Marooned:  Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman and James Franciscus are anxious to get home after spending months on board an American space station.  But when the retrorockets on their Apollo spacecraft fail to fire, they face a slow death in orbit as the world watches.  Based on the novel by aviation expert Martin Caidin, who wrote a novelization of the movie to better fit the Apollo era, Marooned also featured Gregory Peck and David Janssen.

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun:  Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, better known for their Supermarionation work, including Thunderbirds, went live-action with this thriller, in which two astronauts (Ian Hendry and Roy Thinnes) go to explore an uncharted planet on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth.  When they get there, things go from interesting to unreal, as they find themselves on a mirrored world.

Airplane!:  One of the funniest of all movie parodies, Airplane! gave more serious actors like Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nielsen, and Robert Stack a chance to flex their comedic skills, and comic actors Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty a chance to shine.  Also featured in this disaster movie farce are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (as a pilot) and Leave it to Beaver's Barbara Billingsley as a jive-talking grandma.

The Time Machine (1960):  Not to be confused with the inferior 2002 version starring Guy Pearce, the 1960 version starring Rod Taylor is the one to watch.  George Pál's production shines with time-lapse photography used to great effect, simulating Taylor (as H. George Wells) traveling into the era of World War I, nuclear annihilation in the 1960s, and the Eloi in 802,000 (and change).  Yvette Mimieux is on hand to play Weena, one of the peaceful Eloi, who captures George's heart.  And Alan Young (who also had a cameo in the 2002 version) plays George's best friend, David Philby, and in later scenes, David's son James.

Cars:  Featuring the voices of Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman and Larry the Cable Guy, this 2006 Disney/Pixar offering plays as a love letter to US 66, the famed highway from Chicago to California.   Against the backdrop of sleepy Radiator Springs, a town bypassed by Interstate 40, a brash young stock car with his eye on the Piston Cup must make penance for tearing up the town's only road, and in the process determine what he really wants to do with his talent.

Final Destination:  When a young man sees his own death on board a passenger jet, he isn't just dreaming.  The premonition saves his life and those of several other people.   But after the plane explodes in flight, he realizes that by cheating Death, it will only pursue them all that much harder.  This 2000 thriller had a sequel released in 2003, and a third released in 2006.  The fourth installment is scheduled for 2009.  Anyone seeing a pattern?

Forrest Gump:   When viewers went to the theaters to see this offering in 1994, it was like that proverbial box of chocolates--they didn't know what they were going to get.  What they got was Tom Hanks turning in a performance that earned him a second straight Academy Award for Best Actor, as the somewhat-clueless but always-clued-in hero of Winston Groom's novel.  Also turning in yeoman performances were Gary Sinise, Sally Field, Robin Wright and Mykelti Williamson.

What's Love Got To Do With It?:  Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne turn in powerful performances as the volatile Ike and Tina Turner, whose music lit up a world already heated with domestic strife.  Tina's struggles and Ike's abuse have been well documented, but to see the genuine article strutting her stuff at the end of the film was a true cherry-on-top moment.  Bassett won a Golden Globe for her work, and both she and Fishburne were nominated for Academy Awards.

Okey-dokey, folkies...What are some of your favorite movies?  By all means, share!
 

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World:  Although known for more serious works like Judgment at Nuremburg and Inherit the Wind, Stanley Kramer filmmaking legacy may very well have been sealed with this comedic gem, which boasts a bevy of starpower and one incredibly funny premise--a bunch of people looking for a bunch of dough.  The great Spencer Tracy, playing a harried police officer on the doorstep of retirement, leads a cast that includes Ethel Merman, Phil Silvers, Buddy Hackett and Jonathan Winters.

Capricorn One:  Lending credence to the idea that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax, Capricorn One is the story of a mission to Mars that is faked for practical reasons.  Under threat of physical harm, the crew plays ball with the idea.  But when the real spacecraft disintegrates during reentry, the man behind the plot (Hal Holbrook) must do the unthinkable in order to save the space program.  Among the cast were the once and current husbands of Barbra Streisand (Elliot Gould and James Brolin), Hall-of-Fame football star O.J. Simpson, and a pre-Law & Order Sam Waterson.

