Dan Gould

Yes if you can find a chik willing to oblige.

I believe the most I've spent was around $30, it was for a JRVG of Hank Mobley's debut recording as a leader for BN, which meant that I paid over $1 per minute of music. That's pretty rare.

Definitely a loss. If those Leaning House releases can be found, anyone who doesn't have them should grab 'em. Great player.

Cabrera is probably going to be on the move, but he's an interesting situation: incredibly talented hitter appears to have a serious eating/conditioning problem seems like a lot of people question his attitude/commitment to excellence Its also clear that he is meant to be a DH in the American League and won't be doing anyone a lot of favors playing third base anymore. But oh what a hitter! If I were the Marlins, I'd hold out for more of the great pitching prospects before I'd take Melky from the Yanks. The biggest potential trade out there though has to be Johan Santana, with one year left before free agency. Its pretty clear the Twins can't or refuse to afford to keep him and the biggest question in my mind is whether the Yankees and Sox would bid with their youngsters to get him. If you had a guarantee that you could sign him to a long-term deal, I think I'd do something along the lines of Coco/Hansen/MDC/Masterson but the Twins would probably insist on Ellsbury and/or Lester/Buchholz. It would certainly take a king's ransom, the question is would it be worth it. Stay tuned.

I think the idea is that the biggest problem down the stretch was a messed up clubhouse - I heard that the youngsters didn't give proper "respect" to the veterans - and that Torre is the man to fix that. There is one really really sad thing that would happen if Torre gets this job: He gets to abuse Scott Proctor some more! Torre runs him out there in New York for a year and a half til his arm practically falls off, the poor guy gets away from him, and now Torre comes to LA and gets another crack at him? You gotta feel bad for Scott Proctor, who was a minor league lifer before finally getting a chance and making an impression on a major league roster. On a separate note, I just realized something rather amusing: Next season is the last year for Yankee Stadium, and MLB decided a while back to hold the All-Star game there next July. But who will be managing the AL team? Who will wear a Red Sox uniform in the home team manager's office? Terry Francona, that's who! :g :g :g :g

thanks.

Well, it sure would be surprising if it happens but that page on the nj.com site is empty, as if the paper took it down because they don't think its an accurate report, and the original report came out of the oh so highly regarded White Plains Journal.

Too bad you couldn't insert the link to that guy's other reviews - I bet there are many more howlers therein.

And the Hot Stove League has officially come to a boil: The Braves have traded shortstop Edgar Renteria to the Detroit Tigers for two prospects, centerfielder Gorkys Hernandez and right-handed pitcher Jair Jurrjens. Typical Braves - apparently these two prospects are extremely well-regarded. Poor Rent-A-Wreck - back in the AL. At least Tigers fans won't give him quite such a hard time. Doesn't this mean Carlos Guillen goes to first base for the Tigers? I think that was their plan, or the plan a lot of people were recommending.

Great piece in the Onion about the "curse" the Sox have been dealing with

The pitchers are headed (possibly) by Schilling. The fact that he'd be the best available tells you all you need to know about free agent pitchers. But that's not the concern of the Yanks, they'll have Hughes, Joba and probably Kennedy in the rotation, most likely. So long as Pettite activates his option year, they'll be OK IF the youngsters pitch to their expected skill. It would still be a very young, inexperienced rotation though. If the Cubs can figure out the ownership situation, they ought to be in on A-Rod considering how much he "loves" Piniella. Wouldn't it be amazing if A-Rod never reaches a World Series with the Yanks and then goes to the Cubs and ends their misery? Well, I aim to please. Its interesting that apparently Sox fans were chanting "Re-Sign Lowell" and "Don't Sign A-Rod" last night. I don't think a rational fan can look at A-Rod as anything other than a great player who makes your team much better. As for Dunn, I agree he should get a lot of interest. In addition to his home run totals, he's got an excellent eye, with an OBP around .380. I thought he'd be of interest to the Sox possibly, if he could play first base. However - I am almost certain I read that when they hired Dusty Baker, Reds ownership announced they would pick up the option year on Dunn's contract. So I don't think he is available for another year, or maybe as a rental next July.

