Music & More

2009 World Champion New York Yankees

What a relief. Watching these games has been stressful for an old guy like me. The Yankees defeated the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies, 4 games to 2, and won their first world championship since the 2000 season when they defeated the New York Mets, 4 games to 1. What a great way to celebrate the opening of the new Yankee Stadium. The Yanks lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in '01 and the Florida Marlins in '03. Last year, the last in the old Yankee Stadium, they didn't make the playoffs at all. The first decade of the 21st century has come to an end with the Yankees and their arch-rivals the Red Sox having won 2 championships while the Angels, White Sox, D'backs, Marlins, Cardinals and Phillies each have won once.

The Series is obviously news that you can find elsewhere so I'm not going to recap the games. I know that all these star players are millionaires but I was still happy for them, especially the veterans, Jeter, Rivera, Posada and Pettitte. I'm grateful for all the entertainment they have provided during the course of the season. The first three have spent their entire career as Yankees. Matsui may not be a Yankee next year, but he sure went out in style as Series MVP after his 6 r.b.i.'s in game 6. He and Damon are at the end of their contracts.  Loved when Damon stole 2nd and 3rd on the same play in game four. I don't recall ever seeing that happen before.

I wasn't at the Stadium for any games during the '09 season but I saw most of them thanks to my Direct TV baseball package. I'm at the point now where viewing the games in the comfort of my living room beats the aggravation and expense of attending in person. I don't need to be there. I used to hate it when the forecast was for rain and I had a ticket. If I decided to stay home, the game would be played and I'd be out the ticket money. If I'd go, I'd have to endure the unpleasantness of me getting rained on and/or the game getting rained out. The rain check was small consolation. In the post-season, there's also the likelihood of cold weather to deal with. Besides the comfort factor, at home I can practically call the balls and strikes on every pitch and I see the replays at every conceivable angle, maybe even more times than I'd like.

My most memorable day at Yankee Stadium occurred during the 1961 season when the M&M boys, Mantle and Maris, were chasing Babe Ruth's 1927 record of 60 home runs.  It was a twi-night doubleheader in July against the White Sox. Roger Maris hit HR #'s 37 & 38 in game 1 and 39 & 40 in the 2nd game. Mantle hit his 38th, Clete Boyer hit 2 HR's and Elston Howard also connected. The Yanks won both games, a 5 - 1 win for Whitey Ford and a 12 - 0 complete game for Bill Stafford. You can check out the box scores on www.baseball-almanac.com. Click on history, teams, scroll down  to a box which reads "team by team items of interest" and click on schedules in the AL or NL column, scroll down to the date you're interested in and click for the box score. So if you find an old ticket stub you can check what happened. Like me, you may find that your memory is not as good as you thought it was.

I guess I've been a Yankee fan since I was about 10. At that age I was probably more interested in baseball cards than baseball games. Wish I still had the cards. I have vague recollections of the Yankees losing the '55 series and winning in '56, both against the BROOKLYN Dodgers. I remember that they lost to the MILWAUKEE Braves in '57 and beat those same Braves in 1958, winning the last 3 games to rally from a 3 games to 1 deficit. School prevented me from seeing these games because they were mainly day games back then. I recall hearing the last out of the '57 series on the car radio. Moose Skowron grounded out to Braves 3rd baseman Eddie Mathews to end it. My mother had picked us up from school and we were at 188th St and Hillside Ave in Queens when the game ended.

Strangely enough, though I'm a life-long Yankee fan, the first major league baseball game I attended was on August 4th, 1956 at Ebbets Field, the former home of the Dodgers. I think it was with a Cub Scout outing. The Dodgers beat the Cardinals 12 - 4. On August 26th, 1957 I also saw one game at the Polo Grounds which at the time was the home of the New York Giants (not the football team that now plays in New Jersey). The Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds that day by a football score, 17 - 3. In 1958, the Dodgers and Giants moved respectively to L.A and 'Frisco. My first game at Yankee Stadium was June 19, 1957, a 10 - 2 victory over the Detroit Tigers. I don't recall who took me. I was able to pinpoint the date from notes I wrote inside the cover of my oldest Yankee yearbook - the 1960 edition (the price was 50 cents). I wrote down the the scores and opponents of the games I attended that year, two doubleheaders and 6 single games, plus the scores and opponents of the 3 games I attended prior to 1960.  

