Dan Gould

Nah...I was thinking of someone around here. cough, cough...Dan....cough, clears throat...Dan... What the hell are you talking about? I don't get VO gigs because of my 'radio voice' - I get them because of my ability to deliver different reads for different copy. Hardly anyone in voiceovers gets jobs because of their "announcer voice" anymore. The John Facenda "Voice of God" thing is no longer what most producers want.

Jim, I think its natural for you to go after the "jam band" crowd because I've always wondered where you guys might be if you had gone the MMW root earlier. I think your best business approach is going after the "jam band" crowd to populate gigs and future recordings should actually be limited to home studio sessions, somewhat like the "pay the band" idea that Rooster suggested. What I am thinking of is the band picking some new tunes and some old tunes, getting comfortable with them, and putting them up on the site as a download. I'm not saying you commit yourself to a specific song but if the band is happy with the take, put it up there. You lose control of presenting the music in album format, but I bet there are people who would open their wallets for a handful of Big John or Jimmy Smith covers, as well as lots of other tunes including originals and the band is only out the time spent recording and your own engineering skills. You've done it with other recordings before, I think its time to think of it as a revenue generating opportunity instead of a free promotional EP. When you take out the cost of physical production of the object and as you mentioned before, the cost of using super expensive equipment and a talented engineer, the economics of recording and distributing really change.

Reinier, You seem to be one of the guys with an "in" with Michael - has he confirmed this to you recently? Because others like Brad who have emailed don't get nearly as definitive an answer, so if you have new info, that's great.

Well I'm excited since now we'll find out what gumbo sounds like.

Well, I recall Gammons ( I Think) pointing out that Sabathia beat Santana, and Verlander 7 out of 8 times......And I think with everything else being more or less equal, this may have been a reason. I couldn't find the info on yahoo mlb, but didn't Sabathia have very little run support in the games he lost? Also, he no doubt had several games blown by Borowski... I've never understood the "beat" other pitchers. You beat other teams - its easier to beat Minnesota when they have a bad season, when their best hitters have down years, and especially when their ace has a down year. As far as Sabathia's losses go, Borowski didn't blow a save in a game where C.C. was in line for the win. He did, however, have a 1-0 loss and a 2-1 loss, plus a ND in which he went 9 shut out innings.

Oh I don't know. They were so close - I mean even their WHIPs were the same. ERA close, Ws close. So as you say, the difference was Sabathia took the ball more. He averaged 1/3 of an inning more a start, along with the superior K/W. So there ya go. A little bit better gets you the award. Regarding 119-86, that's because of the 5-3-1 scoring. It would have been 73-56 if you used a 3-2-1 system. What I want to know is who left Sabathia off of the ballot? Well, I was really referring to the 19 of 28 first place votes. It should have been closer - especially since, while Sabathia had the superior K/W ration, Josh had the higher Ks per 9 IP. It was much closer than the first place votes indicated. And it is ironic since anyone watching the post-season knew who the superior pitcher overall was, but the other guy got the award.

Much.

I really didn't think that I'd contribute to this thread, but just discovered a way cool thing in my abode - something I had no idea existed. You see, I've been slowly making progress transferring recent (as in, over the summer) LP purchases to CD, and next up in the queue was a Pablo release I'd never seen on CD - Patcha, Patcha, All Night Long - Joe Turner Meets Jimmy Witherspoon. There wasn't even an inner sleeve included, but it looked in good shape, and Lee Allen and Red Holloway play sax, and even if Joe and Spoon didn't have much left at that point, the price couldn't be beat at $4. So I slip this one on the turntable, only this time, something fell out of the jacket: Now I own two different artists autographs - a Gene Harris and now a Jimmy Witherspoon.

i've never taken these awards at all seriously, and the vote should come after the preseason. i suspect this award is a nightmare for the indians. sabathia's very high market value has increased significantly, which is not good news to the sleep cheap underfunded indians. i would not be surprised to see sabathia in a bosox uniform. They'll go hard to re-sign him, and considering how many filled the roster is with relatively cheap young players, I can't see why they wouldn't be able to come up with the cash to keep their best starter. And I presume you meant that the vote should come after the post-season, not spring training.

