The National Pastime--Just For the Fun Of It

The World Baseball Classic is baseball at its most enjoyable if not at its best. It is baseball played by those who enjoy playing it and playing it for their country, rather than being played for the money--which is what Major League Baseball (MLB) is. The sense of fun and loyalty evident in the Classic is in stark contrast to the brand of ball that is played in the MLB, in which there is no team loyalty, the players are available for the highest bidder, and they do not seem to be having as much fun.

William Rhoden covered it well in the Times on Saturday, in discussing the team's shortage of first basemen, because of the demands of the MLB team owners. He quoted Derek Jeter, who also played in the 2006 Classic, who talked Friday about the honor of playing in the tournament. "Asked why he decided to play again — was it to avoid spring training? — Jeter mentioned national pride and honor.

'That’s the reason I’m here this time, not to get out of spring training for two or three weeks,' he said. 'It’s to come out here and represent our country and win a championship here. Guys obviously have their reasons for not being able to participate, but I think more players wanted to play than not.'

A consistent undertone of the Classic has been who chooses to play and who declines. The decisions underline the tension between a player’s love of the game and his profound understanding of who butters his bread.

None of the players who stayed away doubt that the Classic is fun; it’s just that fun gives way to self-interest — the teams’ and the players’.

The Classic pits the business of Major League Baseball against the intrinsic joy of playing baseball."

It is great when the "intrinsic joy of playing baseball" wins out. It should win out more, but it doesn't win out often in the MLB.

Passing Scene Photo Shoot

The Passing Scene

The world seemed to have gotten a little smaller with the demise of the Rocky Mountain News and several other news dailies, and the passing of Johnny (Red) Kerr. While not a reader of the Rocky Mountain News, the pictures and articles about the paper, made it seem like the reader of the News lost a lively part of their lives and an outlet for fine writing and exposes.

The NY Times began its article about the demise with the words "DENVER — This was a wild city once, a frontier of the Western imagination full of brawling, dueling, nakedly self-interested fortune-seekers and empire-builders — and The Rocky Mountain News carried their torch." The picture of hugging and emotion confirmed the deepness of the loss.

The editor of the surviving Denver Post, which once a fierce competitor and more recently a partner in sharing business costs with The Rocky said of its passing, "[t]he first day I wake up not reading The Rocky will be a sad day for me.” Think of waking up without our local papers, the NY Times or the Washington Post, and that would truly be a sad day.

Then there is the sadness with the passing of basketball great, Johnny Kerr, who will be remembered for the beautiful hook shot of the Nats mid-50s when an upstart team from a relatively small city in frigid upstate New York. He had beautiful form with his perfect hook shot, but he may be known for his selflessness as a great center passer, Former teammate, Chet Walker, described this "Johnny, in my opinion, was probably the greatest passing center in the history of the game. I'm serious. Johnny Kerr would throw the ball through his legs and behind his back and always find the open man."

The Nats won the NBA championship in Kerr's rookie season. It was the only title he would be around until Jordan's run began in 1991. What also began in Kerr's rookie season was his then-record consecutive-games streak, which reached 844 through Syracuse, the team's relocation to Philadelphia and a trade to the Baltimore Bullets. He then went on to coach the expansion Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns.

'Johnny has always been what Chicago is all about,'' said longtime NBA soulmate Jerry Sloan, who played for and coached the Bulls and now coaches the Utah Jazz. ''Tough, hard-nosed, from the streets and playgrounds. He took that first Bulls team to the playoffs, and no expansion team ever did that before or since. I hope they never forget that in Chicago.''

Always a pioneer and ready to face challenges, Kerr, was the rough and gentle de facto voice of Chicago Bulls basketball for 30 years and more, and was a steady and self-effacing voice, and now that reassuring voice is not being heard. Two voices of the rough and tumble of Chicago and Denver are no out there--the passing scene.

Rabbit Stopped Running

Those simple words made me sigh as I heard the news that a long lasting friend, John Updike, had passed away. The words just took a moment--"acclaimed American author, John Updike died today at 76." But he was not a simple or momentary author; sometimes his sentences looped and swirled like the fancy Palmer Penmanship exercises we used to do in the early grades of school--but no more, replaced by the steady common font of computer life. Occasionally his sentences were duds like a bad Beach Boys song, but mostly they were beautiful evocations of life in its simplest or more complex forms—he seemed in harmony with life. Updike was proficient at the simplest or the more complex and obscure. For his elegance, it did not matter. He could be elegant with the mundane and usual as well as the grandiose and unusual.

