Perfect Pitch

Tag: New York Mets

  • A- VIARY Nice Sweep in Baltimore

    Birdland copy.jpg“This is Birdland,” proclaimed the banners at Camden Yards, the billboards around the Inner Harbor, and graphics on the Orioles’ website.

    The jazz lover in me loved the reference to the famous Manhattan jazz club, first located at Broadway and 52nd Street when it opened in 1949.  The club’s name is a reference to sax player Charlie Parker, or “Bird”, a regular performer at the club.

    Prior to going to Camden Yards on Saturday, I knew that the 2010 Orioles–as well as Orioles teams of recent years–are a terrible team.  Seeing them in action is truly sobering and serves as a sad testamant to its woeful ownership.  While, as a Mets fan, I was most happy to take a sweep home courtesy of the Orioles, thank you very much, I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for this pathetic team.

    My husband found it very sad comparing the present-day team with glorious Orioles teams of yesteryear.

    Not possessing his knowledge of the franchise’s history, I found it sad equating this group of underperforming players with the fine instrumentalists and singers that have enthralled fans of good music at the original Birdland as well as its present location on West 44th Street. 

    The list of jazz All Stars who appeared at the club in its early years reads like a veritable Who’s Who of Jazz: 

    Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Stan Getz, Lester Young, Erroll Garner, and many others. 

    The current location has presented these fine jazz artists, among countless others: 

    Oscar Peterson, Pat Metheny, Diana Krall, Roy Haynes, Michel Legrand, Dave Brubeck, Pat Martino, Tony Williams, Hank Jones, Michel Petrucciani, Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Hubbard, Marian McPartland, John Pizzarelli, Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, McCoy Tyner, Michael Brecker, Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Jon Hendricks, George Shearing, James Moody, Yellowjackets, John Scofield, Phoebe Snow, Dave Holland, and Tito Puente, as well as the big bands of Chico O’Farrill, Duke Ellington, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Maria Schneider. 

    claxton512.jpgMany live recordings have been made at the club.  John Coltrane: Live from Birdland is probably the most famous, although many others artists–Count Basie and Stan Kenton and their respective Orchestras, Charlie Parker himself, to name a few–have released recordings from performances at the club.

    I know that a team’s PR department is given the unenviable task of promoting this team regardless of its record.  I also realize that the reference to the illustrious jazz club is probably lost on all but a few of us.  But for those of us with even a casual knowledge of the club’s history and of the countless legends of the jazz world, living and dead, who have performed to great acclaim there, the association is laughable.

    Not only is the comparison unfair to these hapless underachievers, but it is also a false comparison. 

    Watching the Mets take hit after hit off of Kevin Millwood on Sunday and the apathetic way he returned to the mound following each one, I began to wonder if Camden Yards should’ve begun playing “Lullaby of Birdland” repeatedly between innings instead of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”

    Not only does one associate a lullaby with sleeping and lethargy, but how about these lyrics of George Shearing:

    And there’s a weepy ol’ willow
    He really knows how to cry
    That’s how I cry in my pillow

    mzi_ircbswjn_170x170-75.jpgSpeaking of the live recordings made at Birdland, maybe the Orioles’ present incarnation is more deserving of a blues selection to be played between innings.  Might I suggest the plodding, down-on-your-luck “Blues Backstage”, recorded live at Birdland by Count Basie and his Orchestra in 1961?

    If the Orioles are ever able to turn things around and have a winning season, they could then revisit this album.  I think a hard-playing, run-scoring, defensively crisp Orioles team could find no more representative up-beat, hard-driven music than “Whirly-Bird” on this very same album.

    Something tells me, though, that the boys of Baltimore have a few more sets to play before they make this chart part of their regular rep.

    Photo of Birdland by William Claxton

  • Shocker and Awe

    MVP0113201002.JPGI wake up this morning so happy for the Mets and for Mike Pelfrey. 

    I’m also feeling a certain pride:  this young pitcher attended and played for my alma mater.  This Wichita State Shocker (pictured below with an unidentified fan, ca. 2005) has shown the New York Mets and Major League baseball just what hardy “Midwestern stock” can do!

    Keep it up, Big Pelf! (Pictured at right with my daughter, January 2010.)

     
    Pelfreyca2005.jpg
     

  • Phiendishly Phatigued Phollowing Philly

    WerthDevil copy.jpgAm I the only one that thinks Jason Werth looks like the Devil?

    I actually thought that his little strip of a goatee and his angular eyebrows and long face made him look Lucifer-like WELL before Sunday’s L- O – O – O- NG rain delay. 

    But when Billy Wagner was one strike away from FINALLY ending this game and Werth hit a hellish two-run homer off of him to tie up the game and force us into extra innings–blowing Billy’s save–I know many of us Mets fans were thinking up some pretty diabolical names for the guy.

    So then–in last night’s giveaway-that-turned-into-a-nail-biter–how could it have been anyone beside Satan himself facing Billy in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and the tying run on second base??!!

    While Billy had us sweatin’ there, but this time the Prince of Darkness popped-up to right and Endy Chavez caught it to end the internal game.

    I later heard Billy Wagner interviewed on SNY-TV.  He said something to effect that he thought the Mets should play hard all the time:  so hard that when they left town [or they left the opposing team’s town], their adversaries were “tired”.

