan Gorman (courtesy Memphis Redbirds)

When the calendar turned to 2021, Nolan Gorman knew he would spend the year as one of the St. Louis Cardinals’ top two prospects (along with pitcher Matthew Liberatore, a childhood pal from Arizona and now a teammate with the Memphis Redbirds). What Gorman didn’t know was that by February, he would be merely the second-best third baseman named Nolan in the Cardinals’ system. 

With the acquisition of perennial All-Star Nolan Arenado from the Colorado Rockies, the Cardinals secured what they hope will be their third baseman for the better part of a decade. They also added a twist to “the other Nolan’s” development. Gorman now spends most nights playing second base for the Redbirds. By the looks of his production at the Triple-A level, he may soon join his namesake in that Cardinal infield.

“The biggest difference [at Triple A] has been the pitching,” says the 21-year-old Gorman. “They go out there with a game plan to face me. And they execute better than guys at Double A. A bunch of them have big-league time. It’s a good challenge: learn to adapt as quickly as possible to get to the next level.”

Since his promotion from Double-A Springfield on June 29th, Gorman has hit .278 with 10 home runs and an OPS of .796. (His numbers over 43 games with Springfield: .288 average, 11 homers, .862 OPS.) “I make mechanical adjustments [to my swing] in the offseason,” explains Gorman. “I tinker with stuff, here and there, during the season, but nothing drastic. It’s been more mental. Less is more . . . not trying to do too much. This game will humble you quickly if you think you have it figured out. You have to trust yourself, not try to hit a home run every time.”

The adjustment to a new level of professional baseball has coincided with Gorman’s adjustment to a new position. He’s looked comfortable at second base, even when turning the double play (not an act that always comes naturally to a longtime third baseman). “It’s been fun,” he says. “I had a lot of help during spring training from [Cardinal coaches] Jose Oquendo and Stubby Clapp. Just put in the work. They’ve made it as easy as possible. It’s probably easier for a third baseman to move to second than it is to go from second to third. I’ve enjoyed turning double plays, and being involved in so many plays. On an off day, I’ll be pacing the dugout, not knowing what to do with myself.”

Now a minor league instructor with the Cardinals, Oquendo famously played all nine positions (including pitcher) during the 1988 season with St. Louis. Gorman emphasizes Oquendo’s influence — especially during 2020, when the pandemic shut down the minor leagues — in much the way generations of Cardinals credited their development to the late George Kissell. “He has what you’d call the ‘it’ factor,” says Gorman. “He understands the game at a different level. It’s special. To be able to sit and talk with [Oquendo] about the game, to see how it should be played . . . it’s been really good to hear that at a young age. [Baseball] is changing and evolving, but there’s a right way to play the game. There are a lot of chess pieces to keep an eye on.”

In reflecting on the “lost season” of 2020, Gorman sees a silver lining, one that may actually benefit his development and get him to the major leagues quicker. “I went to the alternate [training] site and I was able to really hone in on things I needed to improve,” he says. “I enjoyed how much work I got in. It put me in a leadership role for younger guys. [Oquendo] did that, I think, to build my leadership skills, to focus on my career and how to get better. [The shutdown] could hurt players or make them better. It’s the mentality, what you did with it. How you spent your time.”

Ten days after he first donned a Memphis Redbirds jersey, Gorman and his teammates embarked on a franchise-record 15-game winning streak. They remain well outside playoff contention (48-54 through Sunday), but nothing teaches an athlete to win like actually winning games. With his big-league debut drawing near (major-league clubs can expand rosters Wednesday), Gorman hopes to find similar growth spurts a few hours north and just across the Mississippi River. “You gotta be consistent at the big-league level,” says Gorman. “You gotta produce to win ballgames, or someone will replace you. Find consistency. Have a game plan every day, and trust it.”

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From My Seat Sports

Birds and Buds

Last Saturday, I took a buddy of 38 years(!) to Busch Stadium for his first visit to the nest of the St. Louis Cardinals. Had the opportunity to introduce a long-distance traveler to several former Memphis Redbirds, in my happy place. Audie Artero didn’t grow up a Cardinals fan as I did (third generation), but he grew up a teammate of mine (basketball and soccer, in addition to baseball). We were small-town partners, and not just in the outfield for Northfield (VT) High School. We tended to travel as a tandem, at least when not on a date or scouting foreign turf (perhaps a party “way up” in Montpelier).

Ours is a cosmic friendship, of a sort, as the odds of the two of us ever crossing paths were astronomical. I was born in Tennessee and found my way to a small hamlet in central Vermont via California (among other family stops). Audie was born in North Carolina and found his way to Northfield via Texas (among other family stops). Our connective thread: Our fathers were hired, a year apart, by Norwich University.

Audie is now a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, and has called Guam home for more than two decades. This makes the days we actually share a room — or baseball stadium — a little more significant than visits across a time zone or two. We tend to make the most of them, and we’ve managed to get together the old-fashioned way every odd year since 2009. (I trail Audie by a few ocean-widths of air travel.)

Qualities in a friend you keep on the other side of the globe? It starts, of course, with our high school experience. We “shared our morning days,” as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it. But I’ll note a couple of Audie’s shining traits. I’ve never witnessed him act cruel, in the slightest, to another person. (Except on a basketball court. He introduced himself in a pickup game and swatted my first shot with malice beyond the reach of most 14-year-olds.) This is a guy who excuses himself when someone takes his place in line. And Audie has virtually no ego, despite an abundance of smarts and talent. (There was no Mutombo finger-wag after that block. He took possession of the ball, and scored.)

Senior year in high school, I entered an essay contest in which we were tasked with writing about three people we admired, past or present. I wrote about Thomas Jefferson, Mohandas Gandhi, and Audie Artero. Took second place. Good friends, it turns out, make for inspired writing and good reading.

