FanHouse TheSopranos

The handsome man pictured to your right is Michael Imperioli, who played "Christopher Moltisanti" on "The Sopranos." He was at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, learning all he could about the art of catching from Jorge Posada for an upcoming movie role.

The actor is playing a catcher in a TV movie, "For One More Day," which is scheduled to air near Christmas. Imperioli came to Yankee Stadium yesterday to chat up the Yankees catcher about playing behind the plate.

"I like to get a lot of different impressions, you know: what they do, where their head's at," Imperioli said. "He's my favorite catcher."

Imperioli said he is a lifelong Yankees fan who first took in a game in 1969 on "Mickey Mantle Day." Yesterday, he had his 9-year-old son with him watching batting practice.

"It's surreal," he said. "There's just like this magnetic pull that this place has."

Later, Imperioli chatted it up with Roger Clemens to research another movie role in which he plays an over-the-hill pitcher hellbent on making an ungodly amount of money while desperately trying to save the Yankees' season.*

*May or may not be wholly untrue.

As "The Sopranos" finale gradually seeps out of our immediate consciousness, the Pirates organization is already paying tribute the that confusing, yet fitting final scene ... with some mascots.

It's rather clever and even filmed in sepia -- for that nostalgic effect.

HT: Dorothy Mantooth is a Saint. Via Deadspin.

Everyone is talking about the final scene in last night's series finale of The Sopranos, in which millions of viewers spent a few breathless seconds thinking their cable had gone out and then spent the rest of the night wishing it had. The final episode was good ... except that it didn't end. It just stopped.

So I've been thinking about what the sports equivalent might be. Has there ever, in the history of sport, been an ending so unsatisfying? I had to go all the way back to 1925 and the Pottsville Maroons to find one.

For our readers younger than 90, the Pottsville Maroons were, along with the Chicago Cardinals, one of the two best teams in the NFL in 1925. The NFL didn't have a championship game back then, but when the 9-2 Maroons and the 9-1-1 Cardinals met in Chicago on December 6, it was the two best teams meeting at the end of the year. That's as close to a championship game as pro football would have.

Pottsville won, 21-7, and the Maroons, having finished their 1925 schedule, figured they were the NFL champs. But then they scheduled a game against a group of former Notre Dame players, and the NFL was furious: The league didn't want one of its teams playing a non-league game. So the NFL suspended the Maroons, and later declared the Cardinals league champions, even though the Maroons had shown they were the better team on the field.

And so the 1925 NFL season ended not with a game on the field, but with a declaration by the commissioner. It was an anticlimactic ending that some in the NFL still want to see overturned -- as recently as 2003, the league's owners held a vote about changing the record books to make Pottsville the champion, but only two teams voted in the Maroons' favor. It's hard to believe the owners actually voted on such a thing eight decades later, but it's also hard to believe that an NFL season had such a strange ending. And eight decades from now, a few people will still be arguing about the last scene of The Sopranos, finding it hard to believe that such a great show gave its viewers such an unsatisfying ending.

Before his Wednesday start with Trenton, Clemens had a decent shot of making it up to the majors if everything looked good and ready to go.

Well, four walks, six hits, and five innings later, Clemens won't get to the pinstripes quite yet. He's going to make one more minor-league start before he comes up and gets in the Big Show.

With that in mind, I'd like to advance a wild theory -- similar to my wild theory about The Sopranos that Sylvio is going to kill Tony -- about Clemens. What if Clemens isn't any good? Not terrible, of course, but just, you know, decent. What if he comes out and throws just above league average, no different from any pitcher the Yanks could have called up or traded for?

Not only would it be funny, it would serve as the ultimate punctuation to the Yankees' season thus far. If not even a ridiculous four-month contract for a supposed savior can dig them out of their hole -- and, considering where they are right now, that's not so farfetched -- the ability for players to dictate contract terms like Clemens will diminish greatly.

Also, it would be really funny. That can't be understated.
Previously on the FanHouse:
The Rocket Is Close to Lift-Off
John Madden Lends His Bus To Roger Clemens

Jorge Julio, whose struggles this season have been well-documented, is currently fighting a calf injury that has kept him on the DL. After losing his closer's position earlier in the year, it's probably a positive for the Marlins that Julio has been bench-ridden for a little while here.

While Julio tries to get his house in order, he's going outside the clubhouse for a little help:

Julio has met with Dr. Jeffrey Fishbein, the Deerfield, Ill.-based sports psychologist who has served as the Marlins' performance enhancement consultant the last four seasons.

"He's a good guy," Julio said. "Sometimes you need somebody to talk with. It helps relax your mind. They help you reflect. You look for a little support and sometimes you just want to relax your mind with someone. In baseball, it's not just interacting with your teammates. Sometimes you need to talk with other people and they give you a different perspective."

Just about every team, and a growing number of individual players, have a sports psychologist or performance enhancement coach on the payroll. Julio said he worked with the Mets' consultants as well.

"Going well, going bad, they would always come and get to know you," he said.

Why not, right? It isn't much of stretch to assume that at least some of Julio's problems this season could be related to his mental state; why not try and get to the source of the problem with a professional? Of course, I would argue that you can learn everything you need to know from watching an episode of The Sopranos, so maybe I'm not the best judge.

Previously on the FanHouse:
Jorge Julio Tag