5 from me:
- KO – Everyman’s Guide to Garbology (No, it’s not about Olbermann.)
- languagehat
- Mandarin Design Daily
- Angry Asian Man
- Make
31 August 2006, Thursday
Day of Blogness, 2006
30 August 2006, Wednesday
On Criticism
Rumsfeld Says War Critics Haven’t Learned Lessons of History
Salt Lake City, Aug. 29 — Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that critics of the war in Iraq and the campaign against terror groups “seem not to have learned history’s lessons,” and he alluded to those in the 1930’s who advocated appeasing Nazi Germany. …
Theodore Roosevelt on presidential criticism, from the Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918
The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
28 August 2006, Monday
Oops
Clay wrote in response to I’m Ready for my Butterfly Ballot Now, Mr. DeMille: “Randy Newman rules”
Your comment got put into the default spam file for some reason and I just found it.
My bad.
I don’t usually look at what the Spam Catcher snares. It seemed to be just the Usual Suspects: messages on low-interest loans, cheap drugs, online casinos, and the ubiquitous penis enlargement ads.
I did get one from ndnrczghq in Australia who wrote: “gkpknausds nbfgtrrfk kqslzeymtje cdjyyuca.” I know that Aussies talk funny, but they sure write funny, too.
At any rate, it did not occur to me that legitimate comments might get funnelled over into SpamLand. I’ll be certain to check it from now on. Only four spammies in there now; the catch has been as high as 50. My apologies to anyone who made a comment that never got posted because it was shunted into the spam folder. After something like 15 days spam is automatically removed.
Randy Newman does indeed rule.
This song was written about The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.
Feats Don’t Fail Me Now
When I got up Sunday morning I popped on the tv to see who was on Meet the Press. Ray Nagin was making an apology for yet another stupid thing he said. I couldn’t bear to stay tuned in long enough to find out what he was talking about. I switched over to Stephanopoulos’ show; Michael Brown was on that one, and I sure as heck didn’t want to start my day listening to that idiot, either.
Being a News Junkie since childhood (Walter Cronkite was at our house every evening at dinner time — he was practically an uncle) I followed the reports on Hurricane Katrina one year ago as she went from tropical depression to tropical storm to hurricane status. Being a Worrywart (I get that from my mother) I wondered why the local, state, and federal governments weren’t doing more. Weather forecasts aren’t written in stone, but this storm did sound especially bad. Florida seemed to be the only state taking the warnings seriously; of course, it was hit by four hurricanes in 2004. Say what you want about Jeb Bush, but his administration knows what to do when a hurricane comes calling.
Reading these is kind of creepy:
It makes you re-live what happened as it happened. And this time you know there is going to be a bad ending.
The lines about Katrina being a “once-in-a-lifetime disaster” and “there is no way we could have been prepared for it” have always struck me as being somewhat lame. As Keith Olbermann said in his singular “Louisiana is a city” commentary you can’t blame local, state, or the federal government for a hurricane. But certain agencies and individuals are entrusted to prepare for disasters. That’s their job; that’s what they get paid for. Their planning might not cover every possible scenario, but they should at least provide a structure with which to manage emergency situations.
Not to be a nag, but when that oxygen tank exploded aboard Apollo 13 NASA didn’t say “Hey guys. Sorry, but this has never happened before. We don’t know what to do. ‘Bye.”
And while I have nothing against rich people or for indulging in treats for oneself, a $30K gift basket is a bit much. Especially considering (1) what’s going on in the world today, and (2) the 1st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Whoever said “Live simply so that others may live” sure didn’t work in the American entertainment industry.
26 August 2006, Saturday
Yankee Stadium Virgin
(This Countdown has gone a bit awry. I’ve been overdosing on baseball. My feng shui went crooked. And I forgot my mantra.)
2. My first time at Yankee Stadium
A little digging through the New York Times archives unearthed this gem:
I can’t remember whose idea it was to go to the game that night. We got there late. Met up with some other friends at the stadium. It was very crowded; we got tickets for bleacher seats in left-center:
We didn’t pay anywhere near $12 a ticket. I think it was more like $5. We were around 15-20 rows back from the field.