The Poseidon Adventure:  With no disrespect to Wolfgang Petersen's 2006 remake, which was itself a major technical achievement, the original 1972 version still holds sway because its characters have more depth.   Gene Hackman leads a ragtag bunch of survivors, including Jack Albertson, Shelley Winters and Ernest Borgnine, through the bowels of an aging ocean liner after a rogue wave turns it upside down.  Leslie Nielsen, who is better known for his comedic work in The Naked Gun series of movies, plays the captain of the doomed ocean liner.

Independence Day:  For the umpteenth time, aliens attack dear old Earth.  And for the umpteenth time, the aliens do the obligatory destruction to major American cities.  (It'd be nice to see Lisbon get it every now and again, instead of Los Angeles.)  But aliens never had to deal with Will Smith in full military bearing, Jeff Goldblum in endearing nerdiness, or Randy Quaid just being Randy Quaid.  This is a real popcorn muncher that doesn't lack for action.

The Darwin Awards:  Based on the real-life honors recognizing those who die in the strangest ways, this movie puts a disgraced San Francisco detective (Joseph Fiennes) together with an insurance adjuster (Winona Ryder) to figure out the real causes behind strange and unusual accidents.  One such accident involves an autopilot/cruise control crossover that is too silly to believe, but is incredibly funny.  Appropriately enough, MythBusters stars Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman appear as a pair of military surplus dealers.

Speed:  Dennis Hopper is most engaging on screen when he plays a bad guy, and this movie lets him flex those chops with aplomb.  He engages a young Los Angeles cop (Keanu Reeves) in a deadly game that ultimately ensares a city bus full of passengers--one of whom just happens to be tough-as-nails-but-incredibly-cute Sandra Bullock.  The special effects in this movie, including a much-celebrated bus jump, are fun to watch.

Black Sunday:  The last twenty minutes of this movie are much better than the rest of it.  But what makes Black Sunday unique is the climactic blimp chase.  (I dare you to name one other movie involving a blimp chase.  Go ahead, just try.)  The now defunct Goodyear blimps Columbia and Mayflower were both used for the sequence, in which a deranged Vietnam vet is recruited to carry out a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl.  Real footage from NFL Films is used to put the viewer in the seats for sheer terror at the Orange Bowl, where Super Bowl X was held.  Bruce Dern, Robert Shaw and Fritz Weaver are among the human stars of the movie, with the late Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie making a cameo.  The movie is based on the Thomas Harris's debut novel.

V for Vendetta:  The people of future London, stripped of their freedom by a Big Brother-inspired regime, have a new hero who is himself inspired by unsuccessful revolutionary Guy Fawkes (Hugo Weaving).  He draws Evey (Natalie Portman) into his orbit when he saves her from being attacked in a dark alley.  V's fight against the establishment comes at a heavy price, and leaves Evey in an unenviable position.  You'll never forget the Fifth of November after watching this movie, based on David Lloyd's legendary graphic novel.

Deep Impact:  Neither Deep Impact nor its de facto stablemate, Armageddon, did justice to the rock-hitting-Earth wing of the disaster movie genre.   Glaring technical errors made them both laughable, honestly.  But what makes Deep Impact the better movie is its emphasis on its characters--a news reporter (Tea Leoni) intent on making the anchor chair; an astronaut (Robert Duvall) whose experience is overshadowed by his age; and a president (Morgan Freeman) who must make some difficult decisions to save his country. 

The Swarm:  Here's a movie where a major city that isn't New York or Los Angeles has to deal with annihilation.  The target--Houston, currently America's fifth largest city.  The enemy--killer bees, by the billions.  And it's up to a bee expert (Michael Caine), who is engaged in constant conflict with an air force general (Richard Widmark) to find a way to destroy the menace before Clutch City is turned into a necropolis.  Henry Fonda and Katharine Ross also star in what was ultimately one of the late Irwin Allen's big-screen failures, based on the novel by Arthur Herzog. 

There will be a Part 3, I promise.  But now's your chance to add to the list.