He was an old pal; he has been with me for many years, as I read most of his yearly output. He was one that did not seem bound by time, until suddenly it had run out on him. He seemed close to me, although I only had the pleasure of seeing him read in person twice. He read beautifully each time, and the audience nervously laughed at his swirling sentences. Laughter was a funny sentiment to express at his words. It was almost a nervous but playful excretion or tic that the audience could not hold back.

To meet him afterwards was pleasurable, but you did not know what to expect. One time, he took the book I asked him to autograph, "The Music School" and excitedly told me how the publisher messed up and he proceeded to find the many typos in this edition, marking them and then signing the book. He felt like they had spoiled or soiled some of his best words. But he did not in the end seem to mind or take himself or his words too seriously.

He understood life as we may not have known it; he was its constant chronicler. His friend and student on the Lehrer NewsHour, Nicholas Delblanco, said that Updike experienced life at a faster ratio than the rest of us--his mind was mostly speeding ahead. Delblanco noted that "I always felt in John's presence that he was simply thinking faster and noticing more." His words along with a fine interview with John Updike are at the following web addresses:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/module.html?mod=0&pkg=27012009&seg=5
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/jan-june09/updike_01-27.html

John Updike got it. He got life. He took what it offered and rode or ran with it through its many “fairs,” "villages," and "couples," and he was in on the joke, as one of my real friends of many years would say. Updike tried many things and conquered some. And he let us in on it as a constant explorer and companion of life, whether it be through longer fiction, shorter stories, poems or essays--he shared it mightily with us. When he needed to create a new writer from his own writing, he became "Bech A Book." He tried many new things and new places and new personas, and many old things and old places, like his exploration of the mind of a terrorist located in my aging, gritty home town city of Paterson.

He winked at me through his words and pages--I, his friend of the typos--as he journeyed through many generations of life in my home town in an earlier book of his, "In the Beauty of the Lillies," and journeyed with me and for me. He was an old friend of close to fifty years, since my first book with him, "Poorhouse Fair" of 1959, and he helped me see the beauty and the uncommon pleasure of the simpler and more routine things in life, wrapped in the elegance of his writing. Yes, it was a long and deep sigh when I heard the news. "Oh no," I said out loud as I could not hold back the simple statement of an inelegant emotion for a now departed friend.

It's a New Year, and "what's nu" is old in "Major General" by Franz Nicolay, the keyboardist from The Hold Steady (the one who is interestingly mustachioed) and accordion/piano player for The World/Inferno Friendship Society. The tracks from the opening track, “Jeff Penalty,” to the end play on many influences from the Who's "Tommy" to "Rent" to klezmer to Billy Joel to Queen to Kurt Weill and back to the work of his own Hold Steady. It is an interesting mix. This punk-cabaret, rock-opera is diverse and eclectic (if not always electric), drifting in and out of times, scenes, and motifs. It's fun....

That Time of the Year...Again

It's that time of year again to look back and look ahead. While life and the economy are as volatile as a pinball machine, and we are ready to undergo some changes and start a new game, we must first look again at the year that's past.

It has been a remarkable year of disappointment and hope, but it is ending on a note of hope.... After a long and longer year of an endless political campaign that seemed destined to never end, it suddenly ended with a record-breaking election with long lines at the polls, after a seemingly endless supply of money was raised and many people became newly involved in the political process. No matter what stripe of politics you support, there was a demand for change and rethinking, and, for some, a new sense of hope for the future. It is now a future in which anyone (with certain skills and talents) can rise and become President, even while we work through a massive and complex economic crisis that finally caught up with our past economic "up ticks" (that had no end in sight).

It has been one for the books, while actual books, cds and newspapers continue to suffer, and gas prices explode--going first way up, and, then as quickly, way down within periods of a few weeks. There has also been a sense of loss of control while stock prices dip explosively lower and then a little higher. But we end with some deep disappointment at our banks, other financial institutions, our bankers and investment managers, and large corporations that were supposed to know better. So, we will all learn together, but we will save that for next year.

