Category Archives: Baseball

Baseball, Inappropriate Walkup Music 2009

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 04.04.09

santo-shea.jpgFor previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, click here.

Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up
music.

These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.

Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:

* “Wonder Woman”, Attila
When I revealed my shameful, bygone love for Billy Joel yesterday, The Wife reminded me that The Piano Man was once in a prog rock band called Attila. What does it sound like? Exactly what you think Billy Joel belting out prog rock would sound like, pretty much.

If you find this tune tasty, peep this post at WFMU’s blog, which features some other choice cuts from their 1970 self-titled album–including an instrumental called “Brain Invasion” which sounds like Mr. Joel trying to write music for the Atari 2600.

* “Sneaker Night”, Vanessa Hudgens
FOT Emma added this to the ongoing discussion of Worst Song Ever, and I had to share it here. Maybe not the worst song ever, but seriously some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever heard: “Are you ready? Did you eat? Do you have the energy?…Don’t want you passin’ out af-ter a couple-a hours a piece…” It sounds like it was written by a 12-year-old who has no idea of rhythm or meter, then shoehorned into a beat that was already done. Music for the thoroughly undiscriminating, cadence-challenged High School Musical teenybopper set.

* “Big Yellow TaxI”, Joni Mitchell (or any of its 7000 cover versions)
For reasons chronicled here.

1999 Project

The 1999 Project: A “Humble” Introduction

mora_cedeno_rocker.jpgToday I unveil The 1999 Project. Not to be confused with the Manhattan Project, the Montauk Project, or–god forbid–the 9/12 Project.

In case you hadn’t peeked at a calendar lately, it’s the year 2009. That means it’s ten years since the year 1999. That may or may not mean much to you. To me, 1999 means a lot. It was the year I finally dove headfirst back into baseball.

I loved baseball as a kid, but drifted away from it in high school and most of college. I dipped my toe back in the water a few times in 1998. That was the year the Mets acquired Mike Piazza and Al Leiter, and the first year they seriously contended for a playoff spot in many a moon. It seemed a good year to reqacquaint myself.

It was also, unfortunately, the year where they lost their last five games–when even one win would’ve meant a three-way tie for the wild card–and finished one game out of the postseason picture. The newspapers, and many fans, called it a choke job, a collapse. Oh, if they only knew what a real collapse looked like…by having the definition drilled into their heads two years in a row…

But 1998 was almost worth it for the insane, monstrous glory and agony that was 1999. If any year of Mets baseball was going to bring you back to the fold, this was it. 1999 remains my favorite season.

I wasn’t born in 1969 or 1973. I wasn’t old enough to appreciate 1986. But in 1999, I was fresh out of college, on my own, entering the workplace, and rediscovering a team that made itself impossible to not like. The fact that they didn’t win the World Series, or even get to it, almost seems beside the point.

For a while, I thought 2006 would take the place of 1999 in my heart, but Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, and Guillermo Mota conspired to take it out of the running. 1999 still reigns supreme.

And Bobby Valentine remains my favorite Mets manager of all time. Probably the only true genius who ever helmed the team. He had one sort-of ace (Leiter) and one bona fide slugger (Piazza), and that was pretty much it. He built the 1999 Mets into a 97 win team with a great bullpen and solid defense (The Best Infield Ever), while dealing with fair-to-middling starting pitching and a completely anonymous outfield.

Several years later, once the 1999 Mets had scattered to the four winds, I made a concerted effort to get jerseys of all members of its vaunted infield. I only got halfway there: Robin Ventura and Edgardo Alfonzo (my favorite all-time Met). I can understand not being able to find a Rey Ordonez jersey, but no eBay love for Jon Olerud? That still shocks me.

So as I noted the passage of time this New Year’s, I said to myself, “Self, why don’t you do a retrospective of your favorite season?” Methought, with the assistance of Retrosheet.org and a few newspaper archives, I could reconstruct the season from beginning to end.

I’ve played around with this idea in my head for months. Seriously, for months. I weighed the pros and cons of this project endlessly. I considered the glory of success, the ignominy of failure. Because if I say I’m going to do this, I have to do it, for all 162 regular season games (technically, 163) and beyond.

What put me over the edge was my recent devouring of Faith and Fear in Flushing (which I promise to give a proper review very soon). Greg Prince’s breathless account of that year was enough to convince me that this project should be done–nay, must be done. Particularly his description of Game 6 of that year’s LCS as the best game he’d ever seen, even though the Mets lost it–and thus the series–on a bases-loaded walk.

(Pause here to bite your knuckle and curse the memory of Kenny Rogers.)

I will probably do one post a week, chronicling the games that were played during that 7-day period (I realize that the weeks probably won’t line up the same way, in Sunday-to-Saturday terms, but if I don’t mind that detail, neither should you). But I also reserve the right to concentrate a daily post on particularly awesome or heartbreaking games.

