You Can’t Take it With You

Just like last year’s NLCS the home team clinched the pennant with a 9-0 blowout win. Somehow though it doesn’t feel the same as last year, I guess that is the difference between winning and losing. Last year in San Francisco, the Giants beat the Cardinals 9-0, in game seven of that series. The Giants had overcome a Cardinal’s 3-1 game advantage by winning the last three games.

Just like last year’s NLCS the Redbirds found themselves up again three games to one against another California baseball team. This time it was the LA Dodgers. The Cards lost game five in LA before transferring action back to Saint Louis. This made game six critical to Saint Louis, not wanting to face LA in a game seven after they would have captured the momentum. The Dodgers put up their best pitcher, heck, the best pitcher in baseball, Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw is considered a shoe-in for another Cy Young award this year. The Redbirds had beaten Kershaw earlier in this series, but it was a squeaker. Facing Kershaw the Cards put up rookie phenomena Michael Wacha, a pitcher with all of twelve starts in the majors. By the end of the night though Kershaw had been pummeled and Wacha and the Cardinal bullpen had pitched shutout ball.

We caught only parts of last night’s exciting game, because we went out to the theater at MRH High School. The high school was putting on an oldie but goody, the play, You Can’t Take it with You. This screwball comedy, set in 1930 featured a large cast, who performed it well and gave us an enjoyable evening out. The story revolves around two young lovers, Alice and Tony. Tony is a man from a family of rich snobs who falls in love and becomes engaged to Alice, a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family. I’ve included the school’s publicity poster that features a number of the props and Simon. According to his bio:

Simon is a 2-year-old ball python. This is his first play and he’s had a riveting experience so far. Simon enjoys long slithers through the grass and eating rats at his leisure. He one day aspires to be a well-known actor, taking roles in Snakes on a Plane and Anaconda. He’d like to thank all of the students for giving him such loving playtime out of his dull boring tank.

By the time that the play ended, the Cards were already up 4-0. I listened to the rest of the game, including the fifth inning and called out to Anne in the next room the incrementing score. To say that Saint Louis was giddy today would be an understatement, but it just keeps getting better. Dave and Rey are coming to town next weekend to see game 4 of the World Series. They have purchased standing room only tickets for the game.

After the game, I found on Amazon the 1938 movie version of You Can’t Take it with You. This is a Frank Capra film. It stars Jean Arthur (Alice), James Stewart (Tony) and Lionel Barrymore (Grandpa). The movie departs from the play, only about half the scenes in the movie were in the play. Still it was an enjoyable flick, after all, it won best picture, no mean feat for a comedy.