Tag Archives: music

Bay of Cigs: Forget what you know

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This year’s Detroit Tigers are far from perfect, but they’re off to a good start on the strength of their starting pitching and the bats of Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Jhonny Peralta, Torii Hunter, Omar Infante, (increasingly) Victor Martinez, and (once again) Austin Jackson.

The weak link– the bullpen– has been both very obvious and very weak. Hoping for some addition by subtraction, the club sent onetime-closer Jose Valverde down to the minors, and a more focused “closer-by-committee” approach has emerged, centering around Joaquin Benoit and Drew Smyly, with an emphasis on not misusing Phil Coke.

One of the criticisms of manager Jim Leyland is that he likes to have go-to players to fill defined roles, and nowhere is this more applicable than in his handling of relief pitching. In short, Leyland wants to have one guy be his guy when it comes to closing out games in the ninth inning. His unwillingness to deviate from that approach has had exceedingly frustrating consequences when The Closer is someone less effective than the likes of a Craig Kimbrel or, say, a 2011-vintage Valverde. (This is especially true because the Tigers have trouble scoring late in games. If the bullpen blows a lead late, this team is unlikely to mount a comeback.) Even though fans would like to see Leyland be a bit more nimble with the way he utilizes his personnel, some of his attitude surely has rubbed off on them. The fans want to have someone who can be The Closer too.

Buster Olney launched a thousand blog posts with his suggestion that current Philadelphia Phillies reliever Jonathan Papelbon might make a good fit in Detroit. Papelbon has a great reputation as a closer, and, as Buster writes, “there are no questions about whether he could handle October,” which is where the Tigers’ expectations reside.

Team owner Mike Ilitch has shown little resistance to spending money on this iteration of the team, which means that the large contract that’s scaring other teams away from Papelbon is unlikely to be an issue in Detroit.

My opinion is that, if the Phillies are willing to part with Papelbon without demanding much beyond the absorption of his contract, the Tigers should get him. If his steady hand can turn these cardiac kitties into some cool cats come playoff time, it’ll be worth it.

That said, it probably is worth taking a look at how Papelbon would stack up with his new teammates if he were to catch a ride to Motor City this season.  Continue reading →

How Bob Dylan Co-Wrote Darius Rucker’s ‘Wagon Wheel,’ 40 Years Ago: The secret history of a country hit, from Dylan to Old Crow Medicine Show to Rucker

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If you’re a hardcore Bob Dylan fan, the new Darius Rucker hit “Wagon Wheel” might sound a little familiar. It’s actually a fleshed-out version of an untitled, unfinished song from the 1973 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid soundtrack sessions. Dylan fans titled the song “Rock Me, Mama” when the sessions leaked to bootleggers.

Old Crow Medicine Show’s Critter Fuqua picked up a bootleg of the Pat Garrett sessions in the ninth grade when he visited London. “I let [bandmate] Ketch [Secor] listen to it, and he wrote the verses, because Bob kind of mumbles them and that was it,” Fuqua recently told a South Carolina newspaper. “We’ve been playing that song since we were, like, 17, and it’s funny, because we’ve never met Dylan, but the song is technically co-written by Bob Dylan.” … Read More

(via Rolling Stone)

Door Jam

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The Doors obviously would not have been the special band they became without Jim Morrison, but it’s equally valid to say that, without keyboardist and musical director Ray Manzarek, the Doors would have been little more than Big Brother and the Holding Company to Morrison’s Janis Joplin (which is in no way to disparage that still-underrated band). Manzarek gave the Doors a distinguishing sound as a keyboard-led group, rather than a guitar-first group, and he brought and integrated jazz and blues influences more directly than most in his field. Manzarek died this week, and we remember him with this Jam (the genesis of which the group explains here):

Friday Roundup

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  • R.I.P. Dick Trickle. He wasn’t Cole’s biological father, but it makes no difference, and he certainly wasn’t any kind of new school driver. As sure as rubbin’ is racin’, the hammer had to drop one final time for Trickle, but this isn’t how we expected it to happen. To the best of the Midwest:

Continue reading →

ALDLAND Podcast

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Aldland is back with another podcast, talking about all of the hottest issues in the sports world. On tap this week is discussion of a possible new football league to rival the NCAA and a discussion on what impact David Beckham has made on soccer in the United States. Get at it, and tweet at us with ideas for discussions for future podcasts so I can stop browsing Reddit more than I already do.