I also figure this will help me keep perspective and not worry too much about the state of the current Mets, which I otherwise would have great difficulty doing. I have certain thoughts about this year’s team that I’d rather keep close to my vest, having been burned by two years of…

Jesus, how can you even describe the last two years? It’s like the famous banner lofted by the original Sign Man at Shea after the conclusion of the ’69 Series: THERE ARE NO WORDS. No, there are not, but for all the wrong reasons.

Without further ado, let the pain begin!

Baseball, Inappropriate Walkup Music 2009

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 04.03.09

santo-shea.jpgFor previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, click here.

Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up
music.

These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.

Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:

I realize that this little project has almost come to a close. So I couldn’t let it pass without picking some songs from bands/artists I used to love, but who the passage of time has revealed to be varying degrees of suck. DON’T JUDGE ME.

Even if I’m not totally on top of What’s Happening anymore, I like to think I have refined musical tastes, so I’m slightly embarrassed to cop to these exes. But hey, everyone, I think–I HOPE–has bands like these in their past, something they
were totally in love with that now makes them cringe.

Peer into your soul and tell me you didn’t used to dig bands that totally suck, and I will call you a liar.

* “Modern Woman”, Billy Joel
I’ve been devouring Greg Prince’s book Faith and Fear in Flushing, which is just as good as the website of the same name that he co-writes (I hope to put a formal review up sometime in the next week, now that Opening Day is almost here). In Greg’s chapter on 1986, he mentions this minor Billy Joel hit, which was on the soundtrack to the nigh-forgotten Danny Devito/Better Midler flick Ruthless People. Reading it, my brain immediately, silently dismissed this 80s relic. “*pfft*, garbage” I thought.

But a second later, I heard the whole song, beginning to end, in my head. And I thought to myself, How am I able to mentally recite the entirety of a minor Billy Joel hit?

And it flooded back to me, like a repressed, horrible memory: BECAUSE YOU USED TO LOVE BILLY JOEL, YOU DOUCHE.

True. Circa 6th grade, I loved Billy Joel. The love affair lasted a year or so, and I managed to accumulate all of his albums in this time period. I listened them on the way to school on my walkman. In less than two years, I’d be listening to Nirvana and Fugazi on the same walkman, but at this time it was all about Glass Houses.

There are some okay-ish Billy Joel songs, but this is not one of them. Lord, does it suck. An epitome of 80s lack-of-low-end and synth overdosing and tinny drum sound and just…I mean, just listen to this thing. Ugh.

But I have to cop to the fact that 6th Grade Me probably wouldn’t agree.

* “Just Keep Walking”, INXS
Another band that I absolutely ADORED once upon a time, and I can point to no good reason. I mean, they have a few decent tunes. I certainly don’t think they’re horrible. I just don’t understand why I chose them to worship. Like Billy Joel, I liked them for only a year or so, but snatched up all their albums in that time (I didn’t have much income at this stage of my life, but all of it went toward music).

INXS was also my first for-real concert. I saw them at the Meadowlands, at what was still called the Brendan Byrne Arena. I dragged a friend of mine with me, who didn’t even like INXS but took pity on me because I could find no one else to go with me. Though I was excited to see them, my seats were way, way up, and I found the experience kinda weird. I immediately decided that music + stadiums = not for me.

I loved INXS so much at one point that I spent some precious shekels on a VHS compilation of their videos, which included an embryonic version of the band performing this song, their first single. They obviously had no idea what they wanted to be yet. The tune is a hybrid pastiche of The Buzzcocks, XTC, and generic New Wave, with a “coldness of modern life” angle that they don’t sell very well.

If you watch the video linked above, you’ll see that they also hadn’t yet declared Michael Hutchence to be a Jim Morrison-esque sex symbol, based on his haircut and outfit. They also hadn’t decided on a band aesthetic, unless a garbage bag-lined floor with your band’s name spelled out in gaffer’s tape is an aesthetic.

* “The Only One I Know”, Charlatans UK
Remember the Manchester scene from the early 90s? No? You didn’t see 24 Hour Party People? Why not? Philistines.

If you were a devoted viewer of 120 Minutes around this time, it was hard to avoid the whole Madchester thing (or the Shoegaze thing, as I’ve covered before). For some reason, though, I decided to skip over The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses and The Inspiral Carpets and run straight to the Charlatans UK (who were not actually from Manchester). I think it was the organ. I’ve always had a thing for organ. Not a lotta bands had an organist circa 1991.

I actually found their album at a local Caldors, if you can believe that (after locating the cassingle of the aforementioned song at a Strawberries). Remember when retail stores had huge music and book sections? Them were the days. Try finding any kind of media at a Wal-Mart–it’s like AC/DC, seven Joel Osteen books, and whatever came out on DVD that week. Makes me sick.

This song isn’t that bad, and I guess it might actually work as walk-up music–except for the fact that its main riff is shamelessly ripped off from Deep Purple’s “Hush”. I remember this being pointed out at the time by several music critics, and I remember not caring.