• 1Dec 09

  Weekly Update #232

  Nothing quite piques my curiousity during the baseball off-season like the announcement of the latest Hall of Fame ballot. The latest roster, released last week, is no less intriguing than any other year. Of the 26 names listed, 15 are on the ballot for the first time; all of these newcomers retired during or after the 2004 season, as you have to be out of the majors five full years to be eligible. Obviously, a lot of these fresh faces are filler and probably won't be considered for next year's vote. (I dare you to justify the Hall of Fame qualities of David Segui and Shane Reynolds.) From a talent standpoint, it's a more threadbare ballot than some of us are accustomed to. The rampant steroid usage of the late '90s and early '00s enabled aging stars to add about five years to their careers, resulting in a dearth of sure-fire inductees calling it quits midway through this decade, if not for several years to come. In the eyes of the most jaded and cynical baseball fans it may seem like a throughly unappetizing ballot, but there are three names that I wish would be put into serious consideration: longtime bridesmaids Bert Blyleven and Lee Smith and newcomer Barry Larkin.

  Let's start with the Flying Dutchman. Granted, his career win-loss record is 287-250, and usually 300 wins is guaranteed admission. People tend to forget that Bert spent three years on a Pittsburgh team that scored in bunches in the late innings of the game, resulting in a unwieldy number of no-decisions, including a staggering 20 in 1979. That .534 career winning percentage may not look impressive, but it's better than Hall of Famers like Eppa Rixey (266-251 lifetime), Teddy Lyons (260-230), and even Nolan Ryan (324-292). Of course, wins don't tell half the story; Blyleven is 5th on the all-time strikeout list and only eight men have more career shutouts. Plus, he might've had the sweetest curveball anybody's ever seen; I'm sure there's clips on YouTube or Metacafe that'll prove my point.

  No statistic has revolutionized the worth of a pitcher in the past half-century quite like the save, which makes the constant snubbing of Lee Smith a mystery of sorts. Smitty's 478 plugs were the standard until about three years ago, and the man who surpassed him (Trevor Hoffmann) looks like a borderline lock for the Hall. Bruce Sutter only had seven or eight dominant seasons out of the bullpen, yet he was inducted in 2006. Smith had arguably ten great years as a closer, finishing with 35 or more saves six times. Having a career 3.03 ERA doesn't hurt, either.

  As for Larkin, he's not a first-ball Hall of Famer though I'm sure the sportswriters will come around to this guy sooner than later. A 12-time All-Star and 7-time Silver Slugger, "Lark" might've been the quintessential National League shortshop of the 1990s. Nobody would mistake him for a power hitter, though he squeezed out doubles like nobody's business and his career .371 on-base percentage was nothing to scoff at. His one weakness was durability; in 19 seasons in the majors he played at least 120 games just 10 times. Nevertheless, he was a team leader who willed the Reds to two division titles and one championship in the early-to-mid '90s, and having to toil under an owner like Marge Schott has to be worth something.

  So what about everybody else? As a Royals fan, I grew up admiring Kevin Appier; he should be on Kansas City's wall of honor but his career stats won't bat any eyelashes in Cooperstown. My support for Mark McGwire has waned over the years, and his new gig as the Cardinals' hitting coach feels like a last-ditch attempt at public atonement. Andre Dawson's career on-base percentage is laughable, Alan Trammell was a sac-fly artist with an above-average glove, and Dale Murphy was little more than a power-hitting milquetoast. Freshman like Roberto Alomar, Edgar Martinez, and Fred McGriff will linger on the ballot for years, too divisive to get the necessary 75% to be inducted but too above-average to be ignored altogether. Maybe --and I mean maybe-- Don Mattingly will get the call from the Veterans Committee, but I'm totally impartial. If you're looking for marquee names, wait until 2011; after all, who's gonna get in the way of Jeff Bagwell?

  • Posted Dec 1, 2009 5:57 am PT
  • Category: Sports
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• 24Nov 09

  Weekly Update #231

  Ah, 1974. The year of Watergate, streaking, and... Symbionese Liberation, I guess. Glam-rock was king, punk and disco were in their nascent stages, jazz fusion and Kraut-rock kept the nerds entertained, and R&B was as silky-smooth as ever. Overall it was a decent year for Top 40 radio, though what actually got airplay that year was eventually overshadowed by career albums from lesser-known artists. It's a somewhat misunderstood and overlooked year, with most of the big dogs (Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd) either sitting the year out or working extensively on their next project, yet top-heavy in great music either way you shake the stick.

