ghost of miles

Top tandems ... don't look now, but Tampa Bay refuses to quit in the AL East--right in the thick of it again.

Tonight is the closest Cliff Lee will ever come to pitching for the Yankees.

Well, we probably won't be traveling by special-effects UFO, but I'm thinking about proposing a journey to London and the UK next summer to my wife... can anybody offer up a general estimate of how much it might take in the way of $$$ to go there for a week, counting plane fare from the States and back? Or economical ways to do such a trip? Also, weather-wise, what's the best time to go between May and August?

We're just $25 away from making our goal by the end of today--can somebody from the Big O help put us over the top? Support Night Lights

THE MALTESE FALCON gets my vote, though I agree that THE GLASS KEY perhaps stands too much in its shadow. Lots of love here for FAREWELL, MY LOVELY and THE LONG GOODBYE as well (medjuck, I also dug Altman's cinematic take on it).

We're heading into the final three days of the online drive, and we're just about halfway to the goal... can any Organissimo members and/or regular or semi-regular Night Lights listeners help us make it? We've gotten contributions ranging from $15 to $100 so far; they all truly make a difference. It's not just the $$, it's the sign of support for the show that's meaningful to everybody on this end. Support for the Night Lights fund-drive

Just that that opening phrase is almost verbatim, and then it goes off into its own place. But that opening phrase... I was wanting to say Barbara Donald, but didn't....almost, but not quite... It sounds like one of the Sonny Simmons ESP dates to me--I listened to them fairly recently while putting together a Night Lights show about jazz women of the 1960s, precisely because of Barbara Donald's involvement. Has she recorded or played much since doing those two Cadence records in the early 80s?

Let's do! Can't think of many better pastimes than that.

We re-aired Bop! Go the Big Bands last week, and it remains archived for online listening.

The new form doesn’t include them yet, but previous giving level titles still apply: • $15 - Birdland Bopper • $25 - Cool Cat • $40 - Jazz Messenger • $60 - Hipster Saint ..and at $60 or higher we’ll throw in a new Original Jazz Classics reissue of your choice as an extra way of saying thanks. More Than a Solo: Seven Reasons to Support Night Lights Direct link to contribute

Organissimo friends, flipsters, hipsters, and finger-poppin' daddies, lend me your ears... and give us a few bucks? We're launching the annual Night Lights online fund-drive just ahead of the show's 7th anniversary online and on the air. To help sustain the show for another year of programming, we're trying to raise $700 in seven days. Can you help out and be a part of making that goal and keeping the Night Lights lights turned on and shining bright? Here's a direct link if you want to skip my fine prose. Many thanks in advance if you can help out at all; this board remains the program's online forum home, and has often been a source of financial support in the past. I hope you can help out again, or for the first time.

Mo Rivera and kid at Wrigley

Wow, nice play all around. Gardner isn't known for his arm, but that throw was money. Having his momentum going towards the infield helped him along, but you still have to be on target. Nice, gutsy, stand-up-and-take-it play from Russell Martin too. He's a tough nut. Yes, I should have given Martin credit for holding on at the plate as well. And I've always got a soft spot for good-throw-nails-the-runner highlights... this one from last year still one of the best I've seen in recent years: walkoff throw at the Trop Would love to see others from fellow baseball fans here.

One more time! The Junetenth Jazz Jamboree

New York Times article about Alexi Ogando and how he came to be a Ranger.

I don't think Mo is quite the indomitable closeout guy he used to be. Dave James, yes on Burnett, though he's actually been throwing well lately, iirc--the only time he's gotten roughed up recently was by the Red Sox, and they're pounding everybody of late. I think this spring's conventional wisdom about a Boston-Philly WS is still a good bet, and it would be a great matchup to see the Bosox bats against the Phillies' staff. I can hold out hope that NY will somehow (1) nail down the wild-card and (2) ride a hot streak through the postseason, but now that the bad-mojo dust of Boston's early season-start has settled, they're clearly looking like the best team in the American League. And if they have Lester and Beckett potentially hurling 4 games in a 7-game series, they're going to be very difficult for anybody to take down. As for today's win against the Cubs, nice play by Gritty Gutty Brett Gardner. The Yankee pitching staff should thank the baseball gods that we've got him in left field and Granderson in center.

Phew...that was epic!

Not exactly NY's finest hour in baserunning just now. A bad season for NY in that regard so far... you want to really see a study in abominations, watch Jorge Posada try to stretch out any hit (on the rare occasions when he gets one, though that's been improving of late).

This one just came in over the transom--anybody else hear it yet?

