Tonight’s Final Jeopardy! answer, in the category Classic American Songs:
“The introductory verse of this 1908 song begins ‘Katie Casey was baseball mad.'”
Category: music
Melody, harmony, fidelity.
Here we go again
For the second straight year, Pepsi is giving away iTunes downloads to improve their sales during the dead of winter. The actual promotion apparently starts January 31st. We’ll have to see how long it takes the Pepsis with the promotional caps to show up in the Los Angeles area. (Last year it took about six weeks from the time the promtion started nationwide, because the local Pepsi bottler was running a promotion of their own.) But the good news for me is that the caps are supposed to be on 20-ounce bottles of all Pepsi products, including Wild Cherry Pepsi — and Mountain Dew Code Red, although I don’t recall ever seeing that in a 20-ounce bottle.
I’m not sure how many baseball songs have been added to the iTunes Music Store since last year, but I guess I’ll find out. It’ll be fun!
Another baseball-related jingle
The season may be over, but my radio station jingle collecting continues. Here’s one I just acquired, circa the early 1960s, back when cheering baseball fans sounded a lot like ocean waves or static or something like that.
Someone’s gonna get sued!
This “compilation” is currently featured on the iTunes Music Store front page. Where would they have gotten the idea? Actually, nurse a couple of songs on their baseball-related playlist were ones I thought of but discarded, including “Glory Days” and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”
Jose Lima bean
A thought on Saturday night’s Dodgers-Cardinals game: since Joe Buck was off for his NFL football broadcasting duties, wouldn’t it have been great if Fox had told Tim McCarver to stay in St. Louis and instead had the game called by a certain Los Angeles-based announcer who’s been around since the last Ice Age and has more broadcasting talent in his little finger than Tim McCarver has in all the shoe-polished strands of his hair combined?
No such luck, and even if I had been watching live instead of TiVo-delayed, I couldn’t have listened to him on the radio because of the delay inherent in DirecTV. Eventually, I put the TV on mute and listened to Brian Wilson’s “Smile” on my iPod instead.
Original comments…
Toby: Levi, Did you happen to catch Fox Sports’ “Beyond the Glory” special on Kirk Gibson’s WS Game 1 HR in 1988? It was narrated by Joe Buck. …Was a great piece.
The thing that struck me, though, was that they played Vin Scully’s call of the homer first, then used Jack Buck’s a little later. I had never heard anything but Jack Buck’s call of that homer. It was very interesting.
You’re so right about Vin Scully and McCarver, though. Why does he seem to worry so much about how deep the outfielders are playing?
Toby: Whoops – Just noticed that Jim posted that. Regardless, my comments wouldn’t change–just direct it at Jim, instead of Levi.
Jim: They did an entire “Beyond the Glory” on Kirk Gibson’s home run? Wow. I’ve closed-captioned a couple of those, and they’re pretty good, but I’ve never watched one at home.
In the video of the home run, you can see one car in the parking lot beyond center field leaving early. Its taillights suddenly come on just as the ball leaves the stadium, and it apparently syncs up perfectly with Vin Scully’s call, as if the occupant of the car was listening to the game on the radio and reacted to the home run by slamming on the brakes.
By the way, it turns out that if you actually go to a Division Series game at Dodger Stadium, not only do you not have to listen to Tim McCarver on your TV, you get to listen to Vin Scully’s calls of memorable moments from the past season. His call of Steve Finley’s grand slam to clinch the division was something like:
“Wherever it comes down, the Dodgers are division champs.” (35 seconds of crowd noise)
Can you imagine Tim McCarver being quiet for 35 consecutive seconds?
Toby: NO! He’d be talking about how one of the fans in the seventh row was playing too deep to catch the home run ball.
maura: chris berman was silent after vladdy’s grand slam the other night. as was ALL OF FENWAY. it was totally creepy and everyone at work was just looking at each other all alarmed-like.
thatbob: fucking yanx
Up in the booth, Vin Scully frowns
A follow-up to the last post, now that it’s the morning…
I can’t believe the Dodger Stadium audio booth didn’t pull out their copy of Danny Kaye’s “D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh, Really? No, O’Malley)” — which I know they have because I’ve heard it there before — and cued it to this portion of the song…
Bottom of the ninth
Four to nothing
Last chance
Hit the button
We’re pleading, begging, on our knees
Come on, you Flatbush refugees
Original comments…
Levi: The only bad thing about last night’s game that I can see is that you got no Gagne. Comeback wins by the Dodgers suck!