Audie and I have each been blessed with happy marriages for more than a quarter century. We’ve each raised a pair of daughters. (Like mine, Audie’s got his mother’s good looks.) Our friendship would make a decent Hallmark movie were it not for a few minor laws broken along the way. (In a small town, you can often answer the blue lights with a sincere apology.) The long distance component — Memphis is 7,500 miles from Guam — would be the tear-jerker, but our story has been packed with so much laughter, audiences would be too exhausted from the happy to waste any energy on the sad.

We followed our night at the ballpark with a Sunday tour of Anheuser-Busch. Audie and I have contributed to the company’s profit margin over the years, so a view of the Budweiser barrels, you might say, was overdue. It was one of those experiences, we often agreed, we’d enjoy someday. No need to write such plans down, or create a list, not even with 7,500 miles part of the equation. It’s funny. When “someday” arrives with a special friend, no matter how long it takes, it feels right on time.

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From My Seat Sports

Redbird Reinforcements?

Alex Reyes (Courtesy Memphis Redbirds)

The 2019 Memphis Redbirds season began with Tommy Edman on the infield and ended with Dylan Carlson in the outfield. Two years and one pandemic later, both players can be found in the St. Louis Cardinals’ batting order on a daily basis, key components to any World Series aspirations for the Redbirds’ parent club. If we go back to 2018 — a season that ended with a second-straight Pacific Coast League championship for Memphis — we recall AutoZone Park memories of Randy Arozarena, Luke Voit, Adolis Garcia, Jack Flaherty, and Dakota Hudson, all now rising stars in the major leagues (though not all still in the St. Louis system).

Back to the present, though, and it’s hard to envision current Redbirds making the kind of impact so many of their predecessors have before, during, and now near the end of the worldwide health crisis. Among the Cardinals’ current top 20 prospects (as ranked by MLB.com), only two have been with Memphis since Opening Day in May, and both are pitchers: Matthew Liberatore (the number-one prospect) and Zack Thompson. Liberatore (acquired in a trade that sent Arozarena to Tampa Bay) has an especially high ceiling and could occupy a future spot in the Cardinals’ starting rotation, but he’s pitched in only six games above Class A. Remember, minor-league baseball went dark in 2020, a lost season of competition and development for rising stars like Liberatore. You might say he’s currently pitching on a “Double-A-plus” level, only in Triple-A stadiums.

Among position players, who among the 2021 Memphis Redbirds might enter the mix in St. Louis? Outfielder Lars Nootbaar missed 20 games with an injury to his right hand, but has put up an eye-popping slash line in his first season at Triple-A: .329/.430/.557 (through Sunday). With the Cardinals’ offensive numbers among the worst in baseball — among 30 teams, St. Louis ranks 27th in on-base percentage and 22nd in slugging percentage — any Memphis hitter with numbers like Nootbaar’s is like a peacock on parade amid a gaggle of geese.

 Jose Rondon leads the Redbirds with six home runs and this is telling, as the infielder has been with the Cardinals since being promoted on May 29th. The Memphis lineup is not stocked with bashers, and Rondon’s impact with St. Louis has been minimal (six hits in 13 games). As the season’s midpoint nears, the Cardinals (and Redbirds) need to maximize production from now-familiar faces. Until Double-A Springfield infuses the upper levels of the system with new blood, the I-55 pipeline may be traffic-free.

• The best story this season among former Redbirds on the current Cardinal roster is that of Alex Reyes. The 26-year-old pitcher made his big-league debut in 2016, when he struck out 93 hitters in 65 innings for Memphis as the system’s top-ranked prospect. But a series of injuries limited Reyes to a total of seven innings over the next three seasons. He pitched out of the Cardinals’ bullpen last year, but his workload was just shy of 20 innings in the abbreviated season.

Here in 2021, though, Reyes has assumed the role of closer for the Cardinals, walking the ninth-inning tightrope as though he’s been there before. Through Sunday, Reyes has posted a miniscule 0.82 ERA and earned 17 saves, good for fifth in the National League. The riddle for St. Louis, big picture, will be whether to keep Reyes in a role that limits him (typically) to one inning per game, or to return his powerful right arm to the starting rotation, an area that’s been compromised this season by the injury-related losses of Dakota Hudson, Miles Mikolas, and most significantly, ace Jack Flaherty. Whether in the ninth inning or the first, Reyes should be a difference-maker — if he can stay healthy — for many years to come.

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From My Seat Sports

Albert Pujols and His Memphis Throne

When news broke last Thursday that the Los Angeles Angels had released Albert Pujols — the Albert Pujols — my thoughts turned to a red seat at AutoZone Park. A solitary, some would say lonely red seat that rests (mounted on concrete) on the rightfield bluff of the ballpark, just inside a foul pole. On September 15, 2000, a 20-year-old Pujols — a late season promotion from Class A — laced a line drive just fair for a 13th-inning, walk-off home run that gave the Memphis Redbirds their first Pacific Coast League championship in the stadium’s inaugural season. Had the player who hit that baseball never reached the major leagues, it would be one of the greatest moments in Memphis sports history. The man who hit that baseball, of course, became the most accomplished player — to date — of the 21st century and an all-time great.

There’s no such thing as a quick review of the Albert Pujols Hall of Fame resumé. Having  played a total of 14 games above Class A (during that championship run with Memphis), Pujols made the St. Louis Cardinals’ roster in 2001 and ran away with National League Rookie of the Year honors, batting .329 with 37 home runs and 130 RBIs. He  won the National League MVP award three times (and finished second in the voting four more). On the scale that matters most, he helped the Cardinals to the playoffs in seven of his 11 seasons with the franchise, earning three National League pennants and two World Series championships (in 2006 and 2011). 

As a Cardinal, Pujols hit the gold standard in the Triple Crown categories — a .300 batting average, 30 homers, 100 RBIs — 10 consecutive years. He remains the only baseball player to accomplish such a decade-long stretch of numerical greatness. Think of your favorite legends: Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Frank Robinson. None of them went .300/30/100 10 years in a row. More recent superstars who put up gargantuan numbers (with the help of performance enhancers), guys like Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez . . . they didn’t pull it off either. Over that decade with St. Louis (2001-10), Albert Pujols established a baseball statistical club of one.

