Baseball in Wake Up Dead Man
I finally watched Wake Up Dead Man today and LOVED it. I also happen to be a huge Cubs fan, which is Samson's favorite team. I took the time to find the baseball games that were showed on screen -- it's mostly irrelevant to the plot, but there's a big one that just fits so perfectly!
At around 8:30, there's a Twins @ Cubs game on while Samson and Jud talk. This game is from August 7, 2024, which fits perfectly in the timeline -- Jud has been there nine months at Easter time. This at-bat is between pitcher Drew Smyly and batter Willi Castro in the top of the 5th. Interestingly, in the movie, the outcome of this appears to be a pop-up to first base, but in the actual game, it was a fly out to center field. I'm confident that this is the correct at-bat, as this is the only match up between these two players in this series (and if you watch the game back, you see Castro run back to the dugout in the exact same way, with the ball boy running the opposite direction behind him). I'm not sure why they altered the outcome of the at-bat. Could be nothing? Or maybe some super secret Rian Johnson code?
At around 57:00, Samson is watching the Easter Sunday Diamondbacks @ Cubs game while Jud uses his punching bag. This is the actual Cubs game from Easter Sunday 2025 -- you can see Jameson Taillon, who started that game, walking off the mound to the dugout. A bit later, you can see Kyle Tucker taking his at bat against Merrill Kelly (I believe this is in the bottom of the 1st inning). You can hear Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the announcer talking about how Tucker "would have been the hero" after a 3-run homer in a previous game. He's referencing a Cubs @ Diamondbacks game at the end of March, where the Cubs blew a 6-2 lead (helped by Tucker's homer) to lose the game 10-6.
Now we get to the most fun one -- the Good Friday Diamondbacks @ Cubs game that Samson recorded, that we see several short clips of. Again, this is actually the game from Good Friday 2025. If there was ever a perfect baseball game to have in a Rian Johnson movie, this is it. After a 5-run 7th inning, the Cubs were leading 7-1 going into the top of the 8th. They gave up 10 runs to the Diamondbacks in a single inning, and went into the bottom of the 8th losing 7-11...where they scored 6 runs to make the score 13-11, which is how the game ended. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt wasn't giving Tucker enough credit during the Sunday game, since Tucker was the hero in this game, with a go-ahead 2-run homer. That being said, this game was a great reversal to the one the Cubs lost in Arizona, which I'm sure is why that March game was mentioned on the broadcast.
The Cubs became the 7th team since 1900 to allow at least 10 runs in an inning and still win the game, and the two teams' combined 21 runs in the 7th and 8th tied the Cubs record for most total runs scored over two consecutive innings. It was full of twists and turns, and it felt like it was completely over for both teams at different points. You had no idea how the game would end, but you knew it'd be a wild, fun journey (just like a Knives Out movie). I'm just sad that Samson missed watching it live!
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