Dan Gould

I'd be so much more impressed with this Cards team if they'd won instead of having it handed to them. Yeah yeah, sour grapes, blah blah blah. But don't tell me about the Cards taking advantage of mistakes, those mistakes led directly to crucial runs being scored. You didn't need a clutch hit when a team throws away two outs at third base, and muffs another sacrifice bunt getting the "easy out". IMO, no team with a winning percentage of .516 and 82 wins on the season should even have the opportunity to win a championship. There ought to be a rule that if a division can't produce a winner with a minimum of 86 wins, they forfeit their spot in the playoffs. 8 teams in the AL won more games than the Cards, including my pathetic Red Sox. Under my proposal, if there is another team in the same league with more wins and no spot in the playoffs, they're in, shitty team is out. If there is no team with a better record in shitty team's league, shitty team stays home, top seed gets a bye into the LCS.

Happy Birthday to one of my favorite Yurpeans!

Varsity spelled with a "c". Naturally I didn't turn the sound on, their creative spelling told me everything I needed to know about their talent.

I don't get it.

Your comparison to the NFL and the NBA - number one, NBA ratings are down ever since MJ quit. But the NFL - the big difference is that Superbowl Sunday attracts boatloads of casual fans. Football has the perfect set-up: one game per week makes those games "events" and the ultimate championship game is the ultimate "event". Baseball, on the other hand, needs a compelling matchup to get attention from casual fans. This series is the antithesis of that. On top of that, its absolutely true that in a universe of cable TV, youtube and everything else that you can find on the internet, TV ratings have trended down for a long time. The fact that attendance is up so much suggests several things: the sport is healthier than post-season TV ratings suggest BUT Not everyone who fills up the stadiums in June want to watch a world series they don't have a stake in. Last point is this, if you were watching the game at a sports bar, those sets with the WS of poker on didn't impact the ratings one bit. Neilsen doesn't count sports bars or dorms or a lot of places that a lot of fans watch games.

Lonnie Smith, Thing-a-ma-jig

Well, I'm not as much of a fan of those Midnight Slows albums as MG, but I get your point. The label did a fine job of documenting a lot of older players who still had it, a latter day Verve label.

I'd find the Cardinals being on the cusp a bit less annoying if the Tigers weren't actively giving the games away with stupid shit. I also find it very annoying that David Eckstein was developed by the Red Sox and then left off the 40 man roster and the Angels snagged him. Funny how after 2004, the Sox pry away Renteria, Cabrera goes to the Angels, and the Cards "settle" for Eckstein, and now Eckstein is winning another ring for them, at a fraction of the money those other guys got. He is certainly a model for youngsters of how to play the game.

That got me wondering so I threw four items in the cart, to see what shipping would be. Came to €18.09 or, according to the xe.com website, about $23 for airmail. And my overseas buying experience is that the rate they'll cite will be a little less favorable. Bottom line is $18.42 per item, and I just checked Amazon and found that one disc is available for $7 from a Marketplace seller, and two others are in stock at $19.98 with free shipping if I order them together. Only the fourth one wasn't listed (the Joe Newman). Even the Guy Lafitte titles are available through Amazon Marketplace. I think the bottom line is that I can do better overall placing separate orders through Amazon.

I'm curious about the John Hardee. I only know him from the BN sides, and I'm curious if he still had it thirty years later ...

I'm not certain but it probably falls under the Freedom of Information act. Just as 911 tapes may get broadcast after a particularly shocking crime, news organizations have every right to find out if a cop had a video camera on his unit and if a tape exists, it gets released.

Man, I hope they have more than single copies, cuz you've named a few I am very much thinking about! I guarantee you'll love the Hines-Edison.

Thanks Chuck, I went looking for the previous Black & Blue recommendations thread but couldn't find it.

Thanks for posting that, David. When it happened, I had an image of a dumb ass southern cop talking to a guy in an orange jumpsuit but somehow not figuring out he had his man, but aside from changing his name from "Robert" to "Jimmy" that convict was so smooth and so relaxed in his body language that I don't entirely blame the cop for letting him go. The fact that he was so vague about where he is staying, who he is working for should have made the cop more suspicous, and in fact, I am sure that in the future, anytime someone matching the description of an escapee is apprehended without identification, I bet that they don't make judgement calls anymore - they confirm his identification before he's released. But that con was good. I guess "con" doesn't just stand for "convict".

Is the Stitt something more than run of the mill, then?

A truck on the way from the pressing plant to the garbage dump.

Very good. Will have to show this to my wife tonite.

I imagine there are others who got the same email, but those Definitive Black & Blue Sessions CDs are becoming increasingly tough to track down and apparently they got a quantity in and are looking to blow through them. $11.83 for US folks, 9.95 for Yurpeans. Linky to the full catalog page I can highly recommend the Lockjaw, the Earl Hines-Sweets duo is sublime, and you grease-heads should grab Groove Holmes + Willis Jackson, and the Lonnie Smith-Alvin Queen, too. Candy Johnson and Al Grey discs are solid, too.

From one Daniel to another:

Here's a much sadder 20th anniversary story: Pitcher Sammy Stewart, who set a record by striking out seven straight batters in his first major league appearance and didn't give up a run in 12 postseason innings, is serving a minimum six years as a habitual offender in a South Carolina prison. Crack was his downfall: Sad story.

Well, I think the LD takes the prize for absolute worst; the Bennie Green, while a bit too literal, does have somewhat of a "Blue Note" feel. The Hank is somewhere in between, imo.

I'd say its one of two things: No one believes you own a Dexter Gordon CD. OR No one wants to take one from you because they figure maybe, just maybe, if you can't sell it, you'll listen to it again and someday his brilliance will break through your stubborn mind.

Dan would only be grumpy because earlier in the year, it looked like there would be a rematch 20 years later.

I've certainly gone for rare and unissued things on my BFTs. I'd say go for it, Ray.

This is one I haven't picked up - but only because before it was even on the horizon, I tracked down all the un-reissued LPs the band put out, and had also picked up the Golson Mercury LP, too - so you know how I must feel about the band. Great, great music, and if there had been some unissued material on the Mosaic, I'd have been all over it.