VAGUE SPACE

Reflections on the World Series

Wow.  Just wow.  For my recap, I wanted to list the Phillies players in order of how much they meant to the championship.  Cole Hamels would be at the top of the list (he was the World Series MVP), with Brad Lidge just behind, but then I got stuck on who was next.  Chase Utley, probably.  What about Ryan Howard for carrying us into the playoffs in September?  Yeah, he sucked for most of the postseason (other than Game 4 of the World Series) but damn he was on fire at the end of the year.  He'll probably be the highest ranked Philly in the regular season MVP rankings, for whatever that is worth (it's not worth much).  What about Shane Victorino, superstar of the 1st two playoff rounds?  Or 45-year-old Jamie Moyer and his 16 wins?  And that's when I realized that these Phillies won this World Championship as a team.  Absolutely everyone contributed, from the superstars named above to the lowliest players on the team, some of whom I'd been ripping on all season.  I mean, the game-winning RBI went to the much-maligned 3rd baseman who I begged Charlie Manuel to bench all season because he couldn't fucking hit (Pedro Feliz).  The winning run was scored by the scrub backup shortstop who was so bad filling in for Jimmy Rollins that he had to grow a beard to avoid being lynched by the fans (Eric Bruntlett).  The much-maligned catcher who hit .219 on the season and looked so helpless at bat that I begged for Chris Coste (!) to start over him (Carlos Ruiz) ended up starting every single game this playoffs, hit like crazy and caught the final pitch from Lidge to win the World Series.  Even the biggest name free agent the Phillies picked up this season (really, he was) who did so bad all year that Jayson Werth became our full-time right fielder as a result (Geoff Jenkins) led off with a double in this suspended game and scored the 2nd to last run for the championship.  Everyone on this team played a role in the championship.  And somehow that makes it so much better.

WORLD CHAMPIONS!

New Music Wednesday

A limited selection of new tracks are out this week, so some of these go back a couple weeks.

• From The Decemberists' Always the Bridesmaid collection of 12" singles coming out this fall.  This is from Volume 1, also available via digital download on iTunes.  The other track on the download, "O New England" is one of their best tracks in years.
  

  • Download Decemberists - "Valerie Plame".mp3

  • Website

• Final Fantasy released a couple EPs in the last two months, The Spectrum, 14th Century and Pays to Please.  This track comes from the latter.

  • Download Final Fantasy - "Ultimatum".mp3

  • Website

• Frightened Rabbit released a live, semi-acoustic album of tracks exclusively from The Midnight Organ Fight.  It's called Liver! Lung! FR! and is available now.

  • Download Frightened Rabbit - "Poke (Live)".mp3

  • Download Frightened Rabbit - "The Modern Leper (Live)".mp3

  • Website

Rain Delay

I'm sitting here in Woodbridge, NJ, near the center of the state, and at about 3 pm, the skies have stopped spewing precipitation for the first time since last night.  We had snow for about an hour around noon, steady rain before, and icy rain since.  It's dry for the moment, but the skies aren't clear, and the conclusion of Game 5 of the World Series has been postponed from tonight, tentatively scheduled for tomorrow, weather permitting.  I'm not sure what to think about all of this -- I'm not happy, certainly, but the whole thing is so confusing, my anger is somewhat muted.  What's so confusing, you might ask?  Well, first of all, why is it fucking snowing in October in New Jersey?  Seriously.  I'm wearing shorts because of the brace on my knee and this morning, my "check tires" gauge popped on while I was driving to work, so I was outside filling my tires at a Hess station in North Brunswick in heavy rains, wearing shorts.  Good times. 

Of course, more importantly, why did a 2-0 Phillies lead with Cole Hamels on the mound in a World Series-clinching game suddenly turn into the rain delay from hell with an indefinitely tied game, no Hamels, and a final two innings played in deplorable conditions that any radar map would have shown was not going to get any better?  Was it just so they could keep playing until the Rays tied the game?  No, of course not.  Baseball's not that blatantly biased to pull that off, even if they could.  But the way that Bud Selig (of course) and the umpiring crew handled last night's contest was absolutely deplorable.  By historic proportions.  Now, by all rights, the Phillies should still win this World Series (up 3-1 and with an extra time at bat in this tied game), and they would have no one to blame but themselves if this rain delay reversed momentum to the point that the Rays came back to win the entire series.  Well, they could blame Selig just a little.  Fuck it, I'll blame him a lot for last night's disaster.  I was all set to cheer us to our first World Championship in 28 years and now... limbo.  Cold, rainy limbo.  The resumed game has already been postponed for tonight.  It's supposed to resume tomorrow night (Wednesday), while I have class.  Not good times.

I wanted to close with this excerpt from Baseball Prospectus, in case you think my biased view of things has me overreacting to this latest Selig fiasco.  I'm not.  Overreacting that is.  Biased? Yes.  F the Rays.  Thanks to Joe Sheehan for letting me run this (if he somehow finds out that I'm running this).  I clearly couldn't have said it better myself.

