Don sequiturs

Odds and sods -- April '07

I've put a ton of items in my "for website" folder over the last month or so, but I haven't been moved to write about hardly any of them for some reason, especially The Big Important Issues in the news.  So here's some blathering over a few exceedingly unimportant things:

The book, it ain't worth a-rea-eadin': I recently read Bob Dylan's Chronicles, Vol. 1, and it wasn't bad, but it also it wasn't very good either, and nowhere near what I expected from the lavish praise given it by critics (the paperback edition I read starts with twelve and a half pages of ecstatic blurbs from reviewers).  As most reviewers noted, this isn't a comprehensive memoir; Dylan instead covers four vignettes, or perhaps a better word would be acts (in the sense of acts of a stage play) in his career, two of them before he was a star and two from later in his career, and he doesn't cover them in chronological order.  I'm fine with that approach conceptually; the trouble is that the two vignettes from later in his career are real "who cares" territory (the longest section of the book deals with the recording of his 1989 album No Mercy -- can you name a single song from that album?  me neither), and not much insight can be gained from the other two sections, in my view.  Certainly he doesn't answer those obvious questions about his career that everyone asks (like, "when are the Traveling Wilburys getting back together?"  and "So what's with all those adverbial / adjectival song titles in the 60s, like 'Queen Jane Approximately,' 'Absolutely Sweet Marie,' 'Obviously Five Believers,' 'Temporary Like Achilles,' 'Positively 4th Street'?" and "What kind of song can a tambourine man play, anyway? You are aware it's a percussion instrument, right?").  What it lacked in a coherent narrative, it also lacked in memorable anecdotes.  Not recommended.

It don't come easy:  The Tigers beat the Twins today, 4-3, in their 12th one-run game in their first twenty-four games (they're 7-5 in one run games, 6-6 in the rest).  That's a pace for 81 one-run games, which sounded like a lot to me. It's worrisome, too: it would seem like playing every other game with no margin for error would eventually wear players down psychologically.  Last year the Detroiters played 44 one run games (and were 24-20, worse on a percentage basis than their overall record of 95-67, which means last year's turnaround wasn't due at all to lucky bounces in close games); the major league leader last year in one run games was Pittsburgh with 55.  A little internet searching disclosed that the record for a season is 75 -- Houston in 1971.  The AL record is 74 -- the White Sox in 1968.   I found that record in The Sporting News Baseball Record Book, which I was astonished (and gratified) to learn is now a free electronic download on the Sporting News' website.  I'll definitely have to take advantage of that, since my hardcopy version of the book is the 1987 edition.

Down in the basement: Not to sound like Ron Burgundy ("I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany"), but I own a number of horror/ science fiction anthologies, most of them used 1960s paperbacks.  I hardly ever get rid of books, especially ones I might look at later, and especially ones that are not easily replaced, but apparently I got rid of one of my horror anthology books, the one with a story called "The Thing in the Cellar," because I could never find the book with that story in it.  I remembered it scaring the bejeebers out of me when I was a kid, and I tried to find it because I didn't want to deprive my son of that experience.  No luck, though, and I figured there was no way to to find it again.  I couldn't remember the title of the anthology or the author of the story and thought because of copyright (and the obscurity of the story) that the text wouldn't be posted on the internets, but I thought wrong.  A quick search of The Google for "The Thing in the Cellar" turned up the full text of the story (which was published much earlier (1932) than I had thought), along with some biographical details on the author, an English doctor named David Keller.  It doesn't seem much to read it now, but this short story made quite an impression on me as a kid (and I wasn't the only one; the fellow who posted it on the web says the creepy little tale gave him sleepless nights as a twelve year old).