A Favorite Quote from Chekhov and The Brass Verdict

When I read a review whether it be of a new book, cd or movie, I'm reminded of a quote from a letter written by Anton Chekov in 1890. "When people talk to me of what is artistic and inartistic, of what is dramatic and not dramatic, of tendency, realism, and so on, I am bewildered, hesitatingly assent, and answer with banal half-truths not worth a brass farthing. I divide all works into two classes: those I like and those I don’t. I have no other criterion, and if you ask me why I like Shakespeare and don’t like Zlatovratsky, I don’t venture to answer." The quote can be found in "The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov" edited and with an Introduction by Lillian Hellman.

I'm with Anton. If people ask me whether or not I would recommend a book, I'm likely to answer either "I liked it" or "I didn't like it". This Chekhov quote was called to my attention about 25 years ago by Bob Slomovitz, my former branch chief at work. I jotted it down in a spiral notebook I've had since 1983 for keeping track of the books I've read so I don't read the same book twice. There are so many similar titles, especially for murder mysteries.  (The notebook's spiral metal spring has been working its way out of one end so every once in a while I have to carefully re-thread it through the holes. I don't want to tear the paper.) Bob has been my main source for good reading recommendations. I've respected his judgment ever since he told me that he loved the writing of John Steinbeck but couldn't get into Faulkner.

My reference to this Chekhov quote does not mean that I dislike reviews that get technical about the quality of the writing or the story structure or any other aspect of the work being discussed. Besides, who would read a review if its author didn't give reasons for her or his opinion or compare it to some other work. But beware when book reviewers gush over the beautiful or lyrical writing, almost a sure sign that, to be blunt, the story sucks. Generally the author is so busy trying to impress the reader (or himself?) with writing full of words you have to look up, or dream sequences which I hate, that the story advances at a glacial pace. Sometimes, I admit, such writers come up with some great similes or metaphors that I stop and marvel at thinking, wow, wish I had written that. But it's not worth struggling through a four or five hundred page book for a few phrases that you'll soon forget.

I just finished reading Michael Connelly's "The Brass Verdict". My Chekhovian appraisal: I liked it. Couldn't put it down. I've read 19 of his 21 murder mysteries and plan on reading the other two. Connelly is the best of the genre. I didn't read any reviews prior to reading this story and there are plenty of them on line. With his track record, why bother. The book features attorney Mickey Haller of "Lincoln Lawyer" fame and Connelly's most celebrated character, detective Harry Bosch. Nuff said. Happy reading.

Back to Chekhov. He's best know for the plays "The Seagull", "The Cherry Orchard", "Three Sisters" and "Uncle Vanya" and his short stories. There's a 13 volume Tales of Chekhov translated by Constance Garnett. I've read the plays and volumes 1 - 5 and 7 - 10 of the stories so I still have a few to read. Actually, I could read them all and they'd be like brand new since I read all these works in 1990.

Umpiring problems in Major League Baseball

There was an excellent article by Bill Madden in today's New York Daily News about the poor quality of the umpiring in major league baseball. The problem has existed for quite a while but it gets a lot of attention when bad calls occur in the playoffs. In game 2 of the American League Division Series (ALDS) at Yankee Stadium, the left field umpire called Joe Mauer's fair fly ball down the left field line foul even though he was only about 20 feet from the play. It was clearly fair as all Yankee fans would admit. The replays left no doubt.

Mr. Madden commented on the amorphous strike zone and horrendous calls in the field that have people calling for instant replay reviews that commissioner Bud Selig adamantly opposes. Madden says that umpires for playoff games are still chosen based on politics rather than merit. Umpires are rated by their supervisors but why bother if no one ever gets demoted or kept out of playoff games for poor ratings. He points out problems about poor training, working conditions and pay in the minor leagues. Umpires in rookie leagues get paid only $1,900 a month and the highest paid at Triple A makes only $3,200 which amounts to $16,000 for 5 months of work. (According to a 2007 article on mlb.com, major league umps start at about $120,000 and make up to $350,000.) There are also few chances to advance to the majors because incompetent umps are not demoted and few retire until they are physically unable to work. How do you attract good candidates for a tough job under these conditions?

I'm in favor of a limited number of replay reviews per game on questionable umpire decisions (like the bad call on Mauer noted above), in addition to the existing rule allowing teams to appeal calls by umpires on home runs. As I pointed out in my Dumb Baseball Rule post of May 27th, the object should be to get the call right. Major League umpires are paid well. If their ego gets bruised by being shown up by an instant replay, that's too bad. Hopefully, with properly trained and supervised umpires, replays will make them look good.

