JSngry

None of these are bebop alto players in the 1970s and beyond. Whole 'nother world, that one is.

Gil Thorpe Mark Trail Judge Parker

Bubbles Whitman Whitman Mayo Don Grady

The Dells Your Baby (give her a standing ovation!) Jim Foetus

No hat, not silly.

Steve Cropper Sharecropper Joseph Cotton

Eddie is happy!

It's a tired, but it's a good kind of tired.

Dairy Farmer Daisy Fuentes Davey From The Monkees

Sam Levenson Good Neighbor Sam Jim Nabors

That European Rhythm Machine stuff is definitely worthy. And let me say it one more time, becuase it's rapidly becoming a lost art in what for all intents and purposes is a lost idiom - one of the greatest post-Bird lead alto players ever. Not really a fan of anything past the early return from Europe stuff, though (and the L.A. group he had with Pete Robinson) shows me that he tried to keep going "forward" but just hit a dead end inside himself and decided to stand pat and get fat, and that's his earned prerogative). But the hat, is not good. The hat is silly. And lots of alto players favor them, hats of one form or fashion (thread suggestion - Album Covers With Alto Players Wearing Hats/Caps). And there are lots of silly alto players. It's an instrument that lends itself to being silly, juat as the tenor lends itself to being long-winded. Put a silly alto player on bari - if they're really not silly, that'll prove it.

Works for me!

WWSDD?

Runners on 2nd & 3rd with two outs and try for a double steal or a sacrifice fly? Really? Playing with the DH presents its own strategies. They're not the same strategies as the NL strategies, but those who claim that AL ball is strategy-free as the result of the DH are wrong. In other news, this time bad, Ogando to the DL with a strained groin. Yuck.

I've noticed that the Yankees have been picking things up, for sure. Not surprised by that!

Had a college bud from L.A. who was neighbors with him. Said that he mowed his yard just like everybody else. I mean, doesn't Sam Drucker seem like a guy who would do that? RIP, and thanks for bagging.

Oh, I'm counting on it being a long season. I'd have gone full-on crazy by now if not. Seriously, it's been a very, very frustrating stretch we've had, and a longer than usual one (at least for this team, and yeah, I'm fully aware how lucky we are to have a team about which to fret in this manner). But knowing that it's just a probability and not a certainty that it will all even out by September only helps a little. To use the parlance - "first place problems". I'd like them to remain that!

Ah, the deception of cumulative stats...after getting off to the unbelievable 17-6 April, the teams's gone 18-20 against some relatively weak competition - and looked pretty bad doing it more than a few times doing it. 17-6 extrapolates out to about 120-42, and nobody in their right mind expects that. But you do expect a team that plays that well to play better than .500 ball over a six week span. And you sure don't expect them to let their main division rival go from being 9 games back to just being 3 behind in those six weeks. Good teams collapse, fall aprt, whatever. sometimes it's injuries, sometimes it's mental, sometimes it's just shit happening. But this is not a .500 team, and they sure as hell shouldn't be playing sub-.500 ball for as long as they have been unless something's wrong. Plenty of time for the ship to right itself, of course, and if we go 2-3 against Arizona & the Angles go 1-2 against the Dodgers, the lead's back up to 5 4. But - and this is what is troubling - we've had recent series of getting swept by the Royals, losing 2-out-of-3 to the Mariners (twice!), and losing 3-out-of-4 to the A's, often losing ugly, not tough. And the Angels are coming on for real. We can't afford to lose all these series that we should win. Occasionally, yeah, but the pattern/trend/whatever has been downward forabout as long as it needs to be. Just stop it. Now. This has been more than a team having a rough week or two, this has been damn near six weeks of a team seriously and consistently underachieving. I'll be less concerned when it stops being so. Can't win 'em all, and you can't avoid the blowouts here and there. But six weeks is too long for a team this good to play this inconsistently, and definitely too long for it to bee under .500. [edited to fix some Wishful Thinking math...]

Jane Withers The Watergate Plumbers Eve Plumb

Markie Post Sugar Bear Coco Crisp

Much love for Sunny Murray in this house. Maximum positive energy being directed to a positive resolution to the current dilemma.

I've come to embrace the DH myself, but the big thing for me would be some simple consistency. so inter-league play (which I'm still not fully sold on) takes on less of a gawky, slack-jawed "GAWRSH, let's watch the pitchers BAT" quality. Nothing is quite as coitus-interruptussy (aside from actual coitus-interruptus) as getting runners on 2nd & 3rd with two out in the early innings, and here comes Herbie The Can't Hit Hurler to the plate But what makes it worse is knowing what would happen if you were in your own bed, er...ballpark. Either keep the DH or drop it, (and give the NL a five year period to use it so they'll know what they're missing and if they feel better off with it or without it) but make it consistent across both leagues.

Had a humorously bizarre conversation with somebody who was cussing Wash for using Ogando in Holland's slot in the rotation instead of calling up some significantly less able AAA arm. Ogando's groin strain from running out the bunt was offered as proof positive that it's a bad idea to use relievers as spot starters. I'm all like, "dude, do you realize that this injury had nothing to do with who was pitching and everything to do with the fact that the game was played with NL rules, and whoever was pitching would have been batting in that situation, and, hopefully, laying down that good of a bunt and then running it out? And - if you bring up some AAA arm, we likely don't win that game, period?" So...you don't use relievers to spot start, ever, because they can strain a groin muscle when they bat, which is only if the games being played in a NL park, and only if they're really good bunters. Just....use lesser talent. Makes perfect sense to me!

This and the Pasadena concert on GNP...the ne plus ultra of big band bebop.