When Dick Culler was with the Braves he seldom saw any action. Sibby Sisti was the regular shortstop. One day the Braves wee losing by a lopsided score and Manager Billy Southworth, deciding to rest Sisti, told Culler to warm up and get into the game. Then, as an afterthought, he asked one of his coaches what the score was.
"It's 9-2," his assistant informed him.
"Sit down, Dick," Southworth ordered Culler. "We ain't giving up yet."
One day during the 1949 season, Ewell Blackwell fanned Stan Musial on a curve that escaped catcher Dixie Howell and enabled Musical to scamper all the way to second.
Manager Bucky Walters of the Reds heaved a sigh. "That guy Musial is so good," he groaned, "that even when he fans, a team is lucky to hold him to two bases."
The battery for the Braves Al Javery, pitching, and Phil Masi, catching. The first Pirate stepped into the batter's box - and laced the first pitch into right field for a triple. The next batter hit the right-field wall for a double.
In short order, the Pirates collected a home run, a double, a triple, a double, and another triple - each one on Javery's first pitch - that high, hard one.
Manager Stengel (this was 1943), in disgust, waved Al to the showers. Then he called Masi over and asked, "What kind of pitch was he throwin', anyway?"
"I don't know," Masi replied. "I haven't caught one yet."
The next project, in terms of producing, is this mini-series based on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. It was an act of terrorism in war time that shocked the entire nation and it resulted in some very rational immediate reaction on the part of the government and then some other things that were irrational and destructive, right down to military tribunals.
"I said, I suppose you don't like sports." I tell him that I do like sports. I tell him that—honestly—I'm probably more qualified to talk with him about sports than I am to talk with him about Pavement. Immediately, everything changes. He's no longer irritated, except when I suggest that Greg Olden might be no better than Erick Dampier. For the next forty-five minutes, we discuss our respective fantasy teams, pretty much nonstop. I cannot exaggerate the degree to which Malkmus enjoys fantasy sports; he almost seems to like them more than music. His fantasy football team was devastated by the loss of Ronnie Brown to injury, but he's stayed in the playoff hunt by picking up Vikings wide receiver Sidney Rice. ("You could just immediately tell he was going to be Favre's guy.") The most productive player on his NBA team is under-publicized Pacers forward Danny Granger, but he's more satisfied about stealing the Nets' Chris Douglas-Roberts off the waiver wire. Malkmus does not watch the NHL, yet he still participates in a fantasy hockey league. He's that kind of guy. I don't even try to talk with him about rotisserie baseball.
After almost an hour has passed, I realize we need to start talking about music, partially because that's the motive for this story but mostly because Pavement is a band worth talking about. We leave the restaurant and jump in his Audi; he rolls a cigarette with a Dutch brand of tobacco called Samson. I notice that Malkmus does not wear a seat belt, nor does he tell me to wear mine. I am immediately more comfortable.
When Johnny Mize played with the Giants, he wouldn't or couldn't bend down to catch a ball. In fact, he refused to field anything not hit straight back at him.
This moved the humorist, Goodman Ace, to wire Manager Leo Durocher: "Sir, before each game an announcement is made that anyone interfering with or touching a batted ball will be ejected from the park. Please advise Mr. Mize that this doesn't refer to him."
During the years he protected right field for the Cubs, Kiki Cuyler was famous for his throwing arm. Against the Giants one afternoon, he cut down Travis Jackson trying to score from second on a single.
As Pancho Snyder, Giants third-base coach, passed the Cubs' bench, the boys gave him the business. "How'd you like that throw, you big blubberhead?"
"He couldn't do it again in a hundred years," Pancho growled back.
A few innings later, Cuyler again cut down Jackson trying to score from second on a hit.
Thereupon one of the Cub bench jockeys thrust his head out of the dugout and yelled at Snyder, "Hey, meathead, time sure does fly, doesn't it?"
“Historically, the prospect of imminent decline has been used as a rallying cry, to get Americans committed to whatever is the agenda of the person doing the rallying, often the elites,” he told me. He added that while much of today’s “free-floating populist anger” reminded him strongly of the mood of the 1890s, in light of the long history of such concerns, “we can rightly raise a skeptical eyebrow at the shrillest predictions of imminent catastrophe.”