A while back in my blog, I wrote a piece about the top 50 grossing movies of all time that I had not seen.  I think it may be fair, to kind of balance the scales, to share with you my favorite movies--regardless of where they fall on the scale of commercial success.  Everybody's got a few of their own, so don't be shy about sharing yours--or commenting on mine.  My list of favorite movies is in the order they come across in my mind, and it will be split in multiple parts for easy reading.

Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb:   Stanley Kubrick's dark comedic take on accidental nuclear warfare was inspired by a novel called Red Alert.  Peter Sellers does tour-de-force triple duty in this movie, which also marked the debut of another screen legend, the versatile James Earl Jones.  From this movie also comes one of my favorite quotes of all time--"You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

Fail-Safe:  Where Dr. Strangelove takes nuclear annihilation with a grain of salt, this movie plays it straight up and in your face.  So much so, in fact, that the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force refused to cooperate in its production.  Henry Fonda makes perhaps the most gut-wrenching decision in the history of cinema.  Also on board in before-they-were stars turns are Larry Hagman, Dom DeLuise, and Sorrell Booke.  (The 1964 theatrical release is, in my opinion, better than the live remake done on CBS in 2000, although it was still pretty good.)

Apollo 13:  The only knocks on this movie happen to be those of a technical nature.  Unless you're intimately familiar with the Saturn V launch sequence, for example, there's no way you'd know that Ron Howard and his crew got it completely wrong.  Even with that, and the fact that anyone who knows history knows how the story turned out, Howard and his cast of Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon deliver a knockout punch.

Meteor:  There's enough turkey in this movie that you'd get sick of the leftovers.  Sean Connery, Karl Malden, Brian Keith and Natalie Wood mainly sleepwalk through the debris, with Martin Landau providing the ham as a put-upon air force general and Joseph Campanella looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.  But it's always fun to see major cities get wiped off the face of the earth by hypersonic cosmic shrapnel.

Earthquake:  As long as we're in the disaster-movie genre, Universal gets both big props (and big eyerolls) for this entry.  Props for making a movie that seemed so realistic, that you thought you were in Los Angeles as it was being shaken apart.  Charlton Heston leads an all-star cast that, surprisingly, features quite a few casualties.  The eyerolls are for the DVD version, which features no extras.  Even footage of the Earthquake attraction at Universal Studios Florida would have been better than nothing.

Citizen Kane:  The quintessential story of the rise and fall of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, this motion picture is nothing short of a masterpiece.  Although in his later years Orson Welles traded on his name to do wine commercials, his work on the screen and behind the camera made him a legend.  Welles's Mercury Theatre players backstop him on the screen, including Emmy Award-winner Agnes Moorehead.

The Towering Inferno:  It took two major motion picture studios to bring two very similar novels to the big screen as a single blockbuster.  For Irwin Allen, it also represented the pinnacle of a career that included many successes and failures on both network television and in the theater.  Steve McQueen (the fireman) and Paul Newman (the architect) race against the clock to put out the mother of all skyscraper fires, before it is too late.  This movie also features, in my opinion, one of the best main themes of any major motion picture.  (John Williams composed it, along with a number of other movie themes.)  Although the cut on the film print is what's best known, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra's interpretation is stunning.

Marty:  Ernest Borgnine won an Academy Award for his work in this movie, about a lonely New York butcher resigned to what he believe to be his fate--to be a bachelor still tied to his mom's apron strings.   When he meets  a schoolteacher named Clara (Betsy Blair), Marty must decide whether or not to risk his feelings yet again, in the face of criticism from his mother and his friends.  This movie spoke to me because for the longest time, I thought I was going to face middle age alone.  It's tough not to feel for this loveable lug, and it's even tougher not to pull for him.

Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato:  The second animated feature film in the Yamato canon was supposed to mark the end of the saga that started on Japanese television in 1974.  But fan response prompted the producers to bring back the crew of the fabled World War II battleship (retrofitted for duty in space) for a second TV series.  This second series, known as "The Comet Empire" arc of Star Blazers in the United States, has a markedly different ending than the movie upon which it was based.  Of all the Yamato movies, this is the only one that Voyager Entertainment makes available dubbed in English.  For those who don't like reading their movies, that's a great thing.

