#rustystaub

[ka0z-prime]

R.I.P. "Rusty" Staub. You will be missed. #RIP #SadDay #GoneButNotForgotten   WillBeMissed #RustyStaub 😯😭

[bigalnyc]

Excited for the start of the new baseball season! Lets go Thor and get this win for Rusty! #LGM #Mets #mlb #NewYorkMets #NoahSyndergaard #RustyStaub #OpeningDay #baseball #thor (at Citi Field)

[johncerilli]

Terrible news to start the #baseball season, rest in peace #RustyStaub. We’ll miss you dearly. #Mets #LeGrandOrange #MLB Photo: Bettmann Archive (at Rockaway, New Jersey)

[affection-and-queries]

Introduction to “The Squid and the Whale: The Shooting Script” (Newmarket Press, 2005) by Noah Baumbach:

One night five years ago, my ex -girlfriend Jennifer and I had dinner with Noah Baumbach and his younger brother Nico at an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side called Primola. I had already known Noah a couple of years. We saw each other frequently, always for dinner. There was a famous baseball player for the Mets, Rusty Staub, in the room that night. Noah said to Nico, “We should get his autograph for Dad.” Nico agreed, “We should.” Neither of the brothers gave any indication that he was going to actually try to accomplish this, but something had been triggered. They exchanged a few mysterious remarks and laughed. They drifted into a quiet discussion and then included us: they were talking about their father. They talked about joint custody, veal cutlets, Norman Mailer’s agent—the events of their childhood and of “The Squid and the Whale.” Noah told the stories, animated and energetic as he always is when he captures an audience and gets them laughing. Nico periodically interjected his own brief, deadpan details. We all listened through three courses. At the end of it, we were silent, as if a curtain had fallen. We ordered coffee, and I said, feeling smart, “That’s the movie you should make.” Noah said, “I’m working on it,” which it then occurred to me was pretty obvious. He is a writer and had clearly given the matter some thought. I said, “Well, I want to get in on this one,” and I did. I think the end result is his funniest, saddest, most honest film.  

As we left the restaurant, Jennifer stopped at Rusty Staub’s table and sweetly collected his autograph for Mr. Baumbach. I had hoped to reproduce it below, but Noah has informed me that his father accidentally threw it out with the wrapping paper over Christmas.

—September 2005