ghost of miles

The Nats’ Juan Soto out of commission after testing positive for Covid-19. Happy Opening Day, 2020-style! Mookie had sure sounded determined in the past to test free agency once his contract ended. Just speculation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he foresaw a dismal FA market this winter and decided to go ahead and lock in with the Dodgers. I mean, isn’t that deal fairly close to what Boston had offered him? EDIT: just doublechecked and it was 10 yrs/$300 million that Mookie rejected from Boston. So the Dodgers contract is almost exactly the same annual salary but two years longer. I still think he must have had concerns about what the market will be like for free agents in 2020-21.

I remember being thrilled to come across this as a new import at the Washington Square Mall's Listening Booth circa 1979. "Hey! We're the Ramones, this one's called 'Rockaway Beach'!!"

You can also factor in that deaths from Covid-19 are significantly underreported (not for conspiratorial reasons, though I have no doubt present U.S. leadership is trying to artificially lower the count for political reasons). The toll is likely even higher than what the official numbers reflect.

MLB will allow fans to use app to cheer or boo from home ... which will influence the piped-in crowd noise the stadiums are using. I'll definitely be watching Yankees-Nats this Thursday evening after work.

We re-aired After The All-Stars: Live At The Lighthouse 1960-1972 this past week, and it remains archived for online listening.

My girlfriend and I don't live together, but we share a great deal of taste in music--she really likes jazz, for starters. Some of her favorite artists include Howlin' Wolf, Booker T and the MGs, Prince, David Bowie, Ray Charles, Frank Zappa, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Yo La Tengo. I can't remember ever disliking anything she's had playing while I've been at her house. We've also attended concerts of artists we both enjoy such as Beck, Patti Smith (Mark Stryker knows about this one!), the Stone Roses (w/Public Enemy and Buzzcocks as opening acts--BillF knows about this one!), and Elvis Costello. I definitely feel lucky in more ways than one about this relationship (which passed the five-year mark this spring).

Here's the photo of Jabbar, age 19, with Monk:

Heads-up for any T-Mobile customers out there—this Tuesday they’ll once again be offering free MLB.TV for the regular season, *and* a free 12-month subscription to the Athletic (the online sports publication which several friends regularly rave about to me). Only catch with the Athletic is that it will auto-renew in a year and you’ll be billed $59.99, but you can opt out before that happens if you’d prefer... a catch I can live with! Just watched some highlights of yesterday’s Yankees-Mets game and am feeling some excitement for Thursday, despite deep reservations about whether or not they’re going to be able to pull this off, especially with worsening conditions in so much of the country.

Very in-depth overview of Central Avenue in its heyday, with some excellent photos as well (and check out the shot of a 19-year-old Jabbar with Thelonious Monk!): Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Central Avenue

Don’t know how I slept on this one for so long...

Disc 2: unreleased studio recordings

Al Hibbler makes an appearance on pg 126!

Getting worse in Monroe County, though not "bad--real bad." Yet.

Yes, the USPS has become political, much like the pandemic. I'll refrain from expressing who bears the overwhelming burden of responsibility for that, and say this instead--it's hard to keep politics out of certain topics when certain entities, governmental and otherwise, insist on making them political.

Yeah, that was the daily outrage for yesterday. Unbelievable, what's happening in this country. But that's been an MO in more than one instance--instead of actually trying to do whatever's possible to significantly contain the pandemic, distort or downplay its effects by any means necessary.

Florida reports record single-day number of Covid-19 deaths. Also second-highest day of new infections.

Yeah, I don't know--I did a search for the latest articles about Arizona on Twitter after reading your post, and they didn't really reflect an improvement in the situation. I assume you might be referring to these two AZCentral articles? Arizona hospital numbers stay high, fall short of record Arizona data shows "some encouraging signs" that outbreak is moderating ... but even those signs seem to indicate only a potential flattening after a number of record-shattering spikes. So not sure there's much positive to report in that regard... just that it may not be getting worse, bad as it's already gotten? Obviously that is good news, if they might at least be plateauing. From the first article: For the second day in a row, none of the hospital-reported metrics hit new records. Over the past several weeks, at least one of the measures had hit a record nearly every day. Inpatient hospitalizations, ICU beds in use, ventilators in use and emergency department visits by suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients all hovered near their highest recorded levels, according to Wednesday's hospital data reported to the state. Public health experts have begun to notice signs Arizona's COVID-19 outbreak may be moderating, but more time is needed to know for sure. Identified cases rose to 134,613 and known deaths total 2,492, according to the daily report by the Arizona Department of Health Services. Thursday's dashboard shows 87% of current inpatient beds and 89% of ICU beds were in use, which includes people being treated for COVID-19 and other patients. Overall, 53% of ventilators were in use.

Thanks for such an in-depth review--you've really whetted my appetite to hear it.

Toronto Blue Jays may have to play home games in New York or Florida The Canadian govt understandably doesn’t seem too keen on letting them travel to and from one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to coronavirus response and current infection rates.

Red Sox place three pitchers on the IL Erod (their top starter) and two of their primary relievers. Reason not stated in the announcement, but apparently all three tested positive for Covid-19.

Thanks much for the update. Looks like Ricky's new book is slated for a Sept 1 release: Heart Full Of Rhythm: The Big Band Years Of Louis Armstrong

Up today in honor of Paul Gonsalves' centenary: Off The A-Train: Paul Gonsalves 1957-1963

That's a damn good book! Yankee closer Aroldis Chapman tests positive for Covid-19 ...and all players who test positive have to test negative twice after their quarantine before coming back. So Chapman's most likely not going to be on the field until several weeks into the season at the earliest--and that's assuming that he has a good recovery. He's reportedly experiencing mild symptoms at this point. Also, Joel Sherman predicts many more players will opt out of playing the 2020 season, especially once they hit whatever number of service days advances them another year in that regard. I think organized sports in general is going to be operating at near-disaster status (if at all) in the coming months.

Yet another: San Antonio patient in 30s dies after attending "COVID party" I read the Richard Rose story this morning before seeing the latest posts on this thread and had an initial reaction of compassion, thinking that I don't take any told-you-so pleasure in reading these ever-increasing stories about COVID truthers who've gotten sick and died. But OTOH I have nothing but rage for the whole climate of toxic leadership (if you can call it that) that's contributed not only to such stupidity that endangers other people's lives as well as those who get sick and die (and that's the point of Medjuck's post--and if you read anything at all about Rose's behavior, it's quite likely that he may have infected quite a few other people, judging from his Facebook check-ins, etc) and the partisan ignorance and hatred that's made it impossible for us to fight this virus collectively. And yes, the blame for that goes 100% to one "side," the same "side" that's chosen to make everything a g.d. side and demonize those who disagree. It's one thing for us to differ about the best policies or general ideologies to govern a country, quite another when blind hatred and willful delusion results in a plague getting further and further out of control. So while I feel genuine compassion even for somebody like Rose, part of my compassion stems from his being a buying-in victim of the vitriolic crap that helped enable this mess to become such a disaster in the first place. I worry for myself, most certainly, but I also worry for my girlfriend, my father, my two brothers who both work in "essential jobs" that require a high degree of interaction with others, and I worry for older friends (and younger ones as well). So I'm pretty fucking furious, especially when I look at how other countries responded to this so much more effectively. Life's hard enough without narcissistic partisan knuckleheads making everything that much more deadly. Bingo.