ghost of miles

The swingers have definitely grown on me over the years (in part, as some others have noted, through the 1960s Reprise sessions, which I've just gotten around to listening to in the past year or so), but albums like ONLY THE LONELY and IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS still bring me down on the side of the ballads if I have to vote. And Mark's points vis-a-vis CLOSE TO YOU are well-taken--somewhat of an underrated Sinatra LP for sure.

Congrats to both, they had great months. Via Jon Heyman on Twitter--Ken Griffey Jr. is retiring. AP report When Griffey Jr. was with the Mariners, I thought he was the best bet around to break Hank Aaron's HR record--particularly since Junior had started playing in the majors at age 19, a la Hank.

Well....from the web...Both of Rodriguez's slams this season came after Mark Teixeira was intentionally walked ahead of him, and A-Rod is 5-for-5 overall when teams intentionally pitch around Teixeira. ...with 18 RBI and only one "out," which was Castillo's infamous dropped pop-up that cost the Mets a game last year against the Yanks. Hey, all I can say is that if managers want to keep walking Tex to get to A-Rod in any kind of situation...well, I am A-OK with that!

Not an Oscar winner, but one I remembered the other day from Saturday-morning childhood viewing...I didn't realize at the time that it was a direct parody of the 1958 Tony Curtis-Sidney Poitier film The Defiant Ones: D'Fightin' Ones

This is a big relief--I was afraid they might go the way of Helen Forrest w/Shaw and Goodman, in order to scale back the size of the set. (And unlike the Forrest sides, I don't think the Ivie tracks are readily available elsewhere...the two Hep CDs have gone OOP, although you can buy the tracks as mp3s.)

...but he's hitting .203 from the left side this year. I'd be inclined to take my chances. I still think you should write for Over the Monster.

Tex was batting right at the time (Cleveland pitcher was a lefty, iirc) and granted, he's hitting .262 as a rightie (vs. .203 as a leftie) so far this year...and had clobbered a home run the night before...but still, given A-Rod's history in that situation and Tex's overall poor hitting of late, I would've probably opted to go ahead and try to pitch to him, even with the 3-0 count. Better yet, bring in the righthander before Tex comes to the plate, knowing that he hits poorly from the left side and that A-Rod (another righthander) is coming up behind him. Dan, have you ever thought about blogging for Over the Monster? I'm not sure how the blogging set-up works for SB Nation in regards to the "official" bloggers who post on the main site (any fan can blog as a fan, but given your insights and knowledge, seems to me like you'd be a very good person to write the home-page blog posts).

Somehow I doubt we're going to see many more intentional walks for Tex so that pitchers can get to A-Rod: Free pass to Tex never a good idea

Couple of prior threads with more info: MJQ on Apple MJQ on Apple II

I knew my post would "move" you, Matthew. Here's the NY Post report from this past March: Jeter, Rodriguez are close friends again Thanks much to Toronto for knocking off Tampa Bay tonight--NY now 2.5 games back. Nats fans: Stephen Strasburg will make his big-league debut June 8. A NY Times Twitter report says sellers on StubHub are asking as much as $2000 for dugout box seats for the game. Also, the Florida Marlins are planning to sell unused tickets from Halladay's perfect game.

OK, so I guess even the NY bullpen couldn't blow a 10-run lead today. And boy, it does seem crazy that teams are intentionally walking the .217 hitting Tex to get to A-Rod, even if it does set up a potential double-play situation. From a write-up of today's game: Might just be my imagination, but NY does seem like a different team with Granderson back in the lineup. On another note, any other Yankee fans notice that Jeter and A-Rod seem to be good buddies again? I read a report to that effect during spring training this year, and their on-field rapport seems genuinely warm in a way I've never seen before during their time together on the Yanks. Another note: if Andy Pettitte maintains his current W-L pace, he'll end up 21-3 on the year.

I saw a stat recently showing how many times A-Rod had homered following intentional walks to Tex--happened again just now, with a grand-slam to dead center field in Yankee Stadium. Cano just followed with a solo HR, giving NY a 7-1 lead in the bottom of the 7th. Can they hold the lead? Sterling on the radio talking about a "rout," how the Yankees will "probably win this game"...hey John, didn't you just broadcast that 13-11 debacle the other day?

I hope you're right about Joba, Dan--you have more faith in him than I do at this point! Interesting note from the Indians-Yanks preview about Andy Pettitte at home against Cleveland: ...as if on cue, Peralta just belted a home run off Pettitte in the top of the 2nd.

