Captain Aaron, what the hell happened with Carlos Correa and the Giants, McCann to the O's, Luke FAILwalker, Night Court, and a "Little Drummer Boy" that slaps
With the deletion of the original comment, that led me to wonder who we were talking about. An internet search reveals it's Mick Jones girlfriend Ellen Foley, who acted on the TV series Night Court and sang with Meat Loaf on "Paradise By the Dashboard Light."
I don't know but now I kinda want to change my username to "deleted" and randomly post "Comment deleted" just to keep these discussions alive. I love the blind speculation that occurs when something seemingly innocuous gets deleted on the internet.
Lou Rawls’ Christmas album (Merry Christmas, Ho, Ho, Ho) has been THE Christmas album for my family for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I couldn’t go downstairs until my parents had gone down to check if Santa had come. I’d know it was ok to go down when my dad started playing Lou, and Little Drummer Boy was the first cut on the album. I maintained that tradition with my daughter as well.
It remains, for me, my favourite Christmas album of all time (the whole thing slaps). So glad that someone put you onto it, Craig.
I first encountered Lou’s version some 20 years ago, when I was plundering Napster to put together a playlist for a holiday party. I was prepared to call bullshit if Craig’s answer was any other version.
I looked up Ethan Strauss, and he is the alt-right Craig. Or rather was, since from what I can tell, he has shifted almost entirely to writing about politics in the guise of a sports blog, and seems to save his sports discussion for a podcast. I wonder if he left The Athletic not to have editorial freedom but to escape what he must see as the site being too "woke." Also, he charges more than any other Substack I know of.
I think I knew True Hoop has a Substack, but I was not subscribed for some reason. Not that I need another Substack. Of the others on that list, I follow Joe and I follow Marc Stein.
Farewell, James McCann, we hardly knew ye. The last of the bad Wilpon signings is gone. But note that the Mets are not trading most of this contract's value. They are in fact keeping that bulk of it and only sending $5 million to Baltimore, the opposite of what it says here. Not really sure what sense this deals makes, to trade him for little salary relief and a spare part from the minors. But the writing was on the wall for McCann no matter what.
Weird -- I listened to an interview with Strauss not too long ago and didn't get any impression of his politics being a part of his writing. He talked about how he moved to Substack because he has a young child to take care of and the NBA beat is extremely time consuming.
Yeah, I did a quick Google dive into Strauss and a bunch of culture war, anti-kneeling/anti-BLM stuff pops up that's tied to him. Blamed an NBA TV ratings drop - during the pandemic bubble games - on the league's embrace of BLM. Like, did he think Laura Ingraham and the Fox News crowd were all huge NBA fans prior to the George Floyd murder and were driving the league’s ratings? But no, can’t acknowledge the severity of the pandemic and the impacts it had across the board when you’re the rebel trying to attract that conservative audience to your basketball blog.
He comes off as a contrarian, "both sides (but only those on the left need to change)" type. Hard pass.
The left basically produces all the arts, culture, and entertainment right now. The right enjoys it too. They have to. Just like lefties enjoy baseball, probably one of the most right wing sports.
This is gonna come as a shocker so I hope you are sitting down Simon. Despite what virtually 99.8% of our CoC brethren claim, it's okay to be middle, lean right and GASP! be a conservative. Personally, I prefer the different takes as it allows me to at least better appreciate where someone else is coming from. This allows for growth and in a lot of cases, a change of opinion. Group think is dangerous.
Agreed on Lou — I love how he sings "the ox and lamb kept time" like they blew his mind with their surprising funkiness. But as the person who turned you on to The Ventures' Christmas Album, please allow me to also direct you to The Soulful Strings and Kenny Burrell — both of whom also released absolutely stunning all-instrumental 1960s Christmas LPs out of Chicago via the Chess/Cadet connection, both of which feature extremely groovy versions of "LDB".
The critics were not especially kind to 2010. I recall that one of them wrote that if you want to send a message, use Western Union. Had to agree that the movie was more than a bit preachy but I still liked it.
It hit a bit different at the time it came out. Obviously 2010 was a lot more Hollywood than 2001 as it led the audience to water. Still better than 98% of other Sci-fi movies made…
I tried to absorb as much of the Correa fiasco as I could yesterday. I read several articles and many tweets and comments. Hoo-boy, let me tell you -- Giants fans are not happy, to put it mildly.
