Coalition for the Sane: The Issue Voters Care About the Most Is The One the Left Cares About The Least

 

 

Every so often, particularly the closer we get to election day, I'll read an article in the Times or Reuters or some other publication where reporters actually talk to voters about who they're voting for and why. I like these articles because it's one of the few times that our media actually talks to people like people instead of talking around, over and above us.

There's a common theme this year when these papers talk to ACTUAL working class voters such as building managers, fisherman, and small business owners. That theme is how much harder it is for them to either do their jobs or make ends meet. Some of it has to do with the trade war Trump started, some of it has to do without his immigration policies have made it harder for them to find workers to do projects, some of it has to do with just being able to pay their bills. The common thread is, to quote James Carville, the economy, stupid.

The Democrats are expected to do well in this election cycle because they are playing in to the idea of affordability,  something the President basically considers a fake issue. Many of the people interviewed are former Trump voters who are considering either voting Democrat, or if they have no stomach for it, sitting the election out. In either case the circumstances for a blue wave are growing more and more likely by the day.

I mention this because I've read a lot of articles online at this site and others. And there are a lot of things that inflame the readers here: DEI policies, the policies of ICE, laws against transgenders, the administration of history, Gaza, how Trump is corrupting the Justice system…well you know most of them better than I do. And yet somehow I haven't read a single article here or indeed in most left-wing journals talking about economic issues and how they hurt everybody.

They have a lot to say about capitalism and how its destroying everything that is good and pure. But the closest they'll ever get to talking about economic issues is how the one percent have too much money. They'll argue about how broken capitalism, how much the rich have corrupted every part of our American system and made it a wasteland. Yet I find it telling that most of their article are more about the evils of the 'One Percent' and how to help the other 99.

I've mentioned in previous articles that the left really has no economic policy to speak of beyond money is the solution to all the problems in society and the way to get that money is to tax the rich.  This is the attitude of the activist, which as has been established is usually a college-educated and relatively rich white person.  How the wealth of the one percent ends up getting to the rest of America has never been established by the progressive.

Most of their arguments are based on taxing the income of the wealthy, which is a false narrative. The argument for a wealth tax has occasionally been floated by some states but as we've seen it rarely gets out of the state legislature or is struck down, as Mamdani's second home tax was by an appellate court last month. And because the wealthy have more resources then you or I they can easily relocate to other states or countries where the tax laws won't reach them and the money certainly won't get to those who need them.

The larger problem is that the Sanders and AOC's of the world have never explained how, having taxed the top one percent, that money then gets to those who need it, particularly those I mentioned below. Which brings us to the real issue: the left has never really cared about helping the poor so much as they have hurting the rich.

Far left political issues have always targeted the wealthy and the system itself and blamed them for what is wrong with society while the far right has historically attacked minorities for what's wrong with America. And whether it's the Dixiecrats or the Southern Strategy of Nixon, the right's method has always been more successfully in getting votes. This is the difference between the left-wing populism of Bernie Sanders and the right wing populism of Trump: one couldn't win the Democratic nomination; the other won the Presidency twice. What's hurt the Democrats the most in the last decade is that they've spent far too much time trying to follow the Sanders model rather then try to win back the working class which the left, despite ostensibly wanting to help, considers beneath them in every respect because they are working class.

  The exit polls of the 2024 election made it very clear that the plurality of all voters – over 40 percent of them – made their choices because they were concerned about the economy. This is nothing new: economic well being has always been a good talking point whether Reagan is asking "Are you better off then you were four years ago?" or Clinton campaigning on that very message.  But because the left is mainly made up of people who themselves are well off in the American hierarchy – maybe not in the one percent, but definitely no lower than ten – it's almost always the least important issue to them.  Academics like Nikole Hannah-Jones and celebrities like Mark Ruffalo can yell about the racism and unfairness of America because they can afford to do so. It's highly unlikely someone who trying to decide between whether to pay for their medical insurance or water bill in Mississippi gives a crap about transgenders being allowed to use bathrooms in his state. He's more concerned about his own life.

If the left wonders about the well-being of these people, it's only in an abstract way: why do they vote against their economic interests instead of Republicans who promote culture wars? But they're not really interested in getting them to vote Democrats because most of them are annoyed Democrats aren't left-wing enough for their states. That Democrats have realized that they can only win with economic issues has earned them the slur of 'neoliberal' and that there's no difference between the two parties. Which is another way of saying: neither party is sufficiently progressive for me.

It might seem glib to look at so many of the issues the far left raises as vital, whether they are campaign finance reform, policing, immigration as  simply 'rich people problems'. But the fact it is easier to decide what issues are vital to you the more money you have and conversely the richer you are, the easier you can put a wall between yourself and the rest of the world. Not to sound like a broken record but the reason the conservative movement is more successful then the progressive one in terms of effective control of every level of politics is because they've always realized they need to spend the time and energy to manipulate the voter in order to achieve their goals. The progressive movement, by contrast, sees the process beneath them and wants the voter to realize on their own how badly their being abused and exploited and come to the left on their own. Both sides no doubt hold the average voter in equal contempt but the conservatives are much better at hiding it because they need them.  The progressive actually holds the voter in contempt for being dumb enough to fall for the manipulations of either side.

The other major problem with the left is that they spend the overwhelming majority of their time focused on causes that, however noble and important they are, nevertheless are abstractions to the overwhelming majority of Americans. And because that nearly all of them are so massive that the only power the average person in this country has to do something real – voting – can do very little to fix them, the average person chooses to focus on more concrete realities that affect their day-to-day lives. There's nothing wrong with this in theory and practice, but almost to an individual the average progressive tends to use this as  a cudgel to argue the worst possible thing about the masses, usually using it as code for them being bigots.

In the aftermath of the 2024 election the majority of progressives chose to dismiss Trump's electoral victory as confirmation of the foolishness of the average voter because they cared about 'the price of eggs'. To them that was code for them being idiotic at best and racist at worst, which has been their blanket assumption of so many working class voters at least for the last decade.

During that same cycle the cause that was by far the most important to the progressive was Gaza. To them this election was a mandate not on American democracy or the Democratic administration but rather foreign policy in Gaza. (To be sure then as now many of them believe that electoral politics can't solve the problem in Gaza, but let's let that go for now.)

The problem is, even for the most devoted people to the cause, what is happening in Gaza is an abstraction where is the price of groceries is a reality that affects more people in their daily lives.  As I illustrated above working class voters care far more about economic issues while college educated and upwardly mobile ones care far more about things like Gaza.  And while I grant you it is unlikely the voters will be able to change what happens on either issue with their votes next month they are all voting in America, not the Middle East. It's not racist or wrong for Americans to care more about issues that affect their lives more than ones that don't.

Gaza is just the most recent of which the left cares about: the Justice Democrats platform as I've illustrated has more to do with social justice then economic well being and by its nature has only appealed to those who are inclined to agree with left-wing policies to begin with. That has always been a much smaller percentage of Americans then the left insists it actually is but the left doesn't see a problem with it. The Democratic Party does – and to their credit have spent much of 2026 trying to run candidates who will listen to the voters I've mentioned above rather then trying to win over those who have only a minor allegiance to democracy in the first place.

The power of the vote, to send a message to those in power every two years, has essentially been taken for granted by the masses for so long that even the most educated tend to forget both how relatively recent it is to world history and how relatively few countries practice it. The far left, more then the right, tends to treat it not just with disdain but actually uses it to argue it’s a fraud and an illusion to hold the populace in chains. That they have yet to come up with an alternative – not even a better one, just a different one – in all the years I've been reading them is another in the seemingly endless line of obstacles as to why they've failed to succeed as a political force in America.

