Deep Left Field

End of Year Lists are so passe'

2011-12-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

This is what my critical writing process has devolved into:

Spend most of October and November track listing the EOY compilation CD.
Begin distribution of said EOY CD at Snake Whacking Day (typically the first weekend of December.)
Have at least one conversation with Paul that includes the phrase "you didn't review any of these for us this year."
Receive Paul's annual "hey guys, if you have a end of year list type thing, send it over to us before Dec 31 and we'll post it" email.
Spend the next two weeks thinking about, but failing to compile an end of year list type thing.
Disappear for Christmas.
Return from Christmas and throw together a draft-quality end of year list type thing and email it to Paul and Tracy.
Think to myself "I should write up some of these, a blurb or something at least, and send it over too."
Fail to do so.
Get sucked into the Primer Lounge's annual "best music of the year" voting, which requires that I put random list type thing into an ordered ballot of at least 10 releases.

With that said, I present to you, dear reader, Sam's best of 2011 ballot, as submitted to the Lounge. When Paul gets the other version of the List Type Thing uploaded at The 'Sponge I'll link out to that as well.

Perhaps at some point I'll even write up some blurb about why I like these things more than most. Or not. I'm really lazy sometimes.

1. Say Hi, “Um, Uh Oh”
2. Ghost Heart, “The Tunnel”
3. Bird of Youth, “Defender”
4. Frank Turner, “England Keep My Bones”
5. White Wives, “Happeners”
6. The Generationals, “Actor-Caster”
7. Manchester Orchestra, “Simple Math”
8. The Rural Alberta Advantage, “Departing”
9. Ravishers, “Ravishers”
10. Jolie Holland, “Pint of Blood”

Honorable Mentions: Fucked Up, “David Comes To Life”; Elbow, “Build a Rocket Boys!”; True Loves, “Hooray For Earth”; The Wombats, “This Modern Glitch”; Larry and His Flask, “All That We Know”; Damion Suomi & The Minor Prophets, “Go And Sell Your Things”; Ha Ha Tonka, “Death of a Decade”; The Dodos, “No Color”

Memorializing the living seems weird

2011-10-18T03:50:00.000-07:00

But sometimes the weird is the necessary, I suppose.

Most Braves fans have probably heard that Mac, the rightly knighted "OG blogger" of all Braves-related internet fora, is continuing his on-going battles with cancer, and the big C seems to have gained the upper hand of late. This, quite obviously, sucks. Cancer, quite notably, never produced a series of YouTube bits detailing the various ways in which Mike Hampton repeatedly disabled himself, after all.

All relevant speakers have, quite rightly again, thrown out the internet love and best wishes. I figured I might as well brush off the DLF dust and add a bit of mumble to the chorus. Even though it seems a bit odd, eulogizing a guy that's still kicking around over there, right? I mean, I sort of have this image of Mac raising his head up from the cart and saying "I'm not dead yet." But hey, shit gets weird on the webs and you roll with the punches.

My Google-fu is as rusty as this blog is dusty, and Google Groups is notoriously bad at archiving old Usenet shit, but regardless, this is the earliest conversation that I can quickly find that includes myself and Mac. It's from alt.sports.baseball.atlanta-braves. From 1998. It's about Javy Lopez and his relationship to the Braves' starting rotation. I had sort of assumed it would be about Bret Boone.

My first thought upon digging that up was "my god, I've known these people for 15 years." My second thought was "what the hell happened to Billy (KeyHit) and Gregg Rosenberg?!"

It doesn't look like Mac really needs me to tell him to keep fighting or whatnot. I'm pretty sure he knows as much as all that already. So I'll confine it to this.

Dude. It's been a good run. I particularly thought the Mike Hampton videos were better than the Road from Bristol bit, but that's just me. I appreciate you putting up with my shit over the years. So... Chin up. Fight the good fight. All that jazz.

Oh, and I really like Calcaterra's suggestion that you kick its ass and name your kid after where it lives, a la Chipper and Shea, but that would be really weird if it were like, in your spleen. I mean, who names their kid "Spleen?"

2011-09-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

It's late September. Must be time to try to figure out what the hell to do with this damned blog again.

s/

Archers of what?

2011-07-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

Credit where due. It was a brilliant idea. The three of us, presented with the happy magic of a reunited Archers of Loaf would walk through the back catalogue, explicating the titans of our misspent youth as we went. This was our sweet spot, and when P emailed the suggestion I was in, no questions asked. The opportunity, all gift wrapped in gutter punk glory and the dulcet tones of Big E in full croak, to relive the past in anticipation of next month's back to back shows at The EARL. It was fantastic. It was a brilliant idea. Of course I flaked.

It seems most of my contributions these days bear introductions built around why my homework is late. This is no exception. The question at hand being “how could you flake on the Archers?” It's a meatwad, thigh-high fastball on the inner half, with little to no movement. It's the perfect pitch, dead red center of your wheelhouse. How on earth could you whiff on that? It's the freakin' Archers, for God's sake.

The best I can come up with – and I have considered this somewhat thoroughly – is timing. Or more precisely, timeline. Or more, more precisely, the disconnect between the actual timeline of Archers releases and the timeline of Archers-related memory mining from the base of my thick skull. The idea was to walk through the discography chronologically. Icky Mettle to vs Greatest of All Time to Vee Vee to Speed of Cattle, so on and so forth. That makes all sorts of sense, of course. The problem is it completely crashes my mental edifice of all things Archers. I think, for me to properly do this thing, I have to walk through the exercise on the personal timeline rather than the official arc of history. That is to say, I have to start in the middle. Specifically it all has to start with Vee Vee.

It's summer, 1995. P and I are wandering the seemingly endless bins of used and new merch at Eat More Records, up in Norcross, in a run-down strip mall off of Jimmy Carter Blvd, a few miles east of 85. Eat More is maybe the best used record/CD shop in the Atlanta metro, with rack after rack of the utterly unknowable snaking out through a bland space that might have once been a Dollar General. The Fat Man – that's all I ever knew him by, for the record – that owns and operates the place is a force of legend. A trip to Eat More, or one of the few other used record shops in the city, is to us what Mass must be to Catholics. We'll usually traipse out every couple of weeks or so and sift through the wares. Our own little ritualistic dance. Scan the bins. Flip the discs. Never sure what the hell we might find.

It's summer, 1995. I pretty sure I've heard the Archers a few times on Album 88. Memory is fickle even at the best of times, and this is the High Period of Categorical Insobriety, so take it for what it is. But I'm pretty sure I've heard the Archers a couple of times before. I may have seen them open for Weezer. Or maybe someone else did and I'm blurring stories told a hundred times into false memories of my own. Who knows? Does it matter? Isn't that how communities worth living in are made? It's summer, '95, and I'm pretty sure I've heard “Harnessed in Slums,” or maybe “Might,” on the radio once or twice. P and I are sifting through Eat More at our own paces, and somewhere in the Ar-As bin I stumble upon this.

I suspect it will take too long to explain, in this age of digital downloads, iTunes, lossless audio, etc, et al, how it makes such perfect sense to have the cover art be the kicker that makes the decision between “meh, not today” and “I need this.” Such are the pains of the aging hipster, I suppose. This is how I took Vee Vee home with me. $5.99 used, promo copy. Still has the “not for resale” imprint on the cover. This is how I heard Archers for the first time. Not chronologically. I'm pretty sure I'd heard singles on the radio. Might have seen them open for another show, even. But this is the first true listening. Because this is the first time we put the disc in the tray, put on the headphones, and lose the world to the sound.

So, that's the excuse. Archers, for me, don't start with the “Might” single released prior to Icky Mettle in '94. Archers, for me, starts with Vee Vee. Archers, for me, start with “Step Into the Light.”

How does one do this without becoming that guy? How does one do this without boring the audience by being the old man ranting about how much better it was when he was young? I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know how to convey to non-believers the hook. It's like trying to explain heroine to a straight-edger. How could you even begin to do that? There's that kick/snare, and the simple walking guitar, all starting at once. There's the weird, broken, post-punk doo-wop chorus - “ooooooooo, ooooo” - as the bass and second guitar slides in. Then there's that weird tweaking, half plucked, warped out, deconstructed lead line from Big E. There's the low slung, perfect tone of Little E's rhythm work. And it just...builds. Without building. It just walks into and out of the shadows. Until, two minutes and 40 seconds into, Bachmann side-saunters in, as tweaked, and half-plucked, and warped out and deconstructed as the his guitar work. Trampled. Destroyed. Beyond repair or salvation.

“Step into the light; I'm tired of being in the dark and all alone. Step into the light.” Repeat. And then Little E and the backing vocals. As if you can call that backup. Around the 3:06 mark. There are so few moments of recorded music of which I can truly say this, but I promise you, if you can ever come to understand this moment of this song – where Little E comes in screeching “STEP INTO THE LIIIIIIIIIIIIGHHHTTT” off mic in the background as the bigger Eric half croons through his lead dirge, you will understand the healing power of rock and roll.

And as far as it goes, constructively speaking, that's it. That's the song. And it's fucking brilliant. And it fades. And then you're hit in the teeth with the boot heel of “Harnessed in Slums.”

I'm going to assume that if you're reading an off-the-beaten-path indie rock webzine's writeup of the Archers of Loaf's back catalogue you have heard “Harnessed in Slums” once or twice. I will assume you can shout it out loud. That said, I'll leave you to it, noting only two things. First, there's Little E again, at the 45 second mark, again off mic. “I WANT WASTE! WE WANT WASTE!” Crescendoing. Building. Teetering uncontrollably towards the song's pitch perfect pivot. Which, for the record, in case you're interested, is a single plucked, out of tune guitar string at the 1:37 mark.

I promise.

Slide into “Nevermind the Enemy.” Note the strategic use of the “truck backing up reverse siren warning sound” in the guitar lick. Note that sampling was not a new endeavor for Eric Bachmann when he moved to his solo work with Crooked Fingers. “Nevermind your friends. We'll make a joke of them.” Trust me on this one, okay? And oh, for the love of God, don't miss the line about halfway through that pushes full throttle into track four and previews the album's entire thematic structure. “Let's tack their earlobes to the radio.” I swear.

And that brings us to track four. “The Greatest of All Time.” I could literally write six or seven pages about this one song. I won't, because that would bore most people to tears. In fact, I think I'll just try to sum up as quickly as possible. “The Greatest of All Time” is the best track Archers of Loaf ever recorded. “The Greatest of All Time” is one of the top five songs recorded in the 1990s. “The Greatest of All Time” is the early-90s slacker-culture's gestalt answer to Don McLean's “American Pie.” It can not be understood without reference, in some way, to Ben Folds' (ironic) breakthrough hit “Underground.” If you can listen to this song and not howl along with the chorus - “Toasting to their heroes; toasting to their heroes; a toast to the dead heroes” - you were not alive and conscious for the better parts of my youth.