I think the Giants would have been better off doing a full rebuild this offseason than trying to sign a big free agent. There would have been a lot of fan apathy with a rebuild, but the failure to sign Correa the last minute has brought a lot of fan anger.
I've noticed there are multiple similarities between the Giants and Red Sox this offseason. Both teams have cut payroll. Both teams have failed to sign a big free-agent shortstop. Both are being run by analytically-driven executives and front offices. And both teams have greatly alienated their fan bases.
I was thinking shenanigans yesterday, but cold feet? Lame. A full rebuild AND a big free agent could have both happened -- Correa, for example, is young enough to be part of the next excellent Giants team -- but now it appears that SF will do neither. Doubling down on mediocrity ain't gonna get it done, not until/unless the NL West's three-seed gets an automatic bid to the tournament. There's no wave of prospective talent coming up via the minors, either.
Texas sold off everyone two seasons ago and then signed two Correa-type players. And are going for it this year. At the very least it's way more entertaining a product than those 60-win rebuilds.
Apart from games, I usually only listen to KNBR (“the Giants’ flagship station!”) on my commute, but yesterday (semester is over, grading I can do at home) I turned it on and listened all day. There were a few outliers who called in, but yeah, your Not Happy is putting it super mildly. Funniest part of the day: afternoon hosts ask Steve Young (who has a weekly call in time slot) what he thinks of the Correa situation. Steve (who had been out of town (fishing?) says something like “well, it is a long term, but I think he’ll be such a great addition to the team”. Our host Tom: “He signed w the Mets”. Steve: “WHAT?!?”. They played that clip over and over all afternoon.
I'm not educated enough in the music realm to talk about the BEST version of Little Drummer Boy, but I've yet to see a better USE of the song than in that one episode of "The West Wing".
I think the most interesting thing the Correa signing has to say is about the Yankees. If a multi-billionaire like Cohen is willing and able to commit to sustaining a half billion dollars a year in payroll for several years, it's because he knows that he'll make back more than twice that in profit. The Yankees are MLB's financial behemoth, run by a single owner, the most prestigious and well-known brand of baseball in America so you can be assured that they are comfortably profiting more than what the Mets are. All of Cohen's spending has merely highlighted what an absolute grinch, penny-pinching, cheapskate owner Hal Steinbrenner truly is. The Yankees could sustain a 600 million payroll each year and still be wildly profitable.
I read an article on Cohen recently that mentioned he might be losing quite a bit of personal money to fund his team's massive payroll. This was before the Correa signing, mind you.
Cohen has said that he wants to badly win a championship and that money is not a consideration. He is worth an estimated 15 billion dollars and is in his 60s. The Mets could run a $100 million deficit annually for a decade and it would not put a big dent in his personal wealth.
I don't tend to put much stock in articles praising the financial magnanimity of billionaires. One doesn't become a billionaire by accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in losses without knowing there will be a future financial windfall far more lucrative. We'll never really know because neither the Mets nor the Yankees for that matter will ever truly disclose how much profit they actually generate especially with so much of it disguised through RSN ownership and real estate and development deals.
But if the Mets sell, say, 3.5 million tickets averaging $100 each that's pretty much the entire payroll, and the beer profits will cover the luxury tax. And the Mets also get paid yearly by MLB Media and have sold their broadcast rights for millions as well. I really don't think they're going to run at much of a loss if at all.
One also has to keep in mind the ol' "You Can't Take it With You" line. How much money does Cohen really need to live the rest of his life in comfort - and make sure his heirs can do the same?
You ask "how much" and I think the answer for Cohen, as it would be for most billionaires, is the title of Mary Trump's book about her uncle, "Too Much and Never Enough"....
I read the opposite. I read that he hasn't even touched his personal wealth yet. This might have been before the Correa signing but still. If he's worth billions and payroll is less than half a million... math.
this isn't bad version of Little Drummer Boy by Elvin Bishop, probably mostly because he never says rup pup pup pum as its an instrumental: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxMkI2Suslo
I have a CD compiling Lou Rawls's Christmas songs, and it's wall-to-wall terrific. His last live performance was singing the National Anthem at Game 2 of the 2005 World Series (which is the most exciting baseball game ever played in Rawls' native city of Chicago, with Paul Konerko's grand slam and Scott Podsednik's unlikely walk off homer). He died of cancer in January of 2006. Oddly enough, I can find no video of that performance, but multiple clips of Rawls singing the anthem at the 1985 World Series. Go figure.
