Matthew

Dave, you're right about those line drives, they can be very tricky. It looks like Holliday got caught in a bad glove position -- he could not figure out whether to go above or below the ball with the glove, if you know what I mean.

Re: Holliday. Without a doubt, he should have caught the ball, but hey, that's baseball. I would not get on Holliday's case too much -- he's a great player, plays the game hard, and he feels worse than anyone about what happened. St. Louis is still not out of this, they just have a very hard road to hoe, have to win three straight, but it's doable. Mannyworld is a whole other case though...

Tough luck for Holliday, but the Cardinals were still ahead in the game when it happened, just the bullpen sucked. I too had St. Louis winning it all.

You know I've had the same exact revelation once before. I don't own any of their pre-Rubber Soul Stuff except (now) the first disc of Past Masters but I've heard quite a bit. But I had that same revelation when listening to Vol. 2 of the Anthology Sets. Ticket to Ride just sort of jumps out at you. Then again, since then I was kind of blown away by something that I think came earlier or maybe the same time (someone can correct me if I'm wrong) -- their performance of Twist & Shout which I think was for the Queen (on one of the Anthology DVDs). They're still decked out in matching suits with ties, but there's a pretty palpable energy and rawness (much like on Ticket to Ride) that they bring to this performance that undermines the sort of strictly controlled get-up they have on stage. Of course, the visual component admittedly adds an important ingredient to the mix and most certainly effects my perception of what was going on. Great minds think a like... PS: The Twist and Shout Performance for the Queen.

Seems to me that Ticket To Ride is the dividing line for the Beatles music; that it is a great song is a given, but it really has a completely different feel to it than what they did before musically. Great lead in for Rubber Soul and the rest that was to follow. The production was a major step up also. I can't wait for that mono box.

I was thinking we should add to the pool, for an extra five points, the date of the final game of the World Series. Heck, with all these cold weather teams in there, I might not be until early November when it's over.

ALDS: Los Angeles in 5 games New York Yankees in 4 games ALCS: Los Angeles in 7 games **************************** NLDS: Philly in 5 games St. Louis in 5 games NLCS: St. Louis in 7 games ************************ World Series: Los Angeles Angeles in six games. Hope I did it right SS1

I love PPM & WTB The stereo's sound great, though, as has been said 1,000,000,000 times, the separation is annoying at times. If the mono's sound better, I'll be in seventh heaven.

Don't sweat it, according to Timmy, you missed "incredibly bad" baseball. The friggin' loon. I'll catch the mlb.tv replay sometime today, which is a great feature if you miss a game, a quick replay of the whole game in fifteen minutes, anytime you want.

Dang! I missed the whole 12 innings!

I forgot how funny the show was, and how nice Bailey looked. Les Nessman is a great character. Plus, the theme song is one of my all time favorites.

WKRP in Cincinnati. Watching the first season off of Hulu.

An option could be to let Beltre go as a free agent, move Jose Lopez to third base, and hope that Matt Tuiasosopo can handle handle second base full time next year. Might work, Beltre is not one of my favorites, even though Dave Niehaus & Mike Blowers keep pumping him up as a "gamer." A weak hitting, good fielding third baseman are a dime-a-dozen in baseball.

1. Beltre's a free agent this winter. I think Beltre is happy in Seattle, and I think management is okay with him. I don't see anyone out there who's a better replacement. 2. I'm not sold on Aardsma either. I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude with him next year. 3. I have a feeling that Junior will retire in the off season. He just didn't want to go through the hassle of the "retirement gig" in the final game. I would not be surprised to see Griffey out of uniform, being honored by the Mariners opening day next year. If that happens, Sweeney might stay around, who knows? One of the great what ifs for me is: What if Junior never went to Cincinnati? Griffey, in Seattle before he left, he was the greatest player I ever saw, he could do everything, and his swing was a thing of beauty -- he made the Kingdom an enjoyable place. 4. I forgot to mention what a great year that Russell Branyan had, though he's another one I'm not too confident about for 2010. It was a fun year to follow the Mariners, and I'm very optimistic about 2010.