OK, great minds of Organissimo, divine me this--when discussing the 100th anniversary of a jazz musician's birth (or any other figure of note), is it correct to use the term "centenary" or "centennial"? Online definitions of both words don't seem to provide a clear answer, though a Google search did turn up this rather amusing rant from 1911: "Centenary" vs. "centennial" Note: next June 11 will mark the centenary--or centennial--of this article's appearance in the NY Times.

This week's Night Lights show, The Last: Final Recordings of Jazz Greats is now posted for online listening. Music from Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Billie Holiday, Artie Shaw and more. Special note of thanks to Jim Sangrey, and a safe and reflective holiday weekend to all. Next week: "Jazzing the Cool" with special guest Ted Gioia.

Broken angle, may need surgery--accurate report? Man, what a crappy way to get an injury.

Freaky day indeed--congrats to Halladay and Phillies fans for the perfecto. Dan, my sense from following NY game to game so far has been that Joba might actually be a little bit worse than his stats show (which, yes, have been dragged down by a dreadful run--Joba's ERA for his last 5 appearances is 18.00). I'm not even sure how many times he's come into a game with runners on base, as Joe G is usually inclined to bring him in at the start of the 8th... he's just so erratic, either lights-out or awful (and lately mostly awful). Speaking of stats, I think his stats have declined every season since 2007 in several key areas. Hey, I like hard-luck players and ones trying to gut out some redemption...believe me, I badly want to see Joba succeed (and not just for the sake of NY's win column). But I'm really worried that he may have already turned into another NY pitching head-case, who might well perform better somewhere else. I'll keep pulling for him--but man, today's game was utterly painful. Cleveland has a lackluster offense (175 team runs scored so far going into today's game), and they tore the hide off the ball against us. Our bullpen now has 8 blown saves to its credit, and we're not even quite at the 1/3 mark of the season. That is a huge weakness--and Matthew, yes, it might be enough to keep us out of the playoffs this year...but I'd still match our on-field starting line-up against anybody else's in the majors. Plus we've managed to play through a horrific stretch of injuries and a tough patch of the schedule at a .500 level. Granderson was back yesterday, Swisher seems to be past his bicep issues; Posada's still out, but Cervelli has done an excellent job in his stead. Nick Johnson's still out of commission, for better or worse, but Kevin Russo has been a valuable infielder/outfielder off the bench lately... our bench isn't what worries me. It's almost entirely the bullpen and its terrible tendency to implode. Plus Mo's 40 and quite possibly starting to run out of gas. I give him two more years, frankly. Eight blown saves! Convert just six of those puppies and NY would be at 36-14. Huge difference.

May be in serious trouble? NY's bullpen has sucked all season long so far, outside of Mo--and even Mo has been very shaky of late. Today's Joba meltdown has got to be just about the worst ever, and leaves me wondering how much longer NY can afford to keep grooming him. He is NOT the future Mo, that's for sure. I think he may be at a point where he'd be better off pitching somewhere else...somewhere along the way, playing in NY has screwed him up royally. But yeah, the bullpen is an absolute calamity right now...there is no NY lead after 5-6 IP that can be considered safe.

Different drummer than the one who was playing with Smith here in B-Town (Joe Dyson Jr.), but Kreisberg is there--I'll bet this is a very good date indeed. They were really on fire at the Bishop when I saw them there last month.

No, I wasn't trying to equate Huff with Herb Score, just expressing concern that Huff won't suffer a relative decline similar to Score's after he got hit. (Though I realize Score blamed his subsequent decline on a 1958 arm injury.) Beneath the pro ranks, there's evidently some movement for pitchers to wear protective gear around the head. EDIT: some posters at Pinstripe Alley are reporting that Huff's CAT scans were negative and that he's not seriously injured. EDIT 2: video clip of the play

I didn't even think of that, but hopefully such a hit won't have the impact on Huff's career that it had on Score's. My dad had a couple of very nice Herb Score baseball cards from the 1950s, and I always had a twinge of empathy for him whenever I looked at them.

Well said, Jsngry...there's a cat who had several lives!

Oh, man...A-Rod just doubled off Indians pitcher David Huff's head. A line drive hit so hard that it caromed off Huff's head all the way into right field. They had to take Huff off the field on a stretcher; he's evidently still conscious, as he raised a hand to acknowledge the crowd, but I really hope he's going to be OK. I was listening on the radio, haven't seen a replay yet, but it sounded pretty bad.

Wonderful news, and thanks so much for the update, NOF.

Sportswriter Jeff Passan just tweeted this re: Joe West: