Dan Gould

Boy, you know your team is hot when your ace has to sit with a "stiff neck", you call up a AAA starter, he leaves trailing 5-1, and they come back against the team with the second best record in the league and ultimately win 7-6, on Pedroia's third double of the day. And talk about the kids - Pedroia is 4 for 5 on the day and hitting .364, and Ellsbury led off the game with a homer, hit another in the sixth, and started the tie-breaking rally in the eighth with a perfect drag bunt. Add in a two-run blast from Youkilis, Papelbon's 8th save (which featured K's of Mathews and Vladi, he's at 14.7 strikeouts per 9 IP) and it was the kiddie show at Fenway. With youngsters like that, the future looks very bright indeed. And the future is now.

All hail John Smoltz, the 16th pitcher to record 3000 strikeouts in history. This little tidbit puts it into proper perspective.

You bet it could! For those of us who were around and in the business at the time, this is not hindsight but, rather, first-hand recollection. Sometimes presumption might appear to be a wonderful tool, but it is inevitably conquered by that which really occurred. Let's see: Big corporation now owns the label. The genre itself has changed drastically, with fusion changing the economics (in terms of expectations) almost as much as the bean counters did. I don't know what you saw, but when you look around what the industry was putting out at that time, which companies had great "jazz" content? Maybe the releases could have been marginally better, maybe better artists could have been offered deals but if the implication is that BN could have stayed on the course Lion and Wolff were on that's nuts. If that's presumption over first-hand recollection, fine. But show me another jazz label owned by a major corporation that put out better/greater "jazz content" through its jazz label. This wasn't Cobblestone/Muse, and it wasn't a labor of love anymore.

Damn. No ... wonder if they're replay it? There's hardly any guarantee that your local PBS station ran it at the same time as major markets did. I'd check the American Experience website. If you have broadband, there's an option to watch online, too.

Is that no OFF-ence or no o-FFENCE? You have seen your team much more than I have but my sense, frankly, is that a lot of the missing desire to win would come with a bullpen that doesn't leak so much. Now how much of that is the bad bullpen and how much is a sense by the other players that "oh well, the game is in the hands of the 'pen - this is over now" I do not know.

Well if its true, then I think they'll reverse the curse soon, since the cross-town rivals who undoubtedly threw a World Series ended their futility three years ago.

That's four since Monday, 8 out of 13 wins overall of the "comeback" variety, and they surely padded their lead in runs scored from the seventh inning on. Forget Back Bay Nine - they're the new Cardiac Kids!

So Chris, you live across the street from the park, are there signs or aren't there? Or did you just assume that the signs don't have any force?

I remember when Marzano was a member of the Red Sox. Solid backup catcher, one of those guys though that are always just hanging on to a major league spot. Meantime, an interesting decision by the Blue Jays to release Frank Thomas. A team that has the pitching and doesn't have the offense giving up on a guy who had 20+ HRs and 95 RBIs last year. First they set him down and told him he'd get less playing time, he blew a fuse as he often does and declared that it was all because of the clause in his contract that makes next year's 9 million guaranteed with something like 375 plate appearances. The thing is that the Jays were caught between the proverbial hard places and all because of that ridiculous contract they gave him. If they weren't stupid enough to overpay him for two years plus a makable option clause, they wouldn't feel like they had to let him go after fewer than 75 ABs. The lineup may not be getting the job done now but the odds were at least halfway decent that Thomas would start helping them. Now unless they make a move (Hello, Barry Bonds?) I don't see how Rod Barajas at DH helps the Jays offensive problems. And last but not least, Al, I hope you're enjoying the help you're getting from the home plate umpire. He's calling strikes that are six inches off the plate, and then runs Manny when he barely opens his mouth. Typical asshole egotistical ump, gets up in Manny's face instead of taking his complaint like a man since he f-ed up the call. And now the Sox lineup has a hole in the middle - and what happens? Walk Ortiz to get to a 29 year old rookie. First pitch ground ball. Jesus Christ.

Sad news. His Argo recordings are nice.

How'd you like Julio Lugo back? I'm sure Theo would pay 6 or 7 million of his 9 million dollar salary to take him off our hands. With Jed Lowry waiting in the wings, I don't know how Lugo lasts very long. And the worst thing for him is that his replacement isn't in Pawtucket, he's on the major league roster due to the injuries to Lowell and Cora. So every few days, the fans get to see Lowry and that isn't going to help them accept Lugo's shortcomings, as so far he's played a passable shortstop and gotten several clutch hits.

And who'da thunk it? Jennings has an outstanding performance against your guys, only to be given away by the bullpen. {{{{{{{{{{{{{SIGH}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Yeah, that's why I was so annoyed from the second to the seventh innings, and no more so than when Lugo hits the first pitch he sees and kills the first rally they had. Luckily Manny is completely locked in right now, and a week ago, Papi's shot into the shift would have gotten gobbled up.

