ghost of miles

Congrats to Jsngry, Big Al, and all other Ranger fans--you guys clearly deserve your return trip to the WS. I've been hoping for a Texas-St. Louis matchup, and it looks like that could very well happen. (And I hope that somewhere in Arkansas Mr. Lee is taking this all in! )

There's a little bit of talk in the early pages about the SF jazz club scene in the 1950s and 60s, but so far I haven't seen anything about the property's history. The book focuses primarily on remembrances from musicians, employees, and fans who were at the club in the Barkan era.

Picked it up today at IU Press's offices and it's a beauty of a book. Full disclosure: my friend Sascha edited it and compiled the accompanying CD. But I still think so far (glancing through it, reading some of the text, and listening to the CD) that by any standard it's a swell tome.

The 1973 championship series between the Pacers and the Colonels is one I remember listening to on my transistor radio in bed--a real barn-burner, that one. I caught some of the Pacers games on WTTV-Channel 4 as well. Here's a good website: Remember the ABA

I was listening to Art Blakey's "Dr. J" (on the recent Sesjun Radio shows CD) and found myself searching YouTube for footage of the good doctor, particularly from his ABA years. I still remember being a little kid and listening to Indiana Pacers games on my transistor radio at night in bed as they played the New York Nets or the Kentucky Colonels (Artis Gilmore, paging Artis Gilmore), and I was actually a little bummed when the ABA folded. Dr. J: the ABA Years

That was a helluva 6th inning that the Tigers had tonight. Fun series to watch, would love to see it go seven.

In addition to his extra-inning heroics, Cruz made a nice throw to the plate last night in the bottom of the 8th to nail a lumbering Miguel Cabrera.

What a find! Jazz Review, as noted, is available online, but I'd love to have copies of the original magazine; it was truly an amazing journal. I think we've got "Jazz" here in the IU School of Music Library...seems I've dug up articles in it from time to time for Night Lights shows.

Nice, Jsngry, thanks for posting that--a helluva win for your Rangers! Looks like St. Louis is going to knot up their series with the Brewers.

Nope, I think you and GA are the only ones.

We re-aired this show last week and it remains archived for online listening: 1960: Jazz at the Dawn of a Decade

Amazon currently has the forthcoming Complete Nina Simone on RCA at a very nice pre-order price of $28.39. I think this is going to be a 9-CD set, so that's about $3 a disc... not bad!

It was crazy-ass as well in the Detroit-NY ALDS. Just a shout-out to the great Yankee site Pinstripe Alley, which is doing a good job of proving that Yankee fans are not simply Yankeecentric baseball fans... they're running game threads for nearly all of the playoff games that have followed the Yanks' departure from the postseason. (Over the Monster, for example, the Red Sox site, is not.) I'd actually be happy to see any of the remaining teams win at this point, or just to see some excellent toe-to-toe, down-to-the-wire series.

Looks like the Cardinals handled that for ya'...now maybe the Brew Crew can take care of Lance Berkman...JUSTICE!!! Yes indeed--all hail the power of the mighty Rally Squirrel! Although I have nothing at all against the Phillies, just against faux-hero Mr. Lee. Should've stayed with the Rangers, Cliff.

This comparison is exactly what I was thinking this morning--via Tyler Kepner of the NY Times: Yeah, I got that. I was just responding to your comment about the Yankees' staff not imploding against the Tigers. I think they would have against the Rangers.

Jsngry: while the Yankees' starters did indeed do relatively well against Detroit (they're certainly not why we lost the series), I think he was saying the rotation was going to be a bit of a shambles going forward, what with Nova's status uncertain, Burnett totally unpredictable, Garcia continuing to be mediocre, and CC increasingly running out of gas.

Ken Rosenthal on the mess that would have been the Yankees' rotation against Texas if they'd managed to stagger into the ALCS.

Well, NY just didn't have enough gas... just as well, in a way, as I think Texas would have picked them apart handily. CC clearly not pitching like the ace he was earlier in the season, once again a 2.5 starter rotation for the playoffs, and a giant black hole in the middle of the postseason lineup aka A-Rod/Tex/Swisher. The much-talked-about decline remains real, even if it's a slow process; they've gone from WS champs in '09 to AL runner-ups last year to not even getting out of the ALDS this year, and their AL East title, while built to some extent on a much better September than last year's, still benefited immensely from Boston's crazy collapse. Congratulations to Detroit; I'll be pulling for either them or the Rangers in the WS. Go American League!

I know there are some fellow Mickey Roker fans around this joint (Weizen, calling Weizen!); you might be interested in checking this out: Ethan Iverson interviews Mickey Roker

Bill Veeck would offer that squirrel a contract! He could be the next Herb Washington: (I actually had this card, once upon a time...)

It's the return of the pinch-running squirrel!

Last week's Night Lights show is now up for online listening. It includes an interview with historian Michael McGerr and music from Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, the Missourians, Clarence Williams, Bennie Moten, Duke Ellington and more: The Big Speakeasy: Jazz and Prohibition

Granderson's two amazing catches from last night's game. On the first one he made it more difficult for himself by starting in on the ball and having to go back, but still... if he doesn't catch that the Yankees are probably down 3-0 in the bottom of the first.

Looks like the Yankees will survive their gut-check test in Detroit tonight and force a Game 5, barring the mother of all late-inning collapses. Great and pleasantly surprising outing from A.J. Burnett tonight (aided by a tremendous catch by Curtis Granderson in the first inning--Grandy also made an outstanding catch in the 6th), and NY finally managed to start generating some good offense again. Will be quite a showdown Thursday night at the Stadium! Hopefully NY can pull through and square off with the Rangers again for an ALCS rematch.

Congrats to the Rangers on their return trip to the ALCS. I hope they or Detroit (assuming NY does indeed fall to the Tigers) can stick it to Mr. Lee in the World Series, should the Phillies get that far as well. Nothing against Philadelphia & apologies to resident fans; I just continue to dislike Mr. Lee strongly and prefer to see him denied a WS ring. Not because he spurned the big, bad, 27-time-World-Champion Yankees, but because he used and abused Texas and Texas fans in pursuit of landing the best contract possible from the Phillies, when he had no intention whatsoever of staying with a team that was so eager to make him feel at home. Texas has done quite well without him this year, obviously, and as Jsngry has pointed out, his departure forced the staff to step up their development. But afaic his going to the Phillies was just as mercenary in its own way as going to the Yankees would have been. At least he didn't have to pull a fast one and lead Texas fans on in the process.