JSngry

Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to do that. But, sunk I apparently have. Who knew, and oh well! Instead of dot races and such, baseball should have gay humandog marriages, complete with on-field consummation. "Seventh Inning Stretch" takes on a whole new meaning! But please, no wagering! Wall Street, come and get it!

I feel as if I've been Culture Punched or something... Heard these guys last night, playing Mozart - Divertimento in D, Strauss - Till Eulenspiegel (arr. Franz Hasenohrl), & shubert - Octet in F. Impeccably performed, I mean, perfect. But the music did not move. At all. It was static as hell. At first I felt like it was just my reaction to a more tightly "traditional" repertoire than I go for, but the longer it went along (especially in the Schubert)...I don't know...part of me feels that any performer who plays anything, there's sort of an unspoken need to justify your choices, you need to bring it as far as why are you playing this? These guys, it was more like, hey, we are playing it perfectly (and they were), the music is its own justification (it should have been). Except it didn't come off like that, it came off like anything these folks played (that evening, anyway) was going to sound equally perfect, and...that kinda pissed both me and the wife off, truth be told. This was a big event for the Dallas Chamber Music society, the season premier performance, replete with champagne reception before and gala dinner afterwards (neither of which we attended, because even though we subscribed for the season, those events were anywhere from $250.00-$10,000.00 extra, sorry, we're not made of that much more money than we've already spent), and the house was packed. So obviously, this band is a money-maker, and you gotta make the money. However, the Society's President spoke briefly before the concert about the need to keep the music accessible to a broader audience by keeping ticket prices down (they're already $40/person, which I don't mind paying to hear some really good playing that justifies me hearing it, and last year, they delivered consistently, on occasion intensely so), but geez, I got the very distinct impression that the people who will shell out the bucks to accomplish that would much rather hear this kind of generic perfection than they would anything sweaty, and people like me, who definitely benefit from keeping the ticket prices down, want to hear pretty much anything besides this type of generic perfection. Next month brings us the Dover Quartet playing Dvorak, Berg, and Beethoven (and as I told my wife on the way home, hey, thank god for Beethoven, the man who insisted on putting bumps in the road to force you to stay awake). I expect to leave a bit sweatier than i arrived. But the question remains - did we get Culture Punched by this Academy of St Martin in the Fields bunch, or are they really considered "state of the art" in today's chamber music world?

Yeah, that's a pain that I also feel. But a part of me also feels that just because something exists, that does not create a parallel imperative that it be heard by its potential audience. So, if you're just being stupid with your business, that's one thing. But if it really is a value vs worth thing, then where does the final right to concede exposure reside? And to that end, all the more reason to have your estate lined up before you die. Otherwise, you've squandered not just one, but two generations of potential opportunity.

Allie McBeal Kate Smith Spenser For Hire

Metaphorical Metaphysics of Sports Economics aside, here's a fine, fun piece by the consistently entertaining Grant Bisbee: Here's why it will suck when your team loses in the postseasonhttp://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2015/10/6/9460383/2015-mlb-postseason-predictions?_ga=1.142635830.205038022.1415141294

Except that it becomes increasingly, and deliberately, less balanced as it goes along. If all that mattered was the final outcome of a 162 game schedule, you could have the Yankees and Mets play each other 30 times a year, and it wouldn't matter. Same thing with Cubs-Cardinals, Giants-Dodgers. Maximize the profits from traditional "rivalries" and then, hey, a win is a win, and if either Mets or Yankees have a suck team that results in the other getting a lopsided final W-L record, so be it. I mean, ok, you could do that. But would you want to? and even if you would want to, if that's the esthetic choice that the zeitgeist deems appropriate, so be it, but let it be that with the recognition that you've shifted the methodology of valuation, and therefore the nature of what the "championship" represents. Nothing intrinsically "wrong" with that, just call it what it is. Otherwise, it's the Wynton-ising of Baseball, Ken Burns, Commissioner of both. Wall Street or Wynton...hell of a choice there...I'll, uh, pass.

I only know of him from his Joe Harriot stuff, but as with all the players who were involved in that thing, the courage and musicianship involved just to get it started, never mind to move it along, are inspirational. RIP

Along the lines of Leeway's inquiry, I wonder if it's going to be another one of those "press clippings turned into book" things. Sure hope not, because there are stories to be told here, so many stories.