My dumb rule post addressed a scoring rule rather than an umpiring decision - the scoring rule that you can't anticipate a double play. In yesterday's Dodger-Philly game with runners on first and second, Chase Utley made a terrible throw attempting to complete what should have been an easy DP. He only got charged with an error because the runner on 2nd scored as a result of his throw. If that runner had held up at third, no error would have been charged even though Utley's throw allowed the batter to reach first. My post also addressed the "team error" concept which could have applied in yesterday's Yankee-Angels game when the shortstop and 3rd baseman let a routine infield pop drop between them that either could have handled. The scorer probably should have charged the shortstop with the error but instead scored it a hit which resulted in an earned run charged to the pitcher. The team error concept would help scorers who don't have the guts to make the right call or, when it is not clear who should have caught a catchable ball, to give the team the error rather than penalize the pitcher.

I was talking about these matters with good friend and former St. John's University pitcher Larry Mushinske this morning. (Larry got to pitch in the 1966 College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska and won a game with 3 scoreless innings of relief. SJU only has 6 wins combined in all their CWS appearances.) In addition to discussing the horrible umpiring - including a pitch way inside to Russell Martin that should have been ball 4 in yesterday's Dodger game - he pointed out that the umpires almost never exercise their discretion to allow a runner to score from first base on a ground rule double when the runner would clearly have scored if the ball hadn't gone into the stands. He's absolutely right, as he almost always is on baseball matters - a true student of the game. I've seen cases where a fast runner on first was held at third by the umpire, even though there were 2 outs and a full count on the batter, so that the runner was going on the pitch. The ump took the easy way out. Maybe better trained umps would have the confidence to make these tougher calls.

Rounder at the Grand Ole Opry

Columbus Day evening at the Grand Ole Opry was a celebration of 40 years of Rounder Records music. The show was hosted by actress/singer Minnie Driver and included performances in the following order: Minnie, Nathan & the Zydego Cha Chas, Bela Fleck, Irma Thomas, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Alison Kraus & Union Station (hereinafter MCC and AKUS). It was quite a diverse musical offering. When I bought the tix on-line through ticketmaster, I didn't know that the show was going to be recorded for a PBS special in March of 2010. If I did, I may not have gone.

The show was supposed to begin at 7:30 pm but it was more like 8:20  by the time it got started. Since the show is going to be televised, they didn't want any empty seats in the front by the stage so people were there to fill them. I believe they didn't have enough regular seat fillers so they had to move other people down from the cheaper seats. In addition to the delay, I found this annoying because when I went on-line to buy seats, I was told that there were no tickets available in that prime area. I can't believe that there were that many no-shows. Maybe they were holding the better seats for their own people and then didn't sell them. It was a pleasant evening, so the weather was not a factor in keeping the attendance down. Before the show started, they asked the audience to provide three types of applause to be recorded for the tv show. The first was a mild sort of applause to welcome the entertainer. The second was an enthusiastic response short of a standing ovation. For the third, whistling was encouraged along with the enthusiastic applause. Apparently, the audience did a good job since no retakes were requested.

The first 4 artists each performed 4 songs while MCC and AKUS performed 5. You had to wait about 10-15 minutes between each act's performance so their own musicians could get set up. It was tough for me to judge the first 4 because I don't know their music and I couldn't always catch what they were singing. This was probably due more to my imperfect hearing than any flaw in their vocals. The acoustics seemed to be excellent.  I don't know how to characterize Minnie's music but she sounded ok and did a good job as MC. Nathan & the Zydego Cha Chas were an interesting group, described in the program as performing "accordion driven dance music of the Creole people of South Louisiana". Bela Fleck I thought was a woman until about a year ago. He's a very talented banjo player. A girl sang on one of his offerings and sounded good but I didn't catch her name and Jerry Douglas joined him on another. Irma Thomas has a great voice. She has been performing for 50 years and is known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans". I got a kick out of her song "You can have my husband but don't mess with my man".

The main attractions were MCC and AKUS and both were outstanding. Before Mary could get started, she and Minnie had to make some small talk because of a problem with one of the keyboard instruments. Mary mentioned that she will begin recording a new cd here in Nashville in a week. She has enough songs written for the project which should be completed by Christmas for release next spring. She joked about her orthopedic shoes and height, or lack thereof in comparison to high heeled Minnie. Minnie had to redo part of her introduction for MCC because she inadvertently said "granny" instead of "Grammy".

I'm old. It's past my bedtime and I'm starting to yawn by the time Mary's set begins. I know she sang  "Grand Central Station", "Stones in the Road" and concluded with the rousing "He Thinks He'll Keep Her". But I'm not too sure what the other songs were. There must have been a song from "The Calling", her initial cd with Rounder in 2007. Alison sang "Gravity" and "Restless" and two others, one of which was a religious song written by band member Ron Block which she used to close out the evening. Dan Tyminski also sang but I don't recall the name of the song. During her set, Alison introduced songwriters Robert Lee Castleman and John Pennell and her parents. The show ended around midnight.