What About Bob?:  Bill Murray is absolutely nuts as a clingy and needed psychiatric patient who tries desperately to befriend his shrink, played with egotistical relish by Richard Dreyfuss.  When Bob follows Dr. Marvin on vacation, it's non-stop madness and mayhem, including one of the funniest explosions ever captured on film.  Julie Hagerty of Airplane! fame is also on board as Dreyfuss's wife.

Now that Brett Favre: The Saga has managed to land in the New Jersey Meadowlands, it's time to burst a cityful of bubbles that are riding those ethereal thermals of hope, that the man who became legend in Green Bay will bring that same magic with him to the Big Apple. 

Sorry, Jets faithful, but this is going to be more bust that boom.  And here are the five reasons why.  In reverse order:

5)  The man is 39!
And believe it or not, this is actually the least of Brett Favre's problems.  A number of other quarterbacks have done well even as Father Time's shadow cast itself over their careers.  Reportedly, Favre has kept himself in shape and done extensive throwing at a high-school field in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  But even with all that, there comes a point where injuries are inevitable.  Favre has been exceedingly lucky so far in his career, but there comes a point where that luck runs out.

4)  The media!
The New York press is legendary in its skewering of its sports heroes when they don't do well.   They will spare absolutely no quarter when Favre does what he has done much of his career--throw an interception at the most inopportune time in a big game.  It was his Achilles heel whenever he visited Dallas, and it is the reason the other denizens of the Meadowlands, the Giants, got the chance to win their third Super Bowl this past February.  (And if anyone really wants to know, that's why Favre was persona non gratia in Wisconsin.)  If Brett Favre thought the media has been tough on him the last few months, he hasn't seen anything yet.

3)  Look at the schedule!
Without Brett Favre, the Jets were looking at a 6-10 season at best.  Now, they're looking at 8-8, maybe.   So what does this thing look like?  Here are the highlights.

• Two games against the defending AFC East champion Patriots (September 14 at home, November 13 at Foxboro).

• A prime-time, Monday-night tilt against San Diego (September 22).

• A tough home game against Cincinnati (October 12).

• Another tough home game against Denver (November 30).  And weather won't be a factor--the Broncos are accustomed to playing in the cold, one mile above sea level.

• A tough road game at Tennessee (November 23).

• Another tough road game against Seattle (December 21).

• Two games against the Miami Dolphins (September 7 at Miami, December 28 at home).  And that means they get to face Chad Pennington, the man that the Jets let go to get Favre.  Don't think he'll have a thing or two to prove, do you?

2)  A crazy little thing called chemistry!
Favre is just now getting to know his Jets teammates.  He's got to get used to Eric Mangini's playbook, a different center, a different line, a different set of backs and receivers.  And he's got to do it all very fast.  As I write this, he's got less than one month before his team has to report to Miami for Kickoff Weekend. 

There's no doubt that a character like Brett Favre will have little problem getting used to his role on the team.  But will his teammates get used to him?

1)  The Madden Curse!
The only hex in sports that rivals the dreaded Sports Illustrated curse is the insidious Madden curse.  Since John Madden, the Hall-of-Fame coach and namesake of this storied video game franchise, stopped appearing on the cover in favor of selected players, virtually everyone who has appeared on the cover has succumbed to the Curse.  Barry Sanders avoided the Curse altogether by retiring, and Brett Favre could've avoided it if he had stayed retired.  Now he has just as much of a chance of breaking a bone or having a bad season as he had getting stuck in rush-hour traffic on Hardy Street in Hattiesburg (or in the tunnels to Manhattan).

Okay, how do you think that Brett Favre is going to do this season?  Come on, let's hear it!

I got to see Bernie Mac in his element about ten years ago, when The Original Kings of Comedy tour made a stop at the Greensboro Coliseum.  He didn't make me laugh probably as much as he should have--one of his tour co-horts, actor and radio personality Steve Harvey, took the starch out of the show for me--but he had an audience of over 20,000 people going during his time on the stage.  That he moved on to feature roles in motion pictures and had a well-regarded television series on Fox didn't surprise me.  Mac, whose real name was Bernard McCullough, had a personality tailor-made for comedy. 