But what has become clear in the last decade is that the average citizen does take it more seriously then it did. The average voter turnout rate for both Presidential and midterms have been at their highest levels in decades as Americans are realizing yes, elections do have consequences and that they want their voices to be heard. That the extremes on both sides have made it clear how little use they have for the message when it goes against what they want is honestly irrelevant because elections aren't about what they want but what the voters want.

If next month's elections go according to the polls the Democrats will have succeeded because they've heard the complaints of what the voters in the articles I've read as well as countless others and are trying to find candidates who will hear them on economic issues which is what they care about. If this annoys the progressives who care about every issue but this one, well, we've spent a decade listening to them and the voters have made it crystal clear that its not their first priority. The left can afford to care about other things, but the vast majority of Americans can't. Until they realize that, they'll basically keep doing what they've always done because they can afford to.

 

 

 

Yankees Vs. Red Sox Greatest Rivalry in Sports…Now, Part 2: How The 2003 Postseason Would Have Convinced a Die-Hard Atheist that There Was A Devil

 

As my readers know from my articles on baseball my household – particularly my mother – is a Yankee household. I never quite inherited the title mainly because by the time I started watching the sport seriously around sixteen I was watching baseball as a fan of narratives.

To be clear, while I devoured box scores with a passion and watched the records that were being set in the steroid era  (I was as oblivious as any fan was, for the record) my real focus didn't begin in earnest until the postseason which was about to shift from the division race to the wild card race. At the time this was met with derision from every single sportswriter and broadcaster at the time and I imagine that there are still quite a few Boomers who think it's an abomination.

As I've written before I thought it was an improvement. As I've written a couple of times before the idea of the season long pennant race for one league, much less both, is sepia toned. This was especially true when the Yankees were in their period of dominance between 1921-1964 but it was never that common for the National League much of the time either. Many of the things purists deride, such as divisional races, had done much to make the sport more competitive. Between 1978 and 1987 ten different teams won the World Series, something that had never happened before in baseball history. For the first time the possibility of any team winning the World Series was becoming closer to a reality and as we've seen in the 21^st century, it's led to the breaking of some of the larger championship droughts in history and several expansion franchises finally win the World Series after going for decades without one.

Of course I didn't know that in 1996. Then I was very much rooting for the Yankees as they finally broke the longest gap between championships in their history when Joe Torre led the Yankees to their first World Series victory in eighteen years. And I was as much a fan of Jeter and Bernie and Jorge and Petite as any New Yorker was back then.

I was also in awe of them in 1998 as they had what was the greatest season in American League history going 114-48 and sweeping towards the World Series.

By 1999, the luster was beginning to dim. By 2000 I was pulling for the Mets in the Subway series. And by the fall of 2001 I may very well have been the only person in America not pulling for the Yankees to win their fourth consecutive World Series.

This is public knowledge in my family; in fact my first byline was an op-ed I wrote for Newsday in 2002 'Rooting against the Yankees is an act of love.'  In it I argued much of is had to do with my mother's die-hard devotion to the team. With the benefit of hindsight I'm pretty sure that had less to do with it then her.

The truth of the matter is dynasties in sports can be infuriating if you don't happen to be a fan of the team. It had to have been exhausted for the seven other teams in the American League during the 1920s, thirties, forties and fifties as well as for so many of the franchises in the National League that had to face them and usually lose year after year. There's a reason the Broadway show was called Damn Yankees and not Go Senators! – hating the Yankees in the 1950s was something that could be universally understood if you didn't live in the Bronx. And when your name is synonymous with winning I'm pretty sure it’s a big reason the rest of the country hates New York with a passion.

During this same period I was started my pattern of looking for narratives in the postseason. I would root for Cleveland because they hadn't won a World Series in forty years and until 1995 wouldn't make the postseason at all. The Mariners hadn't won during that period when they were starting to become a force of nature (unfortunately right when the Yankees were in resurgence). And I'd root for the Orioles and the Rangers for the same reason.

My problem with dynasties wasn't just held to the Yankees. Much I admired and loved the Braves pitching staff I wasn't thrilled that they were making it to the World Series every year and were always winning the NL East. I pulled for the Padres, who'd never won a World Series, the Cubs for obvious reasons, and back then it was easier for me to pull for the Mets. (I've essentially given up on them, though every so often they do surprise me.)

Now it wasn't like the Red Sox were doing poorly during this period. They won the AL Wild Card in 1995 and again in 1999. They frequently contended for the division title and they sometimes got close to both. But I'd basically stopped taking the Red Sox seriously after Roger Clemens went to Toronto (and of course later the Yankees.)

I should be honest, despite the fact I'd watched Ken Burns' Baseball multiple times by that point, I was still very skeptical of the idea of a curse. By this point I'd read a lot of other histories of baseball, the World Series and many seasonal ones. And even by 2002 I'd noticed a pattern that, in the aftermath of the 2004 World Series, other writers would put in various books on the Sox.

In 1946 when the Red Sox won their first pennant in 28 years, their opponents were the St. Louis Cardinals. Between 1942-1944, as I've written, the Cardinals won 106, 105, and 105 wins respectively, three consecutive National League Pennants and two World Series. Much of the 1944 team was facing off against the Red Sox and they won their third World Series in five years.

In 1967 the year of the Impossible Dream, they faced the Cardinals again. There was no question who the better teams was that year as the Cardinals had, even with Bob Gibson missing much of the summer with a broken leg, run away with the National League Pennant. This was a team with four future Hall of Fames, Gibson, Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda and Steve Carlton and they'd won the World Series over the Yankees three years earlier.

In 1975 the Red Sox ended up facing the Big Red Machine, which is of course one of the greatest baseball dynasties in history. The Reds would have the best win-loss record of any National League in the 1970s. They'd win six NL West Titles, four NL Pennants and 2 world series during that period. That year they'd won the NL East by 20 games over the Dodgers. They were powered by Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan to win 108 games.

And while every Red Sox fan of a certain age will gnash their teeth at this the New York Mets in 1986 were by far the best team in baseball that year. They went 108-54, which was the best single season record any team had during the 1980s. The Philadelphia Philles who came in second, finished 21 and a half games behind them. That year the Red Sox were 95-66. And need I remind you the Angels were beating you 3 games to 1 in the ALCS that year and were down to your last strike in Game by before Dave Henderson saved your season? (Those who know baseball history are aware there were more tragic consequences to that for the Angels that year, but I won't relate it here.)

And to be clear, Bill Buckner only lost Game 6 for you. You could have won Game 7.  Just a reminder.

So if you think about there wasn't so much a curse hanging over the Red Sox during this period but the simple fact that every time they made to the World Series they ran smack into a much better team. Teams that should by any measure have made mincemeat out of the Red Sox each time. And a couple of times it nearly was. In 1967 the Red Sox were actually trailing the Cardinals three games to one before winning the next two games to force a game 7 and we all know the lore of Game 6 in 1975.

I get that the curse of never being able to win Game 7 fits a certain narrative but it leaves out the fact that the Red Sox didn't win Game 7 before the curse. To be clear you won in the first World Series in 1903 but that was a best of 9. In 1912 the Red Sox won the World Series when they won Game 8 (too complicated to explain) They won in 5 in 1915 and 1916 and in six 1918. So winning Game 7 was not something Red Sox hadn't really done in the 20^th century.

And I'm not saying that to shame the Red Sox fans, just telling you that just made you like basically every other team when they get to the postseason. Baseball is like that. Grover Cleveland Alexander can strike out Tony Lazzeri in 1926 and the Yankees can come back to sweep the Pirates in four in 1927. The Mets can complete a miracle over the Orioles in 1969 in five games and the Orioles can come back to beat the Reds in five in 1970. Kirk Gibson can hit a home run to stun the A's leading the Dodgers to a five game sweep and in 1989 the A's can sweep the Giants. That's how baseball works.

