The collected thoughts of sportswriter, bookworm, & food critic Keith Law
Slight change of schedule means I’m doing a quick Klawchat today.
Also, Jacob over at Vegas Watch is doing a March Madness day one chat starting … a few minutes ago, apparently. That’s for when you’re done with my chat, of course.
By the way, if you bookmark this link, you’ll always be able to find player videos I’ve posted on the Four-Letter.
This may or may not be a recurring feature here: songs I really like and never stopped liking but that, for one reason or another, were never huge hits in their times and have since been gathering dust on the music world’s shelves. I haven’t listed anything too obscure – I think everything here received radio airplay in the U.S. – and most are available for download via amazon.com. I started out with a list of over twenty candidates but pared it down to something more manageable. If you’ve got a forgotten classic of your own to nominate, throw it in the comments alongside your adulation of these tracks.
Love Spit Love – “Am I Wrong
I hated the Psychedelic Furs while they were peaking – I think it was because the name was too weird; my music preferences during childhood were often predicated on ridiculous things like that – only to discover afterwards that they produced some pretty amazing stuff. Half the band re-formed as Love Spit Love, who had a minor hit with this atmospheric, melancholy ballad. They’re probably better known now for their cover of the Smiths’ “How Soon is Now,” which became the theme song for the TV show Charmed, but that’s a perfunctory money-grab compared to “Am I Wrong.”
Moloko – “Fun For Me
I first heard this on WFNX in 1997 when it was playing as my alarm went off one morning, and despite not hearing it again for years, I remembered enough of the lyrics to track it down during what one might call the Napster era. It sticks in your head like treacle – and I know it’s not just my head, because everyone for whom I’ve played this song hasn’t just loved it, but become a little obsessed with it, regardless of what type(s) of music they typically liked. Which makes some sense, since I’m not sure how you could assign any genre to “Fun for Me.” But perhaps that’s why it never become any sort of hit in the U.S., given our tendency toward narrowcasting even on mainstream radio stations.
Pigeonhed feat. Lo Fidelity All-Stars – “Battleflag
I first heard this during my summer in Seattle in 1998 while pulling into the parking lot of the Safeway on Queen Anne Ave., and I sat in the car until the damn thing was over because I was riveted to the seat. It’s sort of like Prince meets … well, some other side of Prince, yet the end product doesn’t really sound that much like Prince but more like something by a couple of guys who really like Prince but also like overdubs and drum/bass samples and that ubiquitous handclap. There are a couple of versions around, but the best remix is the one found on MTV’s AMP 2
Susanna Hoffs – “All I Want” (video)
Susanna Hoffs turned 50 in January, which I find horrifying, since I doubt I had a bigger crush on any celebrity during my formative years. I’m pleased, however, to discover that she still looks damn good. Hoffs released two solo albums in the 1990s between the Bangles’ breakup and inevitable reunion, neither of which did much on the charts, but her second effort included a fantastic cover of the Lightning Seeds’ “All I Want,” taking out the twee and turning into more of a folk-rock song. Sadly, the album is out of print and isn’t available for download. (Why wouldn’t a record label just push all of its songs out as mp3s? Is there some hidden cost of which I’m unaware? I imagine it would just be free revenue every time a song sells. And why post the video on Youtube if you don’t intend to sell the song?)
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth – “They Reminisce Over You
As far as I’m concerned, the Bad Boy era killed hip-hop after an incredibly prolific decade of high-quality hip-hop songs, from the Golden Age of Rap coming out of New York to the short-lived jazz-rap movement (Digable Planets, anyone?) to southern California G-Funk in the early ’90s. (Warren G doesn’t qualify, sorry.) Producer Pete Rock was part of the jazz-rap movement, sticking with jazz and jazzy samples and lots of horn solos behind the, uh, smooth rhymes of C.L. Smooth. “T.R.O.Y.,” named as an homage to the late Troy Dixon of Heavy D and the Boyz, was easily their finest moment, built on a bass/horn riff from jazz saxophonist Tom Scott with fluid lyrics from C.L. Smooth.
Stone Roses – “Love Spreads
The opening 30 seconds constitute my main ring tone. If you like great guitar riffs, the entire album from which “Love Spreads” comes (Second Coming) will be right up your alley; guitarist John Squire wrote some enormous hooks and fills just about every available space with memorable licks. I still have no idea why this song, the first single from Second Coming, wasn’t at least a huge hit on “mainstream rock” stations, given the big guitar sounds and the catchy ad-infinitum chorus at the end. Also recommended: The Stone Roses’ guitarist’s post-breakup project, Seahorses, recorded one incredible song called “Love is the Law” (video) featuring awesome guitar work and the priceless line “Strap-on Sally/Chased us down the alley/We feared for our behinds.” Incidentally, the Stone Roses are going on tour this summer after more than a decade of “when hell freezes over” responses to reunion rumors.