In the meantime, what kind of music passed our earbuds and airwaves and Internet blogs this year? Free radio and even satellite radio continued to weaken their holds on our ears, mergers and consolidations seemed part of the solution, and our musical tastes in pop also turned volatile with Britney our poster child/adult hitting both new lows, and reemerging in a Circus-like comeback with reworked pop pablum of earlier times. Even the New Kids were retreaded and popular again. It was just that kind of year.

Funk and soul showed signs of reemerging with new voices like Santogold, MGMT, TV on the Radio, and Sia, and and a new contingent of British voices, like Adele and Laurie Lewis, came shining to the front in the Lilly Allen style while Amy Winehouse (why do I want to spell her "Whinehouse") our last great vocal hope had to seek the real "rehab" and hopefully retooling. New jam bands emerged in Dr. Dog and Mountain Goat (who sometimes play with cellist Erik Friedlander), while more experimental sounds of School of Seven Bells, and modern classical artists, such as cellist Matt Haimovitz, and guitarist Benjamin Verdery, Professor of Guitar at the Yale School of Music, also did some interesting experiments, such as playing interesting versions of Jimi Hendrix songs. Vampire Weekend, and Fred showed their ska and African and Irish roots respectively. There was also the less experimental folky sounds of She and Him, the Watson Twins, Bird and the Bee, BellX1, James Yorkston, Noah and the Whale, and Earlimart (with the cleverly-titled "Hymn and Her). and the emerging Americana roots/folk, Southern (by way of Oberlin and Brooklyn) sound of singer/violinist Carrie Rodriguez with her latest CD, "She Ain't Me." A popular form of jazz vocalist/stylist reemerged (with thanks to Nora Jones) in the persons of Laura Marling, and Jane Monheit. Even new finds such as the Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, The Hold Steady, Glasvegas, Black Mountain, The Gaslight Anthem, Panic At the Disco, the Ting Tings, the Dutchess and the Duke, Shearwater and Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks tended to the safe and tested forms in this year of dealing with adversity and hope for the future, and the older Kings of Leon, and Coldplay, continued to turn out fine music but some of it sounded very familiar. Speaking of the new but familiar, Freedom Wind channels the Beach Boys, and thenewno2, the latest project of Dhani Harrison, the son of rock royalty, pleasantly updates the tried and true.

From the familiar to the even more familiar, it is doubly fitting to end this look back with two very familiar artists who came out with outstanding albums. Neil Young brushed off the intimate "Sugar Mountain," which is mostly acoustic, that comes in Neil's solo career right after the breakup of Buffalo Springfield. Bob Dylan gave us another great installment (perhaps the most ambitious one) in his "Bootleg Series," the well-titled "Tell Tale Signs," which included many fine previously unreleased recordings, live performances, and alternate takes of songs from some of his more recent albums. The songs sound fresh, alive and relevant. A Rolling Stone reviewer said that Mr. Dylan "sharpens and expands the vista of mortal and cultural disintegration that has been the chief theme of 1997's Time Out of Mind, 2001's "Love and Theft", and 2006's Modern Times - perhaps the most daring music he's ever made. Tell Tale Signs makes plain that Dylan knows the caprices of the world he lives in, now more than ever."

So it's Dylan and Young, modern troubadours, still relevant for our capricious times. Music, like many businesses and government are at the crossroads. So, here's to our lessons learned for a hopefully bright not blighted future.... The learning curve lies ahead.... More to come--some past, present and future.

The End of the Age of Innocence

Three popular figures from the 1950s recently died. Each of them contributed to the loss of innocence for a child growing up in the New York City area during that time period.

Preacher Roe, one of the "Boys of Summer" on the early 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers team, Herb Score, the Indians flash of the mid-1950s, and Jody Reynolds, author and singer of "Endless Sleep," all died within a few days of each other and all contributed in some small way to hastening the growing-up process and fostering a better understanding of the real world before there were reality shows.

Preacher Roe was a fine, lanky left hander with a 127-84 record in a 12-year career with the Dodgers, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. In 1949, Roe was 15-6 with a 2.79 ERA and pitched a 1-0 shutout in Game 2 of the World Series against the Yankees; in 1951, Roe put together one of the greatest seasons ever for a pitcher when he went 22-3 with a 3.03 ERA, and was named Pitcher of the Year (pre-Cy Young award). From 1951-53, Roe was about as unbeatable a pitcher as there was in baseball, compiling a 33-8 record, as he pitched in the days of Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider. He had been a mathematics teacher from a small town in Arkansas, and later became a butcher in the suburbs of New York, and he seemed to have no pretensions. But perhaps he is best known for his assortment of pitches which he later admitted to have included a spitball (the ‘Beech-Nut slider’). He retired from the game in 1954, and revealed in Sports Illustrated on July 4, 1955 that he threw the spitter for seven years, and hoped that it would be legalized. For a child, this revelation was hard to take especially from the Preacher, a rural school teacher.