I swear.

So yeah, maybe I'm already that guy. Maybe there's not out to this trap. I'm probably alright with that, now that I think about it. I could continue with the track list, but if you're listening along, you should have it at this point. Everything forward harkens back to this moment. “The underground, is overcrowded.” Underdogs of Nipoma. Right there. “Scraping over matches and a microbrew.” “Since you're better at me than this...” All right there in GOAT. “The underground, is overcrowded.” Don't say we didn't see the tsunami of “indie rock” of the 2000s coming. We did. It's all right there. “Fabricoh's the favorite sound around. Watch the wholesale slaughter of the whole damned town.” Let The Loser Melt. “Underachievers, attack at your leisure.” The Worst Is Yet To Come.

Don't say we didn't warn you.

"Radical"

2011-07-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

This post was inspired by this conversation at BaseballThinkFactory.org, and this post from the always brilliant Don Malcolm of BigBadBaseball.

There's been a lot of talk recently about realignment in Major League Baseball. Much of that talk includes the term “radical” as a descriptor of proposed schemes. The so-called “radical” realignment scenarios usually involve a complete tear down of the existing American League/National League distinctions, to be replaced with a more holistic “Major League Baseball” aligned by geography. Much as the old American Football League was subsumed, becoming a conference in the NFL, the old AL/NL distinctions would become mere divisional semantics of the greater, realigned MLB concept.

There are a few very good reasons for realignment. Primarily, it is a problem of math. There are 30 major league teams. 14 play in the American League. 16 play in the National League. Each league is divided into three divisions. The NL Central has six teams (the other two divisions have five each.) The AL West has four teams (the other two divisions have five each.) The entire point of so-called “radical realignment is to move one of those NL teams to the American League in order to create six divisions (three per league) of five teams each. The problem with that theory is that in order to do that, you have to schedule and interleague game every day of the season, in order to make the math work for a 30 team league. And having interleague every day pretty much means you don't actually have two “leagues,” an AL and a NL. You have one league, with six divisions. This is what they call “radical.”

I hate the misuse of terms. I also hate small minded solutions that cower in the face of the actual problem. The problem isn't that MLB needs to move a team from the NL to the AL. The problem is that MLB has too few teams. The obvious solution isn't to create some sort of wonky 6x5 league with “interleague” play every day. The obvious solution is to add at least two teams.

At BTF, I suggested a team in Salt Lake City and another in Newark, NJ. Both would go into the AL, creating two leagues with 16 teams each. The basic layout of the leagues was thus:

AL EAST - BOS, NYY, BAL, NWK
AL CENT - CLE, DET, TOR, TBR
AL MIDW - CHW, KCR, TEX, MIN
AL WEST - SEA, SLC, OAK, LAA

NL EAST - NYM, PHI, WAS, PIT
NL SOUT - ATL, MIA, CIN, HOU
NL CENT - CHC, MIL, STL, COL
NL WEST - LAD, SFG, SDP, ARI

This alignment is the least radical possible. It literally solves the problem in the fewest steps, without switching franchises from their traditional leagues. Put a new team in Newark, playing in the AL East. Put a new team in Salt Lake, playing in the AL West. Play baseball. Simple. Easy. Not radical. The hardest part of this strategy would be to carve out a new franchise in existing New York Yankees territory, a problem I'd suggest be solved by eliminating the “luxury tax” system, wherein the Yankees, after crossing a certain threshold of payroll, have to pay other teams a “tax” from their coffers. A team in Newark cuts into the Yankees' gigantic market (as well as that of the Mets) so there's no reason to double penalize them for being, well, the Yankees.

This seems like a straight forward solution to me. But for some reason, the powers that be in MLB refuse to even consider expansion. I blame Bob Costas.

Regardless, after putting this together, I got to thinking about what a true “radical” plan might entail. Now, granted, as a former card-carrying radical of the radical school of radicality, I might have different ideas as to what plans could honestly use that moniker, but hey, it's my blog.

Going through the thought experiment, starting with a few grounding assumptions.

The proper direction is out, not in. MLB should be growing it's product, not shuffling pieces around the board with no real future-oriented strategy in mind.
The smallest market in baseball, currently, is the Milwaukee metro, with just under 1.7 mil people in its Combined Statistical Area. Rounding a bit, a million and a half is the smallest market size that would likely support a ML baseball team.
There are eleven (11!) markets in the United States larger than Milwaukee that lack a MLB team.

Orlando
Sacramento
Charlotte
Indianapolis
Columbus, OH
Las Vegas
Austin
Raleigh-Durham
Salt Lake City
Nashville
Greensboro, NC

Eleven markets! Eleven new potential baseball teams! Think of the radical possibilities. But wait. Let's balance our crazy with some realism. We're not 20-somethings with an irrational hatred of corporate coffee shops any more. Orlando, while over 2 million strong, is very close to Tampa and the Rays. And the Rays are having a hard enough time drawing customers as it is. Orlando's off the list.

Columbus, OH is actually a bit larger than Cleveland these days, and growing rather than shrinking, but Cleveland already has the stadium and the team. Columbus is too close to the Indians, so they're off the list too.

Three of the markets are in North Carolina. While NC is booming, I don't think it's ready to go from zero to three franchises over night. We'll leave Charlotte on the list, but remove the Raleigh-Durham Triangle and Greensboro from consideration. Marking those off as well, we're left with only seven potential expansion sites.

Sacramento
Charlotte
Indianapolis
Las Vegas
Austin
Salt Lake City
Nashville

You've got enough markets to bring in the two new American League teams, PLUS another division entirely. But you can't have a single, orphaned four- or five-team division off by itself. You need at least eight ne2 teams, in addition to the two new AL teams, to really expand. Luckily, we haven't even begun to exhaust the potential markets.

As I said earlier, the smallest market in MLB is Milwaukee, with just over 1.5 million people in it's Combined Statistical Area. The vast majority of MLB franchises operate within CSA markets of 1.5-6 million residents. BUT, there are a few notable exceptions. New York, as previously noted, has 22 million people, but only two teams. If we assume the City splits evenly (and there's no reason to gut punch Mets fans at this particular moment, so why not) that's 11 million per franchise. Clearly, the NYC metro can take another team. In fact, if we use the same math from above, wherein 1.5 mil people creates a metro-market to sustain an MLB franchise, NYC could support 14 franchises. FOURTEEN!

(Dear Yankees fans, if you want to know how it feels to be a Pirates or Royals fan watching your payroll eclipse theirs by factors of ten, think about having more than 14 competing teams in the metro area.)

Now, I'm a reasonable man. I don't think we should break the NYC metro up between 14 different teams. That's just silly. Assuming that some New Yorkers don't even like baseball at all, I'm fine with doubling the market size needed to support a single-franchise city for the multiple franchise model. You only need 1.5 mil or so to support a single team, but to support two teams you probably need 5 or 6 mil. Which is fine. Instead of 11 NYC teams, we'll only assign them with two expansion teams – one in Newark, NJ; another in Brooklyn. That's 5+ million citizens – or roughly the size of the entire Atlanta-Marietta-Sandy Springs metro area, per team. We now have an additional two franchises!

But there's no reason to single NYC out for the slice and dice. Los Angeles has just under 19 million people. Again, we'll be generous and just add a third franchise to the LA basin.

Chicago has 9-10 mil, but we've already added a new franchise to Indianapolis, which abuts South Chicago more or less, so we'll keep ChiTown as a two team city. But Boston has nearly 8 million people. No reason not to add a new NL team to Beantown.

At this point, we slide into the “just over 6 mil in population” cities. Dallas. Philly. Houston. Dallas, at near 7 mil and growing, could probably take a second team. We'll draw the line at Philly's 6.2 mil, unless we desperately need a final franchise to balance things out.

At this point we've added eleven new MLB teams.

Sacramento
Charlotte
Indianapolis
Las Vegas
Austin
Salt Lake City
Nashville
Brooklyn
Newark
Boston NL
Dallas NL

Imagine that league for a moment. Every major city in the country has a major league baseball team. Every franchise has a roughly equal market from which to draw fans. Sure, the historically manifest brands will maintain their position of dominance – not every Yankee fan in Jersey is going to burn his Cap'n Jetes jersey the day the Newark Sopranos open shop. But the field is a lot more even. And being that there are a ton more teams, you can cut the regular season drastically, have distinct leagues without interleague play, AND have a playoff structure that includes like, twenty friggin' teams. What could a Selig not love about this plan?

But wait. We're not done. There are some rather notable markets outside of the US boundaries, currently unserved by MLB. Let's assume you need 2-3 million unAmerican fans to support America's past time.

Mexico City, Mexico (22 m)
Guadalajara, Mexico (4.5 m)
Monterrey, Mexico (4 m)
Puebla, Mexico (2.6 m)
Juarez-El Paso, aka The Borderplex, Mexico/Texas (2.5 m)
Montreal, Canada (3.8 m)
Vancouver, Canada (2.3 m)
San Juan, Puerto Rico (2.6 m)
Havana, Cuba (2.1 m)

Okay, fine. Is it too radical to put a team in Castro's Cuba? Even considering the possibility of the “natural rivalry” between the Miami Marlins and the Havana Your-Family-Goes-To-Prison-If-We-Lose? Fine. Pussy. Call it another eight potential teams.

30 + 11 + 8 (with a second Philly team, and/or Havana in the wings) = 49. Forty-nine potential teams! Radical realignment.

AL EAST - BOS, NYY, BAL, NEWARK

AL CENT - CLE, DET, TBR, INDIANAPOLIS

AL TEXAS - TEX, HOU, AUSTIN, EL PASO

AL MIDW - CHW, KCR, MIN, NASHVILLE

AL WEST - SEA, OAK, LAA, VANCOUVER

NL EAST - NYM, PHI, WAS, BROOKLYN

NL SOUT - ATL, CIN, MIA, CHARLOTTE

NL CENT - CHC, MIL, STL, PIT

NL MTN – COL, SLC, VEGAS, ARI

NL WEST - LAD, SFG, SDP, SACRAMENTO/LA3

IL NORTH – TOR, MONTREAL, BOSTON-2, SAN JUAN

IL SOUTH – MEXICO CITY, GUADALAJARA, MONTERREY, DALLAS-2

There you go. A 48 team super league. 12 divisions of four teams each. And for you traditionalists out there, I've maintained both the Red Sox-Yankees and Cubs-Cards rivalries.

