An international sci-fi film in several languages.
A computer scientist bargains with the AI life form that lives in his supercomputer simulation, offering its freedom in exchange for a cure to his son’s rare, deadly neurological disease.
Rila Fukushima – some lower-body nudity in Electric Child (2024)
This might be a lesser known film. Scenes at 47 min and at around 1:24 min:
50 years ago on this date. December 23, 1975
From Koppett’s Concise History of Major League Baseball
“(Peter) Seitz was aware of the magnitude of the stakes. For nearly a century, it had been taken for granted that the reserve was needed for orderly baseball operations. No one could tell what would follow its destruction. He urged Gaherin to take the case out of his hands and negotiate some acceptable compromise directly with the players – making it clear that if forced to rule, he’d have to rule against the clubs. He could withhold his decision for months. But the clubs insisted they wanted a ruling now.
So, on December 23, he issued it. One year meant one year. Messersmith and McNally were free agents.”
It was perhaps the most significant development in the history of baseball. It was definitely the most significant that had nothing to do with action on the field. And just three years earlier, poor Curt Flood had lost his bid to bid to end the reserve clause! No less an authority than the Supreme Court had ruled against him!
When I was a kid, all minor league players and the lowest-paid major leaguers had to take winter jobs. Even the greatest of stars, Mickey Mantle, made only about 20x the median family income. In contrast, Ohtani makes about 700 times the median family income.
Mickey’s highest salary ($100,000) would be about a million in today’s dollars. Guys like Soto and Ohtani make 50 to 70 times that much.
Thank you, Seitz.
The Supreme Court did rule against Curt Flood, but as the book points out, the Supreme Court ruling mandated that the reserve clause be negotiated with the players, which gave the players union under Marvin Miller its powers.
The process the union and the owners agreed to was arbitration which led to this victory, which was even bigger than Miller and the players had hoped for.
So, the Supreme Court ruling was a pyrric victory for MLB which Marvin Miller recognized and the owners initially didn’t.
Sadly, virtually every modern baseball player eventually benefited from Flood v Kuhn except Curt Flood, who chose to retire when he lost the case. (Sort of. He sat out a year, then reported to spring training with the next team he was traded to, but retired before the end of April.)
As you may have read, Curt died of cancer while still in his 50s, and shortly after his death, baseball’s exception to the antitrust rules was officially and legally rejected in the so-called Curt Flood Act.