Another day another complaint that I’m writing too late in the day. What’s worse is that I skipped yesterday. Now I have to go deep into my memory banks to remember what I wanted to write about. I did write yesterday, my Gord’s Gold about Barnaby Bright. Gord’s Gold is unfair. I only write about musicians that I love, musicians that I get excited about, but I can’t always be inspired. I don’t always not only unlock the key to why I love them but find the right words to express them. Anyone that writes has experienced this. You can’t control the Muse; she follows her own will and no other. You can always write, but only sometimes does the goddess give you guidance. I felt inspired writing about Barnaby Bright. That took me by surprise. I’ve known them so long, loving them is like loving chocolate, it’s a fact of life. The only problem is that it might be too long. I haven’t recorded it yet. That’s bad, my personal due date, assigned by myself is to finish Gord’s Gold on Wednesday, one week before it airs. My eventual goal is to record at least two a week. I’m not there yet. I write well but not efficiently. I listened to the complete Barnaby Bright oeuvre on shuffle for most of the day. That doesn’t inspire me but paves the way for the Muse if she decides to visit. Yesterday she did. I’m grateful. I’m listening carefully for silence, so I can record today. When I get it, I’ll drop what I’m doing and record. That means not hearing the pitter-patter of elephant feet in the apartment above mine.
I spent much of the last two evenings listening to streaming concerts, last night it was Heather Lloyd’s and Rob Hinkal’s 19th anniversary playing together in ilyAIMY. It was bare bones, just the two of them, no Kristen or Rowan. This was there night. They did lots of old songs that they didn’t have time to properly prepare. No matter, I couldn’t pull myself away. They showed old pics of “Baby Rob and Baby Heather.” The only disappointment was that I didn’t see the picture of Heather’s first gig with the band where everyone wore leather pants. That’s now their present style. A few weeks ago, they performed in Baby Yoda onesies. I love these people.
On Wednesday night I watched Bruce Swan’s Music My Mother Would Not Like. His guests were Deni Bonet, Willa Mamet, South for Winter, and Steve Dedman. My Gentle Readers should be well-acquainted with the first three as they are all a part of my life. I was amused that they didn’t know each other but I knew them all well. I’ve known Deni for 20 years, I Met Willa two years ago at NERFA. As I said earlier in the week she became an instant Old Friend. What I didn’t tell you, or her, was that from the start she reminded me of Deni, not musically, but as people. Think of Barbara Streisand playing Fanny Bryce and you’ll get the general picture. Nice Jewish girls that are funny and talk a lot. I’ve done Gord’s Gold for Deni and South for Winter. Willa is taking a Sabbatical Year, so I’ll do a show on her to herald her return.
I’m glad I didn’t start recording, the herd of wildebeest upstairs are being extra noisy. I have to wait for the kid’s batteries to run down.
This morning I finally watched MONEYBALL; that film was made for me. It’s the tale of how the number nerds took over baseball. Billy Beane a former Mets’ prospect was GM of the underfunded A’s. He realized that he couldn’t beat the wealthy Yankees at their own game. He had to invest smarter, not more. To do this he hired Jonah Hill, a 25-year-old economics major, who never played baseball, but was a disciple of Bill James and sabermetrics. Bill described that as the search for objective truth in baseball. He applied principles of economics to sports. The key to winning was to take advantage of market inefficiencies. Invest money in the players that do the most to make you win, not the players with the best reputations or who looked the best. If everyone else is prejudiced and you aren’t, you are at an advantage. Together they built a team with a tiny budget that won as many games as the Yankees. In doing so they changed baseball forever. When the season was over the Red Sox tried to hire Beane, but he chose his family and stability and stayed with the A’s. The Red Sox hired Theo Epstein who built a team on the same principles, but with more money, and in two years they were world champions. They have won three more championships since then. Now all the teams are built using data analysis. That means it is that much more difficult to build a winner, they are fewer market inefficiencies.
Despite the fact that all winning teams now use analytics many baseball fans hate it. Why? While I celebrate the triumph of the nerds, they feel about them the same way that too many kids feel about nerds when they are in school. Nerds are to be mocked. I still hear people saying, “They probably never played baseball,” like that determines what you know. Who do you want to build the airplane you fly in, someone that’s studied engineering her whole life or a pilot? I’m going with the engineer. Near the end of the film comes the moment that I hope is the revelation to people. Beane is feeling bad that the A’s lost to the Twins in the post-season. Hill shows him a video of an overweight minor league catcher. The slow catcher fell down while rounding first trying to get to second and scrambled back to first, humiliated. Then the first base coach tells him to get up and trot the bases, he hit a home run. Beane sees that and says, “It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball.” That’s exactly how I feel. Baseball, like so much of the world, is best understood through numbers. That does not make it dry, it does not make it unfeeling. Baseball, like science is something that inspires awe, wonder, and yes romance. It elevates the spirit. Numbers do not get in the way of that, it enhances it. This is something I’ve always felt, and I’ve always been aware that most people don’t feel the same way. The beauty of math, physics, and baseball are different from each other and the beauty of art, but that doesn’t make any of them more or less wondrous than the others.
Wise Madness 