Nearly 400 years of overstated warnings do not mean that today’s Jeremiahs will be proved wrong. And of course any discussion of American problems in any era must include the disclaimer: the Civil War was worse. But these alarmed calls to action are something we do to ourselves—usually with good effect. Especially because of the world financial crisis, “we have seen palpable declines in the middle class’s standing and its sense of security for the future,” Jackson Lears said. “I think that was a good deal of what was behind Obama’s election—that same longing for rebirth that we have seen in other eras. It is rooted in the familiar Protestant longing for salvation, but is adaptable to secular arenas. Obama was basically riding to victory as part of a politics of regeneration.” Barack Obama’s very high popularity ratings just after the election suggest that even those who now oppose him and his policies recognized the potential for a new start.
We should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily because the duty is temporary, and threatens not, as now, to degrade the whole remainder of one's life. I spoke of the "moral equivalent" of war. So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until and equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, of skilful propogandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities.
Dean Stone, Houston pitcher, came from the park and found his little boy talking to the young son of Pete Runnels. Stone, Jr., was telling Runnels, Jr., that his father was a boxer.
"You're crazy," retorted young Runnels, "your dad plays baseball for the Colts."
"No siree," answered Stone, Jr. "I listen to the radio and the man always says, 'There goes Stone, he's been knocked out again.'"
Maybe you can't tell the players without a scorecard, but you can tell the funniest stories ever to come out of a horsehide. You'll find them all in this collection of screaming line drives. Everybody - fans, frogmen, and bird watchers - will get a chuckle out of this prime assortment of screwballs, knuckleheads, and dipsy-doodles.
Have A Ball!
Basically baseball is a duel in the sun, fought with horsehides and hickory at sixty feet, six inches. It's a grim, serious business. But funny things to happen. Almost every dugout has its share of characters - odd balls with bats in their belfries - who'll often come up with line drives funnier than anything on the Bob Hope Show.
Joe's Strange Kirke
Jay Kirke was a fabulous screwball whom Joe McCarthy managed at Louisville. One afternoon Kirke muffed a signal which cost Louisville the game. McCarthy, livid with rage, told Kirke to meet him in the clubhouse after the game.
McCarthy paced the floor savagely. He waited and waited, but Kirke didn't appear. The longer Joe paced, the more furious he became. Most of the players were dressed when the door opened. There stood Kirke - and a priest.
"Come in, Father," said Jay. "I want you to meet my friends."
i wonder what it is about music mashups that they almost always end up as primarily hip-hop/dance. mashup artists could be working with 5-6 songs at once, but what comes out always functions as a hip-hop or dance song: the beat is the driving 4/4, uptempo, syncopation, etc., all characteristic of the same genre. no doubt there are historical reasons for this pattern, as the artform emerged out of that genre and its technological innovations. but the idea of a non-hip-hop-based mashup really excites me.
“There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” said Hegemann in response to accusations of plagiarism.
...
If a d.j. can thread together twenty different songs and package the end product as her own, why can’t a writer? This seems to be the question Hegemann is using as a defense.
Or as one character, Edmond, puts it in the book, “Berlin is here to mix everything with everything.”
A powerful statement, but the line originally was written by Airen, on his blog.
"Kazuo Ishiguro has spoken of the importance of avoiding word play and allusion to make things easy for the translator. Scandinavian writers I know tell me they avoid character names that would be difficult for an English reader."
The Scene
It's mid-September at Miller Park and the Brewers are playing the Cardinals. The two teams are neck-and-neck for the division lead. It's the bottom of the ninth inning and the Brewers are down by one. Ryan Braun is standing on second after a single up the middle and a badly thrown ball on a poor decision by the second-baseman. Prince Fielder is standing at the plate.
The Question
What are Brewers fans hoping for right here?
The Fans
* Travis is a 22-year old Marquette student sitting in the rightfield bleachers - the Miller Lite Beerpen - wearing an unbuttoned, pinstriped Prince jersey, drinking his fifth Lite of the game and eating his third Italian sausage.
* Frank is a 47-year old second-shift factory worker whose been going to Brewers games off and on since Paul Molitor's rookie year. He celebrated on Wisconsin Avenue with the team after the 1982 World Series. He's sitting in the leftfield loge outfield seats (right in the sun!) and drinking a High Life.
* Jason is a 29-year old administrator who has only lived in Milwaukee for the last 5 or 6 years. He loves watching an exciting young team and is happy to get his 20-pack every year. He tends to read sabermetrically-inclined blogs, but still appreciates someone like Ichiro!. He's sitting in the upper deck, right behind home plate, drinking a Lakefront Riverwest Stein.