Keith and DP talked about bench-clearing baseball brawls last week. When asked about the best fight that came to mind Keith mentioned Red Sox-Yankees in 1976: “A tremendous, tremendous brawl.” That fight happened on Thursday, 20 May — two nights before the game we attended. It helped to set the tone for the players and fans for the series. The Red Sox won on Thursday 8-2. Friday’s game went 12 innings with the Yanks winning 6-5.
I’d grown up watching Triple-A ball out in PodunkVille, so the Bronxian scene on Saturday was overwhelming. A classic “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore” moment. Yankee Stadium holds close to 52,000. The park back at home held 24,000, and it was never, ever anywhere near capacity. The home team was lucky if we got about 3,000 in the stands. Although the box score reports a crowd of 43,513 — well below capacity — it seemed to me that Chez Ruth was packed. It certainly was packed out in the bleachers. Crowded, loud, and boisterous, Yankee Stadium was a living creature that night. (But I guess it always is when the Red Sox come to town.)
I don’t remember a lot of detail from the game. I recall feeling that home plate was in another time zone; I’d never watched a game from so way out in the boondocks. At the Triple-A stadium at home we sat on the third base side about 5 rows up — a whopping $2 a ticket. It was one of those parks where you didn’t have to raise your voice much to converse with the third baseman and if you yelled just a little loud the second baseman could hear you.
OK: Yankee Stadium, 22 May 1976, Saturday. I can’t see the ball, the infielders look like ants, it feels like we are shoehorned into the bleachers, and the crowd is like a ticking time bomb.
I felt sorry for the Boston outfielders because the fans kept yelling at them and were even more abusive when the players caught fly balls close to the stands. There were a few plays in center and in left, and every time a fly ball came out our way I kept thinking “Something Bad is Going to Happen.” It was kind of terrifying. At one point — more than one, actually — fans threw things at the Boston outfielders. I remember the leftfielder pointing into our section to identify the offender/s. Security came into the stands, but I don’t recall anyone being led away.
Somehow the ball game got played, no one died, and the Yankees won. The pitching line is one you will never see again: Catfish Hunter went 11 innings, gave up 3 hits, walked 3, and struck out 5. How many starting pitchers today go even 8 innings? (Nicknames were better back then, too.) The two Boston pitchers also put up good numbers. The game clocked in at 2 hours and 14 minutes.
You can talk until you’re blue in the face about what it’s like here and it doesn’t matter until you experience it. The electricity that goes through here is unlike any other stadium. When Yankee Stadium is packed, the place is bigger than life.
Willie Randolph, quoted in “Blood Feud: The Red Sox, the Yankees and the Struggle of Good Vs. Evil”
Curt Schilling was wrong about Aura and Mystique.
19 August 2006, Saturday
There Goes the Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived
3.
Ted Williams
aseball has history.
Not that other sports don’t, but it just seems like baseball appreciates its more. Baseball has a longer memory. It is not eager to throw away its past.
It attracts the sentimental type like me. Perhaps this comes from having read “The Boys of Summer” when I was a kid. I read “Instant Replay,” too, but have always liked baseball more than football. I love the fact that I’ve seen games at Shea Stadium, where my father saw the Mets play during the ‘64 New York World’s Fair. And I caught a game at Comiskey the season before it was torn down. I bought a commemorative “1910-1990 Comiskey Park” t-shirt and sent it home to Dad; he’d seen games there when he was in college. It’s not even like he was a big baseball fan; he was and is more of a NFL and NBA guy. But he likes the thought that I’ve trod some of the same turf that he did. And I like it, too.
So the appeal is more than simply the sport of baseball. That holds its own allure — the pitching, hitting, running, fielding, strategy, etc. Beyond the mechanics of the sport, baseball connects you to particular places in space and time in your own personal history.
I never saw Ted Williams play, which is a great loss to me. But he lived — and lives — large in the collective baseball conscious, and so he became part of my history.
One moment I did see was his appearance at the 1999 All-Star game. Held in Boston, Williams was the obvious choice to throw out the first pitch. That in itself was wonderful, but when the players from both squads swarmed out to surround him in an unscripted display of respect it was simply sublime. And, not to sound sacrilegious or anything, but I’m sure that for some of them it was like meeting God.
