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Friday, November 02, 2007 |
Pickoff Moves
Reaction To The Torre Hiring
I have no official party line here other than that the Torre hiring makes little difference either way; managers do not swing the bat, field the balls, or pitch, and so Joe Torre is mostly superfluous to the Dodgers save to the extent that he is a salve to Frank McCourt's brittle ego. However, there is also this to it (and I hate to give Plaschke a link for any reason, but he is right in this one aspect): at 67, he's also not long for the dugout. We get to go through this all over again in a few years.That said, the linkfest:
- Jon's got a couple pieces up, the first with commentary from Cliff Corcoran of Bronx Banter, Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman, and Jay Jaffe. The most important paragraphs in this one (emphasis mine):
Don't expect Juan Pierre to be benched anytime soon.
The second one was a lengthy recap by esteemed Yankee blogger (and Baseball Toaster-mate) Alex Belth, who writes that Torre's "greatest asset in New York was being able to handle (George) Steinbrenner". The four rings the team picked up under his tenure surely didn't hurt. Whether McCourt will be so patient remains to be seen."Even though the Yankees often had a power-hitting lineup, Torre liked speed," Goldman said. "His Yankees clubs were more interested in the stolen base than any non-Rickey Henderson Yankees teams of the modern era. This extended to leading off Alfonso Soriano for two years though he was the most impatient hitter on the club, putting (Tony) Womack in the lineup, keeping Johnny Damon in the leadoff spot despite a rough year in 2007, experimenting with Kenny Lofton in 2004, and the continual non-benching of a fading Knoblauch."
- Sons of Steve Garvey provides us with a couple very good links of stories written by a pair of ex-Times staffers, Steve Henson at Yahoo (who calls the Torre signing "the franchise's greatest coup since drafting Mike Piazza in the 62nd round 20 years ago", tainted by Dodger "duplicity") and J.A. Adande at ESPN.com, whose most trenchant comments echo my own thoughts:
But over the long run, this city really does separate the talented from the hyped. In the movies, it's all about box office. In sports, it's about banners.
Want proof? When was the last time you read about that David Beckham guy?
- Best poster ever for a managerial hire from MSTI.
- Two from the newish SportsHubLA, one by Kevin Arnovitz and another (far too gleeful) by Ted M. Green.
- Dodger Blues is strangely appreciative.
- Andrew Grant shares my lack of enthusiasm for this whole process.
OT: Serialism Is For Musical Nazis (Or Not)
Serialism is the ultimate descent into meaningless musical pedantry possible: it eschews things like keys for, uh, apparent randomness. Audiences therefore took their feet and went elsewhere, quite reasonably assuming the composers thereof had lost their minds. Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker, recently has tried to change our minds about this with a book and a blog both named The Rest Is Noise, about the "terrifying sounds" eminating from the academic blowhards like Arnold Schoenberg. Today's Salon has a review of the book by Kevin Berger, who confesses his love of Ross as a writer. The most interesting bit, though comes from a reader letter that divulges the fact that Anton Webern was a double agent who spied for the Nazis and used his music to deliver secret messages."This calls into question the entire Second Viennese School of music," announced minimalist composer John Adams from his home in the Adirondack Mountains. "Ever since I first encountered compositions by Arnold Schonberg I wondered what the hell anyone ever heard in it. Now I know."That would be neutron densities. Arnold Schoenberg (after whom UCLA's music building was named) used serialism as a means to send atomic secrets back to Nazi Germany. Bet they don't take the name off the door any time soon.
Update: It's a hoax.
Labels: dodgers, managers, offtopic
Comments:
The Webern story is incredible; I'd never heard of that before. Great post.
Next you'll be telling me the google word verification symbols are a code, too. vxjdnxgi!
Next you'll be telling me the google word verification symbols are a code, too. vxjdnxgi!
Ultimately, I think Torre's success as Dodgers manager, at least for 2008, will be largely dependent on how often he can avoid using the likes of Mark Hendrickson, the ghost of David Wells, and Esteban Loaiza in his starting rotation. He was a lot more successful in New York when he had El Duque, an under-40 Roger Clemens and an under-30 Andy Pettitte, than when he turned to the likes of Kei Igawa, Tyler Clippard and a 38-year-old Mike Mussina.
what's sad is that your lack of a musical ear keeps the greatness of serial music from being appreciated by you. Ross isn't my favorite writer but he does make a valid point that serialism is gaining appreciation over time. Meanwhile, criticisms such as yours sound like they came from a book called "Lexicon of Musical Invective" by Nicholas Slonimsky. Look it up sometime.
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