Jim: I’ve seen the Dodgers four times this year, and haven’t seen Gagne, except pictured on the outfield wall at Dodger Stadium, and also as depicted on those “Game Over” T-shirts.
We do it (baseb)all for you
Over on the Baseball Songs page, all of the songs that are available via the iTunes Music Store now have direct links to the iTMS. So now you have no excuse for not adding some baseball-related music to your collection…what, you can’t afford 99 cents?
Original comments…
Jon Solomon: How long did it take you to get your iTunes Affiliate Program application approved? I am eager to add similar links to the MPGR site.
Jim: I got the approval in less than 24 hours.
You can add links without being an affiliate, although then you don’t get the affiliate money when someone clicks on them…here’s the link to the iTunes Link Maker.
thatbob: So I guess this is your disclosure of commercial interest. Thanks. Were AAA, MLB, and Motel 6 paying you, too?
Jim: I already disclosed the monetary rewards, way back on September 6th when baseballrelated.com became an affiliate. I wish those entities had been paying us! Actually, we didn’t stay at Motel 6, so they would have to have been paying us not to stay there.
Jon Solomon: I got my approval. Very nice.
And speaking of music
To give you a sample of the famous “Baseball-Related” iPod playlist, I’ve uploaded MP3 files of some of the radio station jingles included on it. There are links to them within the list on the Baseball Songs page. You probably haven’t heard these unless you were in the car with us (we didn’t play any of them on Maura’s show, because they mention — gasp — other radio stations).
If you only listen to one of them, make sure it’s “The Pirates Are What We’re All About” (from KDKA, Pittsburgh, 1980).
Original comments…
Toby: Awesome!!!
It’s like I’m 9 years old again, watching “Pops,” “The Cobra,” Omar Moreno, Tim Foli, “Scrap Iron,” Lee Lacy, Bill Madlock, Mike Easler, Ed Ott and Kent Tekulve all over again.
Thanks for the pleasant blast from the past.
Can’t get enough music?
Surprisingly (because I didn’t think we got quite enough traffic for Apple to care about us), baseballrelated.com is now an iTunes affiliate. So if you’re going to buy and download some songs, why not first click on the link at the bottom of this page, or the one at the top of the Baseball Songs page? Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have a way to link to specific tracks and get the affiliate credit (at least not yet), or I would have done that on the songs page. The other problem is that iTunes doesn’t have the two “Baseball’s Greatest Hits” CDs.
If we actually make any money from this, rest assured it will go towards retroactively paying for all those Hostess Baseballs we ate.
Original comments…
maura: the radio show playlist is here: http://www.wprb.com/printplaylist.php?show_id=1822
Willie and Bob (not Mays and Gibson)
I didn’t realize Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan were doing shows at minor-league ballparks this summer until I read an article about it in the L.A. Times this morning. (I can’t link to that article because it’s for subscribers only.) Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we can fit one of their concerts into our itinerary.
Original comments…
Levi: I’ll take this chance to repeat my two favorite Willie Nelson stories.
1) This one you may all know. In the mid-90s, Willie was asleep in his car on a Texas roadside. A cop decided to roust him out and search his car for pot. Pot was discovered, Willie was booked. Later, a judge threw out the possession conviction based on lack of probable cause for the search. According to the judge, the mere fact of being Willie Nelson does not give law enforcement probable cause to search you for pot.
2) The coworker of a friend of mine is from Arkansas. On a recent visit there, he went to his usual pot dealer to get some Arkansas pot, which he claims to be the best in the world. His dealer apologetically explained that he had no pot to offer. “Willie came through last week, and he bought all the pot.” All the pot.