When someone like that dies you are forced to say goodbye to a piece of your past, a piece of your childhood. While Wiiliams wasn’t a part of my childhood (he retired several years before I discovered baseball) he was part of my baseball life. So it was sad when he passed on. For a devoted Red Sox fan it was probably like losing a member of their own family.
By all accounts Williams was a crabby guy who was not easy to like. He won the Triple Crown twice (twice!) and was not elected AL MVP in either of those years. He was testy with the media, much like Barry Bonds is today. But the passage of time helps to smooth out the rough spots and allows one to develop some perspective. And besides, we like to romanticize the past.
But history remembers Ted Williams fondly, more so than Joe DiMaggio, I think. There is heaven and hell in all of us, and when they were in their primes we chose to see more of the hell in Williams and more of the heaven in DiMaggio. Time has allowed a degree of equilibrium to be reached.
Ted Williams tributes:
- Boston.com Some areas might require registration. And even if you don’t like the Sawx you should look at Boston Dirt Dogs — it’s just great stuff.
- MLB.com More good stuff, although some of the video links are dead.
- Sports Illustrated/CNN I alway like reading Frank Deford’s work.
- Sports Illustrated/CNN videos A couple by some guy named Olbermann
- But immortality is nontransferable 1960 New Yorker article on Williams’ final game.
And a little tip of the cap to Fenway:
“As I grew up, I knew that as a building Fenway Park was on the level of Mount Olympus, the Pyramid at Giza, the nation’s capitol, the czar’s Winter Palace, and the Louvre — except, of course, that is better than all those inconsequential places.” – Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti
17 August 2006, Thursday
Presented for Your Approval …
Scoop writes:
This couldn’t be real, could it?
Are you saying you were at THE SAME GAME in 1982 after which Keith was forced by CNN to go out and interview fans as to how they felt about the return of Reggie Jackson to their stadium in an alien uniform, and why they cheered him? The SAME ONE in which he ended up interviewing…A TEENAGED IZZY POVICH, who would go on to become a PRODUCER on COUNTDOWN????
Are you sure YOU aren’t on that long-ago video he blogged about last year??
Are you sure he didn’t interview YOU all those years ago????
Dammit, where IS Rod Serling when we need him?????
You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of the imagination. Next stop: THE UPPER DECK CHEAP SEATS.
Journalists did not wander up to where we usually sat. Heck, I don’t even think the Beer Man ever made it up there. Think: Nosebleed Section. It was where the pot heads hung out during lightly-attended day games.
It looks like cheap seats don’t exist anymore at Yankee Stadium.
At least the view was good. It wasn’t like watching a Seattle Sonics game at the Kingdome. Here is a photo that shows a view similar to the one we had at a Sonics game in 1979. (I cannot find an image of a basketball game held at the Dome. Perhaps those were imploded when they took the Dome down.)
A basketball game held in a baseball/football stadium. I’d say “The ball was the size of a Tic-Tac!” but I don’t remember being able to see the ball. It was just a bunch of guys running back and forth. Spectators were crammed in like sardines.
I was on a date with someone whose name I cannot remember, which makes me feel very, very bad. (Bummer. You can’t google someone whose name you can’t remember.) He was a Ph.D. candidate in math; I recall that his thesis was on numerical analysis or perhaps it was differential equations. Differential equations … yeah, that was it. I tried to follow his description of his research, but it was pretty much beyond me.
Hey, if I’d had been better at math I would have gotten into Cornell and would have listened to K.O. on WVBR. I wrote a great essay, had a great interview (October 1976? Man, what a long bus ride up from NYC), but they wouldn’t let me in. Bastards. Well, Washington had a better football team. Still does.
I’m Ready for My Butterfly Ballot Now, Mr. DeMille
6. Let Google be the judge. “I love David Ortiz” gets 414 hits. “I love Katie Couric” gets a mere 171. (From ColossusBlog.)