Castleman wrote AKUS's single "Forget About It" but it was originally recorded by Suzy Bogguss on her 1994 cd "Simpatico". It was not a single for Suzy. I don't know why but the songwriter was identified on the Simpatico cd as "R.L. Kass" rather than Robert Lee Castleman. In addition to "Forget About It", RLC wrote other great AKUS songs including "Let Me Touch You for a While", "The Lucky One", "Gravity" and "Restless".

Country Story Songs

I always loved story songs. Maybe it's because music to me is primarily for listening rather than dancing. The first story song I remember as a kid was "Tom Dooley" by the Kingston Trio. Other story songs I liked, although I probably didn't think of them as such at the time, included such diverse offerings as "Running Bear" by Johnny Preston, "Chain Gang" by Sam Cooke, the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", B.J. Thomas's "Billy and Sue" and O.C. Smith's "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp". Later, I came to love the story songs of Don McLean, Jim Croce and Dan Fogelberg.

Country music has always had its share of great story songs such as "Ode to Billy Joe" by Bobbie Gentry, Jimmy Dean's "Big Bad John", Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans", Jeannie C. Riley's "Harper Valley PTA" written by Tom T. Hall and Hall's own "Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine". Here I'll comment on country story songs that I like from the 90's to the present to show that the tradition continues. Many were not huge hits and some were not hits at all or not even released as singles. The list is not meant to be all inclusive.

First of all, what is a story song? Does it have to be slow and/or sad? Can it be fast and/or funny? Does it have to be a ballad? As long as it is set to music and tells a story, I think it's a story song.

Here are some of my favorite country story songs of the last 20 years. The first group includes songs released as singles:

Mark McGuinn's "She Doesn't Dance" tells of a man who catches his wife in a bar with a stranger and tries to convince himself that it couldn't be her - she doesn't dance ...  great country song. In fact, if I were asked to give an example of a typical country song, it would be the first to come to mind. Mark co-wrote the song with Don Pfrimmer and Shane Decker.

Steve Azar's "Waitin' On Joe", solely written by Steve, is about a friend who always kept him waiting and died trying "to beat that morning train". There was also a great video with Morgan Freeman doing the intro and conclusion. It's still one of my favorite country videos. In the song, I love the line "tugboat's a leavin' 'cause it don't care, what's not on board and who's not there".

Jamie O'Neal's #1 hit "There Is No Arizona" tells of a woman whose man lies about sending for her once he gets to Arizona. She sings "If there was a Grand Canyon, she could fill it up with the lies he's told her". The song was written by Jamie, Lisa Drew and Charlotte Smith.

Emerson Drive's "Moments" tells about a homeless man saving a young man from committing suicide. In the video, Kris Kristofferson plays the homeless man. This #1 song was written by Dave Berg and Sam and Annie Tate.

Randy Travis's inspirational "Three Wooden Crosses", a Kim Williams - Doug Johnson #1 song is about  a farmer, teacher, preacher and a hooker involved in a crash and how it affected the sole survivor.

Travis Tritt's "Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde", written by Walt Aldridge and James LeBlanc, is a funky tale with an ending described as "disappointing" for the new B&C, which beats dead, as Travis sings "Lord we never saw 'em coming, till they read us both our rights". 

David Ball had a #2 hit in 2001 with the Wood Newton - Thom Shepherd penned "Riding With Private Malone" about a Corvette the soldier left with the note "if you're reading this, then I didn't make it home". Later, Tim McGraw came out with a very different "If You're Reading This" which Tim wrote with the Warren Brothers.

Miranda Lambert's "Famous in a Small Town" (my favorite ML song by far) describes a place where everybody dies famous and getting the first buck of the season puts you on page 1 of the local paper.  It was written by Miranda and John Howard.

Blaine Larsen's "How Do You Get That Lonely" tells of a young boy's suicide without being maudlin about it. The song asks how you reach the point where "havin' no life at all is better than the life that you had" and how could "nobody know". Written by Jamie Teachenor and Rory Lee Feek.

After listening to Blaine, you might want to lighten things up with a funny story, Pam Tillis's "Queen of Denial", written by Pam, Bob DiPiero and Jan Buckingham. Good video too.

Collin Raye's "Little Rock" is a Tom Douglas song about a recovering alcoholic trying to rebuild a relationship. The girl's father told him "that Jesus would forgive, but a daddy don't forget". 