Although I wasn't a big fan of his TV show, or his standup comedy, I always had a great respect for how he arrived in the national spotlight.  He could've very easily blamed his hardscrabble upbringing in Chicago if he never made anything of himself, but he was determined to succeed.  He could've played it safe by only playing to black audiences and black clubs, but his work crossed the boundaries of race and class because it was flavored with real-life lessons--chief among them, taking in his sister's children when she went into drug rehab, which was the basis of his sitcom.  For his first starring role in a motion picture, he took a risk by playing an arrogant, aging ballplayer who realizes that he isn't Mr. 3000 just yet.  That he pulled it off, while playing against an accomplished and beautiful actress like Angela Bassett, was the kick in and of itself.  (It also impressed me that he brought a great deal of attention to Milwaukee, a city that has been an ardent Major League Baseball supporter over the years.)

Bernie Mac may be gone now, but his life should serve as a reminder that the biggest stars are the ones who change the whole world by simply focusing on their corner of it. 

I just finished watching the induction ceremonies for the 2008 Class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and I have to admit, I still have chills.  Five worthy individuals--Fred Dean, Darrell Green, Emmitt Thomas, Andre Tippett, and Gary Zimmerman--took their turns thanking all of their mentors and their families for their help in getting them to the pinnacle of football glory.  With the exception of Zimmerman, who played on the offensive lines of the Vikings and the Broncos, the others were standout defenders who sacked quarterbacks and picked off their passes.  Fine players and fine men all.

But it was the sixth inductee whose introduction had me spellbound.  His presence was responsible for the vast sea of burgundy and gold that enveloped Fawcett Stadium this August night.  Even more important, his presence, which seemingly should have been assured long ago, was so special because it finally happened.

James Arthur Monk, Sr., took his place in Canton with Green, his teammate for 11 seasons, his coach, Joe Gibbs, who was enshrined in 1996, and various other legends in Redskin lore, including Sammy Baugh, the last living member of the Hall of Fame's charter class of 1963.  After his son introduced Monk, the Ohio night reverberated with the sounds of celebration, as eight years of pent-up frustration were released in a deafening, heartfelt tribute to a beloved gridiron hero.  I could feel the love for him just listening to that roar.  And my own heart swelled with pride, because I remember watching him in his prime.  He wasn't flashy; he wasn't brash; he wasn't boastful or arrogant; he wasn't a troublemaker.  He was one of the reasons why Washington football in the 1980s and early 1990s was such a success.  Cool, steady, and tough, he just caught the ball and kept the chains moving.  He exemplified what being a professional--not just a pro football player, but a true professional--was all about.  He let his work talk for him, and he was clearly one of the best in the business.

Among modern players, the only wide receiver who bears any resemblance to Art Monk in terms of his demeanor and playmaking ability is the Colts' Marvin Harrison, who, like Monk, is a Syracuse alum.  All too often among wide receivers, we see brilliance in players like Chad Johnson, Randy Moss and Steve Smith get overshawdowed by off-field transgressions or statements made to the press.  That wasn't Monk's style.  He was every bit as classy tonight as he was for the many years he played in the NFL.

Now that Art Monk is in, it's time to work on the campaign to get longtime Raiders punter Ray Guy to Canton.  Yeah, I know, he's a punter.  But I dare you to name another punter whose work was so legendary that he was accused of filling footballs with helium. 

(Just in case you're wondering, helium does make a football weigh less, but that doesn't mean it travels further.  Myth busted.)

"Um, I didn't know that was part of the rules."

Translation:  He got nothing, nada, zippo, zilch, the Big Squadoosh.

The question, by the way, to a dear sweet friend of mine who recently got engaged was:

"What did you get your future husband as an engagement gift?"

For those of you just joining us, see my blog entry from July 30.

For the rest of you, I got a great laugh when my friend responded to my question.  She does, of course, plan to exchange gifts with him on the wedding day itself, which I thought was pretty cool.   The only thing that my wife and I exchanged on our wedding day was bank account numbers--I added her to my accounts and she added me to hers. 

I'm kinda like linkinparksid, who was hoping that the guy would've been able to drive off in a new Porsche.  (Now that would be a cool present.)  Heck, if my wife had gotten me some Washington Redskins gear, I would've been a happy man.  But I got the most important thing from the whole deal--I got a good woman who thinks the world of me (and whom I think the world of). 

