ESPN’s Amanda and Melissa invited me on to do their always entertaining Play Ball! podcast today. We discussed, natch, Canada Day and great Canadians, as well as some dream sports movie matchups.
Click here to listen.
Canada Day Podcast Fun
Posted in Podcast with tags Amanda and Melissa, Canada Day, ESPN, MLB, Sports, Sports Movies on 1 July 2009 by JonahMy Favorite Canada Day Story
Posted in Random commentary with tags Alex Liefson, Canada Day, Geddy Lee, Hoser Tales, Montreal Expos, Neil Peart, Rush, Toronto Blue Jays on 1 July 2009 by JonahJuly 1, 1997.
I’d just graduated from college and was engaged to be married two months later, on Labor Day weekend. By this point, I should have been in Washington, DC, moved in with my fiancee. Of course this assumes that I wasn’t a complete dimwit when I was 22.
Two months earlier, I’d driven to the U.S. border, my rickety old Chevy Corsica — with a driver’s side seat that leaned back, and to the right (back, and to the right) — stuffed with all my worldly possessions, which is to say a few boxes full of baseball books. Unfortunately I’d just assumed that being engaged to an American and securing employment ahead of time in the States was good enough for INS.
It was not. The customs agent, slack-jawed at my naivete, turned my car right back around and sent me back to Montreal. I would have to fill out a bunch of complicated forms, apply for a complicated visa, and eventually, when INS was good and ready, come in for what was sure to be a complicated interview.
With the immigration process crawling along at a snail’s pace, I still needed something to do to pass the time. Getting a job wasn’t an option, since I hoped to bolt for DC at the first available opportunity. To pass the time, I bolted for Toronto, where many of my friends and much of my family had moved. My buddy Jon was settling in there, and he was always up for random adventures.
With Canada Day approaching, we realized there was an opportunity for an epic day of Canadian revelry: Expos vs. Jays at SkyDome…followed by a Rush concert! I could have changed my name to Gord, slapped on a toque and inked a giant maple leaf tattoo across my forehead at that very moment.
Looking at the pitching matchup that day, we expected a mismatch. The Expos had a tall, goofy journeyman on the mound, opposing one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. As it turned out, we were right — it was a big mismatch. One pitcher blazed through 8.1 innings, allowed just two hits, and struck out 14. The other tossed the same number of innings, but nibbled all day, laboring and yielding 10 hits.
The winning pitcher that day: Jeff Juden
The losing pitcher that day: Roger Clemens
Reminding Toronto fans, at least for one day, that the Maple Leafs weren’t the only Toronto team that bowed down to Montreal was sweet enough. Jeff Juden over Roger Clemens took the day 10 levels higher. If we could run down to catch the end of the Rush show, we’d reach Canada Day perfection.
But the clock was ticking. The Molson Amphitheatre (that’s how we spell it, Yanks) was a full 3 kilometers away, a 36-minute walk if Google Maps existed and could counsel us back then.
Executing the most awkward drunken sprint of all time, we made it in 19 minutes.
The concert was packed, and tickets had gone for alarming prices. Still, we found a scalper in front of the theatre, brandishing two.
(Pant, Pant) “How much for a pair?”
(Scalper, sensing the upper hand) “75 bucks for two tickets. Face value is 100.”
(Pant, Pant) “The show’s over in 45 minutes. We’ll give you 15 bucks for the pair.”
(Scalper, pissed off) “All right, fine.”
Woo! We ran, looked around frantically for seats, and realized we’d never find any, not with everyone standing and in a full lather as the concert neared its crescendo. We found a place to stand between two levels of seats. Just then, *Geddy Lee took the mic:
“This next song is called ‘The Trees’”
*(Going JoePos for a second here) One of my favorite etymology stories of all-time involves Geddy Lee’s stage name. As the story goes, Lee’s real name is Gary. But his Polish-Jewish mother, in her Eastern European accent, pronounced it as something closer to “Geh-ddy”. The name stuck, and a rock legend was born.
**Also, Geddy Lee is a gigantic baseball and fantasy baseball fan. He surely would have appreciated our baseball + concert double-header, even though my team whupped his team. In fact, I think I need to interview the guy for myself. Add that to the to-do list.