Trisha Yearwood's "Walkaway Joe" tells of a young girl's misadventures with a boy her mama warned her about. Don Henley's harmony adds to Trisha's great vocals in this song written by Vince Melamed and Greg Barnhill.

Alan Jackson's "The Little Man", a solo writing effort by Jackson, speaks of the demise of the small businessman. I think AJ's songwriting is better than his singing.

Jason Aldean's "Amarillo Sky" is a rocking country tale about about a farmer's perseverance, written by B&R, Bart Pursley & Rodney Clawson.

Martina McBride's "Independence Day", written by Gretchen Peters, is a powerful story of a woman whose fight against an abusive husband takes a surprising turn. It's told from the 8 year old daughter's viewpoint.

Billy Currington's recent #1 hit "People Are Crazy" by Bobby Braddock and Troy Wayne Jones, Jr. is another great story which I discussed in my post of 6/26/09.

Sometimes you find a gem on a cd that was not released as a single:

While I'm not a Big and Rich fan, I loved "Faster Than Angels Fly" about a young couple killed in a barrio by a street gang "out to make a retribution call". Written by Billy Henderson and John Phillips, it's my favorite B&R song.

Lisa Brokop's "Pearl" tells about the daughter of a drunk abusive father, who escaped him to sing the blues. Lisa co-wrote the song with Kim McLean.

Phil Vassar's "Athens Grease" is a word play story about auto mechanic Billy Joe Taylor, "the redneck Picaso of the manual transmission, the only man in town who can make Charlie Vincent's van go". This rocking story song with a sense of humor was written by Phil, Steve Mandile and Jerry Vandiver.

In Sugarland's "Very Last Country Song", the scene is a woman looking through family photos on her birthday and talking about each one. The chorus includes lines like "If nobody did nobody wrong ... this would be the very last country song". It was written by Nettles, Bush & Tim Owens.

Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Houston" talks about the aftermath of Katrina with lines like "look at all this water and somehow not a drop to drink" and who else but MCC could write "Halley Came to Jackson" about a town visited by Halley's Comet.

In my post of 9/17/08 I mentioned 4 of Hal Ketchum's story songs, "I Miss My Mary" about an alcoholic who abandons wife and child as his disease progresses, "Daddy's Oldsmobile" about a family living out of a car, moving from town to town looking for work during the Depression, "Trail Of Tears" about the plight of the American Indian and "Swing Low" about a young girl and her baby abandoned by the baby's father. None of these songs were released as singles. (See my post of 8/30/08 regarding "In Front of the Alamo" another great HK story song written by Gary Burr which was a non-charting single.)

That's My Story and I'm stickin' to it. What are your favorites?

Lari White

Just over a week ago, my wife and I got to see Lari White for the first time. She was doing a show at the Bluebird Cafe, a fundraiser for the YMCA which she does on a regular basis. Appearing with her were Joie Scott, known for writing the Collin Raye hit "Not That Different", Bill Champlin who was a member of Chicago for 18 years and Chas Sandford with his 12 string guitar who co-wrote "Missing You", most recently covered by John Waite and Alison Krauss. Lari, Joie and Bill played keyboards. Some may remember Lari's bit part at the end of the Tom Hanks movie "Cast Away".

I bought her 1997 best of Lari White cd probably about 7 or 8 years ago because it included my favorite song of hers, "That's How You Know (When You're in Love)" which she co-wrote with her husband, noted songwriter Chuck Cannon. It also featured her duet with Travis Tritt which she and Travis co-wrote, "Helping Me Get Over You" and "Now I know", a Chick Rains, Cindy Greene, Don Cook collaboration which became her highest charting hit at #5 according to Wikipedia. I didn't realize at the time that the guy singing backup on "That's How You Know" was Hal Ketchum. The rest of the 13 song cd which opens with "Amazing Grace", includes two other co-writes with her husband, "That's My Baby", a #10 hit which I didn't remember, and another uptempo tune,  "What a Woman Wants". Other songs that became favorites of mine included her solo writing efforts, the mellow "Just Thinking" and "Lead Me Not".  In addition to hosting the night's show, she sang "That's My Baby" and "Lead Me Not" from the Best of cd. The lyrics of the latter continue "into temptation, I already know the road all too well, lead me not into temptation, I can find it all by myself". She also performed two songs from her 2004 cd "Green Eyed Soul" and a new song. Can't remember the titles but I do know that this lady sure can sing. I would definitely like to see her again and look into her other cds.

Among husband Chuck Cannon's 202 song writing credits found on the BMI website are quite a few hits co-written with Toby Keith including "Me Too", "How Do You Like Me Now", "Dream Walkin", "American Soldier", "Getcha Some" and "If a Man Answers". He also co-wrote the John Michael Montgomery hit, "I Love the Way You Love Me", with Victoria Shaw in addition to his co-writes with Lari noted above.

Designated Hitter

I read a book a few months ago called Hit Parade by Lawrence Block. No, it wasn't about the TV show from the 1950's. That was actually Your Hit Parade and the hits were songs. In the first part of the Block book, a designated hitter became the victim of a designated hitter. Baseball's Designated Hitter or DH is alive and well - except in the National League. Yankee DH Hideki Matsui hit a 2 run HR last night to tie up the game with the Blue Jays. With his bad knees, Hideki would be limited to pinch hitting duties without the DH rule.

It's time for the National League to adopt the Designated Hitter rule. Except for a few diehard purists, does anybody care about having the pitcher bat? I know. Tradition and Strategy. Tradition has taken quite a few hits since 1973 when the DH was introduced. Another level of playoffs has been added including the Wild Card. A team that doesn't even win its division is allowed a shot at the World Series - a radical idea for baseball. Expansion has brought us 6 additional teams. The NL has two more teams than the AL. We have major league umpires, not AL and NL umps. We have replays on HR's. We have all kinds of new stats - WHIP, OPS, holds, etc. Baseball has evolved. The NL has its head stuck in the sand.

As noted, the DH has existed since 1973. This makes it likely that any fan born from around 1963 doesn't really remember baseball without the DH. As far as strategy is concerned, how many fans think that even AL managers over-manage? We see needless changes of relief pitchers, starters yanked because of the pitch count. I recall a lefty brought in to face a lefty. He got his man and the next batter was a switch hitter. The manager yanked the lefty reliever and brought in a righthander. Did he gain some small advantage because the switch hitter is better from the right side? Please! Keep it simple and play the game.

Most people want to see offense. Soccer's a great sport that has never made it big in the U.S. because after 90 minutes of action the score is likely to be 2 - 1. The DH doesn't just provide more offense. It provides rest for key players without losing their bats. It prevents injury to pitchers since they don't have to hit or run the bases. Ask the Yankees about Chien-Ming Wang who injured himself running the bases in an interleague game. With the money some of these pitchers make and the scarcity of quality pitching, do teams really want to risk losing them to injury? Granted if I was a pitcher, I'd prefer to pitch in the DHless NL. Still, it's crazy that baseball continues to operate under two different rules. Imagine if the NBA decision makers had implemented the 3 point goal but only allowed it in games involving former ABA teams or allowed it only in the Eastern conference but not the Western conference. It would be considered stupid.

The NL would have little trouble in adopting the DH rule. Take a team like the Dodgers. They signed Manny Ramirez to big bucks so they have to play him in left field. Juan Pierre sits. Jim Thome could do some DHing if he stays. The Braves could rotate DH between oldtimers Larry "not so Chipper" Jones and Garrett Anderson or use it to rest Bryan McCann without losing his bat. The Astros could DH Carlos Lee or Miguel Tejada. The Rockies could DH Todd Helton or Garrett Atkins. If the Mets keep Gary Sheffield, he's a perfect candidate for DH. If he doesn't have to play the field, he'll have more time to complain. The Brewers could DH Frankie Catalanotto. They  may eventually look to DHing the Prince who's not such a good Fielder, but not as bad as Philly Ryan Howard and Redbird Albert Pujols who are vying for the league lead in errors by a first baseman. Nat Adam Dunn and Cub Alfonso Soriano should DH. It's time to have baseball operating under one set of rules.

Music Playlists and cds - a senior's perspective

When you think of music playlists today, you think of computers and cd technology. To me a playlist gives you the music you want in the order you want to hear it. Although radio DJ's may have had playlists for their shows in the 50's, 60's etc., the term did not exist to my knowledge for music listeners in regard to their record collections in the pre-digital age. With my old 45's, I could stack some on a record player spindle in the order I wanted to hear them. In a very basic sense I was creating a temporary playlist although the term "playlist" never entered my mind. I wouldn't just flip the records over when finished and play the other sides because in most cases the songs on 45 flip sides were not very good. I could also stack vinyl albums but then I'd be stuck with any album tracks I didn't care for.