Its an interesting turnaround, from sending the guy down out of Spring Training, to offering him a long-term deal that could last 9 years and 44 million dollars. No way he gets sent down now if he ever has some rookie growing pains. I'm not sure the salaries at the start but he is guaranteed 18 million or something over his pre-free agency years, and then they have I believe three option years. To me its a very surprising deal because I don't think anyone has locked up someone, even someone this good, with so few days in the majors. And its a huge savings when you consider that the Red Sox gave Nomar something like 6/42 after he won the RoY award. I heard on Baseball Tonight that the Union and other players were very disturbed at this signing, because assuming that he is the player so many people think he will be - the Rays are getting him at a tremendous discount over those arbitration-eligible years. They have no reason to pay him beyond $400-500K in the first few years, because those players aren't eligible for arbitration and teams can simply renew their contracts at whatever level they wish. But starting in those arbitration years, the savings will be enormous. I mean think of Ryan Howard's arbitration award - 10 million. Even if this isn't the guy to hit 50 HRs a year, he could easily get 8 or 9 million a year - if he performs. That's the rub - teams want cost certainty, and smart players realize that they can get injured or for that matter discover that its not so easy against the greatest pitchers in the world. So they get a chance to set their families up with guaranteed money - and still get a chance at the silly bucks while they are still young. IMO, Rays fans should be ecstatic that the ownership seems genuinely committed to building the team. The old ownership would have renewed him for three years, and then traded him when he became eligible for arbitration. Meantime, what is up with the Yanks? Its like their 15 runs wore them out - they've scored two runs over two games against the O's, and while Hughes had a marginally better game on Friday, Kennedy got hammered and couldn't make it out of the third inning. This really could be the year that the Yanks miss the playoffs - if these young pitchers don't get it together. And the Sox - sorry Al, I'm sure that was an annoying loss tonight. But one good sign for this team is that they've scored more runs in the seventh inning and beyond then any other team in baseball, and they did it once again tonight, after being shut down for six straight innings, Pedroia doubled, Papi singled him home to tie it and Manny, who is on fire, hit another one over the Monster for the win. I wonder if Manny could win MVP and Comeback Player of the year?

+1

Absolutely agree on the site design. How about a search feature, guys? I was pretty disappointed with the jazz selection on my last visit to Radioactive. Really made me miss All Books. Have you been since they added the back room for vinyl? They definitely have a lot more jazz out there now, for better or worse I'm just not looking for any right now and am more likely to look in the tiny blues section when I do make it down there.

I thought the site was very poorly designed for having participating stores listed alphabetically instead of by state, but eventually I did find two stores in south Florida I've never heard of before that might be worth checking out, plus one that is near my parent's house that I may try to visit the next time I go to CT. Unfortunately, no time today to see what might be going on at the one store down here that is worth a damn and is listed as a participant, the former CD Collector, now Radioactive Records, in Fort Lauderdale.

Yeah, and I like our chances against Jennings today, an NL pitcher against what is, somewhat surprisingly, the best offense in the AL right now (I especially like those 5 HRs he's given up in fewer than 15 innings). I say surprisingly because of Papi's struggles (before last night) but I feel as though this is the offense we should have had last year, and with Manny and (dare I say it?) Drew raking the ball, I think that right now there is a margin for error with the pitching not yet up to par. If the offense keeps it up and the pitching just stabilizes, I think the quest to repeat could go very well.

This was put out on LP way back when, and in 2000, Freshsound applied their business model to it: Big Joe comes out for "Shake Rattle and Roll"

I was going to say. I remember when I first heard of the New Madrid fault when I lived in St. Louis and how the brick construction of so many homes would be disastrous when that fault decides to slip because the vibrations essentially turn the bricks into liquid. Meantime, did anyone see the news about the new prediction for a CA earthquake at least as bad as Northridge? Over the next 30 years, the odds were placed at 99%. So for most of us, there is virtually a guarantee that there will be another disastrous or near-disastrous quake in CA in our lifetimes.

As Vizzini would say, "Inconceivable!!" No offense Al but the Sox need to put an end to that pretty quickly. This series is their little break in an April that started in Oakland, went to Toronto, home for Detroit and the Yankees, at Cleveland and the Yanks, and then have the Angels in town after Texas. After that its 9 against the much improved Rays and Jays, then 8 on the road against Detroit and Minnesota. We gotta take any gimmes on the schedule we can! And no, I don't regard the Rangers as total pushovers, but as much as the Yankees complain about their 20 games in 20 days, with 18 on the road, this stretch of the schedule isn't exactly conducive to a fast start for us, either. I should probably be glad to be 10-7 at this point when you factor in Ortiz' struggle.

Here's the page of Jimmy's website with the address. http://www.jimmymcgriff.com/mcgriff_s_calendar He refers to a CD having been recorded at Smoke - did it ever come out?

Maybe his ass swallowed it.