Greatest Song Evah 10/11/24

Now It’s On

It really stunned me when I saw that this week’s selection came out in 2003. As much as I like to joke that time has no meaning anymore, it still seems impossible that this song is more than 2 decades old. The leadoff track from Sumday, the third album from Grandaddy, Now It’s On is a magnificently produced record.

With the exception of some slight changes in the wording, the two verses are identical, leading right into a chorus that soars without going too far over the top. I love the small musical flourishes that are built into the track; the dynamics of the instrumental break that flows into the chorus bring a nice roller coaster feel to the song. It zooms up and then slides right back down into the verse.

All in all, this builds a recording that’s simply a feel good song. Grandaddy was a wonderful band. I wish that MTV had still been a music focused network during their salad days. I could have easily imagined them as one of those indie rock bands that gained a following through repeated airings of their videos on 120 Minutes. They’re still around; in fact they released an album earlier this year. This was the crown jewel of their discography.

5 Down, 8 To Go

A deep playoff run from your favorite team comes with many conflicting feelings. How do you balance a feeling of satisfaction from having made it that far with the crushing disappointment if/when you fall short of the final goal?

Back in March my thoughts on what the 2024 Mets season would look like were pretty much in line with the consensus. I figured this was a .500 team, and if enough things went right, they could wind up in the wild card chase. 6 weeks or so into the season it had all of the makings of a standard Mets season; underachievement coupled with some embarrassing incidents - e.g. the Jorge Lopez glove toss. Suddenly, it was Grimace and OMG season. The team played significantly better but because they had dug such a deep hole thoughts of October play were unrealistic.

The next set of questions came around trade deadline time. Will they be buyers or sellers? Would it make sense to trade impending free agent Pete Alonso? The Mets ultimately made some small peripheral moves, but nothing game changing. At the same time, the sustained run of victories continued. I started looking at the Fangraphs playoff odds each day. As injuries began to take a toll on the Braves, is it possible that the Mets could actually pull this off?

Yes, they did. A dramatic victory in a makeup game the day after the scheduled conclusion of the regular season clinched a playoff spot and stirred up memories of a similar unexpected run in 1973. Next came a shocking victory in the wild card series against the Brewers as the Mets were trailing in the 9th inning. And finally, there was a decisive victory against the division rival Phillies in the division series.

I was fortunate enough to have attended Wednesday night’s game. I have been to a few playoff games at Shea, but this was the first series clinching game I had attended, and to say that the atmosphere at Citi Field was electric is an understatement. Everything from the crowd’s serenading of Francisco Lindor’s walk up song, My Girl, to the tears of joy that Brandon Nimmo shed, to the celebratory ride home on the 7 train was magnificent. I’ve watched the movie of this last month enough times to know that even though the Mets left a LOT of runners on base in the early innings I was never all that worried. Lindor’s grand slam home run almost felt preordained. Overall, I give a very positive Yelp review to game 4. I would highly recommend sharing such a special moment with more than 40,000 of your closest friends.

Which brings me back to my original point. This club has already exceeded all expectations. It’s no contradiction to say that they’re playing with house money and that anything else which may happen is gravy at the exact same time I’m also thinking that we’re getting so close that we need to seal the deal. After all, even though this team looks to have a promising future - especially if the Mets are able to entice Juan Soto to cross the RFK Bridge when he is a free agent this offseason - next year is never guaranteed. You gotta grab that brass ring when it’s in reach. In the NLCS they will face either the Dodgers, whose pitching staff is being held together with offbrand duct tape and now also have legitimate worries over Freddie Freeman’s health, or the Padres, who have a history of stepping on racks almost as frequently as the Mets have.

My dream of ticker tape parades for the Mets & Liberty within a couple of weeks of each other is very much alive… maybe. Game 1 of the WNBA Finals tipped off last night. More on that in a moment. As I have mentioned previously, the Liberty are the only surviving original WNBA franchise without a title. They are overdue. The Lynx, on the other hand, are chasing history of their own. With 4 championships, they are tied with the Seattle Storm and the defunct Houston Comets for most titles in league history.

As for the game result… yikes. It’s always a tough call to judge how much credit should go to the comeback and how much to the collapse, but the Liberty had the game very much in hand, leading in double digits for much of the second half before the Lynx went off on an epic run and eventually won in overtime. It almost feels like two losses; the Liberty have their work cut out for them to recover from that.

BTW, the league also announced some major changes to next year’s schedule. The regular season will increase from 40 to 44 games, the format of the first round will switch to the more traditional 1-1-1, and most crucially, the finals will be best of 7.

Vamos, Rafa!

It was inevitable, but Rafael Nadal has made it official. He will retire following the Davis Cup. He tried his best to be able to play in some sort of farewell tour, but he was physically unable to do so. Father Time remains undefeated.

There is so much subjectivity when it comes to sports, but there are a certain number of indisputable truths. One is that Rafael Nadal is the greatest clay court tennis player in history, bar none. He won 22 major titles, which was the men’s record until Novak Djokovic surpassed him last year. 14 of those were French Open championships; it doesn’t seem possible to win one single tournament that many times, but that illustrates how dominant he was on the clay.

You probably know by now how much I love to rank things, but oddly enough I tend to steer clear of GOAT arguments. I’m happy to point at someone and say that they are in the GOAT conversation, but I’m hesitant to declare a single GOAT. Nadal is a chief reason for that.

The Big Three era in men’s tennis has lasted so long that it’s easy to forget how dull things were at the beginning of the century. The women’s tour was at a high point, with varying styles among the women in the top tour along with fierce rivalries. The men’s tour on the other hand was dominated by big servers; there was little style to the game. Then came Roger Federer. His game was sublime, and he had a seemingly endless variety of shots. He wasn’t just great, his matches were wonderful to watch and he seemed unbeatable. Until Nadal emerged.