And, lesley, if you think me cooking is impressive, I'm more impressed that my wife can change the motor oil in our vehicles.

 

As I was finishing lunch at my desk today, a friend of mine from another team, just a few cubes over from me, came by my desk flashing a smile about as wide as I-85.  She was absolutely beaming--enraptured may be the better word for it--so I knew she was happy about something.

"Have you heard the news?" she asked me, doing her dead-level best to contain her giddiness.

"What news?" I replied.  Call it hunch, but I knew it was coming...

BAM!

And there it was.  Sitting as pretty as you please, on the ring finger of her left hand, was a most cherished prize--a diamond ring that said "I'm off the market".  She never had to say a word.  In fact, I thought she was going to high-five me.

I did what anybody that I consider to be a friend would do--gave her a great big hug and asked her when the big day is going to be.  This is a very charming and very attractive young woman, after all, who will exude grace and class as she strides down the aisle.  And it was a great feeling to celebrate her news with her, because she is a wonderful person.

But in relating all this to my dear wife, after I got home, she brought up one very salient point:

"Did you ask her what she got for him?"

That's a question (and blog entry) for tomorrow.  Anyone want to offer up a guess as to what the answer is?

Estelle Getty's irascible character of Sophia Petrillo could be considered to be the female version of Richard Belzer's durable everyman John Munch.  Over the course of a decade, Sophia appeared at least once on five different TV shows.  In addition to her native show, The Golden Girls, she also appeared on The Golden Palace (its successor), Empty Nest (its spinoff), Nurses (its grandchild, as it was a spinoff of Empty Nest), and Blossom (which wasn't a spinoff as far as I know).  She was always there with some sort of quip, wisecrack, story ("Picture it--Sicily, 1923..."), or in rare cases even a hug.

In addition to achieving her greatest success relatively late in life, Estelle Getty is also part of a rare occurrence in television.  She and her co-stars--Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Betty White--were all honored with Emmy Awards during The Golden Girls golden run.  And because she was just incredibly funny, with impeccable timing and delivery, she's the one that always comes to mind when I think about the show.

Estelle Getty was, indeed, a golden girl.  Even though she passed away on July 22, she'll always be around in reruns--liberated by a fire at the Shady Pines facility in Miami and taken in by her daughter and her two housemates.   I can imagine the scene right now at the Pearly Gates.  In character, she's regaling those waiting in line with a story about the Old Country.  It's hard to picture it now, knowing she's gone.

Thanks for a lot of golden memories, Estelle Getty.  You will be missed.

Lost in all the noise about the closing of Yankee Stadium is the fact that 2008 is also the final year for Shea Stadium.  Although I've never been to New York, I've always had more fondness from afar for Shea.  Maybe it's because as a kid, I watched the New York Jets slog through the mud late in the season against teams Buffalo and New England, featuring future Hall-of-Famers like Joe Namath and O.J. Simpson.  Maybe it's because as a teenager, I was deeply wounded when Bill Buckner booted Mookie Wilson's grounder and gave the Mets the chance it needed to win the 1986 World Series.  Or maybe it's because as an adult, I watched as it became the staging ground for rescue workers helping a stunned city recover from the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Of all the many events that Shea hosted during its time in the spotlight, none could have been more important.

Of course, it was always cool to hear the jets taking off from LaGuardia while watching a game.  Having grown up in the flight path of a major airport, it's a comforting sound to me.

So Shea doesn't have the fabled ghosts of DiMaggio and Maris and Gehrig roaming its corridors.  Several Yankees, including Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra, have been integral parts of the Mets history.  So Shea never hosted a Super Bowl.  It was, however, the site of the 1968 AFL Championship Game, which propelled the Jets to their monumental upset over Baltimore in Super Bowl III.  So Shea isn't as old.  Big deal--it still got the job done, and that was, primarily, helping return National League baseball to a city abandoned by two teams that went west to ply their craft.

I'm sure there are some folks here who have been to Shea Stadium and can share stories about the place.  I'd love to hear them--it doesn't look like I'm going to get there before they close the place down.