  TOP TEN ALBUMS:

  1. Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell. There's no question that this fair-haired Canadian songstress has earned her legendary status. Most of her albums have been very consistant in that they all seem to contain six or seven brilliant songs, accompanied by some agreeable filler near the end of the disc. Spark is her one album where every track clicks; everything from "Help Me" to "Raised on Robbery" is a luscious swirl of orchestral flair and tight melodies.
  2. Rock Bottom, Robert Wyatt. Recorded in the wake of a freak accident that left Wyatt crippled from the waist down, it may shock some people that the former Soft Machine drummer's best solo effort was written before he fell from a third-story balcony. The sound of the album is melancholy, yet it bursts with life; beneath all the bizarre prog-jazz flailings and the disdain for conventional songcraft is a story of a man redeeming himself via music.
  3. Radio City, Big Star. Neglected in their time, Big Star became a cult favorite long after the band (or more specifically, frontman Alex Chilton) fell apart, as well as a cautionary tale about the need to nurture a gifted artist. Their second album might be the best of their three "classic" albums. Reduced to a trio after the departure of Chris Bell, Radio City trades their debut's mild skepticism or something a tad more cynical and yearning. In a way, this album is the essence of pop imperfection.
  4. Here Come The Warm Jets, Brian Eno
  5. Pretzel Logic, Steely Dan
  6. Too Much Too Soon, New York Dolls
  7. Fulfillingness' First Finale, Stevie Wonder
  8. Treasure Island, Keith Jarrett
  9. Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Brian Eno
  10. I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Richard & Linda Thompson. Anyone who thinks The Swell Season's story of finding and expressing love through music is somehow original and unheard-of clearly hasn't done their homework. That's not to say the "Once" soundtrack is a terrible or anything, it's just that the Thompsons beat them to the switch 35 years ago.

  Honorable Mentions: Diamond Dogs, David Bowie; Autobahn, Kraftwerk; Meet The Residents, The Residents; Kimono My House, Sparks; Crime of the Century, Supertramp; Mysterious Traveler, Weather Report.

  THE 15 BEST SINGLES:

  "Waterloo," ABBA
  "Beach Baby," The First Class
  "Hooked on a Feeling," Blue Swede
  "Sundown," Gordon Lightfoot
  "Spiders and Snakes," Jim Stafford
  "Bad Company," Bad Company
  "Skating Away," Jethro Tull
  "Radar Love," Golden Earring
  "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)," The Raspberries
  "The Loco-Motion," Grand Funk Railroad*
  "The Payback," James Brown
  "Then Came You," Dianne Warwick and The Spinners
  "Mockingbird," Carly Simon
  "Oh My My," Ringo Starr
  "Dancing Machine," The Jacksons

  *For the record, that might actually be the only Grand Funk song I like. Music critics hated them in the '70s and I think their vitriol holds up. This spirited cover of the old Little Eva tune holds up quite well, though it's a shame that a then 12-year-old dance tune blew anything that Mark Farner and Don Brewer did write out of the water.

  So Awful, It's Brilliant: "The Night Chicago Died," Paper Lace. I single out this particular song for its inane first verse: "Daddy was a cop/on the east side of Chicago/back in the U-S-A/back in the bad old days." I was not aware that my city's finest had a cop patrolling the middle of Lake Michigan, unless there's an underwater neighborhood that I'm not aware of.

  Your thoughts?

  • Posted Nov 24, 2009 5:50 am PT
  • Category: Music
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• 17Nov 09

  Weekly Update #230

  Ladies and gentlemen, just in time for Turkey Day I present my 5th annual "thanks/no thanks" list. Like the previous four editions of this list, I keep the context to a bare-bones minimum; it's merely an acknowledgment of all the things that have been in my peripheral in the past year. While I'm grateful for my friends and family, this list tends to focus on the intangibles in my life. It's my way to letting you know me better, one ambiguous morsel at a time.

  THANKS: The stupifyingly easy Yahoo! daily crossword, the continued brilliance of The Onion, my DVR, NBC's Thursday night comedy lineup, the fact that I'm still employed, hockey's newfound relevance in Chicago, Zach Greinke, and all my new friends and classmates at Second City.

  NO THANKS: Another Yankees World Championship, Glenn Beck, the coldest summer in recent memory, anything involving Nadya Suleman and the Gosselins, old friends that never check their e-mail, still living at home, writer's block, and the system errors and various other maladies that plague this otherwise wonderful web site.

  Other notes:

  + NBC is about to be gobbled up by Comcast. Is this what broadcast television is being reduced to? This is almost as sad as it is symbolic of how much mass media has evolved (mutated?) in the past few decades.

  + Let me reemphasize the fact that the Bears' woes are not Jay Cutler's fault. The players won't listen to the coaches, the secondary is middling, there's no running game, and our defense is too small and too old. When I alluded to Jay's prima donna attitude before the season started, I was half-kidding. The best player on this team right now is Robbie Gould, can we all agree on that?

  + Detained terrorists in Illinois? The prospect of having them in my home state is a little off-putting, though tiny Thomson is inexplicably welcoming the idea with open arms. In all honestly, I'm on the fence; if it creates jobs for this dying Mississippi River town, so be it. Besides, isn't driving 150 miles on I-88 a punishment in itself?

  + Speaking of hockey, last night I met Dustin Byfuglien of the Chicago Blackhawks. What an incredibly nice guy.

  Next week: the year in music, 1974.

  • Posted Nov 17, 2009 7:44 am PT
  • Category: Opinion
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