Then came the L.A. years. Pujols shocked the baseball world by heading west after the 2011 season, signing a 10-year, $240 million contract with the team Vin Scully did not describe. While “The Machine” climbed various charts and hit major milestones — 600 home runs and 3,000 hits — with the Angels, his performance gradually faded, and his team never won so much as a single playoff game. After batting .328 with 445 home runs and 1,329 RBIs in 11 years with the Cardinals, Pujols hit .256 with 222 homers and 783 RBIs in a now-abbreviated 10 years with the Angels. Unable to crack the fabled Mendoza Line this season (.198 in 92 plate appearances), Pujols departed Los Angeles not with the ceremony worthy of a legend, but with a pink slip. The Angels will pay Pujols upwards of $30 million this year . . . not to play for them.

Speculation begins now. Has Pujols entered a batter’s box for the last time? Might another American League team — one that could use a designated hitter — sign Pujols and put him in the lineup on a daily basis? And the juiciest rumor of all: Might Pujols return to St. Louis for some form of limited action and a farewell tour that would, indeed, feature ceremony after ceremony, one ballpark after another?

For now, I choose not to speculate for what remains in the sunset of Albert Pujols’s singular career. I like the memory of September 15, 2000, when upwards of 10,000 Memphis baseball fans got to know him before the world did. He wore number 6 when he hit the home run that spawned that red seat at AutoZone Park. (Redbirds management had the good sense to leave the seat in place when hundreds of others were removed during renovations a few years ago.) The number 6 has long been retired by the Cardinals in honor of the franchise’s greatest player, Stan Musial. No one in downtown Memphis 21 years ago knew that the streak across the sky we just witnessed was a baseball comet on his way to hitting more home runs as a Cardinal than anyone except Stan the Man. 

Legends tend to grow gradually, shaping time and space — sometimes a baseball diamond — with their mighty impact. But the birth of a legend? That’s an instant. Blink and you’ve missed it. The Albert Pujols legend was born in Memphis. It’s about time we recognize that red seat for what it’s become: a throne.

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From My Seat Sports

Hoop Lockdown and Big Dates

CREDIT: Joe Murphy / Memphis Athletics

Football is a sport designed with lengthy delays, typically six days off for every game day. Basketball is very different, a sport built around rhythm and flow. Ask a hot shooter when he’d like to have a day off and he’ll say when the season’s over. When the Memphis Tigers next take the floor (Wednesday night?), they will have gone almost three weeks (at least) without playing a game that counts. With a 12-6 record (and only three losses in American Athletic Conference competition), Memphis is, by the numbers, in contention to win a league championship and earn an NCAA tournament berth. But what kind of Memphis team will we see after such a lengthy interruption by Covid-19?
Joe Murphy / Memphis Athletics

Alex Lomax

The Tigers won six of their last seven games before the current lockdown, thanks largely to collective shooting improvement. Over one five-game stretch, Memphis shot 49 percent from three-point range and moved to the top of the AAC in the category. Will Landers Nolley, Lester Quinones, and friends be on target when the season resumes?

Alex Lomax was playing the best basketball of his three-year college career before the lockdown. The pride of East High did his best Antonio Anderson impression in the Tigers’ last game, a win over East Carolina: 10 points, 9 assists, 5 rebounds, 5 steals. Will Lomax be a difference-maker when the Tigers return to play?

The AAC tournament is scheduled for March 11th-14th in Fort Worth. That’s less than three weeks. With four games remaining on the Tiger schedule, how many of the four games postponed this month (so far) can be played? Among those games: two against Houston and one against Wichita State, the teams Memphis must leap to win the conference title. (One of the Houston games and the Shockers contest are among the postponements.) And if the Tigers only complete a partial schedule, what will that mean for seeding at the AAC tourney? What will it mean for at-large consideration for the NCAA tournament? We’re still living in a pandemic. There are more questions than answers, naturally.

• A distinct ray of sunshine during last week’s historic deep freeze was the Memphis Redbirds’ 2021 schedule release. Even the idea of a baseball game at AutoZone Park — Opening Day April 6th! — feels like a shortening not only of winter, but the pandemic (which cost the Redbirds their entire 2020 season). The Pacific Coast League is a thing of the past. Memphis will now compete in the Triple-A Southeast Division. Instead of traveling as far as Tacoma, Reno, and Albuquerque to play, the Redbirds will compete with teams from Louisville, Jacksonville, and Gwinnett (the Atlanta Braves’ Triple-A affiliate), cities we can call regional rivals, at least with a wink.

Those into pop culture will welcome visits to AutoZone Park by the Durham Bulls (for whom Crash Davis starred) and Toledo Mud Hens (adored by Corporal Klinger from MASH). There was a time when Memphis-Louisville was Ali-Frazier in college basketball. Now, the Redbirds will play several games against the city the franchise called home before moving to Memphis in 1998. And hey, Bats and Redbirds are natural enemies, aren’t they?

• The Memphis Tigers last played Mississippi State on the gridiron in 2011. Justin Fuente’s name was not on the minds of Tiger fans ten years ago, much less Mike Norvell’s. It’s been two legitimate “eras” since the Bullies came to town. The drought ends September 18th. The Tigers will likely carry a 16-game home winning streak into the showdown with SEC competition. (Memphis opens its season two weeks earlier by hosting Nicholls State.) Let’s hope, here in February — still winter, still pandemic conditions — that the Tigers and Bulldogs clash in a packed Liberty Bowl. In many ways, that would be a larger victory than anything Memphis fans might see on the scoreboard. 

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Cover Feature News

2021: Here’s Looking at You

If 2020 was the year of despair, 2021 appears to be the year of hope.

Wanna see what that could look like? Cast your gaze to Wuhan, China, birthplace of COVID-19.