Win your division, go to the playoffs. Period. End of story. Scheduling to accommodate travel and balanced competition. No need for Mexico City to play the Yankees, so long as Mexico City and Monterrey play the same schedule. The MLB playoffs become a true World Series, a North American championship to put all other international competitions to shame. Hell, when it's all done and you have the champion challenge the Japanese and Korean leagues to play each other so that the winner would fly over and face off for global bragging rights.

Grow baseball. Level market access around the league. You know. Radicalism.

Math rock is hard

2011-04-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

This story, like all stories worth telling, begins with Charlie Brown. Specifically it begins with "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Last December the 'Sponge crowd and assorted hangers on tripped over to The EARL to partake in Atlanta's most hep-cat Christmas party - Jeffrey Butzer's annual performance of Vince Guaraldi's masterpiece, "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Hipsters and indie-rockers soaking up the modern jazz and totally dancing non-ironically to the Christmastide joy. With the Peanuts! It doesn't get much more cred-tastic than that, kids. Plus you get to do the Snoopy dance in public.

The 2010 show was opened by a local math-rock outfit called Sorry No Ferrari performing The Ventures' Christmas album (brilliantly titled "The Ventures' Christmas Album.") Going in I had heard neither the Ventures' Christmas album nor Sorry No Ferrari, so I was quite pleasantly surprised to completely lose myself in the surf-rock Yuletide. Yay, beaches! Yay, Christmas!

Between sets the lot of us were talking and socializing, as we are want to do. The subject of Sorry No Ferrari's latest album, 2010's "Ternary," came up. Christmas spirit. Excellent show just played. "Sure man, I'll review it! Send me the download link!" This is where it all goes wrong.

Now, all things considered, you wouldn't think it too hard to write up a CD, would you? I mean, give it an honest listen or three, open up a notepad and knock out a few paragraphs. Bang, bang, your done. It's April. Ain't no procrastination like a 'Sponge-man procrastination, my friend.

I was originally a little off-put by "Ternary." I came into the band blind, no experience or expectations other than the Christmas show. Did I expect a track list of holiday tunes in classic surf-rock style? Well, no. But I'm not sure I was really teed up properly for the mathy McMatherson mathematics of the math-rock either. Maybe that's why I never managed to spin it up properly and write the damned review. Yeah, that's it. Contrary expectations totally stole my homework.

Coming back to the disc a few months later, and knowing what to expect a little more going in, I'm far more grooved into the sound now. Sorry No Ferrari do straight up instrumental math-rock. (Have I mentioned the math yet?) Some other sites call them "heavy progressive," and I guess I can see that. They're certainly proggy, that's for sure. A lot of their riffs could be dropped into a Kings X or Rush song with little editing required. I'm not sure they qualify for what I would call "heavy" - I mean, I spent the darker days of last winter listening to GREYMACHINE, right? But still, I can see the descriptor as apt.

Now, being a music nerd from Atlanta and hearing a dueling-guitar, prime-numbers driven time signature instrumental math/prog band going full on at the craft, I can't help but compare SNF to local godfathers The Purkinje Shift. No, the youth doesn't match up quite yet. Who could? I'm not sure I'll ever see a drummer the likes of Scott Robbins again. But these guys are no slouches. They know their counting, and their time changes, and their intricate fret work. And the percussion adds in backbone - there's some double kicks in there, which is maybe where the "heavy prog" thing comes in - what it lacks for Robbins' percussive genius.

Listening to the disc is best done without reference to track breaks or track names. There's no real reason to try to note where "Ternary I" slides into "Ternary II," or where "Ternary III" melds into "Ashar" for that matter. The albums is a singular set, meant to be taken as a totality. There are no radio singles here. And that's good. It suits the genre.

Having finally come back to it, I'm pretty impressed with the disc and even more so with the band. "Ternary" is a solid five-sponge offering. Fans of the genre should love it, but it remains accessible and listenable to non-devotee ears. Sorry No Ferrari are an excellent set of musicians, and their ability to slide from their preferred style to spot-on renditions of surf-rock holiday standards speaks highly of their tastes and their ability. I shouldn't have put off listening so long.

The inevitable battle for second place

2011-02-25T16:34:00.000-08:00

Let's be honest, right? The Braves are playing for second place and the Wild Card. When the Phils went out and signed Cliff Lee to join "H2O" smart money just went ahead and penciled them into the World Series. In ink. The rest of us should be happy that our teams are allowed to be beaten mercilessly by our new Philadelphian Overlords. Not since the Mets brought in Johan Santana to team with Pedro Martinez and Mike Pelfrey has such an unstoppable juggernaut been unleashed in the NL.

Oh, but our passions are deep, and it is spring. Perhaps we can at least dream to one day hope. In this spirit that I present part one of A Series of Datum with Commentary In Tabular Format.

	2010 WAR	Commentary

Roy Halladay	6.9	Roy Halladay is really damned good.
Tim Hudson	5.4	Tim Hudson is better than the rest of the Phillies' rotation.
Roy Oswalt	5.1	Oswalt posted two straight years of 3ish WARs and was on track to do that again, until he went insane after the trade to Philly. He won't be insane again in 2011. He's 3-4 WAR pitcher.
Cole Hamels	4.7	Hamels is really good and young enough to still improve. He's Philadelphia's second best starter.
Cliff Lee	4.3	Very good, yet still extremely overrated.
Tommy Hanson	2.5	It doesn't take a Braves partisan to suspect that Hanson is primed, after two years of 2.5ish WARs, to move into the league of Hamels and Lee. He's 24.
Derek Lowe	1.7	For fun, I call Derek Lowe “The White Man's Kenshin Kawakami.” Outside of Joe Blanton Lowe is the most likely to just go whammo and suck completely in 2011. He's 38.
Jair Jurrjens	0.0	Jurrjens had an injury plagued 2010. In 2009 he posted a 5+ WAR. There's no reason to think he can't do that again when healthy for 2011.
Joe Blanton	-0.7	Aging mediocrity.
Mike Minor	-0.7	Up and coming #3.

Halladay sets himself apart from the rest of the field. That's obvious. And the Phils are more likely to get good pitching from their #4 guy (Oswalt) than the Braves (Lowe.) But Mike Minor is just as likely to out-pitch Joe Blanton.

The doom, it is overstated.

Pettitte Crimes and Miss Demeanors

2011-02-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

So yesterday we unveiled The Pettitte List to a rousing chorus of soused crickets. At the exact same moment Joe Posnanski was turning out some 7000 words on the best players of his lifetime, which you'd think would be enough, but was actually merely the intro bit for his thoughts on Gary Sheffield and the HOF. It's like synchronicity or something, wherein "synchronicity" means nothing remotely like what it's been used for in any real world language game to date.

Now Joe, as everyone knows, is the most beloved man in all of sports-writing. Some attribute this to his passion, encyclopedic knowledge of virtually every American game, intellectual honesty and mastery of the writer's craft. I personally attribute it to voodoo, but then again I tend to attribute pretty much everything to voodoo given the slightest option. Joe Posnanski, voodoo priest. Works for me.

Anywho, as these things go, The Pettitte List post generated like, twelve comments over at BTF, which is a new record for one of my bits not directly related to physical violence or Dan Szymborski's sub-basements. As such, we shall continue to ride this tiger. Because, dude, it's spring and I'm thinking about baseball again.

The Pettitte List: Gary Sheffield

1. Q: Does ~~Andy Pettitte~~ Gary Sheffield deserve to be inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame? A: No.

2. Q: Would anyone other than mindless Yankee fanboys, paid Yankee media shills or ~~Andy Pettitte's~~ Gary Sheffield's immediate family honestly believe... A: Wait! How close to me is Gary Sheffield standing? Because if he's within say, oh, sixty feet and six inches of my skull and he's waggling that bat around like he did and he's glaring at me the way he glared at pitchers, I want to change my vote.

2a. Q: You can't change your vote. You already answered the first question. A: But Gary Sheffield could hurt me if I say no. I once saw him almost nutsack a defender on a damned short hop line drive to left field. He was the terror of every third base coach that ever lived. Even the ones that died before he started Little League!

2b. Q: You've made your bed, now lie in it. A: He was Doc Gooden's cousin, too. Don Sutton told me so. Like, every single at bat for all of 2002-2003. Sometimes twice per at bat.

2c. Q: Does Sheffield's attitude or inclusion in the Mitchell Report alter the likelihood of you voting for Gary Sheffield for the HOF? A: No. The only thing that matters is how close he is to me physically and whether or not he is doing that bat waggle thing. Bat waggle at my head = "Yes." No bat waggle = "No."

3. Q: If ~~Andy Pettitte~~ Gary Sheffield gets elected to the MLB Hall of Fame, what would be the general reaction? A: I suspect the entire state of Milwaukee might disappear into a cataclysmic sink hole, which admittedly would be another reason to vote for the man.

Keltner Schmeltner, Pettitte Scones

2011-02-17T11:35:00.000-08:00

Way back in pre-history, before the internet and talking super-computer proto-gods, Bill James published the 1985 Baseball Abstract. The Abstract was a running publication where internet dorks talked about statistics before the internet even existed. It was printed on mule-skin with ink condensed by stomping the fruit of thistleberries into a fine pulp. Notably, this had to be done while the thistleberries were still living and attached to the thistles, because it only makes ink if the berries scream for their lives as you stomp.

Anyway, in the '85 Abstract James published one of his more famous pieces - The Keltner List. The Keltner List was a simple, non-mathematical series of 15 questions fans could ask about any given player to determine whether or not he was worthy of enshrinement in MLB's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. It's still quite popular even today, 25 years after first publication, usually as a conversation starter for recently retired borderline players (Javy Lopez, Gary Sheffield, etc.) The list is also still useful for its original purpose from 1985, which was to ask in a somewhat obtuse way the question "Seriously, some nutters actually thought Ken Keltner was worthy of a HOF vote??"

Alas, 25 years is a long on passing time, and our current Twitter-driven dialogue is short on attention span. It seems the list might be in need of some updating. In the spirit of brevity, concision and open handed giving, I humbly suggest Keltner be replaced with my new list of fewer, less difficult questions. I call it The Pettitte List.

1. Q: Does Andy Pettitte deserve to be inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame? A: No.

Much simpler, no?

If required, The Pettitte List may be expanded into Facebook posts as follows.

2. Q: Would anyone other than mindless Yankee fanboys, paid Yankee media shills or Andy Pettitte's immediate family honestly believe Andy Pettitte deserves to be inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame? A: No, and his wife wouldn't vote for him either if it were a secret ballot.