    I don’t know about any other viewers, but between (1) the angst created by the interminable rain delay–Would they play again or would it just keep raining and we would win??!, and(2) the anxiety of the scenario should they continue the game:  two Phillies on base and Howard due up in the bottom of the ninth, (3) followed by last night’s 10-1 score in the sixth diminshing to merely a one-run lead by the time Billy Wagner was in fact needed for the game, and finally, (4) Billy not exactly looking invincible…I am TIRED!! 

    I feel mentally and physically exhausted after “staying in the game(s)” with our guys.

    With that in mind, I’m going to take a quick nap before heading out to Shea to welcome the victorious Mets back home and help them deal with this Lincecum fellow from the Bay!

  • Hope Springs Eternal.

    nilson_184.jpgMy husband, just as big an opera fan as he is a Mets fan, woke up this morning with what I thought was a very clever analogy.

    Having gone to bed last night, frustrated once again, by the Mets loss to the Cardinals, he awoke thinking that it was a new day with another ballgame to look forward to and the opportunity for the Mets to improve in the NL East standings.

    He compared it to a passage in the Puccini opera, Turandot, with which we are both very familiar.

    Set in Peking, the opera tells the tale of an icy princess who invites potential suitors to participate in a game show of sorts.  In the second scene of Act II of the opera, the title character asks the tenor lead–Calaf–three riddles.  He has chosen to participate in this trial although many have tried to dissuade him from doing so.  You see, if he incorrectly answers any of the three questions, he is to be beheaded as have all of his unsuccessful predecessors.

    For round one, Turandot asks the contestant to name for her, loosely translated, a many-colored phantom that flies and soars over humans in the dark of night.  It is called to.  It is implored.  At dawn, this phantom vanishes to be reborn in every heart. 

    “Every night this phantom is born anew, and every day it dies.”

    Ogni notte nasce

    ed ogni giorno muore!

    “Hope,” Calaf successfully answers.

     

    I love the metaphors:  both Turandot’s for hope and my husband’s for the hopeful baseball fan. 

    As discouraged as some of us Mets fans get, we just can’t help but still hold out hope that they can right the ship.

    Let’s see if we can split the series with the Cardinals!

  • Error Charged to Mets.

    cowardlylion copy.jpgRegardless of whether or not one thinks Mets higher-ups made the right decision or erred in the firing of Willie Randolph early this morning, the general concensus in newspapers, blogs, and on talk radio seems to be that the way this move was made was “classless”, an act of “cowardice”, and just generally bungled.

    For several weeks now, I had been growing more and more disgusted with the shameful way Randolph was allowed to “twist in the wind”.  Not only was speculation about his job status allowed to brew, it almost seemed that it was ENCOURAGED to brew.  One writer wondered if allowing anyone and everyone to have a chance to weigh in on the matter was the front office’s weasely way of taking a barometer reading of media and fan opinion before actually making a decision.   

    The lack of a vote of confidence for or a clear dismissal of Randolph resulted in the media stirring things up and causing embarassment and distraction to the the players and managers.  The lack of assurance could not have inspired confident managing or playing.  My feelings that Willie Randolph deserved better than the continuing noncommital responses from his employers to questions raised about his status as manager were echoed in recent days, most notably in the New York Times.

    But as inept as the handling of the situation by the front office has seemed over the past few weeks, the way the final blow was dealt reached an unparalleled level of gaucheness, reeking of cowardice and even seeming clandestine in nature.

    Randolph was not fired while he was in New York.  The guillotine came down after he had made the long cross-country flight with his team following a grueling doubleheader on Sunday.  Instead of escaping the unwanted off-the-field brouhaha, Randolph and the team arrived in Californa to find the media circus awaiting them on the West Coast.  In spite of the unwanted scrutiny and commotion, Randolph and the Mets managed to come away with a hard-earned win.  I assume there was the usual obligatory post-game press conference, and only after that did Randolph finally return to his hotel, no doubt weary and still fighting jet-lag.  

    I’m sure Randolph was not expecting pillow talk or a reassuring before-bedtime prayer when Omar met him at the hotel, but I wonder if even he was surprised at the maladroit way he and the public were notified of his termination.  The press release, filed in the dead of night–specifically at 3:13AM Eastern Standard Time, was well after even the die-hard New York fans like myself who managed to stay awake through Billy Wagner’s turn on the mound would be safely tucked in bed with SNY turned off.

    Finding out the news this was morning was a rude awakening, with emphasis on the word “rude”.

    It was not unlike opening the newspaper or turning on the radio or TV to learn of an inmate’s execution.

    traffic_light_execution_sm.jpgThe perceived surrepticious nature of the whole scenario reminded me of the way in which death penalty convictions are carried out in this country.  With the exception of a few states, most executions are carried out at 12:01AM.  Although supposedly one of the reasons for this is that this gives the state the maximum amount of time to deal with any last minute legal appeals or temporary stays of execution within the 24-hour period of time during which the death warrant is “good” .

    The lateness of the hour is traditional too because other prisoners can be more easily “locked down”.  Also, when the execution is carried out at such a late hour, the likelihood of any repurcussions or protests or unwanted attention in general–from within or outside of the corrections facility–is lessened.  

    Whether intentional or not, the handling of the dismissal seemed covert, clandestine…a pusillanimous gesture.

    One can argue that Willie Randolph got more of a benefit of the doubt and time to turn his team around than he deserved (not my opinion.)  One can argue that he deserved to keep his job through the All-Star break, through the end of the 2008 season, or through the expiration of his contract. 

    I doubt one can find fans out there who would say last night’s dark-of-night firing was something Willie Randolph deserved.