Before we move on to the playoffs, I want to give huge props to my favorite team: The Seattle Mariners. Great season coming off the absolute disaster that was 2008. Felix Hernandez turned into the real King that he kept on showing promise of over the years. 19-5, era. 2.49, 217ks, 238.2ip, what a fantastic year! Probably won't win the Cy Young, but anything below second place for that award would be a rank injustice. Ichiro, of course, just keeps playing great, and this year he recaptured his enthusiasm for playing for the Mariners. Last year was a tough year for him, but with the turn around this year, he came alive and he'll probably end his career with Seattle. 242 hits, over 200 hits for nine years in-a-row is an amazing stat, sure fire Hall of Famer. Ken Griffey surprised me, I was against his signing, thinking he was way past his prime, and would not help out too much this year -- was I ever wrong on that. It seems as if from the first day he showed up at spring training, the whole attitude of this team turned around, and the clubhouse was a fun place again. He and Mike Sweeney provided great leadership for this team, and I hope they both come back for 2010. Franklin Gutierrez blossomed as the everyday center fielder, who provided outstanding defense, which was a great need for the Mariners because last year, their outfield defense was hopeless. Jose Lopez, at second, had the unheralded season in all of MLB. 25hr, and 96rbi for a second baseman is not too shabby at all. Beltre is okay, I'm not too excited with him, but he does provide good defense at third, and I hope he is wearing some "protection" now. Pitching was a strong point, Felix, of course, is the number one starter for years to come, Brandon Morrow closed the season on a high note, and I hope he can keep it going for 2010. Ryan Rowland-Smith showed some nice flashes, plus, he's a lefty, so he's a plus; David Aardsma came out of nowhere to record 38 saves, just hope he's not a flame out; Holy Cow! Ian Snell was 5-2 as a Mariners starter, we'll see about next year though; Bedard is hopeless, and I hope he is traded to anyone over the winter. What do the Mariners need for next year? They need two things. 1. A power bat in the line-up. If they want to go anywhere next year, they need a player who can supply power, and scare a pitcher even a little bit. Jermaine Dye would be a good player to look at in this context. 2. Another quality starter. I think Morrow will put it together next year, and be a very good starting pitcher, but the Mariners need one more guy that they can get quality starts from, but one of the drawbacks of this team is that they are still suffering from the mistakes Bavasi made when he was general manager, in terms of money they can spend, they cannot do too much. Don Wakamatsu did a great job as manager, though I would like to see a little more passion from him and by the players, they struck me as a little too laid back at times. 2009 was a great year for Mariners fans, and I can't wait for the 2010 season to start!

on JP! Love his songwork and now, along with his Meat is Murder novella, his books. Have you picked up the "soundtrack" and 7" accompanying the book? Excellent stuff as always. Indeed, not just that, but everything by JP is excellent stuff.

Oh my gosh!!!!!! Someone here other than me knows of the existence of the great and wonderful Joe Pernice! You now can do no wrong in my book!

The perverse, music critic in me asks: Isn't all of Hancocks' playing in the Plugged Nickel set, ballad playing? that is not what he is known for (i play ballads too - but thats not what i'm known for either! ) The point that I'm trying to make is that the influence does not have to solely reside in how a pianist plays ballads, it goes off into whole other areas of a person's playing.

The perverse, music critic in me asks: Isn't all of Hancocks' playing in the Plugged Nickel set, ballad playing?

As a piano player, I can truthfully say that from a harmonic standpoint, Evans opened more doors for me that any other jazz pianist, before or after. I often feel, and I have no proof of this other than my ears, but I wonder if any harmonic breakthroughs were Evans and Scott La Faro. What I mean is that if Evans is going somewhere new, the bassist has to either lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way, and LaFaro was with Evans step-by-step, and I sure they both influenced each other.

One of the things that I've read about Evans' influence is how ballads are played. Before Evans, it was stated (I can't find the article, sorry!) that piano players were stuck in a "cocktail style" of ballad playing, but with Evans' approach, a whole new harmonic vista opened up, and one the players who most benefited most from this was Hancock himself.

Hey Ghosty, did you notice I'm starting to get my I HATE THE YANKEES 'tude going for the playoffs?

Typical of ARod -- do the spectacular when it doesn't mean a darn thing! Let's see if he hits above .200 in the playoffs....

Looks like a playoff on Tuesday. I guess they can't play on Monday -- did you know there's a football game that same night? Football

Hard to believe it's the last day of the regular season, seems like it just started.....