Except as a basic violation of privacy, perhaps? Of course, what constitutes "privacy" these days, right?

Have a Wale(s) of a good day!

And either a win is a win and a loss is a loss, or else it's neither stupid nor shameful that either the second or third best regular season record will be absent from the true playoffs, it's just the breaks number-fucking again. That's going to happen as long as you structure your teams one way, your schedule another, and your playoffs yet another. Hell, it's going to happen, period. A cutoff point is a cutoff point. Miss as good as mile, etc. MLB is still presenting the World Series as NL vs AL, but they're heading towards an increasingly "global" scheduling model. At some point, if you want true "fairness" in seeding (and, really, the whole notion of "seeding" in MLB is a relatively recent one), then you do away with "leagues" and "divisions", schedule play among all teams in a balanced way that still plays on fan interest, adjust the number of regular season games, play the season out, take the X-best records, and then have your playoffs there, best records play weakest records, still surprises, but then the whatever-arbitrary-number-of-best-records are chosen to participate, everybody who gets in gets an equal shot to make it to the "World Series". That would be MLB, what, 5.0? 1.0 being the original pro game/dead ball era, 2.0 the live ball era, 3.0 the post-Jackie Robinson era (and 3.5 the post free agency era), and 4.0 the advent of divisional play.

Yeah, well, that's where it starts getting Wall Street-y, perhaps not in intent, but definitely in eventual outcome. A profit is a profit, no matter what, at the end of the day, all wins/profits are equal, profit and value become the same thing. Some people are totally cool with that. I'm not. It's a question of esthetics, and it'll be what it'll be.

Ok, this is easy enough... Overall 2015 MLB final regular season records (per tradion, RED = AL, BLUE=NL; as NOT per tradition, bold = division winner, italic = WC teams under given scenario). TeamW1L1St. Louis Cardinals10062Pittsburgh Pirates9864Chicago Cubs9765Kansas City Royals9567Toronto Blue Jays9369Los Angeles Dodgers9270New York Mets9072Texas Rangers8874New York Yankees8775Houston Astros8676Los Angeles Angels8577San Francisco Giants8478Washington Nationals8379Minnesota Twins8379Baltimore Orioles8181Cleveland Indians8180Tampa Bay Rays8082Arizona Diamondbacks7983Boston Red Sox7884Chicago White Sox7686Seattle Mariners7686San Diego Padres7488Detroit Tigers7487Miami Marlins7191Milwaukee Brewers6894Colorado Rockies6894Oakland Athletics6894Atlanta Braves6795Cincinnati Reds6498Philadelphia Phillies6399And, minus inter-league records: TeamW2L2St. Louis Cardinals8953Chicago Cubs8755Pittsburgh Pirates8557Kansas City Royals8260Los Angeles Dodgers8260Toronto Blue Jays8161New York Mets8161Texas Rangers7765Los Angeles Angels7765New York Yankees7666Washington Nationals7567Minnesota Twins7567San Francisco Giants7171Houston Astros7072Baltimore Orioles6973Cleveland Indians6972Arizona Diamondbacks6874Seattle Mariners6874Chicago White Sox6775San Diego Padres6775Tampa Bay Rays6676Boston Red Sox6577Detroit Tigers6576Miami Marlins6478Colorado Rockies6379Atlanta Braves6181Milwaukee Brewers6082Oakland Athletics5785Cincinnati Reds5785Philadelphia Phillies5577One year, very small sample size, but ok, if this is any indication, inter-league play probably would not have affected either league's division titles, defintely would not have if this would have been the full season, 142 games instead of 162. What happens if you play the extra 20 all within your own league and/or division, though...hard to say without a deeper dive into the stats, splits, and probabilities, none of which I am remotely equipped to undertake. But as for the Wild Card..Angles, y'all maybe got screwed. Oh well, too bad! And Astros, odds are that y'all definitely caught a break. Go Astros! Cubs and Pirates, both y'all be thankful that this is 2015 and not 1968. You too, Blue Jays, Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, Astros, and Rangers (errr...Senators). No room at the in(n) for none but the Royals & Cards. It'd be the Whitey Herzog Memorial World Series Of Baseball, ok by me! You kids today, you just don't know...20 teams. two leagues, 162 games (except for 1961, which was weird in all kinds of ways) and then before that, 16 teams, 154 games) , then the World Series. NO playoffs, and if you had a Game 163, it wasn't to see who was gonna be a wild card entrant. More hearts than these Wild Card ones were broken by THAT system, believe me. And they had to walk 20 miles to school in the snow and 30 miles back in the rain before they could cry about it. Hell, in 2012, my heart was crying that the World Series was still not best-of-nine. Life's a bitch and then you die. At least until pitchers and catchers report. But I digress....to the matter originally at hand: From this one sample, the only variance effected by inter-league record was in the second Wild Card slot, and only in the American league. So if I'm gonna be honest with these numbers, I'm gonna have to call my preference to either move all the way forward or all the way back with inter-league play primarily an esthetic one. A morally and logically sound one, imo, but hey, it's not wrong, so it'll just have to be a choice - the RIGHT choice! Combine dingleberry inter-league scheduling with 2 Wild Card teams, though, hmmm....too much of not yet enough of a good thing, perhaps? Time will tell? Either way, right now it's ALL about the...