Life imitates "Major League"

Due to the continuing bad weather in Cleveland, Major League Baseball this week took the unusual step of moving the Indians' home games against the Los Angeles Angels to the Milwaukee Brewers' Miller Field, which was interesting, since, in the 1989 movie Major League, Milwaukee's then-home field (County Stadium) for some reason played the role of Cleveland's Municipal Stadium.  I thought I would be the only one to make that connection, but to the surprise of this commentator the Milwaukee people really played up the Major League angle, playing "Wild Thing" over the PA system when a Cleveland reliever was brought in in the 9th, asking for Dorn to be used as a pitch hitter, and so on (details in the articles here and here).  Bill Veeck (one-time owner of the Indians, and, before that, the then-minor league Brewers) would have definitely approved of the showmanship and wackiness on display.

All the cancellations in Cleveland reminded me that I had never tried to figure out, back when I was something of an amateur baseball historian and noticed such things, why the Indians played so few games in the 1945 season (bear with me here, or not):  Cleveland finished that year with a record of 73-72, when the season was supposed to run 154 games.  Nine cancellations seems like a lot.  Actually, they had two ties, so they played 147 games total, but that was still the fewest in the league; the totals, counting ties, were: Boston -- 157; Washington (the Senators) -- 156; Detroit -- 155; St. Louis (the Browns) -- 154; Philadelphia (the A's) -- 153; New York -- 152;  Chicago -- 150; Cleveland -- 147. 

Since we now have this internet dealio, I thought I might actually try to solve the Mystery of the Missing Games. Baseball-reference showed that the Indians didn't play any games that year between May 13-19, but then, when I checked on the other AL teams, it turns out they didn't play during that week either.  Was it something to do with V-E Day occurring the previous week? Nope. Baseball Library's chronology showed that all of the AL games were rained out for four straight days (see the entry for May 18).  That, and having their end of the season doubleheader against the White Sox rained out (see entry for Sept. 30), probably accounts for most of the missing games.  The team vs. team stats for the year for the Sox and the As show that they played two and four (respectively) fewer games against the Indians than their other opponents -- it appears that, in a season with a lot of rainouts, the Indians were hit the worst.

In the course of this research, if you can call it that, some fascinating sidelights turned up, as always, like the fact that the A's in '45 had a road record of 13-63. Putrid.  The chronology for September 1945 is overflowing with interesting tidbits: a DiMaggio hit his 4th grand slam of the season, but it was Vince not Joe; the Yankees, due to the wartime player shortage, used a pitcher whose last major league appearance had been 22 years earlier; one home run was hit by the Senators in their home stadium all year, and it was an inside-the-parker; there was a no-hitter and Bob Feller's sixth career one-hitter (he would wind up with 12 for his career, along with 3 no-hitters); a contending AL team (the Senators) wrapped up their season a week before everyone else; a record was set for walks in a season; the Cubs set a record with 20 doubleheader sweeps in a season, and also wound up with 21 wins against the Reds for the season (against one loss); a batting title was won on the last day of the season; a pigeon figured in two plays; one-armed outfielder Pete Gray got his last major league hit; and Bobo Newsom and Johnny Dickshot are mentioned.

Anyways, what will the league do this year if the Indians are in contention and have played 3 or so fewer games than the other contenders?  Last year, St. Louis and San Francisco would have had to make up a game on the Monday between the end of the season on Sunday and the start of the playoffs on Tuesday if the game had been of consequence to the standings (it wasn't), but there isn't time to make up a whole lost series.  So there could be some weird wild stuff if the Indians are in the race for the playoffs (and the punditry says they will be).

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times

Ohio State's loss last night in the NCAA basketball championship continues quite a dubious streak for me as a fan.  Last fall, my favorite baseball team, the Tigers, lost the World Series.  Then Ohio State lost the NCAA BCS championship in football. Then my favorite NFL team, the Bears, lost the Super Bowl.  And now the Buckeyes lose in basketball. Better to get there and lose than to not get there at all, I suppose (and the Bears and Tigers took a long time getting there).  Fortunately, it's baseball season again so I can put the Buckeyes' loss to one side.  At my house it's also softball season, since my daughter's playing softball. The last couple of days we've been playing catch in the backyard to practice.  As I tell her, if you can catch a wrench, you can catch a ball.