News footage from Business Insider shows hundreds of carefree young people gathered in a massive swimming pool, dancing and splashing at a rock concert. They are effortlessly close together and there’s not a mask in sight. Bars and restaurants are packed with maskless revelers. Night markets are jammed. Business owners smile, remember the bleak times, and say the worst is behind them. How far behind? There’s already a COVID-19 museum in Wuhan.

That could be Memphis (once again) one day. But that day is still likely months off. Vaccines arrived here in mid-December. Early doses rightfully went to frontline healthcare workers. Doses for the masses won’t likely come until April or May, according to health experts.

While we still cannot predict exactly “what” Memphians will be (can be?) doing next year, we can tell you “where” they might be doing it. New places will open their doors next year, and Memphis is set for some pretty big upgrades.

But it doesn’t stop there. “Memphis has momentum” was Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s catchphrase as he won a second term for the office last October. It did. New building projects bloomed like the Agricenter’s sunflowers. And it still does. Believe it or not, not even COVID-19 could douse developers’ multi-million-dollar optimism on the city.

Here are few big projects slated to open in 2021:

Renasant Convention Center

Throughout 2020, crews have been hard at work inside and outside the building once called the Cook Convention Center.

City officials and Memphis Tourism broke ground on a $200-million renovation project for the building in January 2020. The project will bring natural light and color to the once dark and drab convention center built in 1974. The first events are planned for the Renasant Convention Center in the new year.

Memphis International Airport

Memphis International Airport

Expect the ribbon to be cut on Memphis International Airport’s $245-million concourse modernization project in 2021. The project was launched in 2014 in an effort to upgrade the airport’s concourse to modern standards and to right-size the space after Delta de-hubbed the airport.

Once finished, all gates, restaurants, shops, and more will be located in a single concourse. The space will have higher ceilings, more natural light, wider corridors, moving walkways, children’s play areas, a stage for live music, and more.

Collage Dance Collective

The beautiful new building on the corner of Tillman and Sam Cooper is set to open next year in an $11-million move for the Collage Dance Collective.

The 22,000-square-foot performing arts school will feature five studios, office space, a dressing room, a study lounge, 70 parking spaces, and a physical therapy area.

The Memphian Hotel

The Memphian Hotel

A Facebook post by The Memphian Hotel reads, “Who is ready for 2021?” The hotel is, apparently. Developers told the Daily Memphian recently that the 106-room, $24-million hotel is slated to open in April.

“Walking the line between offbeat and elevated, The Memphian will give guests a genuine taste of Midtown’s unconventional personality, truly capturing the free spirit of the storied art district in which the property sits,” reads a news release.

Watch for work to begin next year on big projects in Cooper-Young, the Snuff District, Liberty Park, Tom Lee Park, and The Walk. — Toby Sells

Book ‘Em

After the Spanish flu epidemic and World War I came a flood of convention-defying fiction as authors wrestled with the trauma they had lived through. E.M. Forster confronted colonialism and rigid gender norms in A Passage to India. Virginia Woolf published Mrs. Dalloway. James Joyce gave readers Ulysses. Langston Hughes’ first collection, The Weary Blues, was released.

It’s too early to tell what authors and poets will make of 2020, a year in which America failed to contain the coronavirus. This reader, though, is eager to see what comes.

Though I’ve been a bit too nervous to look very far into 2021 (I don’t want to jinx it, you know?), there are a few books already on my to-read list. First up, I’m excited for MLK50 founding managing editor Deborah Douglas’ U.S. Civil Rights Trail, due in January. Douglas lives in Chicago now, but there’s sure to be some Memphis in that tome.

Next, Ed Tarkington’s The Fortunate Ones, also due in January, examines privilege and corruption on Nashville’s Capitol Hill. Early reviews have compared Tarkington to a young Pat Conroy. For anyone disappointed in Tennessee’s response to any of this year’s crises, The Fortunate Ones is not to be missed.

Most exciting, perhaps, is the forthcoming Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda prose anthology, expected February 2nd. The anthology is edited by Memphis-born journalist Jesse J. Holland, and also features a story by him, as well as Memphians Sheree Renée Thomas, Troy L. Wiggins, and Danian Darrell Jerry.

“To be in pages with so many Memphis writers just feels wonderful,” Thomas told me when I called her to chat about the good news. “It’s a little surreal, but it’s fun,” Jerry adds, explaining that he’s been a Marvel comics fan since childhood. “I get to mix some of those childhood imaginings with some of the skills I’ve worked to acquire over the years.”

Though these books give just a glimpse at the literary landscape of the coming year, if they’re any indication of what’s to come, then, if nothing else, Memphians will have more great stories to look forward to. — Jesse Davis

Courtesy Memphis Redbirds

AutoZone Park

Take Me Out With the Crowd

Near the end of my father’s life, we attended a Redbirds game together at AutoZone Park. A few innings into the game, Dad turned to me and said, “I like seeing you at a ballpark. I can tell your worries ease.”

Then along came 2020, the first year in at least four decades that I didn’t either play in a baseball game or watch one live, at a ballpark, peanuts and Cracker Jack a soft toss away. The pandemic damaged most sports over the last 12 months, but it all but killed minor-league baseball, the small-business version of our national pastime, one that can’t lean on television and sponsorship revenue to offset the loss of ticket-buying fans on game day. AutoZone Park going a year without baseball is the saddest absence I’ve felt in Memphis culture since moving to this remarkable town in 1991. And I’m hoping today — still 2020, dammit — that 2021 marks a revival, even if it’s gradual. In baseball terms, we fans will take a base on balls to get things going before we again swing for the fences.

All indications are that vaccines will make 2021 a better year for gathering, be it at your favorite watering hole or your favorite ballpark. Indications also suggest that restrictions will remain in place well into the spring and summer (baseball season). How many fans can a ballpark host and remain safe? How many fans will enjoy the “extras” of an evening at AutoZone Park — that sunset over the Peabody, that last beer in the seventh inning — if a mask must be worn as part of the experience? And what kind of operation will we see when the gates again open? Remember, these are small businesses. Redbirds president Craig Unger can be seen helping roll out the tarp when a July thunderstorm interrupts the Redbirds and Iowa Cubs. What will “business as usual” mean for Triple-A baseball as we emerge from the pandemic?