And I would still believe that…had I not watched the 2003 Championship Series for both the National League and American League that year. Because I'm convinced both those series might cause the most die-hard atheist to think to themselves: "This can't be chance! God is playing dice with the universe and every time he rolls for the Sox and Cubs it comes up snake eyes!"

During the early weeks of October of 2003 much of America seemed seized by the potential of something that even non-baseball fans would have realized the significance of: a Red Sox-Cub Fall Classic. I remember that the Times, which even then was notorious for not covering sports of any level with the detail most papers did, were running the scores of Red Sox and Cubs postseason games next to the masthead on the daily issues.

And by the second week of October it seemed increasingly probable. In the ALCS the Red Sox were, for the first time in franchise history,  facing the Yankees in a postseason series while in the NLCS the Cubs were facing off against the Florida Marlins.

Now even though my home was a Yankee home I was paying more attention to the Cubs during that nine day period. Why wouldn't you?  That the Red Sox were facing their all-time rivals in a postseason series was a secondary story to the fact that this was the first time the Cubs had gotten even this far in the postseason. Winning their first pennant alone would have been a bigger story then anything else, considering it had become a punch line for every comedian.

The games overlapped quite a bit during that period. And when the Cubs took a three game to one lead it seemed inevitable. Even their losing Game 5 in Miami actually seemed fitting. They would clinch the first pennant in 58 years at Wrigley Field.

I was alone at home on October 14^th 2003 – my parents were at the opera that night.  Mark Prior, who seemed like he was going to be a future Hall of Famer started and the Cubs took a 1-0 lead in the first. They held it and added a run in the sixth and the seventh. As the top of the eighth began the Cubs were just six outs away from the World Series.

Now Game 6 has of course gone down in history because of Steve Bartman's catching a foul ball that if Moises Alou had caught it would have put the Cubs four outs away. He became such a figure of abuse in the aftermath of what happened and the scapegoat. But as someone who saw the entire inning unfold everyone knows none of that was on him.

Yes it was an eight pitch at bat to Mark Pierre and yes Alou might have been able to retire the side and yes the Cubs got angry about it. But that alone can't be blamed on what happened next.  I remember watching the entire disaster unfold and the idea of blaming Bartman for what it happens is as much a straw man argument as blaming Bill Buckner for the Red Sox losing the World Series in 1986.

I saw everything go wrong. The double play that Gonzalez messed up, the hitting that Derek Lee did, the fact that Prior was kept in far too long, that the relief pitching went up in smoke and that the Marlins then proceeded to bat around. It was a complete and utter shitshow but trying to blame Bartman for the Cubs mistakes is beyond the point.

And again as with Buckner it was only Game 6. The Cubs could have rectified the whole thing by winning Game 7. And it looked like that might happen when Kerry Wood hit a three run homer in the second to tie the game. The Cubs took the lead 5 to 3 and held it for two more innings. Again the Cub Manager kept his starting pitcher into long and that ended up destroying Chicago's hopes.

Now I wasn't even a Cubs fan but watching that eighth inning unfold I felt the wreckage as deeply as anyone who'd spent their entire life on the West Side of Chicago. I'm pretty sure I was shouting thins like "No!, How Could You?" and "How the Hell Could This Happen?!" in some variation for that horrible twenty minutes. I was, however, more tolerant then those at Wrigley Field for a clear reason: at no point did I blame Bartman. In fact I wouldn't even learn Bartman's name until several months after the fact when he became the most notorious sports fan in history.  (Law and Order actually did an episode where a Bartman-like character was the victim of a bar brawl and Briscoe couldn't work up sympathy for his death.)

Bartman's name has since been cleared by history, most recently in a monologue by Oliver Platt in The Bear during the Season 2 finale. But when Game 7 ended I felt the ashes so much more deeply than I had. So imagine less then twenty four hours later I had to watch Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS.

It was clear just how bad the blood was from the start. The two teams split the first four games pretty much evenly. It was clear just how much bad blood there was a bench clearing brawl that was lowlighted by Don Zimmer charging Pedro Martinez in Game 3 and the game ended with a Fenway groundskeeper scuffling with two Yankees. The Yankees left Boston up three games to two, needed just one win to clinch their sixth American League Pennant in eight years.

The game took place the same day as Game 7 of the Cubs-Marlins series and I'll be honest I don't think I gave the Red Sox a chance.  These were still the Red Sox. Now there had been signs that they were no longer the losers of old. In the ALDS of 2003 they were trailing two games to zero against the Oakland A's. Then they came from behind to win three straight, winning the last two games by one run. This went against what I was used to from the Red Sox over the years and I may very well have given them a credit for being a good team.

But these were The Yankees. Sure in 2002 they had lost a postseason series for the first time in four years to Anaheim (which was on their way to their first ever World Championship) but they'd won 101 games that year, tied with the Braves for the best record in baseball. They run through the Twins in the ALDS (even back then Minnesota had a habit of being a punching bag for the Yankees) and having seen most of their season on YES (which was a relatively new network back then) I had no reason to believe history would be any kinder to the Red Sox now.

And I'll be honest I was still focused on Game 7 of the Cubs-Marlins game. I honestly can't remember if I was even really listening as it played on the radio that afternoon. But when the Red Sox ended up winning 9-6 I do remember telling my parents that the Red Sox had a bad history when it came to winning Game 7.

Again in the first century of their existence the Red Sox had won a Game 7 twice. The first time was in the 1903 World Series when the series was Best of 9. The second was when they'd clinched the American League Pennant against the Angels in 1986. I knew their history in Game 7. To overcome that seemed too much to believe.

Still I did watch because it seemed to feature an all-time match up Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens. Clemens said he was planning to retire in 2003 (he'd turned 41 that year) and everyone thought this might me the last game he'd ever pitch. Pedro was starting to slow down but he was still the best pitcher in the game, having lead the American League that year in ERA, strikeouts and winning percentage.

As we all know the Red Sox started the game out on hot. Trot Nixon hit a two run homer in the second and the Sox put up one more run.  They would be ahead 4-0 before Clemens was removed and Mike Mussina came in to relieve. But it didn't seem to make a difference against Martinez. By the 7^th inning the Red Sox were ahead 4-2. After they got an insurance run, the natural move would have been to take Martinez out.

So I was stunned to see Martinez pitching the bottom of the eighth. This move has deservedly become the stuff of backroom talk even after the curse was reversed the following year.  The Red Sox had capable relievers and Martinez had experienced problems pitching into the late innings. He'd already thrown over 100 pitches.

Martinez got the first out. Then he gave up a double to Jeter and a single to Williams. Then Little went to the mound, everyone assuming he would take Martinez out.

The moment that Little left the mound and kept Martinez in, that maybe the first time in history I believed in a curse. Not so much of fate but the fact that the managers of the Red Sox historically had made these kinds of bad moves before to the teams detriment, particularly with pitching.

In 1948 with a one-game playoff against Cleveland, Joe McCarthy chose as his starter Denny Galehouse, who was 8-7 and hadn't started in three months. Galehouse didn't last three innings and the Indians won 8-3. Galehouse would never pitch in the majors again.

In 1949 with the Yankees and Red Sox tied on the final day of the season McCarthy had taken out Ellis Kinder for a pinch hitter with the Red Sox down 1-0. The Yankees would score four more runs, 3 of them on a bloop pinch hit by Jerry Coleman off Tex Hughson who hadn't pitched in three months. Hughson never pitched in the majors again either.

In the one game playoff in 1978 after Bucky F---Ing Dent homer Zimmer took Torrez out when Thurman Munson came to the plate. Torrez had already struck Munson out three times that game. Munson hit a double of Mike Stanley to drive in Mickey Rivers to make the game 4-2. He then kept Stanley in during the eighth when Reggie Jackson hit another home run., the insurance run that made sure the Sox would lose 5-4.