3. Q: If Andy Pettitte gets elected to the MLB Hall of Fame, what would be the general reaction? A: Murray Chass.

Consider this an opportunity for education and advancement.

2011-02-14T14:19:00.000-08:00

5 million BCE, drop out of the canopies. Better and more varied food sources. Discovery of wanderlust.

A million years later, bipedal motion. Extended hunting ranges. The ability to carry goods long distances. Grasping thumbs.

Two million years gone. Discovery of fire and the eating of meat. Brain size jumps from 700cc to 1300cc. The first stone tools, migration out of Africa and eventually, inexorably, internal combustion engines.

Monday, February 14, 2011 CE. Easy off of Howell Mill. Straight shot down the on-ramp through Northside. Kick to 4th before you even hit the interstate proper. 70-something and the throttle isn't halfway spun.

Grasping hands. Bipedal motion.

The waters part. Moses out of Egypt on I75. Whatever. Arrow straight slash across six lanes. All in for 6th before you hit the deceleration zone heading into the pivot.

60 degrees. No clouds. No humidity. Modern man and his machines. The fool has said in his heart there is no G*d. Oh, poor Guanilo, you sad sack medieval bastard. You had no idea.

Stomp back down to 4 for the turn. 200-odd degrees south to north. The pure, unadulterated laws of physics as holy texts. In on the high line. Flash the knee into the lean. Drag the toe. Boot on asphalt, the burdens of consciousness a distant dream. Read and react. Apex. Throttle. Kick. Throttle. Kick.

I am Jack's existential forgetting. I am Jack's unrepentant childish glee.

Just shy 6 million years of evolution, this little Japanese machine you've named after a fictional mercenary's favorite weapon and the chaos of weather systems too complex to conceive combine in this moment of pure Buddha-under-the-tree mindful emptiness. The fool has said in his heart. Poor, sad Guanilo. If only for a fleeting moment, the world is right and true.

Juliet, Naked - Day 7

2011-01-07T17:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't read any further. I've done work (good.) I've posted to Facebook (meh.) I've blathered about politics (pointless.) Mostly I've engaged in rancorous debate - no, that's not right. "Debate" is too formal a word. Mostly, I've argued like fighting pit-bulls with people on baseball sites who think steroids should disqualify players from the Hall of Fame (utterly, moronically pointless.)

I'll try to read more over the weekend, though I am currently devoting most of my free time to final mix of (yet) another CD. Which seems a reasonable anecdote to tell. At last year's Snake Whacking Day (another story altogether) I presented Paul with a special mix that I put together for his 40th birthday. Every year Paul mixes everyone a birthday CD, and way back in 1992 it was Paul who sort of set me off on this weird little "document your life by embedding secret, mostly impossible to discern messages to yourself into mix tapes of other people's art" project. My first mix tape made for public consumption - that is to say "not for a girl I was infatuated with" - was titled "I Am Paul's Dog." (That's a reference to a comic book from the early 90s, if you care.)

Anywho, I made Paul a 40th birthday mix and I gave it to him at Snake Whacking Day. At which point Squid, who I have also known nigh unto forever, asked "where's my birthday mix?" Now who feels like an ass? No, more than usual. So I have set about over the last month to mix Squid a CD, because he has a point. I'm currently running final track listings for that CD. (Yeah, see. I spend HOURS on track orders, blending the run time from one song to the next, maintaining some undercurrent or theme. I'm a complete OCD fucktard about that sort of thing.) When it's done, I'll write that up separately.

But that's why I haven't read any further in Juilet, Naked. I can't read about music geeks and their amazingly fucked up emotional and psychological compulsions because of my own music geekery and psychological compulsions. Yeah. I'm like that sometimes.

Divination in the time of cholera

2011-01-05T07:11:00.000-08:00

What's a gaming system without an expansion pack? Nothing, I tell you. Nothing! Just think of how quickly you'd get bored if all you ever did was wander around slaughtering kobolds all day. (The kobolds are not unlike the Irish that way.)

Previously on Buffy we defined our dice-based text selection algorithm, to no small applause from the audience. Today we proudly announce our first expansion pack, in which we add a couple more rolls - dude, just roll the dice a couple more times and sort it out; this ain't rocket surgery - and move past mere text selection straight on into full-fledged bibliomancy.

Bibliomancy. Oh Christ, look it up. Wiki is your friend.

Unable as we are to settle a singular "holy text" we have set our divinatory range to include the entire library. Initial rolls to select a given text for a given day are identical to previously-on-Buffy text selection. Once a text is chosen - or chooses us... MWHUHHAHAHAHA!!! Um...

Once a text is chosen, another set of multiple 20-sides choose a page, and a 6-, 8- or 12-side selects a paragraph. As required, one can add a final roll for sentence if so desired.

Today's Random Koan of Destiny comes from...

Zone 4 (Philosophy & and other hubristic texts), Shelf 3, Book 44 (The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten - 100 Experiments For The Armchair Philosopher), page 38, paragraph 6. (Beginning the count at the first full paragraphs actually takes us to the first paragraph of page 39, which is just fine by me. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and so apparently do my dice.)

"So when Mary sees colour for the first time, the world will appear a new way for her. But is it true to say she will know anything new about it? It may seem natural to say she now 'knows' what red looks like. But sometimes our ordinary ways of talking can blind us to the subtler distinctions a philosopher should take care to make."

Initial Cogitations and Ruminations:

Damn, this might actually be functional! I'm a genius.
Squid's First Axiom (The Document of POPGUN; self-published 1997) - "Subtlety is overrated."
Sam's First Corallary to Squid's First Axiom (POPGUN Hadith and Commentaries, unpublished) - "Brutality is it's own reward."

Juliet, Naked - Day 2

2011-01-02T18:24:00.000-08:00

There are three authors that, when I read them, both enchant and dismay me in equal parts. They are, in no particular order, Chuck Palahniuk, Chuck Klosterman and Nick Hornby. All three of those guys hit me in a very particular way. All three fascinate and disturb me in an all-encompassing, soul-shattering sort of way, usually at the same time. (The fascination and disturbing, not all three authors at the same time.)

On the one hand, each of them resonates with me at the deepest level. Each have the ability to turn out sentences and phrases and entire paragraph blocks that scan as if they were simply running dictation from my subconscious. Each seems to write from a place where I have lived some not insignificant portion of my adult life. (That place is probably most readily summed up as "indie rock scenesters from the '90s.) The overwhelming reaction when reading their novels and essays is identification-at-a-distance, and a sort of pride that someone is capturing this part of the world, this part of *my* world so elegantly, wittily and effectively. Reading either always provides a jolt of vicarious pride. "Yes! This is right. This is it. This is what we were about!"

At the same time, I am equally repulsed by the experience. If Nick Hornby, who lives in England and probably never set foot in any of the clubs or loved any of the bands I sweated and swore for, can effectively convey, with near perfect tone the fact of being there, and sweating and swearing for them nonetheless, that sort of explodes the idea that the experience itself was notably authentic. It suggests that the experience, absent the particulars - that my *life*, absent the particulars - rather than being spun up organically from cause and circumstance undeniably my own, was actually pretty close to "of a form." It suggests that my life probably has more in common with the "mass produced in China," "lowest common denominator" lives I so detest in say, Oasis fans, than I would ever want to acknowledge or believe. It drives a nagging suspicion deep into the gut, a little demon voice in the ear repeating over and over "the only difference between you and 'N Sync fans was that you tuned the radio dial into lower bandwidths; mere form, not function."

Which is to say, it tells me that I am no a beautiful and unique snowflake, and that makes me want to go destroy something beautiful.

All of which is a rambling attempt to frame my state of mind when reading the first few chapters of "Juliet, Naked." (In my first sitting I've made it through the first listen to Naked on the beach.) On the one hand, I already *heart* this novel, in the same way I just more or less man-crush on anything Hornby writes. I know these people already. I've known them for decades, even though I just learned their names last night. I know them, and I am them. These are my people, my tribe. Obscurantist musical obsessives. Occultist devotees to the healing and destructive powers of rock and roll. Socially awkward misfits whose strongest connections to other human beings often occur via chat rooms, BBS and "social networks." Yes. I know these people. Fuck me, how I know these people.

On the other hand, I want to pike Nick Hornby's head, burn his bones and salt the ground we sink him into while chanting the Latin equivalent of "get out of my head, you limey bastard; get out of my fucking head!"

With that said, the term "Croweologist" is fantastic. Even more so if you've ever spent three months attempting to explain to a sweet little strawberry blond with the most perfect Savannah-area lilt exactly why Superchunk's "Foolish" is the greatest break-up album ever recorded.

Left to his own devices, the dork will always out

2010-12-31T19:20:00.001-08:00

I was supposed to be in Rome, GA tonight, spending the New Year's Eve with family in anticipation of a "Resolution Run" 5K tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, the lovely missus was taken down by some nasty congestion/coughing thing, so those plans are kaput. Which is probably just as well, considering that a band of tornado spinning storms are due to hit the area about the time said 5K was due to kick off. So we'll be ringing in 2011 from Ye Olde Loftstead in the city.

Which means I have a lot of time on my hands. And a lot of time on my hands means schemes. Mad schemes. Like a fish to water, baby. It's sort of what I do.

One thing I'd like to do more of next year is read books. I had a bad year for reading in 2010. When I did get a chance to read, I tended to get sidetracked by ugly political arguments instead. I'm looking to ratchet that down a little in 2011, and I hope to devote my regained time to reading more. I have an assload* of texts in the house, and I'll inevitably buy more as the year goes on, so my first requirement if I'm going to carry through on this resolution is to define some sort of system to keep me focused. To that end, let me share with you my new library selection methodology.

Step 1: Dig your old D&D dice out of the closet. (Please, do not try me with that 'I don't have D&D dice, those were for dorks!' gambit. Just get the damned dice and stop pretending.)

Step 2: Devise your system. Break your library into six zones, to be associated with a 6-sided standard die. Each zone should have no more than 20 individual shelves. (If your library is large enough that this is a problem, you may expand your six-sided "zone" die to an 8-, 10- or 12- sided solution.) Standard shelves will hold between 40 and 50 books. I have selected two 20-sided + one 10-sided die for book selection. Of course, if you want to go three 20-sided that's perfectly feasible too.

Step 3: Roll to hit.

Okay. You're good to go. From your 6-sided die, find your zone. From your first 20-sided roll, choose a shelf. From your 50-60-sided rolls find your book. I simply count left to right, personally, what with my not being of Hebrew or Arabic lineage. Of course, should you be a right to left reader, feel free. Just don't touch the Torah, dude. Seven years bad luck, that.

