ghost of miles

Jim--I actually think the increasing influence/impact of Latino players and fans has been so significant over the past 15-20 years that I (rather foolishly) thought it went without saying... but of course that's kinda harebrained on my part when it comes to matters of race and diversity. But yes, I think it's one of the things--really one of the most important things--that's kept the game from sliding into a big decline in popularity in recent times.

Write-up on the Lunceford (including some remarks from Gerald Wilson) by Jazzwax's Marc Myers in the WSJ: Swing's Forgotten King

Just started listening to it myself last night and yes, great sound and musicianship. All I've had of the Lunceford Deccas are the two 1990s GRP compilations, so hearing this set promises to be a real revelation for me. Nice article by Marc Myers in the Wall Street Journal today: Swing's Forgotten King Got this one just yesterday along with the Lunceford and am going to feature them both on our weekday afternoon jazz show next month.

About three years. I bought a new hard-drive with nearly twice the capacity of the old one, and I also bought an external drive that holds three times the capacity of the new hard-drive. When it comes to backing up, I'm going to have the fiery zeal of a new convert for sure...

Curtis Granderson on diversity in baseball: Where are black fans?

We re-aired Impulse: the Vocal Sides this past week, and it remains archived for online listening.

HD's deader than your deceased artist of choice--our tech guy, PC Max, and Best Buy's Geek Squad haven't been able to get it to even spin. I could send it in to any number of Pentagon-type/Defcon 3 extraction places, but even a diagnostic test would cost about $60, and based on what I've heard so far, I'd probably be looking at spending $500 to get the data back. So I'm just going to sit on it for awhile, until perhaps the price comes down, or I win the lottery, etc. Most likely I'll just have to make the decision to let it go. I did find some of the original handwritten notes that I'd then transferred into the laptop, and some earlier versions of certain documents were on another computer I use as well... but I'd still say a good dozen or so docs that I'd really, really still like to have have gone missing, including about 10 pages of writing notes from the past two years.

I was offline from Friday evening until now due to a hard-drive crash, and it actually felt fantastic. Not the hard-drive crash, of course, but I found myself delving more readily into the books I have, more inclined to stay focused on ongoing projects, etc. The ironic thing was that I kept wanting to go online to tell everybody how great it felt to be offline for a couple of days.

Bruce Springsteen talking about "Like a Rolling Stone" at Dylan's Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony:

Yeah, there's no way I'm paying that or anything near that, obviously. Gillware might be able to do it for several hundred dollars. Problem is that I think the HD truly is dead and gone... our computer guy here couldn't get it to read on any of the computers he put it into, and neither could the PC Max crew on their machines. Every computer you put it in basically says there's nothing there, that the HD doesn't exist. I'm putting out plenty of feelers to folks I know, though. EDIT: Jim R, I think Drivesavers was who PC Max recommended, but a knowledgeable friend suggested Gillware, and they're willing to do a free evaluation of the drive and work up a cost estimate, so I may end up mailing it to them next week. But at some point I may do what you did and simply put it into cold storage, in case I change my mind or (better yet) the price for such recovery procedures goes down over the next couple of years.

Thanks, that might be my only hope--just called Kroll Ontrack, recommended by one party I contacted, and they offered an estimate of $700-$1900 to retrieve what amounts to about 100 Microsoft Word documents.

Last night my Dell laptop hard-drive quite suddenly upped and died on me. Any suggestions on where to go for data recovery? I don't mind losing most of the documents I'd stored on it, but I had some fiction and general-writing docs that I'd dearly like to save somehow. (I'm planning on buying an external drive and backing up everything once a month from now on, btw. This lesson could have been far more painful, that's for sure...)

Thanks much, gang.

Does anybody have Dusty Springfield's recording of Jimmy Webb's "Magic Garden"? I believe it's on the 3-CD ANTHOLOGY, and it's also on an import called CLASSIC SOUL. I just tried to buy the mp3 from Amazon UK for a show I'm working on, but wasn't allowed to because of geographical restrictions. If anybody has it, could he or she drop me a PM? Many thanks in advance for any help on this one.

I've been cleaning out my colleague's side of the office and unearthed this recent release--anybody hear it yet? An ode to Joe Gordon, Tommy Turrentine, and others... hoping to give it a spin before I go on the air later this afternoon.