Their rivalry was as good as it got, and before too long fans of each started to choose sides. That’s when I lost the taste for making the “which one is greater?” argument. Fans were so adamant that their guy was the one that they often disparaged the other to an annoying degree. It’s no insult to say that Player A is the greatest of all time whereas Player B is a close second. Instead, proponents of each were almost making this a personal battle. (For the record if I’m pressed I’ll say that Nadal eventually won me over and I admit that he was in fact better than Federer, although in the long run Djokovic tops them both.)

What makes the highly contentious arguments even more disconcerting is the fact that the two men eventually developed a deeply rooted respect for each other. If they could play nice, why couldn’t their respective fanbases? The emotions they showed during Federer’s own retirement ceremony were genuine.

It’s pretty amazing that he lasted as long as he did. His powerful style of play took a tremendous toll on his body; it’s quite the feat that he was able to remain a top ranked player well into his mid-thirties. In a freakish oddity, as many times as Nadal and Federer played against each other, they never met in the US Open. Part of the reason is that Nadal was often completely spent by the time September rolled around; he would usually be so drained by then that it’s a wonder he won the US Open 4 times. Side note - one of the pro-Nadal arguments is that in their head to head record Nadal won 24-16. Would that have been a little closer if they had faced each other in Flushing as often as they did in Paris?

With Nadal’s retirement we are one step closer to the end of an historic era in tennis the likes of which we may not see again. Now, only Djokovic is left of the Big 3, and even he is giving hints that he will start to cut back on his schedule. In the last 2 years he filled the final spots on his Bingo card. In addition to breaking Nadal’s record for most Grand Slam singles titles among men, in 2024 he finally won the Olympic gold medal that he had craved.

Some Much Coveted Awards

There’s no swanky ceremony, nor is there any actual hardware to be handed out, but it’s time to hand out my best of 2024 prizes. I’ll start with my all-star teams. Most of the choices are fairly obvious.

National League

1B - Bryce Harper, Phillies

2B - Ketel Marte, Diamondbacks

SS - Francisco Lindor, Mets

3B - Matt Chapman, Giants

C - William Contreras, Brewers

LF - Teoscar Hernandez, Dodgers

CF - Jackson Merrill, Padres

RF - Seiya Suzuki, Cubs

DH - Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers

RHP - Zack Wheeler, Phillies

LHP - Chris Sale, Braves

RP - Raisel Iglesias, Braves

American League

1B - Vladimir Guerrero Jr. - Blue Jays

2B - Jose Altuve, Astros

SS - Bobby Witt Jr. - Royals

3B - Jose Ramirez, Guardians

C - Cal Raleigh - Mariners

LF - Riley Greene, Tigers

CF - Aaron Judge, Yankees

RF - Juan Soto, Yankees

DH - Brent Rooker, A’s

RHP - Seth Lugo, Royals

LHP - Tarik Skubal, Tigers

RP - Emmanuel Clase, Guardians

More Induction Info

The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame has announced 2 more additions to next weekend’s induction ceremony. Jennifer Hudson will be performing with Dionne Warwick, and Tom Morello will be the presenter for the MC5. Unless I’ve missed something there has still been no word about who will present Alexis Korner, John Mayall, (I’m working under the assumption that their inductions will be packaged together) or Norman Whitfield. Same with Suzanne de Passe; since she’s not a performer her portion of the ceremony will likely be an introductory speech by an industry figure followed by her acceptance speech. As always, more to come.

SNL Preview

Ariana Grande will return to host for the second time; this time she is hosting only, as opposed to the previous stint when she did double duty as host & musical guest. It’s an interesting choice; it’s fairly common for hosts who had done that double duty to return later as musical guest. In some instances - think Lady Gaga or Billie Eilish - they had done a strong enough job that I would have thought they would have been asked to host again. I honestly don’t remember much from Grande’s debut, or at least nothing so memorable that would make me think she MUST do this again.

As for the musical guest, it will be none other than Stevie Nicks. This is an unusual choice; she doesn’t have an album to promote, and 99 times out of 100 that precious slot is reserved for someone in the midst of a promotional cycle. The counter argument is that she is Stevie F***ing Nicks and if SNL wishes to load up the historic 50th season with as many first degree legends as they can, then Nicks is a superb choice.

50 Years Ago - Bicentennial Minutes

This wasn’t an actual show, instead it was a daily series of interstitial vignettes that CBS incorporated into its primetime lineup for two and a half years. Beginning on July 4, 1974 and running through December 31, 1976 a rotating series of celebrities and newsmakers narrated a minute long summary of the events from that same day 200 years ago - think of it like those NBC The More You Know PSA’s. These would run during a break between two shows, and in a nod to Walter Cronkite, each would end with “and that’s the way it was.”

The impetus, of course, was the fact that our nation’s bicentennial was quickly approaching. Looking back on this, it’s fascinating that the producers were able to come up with something new each day. Not every day contained something as significant as a major battle in the Revolutionary War, or the signing of the Declaration Of Independence. It also serves as a reminder that our 250th birthday is only 2 years away. Since I suspect I might not still be around to celebrate the tricentennial, this is the last major milestone year in American history that I’ll personally see. (Yet another reason why He Who Shall Not Be Named cannot win. I dread the thought of his presiding over the celebration.)

These bicentennial minutes were simply produced, and presented in a way that it didn’t feel as if CBS was serving us vegetables. And that’s the way it was.

Closing Laughs

This brings to the end of the page once again. Thank you all for tuning in, and please be sure to spread the word. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you all on Monday.