Mansun – “Wide Open Space
“Wide Open Spaces” garnered some modern-rock and mainstream-rock radio play when the album came out in 1996, but nothing else from the album broke through and their follow-up work wasn’t very good at all. (Incidentally, the album’s opening track, “The Chad Who Loved Me,” should have been all over the place in the fall of 2000, right?) There’s a lot of ’70s epic/arena rock to this song, but with this great underlying tension from that repeated two-note guitar riff. “Wide Open Spaces” would also rate highly on my list of “Songs I wish I had the range to sing.” Even solo, in the car, it’s a stretch.
Monster Magnet – “Negasonic Teenage Warhead
I know, they were completely ridiculous, a pastiche of stoner rock, New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and even a little bit of glam thrown in, but before the bombastic (if catchy) “Space Lord,” Monster Magnet threw down this straight-out rocker that will have you shouting “I will deny you!” for days. I wonder how much singer/songwriter Dave Wyndorf thinks he owes to Guns N Roses or White Zombie. It’s one of sleaze rock’s finest hours – or four-and-a-half minutes.
Catherine Wheel – “Waydown
This song wasn’t a great example of the Catherine Wheel’s music – “Black Metallic” and “Heal 2” are probably their signature songs – but it’s easily my favorite song by the group, still bringing that faint My Bloody Valentine influence to a much more polished finished product. The music is all energy and tension even as the lyrics describe a rapid, willful descent. It wasn’t quite grunge enough for its era but was harder and heavier than the hair-metal that grunge replaced.
Peter Murphy – “Cuts You Up
Murphy was the lead singer of the goth/arthouse band Bauhaus, which spawned the better-known Love and Rockets after its breakup. While “Cuts You Up” didn’t reach the commercial heights of L&R’s “So Alive
Say Trickle – “It Doesn’t Count” (video)
I know I promised nothing too obscure, but I’m making an exception to my own rule for this little-known British pop/rock band that sort of got caught between the Madchester craze in the early ’90s and the Britpop revival of a few years later. If they had a hit, this was it, although it just scraped the lower reaches of the modern rock charts and didn’t chart at all on Billboard‘s Hot 100. Unfortunately, Say Trickle’s only record is long out of print, but at least the video survives on Youtube.
I finally had time to tally all of the ballots from the quickie ten-man Hall of Fame thread. There were five incomplete ballots that listed ineligible players (Bonds, Clemens, Maddux, and Rose) or had a joke player on the list; one ballot only had eight eligible names and the other four had nine. I’ve contacted those folks to ask if they wanted to revise their ballots, and I’ll update this post if any of them responds. (UPDATED: Two of the incomplete ballots are now complete, so the list below has changed, although the top ten were unaffected.)
So, out of 63 total ballots, including the partial ballots, here are the results:
| Player | Votes | Percent |
| Babe Ruth | 63 | 100% |
| Ted Williams | 58 | 92% |
| Willie Mays | 58 | 92% |
| Walter Johnson | 55 | 87% |
| Honus Wagner | 46 | 73% |
| Cy Young | 37 | 59% |
| Hank Aaron | 35 | 56% |
| Ty Cobb | 35 | 56% |
| Lou Gehrig | 29 | 46% |
| Mickey Mantle | 26 | 41% |
| Christy Mathewson | 25 | 40% |
| Stan Musial | 23 | 37% |
| Jackie Robinson | 20 | 32% |
| Rickey Henderson | 18 | 29% |
| Rogers Hornsby | 15 | 24% |
| Lefty Grove | 15 | 24% |
| Joe DiMaggio | 8 | 13% |
| Satchel Paige | 8 | 13% |
| Josh Gibson | 7 | 11% |
| Tom Seaver | 6 | 10% |
| Sandy Koufax | 5 | 8% |
| Warren Spahn | 5 | 8% |
| Joe Morgan | 5 | 8% |
| Mike Schmidt | 5 | 8% |
| Yogi Berra | 4 | 6% |
| Johnny Bench | 2 | 3% |
| Jimmie Foxx | 2 | 3% |
| Frank Robinson | 2 | 3% |
| Bob Gibson | 1 | 2% |
| Tris Speaker | 1 | 2% |
| Reggie Jackson | 1 | 2% |
| Hank Greenberg | 1 | 2% |
| Eddie Collins | 1 | 2% |
| Nap Lajoie | 1 | 2% |
| Cal Ripken | 1 | 2% |
| Oscar Charleston | 1 | 2% |
| Nolan Ryan | 1 | 2% |
| Harmon Killebrew | 1 | 2% |
The last column, just in case it isn’t obvious, tells you on how many ballots the player was listed.