It's only stupid (and it's only happening) because of the inanity of structuring teams into leagues (and divisions) and then not having scheduling that reflects the structuring. If you're going to have leagues and divisions to determine team rankings, have schedules that play games that give an accurate picture of those rankings within those groupings. Twenty - 20 - Inter-league games, essentially 1/8 of the season, but only three games separating the Cards from the Cubs in the final division standings. Cubs went 8-11 against the Cardinals, 11-8 against the Pirates. The Pirates went 9-10 against the Cardinals, and of course, 8-11 against the Cubs. But inter-league play, check it out - Pirates were 13-7, Cubs 10-10...you've got some evidence here that on the surface suggests that the Cardinals were better than both, but that the Cubs might have been the better NL Central team but that inter-league play obstructed the record from truly reflecting that. There's a logical inconsistency in evaluating performance across certain boundaries and then limiting the subsequent rewards back within those boundaries that should be obvious, I'd think. Whether or not it's a desirable inconsistency, that's another conversation altogether. For people who grew up only not really experiencing pre-merger NFL or true AL/NL MLB, perhaps such inconsistencies are more inevitabilities than they are inconsistencies. But I'm kinda like, hey, if the World Series is still gonna be AL vs NL (and not necessarily the "best" from each league, either), then schedule accordingly. If it's going to be a battle among the teams with the best overall end of season records, then schedule THAT accordingly. But right now, you're using 162 games to evaluate standing that are relevant at any level past completely arbitrary, at best, 142 games. True "National League" standings (i.e. - games played by National League teams against each other) for the NL East: St. Louis - 89-53 Chicago - 87-55 Pittsburgh - 85-57 True National League Central Division standings (i.e. games played by NL Central teams against each other) St. Louis - 46-30 Chicago - 46-30 Pittsburgh - 34-42 By any standard not including Interleague play, Cubs have the better record. Only due to the inter-league results is the one WC game thing-y even necessary. (Probably nt..no, I have not recalculated all of the NL records along similar lines. I'd like to see the results, just not this late at night...). IMO, the only tragedy is that this whole "inter-league" thing (and to a lesser extent, the imbalanced schedule in general) is not even (as far as I know) being attempted attempted as anything other than a gimmick. It could work, but it would require a pretty radical jettisoning of baseball's historical "traditions". But hell, that shit is over already, yeah, new memories being made every day, but, you know, everybody gets new memories made every day, such is life. At some point you have to ask - what am I being sold here - the tradition of baseball, or the implanted memories of the tradition of baseball? What? Owners play that game? OUTRAGEOUS! And don't get me started on the inter-league play application of the DH. That shit is an uncomfortable compromise at best in WS, but in REGULAR season games that are gonna go back into a record evaluated strictly on intra-league records? C'mon... I'm an AL guy, I like the DH. But the notion that my team's - AL or NL - regular season record may be fatally affected by some games where they're playing by some other "league's" rules...that's kinda like if I get busted for pot in the US, you're gonna send me to Iraq for trial, but then I have my sentence carried out in Japan, or some weird shit like that. MLB is not yet the United Federation Of Planets, nor do I see any indication that they have eyes to be. The cynicism inherent in that lack of desire, hey, there's a myopic tragedy in a history full of them. Either go all the way or go nowhere. Either way works, it's the dingleberry aspect of it as it now stands that sucks. Otherwise, hey, shit happens, numbers are not always your friend, sometimes they will fuck you with neither guilt nor remorse, I've seen it happen, we're seeing it now, don't blame numbers for being numbers when you leave them unsupervised, you know how they do, THIS is how they do. And then they run back into the shadows until the next time, which, who knows when that will be? Do not leave your numbers unsupervised, baseball, that's all I'm asking of you. Especially at night.

