It’s the start of another week here at BCB After Dark: the coolest club for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come on in and join us for a while. Step in from the fall chill. There’s no cover charge. The dress code is casual. We have a few tables still available. Bring your own beverage.
BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
Last week, I asked whether Nico Hoerner or Michael Busch was more likely to have a bounce back season at the plate in 2027. You mostly felt that it would be Nico Hoerner, as he got 61 percent of the vote.
Looks like the World Series is over, huh? We’re likely going to have to put up with a year of the Brewers parading their title around us. At least the team deserves it. They’ve been the best team in baseball all year.
Here’s the part where we listen to jazz and talk movies. You’re welcome to join us for that. Or not. It’s your call.
Tonight we feature some more holiday-themed jazz for your spooky Halloween. We’re going back 90 years for Louis Prima and his New Orleans Gang big band swing sound with “Mr. Ghost Goes to Town.”
The Mummy (1959) is an early Hammer horror film that is an unofficial remake of some of the Universal Mummy movies. Directed by Terence Fisher, The Mummy stars Hammer legends Peter Cushing as archeologist John Banning and Christopher Lee as Kharis, both in Ancient Egypt and as the Mummy. While the film may share a title with the 1932 film that starred Boris Karloff, The Mummy actually borrows a lot of the better elements from three of the sequels: The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) and The Mummy’s Ghost (1944).
I went back and watched those three Universal films and I can see what they took from each one, although screenwriter Jimmy Sangster claimed to have not rewatched them before writing the script. Still, it’s hard to believe that is the case since he re-used the same names and several plot points. But he wisely leaves off the long first half of The Mummy’s Tomb, which is an American freelance archeologist and his buddy trying to put together an expedition. That part of the film dealt with obtaining the help of a magician and his daughter magician’s assistant. Because of course an American magician is traveling around Egypt and has enough money to finance an archeological dig, as well provide comic relief.
But I digress. The part they do use from The Mummy’s Hand is the entire backstory of the Mummy Kharis and his beloved Princess Ananka. The part from The Mummy’s Tomb that the film uses is Kharis coming to London (or Boston in the original) to kill all the archeologists who disturbed Ananka’s tomb. The Mummy’s Ghost has the love interest as the reincarnation of Ananka.
For a Hammer horror film, The Mummy is light on the gore. I don’t know whether that is just a a byproduct of The Mummy being an early Hammer film or whether it was just a personal choice of director Fisher. The film does benefit, as compared to the Universal films, from being in color. Color has a twofold effect on the film. The first is that it makes the screen images pop more. The scene where they open Ananka’s is tomb is glorious. The downside, as compared to the Universal films, is that the color reveals more of the cheapness and unreality of the sets. However, since I’m not watching a killer mummy film for its realism, I’m OK with that.
Of course, the thing that makes The Mummy stand out is the performances of Cushing and Lee. Both of them take the material seriously, but neither one thinks they’re doing Shakespeare either. George Pastell also shines as Mehemet Bey, the devoted follower of the ancient Egyptian religions that brings Kharis back to life.
The Hammer horror version of The Mummy may not be as good as the 1932 original directed by Karl Freund, but it is certainly an improvement over the sequel films that it is mostly based on. It also delivers what you want out of a Mummy picture: cheap faux Egyptian trappings and a murderous, unstoppable monster with a ancient grudge. Throw in Cushing and Lee, and you’ve got a solid monster movie that is not-too-scary.
Here is the trailer for The Mummy (1959). You can see from this that the costume/makeup for Lee as Kharis is pretty good too. Scary without being too scary.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.
In a report in The Athletic (sub. req.) last week, Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma reported that the Cubs are “expected to retain pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and assistant pitching coach Casey Jacobson.
This isn’t too unexpected. Hottovy has been in the Cubs organization since 2014 and the pitching coach since the 2019 season. He’s served under managers Joe Maddon, David Ross and Craig Counsell. Jacobson has only been the assistant pitching coach since 2025, but he’s been in the Cubs organization since 2020 and if Hottovy wants to keep him, it makes sense to keep them both as a package.
On the other hand, you know as well as I do that the Cubs pitching staff was the Achilles heel of the team. The Cubs were last in the majors in pitching WAR, with most run prevention being foisted on the Cubs elite team defense. With such a poor effort, you’d think that the Cubs would at least take pause to consider whether or not they should bring Hottovy back.
But how much of the Cubs poor pitching is really Hottovy and Jacobson’s fault? Injuries to Justin Steele, Cade Horton and Ben Brown robbed the Cubs of three of their best pitchers for most of or all of 2026. Edward Cabrera was supposed to be a solid mid-rotation starter and wasn’t, but wasn’t. But it’s very possible his blister problems were affecting him all year, even when he could pitch. The bullpen was mostly a disaster, but it wasn’t like team president Jed Hoyer and general manager Carter Hawkins gave the two much to work with. Their closer Daniel Palencia missed most of the season with injuries. Hunter Harvey was supposed to be a factor in the pen, but he gave the Cubs all of four innings. Caleb Theilbar just got old. The Cubs did manage to get good-to-career years out of journeymen relievers Jacob Webb, Ryan Rolison and Trent Thornton.
There’s also the problem of if the Cubs were to fire Hottovy, whom would they replace him with? There’s no guarantee that the next guys are going to be any better than these two. Currently successful pitching coaches work for teams unlikely to let them out of their contract for a lateral move. So were the Cubs to make a move, they’d either have to settle for a retread or take a chance on an unknown commodity. They might be better. They might not.
So tonight’s question is simply “Should the Cubs retain Hottovy and Jacobson?” I’m putting them in as a team because I don’t see how any of us can separate which one does which work.
Thank you for stopping by tonight. We’re always happy to see some friendly faces. Get home safely. Stay warm. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow for more BCB After Dark.