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

Bay of Cigs: April in the D

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As briefly mentioned at the end of the last post, ALDLAND will have a presence in Detroit this weekend, where the Tigers will host the Atlanta Braves for three games, beginning tonight.

After twenty games, the Tigers can’t seem to get themselves above .500, and the early ride has been bumpy.

Yesterday afternoon’s game was particularly rough. After allowing just one earned run, starter Justin Verlander left the game with a lead on the scoreboard and a sore throwing-hand thumb. Rookie reliever Bruce Rondon, making his first major-league appearance, promptly gave up that lead, and then the ball. Phil Coke entered and, through a series of walks of varying intentionalities, put Detroit behind. Darin Downs relieved Coke and immediately gave up a grand slam. The supposedly hard-hitting Tigers, who have a way of not scoring late, plated no runs from the fifth inning on through the tenth, when they lost.

As anyone reading Upton Abbey knows, the Braves are red-hot. The consensus best team in baseball, Atlanta is off to a 15-6 start, and they’re hitting home runs like crazy. I haven’t taken a close look at their runs/inning distribution, but it sure seems like they can hit for power both early and late.  Keep reading…

Bay of Cigs: Jet Set (Sigh?)

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papa jetAirships are away in the Detroit Tigers empire as I write. After a crash landing at the final destination of the team’s only West Coast trip, the Tigers limped back to the Motor City, and promptly (indeed, retroactively) placed Octavio Dotel, who has been pitching without a functioning elbow since Oakland, on the disabled list. In immediate need of bullpen reinforcements, GM Dave Dombrowski & Co., air traffic controller furloughs be damned, revved up the sky fleet. The first move was to bring the franchise’s top relief prospect, Bruce Rondon, in from Toledo, something that admittedly is unlikely to require the services of a jet airliner. But then! Wheels up! Jose Valverde is on a flight to Detroit RIGHT NOW! The town and team turned on the once-perfect (49-0!) reliever after a down year last season, but now, in their need, redemption? The front office is mum for now, but the implication from Valverde’s comments this evening is that, at the end of his short-term minor league contract, he will sign a one-year contract with the club in Detroit.

What does all of this mean for a should-be frontrunner floundering in third place in the weak AL Central with a .500 record? Even though it’s early, and fans of baseball teams that struggle early love to rail against “small sample sizes,” we can set aside results and other numbers and acknowledge that the bullpen was working way too hard this month, and two fresh, if unsteady, arms are sure to provide at least temporary relief for a staff that seems like it could use a collective deep breath. For Rondon, my hope is that he’s ready for the big leagues. For Valverde, I just hope he has enough left to allow the coaches to use him in a way that helps the team. That may be ending this jet-set flourish with something of a sigh, but let it be, in part, a sigh of relief as you remind yourself that at least it wasn’t Brennan Boesch’s birthday flight that landed at DTW this evening.

Keep reading to find out who else will be on a flight to Detroit this week…

Bay of Cigs: Run distribution, science(!), and the liklihood of a Detroit comeback

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We’re a dozen games into the season and the Tigers, with a few hiccups, are off to a respectable 7-5 start. Despite the day/Pacific time starts and my living outside the Tigers Radio Network, I’ve been able to keep decent track of these first few series and, while mindful of small sample size they represent, I was beginning to notice something concerning.

Continue reading →

Steve Kerr to conduct TNT’s acid-jazz approach to the NBA

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USA Today reports that TNT is experimenting with an “all analyst” approach to its NBA broadcasts. On Thursday, former NBA players Steve Kerr, Chris Webber, and Reggie Miller will broadcast the Thunder-Warriors game without a play-by-play announcer. Although all three have national broadcasting experience, Kerr has been tabbed (by the network?) to “act as ‘point man leading us to breaks. Maybe a little bit of a traffic cop if the game calls for it. It is more like three former players having a round table (discussion) almost during the game.'”

The concept intrigues me, and I am glad TNT is willing to experiment with the traditional broadcast formula, but I was wondering why Kerr was designated as the one to steer the broadcast, until I remembered his role in anchoring another all-star trio.

steve kerr chris wood

The Wood Brothers?

More hear.