Updated Google data:
“I love David Ortiz” 603
“I love Katie Couric” 1030
Also in the race:
“I love Keith Olbermann” 894
“I love Bill O’Reilly” 1100
“I love Ann Coulter” 888
But Mankind leads them all:
“I love mankind” 29,800
16 August 2006, Wednesday
October in April: 1982
4. Steinbrenner S*cks
On the radio with DP not too long ago Keith mentioned a game at Yankee Stadium in 1982 where a couple of kids unfurled a huge “Steinbrenner Sucks” banner which was wrestled down by stadium security. I don’t think I was at that game (a banner like that I would not forget), but I was there when Reggie Jackson returned for the first time after being traded away to the Angels.
We were sitting in the usual spot: in the upper deck cheap seats on the third base side. The place was rocking. And the game hadn’t even started.
Reggie got huge ovations each time he came to the plate. Unlike Johnny Damon’s return to Fenway this season New Yorkers showed Reggie that his efforts as a Yank had not been forgotten. It was bizarre seeing him in an Angels uniform.
Then came the 7th:
Old ‘44′ Returns
(Ira Berkow) … By the seventh, the rain was coming down harder. Jackson would be leading off. Manager Mauch was out talking to the umpires, trying to get the game called since the Angels were ahead, 2-1.
But the game continued. Jackson toweled off his black bat, wiped his glasses and stepped into the batter’s box. On Guidry’s first pitch, he swung. The crack of the bat resounded through the park. The ball rocketed. Jackson dropped his bat, clapped his hands in pure and unadulterated delight. The ball was into the right-field upper deck for a home run before he had taken three steps.
There was a moment of shock, then the fans thundered applause. And chanted his name, and kept chanting it so that, after he had ducked into the dugout, he was forced to come out into the rain and wave his arms to them.
When Jackson departed into the dugout, shortly another chant began, starting slowly, and then swelling until the entire ball park was throbbing with it. It was an obscenity directed at Steinbrenner, who was in the ball park – and repeated over and over. It was chilling. …
Jackson Stars as Angels Win (Murray Chass) … In the seventh, he hit a Guidry slider, the first pitch of the inning, against the outermost part of the facade on the third tier of the right-field stands.
The slider, Guidry explained later, did not ”do too much” because the wet ground prevented him from planting his foot and ”popping” the ball. The home run, however, did do a lot to the fans.
First they roared. Then they began the vulgar chant directed at Steinbrenner. It quickly spread around the stands and thundered throughout the stadium for a couple of minutes. …
California Angels 3, New York Yankees 1
Day
Game Played on Tuesday, April 27, 1982 (N) at Yankee Stadium
CAL A 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 - 3 4 3 NY A 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 - 1 4 0
BATTING
California Angels AB R H RBI BB SO PO A Downing lf 3 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 Foli ss 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 DeCinces 3b 2 0 0 0 1 1 1 2 Grich 2b 3 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 Baylor dh 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Reggie Jackson rf 3 2 2 1 0 0 2 0 Beniquez rf 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 Clark cf 2 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 Ron Jackson 1b 2 0 0 0 1 0 7 0 Boone c 2 0 1 1 0 0 4 1 A. Moreno p 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 Totals 23 3 4 3 2 3 21 7
FIELDING - E: DeCinces (3), Ron Jackson (1), A. Moreno (2).
BATTING - HR: Grich (1,4th inning off Guidry 0 on 2 out); Reggie Jackson (1,7th inning off Guidry 0 on 0 out). SH: Clark (1,off Guidry); Boone (4,off Guidry). Team LOB: 3.
New York Yankees AB R H RBI BB SO PO A Randolph 2b 4 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 Mumphrey cf 3 0 1 0 0 2 1 0 Griffey rf 3 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 Winfield lf 2 1 0 0 1 0 3 0 Piniella dh 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 Smalley 3b 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 Cerone c 3 0 2 0 0 0 4 0 Collins 1b 3 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 Dent ss 2 0 1 0 1 0 0 5 Guidry p 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 Totals 25 1 4 1 2 4 21 9
BATTING - SF: Piniella (1,off A. Moreno). Team LOB: 6.
BASERUNNING - CS: Cerone (1,2nd base by A. Moreno/Boone).
PITCHING
California Angels IP H R ER BB SO HR A. Moreno W(2-2) 7 4 1 0 2 4 0
New York Yankees IP H R ER BB SO HR Guidry L(2-1) 7 4 3 3 2 3 2
WP: Guidry (3).
