Happy MLB Opening Day

Since I'm a huge baseball fan, Opening Day is one of my favorite days of the year. I know three games have already been played, but today is the first day with a full slate of games. Plus, almost every day from now until October should provide me with baseball to watch, so I'm in a good mood! A couple years ago, I wrote a post highlighting some baseball related music. That's certainly not the only time I've brought the sport up on this blog though. I figured I could add to those posts with a couple new items.

* The other day, Salon.com posted a list of baseball's 27 greatest songs. Check it out here.

* The Baseball Project, a supergroup comprised of members from R.E.M. and other bands, released their third album last week, the appropriately titled "3rd." The album contains songs about Babe Ruth ("The Babe"), the sad fall of Lenny Dykstra ("From Nails To Thumbtacks"), Dale Murphy's Hall of Fame candidacy ("To The Veteran's Committee"), and many more. The whole album is a lot of fun if you're a baseball fan. I mean it starts out with a voice just reading off numbers from famous baseball records over a driving electronic beat... Below I've included a song about the history of the Oakland A's. Since MLB.tv prevents me from watching Twins games in Iowa, I've adopted Oakland as my second team.



* Lastly, this connection is a bit more superficial, but Philadelphia-based pop punk/indie rock group Modern Baseball released an album earlier this year, that is an enjoyable listen. For a much longer write up on the band, you can read this post over on Grantland. If you'd rather just hear the music, below is a song of theirs.



Happy Opening Day!

Road Trip Days 6 and 7

On Saturday, we left Cincinnati and headed to Indianapolis for our last baseball game, a AAA game between the Indianapolis Indians and the Syracuse Chiefs. The drive was rather uneventful and we just killed time in the hotel room before the game (due to the excessive heat and desire to not spend money).

We headed downtown a bit early and made sure to load up on sunscreen before heading into the 95° heat. We explored the stadium a little bit, and I came away pretty impressed. It was actually the first AAA game I had attended (all of my previous minor league games were Low A ones). The stadium was the biggest of the minor league parks that we attended, which was to be expected in the biggest city and at the highest level of play. Not too much stuck out during the game. It was cool seeing some former big leaguers like Gregor Blanco and Jesus Flores playing (I'm easily impressed). The game also featured a return of the Zooperstars. The characters were different, but the act was mostly the same. This time Roger Clamens ate the umpire (who had suddenly been added to the 3 normal umps usually on the field somehow...) instead of Mackerel Jordan eating the bat boy in Dayton.

The real excitement started though when the temperature seemed to drop about 20 degrees all of a sudden and the wind started to pick up. While the cooler temperature was nice (and made me feel ridiculous about being so concerned with the sunscreen), it was also pretty obvious that we were going to get some rain. It held off for a while, but they announced in the 5th or 6th inning that thunderstorms were on their way, and sure enough in the 7th it started to come down pretty hard. Karl and I figured we would wait out the rain since we had nowhere else to be. Over an hour into the delay, the rain was still coming down, and we overheard an usher tell a man and his two children that the game was called off and that they had to leave the stadium. The phrasing sounded a little weird to me, but I figured we had better head out. After the family left, the usher saw us looking back and explained that the guy wanted to leave, so he convinced her to lie to the children. For shame... Anyhow, we kept playing Words With Friend, which was our preferred method for passing the time. About 20 or 30 minutes later, another usher informed us that the game actually was being canceled, and then reiterated that he wasn't joking this time. On the way back to the car, we saw two horse drawn carriages hanging out at a gas station. I worried for the sake of the horses that the owners may not understand that that form of transportation did not require fuel.

Since Karl's car broke down on the way to Iowa City, we had to swing through Madison on the way back to Iowa City to drop him off, so we hit the road around 8 on Sunday morning. Due to hitting almost no traffic driving through Chicago and no other real holdups, we actually made great time and got Karl back to Madison around 1 and me back to Iowa City before 5. (Karl's car troubles aside) The trip was a big success and may have set the standard for road trips to come. Without much baseball in Iowa, it'll have to tide me over for a while now that I'm back.

