Cubs BCB After Dark: Which potential expansion city is best?

It’s another Wednesday evening here at BCB After Dark: the grooviest spot for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Please come on in and join us. It’s good to see old friends and new ones. There’s no cover charge. We have a few tables available. Bring your own beverage.

BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.

The Cubs lost to the Athletics today 5-3, which clinched the division for the Brewers. It’s nights like this one that make me not want to write this feature.

Last night I asked you about the possibility of signing (probable) free agent pitcher Blake Snell. Despite Snell’s two Cy Young Awards and stellar second half this season, most of you were pretty negative about it, with 49 percent giving it a resounding “Nay!” Another 27 percent were in favor and the rest were “meh.”

Here’s the part where I talk about music and movies. You can skip ahead to the baseball at the end if you’d like. You won’t hurt my feelings.

Tonight we’re featuring the late, great South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela playing “Chileshe” live in 2012. Here Masekela is playing a flugelhorn.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) wasn’t director John Carpenter’s first film, but it’s the one that put him on the map, so to speak. Or at least it’s the one that got him the money to make Halloween. Carpenter is a huge fan of Howard Hawks, and Assault on Precinct 13 is a spin on Hawks’ Rio Bravo, as well as the 1968 George Romero classic Night of the Living Dead. Carpenter has readily admitted that Assault on Precinct 13 was strongly influenced by those films and if truth be told, it doesn’t live up to the standards of either one. But that’s unfair, because both of those films are among the greatest films ever made. If you judge Assault on Precinct 13 on its own merits, it’s a pretty well-made low-budget action film that’s entertaining in it’s own right.

Assault on Precinct 13 is one of those “urban hellscape” films of the seventies and eighties that depicted the inner cities as a lawless place where society has broken down and violence reigns. Carpenter would go on to make a better film in this genre in 1981 with Escape From New Yorkbut he had a much bigger budget for that one. These films could be pretty racist in their implications, but Carpenter wisely tries to defuse that by making sure that he had a multi-racial band of heroes and a multi-racial band of marauding thugs.

The heart of the film, like both Rio Bravo and Night of the Living Deadis a diverse group of people under siege. Austin Stoker stars as Lieutenant Ethan Bishop, who gets assigned to take command of Precinct 13 in a fictional part of South Los Angeles for its final day. It’s supposed to be a routine job of just watching while the movers come in and clear things out. Only a few people are left, including the commanding sergeant (who clears out as soon as Bishop arrives) and a couple of secretaries.

Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston) is a convicted murderer being transported from jail to prison with a couple of other inmates. But one of the other prisoners gets sick and the bus, with the prisoners and guards, gets rerouted to the nearest police station for medical attention, which just happens to be the almost-closed Precinct 13.

Meanwhile, the violent gang that rules the streets is looking for revenge after the LAPD kills several of their members. They decide to kill everyone in their path. I won’t spoil who they kill, but it was extremely controversial at the time and its graphic nature reportedly initially earned the movie an “X” rating. But one of the survivors of that shooting seeks refuge in Precinct 13 and the gang members come after him, looking for revenge.

The gangsters that put Precinct 13 under siege are about as mindless as the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. A bit smarter and they don’t eat the brains of their victims, but they are pretty much single-minded killers. They aren’t given names or any real motivation. They are just there to serve as the storm that is about to overtake the building during the night.

(Of course, because the precinct is closing the next day, the power and phone lines are shut off. That may be the most unrealistic part of the film, the idea that the utility companies are so on the ball that they shut off services on time.)

Stoker, Joston and Laurie Zimmer, who plays the main secretary Leigh, are an appealing enough group. They’re not John Wayne, Dean Martin and Angie Dickinson, but it’s unfair to compare them to their Rio Bravo equivalents. It’s a low-budget film with low-budget actors. They do a fine enough job with what they’ve got to work with.

Mostly, what Carpenter does well is keep the action moving so that we see the same kind of planning, arguing and action that happens in the farm house in Night of the Living Dead. Both films are about a society that has mostly, but not completely, broken down and they just need to stay alive until help finally arrives.

They made a remake of Assault on Precinct 13 in 2005 with Laurence Fishburne and Ethan Hawke. I haven’t seen it. But remakes of cult classics with big budget and big name actors are almost never as good as the original film.

Here’s the trailer for Assault on Precinct 13.

Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.

I really don’t feel like talking about the Cubs after today’s events. So instead, I’m going to ask you about MLB expansion and which city do you think is the best choice for a new team, once MLB goes to 32.

I’m on the record as saying I’m skeptical that the Athletics will end up in Las Vegas, but for tonight, I’m going to assume that they will play in Las Vegas starting in 2028. So let’s cross Vegas off the list for possible expansion cities. Of course, if they don’t end up in Vegas, the top city on the expansion list could be a place for the A’s to move to.

I’ll point you to this ESPN article for the pros and cons of the candidates. I’m not going to include Mexico City because while it is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, this article points out the perhaps insurmountable problems with putting a team there and also notes that commissioner Rob Manfred is a clear “no” on Mexico City .

So the options are:

• Austin/San Antonio (We’re putting them together as one, although obviously one city would be chosen as the host.
• Charlotte
• Montreal
• Nashville
• Orlando
• Portland, OR
• Raleigh
• San Jose
• Salt Lake City

All of these cities have groups that are trying to bring baseball to their city. How serious these efforts are is up for debate, but there is at least some stated interest.

Of course, MLB would have to add two cities to get up to 32, but our polls only allow you to make one vote. So vote for the one you think is the best choice and then if you want, tell us your second choice in the comments.

I’m not going to give an “other” selection for those of you arguing for Omaha or Billings. OK, Vancouver would be a realistic choice. But we’re only looking at cities that have some momentum towards an expansion team. I personally think the best spot for an expansion team is Northern New Jersey, but I also understand that the Yankees and Mets would never agree to that and MLB lacks the will to force it to happen. (And yes, I understand that the Giants are never going to agree to a team in San Jose. But that’s only one team that would be upset about the move rather than two. And unlike New Jersey, there is a group trying to bring baseball to San Jose.)

So what’s your choice for an expansion city?

Thanks to everyone who stopped in this evening and all week. I’m sorry we didn’t have better things to celebrate. Please get home safely. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us next week for more BCB After Dark.