For all the Geddy Lee talk, “The Trees” is all about guitarist Alex Liefson and especially drummer Neil Peart (argue with a Canadian that any other rock drummer beats Peart and you’ll end up with a fat lip…or you would, if we Canadians weren’t so gosh darn nice). The song, which normally lasts five or six minutes, ended up going nearly 20, capped by a Peart drum solo that remains one of the best concert moments I’ve ever experienced.
Twelve years later, Rush is still going strong, and the Expos are no more. But in a couple of hours, my new adopted team will be taking on the Jays in another Canada Day matinee, and I’ll be rooting hard against Toronto again, just like old times.
It’s a great day to be Canadian.
UPDATE: OK, now I’m peeved that I won’t be back in Canada until Friday.
There’s an amazing deal happening on Canada Day (July 1) at all Mandarin Restaurants. Simply show proof of your Canadian citizenship (with your Canadian Birth Certificate, Canadian Passport or Canadian Citizenship Card) and you’ll get the famous All-You-Can-Eat Buffet (including soft drinks, coffee and tea) for Free!
Link of the Day: MJ Tribute
Posted in Link of the Day with tags Ben, End the War On Drugs!, I'll Be There, Michael Jackson, Phillippine Prisons Apparently Rock, Thriller, We Are The World, YouTube awesomeness on 29 June 2009 by JonahI would totally get caught smoking pot and accept the mandatory 20-year U.S. prison sentence if I could mobilize my fellow prisoners to do this.
…or this:
ESPN 1250 Pittsburgh, 11 am
Posted in Radio with tags Dave Dameshek, DeJuan Blair, MLB, NBA Draft, Pittsburgh Pirates, Sam Young, Sports on 26 June 2009 by JonahPodcast maven and Pittsburgh transplant Dave Dameshek returns to his hometown, gets asked to guest host on the local EPSN affiliate, and goes back to the well for…Canadian analysis?! Whatever floats your boat, Dave. We’ll be talking NBA draft (DeJuan Blair falls to #37, shockingly) and yes, Pirates baseball!
Anyway, you can listen live throughout Dave’s host stint (10 am-1 pm ET), and especially at 11 am, when I’m on, by clicking here.
The Complicated Legacy of Michael Jackson
Posted in Random commentary with tags Child abuse, Joe Jackson, Macaulay Culkin, Michael Jackson, Music, Paul McCartney on 25 June 2009 by JonahWhen I first heard the news about Michael Jackson’s death, my reaction was, to put it mildly, glib. I have a tough time feeling bad for someone widely believed to have molested children.
As always, leave it to Angele to be the voice of reason. For those of you who don’t know (basically everyone except immediate family), she’s a psychologist who studies family violence, among other things. She’s also a certified genius whose perspective is pretty much always spot on. As someone well versed in the horrible effects that child abuse (or even just simple corporal punishment), can have on a person, she has a unique perspective on how Joe Jackson’s reign of terror negatively impacted his children–Michael most of all.
Here’s a Wikipedia snippet on what Joe did to Michael (and his other sons):
From a young age Jackson was physically and mentally abused by his father, enduring incessant rehearsals, whippings and name-calling. Jackson’s abuse as a child affected him throughout his grown life. In one altercation—later recalled by Marlon Jackson—Joseph held Michael upside down by one leg and “pummeled him over and over again with his hand, hitting him on his back and buttocks”. Joseph would often trip up, or push the male children into walls. One night while Jackson was asleep, Joseph climbed into his room through the bedroom window. Wearing a fright mask, he entered the room screaming and shouting. Joseph said he wanted to teach his children not to leave the window open when they went to sleep. For years afterward, Jackson suffered nightmares about being kidnapped from his bedroom.
Our conversation led to extensive debate about Joe’s influence. He was the father (literally and figuratively) of the Jackson 5, someone who was enshrined into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and introduced as “”the greatest musical manager of all time.” Did Joe’s tactics push Michael to become The King of Pop? Should we thus be thankful to Joe that Michael was able to make millions…probably billions of people happy? Or was that kind of talent more a question of nature than nurture, and would Michael have been a superstar if his dad wasn’t an overbearing maniac?
Then you can get into a utilitarian debate. If Joe was the cause of some of Michael’s deepest troubles (hard to argue otherwise) but also the reason Michael became the musical legend he was…Is it worth one man’s life to make billions of people happy?