Nobody had the top ten vote-getters on his ballot; five different voters listed nine of the top ten. Kevin and Tom had the top nine vote-getters on their ballots, and eleven others had eight. Only five of the players on my ballot ended up in the top ten.
Some quick thoughts:
• I think omitting Mays from my ten was a mistake. As I said in the last discussion thread, it wasn’t deliberate; the point of the exercise was to give ten names that were more or less off the top of your head. I’d probably bump Young off of my ballot, because he was largely an accumulator and did so much of his work in the 19th century and early 20th century, when it was really a different game and much easier for pitchers.
• I was surprised by the general lack of support for Warren Spahn. Even ignoring the 4th-highest-all-time win total, that’s 5200+ innings of a 3.09 ERA in the postwar era. Until Maddux, he was the best pitcher of baseball’s integrated period.
• Just about all of us skewed towards old-timers. When we think “Hall of Fame,” we think of those guys, the ones who are just names and stat pages and old black-and-white photographs. Mike Schmidt is probably the greatest third baseman of all time; Johnny Bench might be the greatest catcher of all time; Joe Morgan was probably better than Rogers Hornsby, whom I listed; yet none of those three guys appeared on 10% of the ballots. In fact, 57 of the 63 ballots didn’t contain a single catcher, and 43 didn’t include a second baseman, even though we all understand where those positions lie on the defensive spectrum.
• I have no idea what to make of Negro League players, so I didn’t list any. I’m just not sure how to compare them to players from the racist era. I feel like we all accept Josh Gibson as the best Negro Leaguer because that’s what everyone says, and in other areas of baseball analysis, we would never be satisfied with that line of thinking.
Links first – my blog entries on Team Japan are here and here, the latter featuring a writeup of Yu Darvish.
Last night, I finally made it to Pizzeria Bianco, perhaps the best pizzeria in the United States. Chef/owner Chris Bianco won a James Beard Award for “Best Chef in the Southwest” in 2003. His restaurant earned a 29 rating (out of 30) from Zagat’s. Food writer Ed Levine called Bianco’s creations the best pizza in the United States. Jeffrey Steingarten called it the best in the world. Peter Reinhart echoed these sentiments in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.
Who am I to argue? It was otherworldly.
The first bite I took of his margherita pizza – tomatoes, homemade mozzarella, and basil – was a Proustian moment, where memories of my last trip to Italy, made ten years prior, all came rushing back so fast that they were crowding each other out to take center stage in the theater of my mind. One bite and I was there, in Genova eating outside in an osteria, in Firenze in a trattoria one level below ground, in Rome, in Assisi, there and everywhere. I have never in my life had a food experience bring back such a torrent of memories.
The pizza nearly defies description; it must be tasted to be understood. The crust is amazing, puffy and blistered at the edges yet soft and airy inside, reminiscent of great naan in texture but thinner with that ideal near-cracker texture in the center of the pizza. The fresh mozzarella was firm, smooth, and – thank God – sufficiently salted, also the best we’d ever had. The tomatoes were bright red and sweet, and the olive oil that came both with the bread and with the insalata caprese was bright and fruity and drinkable straight from the bowl, although I admit I didn’t do this for fear of making a scene. We also tried the Biancoverde pizza, featuring mozzarella, Parmiggiano-Reggiano, and ricotta cheese and topped with peppery arugula; it was more of a knife-and-fork pizza because the dough couldn’t support all of the toppings, but the combination of creamy mozzarella, salty Parmiggiano-Reggiano, tangy ricotta, and spicy arugula was sublime.
The restaurant itself is tiny, with around a dozen tables and a bar with a handful of seats, and a good chunk of the real estate in the building is taken up by Chris’ kitchen and brick oven, which means that you can shower him with gratitude after you’ve experienced his pizza. From chatting with him and reading about him (here and here and here), I understand now that that is what he wants – to have you not just eat the food or enjoy it, but to experience it, to leave having had a magical experience that reminds you – as it did me – of how wonderful food can be.