Yeah, I have absolutely NO idea what to expect from Gordon. 5-0 with a 1.14 ERA in triple-A is great, but welcome to the big leagues and all that. Haven't tracked Texas enough, so I don't know how well Wilson's been pitching of late.

So are John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie. (That's a freighted allusion, as well as a simple matter-of-fact statement.) But how can you tell? I mean, a pitch is just a pitch. A sigh is just a sigh... As time goes by!

I'm taking away a lesson from all of this, but it's being inadvertently delivered & not what you think it is. Thanks regardless, and as the Chairman sez: That's Life!

Just read this, and, sorry, but it's bullshit. You can't say that sports is "literature" in it's own way whether you acknowledge it or not unless you are the Great Analogizer God. Are you? If so, do you get paid extra, or is it a volunteer gig? Either way, it's literature in its own way for you. Not for me. For me, sports is sports. Music is music, literature is literature, etc. Music is not skydiving, Literature is not cooking, sex is not auto-assembly, etc. No matter how may parallels you find. And there are many. But when I want to experience baseball, I watch a game (would that I was still fit enough to play one...), I don't read Melville . And when I want to catch a whale, I look for something else to do. ASAP. Not a big fan of harpoons and stuff like that. Enjoy what you find, but don't think that what you find is something that everybody else has to see. Who said that I did? Did you really even read my post? Seems to me that you're the one here who's on the mission to "define" for everybody else, and to level judgment accordingly. There are levels to everything, whether it's a saxophone solo, a baseball game, a book, a meal, or what have you. To each his own and all that. You're leveling a reductive definition on everything that isn't even in sync with how you approach things in general, far as I can tell... this has degenerated into a semantic shouting match. Sound and fury signifying nothing and something at the same time.

Acknowledging the past is fine, of course. More than fine, actually. But - the notion of some sort of "gatekeeper" , symbolic or otherwise, to a statistical grouping starts to make my stomach turn. You find it a beautiful concept. One more time--to me Kepner was simply saying that Clemente's being at 3000 hits exactly has a kind of poignant symbolism to it. Why that is such a big freakin' offense against the Aesthetics and Proper Enjoyment of Baseball is beyond me, but whatever. Why you've found it necessary to make this a personalized, insulting conversation is beyond me, and why you can't even seem to understand what I'm saying--and apparently I don't understand what you're saying either--is depressing (ooooo, I'm getting all "emo"), but I promise not to give up nor to bother you with any sort of offboard communication about it, since the whole discussion seems increasingly pointless. A great example is the above of defining "sentimentality" with all of its icky implications, telling me I enjoy it much more than you do, and talking about puking on my shoes. I promise not to gag on the fumes of self-righteousness coming at me either!

1 - Sports is not literature. Literature is literature. Nothing is just what it is, unless you’ve well and truly traveled all the way through the Zen wormhole. You can choose to enjoy something like baseball at the pure level of performance, mechanics, and execution/expression, and nothing else. But you yourself talk frequently in your posts about players’ character, about narrative patterns that are emerging in games, etc. It’s “literature” in its own way whether you acknowledge it as such or not. The “contexts” are just one more level of appreciation that one can choose to enjoy or not. 2 - Alexi Ogando is a former outfielder turned pitcher as well. This give me little comfort about the Rangers facing Brian Gordon. Gordon is pure untested goods at this point. A great record in AAA minors this year, but a bit of a desperate crapshoot for the Yanks. However, Bartolo Colon and Freddie Garcia were a bit of a desperate crapshoot as well, and they’ve paid off… desperate crapshoots sometimes do. 3- Sports, like jazz, is played in the moment. Some people enjoy the moment more than the re-living, re-contextualizing, re-whatever tha happens after the moment. In sports, and in jazz. I'm one of them. Although I enjoy a good story as much as anybody. The thing is the thing, not the memory of the thing. Too many things always going on to get distracted by the memories. A lesson can be either learned or memorized. Once you learn it, you can move on. If you just memorize it, you have to keep remembering it. ?? Tyler Kepner writing about Roberto Clemente in relation to Jeter’s approaching 3000 hits is some sort of wallowing in memory? If baseball acknowledges its past, its history, it’s engaging in some sort of unhealthy fetishizing of such? Geez, last time I checked the 2011 season was ongoing, and everybody—you, me, Tyler Kepner, everyone else—seems to be following it with great interest. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get to work. Yes, I did the same two hours ago and am now on a nice, short little break…enjoying the moment! When I return to work, I’ll be resuming ongoing preparations for the future, while continuing to take the past into account, since a moment is a moment and so much more than that at the same time. Speaking of the future and various possibilities: Yankee players weigh in on possible realignment