I wrote down three words and taped them up on my home-office wall last March: patience, determination, and empathy. With a few more doses of each — and yes, millions of doses of one vaccine or another — the sports world will regain crowd-thrilling normalcy. For me, it will start when I take a seat again in my happy place. It’s been a long, long time, Dad, since my worries properly eased.— Frank Murtaugh

Film in 2021: Don’t Give up Hope

“Nobody knows anything.” Never has William Goldman’s immortal statement about Hollywood been more true. Simply put, 2020 was a disaster for the industry. The pandemic closed theaters and called Hollywood’s entire business model into question. Warner Brothers’ announcement that it would stream all of its 2021 offerings on HBO Max sent shock waves through the industry. Some said it was the death knell for theaters.

I don’t buy it. Warner Brothers, owned by AT&T and locked in a streaming war with Netflix and Disney, are chasing the favor of Wall Street investors, who love the rent-seeking streaming model. But there’s just too much money on the table to abandon theaters. 2019 was a record year at the box office, with $42 billion in worldwide take, $11.4 billion of which was from North America. Theatrical distribution is a proven business model that has worked for 120 years. Netflix, on the other hand, is $12 billion in debt.

Will audiences return to theaters once we’ve vaccinated our way out of the coronavirus-shaped hole we’re in? Prediction at this point is a mug’s game, but signs point to yes. Tenet, which will be the year’s biggest film, grossed $303 million in overseas markets where the virus was reasonably under control. In China, where the pandemic started, a film called My People, My Homeland has brought in $422 million since October 1st. I don’t know about y’all, but once I get my jab, they’re going to have to drag me out of the movie theater.

There will be quite a bit to watch. With the exception of Wonder Woman 1984, the 2020 blockbusters were pushed to 2021, including Dune, Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, the latest James Bond installment No Time to Die, Marvel’s much-anticipated Black Widow, Top Gun: Maverick, and Godzilla vs. Kong. Memphis director Craig Brewer’s second film with Eddie Murphy, the long-awaited Coming 2 America, will bow on Amazon March 5th, with the possibility of a theatrical run still in the cards.

There’s no shortage of smaller, excellent films on tap. Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami, about a meeting between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown, premieres January 15th. Minari, the stunning story of Korean immigrants in rural Arkansas, which was Indie Memphis 2020’s centerpiece film, lands February 12th. The Bob’s Burgers movie starts cooking April 9th. And coolest of all, next month Indie Memphis will partner with Sundance to bring the latest in cutting-edge cinema to the Malco Summer Drive-In. There’s plenty to be hopeful for in the new year. — Chris McCoy

Looking Ahead: Music

We usually highlight the upcoming hot concerts in this space, but those are still on the back burner. Instead, get a load of these stacks of hot wax (and streams) dropping next year. Remember, the artists get a better share when you purchase rather than stream, especially physical product like vinyl.

Alysse Gafkjen

Julien Baker

One of the biggest-profile releases will be Julien Baker’s Little Oblivians, due out on Matador in February. Her single “Faith Healer” gives us a taste of what to expect. Watch the Flyer for more on that soon. As for other drops from larger indie labels, Merge will offer up A Little More Time with Reigning Sound in May (full disclosure: this all-Memphis version of the band includes yours truly).

Closer to home, John Paul Keith’s The Rhythm of the City also drops in February, co-released by hometown label Madjack and Italian imprint Wild Honey. Madjack will also offer up albums by Mark Edgar Stuart and Jed Zimmerman, the latter having been produced by Stuart. Matt Ross-Spang is mixing Zimmerman’s record, and there’s much buzz surrounding it (but don’t worry, it’s properly grounded).

Jeremy Stanfill mines similar Americana territory, and he’ll release new work on the Blue Barrel imprint. Meanwhile, look for more off-kilter sounds from Los Psychosis and Alicja Trout’s Alicja-Pop project, both on Black & Wyatt. That label will also be honored with a compilation of their best releases so far, by Head Perfume out of Dresden. On the quieter side of off-kilter, look for Aquarian Blood’s Sending the Golden Hour on Goner in May.

Bruce Watson’s Delta-Sonic Sound studio has been busy, and affiliated label Bible & Tire Recording Co. will release a big haul of old-school gospel, some new, some archival, including artists Elizabeth King and Pastor Jack Ward, and compilations from the old J.C.R. and D-Vine Spiritual labels. Meanwhile, Big Legal Mess will drop new work from singer/songwriter Alexa Rose and, in March, Luna 68 — the first new album from the City Champs in 10 years. Expect more groovy organ and guitar boogaloo jazz from the trio, with a heaping spoonful of science-fiction exotica to boot.

Many more artists will surely be releasing Bandcamp singles, EPs, and more, but for web-based content that’s thinking outside of the stream, look for the January premiere of Unapologetic’s UNDRGRNDAF RADIO, to be unveiled on weareunapologetic.com and their dedicated app. — Alex Greene

Chewing Over a Tough Year

Beware the biohazard.

Samuel X. Cicci

The Beauty Shop

Perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but the image that pops into my head when thinking about restaurants in 2020 are the contagion-esque geo-domes that Karen Carrier set up on the back patio of the Beauty Shop. A clever conceit, but also a necessary one — a move designed to keep diners safe and separated when going out to eat. If it all seems a little bizarre, well, that’s what 2020 was thanks to COVID-19.

We saw openings, closings, restrictions, restrictions lifted, restrictions then put back in place; the Memphis Restaurant Association and Shelby County Health Department arguing back and forth over COVID guidelines, with both safety and survival at stake; and establishments scrambling to find creative ways to drum up business. The Beauty Shop domes were one such example. The Reilly’s Downtown Majestic Grille, on the other hand, transformed into Cocozza, an Italian ghost concept restaurant put into place until it was safe to reopen Majestic in its entirety. Other places, like Global Café, put efforts in place to help provide meals to healthcare professionals or those who had fallen into financial hardship during the pandemic.

