A Very Dirty Sequel

I was in St. Louis for a wedding recently, and as my girlfriend and I were recovering from our hangovers on Sunday morning, we found ourselves watching Dirty Dancing.

I’ll be honest, I’ve always enjoyed Dirty Dancing despite the fact that it's pretty stupid. I guess it's what we like to call a "guilty pleasure." I remember when it first came out, my sister was absolutely obsessed with it. I think she saw it in the theater like five times, and she even had a giant poster in her room that featured Patrick Swayze sprawled out on the floor and unleashing those hungry eyes made famous by the film’s soundtrack. (Sorry to sell you out, Sis!) Speaking of the soundtrack, can someone explain to me why they mixed classic 1960s music with random 1980s songs? One minute we're listening to "Do You Love Me?" (or whatever that song is called), the next minute Swayze is singing "She's Like The Wind." This never made sense to me. Moving on.

Even though I’ve seen the movie a number of times, I’ve never really taken the time to think about it too critically—until now. And frankly, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to Baby et al after the final dance. Are we supposed to think that they lived happily after? If not, then what is really the point? Some resort guest having a fling with an employee is nothing earth-shattering. Isn’t that why guys like Johnny and Robbie take those jobs? After college, my friend and I were thinking of trying to get a job at a resort to kill some time while we figured out our lives. I remember relaying this resort idea to a family friend in front of my mother. The friend said, “well, you better pack a lot of condoms.!” Yes, awkward.

I’d like to think that Baby and Johnny tried to make things work after their summer at Kellerman’s, and I’ve even laid out an idea for a sequel. I know they made that “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” but that doesn’t count. Here’s how I see Dirty Dancing 2 playing out.

After the way things ended in the Catskills, there was no way Baby and Johnny were just going to let their romance die. They wowed the crowd, Mr. Houseman finally accepted Johnny, and Penny looked healthy. It would just be a waste to not try and build on that progress.

As we know, Baby was headed to Mt. Holyoke that fall, and we can only assume that she would have become heavily involved in their dance program. And surely, after learning all those sweet Mambo moves, she was the freshman sensation that fall. Of course, not all was well. Long-distance relationships are hard enough in the era of cell phones and e-mail, but they were even harder back in the 1960s. There was probably only one phone per hall, so that would make phone sex pretty much impossible. And I’d have to think Johnny wasn’t very good at writing letters. Besides, we know he had just been accepted into the housepainters union, so he was probably busy with that. So yeah, there would need to be some long-distance drama.

The other subplot that probably needs to be explored is Baby at an all-girls school. Remember, she chose Mt. Holyoke before meeting Johnny, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the Housemans sort of assumed she played for the other team. Based on the way her family treated her, it didn’t seem like Baby had ever really been involved with many guys. So even though she had Johnny, we can only assume that many of the lesbians at Mt. Holyoke were intrigued by the star freshman dancer. Johnny, always the ladies man, would surely want to exploit this on his frequent trips up to visit her. Remember, this is the 1960s, and we know baby has some hippy tendencies. (You see where I am going with this?) Let’s just say that Baby, Johnny end up in an open relationship with a senior named Mary. Moving on.

Baby ends up choreographing a big Mambo number for the spring recital, but she is having trouble teaching some of the more difficult steps. Being the nice guy that he is, Johnny ends up spending some of his spare time bringing it all together. The show is a huge success, and the Mt. Holyoke dance department is impressed by Johnny’s teaching ability, and they offer him a job as a guest instructor. He jumps at the opportunity to teach dancing full time while also being with Baby. They end up moving in together, and open up a private dance studio in Northamtpon as soon as Baby graduates.

I realize I might have jumped back and forth a little bit between tenses in that treatment right there, but I defy you to find a fan of the original that would not watch this sequel. And please, don’t try to steal this idea, it’s now been documented as mine thanks to the magic of blogspot.

Dear John Olerud*

I’ve been working on a massive post about a movie I recently re-watched and have a bunch of new thoughts on, but please indulge me with a post about a topic even more dear to my heart. You guessed it, that means another Mets post!

For the first time in a while I’m actually sort of feeling good about the Mets. For starters, they’re playing pretty well, and they are 5-1 in games I’ve attended this year, including Tuesday’s late-inning comeback against the Braves. (Yes, I’ve already been to six games. What of it?) Additionally, I am in the midst of reading “Faith And Fear In Flushing,” written by Greg Prince, who also writes a blog of the same name. Prince has a gift for making even the most loathsome and irritating Mets team seem somewhat loveable, and this book is highly enjoyable for any obsessive Mets fan.

When I was at the game on Friday, I was talking to my friend about a trivia question I saw on Joe Posnanski’s blog. Who has the highest career OPS as Mets (minimum 2,000 plate appearances)?

Like me, you’re first answer is probably Mike Piazza. And, like me, you’d be wrong. The answer, much to my surprise, is John Olerud. For obvious reasons, this got me doing some research on Olerud and the Mets.

For starters, the top five Mets OPS (min. 2,000 PAs) looks like this.

1. John Olerud .926
2. David Wright .921
3. Mike Piazza .915
4. Darryl Strawberry .879
5. Carlos Beltran .877

When you think about it a bit, this makes sense. Remember, John Olerud only spent three years with the Mets, and it was during what is typically the tail end of a player’s peak (age 28-30). Unlike Piazza, he was never around for his decline phase to drag down his OPS. If you take Piazza’s first three full years as a Met, which were, not coincidentally, his three best years, he had an OPS of .967.

Piazza isn’t really the point of all this. The point is that I think most Mets have forgotten just how good Olerud was for the Mets. More specifically, I think they’ve forgotten just how good Olerud was in 1998.

Most fans associate 1998 with Sosa and McGwire, the year we all fell back in love with baseball after the strike. In reality, it was the summer of Olerud. Did you remember that Olerud hit .354 that summer? I didn’t. Did you remember that he walked 96 times and struck out 73 times? I didn’t? Did you remember that his .447 OBP was second only to McGwire in all of baseball, higher than Bonds, and 70 points higher than Sosa? I definitely did not remember that.

In fact, Olerud’s adjusted OPS, which is a stat that that adjusts for home park and compares it to league average, was 163 (100 is average), and Sosa’s was 160. In the year that Sosa hit 66 homers and won NL MVP, Olerud had a higher adjusted OPS! How did I not know this?

And on top of all that, Olerud finished 12th in MVP voting! And this was for a team that was in contention until the last day of the season. I realize we have become far more savvy to the importance of OBP and park factors in the last 11 years (or at least I have), but that’s absurd. Then again, Sosa won MVP in a landslide, and I’m pretty sure I wrote a column in my college saying he should. Based on what I know now, McGwire was clearly a lot more valuable. And Olerud might have been as well.

*Prior to the season, I named my fantasy baseball team "Dear John Olerud." This was before I made my Olerud OPS revelation. Now I feel even better about my team name.