So the fact that Little had this time blundered by leaving his pitcher in didn't make me any less certain that he had just signed Boston's death warrant for 2003. And that's what happened  Matsui would hit a double and then Posada hit a bloop that drove in 2 runs. At that moment I knew the Sox had lost. The rest was just waiting for them to be buried.

That Aaron Boone was the one to do it in the eleventh is part of Yankee lore and their long history. Like every Red Sox fan I suspect they all knew the game was over the moment Little kept Martinez in the game. The rest was just details.

Like any baseball fan I've had some postseasons that have left me emotionally spent but few have left me in such devastation as the aftermath of that week in October 2003. I have no memory of watching the World Series that following between the Yankees and Florida which the Marlins would win in six games and if I did, it left no emotional impression on me. Oh I was fine by Thanksgiving – the TV season had begun in earnest and I was watching 24 and Gilmore Girls and all the other shows that kept be going – but it was a bitter pill to take.

And honestly like any sports fan I had no idea this was the bitter waters we had to go through before we reached the sweet – an era of competitiveness in baseball unlike any in the sports history and one in which the Red Sox would lead the way.

In the next article I will go in depth with the 2004 postseason which everyone knows about but nevertheless can never be forgotten.

Homicide Rewatch: Mercy

 

Written by Eric Overmeyer

Directed by Alan Taylor

 

It's time we talked about the Tommy Westphall Universe.

For those who might be unfamiliar with it – which is almost certainly anyone born after 1998 – this refers to the final episode of St. Elsewhere. In the last two minutes it's revealed that everything we've seen has taken place in a snow globe held by Tommy Westphall, the autistic son of Dr. Donald Westphal who we've spent six seasons watching as the chief of staff of St. Eligius. Now we see him as a construction worker and his son is still autistic and he's starring into that snow globe. And because St. Elsewhere has a history of crossing over with multiple TV shows during its run and those shows in turn have crossed over with other TV series in that sense anywhere from three-quarters of television that have ever aired are taking place in that snow globe.

When this ending aired in 1988 it was the most polarizing ending for a drama in TV history to that point and would remain so until the series finale of The Sopranos. (Tom Fontana has made it very clear how grateful he is not just to David Chase but also the writers of shows like Battlestar Galactica and Lost. "It's so lonely being the guy who infuriated half the audience!" he told Alan Sepinwall in a 2012 interview.) And then naturally came that fan base which has been building on it.

It's tempting to look at 'Mercy' as Fontana finding a way to play into it with 'Mercy' which brings back a character from St Elsewhere a decade after the fact. But at no time does Turner's character even reference she worked at St. Eligius and considering that St. Elsewhere wasn't in syndication during this period you wouldn't have known unless you knew the show's history. Furthermore Roxanne Turner was never an official cast member only a recurring character during the show's final three seasons. The only reference to it comes when Turner says she used to be an OB-GYN but Mercy never clarifies how in ten years' she's ended up in hospice care and neither Bayliss or Pembleton ever ask.

And perhaps most tellingly while Turner's story is the highlight of the episode there's a lot going on. Indeed this episode is one of the busiest ones for all the major characters we've had in a very long time, and I mean that as a compliment.

Pembleton and Bayliss are engaging in their usual banter about which museums they've gone to and have gone to; Frank debates real museums; Bayliss asks the difference between standing 'on line' and 'in line'. They've been called by an officer to a scene where it looks like a 52 year old man has been dying of a lingering illness. Frank and Tim are gentle, if annoyed. Considering that the man is a victim of end-stage colon cancer. However one of the victim's sisters has an issue Alberta Wells. She says that her brother was murdered, something the rest of the family takes issue with when she says that the attending physician Dr. Turner killed her brother. Alberta knows her brother was dying of colon cancer but that Turner committed euthanasia by administering a lethal dose of morphine – which forces the detectives to do an autopsy, much to the objection of everyone else in the family

During the 1990s, it's worth remembering, the trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian was much in the news and he would become one of the most prominent advocates of the so called 'right to die'. The subject was no less controversial in the 1990s then it is today and the fact that certain nations have since legalized what is referred to physician assisted suicide as well as a few states here has done nothing to remove the battle over it. I think I should point out that when the Netherlands became the first country to legalize it in 2001 it did so over the opposition of the Catholic Church – and while he may be fallen, Frank Pembleton is still a Catholic. Equally new was the idea of the hospice movement – Turner mentions its small but growing and says given the choice many people would rather die at home.

There's a good chance Frank's attitude towards the subject changes when he meets Turner. (Both detective and doctor are African-American and the show doesn't mention this at all. Good for them.) Turner makes it very clear that Arthur was very clear on his wishes and in fact signed a living will.  She runs a surface that's called St. Jude's and she shows him the hospice she runs as well as the patients she takes care of. Bayliss is in complete awe of what she's doing while Pembleton makes it clear they have something in common. When Turner says her patients are dead, Frank says: "You help yours die', in that casual way that Frank does. Turner makes it very clear about how the process works, how the decision is made between the patient, the doctor, the social worker and the family. Frank's skepticism is simple: "I've seen a lot of death. Haven't seen much dignity."  Turner's response is simpler: "Then you and I don't have much in common. I see it every day." She has no problem walking them through the world of palliative care and talking about using 'whatever's legal' to help their suffering." Pembleton then asks if suffering is needless if pain is a theological question. Turner responds: "If God created pain, he also created the poppy to alleviate that pain, so why not use it?" The closest reference Turner gives to her old job is when she says she's come full circle. "Bringing babies into this world from seeing them off into the next."

Pembleton is clearly annoyed about the idea of euphemism such as passed away. The two of them talk about living wills – as police detectives they have a priority of keeping themselves alive – and eventually they're forced forward when the victim's sister goes to a judge and authorizes an autopsy. Dyer (in her first appearance this season) tells them that the level of morphine in Wells' system was definitely far over the legal limit. However she says it might prove malpractice, but not intent.  When Bayliss tries to argue she overdid it, Dyer counters she gave him six time as much needed to manage his pain.

Turner's reaction is to say the ME has no idea what she was talking about; if anything she undermedicated her patient and the only reason it seems otherwise is because the system is stuck in the 19^th century. I suspect its Turner's dismissive idea of pain being necessary that increasingly chafes Frank. Her better argument is that her patient was so sick that while it would kill the average person her patients have developed a tremendous tolerance. Bayliss actually pushes a little, asking if she might have overdone it just a bit.  She denies it.

Pembleton and Bayliss look at four of the last patients of Turner who passed and one currently under her treatment. It's here an episode that takes place very much in the gray area becomes all the grayer. On one side there's the fact that one of Turner's patients had no family and therefore the only person who could make the decisions for him competently was Turner.  Pembleton argues "We speak for the dead" one of the series' mantras in regard to that patient and that might be a murder. And his social worker makes it clear he left care of more than a few of Turner's patients entirely in her care. The social worker claims he has no knowledge but whether this is due to denial or turning a blind eye.

But then they see Priscilla Owens who's still coherent and alive for the moment. She has MS. Bayliss is very awkward in describing whether they're lucky to be Turner's patient. She's lost the use of her legs and bladder function  and she's only 34. She knows she'll be dead in a year at most. She makes it very clear that she and Dr. Turner have an understanding and that she has no desire for anything to screw that up. When Turner shows up  Owens is blunt: "They want to know if you're gonna snuff me." The way she says it we know what she means.

There's no direct evidence to link any of Turner's actions to this. The families speak the world of her; all the bodies were cremated; the social worker has nothing. Bayliss clearly wants to let this go, correctly pointed out Frank is accusing Turner with 'negative proof' . Bayliss admits all the autopsy won't prove anything because Turner acknowledged using the morphine. Giardello agrees to have Turner come in for a conversation – one that Bayliss refuses to take part in.