The Brewers are middling in 4th place or so in July, and are closer to last place than first place. Knowing that Prince Fielder is going to be looking for a record decision in arbitration next winter, do you consider moving him at the deadline, like the Rangers did with Mark Teixeira in 2007?
As much as I hate to say it, I think you not only have to consider it, but you have to pull the trigger.
The catch? These days, when teams are much more conscious about their prospects, it's much harder to get the kind of haul that Texas got for Teixeira. Hell, the Yankees lost out on Roy Halladay because they refused to part with Jesus Montero, an all-bat-no-D catcher that would be average at best at first base or DH. If the Yankees of all teams are refusing to part with prospects, it's going to be hard to get the equivilent of Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Neftali Feliz, and Elvis Andrus for Fielder.
The toughest part for the Brewers if they do decide to trade Fielder is knowing where to start. In theory, you're trading Fielder because you want something in return that's more certain than the pair of compensation picks you would get from letting him hit free agency. Contrary to what would be the public opinion, you're trading Prince Fielder so you can stay competitive in the short term -- if you try to compete by having him on your team and you let him walk, you'd still have to spend time waiting for those comp picks to develop (and there's a good chance they never will). Why not trade him while his value is still high, and get players that are closer to contributing at the Major League level?
Among more than 1,900 acts expected in March at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, are bands with the names And So I Watch You From Afar, and Everybody Was In the French Resistance...Now! The f-word is part of 100 band names in a media database maintained by Gracenote, a unit of Sony Corp. that licenses digital entertainment technology.
For the generations of musicians who have taken up guitars and drumsticks, picking a band name has been as crucial as teasing out a distinctive style—and usually the name comes first. For a lucky few, a word or phrase can become iconic. The Beatles, before they were legends, were briefly the Silver Beetles, a nod to Buddy Holly's Crickets. Jerry Garcia discovered the name Grateful Dead in a dictionary.
The last decade's digital revolution not only transformed the way people listen to music, it changed the way bands establish identities. In the past, identically named acts often carved out livings in separate regions, oblivious or indifferent to one another. Now, it takes only moments for a musician to create an online profile and upload songs, which can potentially reach listeners around the world.
Lawyers say that has raised the stakes in trademark disputes, which almost always hinge on which band first used the name commercially, and where.
I have a friend who gets a tremendous kick out of science, even though he’s an artist. Whenever we get together all he wants to do is chat about the latest thing in evolution or quantum mechanics. But when it comes to math, he feels at sea, and it saddens him. The strange symbols keep him out. He says he doesn’t even know how to pronounce them.
In fact, his alienation runs a lot deeper. He’s not sure what mathematicians do all day, or what they mean when they say a proof is elegant. Sometimes we joke that I just should sit him down and teach him everything, starting with 1 + 1 = 2 and going as far as we can.
Crazy as it sounds, over the next several weeks I’m going to try to do something close to that. I’ll be writing about the elements of mathematics, from pre-school to grad school, for anyone out there who’d like to have a second chance at the subject — but this time from an adult perspective. It’s not intended to be remedial. The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it’s so enthralling to those who get it.
Some people in the know claim the Milwaukee Bucks are dangling veteran point guard Luke Ridnour, who is having a stellar season, along with veteran forward Hakim Warrick and young forward Joe Alexander, whom the Bucks chose with the eighth overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft but have since soured on.
What happened to the days of pulling for organizations, teams, and players whom best demonstrate the virtues of team work and heart and will power? Who overcome the challenges of a determined opponent on the level playing field of competition? Of blood, sweat, and tears? I guess in our coddled, emasculated, socialist society any overt demonstration or celebration of these qualities is offensive, too Darwinian, too Randian, too capitalistic.
As Obama expressed, socialists and bleeding hearts have warped even sports and rooting into a meritocracy based on sympathy that often has nothing to do with the teams themselves but what they represent externally to the game. Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts don't have a serious sympathy card to play. Sure, they can try to play up the angle of their rookie wide receiver and Haitian native Pierre Garçon as a "beacon for Haitians" but the Saints trump this with an entire city of victims. Advantage Saints.
