ghost of miles

Baldwin’s No Name In The Street from this collection: And rereading this entry in the 33 1/3 series:

Check out this baseball-themed Toyota G commercial! https://youtu.be/OpWUEj5RoGc Edit: can’t seem to embed the video. Normally doesn’t simply pasting the link into the post work?

Well, that’s one way for the Rays to finally get some fans in the stands... How Fox Sports will fill empty stadiums with virtual fans

deGrom already hitting 99-100 mph on his first few pitches.

From several days ago, somehow missed this--Braves all-star Freddie Freeman feared he was going to die from Covid-19. His temperature hit 104.5 degrees. Damn... I don't think I've ever run a temperature anywhere close to that. Glad that he's recovered and is in the lineup today.

Loved watching Gerrit Cole’s pre- and post-game commentary last night—guy is just so jazzed to be a Yankee. Via the Athletic: As Cole crouched behind the mound in preparation for his long-delayed debut, he tried to steady the emotions that had surfaced in the time since the team arrived in D.C. Gary Sánchez was tasked with what Cole described as “steering the ship” while he settled in for his five-inning debut. His joy was unmistakable as he recapped his outing after the game was called following a two-hour rain delay. He beamed while announcing “I had so much fun!” multiple times. In what seems to be a rare occurrence for Cole, he hardly dove into the particulars of his performance. Instead, he was consumed by how it felt to take the mound for the Yankees at all. Cole said he called his wife, Amy, to tell her how he felt about his first experience of pitching for the Yankees in a game that actually counted: “I can’t believe I’m gonna get a complete-game one-hitter in my debut.”

Emperor Palpatine, er, Commissioner Manfred delivering news of expanded playoffs last night:

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.