And the winner is...

Nick Hornby; Juliet, Naked.

Yes. I really did just create a more or less random text selection algorithm using old gaming dice. What? Did you think I had suddenly become something other than a dork while you weren't looking?

I think I shall blog this experience all year.

s/

Not to be greedy, but...

2010-07-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

If the managerial style of Bobby Cox can be summed up in one pithy phrase, it is this: "win the series." He, and his teams, figure if you take 2 out of 3 more often than not, you're going to be in the running for the title at the end of it all. He is, of course, absolutely correct. I very rarely find issue to argue with Cox' managerial tendencies. Even the bullpen usage. But for the next three games, I will suggest that the "win the series" strategy is good, but not optimal.

After today's travel day, the Braves open the final series of the "first half" in New York. Three against the second place Mets and then the All-Star break to rest up and recuperate a bit. In the absolute worst of case, the Braves get swept in Citi and go into the break tied for first in the NL East. Lose 2 of 3 and they take a one game lead into the break. Win 2 of 3 and the lead is 4.

But if they sweep the Mets...

Six games up on the second place team, be it the Mets alone or the Mets and Phillies (if the Reds get swept by PHL) is a commanding lead to open the second half. Make it so.

Where to sit at Turner Field

2010-03-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

This is a public service announcement. This is only a public service announcement.

This is Turner Field:

The main gates to Turner Field are located on the north side of the stadium, leading into the plaza that abuts the outfield pavillion seats. Secondary gates are located along the north-eastern and north-western facades.

The best seats are located in the red (Dugout Level) or black (Field Level or Pavillion Level.) Ticket prices increase as you move closer to home plate.

Any seat in the lower levels along the 1B or 3B lines will have perfect sight lines of the field of play. Sections 108-107 (around the curve of home plate) are protected by netting. This can slightly obscure views if you're *really* into perfect sight lines.

Seats in the outfield Pavillion areas are slightly blocked by the "moat" that separates the field of play (and the OF wall) from the stands. The moat is about three feet wide and prevents yahoos from interfering with the games. Yankee Stadium could have taken the hint.

Seats in the terrace and club levels provide shade. This is not to be scoffed upon during Georgian summers.

Seats in the upper decks are cheap for a reason. You're WAY far away from the baseball up there.

The best seats for the buck, IMHO, are in the outfield Pavilion. I will not tell you the precise section number, for fear that you will buy my seats. That would be sad and make me cry.

Parking, should you drive, is available in multiple lots to the north and east of the stadium. There are smaller, non-official lots to the south and west of the stadium, but the further you go in that direction, the more likely it is that your stereo will not be waiting for you when you return.

This has been a public service announcement.

Sam Hutcheson's Top 11 Sabrenerd Baseball Dork's* Basements

2010-02-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

Last week Chris Jaffe wrote a column at The Hardball Times where he listed his personal ranking of Major League Baseball team names. It generated more comments than any of his actual research related posts, so he followed it up with another inane list, this time of MLB stadiums.

In the ensuing Baseball Think Factory melee, "DL from MN" said:

"What we really need is a tongue-in-cheek article rating various mom's basements since nobody here actually watches a real game."

Let no man accuse me of not knowing my sweet spot.

10. Aaron Gleeman lives like royalty in his three hundred acre, Sun King style palatial estate. He dines on freshly braised lamb shank and hangars of Kobe beef prepared on site by one of his legion of cult-like devotees. He has but to snap his fingers and dancers culled from the prettiest women in the entire Upper Midwest appear from the wings for his entertainment. As he speaks his wisdom, an army of stenographers record his every utterance, in the manner of Thomas Aquinas. Nonetheless, Aaron is an unhappy and angstful man, prone to fits of depression and violent anger, because, let's face it, he still lives in Minnesota.

9. Dayn Perry blogs from a corner cubicle from within the Fox Network compounds located in suburban Connecticut. He can see Sean Hannity's head just over the partition wall if he stretches his neck just so. His coworkers often talk bad about him behind his back, as they believe the constant smell of urine and human feces indicates that he is a "dirty f*cking hippie" and needs a bath. In fact, that's just the lingering smell of Shea, which never washes out.

8. Craig Calcaterra splits time between his home offices in Ohio, where he wears Spongebob pajamas and plays board games with his children, and his new digs in Conan O'Brien's old Tonight Show studios, where he wears Spongebob pajamas and plays fetch with Andy Richter.

7. Tom Tango blogs from a sphere of pure, crystalline mathematics, the complexity and perfection of which you could never hope understand.

6. No one has the heart to tell Joe Sheehan that it's only a model.

5. I've never been to P. W. Hjort's basement, but I wanted to point out that more people should read his blog.

4. All lines of sight into Chris Jaffe's basement are blocked by his hair.

3. Every piece of furniture in Rob Neyer's well apportioned man cave is woven entirely out of flannel, except the 12-foot tall ice sculpture entitled "Lord James in Repose", which is carved from the frozen tears of pure, unrequited love.

2. Dan Szymborski inhabits a warren of catacombs that lead directly into the Baltimore sewer system, and thus eventually to the Mountains of Madness. Upon entering the upper levels, the visitor is inundated by cacophonous sensual overload. The tinkling of classical piano distracts the ear, while the eye struggles to find purchase upon the constantly shifting, shimmering reflective glaze of 12,000 old hubcaps stolen from passing motorists. The olfactory senses are overwhelmed by the intermingled scents of votive candles, burning frankincense and myrrh, and the stench of the Elder Gods that Lie Beneath. There is also an undertone of the piles and piles of chicken bones thrown across the floor. Contrary to popular belief, Dan does not use these in his voodoo-like ZIPS divinations. Rather, they're just leftovers from the WingStreet deliveries last week.

1. Chris Dial lives in a comfortable, split level ranch in Cary, North Carolina. His daughter, quite thankfully, takes after her mother.

*actual title and ownership held by moms

AC Newman and His Very Special Episode of Friends

2010-02-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

Previously on Buffy: It's a young man's game, and young is a passing phase.

I'm about to delete seven paragraphs that have been written and re-written ten times. I'm going to do this because this piece has become a microcosm of why I stopped writing about music. Searching for some sort of "in" I've muddied the waters entirely. There's no clarity at all. I started with a simple premise. After sorting through my preliminary "best of" lists for the 2000s, I found a godawful number of records attributable, more or less, to AC Newman. I wanted to call out the fact that between four excellent New Pornographer discs and his two solo albums, Newman had released an ass-ton of quality music over the decade and should be lauded accordingly.

Then I got sidetracked. I got off topic for a while on Newman's pre-Pornos work with Zumpano. Somehow that led into a tangent about SubPop's search for a post-grunge identity at the end of the 90s, and then all of a sudden I was talking about the Shins. What the fuck? This is why I stopped writing in the first place. I found myself tossed between repeating the same stock judgments over and over - "AC Newman is a pop genius and the new album is fantastic!" - or searching endlessly for some hipper-than-thou twist that would blur the repetition some subtle bit. I got to the point where I hated to read my own work, and that's not a place any writer should be. I have no intention of going there again. So I'm deleting all of this shit and starting over.

AC Newman released six albums in the last ten years that I would say he "owned" creatively. As the driving force behind The New Pornographers, he owns their sound. Yes, the band builds in layers on the "supergroup" concept, mixing Dan Bejar's avante pop with Neko Case's indie-twang chanteuse voice, but the crux of the matter has always been Newman's 60's era counter vocals and interwoven melodies. To understand this, one need only listen to a solo album by the three primary contributors. Bejar and Case each have very distinct solo sounds. An AC Newman record is basically a New Pornos disc with other players filling in for Bejar and Case.

Of the six Newman led albums of the decade, you could have a raucous debate for supremacy. While I might be convinced that 2005's Twin Cinema is the most fully realized of all the work, at the end of the day I always return to the record that originally sold me.

Mass Romantic is probably the decade's most revered album that absolutely no one listened to when it came out. Released in the holiday dead zone of 2000, on tiny little Mint Records out of Vancouver, the disc floated aimlessly in no man's land for most of the winter. But word of mouth kept building about this so-called "Canadian supergroup" and their sold out tour dates. I eventually picked it up on the strength of Stomp-n-Stammer's recommendation (itself driven by the Jeff Clark's drop-jaw lust for the much ballyhooed Case). At the turn of the century Mass Romantic's intricately layered combination of crunchy, fuzzed-up guitars, light, intertwining synths and over-dubbed vocal melodies was a revelation.

The album kicks off with the title track, an infectious little pop number with more hooks than that guy from Hellraiser. The first thing you hear is Kurt Dahle counting off, sticks clicking out an up tempo in standard time, then the immediate kick of the rhythm guitar, slightly distorted, curt and syncopated, hitting on the half beats. Duh-unh, duh-duh-unh... Behind it a synthesizer tweets out a little riff designed to sink into the listener's reptilian brain. (This before "tweet" became associated with public sharing of insipid half-thoughts by a generation of ADD sufferers.) Twelve bars in and there's Neko, singing out something completely indecipherable. "Mass romantic fool wears Foster Grants his books on tape rings true, like everyone wants to say I love you to someone on the radio (radio.)" Indecipherable, not such that you can't understand the words, but in the sense that until Turing did his maths Enigma was indecipherable. I challenge anyone to make sense of this code.

But that's the beauty of the project. You don't need it to make sense. You have the hooks, thrown at you in such numbers as to assure something catches your skull broadside. You have those damned rhythm chords chunking out the time. You have the synths snaking there way around your spinal cord, leaving a cottony, novocaine numbness in their every wake. And then, just as you're beginning to realize that you're already caught, they throw Neko at you.

Until Mass Romantic Neko Case was thoroughly pigeonholed within the alt-country scene. Her work to date had been a mediocre debut, The Virginian, followed up by the thoroughly excellent Furnace Room Lullaby (we'll come back to that one later). Her fame and popularity, such that it was, rested on her status as the underground's new Patsy Cline, belting out torchlight standards atop steel guitars in smoky backroom bars. Also, she tended to disrobe during her shows. We indie rocker dorks, we do love it when a pretty woman strips while singing for us. I'm pretty sure that Case puts on extra sweaters prior to shows just to facilitate this sort of semi-burlesque, but I digress.

The point is that up until the thirteenth bar of the self-titled opener of Mass Romantic no one south of Minnesota had ever considered Case as a *pop* singer. We were young and foolish I suppose.

I am thoroughly convinced that, had Newman not had the foresight to open this record with a Case song, The New Pornographers would not have been the sensational success they turned out to be. Certainly, as we move further into the record we find gems being led, vocally, by Newman himself. The second track, "The Fake Headlines," is a Newman song. But our willingness to listen hinges on the insane catchiness of the opener, and that relies notably on our preexisting love affair with Neko Case. (The term "Beatles-esque" gets thrown around so often in writings about music as to make it nearly meaningless, but if you want to know what it *should* mean, listen to the intro to "The Fake Headlines.") By the chorus Case has melted back into the mix and we're presented with the most unexpected of things: a band, rather than a collection of contributors. And then we swing, fully immersed, into the strongest track on the album.

I'm not sure, exactly, how to convey my love of "The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism" without falling into the same sort of cliched hipsterisms that drove me to stop reviewing music in the first place. There's that bended synth intro bit, just those three or four seconds of warped up, computer generated growl before the rhythm section and accompanying keys kick in. There's the catchiness of Newman's vocals. There's the subject matter of the lyrics with their happy conveyance of a life lived in scenes drowned in more than sound. And then there's the falling bridge that drops you into the first chorus. Mostly, it's that bridge. Pick it up somewhere near the 50 second mark and listen: "I say my, my, my slow descent; into alcoholism it went..." and it's right there, that guitar+snare run of sixteenths dropping you bodily onto the chorus as Neko rises to the fore vocally. "Something like THIS song; something like this song; something like this song...." Salvation holdout central indeed. I am a simple man with simple needs. I love this damned song.

It doesn't let up. The first eight tracks of the album are all outstanding, the run from "Slow Descent" to "Jackie" and "Letter From An Occupant" never lets go. You're all the way to track nine, "Execution Day," before you get to a song that is merely good. And that's it. That's the low point for the entire album. "Centre* For Holy Wars" grabs you by the lapels again, immediately tossing you defenseless and gasping for air into the maw of "The Mary Martin Show," a song that competes with "Slow Descent" in stupid, glittery brilliance. The Pornos at least let you down gently with the closer, "Breakin' The Law."

As I said, Newman would go on to spin this sound into six high quality releases over the course of the decade, all of them worthy of a few bucks tossed across the counter culture. As I said, as I always do, I tend to gravitate toward the albums that first hooked me - Mass Romantic and 2003's Electric Version. That's just me. I know folks who could argue convincingly that 2005's Twin Cinema is the best album of the decade. (I have my own thoughts on that.) 2004's solo, The Slow Wonder, is a fantastic record. All of them work on that same 60's pop "wall of sound" thing. Taken as a whole, you're talking about six releases of high quality and merit. It's rare that you stumble onto an artist that can turn out two or three. Here's looking forward to May's release of New Pornos #5.

Mass Romantic (2000) - 7sponges**
Electric Version (2003) - 5sponges
Twin Cinema (2005) - 6sponges
Challengers (2007) - 5sponges
The Slow Wonder (2004) - 5sponges
Get Guilty (2009) - 4sponges

*They're Canadian. They spell things funny.
**For better or worse, I will always default to the EvilSponge rating system.

Speaking of Troy Glaus...

2010-01-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

The Braves are depending on the guy to play first base and anchor the offense behind Chipper. A lot of ink has been spilt regarding the nature of this gamble. Most of it is tinged to no small extent with "is this all" bitterness. I understand the bitterness. Expectations were set higher than an injury rehab, flipping Javy Vazquez for Melky Cabrerra and a LOTTO, and Eric Hinske. Nonetheless, deflated expectations is no reason to frag the analysis on what Glaus is likely to bring to the table. 33 years old, which isn't young but isn't Chipper either. Prior to last year's season lost to shoulder surgery he posted four straight years of 120-something OPS+. Gets on base and hits the ball hard. What's not to love?

Oh, you say, it's the whole shoulder surgery thing? I can understand that. But here's the thing. No one outside of the Braves' (and maybe the Cards') medical staff know a good damned googly shite about Troy Glaus' shoulder. Mark Bowman and Dave O'Brien don't know anything about it. Neither Szymborski and Tango and whomever is doing projections at BP these days have a singular clue about it. None of the great unwashed blogging hordes know a damned thing. (I include Will Carroll here.) All of which means that Glaus represents the worst possible scenario for the sabremetric cognoscenti. He is a case for which we have no reliable data. He quite literally can't be predicted. The most important factor anyone would need is locked tight underneath the medical staff's non-compete clauses and Glaus' right to privacy.

With that said, we are solely dependent on the Braves' word. It's a position we never feel comfortable in, but it is the case nonetheless. Atlanta says Glaus is likely to hit his bonus metrics, all of which hinge on playing time. The Braves believe Glaus' shoulder will be fine. Considering how dead on accurate they were regarding John Smoltz' shoulder last year, I see no reason to not believe them. Until shown otherwise, I'm pencilling Glaus in for 265/365/480. I'll take a 120 OPS+ in the cleanup spot, thank you very much. Considering the Casey Kotchman Horror of 2009, that's a nice thing to look forward to.

30 Somethering - Thoughts on the Aughts Part I

2010-01-11T09:48:00.000-08:00

In which we introduce our new project to average TWO posts per month this year...

There comes a point in life where a man just has to admit it. It's a young man's game, and young is a passing phase.

For me, the definitive moment came when Paul asked me to put together a best-of list for the 2000's. That's when it really hit me hard. I am no longer hip to the indie, kids. I no longer live on the razor's edge. There was a time...oh yes, there was a time; drink and drank and drunk, and pogo in you head everybody. But alas, no more. My liver has tired. I started the decade more or less in tune with the ebb and flow of the underground but somewhere in the middle I'm pretty sure I lost sight of the shore. I'm no longer getting too old for this shit, I am already too old for this shit. I am an old man. I have old man biases. So be it. You have been warned.

Back before affixing "post" or "gaze" or "core" to any existing genre became acceptable form for describing some "new" style a bunch of us were searching for some way to describe the nascent sounds that would eventually coalesce into "post-rock." This was early- to mid-90s, before there was an Evilsponge, back when we were just sitting around Paul and Tracy's apartment, drinking beer and spinning discs, passing the time before that weekend's show. It was proto-sponge, a drink in every hand, and we were trying to figure a descriptive for this new sort of sound seeping out of the empty spaces. I'm pretty sure it was Paul, in a fit of wit and pique, who finally came up with the phrase "Slint-damaged bands."

In a lot of ways, I think of the 2000s as a Slint-damaged decade. This isn't so much a criticism as a statement of direction. To my ear, the last ten years have been dominated by artists exploring the edges of traditional song*. Whether it be the found-recordings/orchestral mash-ups of Godspeed! You Black Emperor, the proto-jazz freakouts of Do Make Say Think, or the hazy experimental electronica of Radiohead since "Kid A" it seems like music has been more concerned with introspection and soundscaping than, you know, writing a singable song. From post-rock to math-core to drone to sludge-metal, it's all dominated by experimentalism, off beat time signatures, and the disappearance of the human into the void. None dare call it prog, but it has left me feeling somewhat disconnected from the times. While I appreciate a good wonkish digression now and again - oh Jesu, how thou doth dismantle my very concept of being and time - I am a rock guy at heart.

My basic relationship to music was defined by Chuck Berry right at the very start. I got no kick against modern jazz, unless they try to play it too darn fast. But lose the beauty of the melody? Well, in that case you've probably lost me too. I want that back beat, the kick and the snare, the hook that brings you back. I want that riff that catches you in the gut and slings you around the room until you're so much meat pudding. I want lyrics worth belting out in the solitude of hours long commutes and the anger and heartache that drives them. I'm a rock guy. I'm a pop guy. I'm a fuzzed out bass and distortion marred guitar guy. I'm a lyrics worth paying attention to guy. What can I say? It's gotta be rock-roll music if you wanna dance with me.

All of which is a roundabout way to say that I expect some might find my tastes a little retrograde. I consider "Kid A" to be more tragedy than artistic expansion. I can't listen to Animal Collective for more than two minutes without a reflexive "WTF?!" I'm a soul adrift, a man without a country. Mine was a decade out of step. Much like the preceding twenty years I spent the last ten immersed in power punk and swampy blues rock, Brit-pop and twang-infected Americana. It is what it is, and if you're still with me, it's just this. I'm a rock guy. These are my favorites from the last ten years. Your mileage may vary. These results may not be typical. All returns require receipts. We hope you enjoy your stay.

*for the purpose of this exercise we will pretend that hip-hop does not exist

Tomorrow: In which we actually start with the lists...

Obligatory baseball comment that gives Darren cover for posting this to BBTF: Troy Glaus and Chipper Jones will both crack 30+ HRs in 2010. It will be Chipper's last truly magnificent effort before he fades quietly into his Cooperstown reward.

The Thinking Fan's Guide to Avoiding Fox Sports

2009-10-06T13:22:00.001-07:00

Leaving out the truism "no one cares about your blog", let's start with the obvious.

1. Real baseball is over and only losers and mouth-breathers care about the round-robin silliness currently being played.

2. Any devoted baseball fan would be knee deep in what-if analysis for winter roster building.

To sum up, we have six starting pitchers, no established closer, no first baseman, question marks at 2B and the OF corners, and Chipper looks really old all of a sudden. What to do? What to do?

Matt Diaz? Real deal starting OF at the ML level or do we need to keep Church around as a LH caddy?

Jordan Schafer or Jason Heyward out of spring?

Re-sign LaRoche for 3/25?

Make a run at Holliday or Bay (dropping Hudson's option, obviously)?

If Wren manages to trade Lowe's last three years is he the best manager in all of baseball?

Inquring minds...

Approaching the speed of ground

2009-09-06T12:35:00.000-07:00

I am currently in the early stages of a full blown existential crisis. This is not a new experience for me. I am a philosopher, by training and inclination. I sail these semi-roiling seas with some regularity. With that said, this particular incarnation of the troubles has some unique characteristics.

In the standard operational existential crisis Sam will retrieve a work from his philosophy bookshelf (segregated and kept distinct from the fiction shelves from which he and Lisa will visit more frequently), read or re-read some text or another, have a spin on the "what the hell am I doing with my life" carousel before falling placidly back into the numb stupidity of modern American consumerism.

While I have been re-reading Marcuse (and more recently - as in just today - Tom Frank and Guy Debord) this particular manifestation is less centered on a given text and more focused on the bookshelf itself.

More specifically I am currently sitting in my office chair, staring *at* my philosophy bookshelf and waiting quietly for *the shelf itself* to decry some meaning. I am attempting to read the shelf itself as a text.

Many folks will find this act to be somewhat odd and bordering on the irrational. Others will note the sign-signature-meaning relationship inherit in the consideration. I'll give equal weight to both parties in this instance.