Even that’s too simple, though. Joe likely caused some serious psychological trauma to at least some of his other children too. It’s not a stretch to also say that he’s a big reason Michael took a turn for the worse behaviorally, such that, allegedly, many young children, and the families of those young children, paid a horrible price.
We’re not even done here. Jackson was also a humanitarian in many ways, someone who legitimately sought to make people happy and help the world. He may very well have been sincere when he said how much he truly loved children (in a non-perverse way), and that he wanted to improve their lives. How does one reconcile Jackson’s own constant, child-like state, from building an amusement park at Neverland Ranch to his adventures with his own children, to, well, naming one of them Blanket?
And we haven’t even touched on much less dramatic, though still interesting debates such as Jackson’s befriending Paul McCartney, then buying The Beatles’ music catalog out from under him–a move which was perfectly legal and shrewd from a business sense, though probably a bit on the sketchy side from an interpersonal perspective.
The next 24 hours (and probably much more) are going to be a roller coaster of Jacko coverage. Radio stations will treat us to “Billie Jean”, then depress us with lesser Jackson offerings. We’ll probably hear from Macaulay Culkin, and maybe Corey Feldman. We’ll be reminded of his famous trial in which he dodged abuse charges. The plastic surgery, the pyrotechnics mishap, the one glove, the red jacket, the crotch grabbing, the incredible dancing, the amazing voice…the networks are going to have a field day (and you can bet that the White House won’t mind no one paying attention to the imminent votes over proposed climate legislation).
But when it’s all said and done, I’ll just go back to a simple story: An abusive father, and the indelible harm he caused to his son. Still going strong as he approaches his 80th birthday, Joe Jackson remains among us. The little boy he messed up forever is gone.
UPDATE: Will jump on Bob Andelman’s show in a few minutes to talk about Michael Jackson. Click here to listen.
UPDATE 2: Slate’s got an interesting take, introducing doubt to the idea that Michael Jackson ever molested anyone. It may or may not convince you, but it’s certainly worth a read.
The AL East Is (Probably) Really Good
Posted in Random commentary with tags AL East, Baseball, Bill James, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, MLB, New York Yankees, Run differential, Sports, Tampa Bay Rays, Toronto Blue Jays on 25 June 2009 by JonahIn baseball, much is made about the concept of run differential – that is, evaluating Team X based on runs scored and runs allowed, rather than record. Some writers and analysts (I’d say myself included), probably do this too much, forgetting that run differential (or as Bill James called his run differential based calculations, the “Pythagorean” record), works better as a predictor of future outcomes than a gauge of current value (and often doesn’t predict all that well).
For instance, it may be that the Angels are a massive outlier in an otherwise sound theory, but the fact remains that I’ve written several articles over the years that have either specifically profiled the Angels and argued that they’re playing “over their heads”, or at least mentioned a similar theory. (I did pick the Angels to win the AL West this year…we’ll see.)
Anyway, with all those caveats established, I thought the following nugget was, if nothing else, interesting. Of the teams with the top five run differentials in MLB…FOUR play in the AL East. Some of this could regulate itself, especially as we see more intradivision games in the second half. But still…wow.
Pick Up Carl Pavano
Posted in RotoSynthesis with tags Carl Pavano, Cleveland Indians, Fantasy baseball, MLB on 21 June 2009 by JonahNew Dameshek Podcast, Father’s Day Edition
Posted in Podcast with tags Citi Field, Dave Dameshek, Father's Day, Kobe Bryant, NBA, Sports on 19 June 2009 by JonahNBA talk, fathers and sports fandom, breakfast food debates, plus a big reveal. Enjoy.
Also, I really enjoyed my first-ever visit to Citi Field. Well, except for the part where you need a bazooka to hit the ball out of the ballpark.
This Is Why I’m Skeptical That Real Reforms Can Happen – In Health Care Or Otherwise
Posted in Random commentary with tags Campaign Finance, Heath Care, Matthew Yglesias, Politics on 2 July 2009 by JonahPoliticians don’t answer to their constituents. They answer to their corporate sponsors. And campaign finance looks likely to become more unchecked, not less, in the foreseeable future.
As this Matthew Yglesias column notes:
Makes me doubt that anything beyond cosmetic changes in our terrible health care system are on tap, given the trough at which politicians on both sides of the aisle have fed, do feed, and will continue to feed (h/t Ben K).
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