Day: April 27, 2004

Another baseball song

I’m now 3-for-3 on winning iTunes from 20-ounce Pepsis purchased at 7-Eleven. I’d buy more if it weren’t actually uneconomical (they cost $1.23 including the “CA Cash Refund” value), considering I wouldn’t be buying 20-ounce Pepsis if it weren’t for the fleeting fun of this iTunes contest.

Anyway, the song I purchased this time was Jonathan Richman’s “Walter Johnson,” with typically Jonathan Richman-esque lyrics…

All through baseball
He was loved and respected
Was there bitterness in Walter Johnson?
Well, it was never detected

I have seven more baseball songs I’d like to download from iTunes, but I probably won’t be buying any more Pepsi between now and April 30th, the last day to redeem the codes for free songs (i.e., I won’t be buying any more Pepsi unless they run another contest like this, because I like Coke better). If anyone has any leftover codes and has run out of songs they like, feel free to send them along.

Original comments…

sandor: See, if I had my act together, I’d already have built you the addition to this site that would let thankful readers (like myself) donate funds to your trip in any form they like, but preferrably gasoline credits, Pepsi bottlecaps or iTunes Store gift certificates. I’ll get right on that. In the meanwhile, I’ll send 99 cents your way through the iTMS.

sandor: Well, poop. The iTMS only allows gift certificates in increments of $10. The problem isn’t whether I’m willing to donate 10 songs to the cause, which I of course am, but that those sneaky fuckers at Apple will be pocketing the extra 10 cents. Sniff sniff… is that salami I smell?

Jim: Apple wouldn’t pocket the extra 10 cents…the entire $10 would go into my iTunes account, so I would effectively get 11 songs for a total cost to me of 89 cents. Or a full album plus one extra song for 98 cents.

Things, wonderful, about the new Peanuts book, known by Jim, not told by him to Levi

Jim didn’t mention that the best book ever has a Joy of Cooking- or Legends of the Jews-quality index.

For example:

Charlie Brown, insults to, general . . . 1, 9, 10, 27, 33, 41, 65, 102, 116, 128, 131, 171
Snoopy, clothes, depicted in, to disturbing effect . . . 163, 171
Snoopy, dog reference, offended by . . . 13, 41, 81, 118, 120, 130, 200, 209, 236, 257
Snoopy, dog reference, nonplussed by . . . 20
Tricycle, Charlie Brown bullied off by Patty . . . 100, 102, 104, 195

Baseball doesn’t get such a specific breakdown, but it is featured on sixteen separate pages.

In the next few months, Stacey and I will be building the shelf that, in mid-2016, will hold all twenty-five volumes.

Original comments…

thatbob: Is it an index to only the first two years’ encompassed in volume 1? Or is it an index to the whole 50+ years, to be printed in all twenty-five volumes? And if it’s just an index to the first two years, I can’t help but wonder whether subsequent volumes will include a cumulative index (hot!!!), or if maybe each volume will be individually indexed (yawn) with cumulative five or ten-year indices (hot!) or a separate full index volume (hottest!!!). This is something you should try to determine before building your shelves.

Levi: I was thinking about that last night. The Legends of the Jews has a separate index volume, which seems to most often be the way that multi-volume scholarly productions go. But I bet this will just be an index to each volume.

However, I _think_ there’s no law that would prohibit us from making and selling a comprehensive index to all the volumes in 2016.

Hilary Spurling (with author Anthony Powell’s encouragement) did that with the twelve volumes of _A Dance to the Music of Time_, tracking each character. It was called _An Invitation to the Dance_. We’d have to call ours _Peanuts Shells_ or something.

Jim: Assuming they don’t change the format of the books at some point, the last volume is going to be 1999-2000…but the last new “Peanuts” strip was in February 2000. Plenty of space for a cumulative index in that one.

To be fair

Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Craig Wilson has so far gotten insufficient (read: zero) attention at this site for his fantastic new hairdo.

I bet he’s muttering about East Coast media bias at his locker before games as he thumbs through the paper and sees photo after photo of Johnny Damon’s hair and beard.

So here’s to Craig Wilson and his gloriously flowing golden locks. We come from the land of the ice and snow, indeed!

P.S. My friend Downtown Toby Brown says I’m in trouble if, on our trip, I root for the Brewers to beat the Pirates. Toby’s long-suffering Pirates fandom does deserve our support, so I guess I’ll be rooting for the eyepatch and parrot over the suds and brats.

Original comments…

Jim: Ah, yes, now I recall that during the Pirates-Phillies game I watched way back on Opening Day, the Pirates announcers were being effusive in their praise of Craig Wilson’s hairdo, comparing him to Johnny Damon (but also pointing out that with his blond hair, a Johnny Damon-style beard wouldn’t look as good on him).

Steve: Golden locks my ass! As soon as he takes that helmet off you’re looking at a mullet pure and simple. Just be careful if you try to talk to him about his hair or get his autograph on your upcomming trip. He might go Geddy Lee on you.—“Living in a fisheye lens/Caught in the camera eye/I have no heart to lie I can’t pretend a stranger is/A long awaited friend”

stacey: Thing One: Johnny Damon makes my heart swell with love and hapa pride.

Thing Two: Sorry, Toby. Although pirates also make my heart swell, beer and brats and proximity win. At least until I meet an actual pirate, at which point I can reassess.

Survey says . . .

At Saturday’s Cubs/Mets game at chilly Wrigley Field, there was a play that I didn’t have any idea how to score. I don’t have my scorebook in front of me, so you’ll have to bear with me–I might be wrong about which player did what–but here’s the basics:

Todd Walker was at first base with one out. Corey Patterson hit a bouncer to second baseman Super-Joe McEwing. While fielding the ball, McEwing was in the basepath, where, in the process of fielding, he has the right to be. Walker’s choices were to stop, crash into McEwing, or go around him. He chose to go around, at which point he was called out by the second-base ump for going out of the baseline.

It was the correct call, but how was I to score it? Was Walker out 4 unassisted? Or is there a special notation, like the single Japanese character Scott Sepich noticed a Japanese journalist using for a 6-4-3 double play?

I think I need the opinion of an official scorer. To the Baggarlyphone! Maybe Andy can ask the Giants’ scorer for me, if he doesn’t know himself.

Original comments…

Toby: Levi, I believe the indication is OOBP. You would draw a perpendicular line halting the runner’s path between first and second. And no, I don’t think McEwing gets that put-out.

Toby

Levi: Thanks, Toby. That makes far more sense than anything my friend Michelle and I came up with at the game. My excuse is that it was too damn cold to think.

baggarly: never fear. the runner indeed is called out for running out of the basepath. score the play a fielder’s choice, the runner is out 4 unassisted.

next week, kids, catcher’s interference!

baggarly: actually a smart play by the runner, since if he’d been tagged, i’m guessing the mets turn a double play (which, as all us budding official scorers know, you can never assume).

Levi: Thanks, Baggs.

If Walker had crashed into McEwing, he would have been out for interference, right?