My song for the final road trip recap post is "One Fast Move Or I'm Gone" by Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar. Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service fame) and Jay Farrar (from the bands Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt) teamed up to record a record with lyrics based on the novel "Big Sur" by Jack Keroac. The whole album is a pretty good on the road album, and this song in particular seems to do the trick. Enjoy!



(The audio was cutting out a bit for me. I'm not sure if that's my computer or the file)

Road Trip Days 4 and 5

I'm home from the road trip now, but I'll still recap the last few days (2 here with one more post recapping our stop in Indianapolis). Thursday morning we hit the road fairly early to drive from St. Louis to Cincinnati. This drive was much more uneventful than the one from Burlington to St. Louis was. We got to our hotel in Cincy around 4 and decided to settle in for a bit before heading to that night's ball game in Dayton.

Dayton is the 4th different Midwest League ballpark (Beloit, Cedar Rapids, and Burlington being the others) I have been to, and it by far the biggest of the bunch. Beloit and Burlington's ballparks both hold around 3,000 people, and Cedar Rapids' holds around 5,000. Meanwhile, Fifth Third Field in Dayton holds 8,200 and has sold out every game for 9 straight seasons. It just blows those stadiums out of the water size-wise. I love seeing games in tiny, intimate ballparks like Beloit and Burlington, but this was a pretty cool experience too. Going into the game, Karl and I weren't aware of the size or sell-out streak, which makes the fact that we lucked into first row seats behind home plate rather fortuitous for us. As we walked up to the ticket window, some guy was handing the ticket vendor two tickets, which must have been returned or something, so for $15 we were seated in just about the best seats in the house. The picture to the right was taken with my phone from our seats.

For this game, we actually got a chance to see the Dayton Dragons face the Beloit Snappers (the Twins Low A team). Unfortunately, while in the past, I've gotten to see some better prospects at Snappers games, the current roster doesn't feature much in terms of up and comers. Dayton's team featured one intriguing player though. I have no idea if he is considered much of a prospect, but a guy named Billy Hamilton has just blazing speed. In the first inning, he singled and the guy next to me made an offhanded remark about how the Snappers may as well just give him third base. He quickly stole second and scored on a double, so I glanced down at his stats. The guy has 45 steals in only 54 games. Second in the entire league is 25. That is just mind blowing. What is even crazier is that he just isn't on base that often. His OBP is below .300, and he has only 46 hits on the year, so he is basically stealing every time he gets on. Later in the game he showed off his speed by absolutely flying around the bases for a triple on a ball in the gap. I have no idea if his bat will be enough for him to move up the ranks of the minors, but I have seen very few people with speed even close to what he had.

The real main event of the game had to be the Zooperstars though. You can get lost in the game and forget that it is the minors sometimes, but between innings, they make sure that you are well aware. The Zooperstars are a group of inflatable animals based on puns using player's (or other famous people's) names. To the left is a photo of Derek Cheetah, Ichiroach Suzuki, and Dennis Frogman (clever, right?). Throughout the game, they would come out and dance or do mini little skit type things, often spraying someone in the crowd with silly string when they were done. The main event was clearly when Mackerel Jordan dropped a ball in front of the ball boy, who proceeded to toss it a couple feet. The process was repeated before the ball boy faked a deep throw and kept the ball. Mackerel Jordan, clearly irritated ran up and ate the ball boy. After several shoes, a hat, and even a shirt were burped out, the ball boy came flying out of Mackerel Jordan's mouth in only his boxers and socks. Clearly embarrassed, he went sprinting off the field, and everyone cheered (I went back and forth on how to talk about the Zooperstars and figured straight-forward, hard-hitting, reporting of the facts was the best approach).

Friday we decided to do a more relaxed day. However, we still fit in one of the highlights of the trip by a stop at Skyline Chili for lunch (I like food too much). Last year when we were in Cleveland, we stopped at a Skyline Chili, but I know that Cincy is known for their chili, so it seemed only right that we check it out while there, and it did not disappoint. They serve the chili over a bed of spaghetti noodles with onions and beans. I have no idea what spicing they use in the chili, but it is different from what I've used to and quite delicious. I was prepared to eat my next 2-3 more meals there, but unfortunately that was our only stop.