Once again we are blessed to have two of the great actors of our time: Braugher and Woodard in the Box for the final discussion. The two of them discuss the seamless garment: "Life is a seamless garment, sacred from conception to death." No abortion, no murder, no euthanasia…" Frank starts. "No capital punishment," Turner finishes.  Turner calls him on it. "Feelings are one thing. I'm a cop. I have to embrace contradictions. Capital punishment is wrong…And necessary."

He thinks that Turner believes she doesn't commit murder." When she pushes him off he says he no longer suspects her of murder. Turner doesn't want his absolution. He knows he can't charge her with any crimes under the laws of man. But playing God?"

Turner says God doesn't make house calls. It's here Turner becomes the most problematic the way she seems to think Pembleton randomly decides who's guilty and who's innocent.  She says he has no business speaking for her patients. She was there when they were dying not him. It's here for the first time she shows vehement rage about what her role is, how hard her job is, the cost is clearly has on her. "How dare you presume to speak for my patients? They didn't have you then. And they sure as hell don't need you now!"

Pembleton's calm is ethereal, arguing that while she is a good doctor she can't bear the be around when they're suffering.  Then he shares a story about a friend he has who started having migraines and who had a brain tumor. They operated on her and the surgeon made a mistake. Her mind has been affected so she can't remember people when she sees them and needs to be cared for by her father all the time.  He admits he's only seen her once since then.  He mentions his stroke and how his memory has been perforating.

Turner points out that he's drinking coffee. He tells her he doesn't listen to doctors anymore. "What do they know? What do they really know?" Turner pounds on her saying that because he had a stroke he's going to prove his doctors wrong even if it ends up killing him. (Point, Turner. ) She calls him out on not seeing his friend since the accident. Pembleton says he's going to keep autopsying her patients and Turner tells him she's not going to stop doing what she's doing. Turner says even if he stops her, all the pain they have will be on him.

Pembleton: I can take the weight.

Turner: Can you?

There are no easy answers for either the doctor or the detective. Who's the one doing their job and who's the relentless fanatic? The one who speaks for the dead or the one who has to care for them in their darkest extremities? That this case, like so many others, is never followed up on is beside the point: there are still no easy answer thirty years later, and despite the legality and success of certain aspects of the movement Turner pushed for, the questions still need to be answered and can't be.

 

The first story linking to a previous one is involving Gharty and Ballard. Stu is busy shopping for perfume for reasons he doesn't tell Ballard, when they run into the city goats  - the McCord brothers - that killed Antonio Livingston. Gharty famously told her that they'd be spending every weekend looking for them, so its fitting with how Homicide works that they run into the two of them when they aren't looking for them at all.

They end up chasing down Donna McCord, the boys' mother, and this time they push her after she reveals she moved. Her lying capacity is no better than the average corner boy: she says she can't remember her new address because its so recent. Gharty and Ballard give her enough time before Stu understandably loses patience. "White trash too stupid to know when to stop lying," as he puts it. The truth is Donna wants to believe the best in her kids even as Gharty tells them they have the murder weapon, the nature of their crime and that they have their fingerprints on it. To this point Donna has seemed stupid and frail. It's when she realizes the truth she says: "This is what comes…from mixing with colored."  Gharty and Ballard haul Douglas and Ronnie in. And I gotta say while I'm not normally a fan of police brutality as someone who supports women I really liked when Ballard knees one of the McCord's in the groin to give back what they gave her a couple of months ago.

At the Waterfront Ballard and Gharty are sanguine. Gharty thinks this is about two bottom feeders who wacked a third and Ballard thinks it was just two easy to get the McCord's to confess. Billie Lou, who as we know is from that part of Baltimore, says: "We come from a part of the world that thinks the moonwalk was fake and pro-wrestling is real." (Okay I admit that's less funny now then it was in 1998.) The strange part comes when Gharty gives Billie Lou that present and is secretive about it. Is there something about his marriage we don't know about yet?

Stivers and Falsone are called out on what will be Stivers first ever child murder: sixth grader Latisha Morrison killed in an armed robbery in a pizza parlor in which she was killed along with the store owner.  They killed the store owner in part of the robbery and LaTisha, as is far too often the fate in Baltimore, was killed by a stray bullet.  Giardello quickly realizes why these two rookies are struggling. He tells them with great experience there are two kinds of murders that bother detectives the most: "The murder of a fellow officer and the murder of a child."

Stivers thinks she can handle this because of her experience in narcotic and sex crimes. Giardello is calm: "This is your murdered child." And having seen so many of them over nearly six seasons (and unfortunately there are still more to come) he tells her "You'll never be able to forget her." When Falsone says that if we put it to rest they'll be able to get over Giardello tells them not to pretend this case isn't different. And the viewer knows this as well as Gee does. We see it in the way Falsone starts to darken as they can't find anything and Stivers becomes more and more desperate sounding.

This time it works out. They pick up the killer on a traffic camera with the ATM card, the murder weapon and blood on his shoes.

And the biggest one is when Kellerman lies to Munch about a dentist appointment so he can have a conversation with Judge Gerald Gibbons, the civil court judge he tried to see in his office last week. What follows is one of the most fascinating conversations as Kellerman talks about the Mahoney case and his suspicions. Mike starts talking in hypotheticals about whether Gibbons is on Georgia Rae's payroll.  He says this might scare the city into settling and that Gibbons might end up getting a cut. When Gibbons says that he'll be talking to his superior Mike reminds him that homicide is assigned to investigate kidnapping, extortion and bribery which means that if he does it, they'll have access to his financial and phone records.  Kellerman implies that he's done enough detective work to prove the link and can give it to the states attorney's office.  Gibbons says there's no way to prove a direct link between 'the judge and the gangster'  and money can always be explained. Kellerman argues the investigation would put a damper on Gibbons's political aspirations.  Gibbons implies that the possibility of this might cause him 'to make an error under pressure' causing him to dismiss the charges.

Later that day Kellerman plays the tape of the recording he made with Gibbons to Meldrick. (See Notes from the Board for my issue with this). Meldrick is astonished how far his partner has fallen. Kellerman assumes this is a promise to throw the case out. Kellerman assumes that Gibbons is offering him a bribe and Lewis counters that the tape could be read as if he solicited a bribe, arguing its extortion. But Kellerman is convinced that this is the beginning of the end.  Lewis tells Mike to throw the tape in the river. Once again Kellerman's being given good advice and yet again his arrogance keeps prevailing.

The episode ends with two different notes. Falsone and Stivers go to building where they place the photo of Morrison in a Baltimore place for children 18 and under who die of violence. Stivers quiet response as we look at it is devastating: "They're gonna need to build a stadium."

And that night Frank goes to a home he hasn't been to in years. He's supplicant, almost apologetic as he goes to see Carla.

 

Notes From The Board

Alfre Woodard would be nominated for an Emmy for Best Guest Actress in a Drama for her performance in Mercy. The episode would also be nominated for the Humanitas Prize in 1998.

'Detective Munch' : Munch describes Ballard and Gharty as Inspector Javert as they stalk their city goats. Neither of them know the reference even when Munch brings up Jean Valjean. "Victor Hugo? Les Miserables?" Still blank. "Am I the only one here who can read?" I'm with Munch; you'd think at least they'd have heard of the musical that was still in its original run in 1998.

Just as funny is when Munch says: "What kind of world do we live in when more people believe in angels and UFO's and past lives regression then evolution:

Billie Lou: I believe in angels.

Ballard: I believe in UFO's

Gharty: I've always been iffy on evolution.

Mahoney PTSD: In his conversation with Gibbons, the judge says to Kellerman: "You're digging your own grave." Kellerman's response: "I tend to do that. Character flaw." Mikey, Mikey, don't you ever listen to yourself?