Dan have you noticed any of the "spotting" issues that I have raised above? Nope. Some Office Depot CDRs have turned a gold-ish color but they continue to play.

That has nothing to do with it. If Sabathia's superiority was obvious, I'd say so. Its not, so I am protesting.

I switched to three ring binders a long time ago and have never encountered any CD that failed to play, and two years ago I was still in my "A to Z" listening trip and was going through them one by one. I'd like to hear from someone an explanation as to why these sleeves could damage a CD.

Well, I am sure that it is little consolation to Sabathia or tribe fans that he got the Cy Young over Beckett. I'm sure Beckett is happier with the ring, anyway. But what I can't understand is how comfortable his lead was over Beckett. He had 1 fewer wins and the same number of losses, a rather small difference in ERA - .06, and a substantial lead in innings pitched, 40, at least partially explained by Beckett's "avulsion" in June. When you consider the difference in innings, Beckett actually outperformed Sabathia in Ks (8.72 per nine innings to 7.8). Only in strikeout to walk ratio does Sabathia have a substantial lead, 5.65 to 4.85. So how does he get 19 of 28 first place votes and win 119-86?? Surely he is lucky that the post-season doesn't enter into the voting, because when you compare his performance to Beckett's and add in the regular season, its not even close. Honestly, in my opinion, this vote ought to have been as close as the NL RoY and its ridiculous if Sabathia won based on 40 more innings. Josh was robbed!

So Chris, how was 1959-60 for ya? And I've always wondered about this sort of thing - does the priest actually mention every single name, or do they say something like "everyone listed in this here book"? Could really make that mass take forever if they get enough people signed up.

I think that Ron has it right, and that some people see rare OOP titles listed by Caiman and then get ticked off when they don't show up when the reality is that the listing should be taken with a grain of salt. Take the plunge, hope you get a shipping confirmation in a week or so or else cancel. Its not that difficult. Not saying that is the sole cause of the anger expressed at Caiman, but it seems to be a big part of it.

Well, it really looked like Posada was going to hear other team's offers but that threat scared the Yanks into acquiescing to a huge four year, 52+ million dollar contract. He certainly picked the right year to have a career year, but four years at that price to a catcher who will turn 40 before the contract expires is pretty risky. And now the Yanks are looking at probably the same four year deal for Mariano, who will be 42 when that runs out! I don't think they've truly learned yet what it means to have an old roster, and now with Mike Lowell able to listen to offers from other teams, it will be interesting to see how the Yankees approach him. Will they give him four or even five years to snatch him away? Will they regret it as quickly as they regretted Damon's contract? That roster could still be filled with aging, declining stars three years from now, especially if they keep Matsui. I have to say I am less than thrilled that Lowell is reportedly holding out for top dollar/years. Apparently the Red Sox have offered three years but his advisors are sure they can get four on the market. Seems to me that if he really wants to stay, a three year deal ought to be enough, especially since he's never struck me as having the Pedro Martinez Diva gene. And any buyer should beware: Lowell hit .373 at Fenway, which means he hit around .270 on the road. Can anyone expect him to duplicate his .320/120 RBI season if he's not hitting in the cozy confines? Even though it leaves open the possibility of an A-Rod signing, I have confidence that Theo will do the right thing if he has to replace his third baseman, even if that third baseman goes to the Yankees.

That's how I feel about Joe Morgan! I don't understand why some here dislike him so. Check out the link someone posted for aloc - http://www.firejoemorgan.com and read the postings about Joe, particularly how he dissects Joe's 'chat sessions' on espn.com and the various stupid things he says on TV. It all boils down to one thing: Joe is the lead baseball analyst for ESPN but he's incapable of saying anything worthy of the title "analyst".