NY Post is Rupert Murdoch's paper, correct? The same Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox, the same Fox that carries the majority of the post-season, and the same Fox would would glad take all the money that comes in from the Yankees going deep into it, especially to the WS. This is the same guy, right? I can only say "Fuck you, Rupert Murdoch" really effectively in one language, but anybody else who can expand on that, please do.

NFL playoff system...yeah, fucked up when applied to the NFL, but when applied to an MLB situation, as could have happened with Astros/Rangers this year, or in any other Game 1963 scenario, I think it works. Put the two teams up against one another and go down the line, head-to-head record first, then Run Differential in head-to-head games, run it on down the line. lord knows, there's stats, it's baseball. If two teams have played each other enough during the regular 162 game season, the Game 163 should not be necessary, it's a cheap circus move. But oh, wait - the imbalanced schedule tends to incentivize the cheap circus move. Let's say that the Rangers & Yankees would have been tied for whatever. They've played each other 7 times this year (and went 5-2, end of line as far as hypothetical tie-breaker) . That's right, two American League teams met only seven out of 162 games. Even allowing for the imperfect math of 162/15, divisional rivals play each other a total of 76 games a season, 19 games per opponent. That leaves more than half the season to play the rest of the teams in your own league. This year, we played the freakin' Padres 6 games. What kind of relevancy does ANY cumulative league/divisional record have when the Rangers played the Padres only one less time than they did the Yankees? We played the Dodgers only two less times than we did the Twins, and it was looking there for a little bit like the Rangers & Twins might have a Game 163 waiting for them. If they had played each other enough times is a sensibly scheduled regular season, then that NFL-type line 'em up and compare thing would've had some serious validity. As it was, we finished 3-3 against them with a -3 RD. Advantage, Twins. But the difference in sample size between 6 & 19 is > 300%, so...significant. Hell, between 6 games and 12 games, double the sample size. I get that the bottom line is "entertainment" (i.e. -$$$$$), and no, I don't "abhor" the one wild card team, it's a logistical necessity borne of the "need" to have three 5-tem divisions within each league (and let's ask why these symmetrical divisions are so important if the scheduling is so freakin' asymmetrical!). But a second WC team is an entertainment $$$ ploy, pure and simple, and I'm one of the possibly vanishing number of MLB fans who was "entertained" by the way the whole season played out withing a stricter set of controls than just sneaking in with the 5th best record in your league, especially when that record exists both within and outside of your league, and especially if you have to play 163 games to get that 5th best record of a 162 game season. It ain't the same thing. It's an attempt to redefine things like "logic" and "sanity" and "value" and "success", not to accommodate expanded horizons but to fatten some wallets at the expense of emptying (many) others. OTOH, it's the best game in the history of the world, known and unknown alike, ever. But those are two different things.

wow... CC Sabathia checks into rehab, will miss Yankees postseason runhttp://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2015/10/5/9454905/cc-sabathia-rehab-yankees-mlb-playoffs?_ga=1.10148338.63955067.1442335336