Desparetely seeking David (Norman)

2009-07-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

We need David Norman back for eyes-own assessments of minor leaguers. Very few of my business trips take me to Danville or Myrtle Beach. Nonetheless, some notes of interest from the farm.

The Myrtle Beach Sun News confirms that three Pelicans have been promoted to AA-Mississippi. Top of the class is the Braves offensive version of Tommy Hanson. Jason Heyward is only 19 but was tearing up Carolina League pitching to the tune of 296/369/519. That .519 SLG% stands out considering his home park is notoriously pitcher friendly. Heyward projects to relieve Atlanta of our long Frenchified nightmare in RF come 2011. If he fares well in MS this year he could skip AAA-Gwinnett altogether. He's that good.

Heyward is to Tommy Hanson as Freddie Freeman is to Kris Medlen. Overshadowed and rightly so, Freeman still projects to take over 1B in Atlanta about the same time Casey Kotchman goes free agent (2011.) Freeman posted a better than respectable 302/394/447, again in MB's power-killing Coastal Field.

Pelican closer Thomas Palica gets the call to MS as well. The 21 year old was striking out a man an inning with decent K/BB rates, continuing his solid relief work from last year (in A-Rome.) With that said, he's a minor league closer. Nothing projects until he's striking out a man an inning in AAA, at the least.

Looking down the line at Rome's roster, no one seems to be demanding a shot at replacing Heyward or Freeman at the next level. No announcements have been made aside from the flip-flopping of Matthew Kennelly and Jesus Sucre at catcher. Kennelly tore the cover off the ball in Rome, was promoted to MB where he was completely overmatched. He's on his way back to Rome and Sucre takes his spot on the Pelicans roster. You might see Gerardo Rodriguez promoted to fill Freeman's slot at 1B but there's no "prospect projection" concerning a 21-year old 1B hitting 258/301/475 in A-ball.

The franchise may get creative and have some of this year's draft class skip the Sally altogether. This year marked a notable (and noted) change in draft strategy for the Braves, where they ditched their tradition high-school heavy draft in favor of college and junior college players. In early action, that strategy has succeeded as they have quite a few players killing the ball at Danville.

Most notable is a big ju-co first baseman taken out of Nova Southeastern University (Ft Lauderdale, FL) in the 16th round. Aside from hitting a monstrous 543/575/857 (yeah, that's BA/OBP/SLG) in his first 40 professional plate appearances, the 21 year old South African also replaces Jarrod Saltalamacchia as the jersey-tailor's worst nightmare. Riaan Spanjer-Furstenburg. The Braves have a history of promoting across levels with superb talent out of their foriegn rookies league. Yunel Escobar jumped a level after posting a 1200+ OPS there, for example. It wouldn't be shocking if Spanjer-Furstenburg replaced Freeman for the Pelicans. Similarly, 21 year old Adam Milligan (439/500/756 in 41 at bats) is a reasonable replacement for Heyward in the OF.

On a side note, we'd love to see Boog Sciambi and Joe Simpson have to stumble through an inning of Spanjer-Furstenburg at first and Daniel Elorriaga-Matra catching. Make it a DH league so we can fit backup 1B Ryohei Shimabukuro in as well.

Last note: there are whispers that Brooks Conrad, 2B from Gwinnett, is on the verge of a call-up. Not sure who he would replace on the big league roster. He might outhit Diory Hernandez but he doesn't list as a SS. Kelly Johnson is out of options, but a "stress related" DL stint might send him to AAA to straighten out his swing

Lyricism is just another four letter word

2009-06-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday night John Smoltz stepped onto the field wearing his new team's colors, toed the rubber of Nationals Park and threw a pitch in anger. It was his first start without a tomahawk on his chest in twenty-plus years. He was amped up, wild and very hittable in his first inning of work, but then settled down and turned in a useful performance. In all honesty it looked quite a bit like his first start upon returning to the rotation in Atlanta, after his closer years. No matter how hard I grimaced and whispered vile curses under my breath, his shoulder did not fall off. Sometimes Little Baby Jesus is just plain worthless.

Prior to the start the Washington Times ran a piece by Thom Leverro headlined "Smoltz is the last of a dying breed." Ignoring for the moment that Smoltz is not in any way shape or form the last of a dying breed; hurlers across baseball, from Smoltz' new teammate Josh Beckett to his old team's newest phenom Tommy Hanson are proof positive that smoke-throwing righties with wicked breaking balls are far from joining the dodo and long relief specialist on the extinction rolls; I must protest.

Generally I avoid the "a sportswriter wrote something wrong" meme. There just doesn't seem to be much sport in shooting those poor barrelled up fish. Rather than venting about something less than insightful someone else said, I'd rather spend my time saying something insightful. Or in the absence of that, blindly yelling rage into the void until some god of some heathen realm brings me a second bloody World Series banner. But in this case, I must protest.

Loverro's lede reads easily enough.

Washington fans, watch John Smoltz closely Thursday night when he makes his first start in a Boston Red Sox uniform. He is the last dinosaur, the one surviving member of a species that dominated the pitching mounds of major league fields for more than 20 years.

Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux - as lyrical and historic a trio as Tinkers, Evers and Chance - should go down in baseball lore as well because when Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux were the identity of the Atlanta Braves from 1993 to 2003, they were the class of the game.

You want to give him points for trying. It's never a bad thing for a writer to make a note greatness. It's just that, well, it's wrong. Doubly wrong.

First, it is wrong on the baseball facts. Atlanta never fielded a rotation of Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux. Yes, of course they fielded rotations that included those three pitchers - many of them in fact. The entire concept "the Braves of the 90s" hinges on those three taking the hill, one after another, year after year. Any baseball fan worth her pink hat should know as much. But the Braves never fielded a rotation of Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux. No. Rather, year after year after year, the Atlanta Braves ran out a rotation of Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz.

Am I picking nits? Probably. But it's a nit worth the time.

From his arrival in 1993 through is departure in 2003 Greg Maddux was less than the best pitcher on the Atlanta Braves exactly once; during Kevin Millwood's monstrous 1999 campaign. (We can haggle over 2003 if you really want to go to the wall for Mike Hampton. I won't stop you, but I won't join you there either.) He wasn't always the Opening Day starter. He wasn't always the fan favorite. But every year, like clockwork, he was the best pitcher on the team. More often than not he was the best pitcher in the game.

After Maddux came Glavine. Granted, in any other rotation Glav would have been the ace, but the Braves of the 90s were far from any other rotation. That's kind of the point. Glavine wasn't merely a "second ace", though he was. He was a second ace who was clearly second tier to Maddux' mastery. That's not to demean Tom Glavine's skill and talent. It's no shame to finish second to the third greatest pitcher of all time.

Smoltz was the third starter. Always. Again, this isn't meant to hack at Smoltzie's shins - explode shoulder, explode! This is merely an attempt to set the record straight. Much like Glavine, Smoltz would have been a #1 starter on virtually any other team. Just not in Atlanta. Not with Maddux and Glavine ahead of him. A current day comp for Smoltz in the team's heyday might be Carlos Zambrano. Wicked, overpowering stuff; a bit of a head case (Smoltz had his own personal "sports psychologist" on staff); capable of dominant performances on any given day but prone early on to bouts of erratic wildness.

All of which is, once again, picking nits. Outside of pedantic disgruntled fans I'm sure Loverro's poetic license won't stick in craws. But for the record, as a pedantic disgruntled fan, he's wrong on the facts. Top to bottom, it was always Maddux, then Glavine, then Smoltz. And that brings us in turn to Loverro's second mistake.

Again, this is not a gaffe I'd normally jump on, as I don't personally hold the sports beat to high standards of composition and style. But the writer himself brings it up, and then proceeds to butcher it completely, and that bears mentioning. In addition to being wrong on the baseball facts, Loverro is wrong on the poetics.

The "lyrical and historic" trio is "Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz." Say it aloud. Let the syllables roll off of your tongue. Feel the words alive in your mouth. Taste their sound. Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz. Notice how the hard consonants hit precisely as the next man strides to the hill.

MAD-duhks. GLAV-en. sMOltz.

Can you hear the metered feet, the accented syllables matching each name's introduction; the way that trailing "tz" elongates into the chasm between the three and poor John Burkett trying to keep up? That's lyricism, Thom. Switch that up and what do you have? The single-syllabic "Smoltz" crashing wildly into Glavine's entrance? The interrupting "and" dropped in for no reason, doubling the beat between Glavine and Maddux? No, Thom. Just, no.

We appreciate the effort. But, you know, get it right next time. Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz. From our mouths to God's ear. Any god, really. Just so long as they can deliver another banner before we lose Chipper too.

You know what would be weird?

2009-06-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

Let's say, simple theoretical thought experiment type dealy here, just for the sake of argument and such, let's say you're a fan of the Atlanta Braves. Rare breed, difficult to find in crowds, doesn't make a lot of noise even at Atlanta Braves baseball games. I know. I get it. Just work with me here. Imagine if you can that you are such a thing.

Imagine further, perhaps, that you are a fan with some history. No, you're not one of these goofy little whippersnappers born after Greg Maddux started wearing a tomahawk, not one of these spoiled punk brats that honestly think three years of mediocrity and a reasonably sane rebuilding plan is hell on earth. Oh God no, you’re not one of those guys. No, you're deeper than that. You started following this sad sack of a franchise in 1986 or something. Your first favorite player was Claudelle Washington. Or something. Something like Claudelle Washington. If you can't bring yourself to grasp the stupefied awesomeness that was Claudelle, Bob Horner will do as a stand-in. Yeah, you're that kind of Braves fan. You remember when they *really* sucked.

Let's say you're that guy, or some guy close to that, right? You survived the '80s. You danced through the '90s like a drunken puppet. In the earlier parts of that decade, you were, in fact, very much like a drunken puppet, but she was worth it. You remember with the clarity of God hisownself Sid's slide. You remember even more how the foldout couch in the common room of Dunn's dorm broken literally in half and dumped everyone onto the floor in a sweaty, catatonic heap. You remember with unpleasant specificity requesting that Bo Pamplin kindly remove his foot from your groin, if he would be so kind. Yeah, these are the days that broke the boy and made the man, along and along, as they were.

Lonnie Smith getting deked. (Run you stupid son of a bitch, run!) Kent Hrbek and that damned wrestling move on Ron Gant. Halle's boy toy backing up Tommy's grandest hour in '95. All of it. You'd remember all of that. Even, like, silly little Walt Weiss, two years past his prime, just flailing out there, like some sort of deep sea fish monster teleported from the inky depths right into the hole at short in the Astrodome. Hell, you'd remember when J*hn R*ck*r was just an eccentric LH reliever and not the biggest ass on the planet. Yeah, you remember all of this. It's the land of make believe!