Well, MLB's week of award announcements has started off with Dustin Pedroia running away with the AL Rookie of the Year while Ryan Braun got the nod in the NL by a scant two votes over Tulowitsky. I think they got it right in the NL, as Braun didn't even get called up til May 25th yet finished with 34 homers and 97 RBI while hitting .324. The fact that he's a butcher in the hot corner (26 errors) doesn't eliminate the fact he had tremendous numbers in only four months of the season. Meanwhile, I am even more impressed with Pedroia's performance in the post-season, as it was revealed last week that he broke his hamate bone in his hand early in September but with a few adjustments to his grip, continued to play. That's the same injury that took Wily Mo Pena out of the lineup in 2006, yet the kid not only continued to play but hit some critical home runs in the post-season with the injury. He's almost as tough as his mouth is. And there was an article in the Globe about the 2008 projections book that Bill James and cohorts produces. He's got Pedroia hitting .300 with 40 doubles next year, and Ellsbury at .320 with 42 stolen bases. To his credit, his projections were almost right on the money for Youkilis and Varitek last year, so take it as you wish. But the 2007 stat that surprised me the most was his Batting Average Plus Slugging on Pitches Out of the Zone: Pedroia actually beat out notorious hacker Vlad Guerrero, .664 to .662!

Worst announcers have to be Joe Morgan Tim McCarver Dwayne Staats for worst voice (total "pukey" announcer) though I have no idea where he works these days Bob Griese is pretty bad for NCAA, and not only because he never gives any proper credit to Florida State. I can't identify any favorites because like others, I tend to play music or even watch in silence instead of listening to the commentary. Sometimes that leads to confusion because you miss something important when a play is being reviewed but that's well worth the much more pleasant sounds of good music or blissful silence.

I dig House, though people keep telling me its not as good as it was at the beginning. For those more interested in the TV show than the "music", here's a great site that tells you if they got the medicine right for each show: http://www.politedissent.com/house_pd.html

Are you referring to embracing CDs or embracing downloads? As to Daniel's comments, I suspect he is right, that the "industry" will have much of a role in the future. The problem, in my opinion, is that the "industry" does play a role (for better or for worse) in its power to promote acts "to the next level". A model wherein a lot of musicians are little atomized individuals selling their own music - it might be a better deal for the musician but how will these musicians get notice and attention? Again, its for better or for worse, but the majors choose acts to promote, and use their power of promotion to make the music lover aware of them, particularly through articles in magazines like DB that are barely disguised promo pieces. I'm not at all sure how, outside of the home bases of these artists, people will come to be aware of these musicians that are acting as completely independent agents. Maybe one answer will be artists "seeding" (in a different sense than its currently used) bit-torrent sites with live recordings as a way to get themselves heard and direct those people who do want to pay for music to their site for more. As an example, if Organissimo had formed and started getting attention ten years earlier, where might they be now? Maybe BN, in more flush times, takes notice and signs them - then Jim, Joe and Randy would be in a completely different place now, instead of looking at stacks of unsold CDs and $2000 debt. (Of course, we'd be in a different place, too, because BN wouldn't appreciate what people were saying about Norah on Organissimo's BB. )

He is on a few radio broadcasts that are in circulation among collectors, I think, but that probably doesn't help you.

Well, IMHO, the Cowboys showed that they are the class of the conference and should be odds-on favorites to win the conference championship and go to the super bowl. And like Paul says, I think it could be a good 'un, against NE or Indy.

The one located in my avatar and sig. He just had a zany run with his sister Gracie and then came inside to con me into giving him a cookie (he comes over to you, puts his front paws on your chair and stairs deeply into your eyes, then when he is sure he has your attention, he walks over to where he knows the treats are kept, looks up at the counter and then back at you - and if you don't give him what he wants, he'll repeat those exact steps until you do).

Emmitt is a proud graduate of the University of Florida, so it can hardly be held against him that he's functionally illiterate.