That Night Court bit looks frankly terrible. It's OK - credit for trying to redo an old show in a format (traditional multi-camera 30 min sitcom) that is super dated - but man. The concept is like, "what if Leslie Knope was a judge!?"
Lou Rawls has not one, not two, but FOUR Christmas albums. Can't recall another artist with four Christmas albums. Track 2 on Merry Christmas, Ho Ho Ho, an original, features the line "I got me some dough; I'm rarein' to go," which is awesome.
The Night Court teaser definitely looks like... something. I admire the glossy video-tape finish and other 80s callbacks. It's nice that John Larroquette is still working? I'm just not sure what in the original premise demanded to be reinvigorated two generations later. Then again, there's no reason Cobra Kai should be good or even entertaining, so as Joaquin Andujar would say: youneverknow.
And she was the inspiration for/subject of the Clash song "Should I stay or should I go."
With the deletion of the original comment, that led me to wonder who we were talking about. An internet search reveals it's Mick Jones girlfriend Ellen Foley, who acted on the TV series Night Court and sang with Meat Loaf on "Paradise By the Dashboard Light."
Weird the OP deleted the comment. Was there something offensive about it?
I don't know but now I kinda want to change my username to "deleted" and randomly post "Comment deleted" just to keep these discussions alive. I love the blind speculation that occurs when something seemingly innocuous gets deleted on the internet.
Lou Rawls’ Christmas album (Merry Christmas, Ho, Ho, Ho) has been THE Christmas album for my family for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I couldn’t go downstairs until my parents had gone down to check if Santa had come. I’d know it was ok to go down when my dad started playing Lou, and Little Drummer Boy was the first cut on the album. I maintained that tradition with my daughter as well.
It remains, for me, my favourite Christmas album of all time (the whole thing slaps). So glad that someone put you onto it, Craig.
I first encountered Lou’s version some 20 years ago, when I was plundering Napster to put together a playlist for a holiday party. I was prepared to call bullshit if Craig’s answer was any other version.
I looked up Ethan Strauss, and he is the alt-right Craig. Or rather was, since from what I can tell, he has shifted almost entirely to writing about politics in the guise of a sports blog, and seems to save his sports discussion for a podcast. I wonder if he left The Athletic not to have editorial freedom but to escape what he must see as the site being too "woke." Also, he charges more than any other Substack I know of.
I think I knew True Hoop has a Substack, but I was not subscribed for some reason. Not that I need another Substack. Of the others on that list, I follow Joe and I follow Marc Stein.
Farewell, James McCann, we hardly knew ye. The last of the bad Wilpon signings is gone. But note that the Mets are not trading most of this contract's value. They are in fact keeping that bulk of it and only sending $5 million to Baltimore, the opposite of what it says here. Not really sure what sense this deals makes, to trade him for little salary relief and a spare part from the minors. But the writing was on the wall for McCann no matter what.
Weird -- I listened to an interview with Strauss not too long ago and didn't get any impression of his politics being a part of his writing. He talked about how he moved to Substack because he has a young child to take care of and the NBA beat is extremely time consuming.
Perhaps I am misattributing the reasons for his change of career, but the politics are evident, and I am sure The Athletic would have reined him in.
Yeah, I did a quick Google dive into Strauss and a bunch of culture war, anti-kneeling/anti-BLM stuff pops up that's tied to him. Blamed an NBA TV ratings drop - during the pandemic bubble games - on the league's embrace of BLM. Like, did he think Laura Ingraham and the Fox News crowd were all huge NBA fans prior to the George Floyd murder and were driving the league’s ratings? But no, can’t acknowledge the severity of the pandemic and the impacts it had across the board when you’re the rebel trying to attract that conservative audience to your basketball blog.
He comes off as a contrarian, "both sides (but only those on the left need to change)" type. Hard pass.
The NBA seems to be a weird place for him to end up.
The left basically produces all the arts, culture, and entertainment right now. The right enjoys it too. They have to. Just like lefties enjoy baseball, probably one of the most right wing sports.
This is gonna come as a shocker so I hope you are sitting down Simon. Despite what virtually 99.8% of our CoC brethren claim, it's okay to be middle, lean right and GASP! be a conservative. Personally, I prefer the different takes as it allows me to at least better appreciate where someone else is coming from. This allows for growth and in a lot of cases, a change of opinion. Group think is dangerous.
