My favorite hip-hop sextet has reunited! If they're playing Glastonbury, surely they'll make their way to my neck of the woods.
Chali 2na, in the pink shirt, is my favorite rapper ever, probably. I've recorded a couple of tracks of my own and I'd say he's my main inspiration (along with Dr. Seuss and Ogden Nash).
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfspRCnmehY
(1 votes, average: 7.00 out of 10)
Loading... Ran the Hartford Half this last Saturday.
As usual, pre-race prep requires loading up on Body Glide and nip-protectors.
It was cold (50F) and pouring rain throughout the entire race. The nip-protectors did their job, the Body Glide did not. Shoes and socks got drenched, and multiple blisters ensued. Chafing galore. Natch.
On Sunday, got in a relaxing mile swim, and was thinking of doing a bike ride, but I don't think I could have gotten into the saddle.
I stole most of the idea from when Gleeman started his top40 list years ago (still unfinished right?) The below quote is his, and the rest is an excerpt from a book I put together 3 years ago. Some of it is outdated, but I’ve updated the list and stats through 2014.
“The rankings only include time spent playing for the Minnesota Twins. In other words, David Ortiz doesn’t get credit for turning into one of the best players in baseball after joining the Red Sox and Paul Molitor doesn’t get credit for being one of the best players in baseball for the Brewers and Blue Jays. The Twins began playing on April 11, 1961, and that’s when these rankings start as well.”
I used a variety of factors, including longevity and peak value. Longevity included how many years the player was a Twin as well as how many plate appearances or innings pitched that player had in those years. For peak value, I looked at their stats, honors, and awards in their best seasons, as well as how they compared to their teammates. Did they lead their team in OPS or home runs or ERA for starters or WPA? If so, that got some bonus points. I factored in postseason heroics, awards (gold gloves, silver sluggers, MVPs, Cy Youngs), statistical achievements (batting titles, home run leaders, ERA champs, etc), and honors (all star appearances), and I looked at team success as well. If you were the #1 starter on a division winning champ, that gave you more points than the #1 starter on a cellar dweller. I looked at some of the advanced stats like WPA, WAR (as calculated by fan graphs and baseball-reference.com), WARP (as calculated by Baseball Prospectus), and Win Shares (as calculated by Bill James). For hitters, I also looked at OPS and the old school triple crown statistics like batting average, home runs, stolen bases, and RBI (and not only where you finished within the AL in any given year, but where you appear on the top25 lists amongst all Twins in the last 50 years). For pitchers I looked at strikeouts, innings pitched, win/loss percentage, ERA as well as ERA+). If there was a metric that was used for all 54 years of Twins history, I tried to incorporate it. I tended to give more credit to guys who were starters instead of part time/platoon players, more credit to position players over pitchers (just slightly, but probably unfairly) and starters over relievers (and closers over middle relievers). There’s no formula to my magic, just looking at a lot of factors and in the end going with the gut in all tie-breakers. Up in the top10 I’m looking at All star appearances, Cy Young and MVP votes, batting average or ERA titles or top10 finishes, etc, and placement in the top25 hitting and pitching lists in Twins history as well. In the middle 100s, it’s more about who started a few more years or had 2 good seasons rather than 1 with possibly an occasional all-star berth or top10 finish in SB or strikeouts. Once you’re in the latter half of the 200s there are none of those on anyone’s resume, so its basically just looking at peak season in OPS+ or ERA+, WAR, Win Shares, and who started the most years, had the most at bats, or pitched the most innings. What the player did as a coach, manager, or broadcaster is not taken into consideration for this list, so Billy Martin, Tom Kelly or Billy Gardner weren’t able to make the top 300 since they were poor players and Frank Quilici didn’t improve his status due to his managing career.
Continue reading One man’s opinion of the top300 Twins of all time-updated for 2014 with new additions: Hughes, Santana, Suzuki, Escobar, Gibson
When I started my job in the spring I began using streaming music services much more frequently. I used Songza for free until it was bought by Google. After that I started a Beats Music subscription, which I've been really pleased with apart from some gaps in the library (The Beatles being the most glaring, hopefully something that changes since parent company Apple has Beatles rights). I've found myself more engaged with the music I'm listening to over the last several months than I had been in a long time. My much-deeper appreciation of Neil Young and John Fahey is probably the most significant result, but I've also discovered some new albums to love: Randy Weston's Tanjah and Gene Clark's White Light, especially.
I've started making my own playlists on Beats, something I never did with Songza because, really, I never needed to - the options were that extensive - and because users couldn't listen to their own playlists. Most Beats playlists seem to be around an hour or album-length, which I don't plan on sticking to since there's no real format constraint. (The idea of making a "mixtape" for someone else still has its romantic appeal, though.)
At the same time, I'm aware that I don't own any of the new music I'm enjoying. This troubles me in a way that not owning the content I view on Netflix doesn't. I am happy and relieved to not have a living room overrun by a flim collection I will need to update to a new format in ten years, or duplicate onto electronic storage - even when this means that Battlestar Galactica isn't available for me to watch anymore. BSG will come back, I'm sure. And when it comes back, maybe that's a great occasion to watch it again and see how I feel about it with the passage of time.
But the fact that I don't own Harvest or The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death or White Light on CD, or vinyl, or even digitally - yet - troubles me a bit. I think that's because my childhood was one strongly attuned to music, and because my own physical collection of music is a twenty-five year investment and tangible record of my personality and growth. Others would feel the same way about a film collection, I have no doubt, and that's a reflection of their own preferenecs and personality. Still others might not care about either. Their houses are likely less cluttered, or cluttered instead with woodworking tools, or bolts of fabric, or painting supplies, or binders of film negatives, or car parts...
What is your relationship with streaming services - musical, video, or otherwise? How do you feel about renting content instead of owning it? What other factors do you consider when evaluating streaming content or devices for streaming it?
There's a good chance I played another version of this last time I had the reins, but whatever.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UznckAdN8vw
(1 votes, average: 10.00 out of 10)Loading... Kinda spooky, that.
Corey Wimberly leads Obregon to victory. A solo home run wins it for Hermosillo. Carreon carries on for Mazatlan.
Noriega stages a revolt against Aragua. Big innings carry in La Guaira and Anzoategui. Twins players do everything they can.
Charles Somers (1868)
Wild Bill Donovan (1876)
Rube Waddell (1876)
Pickles Dillhoefer (1893)
Frankie Hayes (1914)
Lou Saban (1921)
Charlie Silvera (1924)
Eddie Yost (1926)
Eddie Mathews (1931)
Bob Bailey (1942)
Randy Moffitt (1948)
Dick Pole (1950)
Frank LaCorte (1951)
George Frazier (1954)
Bryan Hickerson (1963)
Chris Gwynn (1964)
Trevor Hoffman (1967)
Damian Miller (1969)
Better known as a football coach, Lou Saban was the president of the New York Yankees in 1981 and 1982.
Giants at Cards
game on FS1