Unfortunately, not every restaurant was able to survive the pandemic. The popular Lucky Cat Ramen on Broad Ave. closed its doors, as did places like Puck Food Hall, 3rd & Court, Avenue Coffee, Midtown Crossing Grill, and many others.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Working in the hospitality business requires a certain kind of resilience, and that showed up in spades. Many restaurants adapted to new regulations quickly, and with aplomb, doing their best to create a safe environment for hungry Memphians all while churning out takeout and delivery orders.

And even amid a pandemic backdrop, many aspiring restaurateurs tried their hand at opening their own places. Chip and Amanda Dunham branched out from the now-closed Grove Grill to open Magnolia & May, a country brasserie in East Memphis. Just a few blocks away, a new breakfast joint popped up in Southall Café. Downtown, the Memphis Chess Club opened its doors, complete with a full-service café and restaurant. Down in Whitehaven, Ken and Mary Olds created Muggin Coffeehouse, the first locally owned coffee shop in the neighborhood. And entrepreneurial-minded folks started up their own delivery-only ventures, like Brittney Adu’s Furloaved Breads + Bakery.

So what will next year bring? With everything thrown out of whack, I’m loath to make predictions, but with a vaccine on the horizon, I’m hoping (fingers crossed) that it becomes safer to eat out soon, and the restaurant industry can begin a long-overdue recovery. And to leave you with what will hopefully be a metaphor for restaurants in 2021: By next summer, Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman’s Hog & Hominy will complete its Phoenician rebirth from the ashes of a disastrous fire and open its doors once again.

In the meantime, keep supporting your local restaurants! — Samuel X. Cicci

“Your Tickets Will be at Will Call”

Oh, to hear those words again, and plenty of arts organizations are eager to say them. The pandemic wrecked the seasons for performing arts groups and did plenty of damage to museums and galleries.

Not that they haven’t made valiant and innovative efforts to entertain from afar with virtual programming.

But they’re all hoping to mount physical, not virtual, seasons in the coming year.

Playhouse on the Square suspended scheduled in-person stage productions until June 2021. This includes the 52nd season lineup of performances that were to be on the stages of Playhouse on the Square, The Circuit Playhouse, and TheatreWorks at the Square. It continues to offer the Playhouse at Home Series, digital content via its website and social media.

Theatre Memphis celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2021 and is eager to show off its new facility, a major renovation that was going to shut it down most of 2020 anyway while it expanded common spaces and added restrooms and production space while updating dressing rooms and administrative offices. But the hoped-for August opening was pushed back, and it plans to reschedule the programming for this season to next.

Hattiloo Theatre will continue to offer free online programming in youth acting and technical theater, and it has brought a five-week playwright’s workshop and free Zoom panel discussions with national figures in Black theater. Like the other institutions, it is eager to get back to the performing stage when conditions allow.

Ballet Memphis has relied on media and platforms that don’t require contact, either among audience members or dancers. But if there are fewer partnerings among dancers, there are more solos, and group movement is well-distanced. The organization has put several short pieces on video, releasing some and holding the rest for early next year. It typically doesn’t start a season until late summer or early fall, so the hope is to get back into it without missing a step.

Opera Memphis is active with its live Sing2Me program of mobile opera concerts and programming on social media. Its typical season starts with 30 Days of Opera in August that usually leads to its first big production of the season, so, COVID willing, that may emerge.

Courtesy Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Dana Claxton, Headdress at the Brooks earlier this year.

Museums and galleries, such as the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, National Civil Rights Museum, and the Metal Museum are functioning at limited capacity, but people can go and enjoy the offerings. The scope of the shows is limited, as coronavirus has put the kibosh on blockbuster shows for now. Look for easing of protocols as the situation allows in the coming year. — Jon W. Sparks

Politics

Oyez. Oyez. Oh yes, there is one year out of every four in which regularly scheduled elections are not held in Shelby County, and 2021 is such a year. But decisions will be made during the year by the Republican super-majority of the state legislature in Nashville that will have a significant bearing on the elections that will occur in the three-year cycle of 2022-2024 and, in fact, on those occurring through 2030.

This would be in the course of the constitutionally required ritual during which district lines are redefined every 10 years for the decade to come, in the case of legislative seats and Congressional districts. The U.S. Congress, on the basis of population figures provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, will have allocated to each state its appropriate share of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. And the state legislature will determine how that number is apportioned statewide. The current number of Tennessee’s Congressional seats is nine. The state’s legislative ratio is fixed at 99 state House members and 33 members of the state Senate.

Tennessee is one of 37 states in which, as indicated, the state legislature calls the shots for both Congressional and state redistricting. The resultant redistricting undergoes an approval process like any other measure, requiring a positive vote in both the state Senate and the state House, with the Governor empowered to consent or veto.

No one anticipates any disagreements between any branches of government. Any friction in the redistricting process will likely involve arguments over turf between neighboring GOP legislators. Disputes emanating from the minority Democrats will no doubt be at the mercy of the courts.

The forthcoming legislative session is expected to be lively, including holdover issues relating to constitutional carry (the scrapping of permits for firearms), private school vouchers (currently awaiting a verdict by the state Supreme Court), and, as always, abortion. Measures relating to the ongoing COVID crisis and vaccine distribution are expected, as is a proposal to give elected county executives primacy over health departments in counties where the latter exist.

There is no discernible disharmony between those two entities in Shelby County, whose government has devoted considerable attention over the last year to efforts to control the pandemic and offset its effects. Those will continue, as well as efforts to broaden the general inclusiveness of county government vis-à-vis ethnic and gender groups.