With blank audio tapes, you could make your own tapes (playlists, in a sense) by taping songs from the radio or from your vinyl records but it was a royal pain. I recall printing the name of the song and artist in ballpoint on the paper insert for the plastic tape holder as I recorded the song. Sometimes you had to abbreviate the song title to fit it in on the line. With the radio it was really hit or miss because you didn't know when the song or songs you wanted were going to be played. You'd sit there all set to record and a song would be played that you were not interested in. After a while you'd get tired or your mind would wander and you'd realize a bit late that your song was on. Then you'd frantically try to hit the record button. Stopping at just the right time and DJ talk overs were also problems you encountered. If you didn't stop in time, you'd have to go back and erase quickly before another song you wanted was played, unless you didn't mind having fragments of songs, commercials or DJ chatter on your tape.

The good old days of vinyl and tapes were not so good. Despite a sort of resurgence recently in vinyl sales, I don't think it will ever make a serious dent in digital sales. With vinyl and tapes there is another drawback I almost forgot - skipping tracks. It's so much easier on a cd. Click. With vinyl you had to lift the needle on the record player to get to the next song. Tapes were more difficult since you had to advance the tape and you either went too far or not far enough. Expletives were frequently a part of the process.

With the cd there are none of these problems. Even a low tech oldtimer like me can load music on to my computer from my own cds or purchase complete cds or individual songs from sources such as I-Tunes. Within minutes of completing my order, the songs are downloaded to my computer. That's amazing. I can open/create a new list on the computer, give it a name and drag over the songs I want and voila. I have only the songs I want to listen to and I can modify the list any time I want. I don't have or want an I-Pod (don't like wearing earphones) but I do like to play cds in the car and sometimes on a separate radio/cd player at home. I can burn a cd from a playlist in about 6 or 7 minutes. It took longer when the cd burners were not built in to the computer and I had to have my wife help me. She's much more computer savvy than I am. When cds first came out, I used to think that wouldn't it be great if you could make your own cds (like I made my own tapes). For about the past 8 or 9 years you can.

Think of all the great playlists you can create. There is practically no limit to the number of songs you can put on a playlist on your computer. If you choose to burn a cd from a playlist, you're limited to about 20 songs on a cd which is actually good since most store bought cds don't have more than a dozen tracks. Here are some of the "theme" playlist cds I've created over the last few years. Where I have dates indicated it refers to a post on this website related to the subject:

Around Christmas, you can make your own Christmas cds. (12/11/08)

Country Duets - The first duet cds I made included songs that were not true duets (10/20/08).

Rain Songs - one such cd included Gary Allan's "Songs About Rain" in which he mentions four or five famous rain songs. I included those songs right after the Allan song.

Fun Songs - rather than funny because what's funny to me may not be to you.  (3/8/09)

USA - where every song mentions the name of a city or state in the U.S. like Tracy Lawrence's "Paint Me a Birmingham", Trisha Yearwood's "On a Bus to St. Cloud" and Lonestar's "Walking in Memphis".

Gone songs - every song title has the word "Gone" like Chris Cagle's "What Kinda Gone", Jimmy Wayne's "Stay Gone", Diamond Rio's "You're Gone", Pam Tillis' "All the Good Ones Are Gone", etc.

Doo Wop - all those great nonsensical sounds you might hear in the still of the night. (5/10/09)

Country Covers - of pop songs (8/24/08)

Story Songs - like Steve Azar's "Waitin' On Joe", Mark McGuinn's "She Doesn't Dance" and Hal Ketchum's "I Miss My Mary".

Rockin' Country Songs - uptempo

Cowboy songs - such as "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" by Suzy Bogguss and "Cowboys Are My Weakness" by Trisha Yearwood.

Motown Mix - 4 Tops, Drifters, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Temptations, etc.

Greatest Hits of - After you have 3 or 4 cds by a favorite artist, create your own GH or Best of collection. You know how an artist will put out a GH cd and leave out one of your favorites. You can include it as well as omit hits songs you didn't like or add favorite album tracks that were not released as singles. The trend now is for artists to add 3 or 4 new songs to a GH cd to get you to buy it for those new songs. If you make your own GH cd, you can just buy the new songs you like on I-Tunes. For example, I never liked the Keith Uban song, "Where the Blacktop Ends" but I loved "You Look Good in My Shirt". A while after I made the cd, Urban released "Shirt" as a single.

Some may wonder since I did a post on Sappy Songs (9/29/08) why I didn't make a tearjerker playlist. While I like a sappy song every once in a while, a whole cd of them would be hard to take. Strangely enough, I haven't yet put together a country love songs cd. I think it's because there are too many great songs to choose from.

You can take any of these themes and modify them by placing a time frame such as Country Covers from 1990 to the present, by having a playlist be all female or all male artists, limiting by genre - country, rock, jazz, etc.  Music loving seniors you can do this. Customize your own cds and computer playlists. Don't complain that you have nothing to do. Retirees especially have no excuse.