That night, we headed to Great American Ballpark (the most humble ballpark in the country) to catch the Reds play the Dodgers. We arrived early to see the Dodgers take BP and explore the park a bit. Unless I'm forgetting some, I think this is my 10th MLB ballpark (counting the now-defunct Metrodome). It would probably rank somewhere near the middle of the pack for me. The park is situated right on the Ohio River, which makes for a nice view when walking around the concourses. The concession stands have some kinda cool, sorta retro signs, which add a nice touch, and the ballpark itself feels pretty small and intimate. From where we were sitting (left field bleachers), we didn't have a view of a jumbotron (they could take a tip from the Twins and throw a smaller one up in right field), and the scenery from inside the park (as opposed to out on the concourses) wasn't anything too special, but all in all it was a nice park for a reasonable price. The fans around us left a lot to be desired, constantly walking down the aisles during pitches and arguing over who was supposed to be in what seat (way more often than should be necessary), but I'll chalk that up to just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

My song for this post is "In Ohio On Some Steps" by Limbeck, a pretty wonderful and catchy alt-country band from California.

Find more LIMBECK songs at Myspace Music

Kudos to anyone who made it through this whole post, as it turned into quite a lengthy one. I'll have one more post recapping our stop in Indianapolis and possibly some of the drive back (hopefully posted tomorrow), as well as one recapping the music of our trip (since this is a music blog and all). Feel free to chime in in the comments section as it is always appreciated!

Road Trip Days 2 and 3

We spent days 2 and 3 in St. Louis. Tuesday Morning, after heading to the local St. Louis Bread Company (aka Panera) and researching cheap things to do in St. Louis, we decided a trip to the zoo was in order. The zoo in general was pretty nice (especially for a free zoo), but the highlight was absolutely the penguin house. It was a climate-controlled building that must have had close to 100 penguins (of several types), many of which were within reach (which meant really testing my self restraint to not just reach out and pick one up).

After the zoo, we headed to Busch Stadium a bit early to walk around and catch batting practice. We ended up with seats in the left field bleachers and spent some time watching the Giants take BP, and marveling at Brian Wilson’s beard as he jogged in the outfield. Chris Carpenter gave new meaning to the phrase “laboring” as he seemed to take several minutes between every pitch, leading to a rather slow and plodding game. However, the weather was great and it was a beautiful night for some baseball.

Wednesday entailed more free entertainment during the day. We checked out the Missouri History Museum in the afternoon. There was a several room big exhibit on Charles Lindbergh that was really interesting. The rest of the museum didn’t really hold my interest, but the Lindbergh part was more than worth the cost of admission. We had some time to kill before the game, so we headed to a coffee shop that we had visited the day before and killed some time on our computers. At about 5:45, the guy working informed us that they had actually closed at 5:00 but we weren’t in the way, so he had let us just hang out. At this point, I was appreciative of the nice gesture and enjoying the fact that sometimes people just do something nice. However, coffee shop guy was just the warm-up act of nice St. Louisans.

We arrived at Busch stadium, and while we were waiting in line to pick up tickets for the night’s game, a guy walking by approached us to ask if we were looking for 2 tickets and proceeded to just give us 2 extras that he had. Apparently he was a season ticket holder and had a couple extras, so we ended up sitting in $43 seats for free. The game again featured gorgeous weather, but this time we had the added bonus of getting to watch Tim Lincecum pitch. From our seats on the third base side of the diamond, we had a great view at his delivery and both Karl and I relished seeing Lincecum face Pujols 3 times, an uncommon site to AL viewers. The game went to extras, and we ended up leaving before the end (so as not to keep my grandma up too late waiting for us). Just minutes after we left the park, a bank of lights went out leading to a 15 or so minute delay, so our timing leaving was probably good.

Choosing a song to accompany this post wasn't easy. I had several possibilities, but I'm going to go with one to honor a player with one of the laziest nicknames (that is still kind of awesome) in baseball, Ryan "The Riot" Theriot. He picked up 3 hits between the 2 games we saw. I was hoping he would get a walk-off hit or something to make his contributions more notable, but he refused to cooperate. Anyhow, here is a live performance of "Take Me To The Riot" by Stars. Enjoy!



This morning, we hit the road on our way to Cincinnati. I’ll recap that part of the trip tomorrow or Saturday most likely.