It is still a bit premature to speculate on future shifts of political ambition, except to say that numerous personalities, in both city and county government, are eyeing the prospects of succeeding Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland in 2023. And several Democrats are looking at a potential race against District Attorney General Amy Weirich in 2022.

There are strong rumors that, after a false start or two, Memphis will follow the lead of several East Tennessee co-ops and finally depart from TVA.

And meanwhile, in March, the aforesaid Tennessee Democrats will select a new chair from numerous applicants. — Jackson Baker

Categories
From My Seat Sports

The Ghosting of Memphis Sports (Part 1)

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

It felt almost perfect, in that “too-good-to-be-true” territory the most passionate fans have grown to fear. On November 5th, 2019 at FedExForum, the Memphis Tigers opened the most anticipated basketball season in over a decade with a drubbing of the South Carolina State Bulldogs. James Wiseman — the crown jewel in coach Penny Hardaway’s top-ranked recruiting class — scored 28 points and pulled down 11 rebounds in merely 22 minutes on the court.

But Wiseman’s squad wasn’t the only Top-20 team in town. Three days earlier, with ESPN’s College GameDay crew placing the Tiger football program on the brightest stage it had ever seen — has Beale Street ever been so packed? the Liberty Bowl so truly blue? — Memphis upset SMU thanks to a record-setting night by Antonio Gibson (386 all-purpose yards!).
Larry Kuzniewski

Precious Achiuwa, AAC Player of the Year

The Memphis Grizzlies appeared to have the NBA’s most dynamic rookie when Ja Morant put up 30 points and nine assists in his third game. And it wasn’t just what we saw unfolding as Thanksgiving approached; the horizon appeared glowing. Tim Howard — the Tim Howard, the most recognizable living American soccer star — would take an active ownership role with 901 FC, the local USL Championship outfit. And it appeared one of baseball’s top prospects — St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Dylan Carlson — was on his way to AutoZone Park for some fine-tuning with the Triple-A Redbirds.

But there’s a reason fans fear “almost perfect.” Before his second game, Wiseman learned he’d been declared ineligible by the NCAA for having received moving expenses from his future college coach (Hardaway) in 2017. He played two more games as the university appealed the decision, but upon finally accepting the suspension, Wiseman would never wear blue and gray again.

The Tiger football team won the program’s first American Athletic Conference championship — right here at the Liberty Bowl — on December 7th, only to see beloved coach Mike Norvell depart for Florida State the next day. (Ryan Silverfield enjoyed a head-coaching debut unlike any other, leading the Tigers against Penn State in the Cotton Bowl.)

Then it all stopped. All of it. The Tigers and Grizzlies played a winter of basketball, Morant running away in the Rookie of the Year race and the Tigers’ second-best freshman (Precious Achiuwa) earning AAC Player of the Year honors. But Grizzly playoff prospects and a chance for the 21-10 Tigers to reach the NCAA’s “Big Dance” via the AAC tournament hit the invisible wall — less forgiving than brick-and-mortar — we’ll remember as the coronavirus pandemic.

At least Memphis basketball fans saw something. Both of AutoZone Park’s tenants — the Redbirds and 901 FC — remained dormant as March turned to April, then April to May and June. An operation that relies almost entirely on the ticket-buying public found itself an oversized shell — all that brick-and-mortar — unable to entertain, to create the warm-weather buzz Bluff City fans had come to crave…and take for granted.

The announcement in June that the Southern Heritage Classic would not be played this year seemed especially cruel. The football game between Jackson State and Tennessee State — a September clash at the Liberty Bowl since 1990 — represented not just African-American sports, but African-American enterprise, culture, and outreach, its accompanying parade through Orange Mound among this city’s most distinctive gatherings…and impossible during a pandemic.

That almost-perfect feeling disappeared in such devastating fashion, and with losses that compounded just as positive rates among COVID-19 testing fluctuated uncomfortably high. Instead of micro-analyzing Hardaway’s third recruiting class, many of us were counting masks among those we saw in public. Who is taking safety guidelines seriously, and who has simply had enough of pandemic protocol? Can a community live without sports? Certainly. Is it the kind of life we’ll have to identify as that fabled “new normal?” Having witnessed the Belmont Stakes run with nary a fan in the stands, we can only hope not.

Next week: As spring turned to summer, sports remained dormant, but crowds again gathered, and for a much bigger cause.

Categories
From My Seat Sports

Clipped Wings?

CREDIT: Courtesy Memphis Redbirds

The St. Louis Cardinals essentially stood pat at baseball’s trade deadline. This means what you saw in July in St. Louis — and to some degree, in Memphis — is what you’ll see in October should the Cards be able to catch the Chicago Cubs, win the National League Central Division, and end a three-year postseason drought. When the Cardinal brass chose not to make a significant deal on July 31st, they did so from a first-place perch in the NL Central. Trouble is, St. Louis has been bunched with the Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers (and at times, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds) all season in what can best be described as baseball’s Mecca of mediocrity. So how will the season’s final two months play out?
Courtesy Memphis Redbirds

Yadier Molina

Last week at AutoZone Park, Memphis fans were able to cheer fully half of last season’s Cardinal everyday lineup: third-baseman Matt Carpenter, outfielders Marcell Ozuna and Harrison Bader, and veritable catching legend, Yadier Molina. Due either to injury rehab (Ozuna and Molina), hitting struggles (Bader), or both (Carpenter), players required for any hopes of a championship in St. Louis were battling the Albuquerque Isotopes and El Paso Chihuahuas. A Memphis team well out of the hunt for a playoff berth suddenly found itself with unprecedented big-league star power. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Triple-A club won 12 of 16 games through Sunday, its longest sustained winning stretch of the season.

Will the Cardinals find a roster capable of competing with the Cubs or, deep breaths, the Los Angeles Dodgers in a playoff series? As with every baseball team that’s ever won a championship, it boils down to pitching. As of now, St. Louis has an inadequate starting rotation. Michael Wacha was among the primary names discussed as trade bait before the deadline came and went. Adam Wainwright has been 2009 Waino at Busch Stadium and very much 2019 Waino when he pitches on the road. Rookie Dakota Hudson leads the club with 10 wins, but has been uneven at best. Jack Flaherty has pitched like an ace of late, but it took him 13 starts before earning his most recent win (over the Cubs last week).