No, I didn't ignore your example, it was just not relevant to my beef with the current system. There's a big difference between playing a game to see which of two teams is going to be division champion or a first Wild Card team and playing a game to see which of two teams is going to be a going to be a Game 1623-losing second wild card team who can still go on to win the World Series. Same setup on paper, not same result as far as "meaning" to me, which is admittedly a projection of personal social values onto a non-personal sporting event that produces predictable-enough long-term results but wildly random and arbitrary individual events, but hey, it's America and it's baseball. If the Rangers had lost yesterday AND the Astros had won AND the Rangers lost Game 163 AND then gone on to win the World series, as a Rangers fan, I would be ecstatic. As a rational human who still likes the notion of some kind of intrinsic worth that lies apart from statistical flukes and the last quarter's earnings, I gotta say, I'd be somewhat ambivalent about that whole thing. Of course, the Rangers fan in me would take some, but not all, precedence. I'm really not a fan of the imbalanced schedule, though, not even. Or second WC game. Or anything else than plays toward the devaluing of of the 162 game season as being the ongoing measurement of both individual and team performance and excellence. We ain't there yet, a long way from it, but if the long range trend is towards the regular season becoming essentially "exhibition games that count", then that is a core shift in values (and valuations, the more that statistics lose that tightly controlled context, the more they become gaudy "numbers")) that I'm really not on board with. Not that it matters. The one thing - the ONE thing - that I still dig about the NFL is their tie-breaking system for the playoffs. They prioritize correctly, I think, and the team that has the most obvious head-to-head advantage gets the spot. Here's what I want to know about MLB - if you're going ahead with the imbalanced schedule AND the everyday Inter-league thing AND the second WC thing, why even bother with divisions? Or, for that matter, leagues? Money, of course, but, you know, sell your product differently, forget about the "tradition" and "continuity" and all that. If/when the Padres play in Fenway in September and they're both battling it out for their division, all that is pretty much gonna be over. At some point, they should just reboot the entire sport. Abolish divisions/leagues/etc.restructure the schedule into "units" vs "series" and start the record books over. I'd be on board with that, actually, because the game itself remains the most perfectly devised team sport that I know of.

The beauty of the blur...

Yeah, I get how the numbers work. Don't like how they're set up. Don't like the second wild-card. Don't like a Game 163 to determine who a second wild card team will be. Don't like participation trophies. Don't like "you can do anything". Don't like imbalanced schedules. Don't like inter-league play on every day of season. Don't like stats being slowly but surely rendered meaningless as anything but bargaining tools. Other than the game itself, what has always made baseball a superior sport for me was the notion that performance over the course of a season generally reflected ability. Fixed number of games against a fixed number of opponents, every year, world with out end, at the end of the year, you pretty much saw how everybody stacked up relative to each other. You still get that to a certain extent, but it's eroding. Look at this year's AL, compare intra-division records relative to final division standings, etc. etc. etc. Rangers win their division this year with a losing record against every team in it except the Astros. How many teams in either league play the exact 162 game schedule in a season? You can't stop progress, etc. But MLB is rapidly becoming yet another facet of our lives where numbers don't "mean" what they used to, because the system used to creat tehm is becoming increasingly inconstant. And yes, the inconstant factor has always been there, even in the days before divisional play. Injuries, hot streaks, expansion, trades, etc. the game has never been 100% predictable, of course it hasn't. But now, the inconstant factor is being built into the premise. AFAIC, that devalues the significance of overall W-L record, but....it is what it is. Context being made more nebulous, Numbers within being made more an end product than a reflection of value within any context other than themselves. Wall Street. That's ok if you like that kind of thing out of your baseball. I don't, not particularly.

Day Trippers Stumblebum Bum Phillips

Man Overboard Ian Underwood Velma Middleton

Thanks to the Rangers & Astros for both unilaterally respecting the 162. Still, a system that allows for that, as this one almost did, is just waiting to get Wall Street-ed. The time was not today, but that day will come, and where will your guns be then, Mr. & Mrs. USA Inc.? (JK about the guns, but not the rest of it, y'all know I'm right about that part, if not now, then later). Otherwise, cake, meet that good gravy icing! How the hell this happened, I still don't know. For that matter, how yesterday happened, I still don't know, probably best to not know, ever. Brenda & I have just concluding an eternally binding contract that stipulates, without reservation or secondary clauses, that our next child, irregardless of gender and/or species, will be named "Beltre". I would urge the universe to follow suit if for no other reason than, hey, world done gone too far wrong already, let's at least have fun with it by recognizing at least one right thing. For now, anyway, Go Astros! Go Rangers!

Don't Ask is actually one of the better Milestone albums as far as those things go. Larry Coryell's presence is unnecessary and distracting, maybe that's why the album is called what it is. OTOH, Harlem Boys, weirdass production, amazing playing. Hello Milestone Sonny Rollins records.

Not if they mention it on their own website, which they do. http://www.nagelheyer.de/hot-news.html And remember, it's not "bootlegging" over there. It's "public domain".