This question has been bugging me for 28 years. How the hell did Kellerman find Meldrick? Lewis has been dodging his calls for weeks, went to see Falsone instead of Mike for what he was doing and the moment Kellerman spotted him at the Waterfront a few weeks ago Meldrick went out the door. And now the two of them are having a clandestine meeting in his car, casually discussing how Kellerman has made a secret tape of Judge Gibbons? It's not like the internet existed the way it did in 1998 and there's no sign either of the detectives has a cell phone during the series. So how did this meeting happen?

 

Hey, Isn't That… Even before she created the character of Roxanne Turner Alfre Woodard had already proven she was a force to be reckoned with. Making her debut in the TV movie the Trial of the Moke in 1978 she appeared in several 1970s and 1980s TV shows such as The White Shadow and Palmerstown USA before the world became aware of Martin Ritt's Cross Creek. For her role as GeeChee she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 1983. She had made several TV appearance during that period a regular in two short-lived series 1982-1983's Tucker's Witch and Rosalyn in 1985's Sara.

In 1984 she won her first Emmy for Best Supporting Actress for Hill Stret Blues. The following year she would be nominated for Playing Claudie Sills in Words by Heart. In 1986 she was nominated for Best Lead Actress for her role in St. Elsewhere even though she only appeared in three episodes. (The rules were different then.)

She is the most Emmy nominated African-American actress in Emmy history with 17 nominations and only Debbie Allen has more with 21. She's won four, for Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries for Miss Evers Boys and Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama for the Practice.  Regina King tied that record in 2020. With her nomination for Homicide Woodard is one of only  a handful of performers to be nominated for playing the same character in two different series. She's also one of the few performers to be nominated in two different Emmy categories the same year: when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for her work in Desperate Housewives and in a TV movie for The Water is Wide.

It might actually be easier to provide a list of TV series Woodard hasn't appeared in during her nearly five decade career.  Her film career has also been formidable and varied in such films as Scrooged, Grand Canyon, Blue Chips, Passion Fish, Heart and Souls, Crooklyn  and Star Trek: First Contact. She's played Harriet Tubman and Winnie Mandela in TV movies, has narrated the story of Nat Turner, played Mrs. Whatsit in a TV film of A Wrinkle in Time, worked for Tyler Perry and done shows for Shonda Rhimes. She's also worked for Tom Fontana a lot: she appeared in his BBC America Series Copper in 2013. She's played Mariah Dillard in Luke Cage, Paris and See and in case you missed her she just finished playing Judy in The Boroughs. And she's not even close to slowing down: she has five projects coming up according to imdb.com

Scrubs is Back! For Season 2 of the Reboot! Joy! They Still Can't Do It All On Their Own – And It's Still So Much Fun

 

For much of the last decade I just didn't get so much of the appeal of the reboot. Not the 'remake' such as the way NBC tried to reinvent Quantum Leap or ABC's version of The Wonder Years both shows whose cancellations I still mourn. No bringing back the casts of a 1990s or 2000s show, usually a comedy, twenty or thirty years later.

I didn't understand either the reason to bring back Roseanne, Murphy Brown or Will & Grace and I never understood the idea behind …And Just Like That. The fourth and fifth seasons of Arrested Development left me could and Live Another Day of 24 was false advertising. (There were only 12 episodes, for crying out loud!) I understand theoretically why these shows were brought back – Hollywood will always do safe properties when asked – but not the motivation.

Then Scrubs came back last February. And now I can't throw stones anymore.

I will say there's an argument behind the revival of Scrubs that really isn't there for so many of the other series I've mention in the second paragraph. Unlike all of them Scrubs was ahead of its time in the 2000s, being far closer to the dramedy model that has increasingly become popular on cable and streaming alike. There's no denying, unlike with shows like Orange is the New Black, Shameless and The Bear, what genre Scrubs has always belonged it. I've rarely laughed longer or harder at any comedy series then watching the antics that went on at Sacred Heart during the 2000s. But it was always closer to shows like MASH or Cheers then Seinfeld or Frasier; Bill Lawrence never let us forget for a moment that this was a hospital and I think they average a death per episode over the entire run.

So Scrubs came back to ABC just when we all needed. And it was hysterical to see that JD, Eliot and Turk are all twenty-five years older then when we first met them and yet somehow they still haven't grown up. JD and Turk are still absolutely in love. (Asked by their HR recruiter in the premiere of Season 2 if they're a secret couple JD is indignant. "You can't put a name on what we have!") JD is still talking to himself and unable to stop talking altogether. Turk is still as cocky as all get out. Eliot is still a hot mess, emphasis on mess (and hot, let's be honest.)

It's the smaller details that are different. JD and Eliot's marriage ended in divorce which honestly wasn't a shock if you saw how it played out during much of the original series. And even though they now run the hospital they're still dealing with all their insecurities. JD is now Chief of Medicine and is trying to deal with how the hospital works and how a new generation of residents is far more of a sticklers for rules and frequently less fun. Eliot is trying to find a way to be a mentor to Tosh (Ava Bunn is currently the first of the residents promoted to series regular) who is very much the same kind of mess she is both professionally and personally but wants her own independence. Turk is dealing with the fact that while he may still be the best surgeon in the hospital not even he can stop the sands of time.

And they're all reminded with the guest stars of the other changes. Carla (Judy Reyes) is still trying to dealing with being the Mama Bear as well as the fact she's also getting older. Perry Cox (please try to give us as much John C. McGinley as possible!) is dealing with the fact that he's now a patient and no longer in control of his destiny the way he was when he was in charge. And as joyful as it is to see the bosses wife (Christa Miller) still being capable of rage, we get to see her reluctant humanity so much. "I'll deny this if Perry says so but I love him very much," she tells Eliot in a moment of openness.

The nostalgia vibe is as strong as ever with Scrubs and hits the highpoints every time. We still have JD needed to tell Turk the moment he gets laid and how many times and overcorrected when it comes to romantic gestures and of course he still has rowdy. Turk is still very clear of just how handsome he is and how proud he is about who he is. "My keister failed sixth grade science because it doesn't know what gravity is!" he tells JD. And Eliot still gets terrified by so many small things like when she wanders into the pediatric ward and runs right into so many creepy children. It's wonderful to know that all of these masters – Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke – have lost none of their power to drive me into hysterics in twenty years' time and of course every time McGinley goes full Perry he still has the ability to cause me to double over in laughter.

And every time JD goes into his head we are reminded that Scrubs basically invented meta. When it's time for a full medical team he flashes back to his crew as the Power Rangers. Given the ability to imagine there are four of them, the first thing they do is narrate the Law and Order voice over and do the theme song. And when JD imagines Father Time, of course its Flavor Flav and of course Turk immediately calls him on it. Even when he's given a chance to find a mentee he walks right past a guy doing a voiceover monologue in his head – and pushes him aside rudely.

And it's not like some of the new cast members haven't added a lot to the show. The new African-American nurses, both female and gay, are hysterical every time they do the work they need to and pushes back. When Eliot says how much she loves fall one says: "We get a month. You get a season."  Vanessa Bayer is hysterical as the head of HR in every single scene she's in where she's trying to get consent forms sign and time after time misreads every situation she's in.  And I love how Todd is still exactly the same twenty years later, and only slightly less randy and with his own mentee.

At this point many of the residents we met back in the first season of the reboot are beginning to become individual characters in their own right, though Tosh and Charlie are still the only ones who've basically formed a lot as having full arcs. Much of their reason to exist is still to bounce off the older staff, not that there's anything wrong with that. Hopefully as the show keeps going they'll continue to grow in their own rights.

And I still love how Scrubs is leaning on its history but not that hard. It's great to see Neil Flynn back having moved on as a Janitor but his own son working for them and I can't wait until Scott Foley makes his long awaited return later this season. (He really hasn't aged in twenty years either; does everyone on Scrubs spent more time in the cosmetic surgery ward at Sacred Heart?) And if anything the issues involve medical care that Scrubs has to deal with have actually helped the show improve with age.  Everything involving health care is worse than it was in the 2000s and everyone on staff has learned to roll with it, if not live with it.