It may seem early since the World Series only ended last night, but this will be a very interesting off-season for MLB, starting with this breaking news: According to ESPN, Joe Girardi has been offered the Yankee Manager position. Not a good move, imo. Girardi has serious domination/control/authoritarian tendencies and I don't see how that works with what will still be a veteran club next year. Hell, it didn't really work all that well in Florida - he got some good results for a time but the youngsters got sick of him too and were glad to see him go. Plus this pushes Mattingly back to Indiana and I have to wonder if he ever returns to New York again. He'd made it clear he wants to manage the Yankees, and he clearly had no interest in getting managerial experience elsewhere first, and he was hired as bench coach to groom him for the position. Now he's gotta be pissed off, and to top it off, the Steinbrenner son is talking about the new manager like he'll be there for ten years. Meanwhile, A-Rod has opted out and the venom coming from Li'l Boss makes it pretty clear that the Yanks won't be bullied into bidding on A-Rod when push comes to shove. So where does A-Rod land? I've mentioned before that with Schilling, Clement and Lowell coming off the payroll, the Red Sox could add A-rod at 30 milllion dollars and not even increase payroll a dime. Beyond the fact that he's the best player in the game, the Sox also have to think about who is going to protect Papi in the lineup, with Manny only on board for one more year (two option years left on his deal though). That leaves Lowell possibly as the odd man out (and likely to end up in pinstripes if the Sox don't re-sign him) and that may seem like a strange way to deal with the guy who won WS MVP. But let's remember: He'll be 34 when March rolls around - and probably wants three or four years on his next contract, and could easily get it from other teams. Until this year he has always tailed off in the second half of a season. He didn't - and ended up with a career year. But is that likely to happen again? The Sox are always leery of signing players past the age of 35. Of course, that last point makes it difficult to support signing A-Rod for eight seasons or whatever. If Boras can find someone to give him 10 years - through age 42! - good luck with that. But it is really hard to pass up on the best player in the game in a knee-jerk manner. Here's another possibility: Could the Sox interest Lowell in a shorter term deal, if they told him they're signing A-Rod? Would he be interested in being part of a lineup that went Papi, Manny, A-Rod, Lowell? Would he take a shorter deal to play on that team? Then you could keep those two on the left side of the infield, then slide A-Rod back to third when Lowell is finished. Of course, the Sox trying to sign both of them would make it official: they are the Yankees now, building an Uber-team, giving away Lugo (and paying half his salary) just because they can afford to. But not to keep the focus on the Yanks and Sox - lots will be happening, like what do the Giants do in the post-Bonds era? How do they pick up the pieces and build a winning TEAM? Does Torre end up in LA? What about all of those free agent All-Star centerfielders? Can I interest anyone in a Coco Crisp? Low mileage, great defense - he's just been replaced by one Tacoby Bellsbury.

I should tell you guys two noteworthy things about these events: Number 1, there was one critical factor at work during this seven game win streak: Tessie. I'll explain. In 2004, I created a Flash movie to commemorate the team's accomplishment using a tune recorded by a Boston band called the Dropkick Murphys. It debuted at Fenway during the A-Rod-Varitek fight and from then on, the Sox had a winning percentage over .650 on their way to the title. So - what does it have to do with this post-season? Simple. When we were down 3-1, I decided we needed to change our luck and at 8 pm, I came upstairs and played the Tessie movie before settling in to watch the game. I kept doing that every night the rest of the way and we kept winning til it was over. So, I have to give credit where it is due: I played "Tessie" before the game, and we won. The second thing I have to tell you is that Sunday afternoon I went out to get a bottle of champagne in anticipation of the championship - and I got carded! Me - 42 years old, and I had two days growth of what is now a mostly gray beard - and this woman looked at me and said "are you old enough?" and I really had to show her my driver's license before she would ring it up. The funny thing is that for some people getting carded makes them feel younger but I still felt every bit as much of an old fart as I have since I broke the 40 barrier.

I was always told that the adhesive used on Post-It notes was the result of multiple, failed attempts at creating a stronger adhesive. Anyway, some of those were familiar, some not and most were definitely amusing. Reminded me of the talent scout's report on Fred Astaire:

I have definitely not heard of the accident in which the ATC person got killed afterwards - that's really amazing. I'll have to watch for that one. Another cool episode was one where a Japanese (or maybe Chinese) flight over the Pacific ended up in an amazing free-fall without engines, fell from 30000 feet to under 10000 in about a minute, but managed to regain control and re-start the engines, and then actually land the extremely damaged jet in San Francisco. Even after learning that it was pilot error that created the situation, you had to have a great deal of admiration for the flight skills of the pilot to save the plane and the passengers. The episode with the most frightening case of pilot error had to be the accident in England with a brand new Boeing aircraft - a new 737 model or something. The left engine had a failure in the turbine, which exploded and damaged the engine badly. The crew smelled smoke - and because of the fact that the earlier model of the plane had air inputs from the right engine, presumed that the right engine was the problem and shut it down! They shut down the wrong engine - yet with less fuel flow to the damaged engine, the extreme shaking settled down, making them think everything was fine when in fact they were flying, under-powered, on the damaged engine and the plane crashed - across a busy highway - a mile short of the runway. You probably saw that one too - but it really goes to show how easily pilot error can occur and how tragic the results can be. Only afterwards did Boeing initiate intensive re-training for pilots on "revised" models of existing aircraft.

thank you very much, Hans. Very gratifying and yet definitely different in "feel" than the 2004 championship. Its nice that the team seems so well situated to do this again, and maybe again and and again, soon. Pedroia, Ellsbury, Beckett, Papelbon, Lester, Youk - all either locked up for several years or not even close to sniffing free agency. Big decisions upcoming on Schilling and Lowell and maybe Wakefield but this team is in great shape, and there are some strong prospects getting close too - especially the no-hit kid, Buchholz. But I can't imagine ever reading a better headline in my life than Red Sox Win World Series A-Rod Opts Out :g

When we first moved to CT, a lot of people had fun with our street name: Chicken Street. To soften the blow to our self-esteem and avoid any accusation of having insufficient courage, we were told that the name had nothing to do with poultry and was an anglicized version of the name of an Indian Chief of the late 1700s, but actually my Father had the best comeback: "I'm the biggest rooster on the block."

