COINCIDENCES R ME

9/21/2025

COINCIDENCES R ME

[Ed. Note- This is a tiny spoiler alert. rex references a minor subplot from the current movie “Caught Stealing” in this post.]

I have held off this post since seeing this gem 2 weeks ago because of the fact that the new DARREN ARONOFSKY directed movie “Caught Stealing.”

ARONOFSKY is one of my current favourite directors. I have been a huge fan since his 2000 classic “Requiem For A Dream.”

I am a huge fan of black comedies such as this.

The movie starts with this at the bottom of the screen-

LOWER EAST SIDE

1998

The protagonist played by current heartthrob AUSTIN BUTLER (“Elvis”) as Hank Thompson is wearing a San Francisco Giants hat at the outset and throughout most of the movie.

Within minutes, he is talking with his mother and we learn she is in California and they are talking about how their beloved Giants are hopefully going to make the playoffs.

I immediately turned to Kimberly and said “We’re in this movie.”

Now, full disclosure. Our images were not in this movie, but, as ridiculous as that statement is, it is still sort of true.

Give me a few minutes to set this up.

Kimberly and I have been together since 1998. On the last Saturday of Sept. that year, we drove to Chicago for a four day trip.

As most of you know, I am a Chicago Cubs fanatic.

It was the last two days of what had been a historic baseball season. Not 1, but 2, players destroyed the single season homer record.

One of them was on my CUBS. His name is SAMMY SOSA.

It was an historic and melancholic season for the CUBS as well. It had been 90 bloody years since the team had won the World Series and 1945 sunce they had even made it to the Series.

Adding further layer, their iconic, longtime announcer HARRY CARAY had passed away just before the season at the age of 84.

The CUBS, New York Mets and the aforementioned SF Giants were fighting for the single last playoff spot.

Kimberly had never been to Chicago.

The Cubs were playing away that last weekend so there was no Cubs game to attend.

Or so I thought.

By the end of the games on Sunday there was a tie and MLB announced that the tiebreaker would occur on Monday night with the Giants visiting the Cubs at Wrigley Field!!!!

I was out of my mind with excitement and spent much of Sunday night/ Monday morning obtaining 2 bleacher seats for a small ransom for this game 163!

The atmosphere at the game was beyond electric. Cub fans are insane. Kimberly was probably wondering what she had gotten into.

Somebody had cleverly covered a huge balloon with an iconic image of Harry Caray and had it floating above the left field bleachers. It was like the ghost of Harry Caray was overseeing his team extend their season! Brilliantly clever but sort of disquieting as well.

At the end of 1998, I prepared a framed collage of photos and ephemera that I had gathered during that year and gave it to Kimberly for Xmas. It still hangs in our family room.

Here are some pics starting with the collage:

The poster with pictures, menus, setlists and other stuff

A photo from our spot in the bleachers. September 28, 1998.

A pic I took of the Ghost Of Harry Caray floating above Wrigley Field

The box score for the game. The Cubs gave up 3 in the 9th to almost blow a 5-0 lead

A picture I took of the right field bleachers. Left field is better. “Right field sucks” is the chant that emanates from the Left Field “Bleacher Creatures” every home game.

So when the movie referenced the year 1998 and the hero and his mother were diehard Giants fans, I immediately knew where that was going !!!

The flick is brilliant- my fave this year. Sure enough at the end of this crazy caper movie they show a tv with this very game playing! Bizarre.

My guess is that this game is significant to the writer CHARLIE HUSTON who hails from the Bay Area and was 20 years old in 1998.

In the overall scheme of MLB baseball in my life this was a slightly significant but not by much. However, that the storyline played out as a minor understory in this movie is strange enough. That there is memorabilia in the family room of our residence that documents this very game (and no other) AND that it was referenced in this movie still has me shaking my head two weeks on.

[Ed. Note- cool story and crazy coincidence rex, but have you got a song for us?]

Yes I do Editor.

I posted the lead song from the soundtrack to this movie on July 30 in excited anticipation. That song is “Run Rabbit Run” so I can’t do that again. (See Song 1169.)

On September 18, 1998, just 8 days before we departed for Chicago, we had attended a gig at Clutch Cargo’s in Detroit with Bristol’s MASSIVE ATTACK 🇬🇧.

They were touring their epoch defining LP “Mezzanine”.