Wassup 2008

Remember those annoying "Wassup?" commercials that were really popular about a half decade ago.  They got the gang back together for a great political ad.  Kind of funny.  And really perfect.

Howard Goes Boom

Ryan Howard took a struggling Andy Sonnanstine deep to the opposite field in the fourth inning, erasing a playoffs of misery for the slugger and a World Series of offensive struggles for the team in one fell swoop. And the Phillies rode the big guy and Joe Blanton to a 3-1 series lead going into tonight's game against the Rays.  Howard smacked another home run in the 8th to provide some icing on the cake, as the offense finally came alive to produce 10 runs (including 4 home runs) in the 10-2 victory.  We've waited a long time for Ryan to start hitting.  We've waited a long time for the bases to finally -- finally -- be cleared by someone -- anyone with runners on.  And we've waited forever for a title in Philadelphia.  Cole's on the mound tonight.  One more game at Citizens Bank Park, where we haven't lost this postseason.  Can you believe it?  The Phillies are one game from a World Series title.

Howard has 3 home runs in his last six at-bats.  Jimmy Rollins has 5 hits in the last 2 games.  The two stars of the team had done nothing in the first two playoff series but are coming alive at just the right time.  Jayson Werth is batting .400 in the World Series.  Carlos Ruiz got yet another hit last night.  And although Chase Utley and Pat Burrell continue to struggle, they're both walking a lot and Chase is at least having good at-bats.  But it's the pitching that has carried us -- both during the season and through these playoffs -- midseason pickup Joe Blanton becoming the latest starter to dazzle.  As Tim McCarver was fond of saying 17 times last night, he's never seen Blanton's stuff look that sharp.  I haven't either.  And no one has seen Ryan Madson look as unhittable as he's been in these playoffs, including striking out the side in the top 0f the 8th when the game was still somewhat in doubt.  The Rays haven't hit much -- their 3-4 hitters are a combined 0 for 28 with 15 strikeouts -- and whether that can be attributed to the Phillies pitching or the fact that the Rays were not a great hitting team until these playoffs, I don't know.  All I know is the Phillies are 1 game from a World Series title.  In Cole we Trust!

Phillies Win Dramatic Game 3

The Phillies took a 2-1 lead in the World Series after a bizarre, 3 hour and 45 minute game that followed an almost 2 hour rain delay and ended at close to 2 am EST.  They won on a 15-foot "single" in the bottom of the 9th from Carlos Ruiz with the bases loaded when backup infielder Eric Bruntlett raced down the line on contact (since the bases were loaded) and scored ahead of Evan Longoria's failed attempt to make a dramatic play to throw him out.  The ball probably would have gone foul if Longoria hadn't tried to make a play.  Bruntlett was only on 3rd after being hit by a pitch, moving to second on a wild pitch, and making it to third on a throw into the outfield by catcher Dioner Navarro.  The Rays defense, which carried them through this game, failed them in the 9th and a Phillies team which hadn't had an RBI with a runner in scoring position through 26 straight innnings of World Series play (hitting 1 for 33) finally came through with a swinging bunt by our catcher to win the game, 5-4. Unbelievable.

The Phillies completely dominated the game in pitching and hitting.  The Rays dominated in running and fielding.  Jamie Moyer was unhittable for most of the contest, only making a single bad pitch through 6-1/3 -- the long double he gave up to Navarro, his final batter.  Navarro's double was also the Rays only hard-hit ball that led to a run, even though they ended up scoring 4 runs.  The rest were lucky, cheap slap hits and their speed.  The Phillies got on the board first with a leadoff single by Rollins, a walk by Werth and then a wild pitch leading to 2nd and 3rd with no one out for the heart of the Phillies lineup (and a 3-1 count on Chase Utley).  Utley grounded out to score Rollins from third.  No one else would score.

Ferrell Returns to SNL

The return of Will Ferrell to Saturday Night Live as President Bush last night made for one of the best skits ever.

Pavement

Vague Space Favorite Bands of All-Time

1. TBA
2. Pavement
3. Modest Mouse
4. Bright Eyes
5. Mogwai
6. Superchunk
7. Sunset Rubdown
8. Explosions in the Sky
9. Sufjan Stevens
10. Okkervil River

The top 2 bands on my list are different from the rest of the top 10 (other than Superchunk) in that I started listening to them well before 2000.  In fact, my Pavement love goes all the way back to the 1994 release of their second (and I believe greatest) album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.  The Stockton, CA, band is obviously legendary in indie rock circles -- they are the almost the definition of "indie rock," emerging from the home studio of infamous Stockton local and former hippie Gary Young, where founding members Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg (a.k.a. Spiral Stairs) recorded some early lo-fi singles while Young played drums.  Upon first hearing the duo's songs, Young was quoted as saying, "this Malkmus idiot is a complete songwriting genius."  Truer words were never said.  