Don't Call Them Twinkies!

*If you don't care at all about baseball or the Minnesota Twins, you can probably skip this one, but I feel sorry for you.*

My plan was to hold off on posting this song until opening day of the baseball season, but Amazon currently has it available for free and at least Spring Training is underway, so I suppose there's no time like the present.

Twins fans may recognize the song, "Don't Call Them Twinkies" by The Baseball Project (featuring Craig Finn of The Hold Steady). It was recorded last year and made available to stream during the end of the season while the Twins were making a playoff push (and unfortunately subsequently getting pushed out of the playoffs far too quickly again). I may be biased since I am a huge Twins fan, but I don't think it's much of a stretch to call it one of the greatest songs ever to mention both Zoilo Versailles winning the MVP and Ron Gant foolishly falling off first in the '91 World Series.

Craig Finn, who guests on the track, is the lead singer for The Hold Steady. The rest of the group is from New York, but Finn grew up in Minnesota and liberally sprinkles Twin Cities references throughout his songs. I saw The Hold Steady perform here in Iowa City a few months ago and Finn even gave a shoutout to "AL Manager of the Year Ron Gardenhire".

The Baseball Project consists of Steve Wynn, Peter Buck of R.E.M., Scott McCaughey of The Minus 5, and Linda Pitmon of I'm not sure. They came together to write songs about baseball, which seems like a pretty easy idea to get behind. I didn't pay much attention to their first album, but their second album, Volume 2: High and Inside, was just released yesterday, and I definitely plan on checking out this one. ESPN had 6 of their songs available to stream before the release, and they were pretty enjoyable. But honestly, with song names like "Panda and The Freak" and "Ichiro Goes to the Moon" they are almost certain to be great.

Here's a video that a fan made with great pictures and videos to go along with the song. Play ball!



You can download the song free from Amazon here and pick up the rest of the album for $7.99 if you feel so inclined.

***UPDATE*** You can actually stream the whole album to give it a test run before you buy it at Spinner.com here

In 1965, I wasn't quite alive yet
But I'm told they gave the MVP to Zoilo Versalles
Oliva hit the singles and Harmon hit the homers
Mudcat Grant won twenty games and we didn't play in a dome yet
The Dodgers came to Bloomington to play for the World Series
The Twins took the first two, you can even ask Vin Scully
but Sandy Koufax proved to be a bit too much to crack
and the Twins went down in seven but they vowed that they'd be back

From Nicollet to Hennepin, from St. Paul to St. Cloud
The Minnesota Twins are making Minnesotans proud
and we don't buy our titles, so there's summers where we stink
But these are grown men, these are heroes
So please don't call them 'twinkies'

In the fall of '87 I was pretty much in heaven
I got my license and a girlfriend, the Twins had won the pennant
I prayed more in the dome than I ever did in church
Kirby Puckett had the smile, Kent Hrbek has the smirk
First we tamed the Tigers then we were dealt the Cards
And they came to the Twin Cities tried to make sense of our park
It was loud and it was close, and it went to seven games
But the Twins took home the title and that Sweet Music played

Edina to Duluth, from the south side of downtown
Minnesota Twins are making Minnesotans proud
so hear us make some noise, c'mon wave those Homer Hankies
These are grown men, these are heroes
please don't call them 'twinkies'

in 1991 the Twins were once again on top
we faced Atlanta in the series, and they thought that they were hot
And I ain't seen somethin' so lame as that Fonda-hawk Chop
But we were up against the ropes when Kirby called his shot
And as he ran around the bases, smilin', pumpin fist
We all knew that he had won it, and it was only just game six
And the next night Jack Morris came and made his hometown proud
You should watch it in slow motion:
Ron Gant was clearly out.

From Mankato up to Brainerd, from Burnsville to Bemidji
Now we're playing outdoor baseball and that's the way it should be
Raise a toast to Kirby Puckett, raise another to Tom Kelly
They're the Minnesota Twins
So let's not call 'em 'twinkies'

We got Justin, we got Joe, that's enough reason to party
We don't buy our titles but we still won two World Series
So grab yourself a 3.2 beer and raise a toast to Gardy
They're the Minnesota Twins
So please don't call them 'twinkies'