Greatest Song Evah 4/21/23

Death Or Glory

One of the mottos for The Clash was “The Only Bad That Matters.” Cheeky, yes, but damn they pulled it off. Death Or Glory was one of the many deep cuts on the London Calling album that made it one of the most highly acclaimed releases in history. It’s certainly on my short list of all-time greatest albums.

I love the way this song really kicks. Those two guitar notes with the corresponding drum beats leading into the chorus compel you to bang on their nearest hard surface in unison. Topper Headon rarely got the respect that the other 3 core members did, but he was one hell of a drummer and he really made this song move. Yes, the only band that matters. And was there ever a cooler photo than Paul Simonon on the cover of London Calling? Prove me wrong.

Atlantic League Rules Testing

As you may know, the assorted rule changes instituted in MLB this year did not come out of the blue. Minor leagues have been used as testing grounds to see how they work. Not all of the experiments have made their way to the big leagues; for example, there have been tests to see if moving the mound back a few feet is a viable option. Think of it as the baseball equivalent of TV pilot season; many are tested, but few are chosen.

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker are at it again, as MLB announced 3 new rules that will be tested in the independent Atlantic League this season. One is a further reduction in the number of disengagements per at bat from 2 to 1. This one seems premature to me; the 2 disengagement rule was only introduced this year, I think it’s best to wait a year and see to what extent stolen bases rise before additionally tweaking the rule. The league will also bring back fond memories of Herb Washington by creating a designated runner rule. A team can utilize a pinch runner, but the player he is substituted for will be allowed to return to the game. There are some restrictions; it can only be used twice in a game, for example. This one intrigues me; it’s always been a big part of the sport’s strategery that once a player leaves the game he can’t come back. But I do like the additional options it affords the manager. With the modern era’s large bullpens and short benches, there is only so much a manager can do. Consider me intrigued.

The proposal that I hate, hate, hate, and wish to see buried followed by a salting of the earth is the double hook designated hitter rule. In this scenario if a starting pitcher is pulled before completing five innings, then the team also loses the right to use a DH. No. I get the impulse to encourage longer outings from starters, but think about it. A pitcher doesn’t have it that day, gets rocked and the team is down by a big margin early. Losing the DH means that the trailing team will have to catch up with the handicap of having one of the regular bats pulled from the lineup and will have to spend the rest of the game depleting its pinch hitters.

None of this means that any of these new rules will make their way to the major leagues anytime soon. The movement of the mound doesn’t seem to have taken hold, and it’s possible one of more of these will suffer the same fate. It seems worth keeping an eye on the Atlantic League to see if any of these affect game play positively or negatively.

#200 For Clayton Kershaw

Pitcher wins have lost a lot of their luster, but it’s still cool to see a great pitcher reach one of those round number milestones. Clayton Kershaw tallied victory #200 earlier this week. With the way the game has changed, 200 game winners will be increasingly few and far between, never mind 300 game winners. Adam Wainwright currently stands at 195; assuming he picks up those 5 wins that he needs no one else is imminent. The next one might be Gerrit Cole, and he’s only at 134, so that is years away.

Kershaw was in vintage form the night he reached the milestone, throwing 7 shutout innings while striking out 9. It’s great to see that he’s still at the top of his game. Durability will be a problem the rest of his career; with his chronic back issues and the normal wear and tear, it’s a longshot to think he’ll ever again be available for a full 32 start season. I’m sure the Dodgers will be more than happy with 25 strong starts in a season.

That’s a stark contrast with a former Dodgers southpaw of some renown, and the sharp differences between Kershaw and Sandy Koufax raise an interesting question concerning one’s preferences. It’s impossible to know for sure if Koufax would have been able to avoid the injuries that shortened his career had he been used the way modern pitchers are. But suppose he would have. Is that a trade that you as a fan would make? If he would have thrown 50 or so fewer innings per season, those individual years would have still been great, but not quite as historically memorable as they were. On the other hand, a healthier Koufax would have meant that he could have remained on the mound past his 31st birthday. He was born a month AFTER Bob Gibson was. I am old enough to have been able to see Gibson at the end of his career. By that point he wasn’t as dominant as he was in his peak, but he was still terrific. I would have loved to also have been able to have seen Koufax. There’s no right or wrong answer, it’s an eye of the beholder situation.

For another take on that issue, look no further than Madison Bumgarner, who was just DFA’d by the Diamondbacks. Even in his final season in San Francisco there were signs that he was starting to decline rapidly, but the D’backs signed him to a big free agent contract anyway. His tenure in Arizona has been nothing short of a debacle. His ERA is above 5, his won-loss record is only 15-32, and he has an ERA+ in his 4 years as a Diamondback of only 80. And his final start in Arizona was marred by a pointless confrontation with Willson Contreras. There may be a team willing to take a shot to see if he has anything left in the tank, but chances are slim that he has anything left to give and his temper might make him too much of a headache and not worth the hassle. But circling back to the earlier question, he was a key starter for all 3 of those Giants recent titles, punctuated by his epic run in the 2014 championship run. Did that accelerate his decline? Perhaps, but if so, I would bet that every Giants fan would take that trade any day.

Does The Possum Get To Stay?