In 1992, Mark Ibold came on as a bassist and Bob Nastanovich came on to add extra percussion and background screaming.  Debut album Slanted and Enchanted became legendary before its actual release, after circulation among critics and indie hipsters.  It has since been named one of the top albums of all-time by Rolling Stone and the following publications:

• Chosen as #5 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of the 1990s (November 2003 Redux); in the original list compiled in 1999 the album placed 3rd.
• Chosen as #4 on Spin magazine's Top 100 Albums of the Past 20 Years in June 2005.
• It was also included in the All-Time 100 albums from Time magazine.
• Chosen as #1 on Blender magazine's Top 100 Indie Albums of all Time in November 2007.

Gary Young and his drunken ways were kicked out of the band (or he quit) after touring for Slanted, and Steve West took over drums for Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, which produced a couple minor MTV hits ("Range Life" and "Cut Your Hair") that first introduced me to the band.  Poised on the verge of major success (following the alternative rock wave begun by Nirvana and Pearl Jam), Pavement released the diverse, eclectic collection of songs that would form Wowee Zowee, which was neither a commercial or critical success.  In retrospect, the album is considered at least as good as the previous two and in many opinions, better (I would put it just below, but not by much).  Unfortunately, hindsight didn't help the band sell any records, and Wowee Zowee did not remotely give the group the success it deserved. 

On the Slow Century DVD, Malkmus attributed his odd choice of singles to his pot smoking, stating that "I was smoking a lot of grass back then but to me they sounded like hits."

Brighten the Corners followed in 1997, but besides a few good songs ("Stereo", "Shady Lane", and the Kannberg-penned " Date with IKEA"), the album was not on the amazing level set by their previous releases.  Of course, it became their top-selling release at the time.  But the band's members started to fragment in the years following the release, and 1999's Terror Twilight was a massive disappointment.  Malkmus had grown reclusive and distant and his arguments with Kannberg over his refusal to put any of the latter's songs on the new LP led to the band's eventual breakup at the end of the tour in support for their last album in 2000. 

Malkmus has gone on to an initially productive solo career (his first album included the greatest song ever named "Vague Space") but has since put out albums with a much more divergent sound (from the Pavement vibe) that is more prog-rock than anything, and I haven't really cared for them.  Kannberg released two albums under the moniker Preston School of Industry, but I never got into them.  But the band itself has stayed in the limelight this decade with Matador's biannual ten-year anniversary editions of each of their first three classic albums, all released as double albums featuring 20+ unreleased, live, and B-side singles in addition to the remastered classics.  I've discovered a number of songs that I never knew before, and their incredible output of non-stop brilliant tracks between 1991 and 1995 are the reason the band is my #2 favorite of all-time.

Rumors of a reunion persist, but there's nothing concrete.  Matador's latest expanded anniversary edition, this time 11 years after release, of Brighten the Corners is coming out in early November.  I, for one, cannot wait.

World Series Preview

The Phillies are going to win.  Why?  I don't know.  Why the hell not?  Admittedly that's not exactly great analysis, but that's about the same level of intelligent thought put into the analysis of paid professionals in sportswriting.  Did you know that 18 analysts from ESPN were asked to put their postseason predictions in writing and not a single one of them predicted the Phillies would make the World Series.  0 for 18.  Seriously, you can't beat that record if you tried.  And oddly, 17 of the 18 picked the Phillies to win the first round matchup with the Brewers.  But none of them thought we could beat the powerful Cubs (swept in the first round by their opponents) or the Dodgers (who only won a single game against us in the NLCS).  Well done, prognosticators.  Genius!

The official Vague Space NLCS preview did not make a prediction, because I'm smart enough to realize that no one can predict the results of a short series -- sometimes the "best" team wins, sometimes not.  And it's pretty damn difficult to even figure out which team is "best".  Both the Phillies and the Rays are hot, that much is certain, but despite the Phillies winning 20 of their last 25 games (including the postseason), we've had a week off, and a streak only lasts as long as the next game's starting pitcher.  I like our chances in Game 1 with Cole Hamels on the mound, since he's been virtually unhittable in this postseason (winning the NLCS MVP) but the Rays have one hell of a young and powerful lineup, one that is much stronger than the Dodgers' lineup of Manny and the others and light years ahead of Milwaukee's weak crew.  Of course, the Rays' strength this season was pitching and defense, so the more uncertain aspect of the Phillies chances revolves around our hitters vs. their young pitchers, particularly lefties Ryan Howard and Chase Utley against Scott Kazmir and the three righthanders they'll be throwing.  We've gone 7-2 in the playoffs without any contribution from Howard and only an average contribution from Utley.  But since Shane Victorino alone seems unlikely to carry us all the way to the title, I think we'd all like to see Howard smack a couple home runs in the first couple games.  That would go a long way to our first World Series in 28 years.