Umpires: Al Clark, Ted Hendry, Jim Evans, Jim McKean
Time of Game: 1:51 Attendance: 35458
Starting Lineups: California Angels New York Yankees 1. Downing lf Randolph 2b 2. Foli ss Mumphrey cf 3. DeCinces 3b Griffey rf 4. Grich 2b Winfield lf 5. Baylor dh Piniella dh 6. Reggie Jackson rf Smalley 3b 7. Clark cf Cerone c 8. Ron Jackson 1b Collins 1b 9. Boone c Dent ss A. Moreno p Guidry p ANGELS 1ST: Downing struck out; Foli grounded out (shortstop to first); DeCinces struck out; 0 R, 0 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Angels 0, Yankees 0. YANKEES 1ST: Randolph grounded out (third to first); Mumphrey singled to right; Griffey struck out; Winfield made an out to second; 0 R, 1 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. Angels 0, Yankees 0. ANGELS 2ND: Grich made an out to left; Baylor grounded out (third to first); Reggie Jackson made an out to second; 0 R, 0 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Angels 0, Yankees 0. YANKEES 2ND: Piniella popped to first in foul territory; Smalley was called out on strikes; Cerone singled to left; Collins flied to right in foul territory; 0 R, 1 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. Angels 0, Yankees 0. ANGELS 3RD: Clark struck out; Ron Jackson grounded out (pitcher to first); Boone singled to left; Downing forced Boone (shortstop to second); 0 R, 1 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. Angels 0, Yankees 0. YANKEES 3RD: Dent grounded out (third to first); Randolph made an out to center; Mumphrey struck out; 0 R, 0 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Angels 0, Yankees 0. ANGELS 4TH: Foli grounded out (shortstop to first); DeCinces grounded out (shortstop to first); Grich homered; Baylor grounded out (shortstop to first); 1 R, 1 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Angels 1, Yankees 0. YANKEES 4TH: Griffey grounded out (first unassisted); Winfield walked; Winfield was picked off first but was safe on an error by A. Moreno [Winfield to third]; Piniella hit a sacrifice fly to center [Winfield scored (unearned)]; Smalley lined to third; 1 R, 0 H, 1 E, 0 LOB. Angels 1, Yankees 1. ANGELS 5TH: Reggie Jackson singled to center; Clark out on a sacrifice bunt (pitcher to first) [Reggie Jackson to second]; Guidry threw a wild pitch [Reggie Jackson to third]; Ron Jackson walked; Boone out on a sacrifice bunt (pitcher to first) [Reggie Jackson scored, Ron Jackson to second]; Downing grounded out (pitcher unassisted); 1 R, 1 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. Angels 2, Yankees 1. YANKEES 5TH: Cerone singled to center; Collins made an out to pitcher; Cerone was caught stealing second but was safe at first (error by Ron Jackson; assist by Boone; assist by Foli); Dent walked [Cerone to second]; Randolph made an out to right [Cerone to third]; Mumphrey struck out; 0 R, 1 H, 1 E, 2 LOB. Angels 2, Yankees 1. ANGELS 6TH: Foli made an out to right; DeCinces walked; Grich made an out to left; Baylor made an out to catcher; 0 R, 0 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. Angels 2, Yankees 1. YANKEES 6TH: Griffey made an out to left; Winfield grounded out (shortstop to first); Piniella reached on an error by DeCinces; Smalley made an out to left; 0 R, 0 H, 1 E, 1 LOB. Angels 2, Yankees 1. ANGELS 7TH: Reggie Jackson homered; And the crowd goes wild. Clark made an out to center; Ron Jackson made an out to right; Boone made an out to left; 1 R, 1 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Angels 3, Yankees 1. YANKEES 7TH: BENIQUEZ REPLACED REGGIE JACKSON (PLAYING RF); Cerone grounded out (pitcher to first); Collins grounded out (shortstop to first); Dent singled to left; Randolph made an out to right; game called due to rain; 0 R, 1 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. Angels 3, Yankees 1. Final Totals R H E LOB Angels 3 4 3 3 Yankees 1 4 0 6