All of this and so much more has made Scrubs just as sublime as it was when I was first watching in 25 years. And I get why so many people have felt the need for shows like Fuller House or That 90s Show. I don't want it with every TV show I watched growing up in the 1990s or 2000s but in small doses and done well, its absolutely everything I need. Hell when Season 2 of Dexter: Resurrection debuts in November I'm not going to bother stalling watching it like I did last time; I'm going to watch from the season premiere. Hey Michael C. Hall looks good too and he's just as good with a needle and a knife as the staff at Sacred Heart.

My Score: 5 STARS.

As Doc Heads Into Season 3 Memories Linger On For Everybody

 

 

I put Fox's Doc on my Top 10 list of 2025 and while it moved into frequently soapy directions going through its second season it maintained a level of dramatic steadiness when it managed to be primarily about the medicine rather than the increasingly protracted love triangle that was at the center of the show. There were actually signs of that the writers may be moving forward with this in the rough Season 2 finale in which Amy Larsen after being pulled between her ex-husband and her boyfriend throughout the last season has temporarily chosen neither, pushing both away in the aftermath of last year's contagion that left so many dead.

As Season 3 begins we're still dealing with the wreckage both personally and professionally. Joan (Felicity Huffman) essentially sacrificed her life to save Amy at the end of the season. Richard (Scott Wolf), who turned up like a bad penny during the second half of the season,  is also gone having survived the fever and realized that the best thing both for him and the hospital was to move on. Amy and Sonya (Anya Banerjee) are taking on their roles as co-chief resident. Michael (Omar Metwally) has left the board to take on the role of Chief of Internal Medicine and is now Amy's direct boss rather than an ally on the board. And Richard (John Michael Elker) has transferred to cardio to soothe his broken heart and is now seemingly reconciled with his ex-wife Rachel with whom he reconnected after she developed breast cancer last year.

Amy is no longer suffering from the trauma of so many memory flashes over the past year that caused her to suffer seizures during that period. She appears to have recovered from much of the TBI that has been at the center of the first two seasons. And she clearly just wants to move on to be of service, as she put it, using the last words of Joan before she lapsed into her final illness. But the repercussions of her past are still everywhere, both in obvious ways and subtle ones.

The subtle ones are being shown in how both she and Sonya are taking their roles as chief resident. When she was a resident herself Sonya frequently clashed with Amy about her harsh and brutal teaching style that had led her to file a workplace harassment complaint the day before the accident that changed everything. Now in one of those deep ironies that it's not clear Sonya herself can see, she's taking very much the same brutal teaching style that Amy did with her on a new generation of residents who are reacting very much the same way Sonya did. Amy herself is aware of it and has pointed it out but two episodes into Season 3, its unclear if Sonya is aware of what she's doing or if she decided that in fact Amy was right about the best way to instruct. Because the flashes and memories are always from the perspective of Amy we can never tell if those around her process the behavior as part of how they work professionally. (The personal aspects are always crystal clear.)

Amy herself has been trying to fit into her new role and in one of those approaches of symmetry she's trying to do the carrot more than the stick this time around. The question that Doc is asking is whether it's too little, too late. Everyone already knows the reputation of Amy Larsen prior to her accident and the possibility that she may not be able to rebuild it with this new crop is unclear. Much of the second episode, when she brings in a resident and is both harsh and comforting in the same day, gives evidence to both sides of the equation. The clearer message comes when she goes out of her way to apologize to him at the end of the episode. The viewer knows that's not something the Amy prior to the accident would have done.

The more prominent reminder of Amy's past is Dr. Ben Grant, played by Blair Underwood as the new regular for Season 3. We met Ben in the lockdown of Season 2 when he was there to visit his sister who was suffering from poor health. He spent time in the hospital in the OR and has joined the staff as the new Chief of Surgery.

The show goes out of its way to show that Ben is very much the type A that Joan was last year but in a different way. He's determined to make surgery more important at the hospital and he's more brazen at pushing an older doctor out of the job because he's too conservative. The board, which is now absent Michael's presence (and its clear in many ways that seem glad he's gone) are more than willing to back him for whatever he wants. When Ben first meets Michael, however, he makes it very clear that his approach ruffled a lot of feathers with rank and file and that he has to have a good working relationship between the departments.

Naturally Ben had a relationship with Amy in the past and as we got by the last moment of Season 2 it was romantic as well as professional. During the second episode we saw how they first met at a medical conference four years ago and they bonded over their failed marriages. The two of them hooked up (naturally Amy was the aggressor) but Amy hasn't remembered. Ben made it clear to Amy that it was something of a situationship for about a year but based on the message he's got saved on his voicemail for three years it's pretty clear Ben is lying about it. The bigger problem is that the two of them worked together in a clinical trial together and there are hints in the flashes it ended badly for Ben and probably the relationship.

It seems unfair that, like with Rob Lowe and Scott Wolf, Blair Underwood looks just as handsome as he did when we first met him in L.A. nearly forty years ago. In the 21^st century he's become an increasingly fascinating actor as those who remember his arc as a fighter pilot in the first season of In Treatment or for viewers like me who remember him as the husband in an open marriage in 2024's Three Women. As is the case with every major character on Doc the writers resist the usual hero/villain archetype: Yes Ben is an aggressive surgeon who seems to be something of a cowboy but he's also a good mentor to people like TJ and we know that he's a good brother. The possibility for romantic sparks between him and Amy is intriguing particularly for those of us who were getting frustrated with the love triangle much of last winter.

At the center of the show is Molly Parker, who continues to demonstrate why she is one of the great actresses in TV. I mentioned in my review of the show last year that Parker was part of a new generation of brilliant female led dramas, with such standouts as High Potential and Kathy Bates as Matlock. (Elsbeth is officially a comedy according to the Emmy but Carrie Preston fits the general dynamic I spoke of.) As we reach the second half of the 2020s, it's fascinating how so many of the best shows on television, regardless whether they are network, cable or streaming, have centered fundamentally decent female characters trying to do their best in a complicated world. Doc is very much in this tradition not just due to Parker but also Banerjee and Amirah Vann as Gina, still the beating heart of the show. Doc will deal with social issues in its cases but rarely tries to bond its various characters under the bonds of sisterhood or race.  Sonya has made it clear multiple time that Amy is as bad a boss as any man could be and the few times she's defended her its basically because of her own reasons.

And the show rarely points out some of the racial issues even within in the cases themselves. In the second episode a family is part of a medical crisis when they're in a car collision with a deer. The family is all African-American. At the start of the episode the teenager says he waved down a few people but no one stopped. It's never mentioned again. When Grant and TJ, who are both African-American mention this, it's there for five seconds and then they get back to the process of trying to save their patients life. No one, not even the teenager, ever mentions race as part of the case again: all they care about is saving the family and when they do it’s a good day.

It's not like the show doesn't deal with politics but its always done with nuance. In the season 3 premiere a case of hysteria among teenagers in high school occurs because of a viral video about an active shooter drill. Obviously they talk about it but again its only in a medical basis: no one is making a point about school shootings or gun violence. The most that is said is "this happened because of the stress of being a teenager' which really shouldn't be a political thing to say but I have no doubt will be interpreted that way for those who want to.

Doc remains one of my favorite series on TV, even if it's not always consistently at the high quality of such clear network masterpieces as Will Trent or Elsbeth. It demonstrates how the medical drama is clearly moving away from the model that Grey's Anatomy set (seriously will someone at ABC sign a DNR for that one?). I'm not deny the soapy elements are still there but it's great to watch a medical drama where the drama is basically still about the medicine and less about hooking up in supply closets.