Oakland A’s ownership has reached a deal to acquire land in order to build a stadium in the Las Vegas area. I suppose nothing is really official until the first shovel hits dirt, but with their current stadium lease set to expire in 2024 it looks like this is the end of baseball in Oakland. Everyone knew this was coming, but it still sucks for the fans. The team has been so stripped of talent that this is looking like a historically bad club, and the stadium has suffered from years of neglect. The tale of the possum living in the visiting broadcast booth was simply the cherry on top of the sundae.

It’s no sure thing that Vegas will be a viable major league city. The weather will necessitate a dome; just try to imagine how gaudy it might be. The city’s high elevation will likely make balls fly; certainly not as extreme as it is in Denver, but brace yourself for some heavy scoring. (Not that kind, I’m talking about baseball you sickos.) What will attendance look like? Will it be a strong tourist attraction with so much else to do in Vegas? Time will tell.

The only bright side is that this move removes one hurdle on the road to expansion. The league wants to add 2 new franchises, but Rob Manfred has said that the stadium issues in Oakland and Tampa Bay need to be resolved before talks get serious. One down, one to go. Speculation about the new locations - Nashville, Charlotte, Portland, Montreal, Salt Lake City, etc. - will soon kick into overdrive.

And as bad as attendance has been, a lot of it is due to the fact that ownership consistently shows that they don’t give a f***. This has got to be gutting for Oakland fans as the city will lose yet another franchise. The Raiders are gone, and the Warriors moved to San Francisco. Bring back the California Golden Seals!

Another Terrible Owner Bites The Dust

As much as I’ve criticized James Dolan, he’s not the worst owner in American professional sports. It’s very subjective, but I believe a Worst Owner poll would select Dan Snyder as the worst of the worst. His tendency to meddle along with his impulsiveness proved to be a lethal combo in Washington. Add that to his stubborn refusal to change the team’s offensive nickname until sponsors backed him into a corner, as well as the long history of allegations of sexual misconduct within the organization and the sum total of his toxicity is staggering.

It appears that Washington football fans’ long nightmare is nearing its end as an agreement has been reached to sell the team to Josh Harris. The NFL still needs to approve the sale, but early indications are that there are no red flags that would prevent finalization of the sale. The unfortunate part is that Snyder will sell the team for more than seven times his original purchase price; quite the windfall. (I realize that NFL franchises make absurd profits that make it tough to compare them with franchises from other leagues, but keep this in mind whenever you hear a team owner plead poverty. Even a poorly run franchise provides a license to print money. None of these wealthy men would invest in teams otherwise.) Sadly he joins Donald Sterling and Robert Sarver as awful men that were essentially kicked out of the club yet got to walk away with obscene amounts of money. Still, even though the guy can laugh his way to the bank, the league is better off without him.

SNL Retro Preview

With the show taking a break for a couple of weeks, I’m gonna try something a little different by trying to answer a simple question - was the first season that followed the departure of the original cast really as bad as it’s reputation suggests? When season 6 initially aired, I went into it immediately assuming that I was gonna hate it. I was one and done; watching the season premiere, deciding it was unwatchable and pledging to myself that I was done with the show. It could have been a case of confirmation bias, but I was clearly not alone in my disdain for SNL V2.0. As the season progressed I started hearing that there was this young guy who just joined the show and was really funny, but the general consensus continued to be that the show was awful and was getting worse.

Most recently my interest on watching the season’s episodes was spurred on by Gilbert Gottfried’s death. Obituaries had mentioned that in that early portion of his career he was already using The Voice, but it was not quite as exaggerated as it would eventually become. I’m curious to see how jarring it will be to see him use a close approximation of his natural speaking voice. He turned out to be the cast member with the most notable post-show career. These days he’s best known as a AM talk radio host, but Joe Piscopo was the only one who was invited back the following year and he had a long run as the clear #2 star of the show behind Eddie Murphy. You still see Denny Dillon pop up as a supporting player these days. And Charles Rocket unfortunately became the epitomizing figure of the season, but before his suicide he had a successful run as a That Guy, usually cast as a smarmy villain type. The other 2 cast members are mysteries to me. I can vaguely picture Gail Matthius, but if you would place publicity photos of 4 different women in front of me and ask to select which one is Ann Risley, I’d need to do an eenie-minie-moe.

So, basically I have 2 simple questions about season 6. Was it that bad? How quickly was Eddie Murphy’s brilliance evident? I’ll do a weekly rewatch, which I may or may not actually complete. (If it’s really that bad, I don’t know how willing I am to subject myself to it.) There are 2 mitigating factors that might make the project easier. One is that even though the episodes are all on Peacock, none of them run more than 45 minutes, and I’ve even seen one with a listed running time of less than a half hour. To cut down on paying licensing fees the musical performances have been cut out, along with any sketches in which a specific musical cue is central to the sketches premise. Peacock also likely cut out anything that’s aged poorly/is too offensive. In addition, the season only ran 13 episodes. It didn’t premiere until November and the show went dark for a few weeks so that they could reset after Jean Doumanian was fired. And then there was an actor’s guild strike that cut the season short. Episode 1 was hosted by old friend Elliott Gould. The unhappy recap will come on Monday.

Here Comes The Weekend

So closes another exciting chapter. Have a great weekend everyone and thanks as always for reading.