Being as it's the Giants, the medical issue is likely that Correa tested negative on his steroid test.
Ah, 2005 has entered the chat.
Agreed on Lou — I love how he sings "the ox and lamb kept time" like they blew his mind with their surprising funkiness. But as the person who turned you on to The Ventures' Christmas Album, please allow me to also direct you to The Soulful Strings and Kenny Burrell — both of whom also released absolutely stunning all-instrumental 1960s Christmas LPs out of Chicago via the Chess/Cadet connection, both of which feature extremely groovy versions of "LDB".
Love the Kenny Burrell album!
Haven't listened to the Rawls song yet, but if it doesn't include the line "You'll never find another drum like mine" I'm going to be disappointed.
Also, I'll give the new Night Court a chance, but they have to have at least one appearance by Brent Spiner as Bob Wheeler.
And what about John Astin as Grandpa Buddy? (Amazingly he’s still kicking around at 92…)
I wonder if he’s feeling much better now.
Are we not going to talk about the elephant in the room: your incorrect opinion about 2001 and 2010?
I may discuss it tomorrow. I'm not sure y'all are ready for that tho
Runs to look up what this is referring to. Runs back.
I am SO there with you. So is my wife. I hope you discuss it.
Yeah, I still can’t find the reference.
I missed something…
Craig said on Twitter that he thinks the sequel, 2010, is better than 2001: A Space Odyssey. The crowd booed him.
Thanks. I deleted the bird app this past spring.
Interesting notion. Pretty big differences between the two…do you like Depeche Mode or strip steaks or the smell of fresh cut pine trees more?
The critics were not especially kind to 2010. I recall that one of them wrote that if you want to send a message, use Western Union. Had to agree that the movie was more than a bit preachy but I still liked it.
Not nearly as much as I liked 2001, though.
It hit a bit different at the time it came out. Obviously 2010 was a lot more Hollywood than 2001 as it led the audience to water. Still better than 98% of other Sci-fi movies made…
I tried to absorb as much of the Correa fiasco as I could yesterday. I read several articles and many tweets and comments. Hoo-boy, let me tell you -- Giants fans are not happy, to put it mildly.
I think the Giants would have been better off doing a full rebuild this offseason than trying to sign a big free agent. There would have been a lot of fan apathy with a rebuild, but the failure to sign Correa the last minute has brought a lot of fan anger.
I've noticed there are multiple similarities between the Giants and Red Sox this offseason. Both teams have cut payroll. Both teams have failed to sign a big free-agent shortstop. Both are being run by analytically-driven executives and front offices. And both teams have greatly alienated their fan bases.
I was thinking shenanigans yesterday, but cold feet? Lame. A full rebuild AND a big free agent could have both happened -- Correa, for example, is young enough to be part of the next excellent Giants team -- but now it appears that SF will do neither. Doubling down on mediocrity ain't gonna get it done, not until/unless the NL West's three-seed gets an automatic bid to the tournament. There's no wave of prospective talent coming up via the minors, either.
The Giants are unfortunately caught in the middle between good and bad. They are stalled out and not heading in either direction.
Texas sold off everyone two seasons ago and then signed two Correa-type players. And are going for it this year. At the very least it's way more entertaining a product than those 60-win rebuilds.
When I saw that the Mets deal was for less than that of the Giants, it seemed very unlikely to be anything other than the Giants backing out.
r/SFGiants is a cauldron seething with hatred and shame rn, can't bear to see it
/s
Apart from games, I usually only listen to KNBR (“the Giants’ flagship station!”) on my commute, but yesterday (semester is over, grading I can do at home) I turned it on and listened all day. There were a few outliers who called in, but yeah, your Not Happy is putting it super mildly. Funniest part of the day: afternoon hosts ask Steve Young (who has a weekly call in time slot) what he thinks of the Correa situation. Steve (who had been out of town (fishing?) says something like “well, it is a long term, but I think he’ll be such a great addition to the team”. Our host Tom: “He signed w the Mets”. Steve: “WHAT?!?”. They played that clip over and over all afternoon.
Read some of Lurie's take from one of the links and wow. Krukow was of course toeing the org line.
I'm not educated enough in the music realm to talk about the BEST version of Little Drummer Boy, but I've yet to see a better USE of the song than in that one episode of "The West Wing".
Happy "NUTS!" day, and thanks! to McAuliffe and the boys. Nuts day follows Winter Solstice each year.