Draft video of Arizona prep catcher Tommy Joseph is up, as is a scouting report on RHP Jake Barrett. Off to see Team Japan today at Scottsdale.
Also, infinite sportswriter theorem has a great takedown of a Florida sportswriter who jumps through all manner of verbal hoops to defend Bobby Bowden.
Looks like several of the videos I shot of prospects for this year’s Rule 4 Draft are up:
RHP Mike Leake
LHP Matt Purke
LHP Cameron Coffey
CF Everett Williams
RHP Shelby Miller
I’ll throw up a new post whenever I see more of these videos go up. Also, I wrote about Brett Anderson, Tyson Ross, Brett Hunter, and Hector Rondon yesterday and will be writing about Dayan Viciedo and Aaron Poreda tonight.
This has nothing to do with the book, but this Guardian review of six new flavors of Walker’s potato chips is pretty funny.
Anyway, the title of Elizabeth Inchbald’s 1790 novel A Simple Story
The two halves of the novel do read like separate books, joined only by the common male lead, Mr. Dorriforth. The first half tells of the frustrated romance between Dorriforth and his ward, the orphaned Miss Milner, an intelligent, witty girl whose lack of any real education leaves her somewhat ill-prepared for the world of manners and rules into which she is thrust. The dialogue in this first half (Miss Milner: “As my guardian, I certainly did obey him; and I could obey him as a husband; but as a lover I will not.”) is clever and unusually quick for a novel of that time, but I didn’t find the story that compelling; if Inchbald had published those two volumes alone as a novel, the title might have fit better but the book would have been unlikely to meet with commercial success.
The second half is set sixteen years after their ill-fated marriage; the now Lady Elmwood and her daughter, Matilda, have been cast out of the manor, and Lord Elmwood (Dorriforth) refuses to so much as see his daughter because of his ire at his wife. The barely-contained – and sometimes uncontained – rage of Dorriforth burns the pages, while Inchbald tells a second story of male/female relations in late 18th-century England, casting the male as the villain without making him evil or one-dimensional. The subservient positions in which women are placed and the roles their upbringings played in placing them there are openly questioned, themes that have lost most of their relevance but were probably topical at the time the book was published.
Inchbald is perhaps better known today for writing the play, Lovers’ Vows, performed by Fanny Price and her wacko relations in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, which makes A Simple Story interesting for its likely influence on Austen and perhaps the Brontë sisters. The witty dialogue between Miss Milner and Dorriforth in the first part is reminiscent of Austen’s wittier works like Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, while Lord Elmwood seems a clear prototype for the dark, brooding male protagonists in Jane Eyre and (more strongly) in Wuthering Heights. On the other hand, if you’ve read Austen and either Brontë and didn’t care for them, I can’t see you enjoying A Simple Story either.
Next up: Henry Miller’s, um, profane Tropic of Cancer
Mike Leake report. Waiting on video.
A quick discussion of Derek Tatsuno, one of the best college pitchers ever.
And, in a complete non sequitur, one of my favorite old Sesame Street sketches:
Looks like Sesame Workshop is throwing vintage sketches up on Hulu, which means much higher video quality than the (legally questionable) clips posted on Youtube by viewers and fans.
In yesterday’s chat, I was asked to name the first ten players I’d put into a restarted Hall of Fame, and came up (off the top of my head) with these names:
Babe Ruth
Ted Williams
Honus Wagner
Walter Johnson
Cy Young
Lefty Grove
Mickey Mantle
Rogers Hornsby
Rickey Henderson
Warren Spahn
The question of today, of course: Who would be your ten, using only actual HoF-eligible players and not giving it too much thought or research? (Since I answered off the cuff, I’m asking all of you to do the same.)
I’ll also throw a link up here when the Mike Leake piece is posted.
It’s about 90% certain but I intend to do a Klawchat on Thursday at the usual time, 1 pm EST, although it will be 11 am and sunny and warm and not snow-covered here in Arizona. I also have a tentative hit on 710 ESPN on the Mason & Ireland show tomorrow, at something like 3 pm PDT. This will likely require me to drop the “Manny is going to sign with the Dodgers” shpiel I’ve been giving for four months in favor of a “I told you Manny was going to sign with the Dodgers” shpiel that will go stale in about four minutes.
I’m planning to see Mike Leake at ASU on Thursday night, so if you’re in the park, come by and say “hi,” preferably at some point when Leake is not actually pitching.
Posts will be sporadic this month, but I’ll try to at least write book reviews as I go. Currently almost done with Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story.