Now, if you're that guy, you've probably got some pent up frustrations from the 90's as well. There's that Puckett thing, of course. There's the Dave Winfield thing. The Eric Gregg thing. And of course the J*m F*cking L*yr*tz thing. You could even track across the years until you get to the C*rl*s F*cking B*ltr*n thing, but that would be going too far.

That L*yr*tz thing would quite obviously open doors onto the whole of "Yankees of the mid-to-late '90s" thing, and that would be a sea of seething potential most anyone would be well advised not to swim. Visions blurred red, stabbings of necks, etc. Yeah, you don't want to go into the deep end of the Yankee thing at all. So you still with me? You thinking about maybe being that guy? Yeah. Okay. Now throw in for good measure that you're a total comic book dork from the old days and you literally grew up on The Transformers.

Now, if you're that guy, and you take a long lunch one afternoon to go see the new Transformers sequel, and you're a little late so you sit in the back row to avoid the walking through other folks in the dark, and you sit there all two and a half hours chuckling along with some vaguely familiar guy sitting two seats over, and it's clear he too is a total Transformers dork, and then the lights come up and you're grabbing your headgear for the ride back and you suddenly realize, dude, that's Mariano Rivera, and FUCK, now I TOTALLY CAN'T HATE THAT GUY ANYMORE!

Yeah. That would be totally weird. It would be like losing a part of your soul.

The worst days are here

2009-06-22T06:44:00.000-07:00

Today kicks off the nadir of the baseball season in Atlanta. Coming off of a give-away rubber-game of the three game set in Fenway (someone tear down that rat trap and build those kids a proper stadium, will ya?) the Braves come home for ten games. The team continues to tread water at mediocrity having not addressed the gaping wounds on either corner outfield slot, to the point where the Francoeur disease has infected Kelly Johnson. Someone needs to cut out the rot, soon. All of which is more or less par for the course these days, none of which really makes the next two weeks any more unbearable than the previous twelve. No, what makes the next two weeks hell on earth is the incoming teams.

Today we get a one-game make up for a rain out with the Cubs. While it might be endurable given the odd-ball nature of the schedule here, best advice is to avoid the park regardless. If there's any slug of baseball fandom that will appear for a Monday rain-out replay and make the park a miserable hell of drunken buffoonery, rest assured, it is Cubs fans.

We follow that septic sludge with Bud Selig's most joyous fuck you to Atlanta fans, our yearly parade of soul-grindingly annoying fans from the NEC. Three games of transplanted Yankee fans soiling the seats of our fair grounds, followed immediately by an equal dose of their paternal twins from Boston. Oh, joyous day. How can we, the unworthy denizens of Atlanta ever thank you Mr. Selig? If not for your ever-brilliant notion of making the World Series essentially meaningless by playing the leagues against one another in the middle of the summer we'd never have the chance to see all of the loud, obnoxious sprawl-eating invaders gathered together in one place like this! You're the best.

I hate interleague play. I hate people who think a baseball stadium full of families is the proper place to get drunk and moan "Yoooouuuuuuk" like a water buffalo in heat. I hate anyone who thinks Derek Jeter deserves anything more than a good garroting. All of which pales as shadow compared to the burning summer sun that is my hatred for the man who unleashed this unholy calvacade upon us.

[sigh]

At least we get a "break" with Philly in town before the Mets faithful storm in from the upper 'burbs and add a layer of self-loathing and little brother syndrone on top of the class and gentility we'd otherwise expect this week.

La vida SABR

2008-06-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

This is the funniest thing I ever heard Chris Dial say. "I am not a stat geek."

This was back in the late nineties, sometime during the storied Braves-Mets clashes of that era. Maybe opening weekend. Maybe 1999. Sitting in the covered boxes of the Lexus Level at Turner Field, day game, long delay, waiting out the thunderstorms blowing through. Post-Piazza. Pre-Rocker. Right dab in the middle of Rey Ordonez.

What you have to understand about Dial is this. It's all about Rey Ordonez. Ordonez is the Rubicon. Ordonez is the great white whale. Ordonez is his raison d'etre, his existential meaning, the very soundtrack of his life. Without Rey Ordonez, Chris Dial would not exist.

Once, in the storied land of Usenet, there was a geek fight. Or maybe there were lots of different little geek fights, all of them blurring together at the edges until you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. Who can say for certain? All we can know is this. There were geeks. There were fights. It was Usenet. This was the way of things.

On the one hand you had the SDCNs, the stat drunk computer nerds. A motley group of fools they were. Poorly adjusted and vaguely described. Ill tempered and squinty eyed. Prone to factions and vapours. Feudal lords of a thousand internecine squabbles entrenched along ley lines of baroque doctrinal detail. Kind of like the Catholics before Vatican II, only with spreadsheets.

Wars of flame ignited, blazed, extinguished. Grudges smoldered. Alliances formed and dissolved; reassembled; reconciled. It was a mad and petty land. A vicious and trying land. A terribly entertaining land. Chaos ruled, the barest of commonalities to so much as define the space as place.

1. Killfile Maynard.
2. BA is for commoners.
3. Clutch hitting is a myth.
4. Rey Ordonez sucks.

By these truths were we bound together.

You must understand, of course. These were darker times. Pre-blog. Web 1.0. Dial-up. The world was not privy to the great light of SABR-truthiness as it shines today. Rob and Rany ran a website. Baseball Prospectus did not. It must be era-adjusted.

There was still some debate over the true level of the Ordonez suck. No one was really sure how to best define such suck. We didn't have the tools for such things. The sheer scope of it... There existed even a contingent of sad souls who would whisper heresy aloud; "Rey Ordonez might not suck at all," they would tremble, all bated breath and darting eyes. "We just don't know. He can't hit, but...we just don't know." Some went further. "Rey Ordonez", they demanded, "does not suck at all. In fact, he is one of the most valuable players in basball. He saves a run a game with his glove."

Enter Chris Dial.

Dial loved him some Rey Ordonez. Don't let that faux-shocked "Who, me?!" fool you. Rey Ordonez was the dreamiest player that Busey ever dreamed to dream. Well. Kind of. See, back then, no one really believed defense was important. I mean, no one important. Just, like, scouts and general managers and shit. No one on Usenet. Except Dial. Chris believed. Oh, how Chris believed. He held his hands wide and clapped and clapped and clapped. Certainly it was true. Defense was important damnit, and Rey Ordonez was a defensive god damnit, so therefore everyone was wrong and Chris was right and SHUTUPSHUTPSHUTUPSHUTUP! It was like that in the land, sometimes. But no one would listen to Chris, how ever loudly he clapped. It was like that in the land sometimes, too.

So here's what Dial did. Short version. Dial grabbed everything he could find about defense in major league baseball and he shoved it through about twenty-three different spreadsheets. He rangled. He finagled. He conjoled. He did math. Complicated math. And in the end, he came up with a protean sludge that would eventually evolve into his vaunted defensive methodology.

Turns out Rey Ordonez actually didn't have much value. Turns out even after accounting for his defense he was basically worthless, a flashy showboat with a knack for highlight reel plays but otherwise unspectactular in any aspect of the game. The fact that he couldn't so much as lay down a sac bunt in the most important at bat of his career, effectively eliminating his team from the playoffs singlehandedly? Cake. Turns out Rey Ordonez really did suck.

But this was before all that. This was in process, en route, en flagrante. This was opening weekend of that year and Chris was still working out the details. So we're sitting up there, in the Lexus boxes, broiling in the late Georgian afternoon, waiting for a game that was scheduled for 1:05 but started at 7:05. We're sitting up there, nattering on about baseball and rivalries and how to account for the three unassisted in range studies for first basemen, crunching through an early iteration of Dial on Defense, and he actually says to me, "I am not a stat geek." Seriously. I shit you not. Boy is CREATING A NEW STATISTICAL MEASURE TO PROVE THE DEFENSIVE WORTH OF REY ORDONEZ and says to me, "No, serioulsy, I am not a stat geek. I'm not SABR at all." See, in the delusion de la Dial the fact that he was creating a stat to prove conventional SABR wisdom wrong - which turned out to be wrong itself in the specifics, but enormously right in the generality - proved that he wasn't himself a SABRmetrician. He wasn't a stat geek at all. This is the funniest thing I ever heard Chris Dial say.

Me? I'm not a stat geek at all. I have never, not even once, created a new statistic, for any purpose whatsoever. Yes, just this week I corrected a friend who had mistakenly accused my 2003-ish statement that Mark DeRosa would be "a RH Keith Lockhart" of being off base by noting that he, sad to say, had failed to adjust for age, had failed to remember that Lockhart was jerked around by the Royals until he was 29 and thus DeRosa was just now coming into the years of his career that matched Lockhart's long, tedious (unending, agonizing, Christ will someone please cut this freakin guy) decline phase. Yes, I did so by referencing RC/9 and OPS+. Yes, if pressed I could explain what the AIR column of Forman's masterwork means. But the math would be rough at best, and I'd avoid it at all costs if I could. And dude. I never, ever CREATED MY OWN STAT. Not even once, when I was college experimenting.

Which makes it kind of odd, as many noted during the event, that I attended SABR 38 last weekend. I mean, you'd think that a guy attending the annual convention of the Society for American Baseball Research would at least nominally do some baseball research, right? But then you wouldn't know me at all. Because really, I wasn't attending SABR 38 in the least, though I did attend a few presentations Saturday morning. No, I was just there for the booze. Or the social hours. Or both. Much like pitching and defense, it's hard to tell the one from the other.

I hung out with Dial. We chatted. We reminisced. We drank a lot of gin and vodka. I met Jimmy Furtado for the first time after 10 years of on-again, off-again contribution to his website. I finally got a chance to thank Sean Forman in person. I saw so many people that I "know" but had never met that the mind boggles. Darren and Anthony and Aaron and Joe and Jon and on and on and on. Which is good, because I still identify people by their birth names, I'm afraid. I had a fucking stupendous time.

But I want this on the record, okay? I am not a stat geek. Chris Dial is a stat geek. He's wrong about the whole Bonds thing in the specifics, but like Ordonez, he's right about it in the generality. And yeah, Red is probably smarter than me already, truth be told. But no, I really don't get the math unless you speak slowly and pat me on the head, so seriously. I'm not. But I still owe Vinay a round from the bowling-alley bar so I'm pretty much morally obliged to attend next year to pay that back, right? Because being that I am so not a stat geek, I can't really be thinking about attending SABR 39 this far in advance. Right?