My score: 4.5 stars.

Yankees Vs. Red Sox Greatest Rivalry in Sports…Now, Part 1: Can We Just Concede the 20th Century Doesn't Count?

 

 

When I was growing up I think I first learned about the rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox in 1995 when I read a book on the subject. My guess is Ed Linn wrote it, but I can't look it up as Casey would say.

To be clear I read the lore of both franchises, the sagas between them, the legends associated with both teams. And I think it's now safe to say that calling the Red Sox and the Yankees in the 20^th century a rivalry is really being generous. To be fair by the 2000s even the most devoted Red Sox fans acknowledge it never really was one in same way that the Celtics and the Lakers once were or the Dodgers and Giants basically always were starting back when both teams were in New York and essentially continued when the moved to California.

Because for a rivalry to be a thing one of the teams has to win occasionally. And as has now become entrenched in lore starting after Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees that never happened for the rest of the 20^th century.  The total after 1918 to 2000 was Yankees 26, Red Sox zero. There've been football games between the Giants and the Patriots that have been closer – and honestly the Patriots had a better track record during the second half of the 20^th century then the Red Sox ever did.

I get the reason for Boston wanted the rivalry to exist. It's not like they weren't dominant in basically every other sport over the 20^th century. The Celtics are very much the definition of a dynasty during the 1950s and '60s and they've always been formidable ever since. The Patriots, well, everyone in New York hates them with a passion and we really loved it when the Giants broke the undefeated season in 2007. Bruins, formidable hockey team, definitely have a better track record then the Rangers or the Islanders during that period.

(Full disclosure: Yes, I live in New York but I only sporadically root for the Yankees. I'll get to why in the next article.)

But during the 20^th century baseball was the National Pastime and it must have galled Boston not just that the Yankees won but that they did so with the Babe. Though it wasn't only the Babe.

Henry Frazee was selling Red Sox to the Yankees years before he started on the Babe. He sold them half of the 1918 pitching staff, including Ernie Shore, Dutch Leonard and famously Carl Mays halfway through the 1919 season. And after the Babe, he kept right on doing it to the point that the 1923 Yankees had eleven former Red Sox on the team. The Red Sox went from winning four world series in the 1910s to last place practically overnight and it kept happening right up until the end of the decade when they sold Red Ruffing to the Yankees.

Ruth was bad enough, but Frazee essentially sold three future Hall of Famers and over 900 wins to the Yankees just on the pitching staff alone. The Yankees dynasty of the 1920s was built on the backs of former Red Sox. But by the 1930s they had grown their own farm system and were standing on their own two feet. That didn't change when Tom Yawkey bought the Red Sox.

Bostonians don't hate me for this, but Tom Yawkey has no business being in Cooperstown. For one thing during his forty years as an owner the Red Sox won just three American League Pennants and no World Championships. For another he famously chose to install cronies who gave him bad advice and caused him to trade away capable players  in his farm system such as Pee Wee Reese. And worst of all, because of his bigotry the Red Sox were the last team in major league baseball to integrate. The Yankees and Red Sox were rivals during the 1950s but not in a good way as they seemed to be openly dawdling to integrate their teams while the National League raced ahead of them.

Both the Yankees and the Red Sox passed on the chance to sign Willie Mays and the Red Sox actually had a chance to sign Ernie Banks but they passed on that too. The Yankees were able to dominate the 1950s because they had a good farm system but the Red Sox never did.

There's also the fact that because the Red Sox were a terrible team that they constantly were at the bottom of attendance. In fact they were drawing so badly in the 1960s that many thought the Red Sox might have to leave Boston much like the Braves had relocated to Milwaukee in 1952. At the time the Red Sox were a contending team led by Ted Williams and had won the AL Pennant in 1946 and come within one game of doing so in 1948 and 1949.

Boston fans must have been cursing into their clam chowder for the next decade as the Braves became one of the biggest draws in baseball as well as a perennial contender, winning the World Series in 1957, the pennant in 1958 and finishing in a  tie for it 1959. During the 1950s the only draw the Red Sox was Ted Williams while the Braves had Eddie Matthews, Warren Spahn and Hank Aaron. During that era Boston baseball fans must have felt cursed from both sides.

When the Yankees dynasty came to a catastrophic end in 1965 the Red Sox's miracle 1967 AL Pennant revitalized the team in Boston. But the Yankees collapse didn't lead to Red Sox triumphs. Indeed while the rivalry between Boston and the Yankees may have been at its strongest during the 1970s, the franchise that owned the American League was Earl Weaver's Orioles which had the best win-loss record of the entire decade, won five AL East titles, three American Leagues and the World Series in 1970. Indeed it was Baltimore who became the dominant force in the American League east and the Yankees and Red Sox basically were fighting to beat them every year.

To be sure the stigma of bad luck became prominent for the Red Sox during the 1970s – losing the AL East by half a game to Detroit in 1972 because the first MLB strike wiped out six games for the Tigers and seven for the Yankees; the Red Sox shooting out to an eight and a half game lead over the AL East in August and losing 30 of their last 40 games in 1974, just missing out on the AL East in 1977 and of course Bucky F---ing Dent. But the Orioles were always more of a problem. Their collapse in hitting in 1972 gave the Red Sox and Yankees an opening that neither could get through and in 1974 they put on a 28-6 drive at the end of the season to defeat the Yankees by a game and a half at the end of the season. In 1975 the Red Sox ended up having to fight off Baltimore to win the AL Pennant. In 1977 the Orioles were tied with the Red Sox for second place, two and a half games out behind the Yankees. And even though the Orioles finished in fourth in 1978 they did go 90-71 which is not exactly small potatoes.

The Orioles were the real winners of that decade but because of the true brutality of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, led by Billy Martin as manager of The Bronx Zoo, it got all the publicity. And by the time the Yankees collapsed during the 1980s under Steinbrenner's horrible ownership style during that decade there were no real dynasties to speak of anymore in either league. The Red Sox actually did much better in that period before the Wild Card: they won the American League Pennant in 1986 and the AL East in 1988 and 1990 (they lost both times to the Oakland A's) but somehow being able to beat a team that had Stump Merrill as the manager didn't have the punch it once did.

During the 1980s the Red Sox definitely had better players – Jim Rice was on the team, Wade Boggs was the best hitter in baseball and Roger Clemens had the best fastball in the majors. But during the late 1980s and early 1990s the best team in all of baseball was the Blue Jays. After winning their first AL East title in 1985 they ended up winning four AL East titles between 1989 and 1993 and of course back to back World Series in 1992 and 1993.  Which is around the time I started to seriously love the sports.

So if you had told me the Yankees and Red Sox were the greatest rivalry in sports I'd have said, well they both suck now. And that would have been a perfectly rational response for a fifteen year old boy to have.

To be clear I would have had a far deeper and richer understanding of the game that the average teenager: I would have known all of the names In Yankee lore and the names in Red Sox lore. I would have known of all the plaques the Yankees had on their wall and their retired numbers.  And I could have made convincing arguments, even then, for many members of both teams during the 1970s to be in the Hall of Fame.  And just to be clear I'm still annoyed that two of the greatest players of that era: Luis Tiant and Graig Nettles still aren't in Cooperstown because they should have been in decades ago.

But that didn't change the simple fact that even in 1995: the ledger was clear. Since 1918 the Yankees had won 22 championships and the Red Sox: zero. I thought that the more accurate description was that the Red Sox were the Yankees punching bag and the 'rivalry' had been coined in during the DiMaggio-Williams era and no one had bothered to fact check since. (That would have actually been forgivable up until 1995 because the internet really didn't exist back then.)

And as I was about to start watching baseball more seriously I was about to see that, for the Red Sox, it was going to get so much worse.

 

To Be Continued…