Herb Score, was the next great left-hander, who began his career in the majors in 1955, when he went 16 and 10 and struck out 245 batters, a rookie record that stood for 29 years, until Dwight Gooden broke it with the New York Mets in an era of wild swingers. Score was the first first-year pitcher to reach 200 Ks since Grover Cleveland Alexander did it 44 years earlier. Score was named the American League Rookie of the Year in 1955.

The next year he was even better, going 20-9 and leading the league in strikeouts for the second straight year. Herb Score was considered the toughest lefty faced by Ted Williams and had phenomenal potential when his career was altered after being hit in the right eye in May 1957 by a wicked line drive off the bat of Gil McDougald. McDougald, who was in tears after the game, tried to see him the next day, along with teammates Berra and Hank Bauer, but the hospital did not permit visitors.

Score returned to the mound with much fanfare in '58, but he had only a 2-2 record when he was put on the disabled list with a sore elbow on July 18. The next year, Score managed to win nine games and lose five before the All Star break, but he was not pitching with his old dominance. He did not win another game that season, finishing 9-11 as the Indians wound up second, and he was never the same. Score became a legendary Indians sportscaster until retirement in 1997. Score had a friendly, folksy way of calling a baseball game, and he did that with the enthusiasm of a man who felt blessed to be in baseball. Score refused to feel sorry for himself and disliked sympathetic articles that pictured him as a victim because of McDougald's liner. "I'm a lucky fellow," he said. "I'm glad God gave me the ability to throw a baseball well for a few years. That drive could have killed me."

For me, the line drive hit sharply by Gil McDougald that had a serious impact on the life and career of such a promising superstar as Herb Score, was one of those moments of realization that broke through the youthful innocence of the times. Even though I heard of Carl Mays' fatal pitch to Ray Chapman in August of 1920, that seemed (to a child of the late 1950's at least) like a remote historical footnote that could be put safely into baseball's more brutal and rudimentary past. But to that same child of the 50s, the McDougald inadvertent line drive back at Herb Score signaled that baseball could be a destructive, more-serious game with life-threatening events; it was no longer just the children's game played by "the boys of summer" in semi-pastoral stadiums or in the residential streets of Northern New Jersey.

The death of Jody Reynolds at 75 reminds me of another moment of deliverance from the innocence of youth in the 50s. This singer/songwriter, the one-hit Jody Reynolds, was inspired by Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel (HH)," and wrote one of the early rock songs of teen tragedy. The Reynolds song led to Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel," Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her," Johnny Preston's "Running Bear," the Everly Brothers' "Ebony Eyes," Dickey Lee's "Patches," the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack," and ultimately "Last Kiss," a song written and recorded by Wayne Cochran (with his C.C. Riders) in 1962, and covered successfully by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, and more recently by Pearl Jam.

Reynolds loved the desolate quality of the Elvis' HH story and the echoing vocal, and came up with a potentially darker tale, about a boy in search of his girlfriend after a fight, with even more echoey vocals.

"The night was black, rain fallin' down
Looked for my baby, she's nowhere around
Traced her footsteps down to the shore
'fraid she's gone forever more..."

The ballad begins with emotion-riden electric guitar chords and introduces Reynolds' voice double-tracked and soaked with echo, all contributing to the foreboding atmosphere. His voice was rated as somewhere "between Presley's sad-sexy drawl and Ricky Nelson's boy-next-door conversational style."

The song as originally written was rejected by several pop record labels as too depressing. Reynolds sent a demo version to Los Angeles-based Demon Records (with the pitchfork on the label), which liked it, but persuaded Reynolds to tack on a happy ending in which the guilt-ridden boy finds his girl in the waves, and lifts her in his arms and carries her back safely to shore.

The first time I heard "Endless Sleep" I was taken by it's uniquely echoing guitar and vocal sound, and the possibility that rock could move from its generally upbeat, but occasionally bluesy sounds, to a more teenage-tragic dark side. And another part of the innocence of youth was brushed aside.