There was a British comic who once said, “They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian—well, they’re not laughing now.” The statement, in the way that it seems to be a proof of its own theorem and the way it kind of eats itself before our eyes, does fairly well in describing the career of Pavement. “A lot of accidents went in our favor,” says Nastanovich, who is as reliably modest as he is talkative, which is a rare combination. I tell Malkmus that it all seems fairly straightforward, the low-key-ness included. “Yeah, we were earnest,” he says. “We didn’t really expect people to like us and think that we were good and special. The defense mechanism is occasionally to say, um, ‘Well, it’s not that important to us,’ or, ‘Those are those the breaks, we tried our best.’ Which was just kind of reasonable. It was all kind of bewildering and that was just a way to kind of keep our cool.”
I ask Bob, Scott and Stephen if there is a sports team that they feel is expressive of the spirit of the band. I suggest the 2007 Boise State Football team, which, in an upset, won the Fiesta Bowl with a combination of trick plays, sideburns, anti-anxiety medicines and just general northwestern joi de vivre. Bob reels off stats and philosophies, and reiterates President Obama’s call for a playoff system. He sees some similarities between the band and the team, but adds, “I don’t know if Pavement is really the powerhouse that Boise State has become.” Kannberg says, “We were always pretty cocky, yet at the same time we were surrounded by people at our label who were very grounded and grounded us.” Malkmus, a fan of Oregon State football and their “jailbird outlaw status,” and due to the fact that his grandpa went to school there, is also very sporting with the Pavement/Boise State comparison: “We have our share of gadget plays. And we were undersized. And we have our loyal fans from our little neck of the woods.”
First, they adapted Chinese-language tools to the challenge. Most Chinese names have three syllables (Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai); the Chinese transliterations of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus have seven each. Stephen's is rendered phonetically--"Si di fen . Di da le si." The unusual number of characters, the midline period between them, and the use of a few classical (rather than simplified) Chinese characters are all unmistakable signals to the Chinese reader to ignore the meaning and just note that it signifies a name. (A literal translation would be "This-base of a fruit-fragrant. Enlighten-extend-coerce-this.") The practice is similar to using "#%*&!" to indicate a curse in English; a reader doesn't delineate each symbol but just consumes the meaning. Bloom, wandering through a newspaper office, reads in type the name of the friend whose funeral he has just attended: mangiD kcirtaP (Patrick Dignam backward). In Chinese the eight characters used to render the name are likewise reversed. When the moral pub owner, Davy Byrne, "smiledyawnednodded all in one," the issue was trickier. Chinese characters are never smooshed together. Xiao and Wen used a quirk of Chinese grammar that implies simultaneously occurring actions.
They also adapted Chinese styles to Joycean ones. Molly, Leopold, and Stephen all have interior monologues, and all sound different. Molly is not very well educated. She occasionally misuses difficult words, and her thoughts, in the famous soliloquy that ends the book, have an earthy resonance. Stephen, the teacher and literary scholar, is philosophical. And Leopold is a middle-class bloke with a big heart who often thinks about sex and bowel movements. So in the Chinese, Molly is rendered in working-class Beijing slang, Stephen mostly in classical Chinese, and Leopold mostly in a mixture of modern and classical that dates from the early twentieth century. By varying the styles, the translation manages to convey the differences in character among the three.
A counter was laden with clean needles, sterile water, cookers, filters, tourniquets, alcohol swabs, condoms. The database includes more than 2,000 users, identified only by code names, and an average day will see 645 injections. There are always two staffers and two nurses on duty, standing by with oxygen masks and syringes of the overdose drug naloxone. To date they have intervened in more than a thousand overdoses without a single death.
The idea of supervised injection sites is not original to Vancouver. There are approximately 90 worldwide, in eight countries: The first was opened in Bern, Switzerland, in 1986, and when Zurich closed "Needle Park," the Swiss launched supervised injection sites nationwide. The Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and several other European countries followed suit, and a site in Sydney, Australia, opened its doors in 2001. The operating principle is simple: If injection drug use is going to occur regardless, why not create a space that mitigates its dangers? That way, say its proponents, lives will be saved and the spread of disease will be checked. The risks of unsupervised injection are manifold; public drug users are often rushed and are less likely to have sterile equipment and practices. In Vancouver, researchers described addicts drawing up puddle water to mix their drugs, or doing "shake and bake," mixing the drugs in the syringe without first cooking out their impurities. Such techniques can cause gangrenous abscesses and endocarditis, a bacterial infection of the heart valves. Public users are also less apt to test their drugs for potency. "What's really difficult on this job is finding out that people use elsewhere, because the site's not open 24 hours a day, and they die of an overdose," says Fisher. "If people aren't using here, they're using behind a dumpster."