Clemens

When you saw the title to this post were you expecting some juicy stuff about Roger? Sorry to disappoint you but this is about Koby, his 22 year old son who plays in a Class A Advanced league with the Lancaster JetHawks of Lancaster, California. While Roger stands about 6"4", Koby is only 5'11". According to MiLB.com, the kid has been tearing up the league with a .344 batting average, 38 doubles, 6 triples, 18 HR's and 109 RBI's in 372 ABs. His on base percentage is .419 and slugging at .624 while his OPS (on base + slugging) is 1.043. An article on the JetHawks' website says that he's had 3 walk-off HR's and 1 that put his team in the lead. The season has another 2 weeks to go. His problem may be finding a position. He started out his minor league career in 2005 at 3rd base and since has been used at catcher, leftfield and DH. DHing won't help him advance if he remains in the Astros organization. I would guess that he'll be moved up to Double A next year.

Don Mattingly's son Preston plays in the same league as Koby with the Inland Empire 66ers, a Dodger farm team in San Bernardino. Young Mattingly started out in the infield but now plays left field. Unlike his father Don, he bats and throws right handed and is  taller at 6'3" to Don's 6'0". Unfortunately, he's hitting a mere .235 in 396 ABs and has struck out an alarmingly high 137 times. He's stolen 22 bases but has been caught 10 times. 

On the pitching side, Doug Drabek's son Kyle has gone 8 - 2 with a 3.39 era since moving up to Double A Reading, PA of the Eastern League. His name was mentioned as one of the players the Bluejays wanted from the Phillies to get Roy Halladay. Dad Doug started out with the Yankees but had his best years with the Pirates.

In addition to checking on the sons of former Yankees, I use www.MiLB.com to see who's doing well on the Yankee farm teams and, when I'm watching a game, to check the stats on players for other major league teams who have just called been called up from the minors. The website is also good if you're taking a trip and want to see if there's a game you can see since it has all the schedules and links to team websites. I've seen minor league games in Colorado Springs, Sioux Falls, Asheville, NC, Albany, NY, Binghampton, Long Island and Nashville.

Country Music Blogs, Websites, etc.

Since I don't listen to a lot of radio, the internet is the main way I keep up with new country music, news, etc. For quite a few years I've been checking out CMT.com and then GACTV.com. Strangely enough, on the net I prefer CMT but on TV I'm more likely to watch GAC. Why? They play a lot more music videos. A few years ago I found Roughstock.com which has a lot of good reviews and articles and I generally check out ACCTOP40.com each weekend for the weekly top 40. They've gotten a lot better recently at updating the survey. In the past, it would usually appear by Monday afternoon however some weeks it wasn't updated til Tuesday or later. Now it's generally available by Saturday morning. There seems to be a pattern to the top 40. On alternating weeks, there will be a lot of movement with some songs moving up or down a half dozen or more slots or very little movement with no song moving more than 3 in either direction.

A few weeks ago I was looking to see if anything had been written about a Matraca Berg song, "The Dreaming Fields" and I stumbled upon a country music blog called Country Universe (It can be accessed at www.countryuniverse.net). The blog was started in 2004 by one of the six writers at CU, Kevin Coyne. They have a lot of good reviews on a wide variety of country artists, interviews, most recently on Joey & Rory,  and special articles such as their current series on artists of the 90's. So far they've covered Joe Diffie, Travis Tritt, Mark Chesnutt, Brooks & Dunn, Lorrie Morgan, Pam Tillis, Collin Raye, Diamond Rio, Wade Hayes, Rick Trevino and the Mavericks, among others. They provide a short writeup about the artist and then give you a "starter kit" usually with what the writer feels are their 10 best songs which they call essential tracks plus two "hidden treasures", songs that were not hits. For those with just a few hits, they write up a "6 pack" of songs. You can send in comments easily and it's very interesting to see what others think, what songs they like, etc. and the writers at CU often join the discussion with their comments. So far I'd have to say it's about the best country music blog around. I guess they're not worried about competition since they provide links to other country music blogs. Check out the surprising bios of the writers in the About Us part of the website - not what you'd expect.

What's great about all these sites is that it alerts you to new artists and songs you may have missed by established artists. Then you can go to the artists website or MySpace and listen to some of their music or hear the 30 second snippets on I-Tunes or other source. I no longer buy a cd by a new artist based on their debut single. I try to hear as much as I can online before plunking down any cash. I'll still buy cds by my favorite artists without making such an effort as long as they put out good albums. Some do run out of ideas after a while.