IYKYK
I think the most interesting thing the Correa signing has to say is about the Yankees. If a multi-billionaire like Cohen is willing and able to commit to sustaining a half billion dollars a year in payroll for several years, it's because he knows that he'll make back more than twice that in profit. The Yankees are MLB's financial behemoth, run by a single owner, the most prestigious and well-known brand of baseball in America so you can be assured that they are comfortably profiting more than what the Mets are. All of Cohen's spending has merely highlighted what an absolute grinch, penny-pinching, cheapskate owner Hal Steinbrenner truly is. The Yankees could sustain a 600 million payroll each year and still be wildly profitable.
I read that too. I chalked it up to an extremely lucrative TV deal, though maybe I was underestimating how much the team makes off it’s merch.
Dunno. It’s on my cable system here in Maryland but it only shows Yankees games from seasons past. Nothing live at all.
I read an article on Cohen recently that mentioned he might be losing quite a bit of personal money to fund his team's massive payroll. This was before the Correa signing, mind you.
Cohen has said that he wants to badly win a championship and that money is not a consideration. He is worth an estimated 15 billion dollars and is in his 60s. The Mets could run a $100 million deficit annually for a decade and it would not put a big dent in his personal wealth.
I don't tend to put much stock in articles praising the financial magnanimity of billionaires. One doesn't become a billionaire by accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in losses without knowing there will be a future financial windfall far more lucrative. We'll never really know because neither the Mets nor the Yankees for that matter will ever truly disclose how much profit they actually generate especially with so much of it disguised through RSN ownership and real estate and development deals.
But if the Mets sell, say, 3.5 million tickets averaging $100 each that's pretty much the entire payroll, and the beer profits will cover the luxury tax. And the Mets also get paid yearly by MLB Media and have sold their broadcast rights for millions as well. I really don't think they're going to run at much of a loss if at all.
Is that $100 of profit per ticket? I can’t imagine the margins are that big.
Didn't see this until NOW but no. I'm thinking total revenue per ticket.
One also has to keep in mind the ol' "You Can't Take it With You" line. How much money does Cohen really need to live the rest of his life in comfort - and make sure his heirs can do the same?
You ask "how much" and I think the answer for Cohen, as it would be for most billionaires, is the title of Mary Trump's book about her uncle, "Too Much and Never Enough"....
I read the opposite. I read that he hasn't even touched his personal wealth yet. This might have been before the Correa signing but still. If he's worth billions and payroll is less than half a million... math.
this isn't bad version of Little Drummer Boy by Elvin Bishop, probably mostly because he never says rup pup pup pum as its an instrumental: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxMkI2Suslo
I have a CD compiling Lou Rawls's Christmas songs, and it's wall-to-wall terrific. His last live performance was singing the National Anthem at Game 2 of the 2005 World Series (which is the most exciting baseball game ever played in Rawls' native city of Chicago, with Paul Konerko's grand slam and Scott Podsednik's unlikely walk off homer). He died of cancer in January of 2006. Oddly enough, I can find no video of that performance, but multiple clips of Rawls singing the anthem at the 1985 World Series. Go figure.
Meanwhile, 2 days ago……
Giants fans to Met fans - too late, we have the best SS in the NL and probably baseball
Yesterday….
Giants fans to Met fans - he’s a cheating bum and damaged goods, dodged a bullet, didn’t want him on our team anyway….
That Night Court bit looks frankly terrible. It's OK - credit for trying to redo an old show in a format (traditional multi-camera 30 min sitcom) that is super dated - but man. The concept is like, "what if Leslie Knope was a judge!?"
Lou Rawls has not one, not two, but FOUR Christmas albums. Can't recall another artist with four Christmas albums. Track 2 on Merry Christmas, Ho Ho Ho, an original, features the line "I got me some dough; I'm rarein' to go," which is awesome.
The Night Court teaser definitely looks like... something. I admire the glossy video-tape finish and other 80s callbacks. It's nice that John Larroquette is still working? I'm just not sure what in the original premise demanded to be reinvigorated two generations later. Then again, there's no reason Cobra Kai should be good or even entertaining, so as Joaquin Andujar would say: youneverknow.
My wife is already not happy with me as I keep mumbling the Little Drummer Boy refrain around the house. Time to counteract it with some FEAR
https://youtu.be/pbTULjLtKP4