Yes, it is indeed a hometown call. On the Yankee front and all things second-half: as noted earlier, I'm pleasantly surprised to see NY on the heels of Boston at this point. Bullpen depth worries me a bit, what with Chamberlain out for the rest of the year and Rafael Soriano (a player who has definitely not met hopes or expectations so far) a mystery even when he does return. David Robertson, on the other hand, has really, really stepped up--outside of issuing too many walks, he's been lights-out as a set-up man for Mo, and made a strong case to become the closer when Mo decides to retire. The rotation, such a huge point of concern when the season began, now has an odd man out, what with Bartolo Colon (hugely surpassing expectations) and Freddie Garcia (surpassing them as well) providing quality starts, A.J. Burnett at least holding up as a .500, 4.00 ERA pitcher (all anybody could really hope for after last season's debacle), and Ivan Nova coming on strong of late. If Phil Hughes can pitch anywhere near his April-May 2010 level, we'll be in far better shape than I expected going into the postseason. And for all of the talk about the Yankees' "age" factor, that really just applies to Jeter/A-Rod/Posada; the team is youthful or relatively youthful everywhere else. A-Rod's getting an unexpected rest, which will hurt NY in the short-term but possibly help in the long-term. Surpassing expectations: Curtis Granderson! People at Pinstripe Alley thought I was nuts last year to suggest him as a #2 hitter, but he's flourished there this season. Great to see a genuinely nice person having such a great year on the field. (Take that, Leo Durocher!) Bartolo Colon. Freddie Garcia. Not really meeting them: Robinson Cano, who's having a decent enough year, but who was a monster at the plate last season. Rafael Soriano. My money's still on Boston to take it all in the AL, but as Dan's pointed out, they're more vulnerable than many of us expected when the season began. Still, that offense! They're never out of a game, even if Lackey's having a miserable start or what-have-you. They've pushed the Yankees around at will so far; the only thing that makes me a bit more optimistic about the coming August/September matchups is that NY's a tougher team now than they were for the first two months of the season. They really seemed to finally find their groove in June; if they can keep that up, they'll at least make a fight of things.

Played a track off the Eddie Johnson last Friday night and will be playing more of it today on the afternoon show.

That, sir, is a scorer's judgment call.

Yes, OBP is the modern gold standard for hitters, as opposed to BA.

Just want to be worthy of the dialogue here and meet like with like, walk tall and honest and straight like a Texas Ranger does, fear no man, etc., etc. No, I understood it, but it's grafting a logic onto something in light of previous comments/arguments that doesn't extend in a logical manner. I've had my share of blue-collar, s*&#-slinging menial jobs as well. Work is good, you should do work to the best of your ability, whatever it is. No real need to romanticize/sentimentalize work, though, which is the drift I'm catching here, even as such categorization is railed against elsewhere. It grinds a lot of people down, doesn't pay them what it should, doesn't make them happy at all. Part of that may be their attitude; part of it may stem from larger forces over which they have little control or influence. As for honesty, all for it, as long as it's not subservient to ego, which is all too often the case in this little society of ours.

Yes--by the nature of the game, it's more difficult to get a hit than it is to get somebody out, partly because there are eight other players besides the pitcher to apprehend any ball that the batter makes contact with. Over the years certain statistical yardsticks have come to stand for success, though many of the stats we grew up with are now considered old-school and less meaningful (batting average and ERA, for example). I'm not as clued in to the stat geeks' New Math as I should be... it's an interesting new set of standards that some folks now swear by. And obviously certain other factors have altered what constitutes statistical success, whether it be smaller (or larger) ballparks, raised or lowered pitching mounds, steroids, etc. Obviously Josh Hamilton is not a failure because more often than not he's not only not going to hit a walkoff home-run, he's going to make an out. Just noting the logical limits of the argument made. There's just as much merit in celebrating what Derek Jeter did on Saturday as a symbol of persistence, work, discipline, and whatever else one might care to value, including baseball's ability to occasionally produce moments that are magical.

We re-aired Extension: Clare Fischer in the 1960s this past week and it remains archived for online listening.

Pity they never issued that great Hi-Los/Fischer/Paich session on CD, David! Yes, I can't even remember where I pulled that from for the show, Bill. I think we may have it on vinyl here at the station.

So by those lights, 70% of the time Josh Hamilton is a shameful failure who did not work, did not execute successfully, and that's not how it's done. Hell, in any other line of work Josh Hamilton would probably get canned! Even the most inept, stagnant, poorly-run businesses tend to demand a better than 30% success rate when it comes to successful completion of tasks. I know what you're saying here, but that's where that logic ultimately ends up. I'm not trying to denigrate your standards for how you enjoy the game. You're looking at it through your own eyes and digging it in a profound and personal way that connects with how you go through the world and what you see in it. Others may have a different set of experiences and may view it differently. That doesn't make them suckas, whores, chumps, idiots, phonies, or what have you. I'll tell you what I see too much of in the world, what brings out my inner curmudgeon: cynicism, bitterness, anger, fear, out-of-whack value schemes, dearth of genuine feeling and empathy, a culture of vitriol, attack and arrogance, self-righteousness, self-pity, self-obsession, ersatz pessimism and negativity, willful blindness, hypocrisy, spiritual lassitude, souls grown fat, souls malnourished... hell, I'm just getting started. There's plenty for my inner curmudgeon to feed on, should I choose to do so. The reality we're in today is complex, it's messy and screwed-up, it's not going to be changed by any one person, any one legislative body, or any Gigantic Creator Force. All I can do is acknowledge it for what it is and yeah, *work* to put whatever good I can into my life and into the world, do my best to make up for past mistakes, omissions/failures, etc., and treat other people with as much love and respect as I can.

On the strictly MLB front--how does everybody feel about where their teams are at as of the All-Star break? What players have exceeded your expectations, failed to meet them so far, etc.? Based on what you've seen so far, how do you anticipate the rest of the season unfolding?