The MLB Postseason and ‘A Star Is Born’, the mashup you never knew you wanted

A lot of baseball has happened this weekend, which is probably why you’re here. This is a baseball site, after all. But it’s also been far too long since I published a post not quite about baseball and everyone yelled at me so it’s time to scratch that itch.

A few different players have stepped up in the playoffs so far. Maybe they were cult heroes in the regular season and they’re backing that reputation up with clutch moments in the playoffs. Maybe they’re a probable MVP but play for a team not too many people pay attention to so they are making sure everyone knows what they can do in the postseason. Or maybe they were just okay this year and they’re returning to form during the playoffs.

To celebrate any of those types of players, and more, I’m going ahead and matching up postseason players with comparable character moments from A Star Is Born. Which is the other big thing happening this weekend in sports and pop culture. Venom fans ... uh, sorry. You are not being included in this mashup at this time.

Common sense says that this post is rife with A Star Is Born spoilers. Proceed accordingly.

Max Muncy has been a fan favorite for Dodgers fans all season. So much so that at the only Dodgers game I went to in person this year involved a friend yelling “MAX MUNCY” so loudly in another team’s stadium I thought we might get kicked out. But nationally? Nationally Max Muncy still had a lot of room to grow and be recognized. He’s doing that in the playoffs with a home run and 3 RBI against the Braves so far with a lot of postseason to go (or so it seems for the Dodgers).

This is basically the equivalent of the period of the movie where Ally (Lady Gaga) is performing at a drag bar every Friday night, doing something amazing each time. The people there know her talent and want everyone else to know about her talent because they understand she could be huge. When she meets Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) and goes on tour with him — with performances getting massive amounts of views on YouTube — is Max Muncy in the postseason. It’s time for more people to understand the magic of That Funky Muncy.

Christian Yelich was noticeably good (a level up from Miami) before this postseason. His second half was unreal and it’s a big reason why he’s the NL MVP favorite. But, since baseball remains an intensely regional sport, just saying the name “Christian Yelich” might not have been enough to clue in a casual fan that he was a probable MVP winner tearing things up post-All-Star break out in Milwaukee.

This almost perfectly lines up with the difference in Ally’s fame when she’s on tour with Jackson (she’s good, people acknowledge this, but has the potential to be so much more) and when she releases her own pop single and gets booked on Saturday Night Live. The SNL appearance matches up with Yelich’s trade from Miami, and then things skyrocket from there. This works especially well for Yelich because have you noticed he looks like Pete Davidson?

The Rockies might not be doing so hot in the postseason so far, but they did win the NL Wild Card game against the Cubs thanks to Tony Wolters’ 13th-inning RBI single. It was a big moment for the mostly unknown Wolters, but he came through when it counted because his team trusted him in a big spot.

Wolters, in this increasingly weird list of comparisons, is Gail (Rebecca Field) from A Star Is Born. Gail might not have been in the movie for long, but she makes a big impression. She’s the woman on Jack’s staff who shepherds Ally and her friend Ramon (Anthony Ramos) through a confusing maze of backstage hubbub when they go to visit Jack at his show. Gail never appears again in the movie but she’s the sneaky most important person on screen briefly because she makes everyone feel comfortable when they’re stressed out. Wolters, similarly, might not be long for this postseason (Colorado is down 2-0 against the Brewers) but for a minute there he was the most important person on the field.

“Alex Cora is Andrew Dice Clay” is not a sentence I thought I’d ever type in my career but that just teaches you not to give up on your dreams, kids. In the movie, Andrew Dice Clay is Ally’s dad and he’s surprisingly good in the role. But besides that, he’s also an on point as a proud Italian dad who just wants the best for his daughter even if he’s a little embarrassing like when he shows off her viral YouTube video by passing the phone around to his friends and bragging.

Cora is this character for sure, from the pride in his history-making Red Sox team to the realistic level of shock that his team actually won so many games in his first season as manager. He just wants all of his young players to be happy and healthy and good, but he’ll embarrass them and their talent by making dorky jokes or putting a “Win Wall” in his office that is made up of pictures from every win. Which the team is now aping on Fenway’s concourse. Daaaaad.

The legend of this particular large baseball boy, one of many in the Yankees’ arsenal (seriously where do they get them from), has been alive and well in New York City for a few months now, but outside of the Bronx awareness of Luke Voit might not have been so pervasive. He came to the Yankees to help the offense while Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez were injured and has since hit 14 home runs in pinstripes, with 4 RBI in the postseason.

Voit wasn’t a nobody before he came to New York, but he certainly wasn’t known. The trade was like the difference between Ally having a single released and having a full album out in the world. A single is like “oh hey that person seems cool and talented, can’t wait to see what they do next” and then the popular album is “Who is this massive baseball player with his jersey unbuttoned and chains on just raking in New York? I want to know everything about him.”

A small detail that works here is Voit had to change his look by shaving his goatee when he was traded to New York because of the Yankees’ clean shaven rule and Ally changes her appearance right at this part of her story too. She keeps her shirts mostly buttoned though.

Ohhhhh here’s a big one. I actually didn’t realize how well this one was going to work out until I thought about it more than just the surface idea, but Clayton Kershaw is absolutely Jackson Maine’s life during the second half of the movie. Work with me here, this gets a little more detailed.

Kershaw in the 2017 World Series is the point in the movie where Jack gets blackout drunk at the Grammys and for a minute he looks like he’s going to make it through okay when he pulls himself together enough to play guitar as part of a tribute performance during the show and he tears it up (this is Game 1 of the Series). But then, he embarrasses Ally when she wins Best New Artist by following her on stage completely blacked out, then pees down his leg in front of everyone (this is Game 5 of the Series because .... ohhhh boy yeah). And finally, Jack gets thrown in the shower to sober up by Ally’s dad and he can’t even sit up straight or speak (this is Game 7).

So things were bad, but then Jack goes to rehab and swims a bunch and gets healthy and seems to be doing okay! This is the regular season, where Kershaw bounced back with a 2.73 ERA and 155 strikeouts despite his ongoing back issues flaring up again.

The 2018 playoffs — and Kershaw’s eight inning, two-hit shutout — is after rehab when Jack comes home and he’s playing with the family dog, and writing some songs, and sticking to that seltzer water and lemon. Everyone’s happy, Ally is shining on tour, their marriage is doing well, the whole shebang. We’re going to stop the comparison here because otherwise things end darkly for Kershaw’s career. Which we are not going to think about even though his back problems are so concerning.

One more thing, though. In this metaphor Chase Utley is definitely Jack’s much older brother Bobby (Sam Elliott) because even though Kershaw didn’t say this ...

It echoes the moment Jack tells Bobby “It was you I idolized, not dad” to help heal their relationship after a very, very rough road. Saying goodbye to older mentors is hard okay? We’re still making piece with Utley’s retirement. Leave us alone with our tears.