Who can Memphis send north to help from the mound? Lefty Genesis Cabrera looked strong last Saturday, striking out nine in seven innings against El Paso. Is the 22-year-old ready to eat innings in the cauldron of a September pennant chase? That’s hard to envision. Jake Woodford started the Triple-A All-Star Game last month but allowed a combined 14 earned runs in his last two starts. The sad truth for St. Louis is that the club’s best starting pitcher may be the man now closing games for the team (Carlos Martinez).

Carpenter returned to the Cardinals Sunday and re-assumed his spot as the club’s leadoff hitter and third-baseman. (This led to Cardinal manager Mike Shildt starting former Redbird Tommy Edman — a career infielder — in rightfield.) Ozuna is also back, hoping the bat that delivered 20 home runs over the season’s first three months will resume thumping as Labor Day approaches. And Molina will soon take over behind the plate for the Cardinals, forcing Shildt to get creative in finding at-bats for Matt Wieters, the veteran backup who helped St. Louis climb into first place in Molina’s absence.

The Redbirds have one, lengthy (11 games) home stand remaining on their schedule. AutoZone Park will not host playoff baseball this season. What remains to be seen is whether or not the Cards’ top farm club might provide a difference-maker for the parent club. Those two minor-league player-of-the-month awards for outfielder Randy Arozarena — to date not on the Cardinals’ 40-man roster — can take up only so much space on a wall. He wants to play in the major leagues. With a .381 batting average through 47 games with Memphis, perhaps it’s time he should.

Categories
From My Seat Sports

The Memphis Redbirds: Shooting Stars

CREDIT: Courtesy Memphis Redbirds

Jake Woodford is rising. The 22-year-old Memphis Redbirds pitcher will pull off a rare trifecta when he takes the mound for the Pacific Coast League in Wednesday’s Triple-A All-Star Game in El Paso. It will be Woodford’s third All-Star Game in four seasons, across all three primary levels of minor-league baseball. Woodford first earned All-Star recognition with the Class-A Peoria Chiefs (Midwest League) in 2016. He represented Double-A Springfield in last year’s Texas League All-Star Game.
Courtesy Memphis Redbirds

Jake Woodford

Woodford is the second Memphis pitcher in as many years to start for the PCL in the Triple-A extravaganza, following Dakota Hudson (who went on to be named the 2018 PCL Pitcher of the Year). Considering Hudson can now be found in the St. Louis Cardinals’ starting rotation, it’s not a leap of imagination to see Woodford soon starting a game or two at Busch Stadium.

• The Redbirds have had no fewer than six pitchers start the Triple-A All-Star Game, but the honor seems to bring mixed blessings. Dan Haren started the 2004 game and went on to a fine big-league career, earning 153 wins for eight teams over 13 seasons. As for Larry Luebbers (1999), Bud Smith (2001), and Chris Gissell (2005) . . . not so much. Smith tossed a no-hitter for the Cardinals a few short weeks after his Triple-A All-Star appearance, but threw his last major-league pitch in 2002, still shy of his 23rd birthday.

• If the minor leagues are about developing big-league stars, the Memphis Redbirds have met the mission, and then some. With Cardinal shortstop Paul DeJong — a Redbird for 48 games in 2017 — playing in this year’s All-Star Game, a former Memphis player has appeared in every Midsummer Classic since 2003. The most All-Star appearances by a former Redbird? Albert Pujols has been honored ten times and Yadier Molina nine. J.D. Drew — a Redbird in 1998 and ’99 — earned MVP honors at the 2008 event (as a member of the Boston Red Sox).

• I’m asked periodically about my “all-time Redbirds team.” Now with more than two decades in the books, such an all-star team actually carries some weight. Here’s my starting nine (based solely on players’ performances with Memphis):

FIRST BASE: John Gall (2003-06)
SECOND BASE: Stubby Clapp (1999-2002)
THIRD BASE: Patrick Wisdom (2016-18)
SHORTSTOP: Wilfredo Tovar (2017-18)
LEFTFIELD: Allen Craig (2009-10)
CENTERFIELD: Adron Chambers (2010-13)
RIGHTFIELD: Nick Stavinoha (2007-11)
CATCHER: Bryan Anderson (2008-12)
PITCHER: P.J. Walters (2008-11)

• Some All-Star aid appears on the way for both the struggling Redbirds and Cardinals. Outfielder Dylan Carlson represented Double-A Springfield last month in the Texas League All-Star Game. And Carlson was one of two St. Louis prospects to play in last weekend’s All-Star Futures Game in Cleveland. The other was third-baseman Nolan Gorman, barely 19 years old and already a top-50 minor-league prospect. Currently slugging for Class-A Palm Beach, Gorman is unlikely to make his Memphis debut this season, but could well be measuring the distance of the outfield wall at AutoZone Park this time next season.

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Mayo Man, Alton Speaks, and Pothole Flowers

Mayo Man

Not OJ Mayo. This time we’re talking mayonnaise in Memphis sports.

Some rando was seen at a Memphis Redbirds game last week eating mayonnaise with a spoon from a huge jug. The Redbirds Twitter kept an eye on him through the innings.

It was unclear who the guy was or where he got the jug of mayo. Some suspected he might’ve been a plant by the Redbirds to gin up some free press. Just. Like. This.

Alton Speaks

Old Memphis stuff resurfaces online from time to time. This Alton Brown comment about Memphis food seemed to be one such internet zombie.

He’d said Memphis was the greatest food town back in 2015. Loves Gibson’s Donuts and Gus’s Fried Chicken (see photo below). Apparently, he repeated his Memphis love during an interview this month.

Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams

Problem meet opportunity. Memphis pothole meet Memphis wildflower.