I try to keep an eye out for both Air Emergency as well as Seconds From Disaster on National Geographic channel. Seconds From Disaster doesn't always feature airline accidents but I'd say at least 50% of the episodes do. Both are very interesting and informative - the last Air Emergency I saw dealt with a fairly recent accident in which a Greek plane took off and the flight crew and passengers lost consciousness, the plane flew on autopilot for two or three hours and then ran out of fuel and crashed. It turned out that the maintenance personnel were checking to pressurization seal around the rear doors and to do that, had set the nob to "manual". When they were done, they didn't flip it back to "auto" and so the plane did not pressurize properly and the flight crew quickly lost consciousness before they could troubleshoot the problem. In fact, right before the Operations Center lost contact with the flight, the engineer on the ground sought to confirm that the knob was set to "auto" but the pilot, losing the ability to think clearly as his brain was running out of oxygen, asked about something else. Amazingly, one member of the cabin crew actually remained conscious. The oxygen tanks that supply air to the passengers only lasts about ten or fifteen minutes - its presumed that the flight crew will get the plane down to a level where oxygen isn't necessary in that time period. But without any message from the flight deck, this flight attendant, who had some but not a lot of flight training, realized something was wrong and made his way up to the flight deck. There are oxygen tanks that last an hour or so in the forward compartment and he apparently used those to stay alive - but did not attempt to enter the flight deck until the very end. The Greeks scrambled fighter jets and the pilots initially reported no one was conscious on board - then they saw him enter the flight deck and sit in the pilot's seat - but the radio was tuned to the departure frequency of the airport they took off from, so no one heard his message. He then tried to fly the plane but couldn't and it ran out of fuel. Really sad story, and its difficult to imagine the terror he must have felt - without oxygen for so long, everyone on board would have been brain dead anyway - but he was the one person conscious and aware when it went down, and all because a maintenance person didn't return the knob to where it should have been. Another frightening story of maintenance incompetence was a British airline plane that had the windscreen explode outward, sucking the pilot halfway out of the cockpit. Somehow they managed to land the plane, and because of the extreme cold, the pilot actually survived and recovered most or all of his faculties. Amazingly, it turned out that the maintenance personnel that had replaced the windscreen bolts didn't look for the right ones - he had a measurement and simply eyeballed it and installed the ones that looked right. Of course, they weren't right, and ultimately broke off and nearly killed 180 people. And the mechanic couldn't see what was wrong with his behavior! Insisted that to be certain that the right bolts were used would take too long and they wouldn't be able to meet their workload in a given night! Frightening. But one of the best episodes was the one about Egyptair Flight 800 - the one where the replacement pilot took over much earlier than usual, said "I trust in God" and then flew the plane into the Atlantic. The FAA said it was murder/suicide while the Egyptians kept trying to figure out a way to avoid that conclusion. I remember reading about what the FAA saw as compelling evidence, but this episode had the real, full story. An Egyptian pilot actually defected and was interviewed by the FBI. It turned out that the pilot had a problem with sexual harassment and unwanted sexual advances - the Egyptian airline knew about it and was fed up with his latest shenanigans, and the day before his final flight, he was told that this was it - he'd never fly a transatlantic route again. So on top of that circumstantial evidence (the man who had made the decision to ground him was on the doomed flight himself), this pilot also told the FBI that the airline had told the line pilots what had happened - and sworn them to secrecy, even with their families. After learning the truth, its hard to watch the final segment in which a member of the killers family continues to insist that this was a technical problem that the Americans refuse to recognize and fix and that they are destroying the memory of an honorable man. Pathetic. Since I was a kid I've always been fascinated by plane accidents (insert Rain Man joke here) so I really enjoy both of these shows for giving in depth looks at their causes.

Or the Cardinals last year. Somebody's changed his tune. But I don't think I ever said that it was wrong, per se - only that some poor teams back into the playoffs and then get hot and win it all. This year's Rockies are a better team than last year's Cards, imo, and not only because they won 8 more games in the regular season.

I think that's the post-modern snarky title.

22 times in the World Series a team has taken a 3-0 lead. 19 times the Series ended in a sweep. 3 times it went to five games. BTW, the over/under on how soon a Fox announcer will mention that 1 year ago Game 4 starter Jon Lester was undergoing chemo treatment for non-Hodgkins Lymphoma is 5 minutes.

I think you're right that Jimmy moved into the soul bag more naturally than Lowell; I know Watson's evolution but I have stuck with the early Modern sides and not gone deeper. I think its the covers of some of those albums that have scared me off.

Well, fwiw, this series has had two games that ended up being very very very tense and the only WS game in 2004 that even came close was Game 1. So despite the result, I'd say this is a far more competitive Series than that one was. And I don't understand the complaint about hot teams/wild cards. Sometimes those teams parlay it all the way to a championship, like the Marlins in 2003. If anything is lacking, its the front-end of the Rockies rotation; otherwise they have a deep offense that just happened to be cooled off by superior pitching.

:party: