Baseball-Related Program Activities

Our Baseball Music page has been updated to match the new format -- and, more importantly, now with Amazon.com links in addition to the iTunes links.

I also acquired a new baseball-themed radio station jingle, from WCAU in Philadelphia -- it's available for download at the top of the music page, along with all the other baseball jingles I've got.

Labels: jingles, music

At last, some musical content that's more on-topic than the Larry Finlayson update.

I haven't been keeping up very well with the baseball songs page (although I'm planning to update it as part of a renovation of both baseballrelated.com and my personal site, hopefully by the end of the year if I get around to it). But it's there, and its content is able to be searched, which is how I recently heard from a musician named Howie Newman.

In 1979, he recorded an EP of five original baseball songs called "Baseball's Greatest Hits" -- about a decade before Rhino ripped off the name for their compilation -- which is available both through iTunes and in the popular "compact disc" format.

He also has a couple of other original baseball songs on two more recent releases, also available via iTunes. And he has two baseball songs available as free downloads. One is off "Baseball's Greatest Hits" and is called "Astroturf." The other is more recent and is called -- well, I don't want to totally give away the surprise, so I'll just say that my collection of baseball songs now includes musical mentions of Joe DiMaggio, Ozzie Smith, and Johnny Damon.

Labels: howie newman, johnny damon, music

Way back on May 31, 2004, I made reference to Larry Finlayson, singer of the "Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown" theme song. Courtesy of someone who recently found that post, I now have more information about him:

He was my teacher in elementary school in Berkeley, California. I happen to be recording his LP from 1979 to MP3 right now. It's called, "Give Your Friend A Smile...". It was recorded at the Music Annex under the name of Finlayson Music Production in 1979. Larry was/is indeed a songwriter and played the guitar in this album.

With those pieces of additional information in hand, a quick Yahoo! search reveals that he's using a different name these days. And he's available for weddings! I'd consider hiring him if the "Race for Your Life" theme is still a part of his repertoire, assuming I ever have a wedding.

Labels: music, peanuts

Yes, Dodger Stadium has new seats this season, in lovely pastel colors which really do look like they're from 1962. They also renumbered the seats, so that instead of having aisle numbers, with seats starting at "1" on one side and "101" on the other side, the reserved level now has section numbers like a normal stadium. (Things were even weirder on the field and loge levels, with one row letter covering two rows, one with seat numbers increasing and the other with seat numbers decreasing -- presumably, that situation has been dealt with as well.)



Yes, quite a few Chicagoites will show up at Dodger Stadium when the Cubs are in town, wearing the world's cutest baseball cap...



Someone near us had a radio, so I know that Vin Scully described 6-foot-7 Cubs pitcher Sean Marshall as "a tall drink of water"...



This game had something for everyone, from bone-jarring collisions to wildly errant throws. Best of all, though, is the fact that the Dodger Stadium music selection committee has provided the world with a new, particularly appropriate song to play for bases on balls: Tegan and Sara's "Walking with a Ghost," in the form of the White Stripes' cover version. Why is it particularly appropriate? Because walks haunt.

Labels: cubs, dodger stadium, dodgers, game report, music, walks haunt

There's one former Dodger in the title, and another former Dodger alluded to in the lyrics, and half of baseballrelated.com was in the audience, so of course "Piazza, New York Catcher" was performed in Los Angeles -- even though Stuart Murdoch had to refer to a cheat sheet a couple of times for the lyrics. Of course, it now refers to a bygone era, but replacing "New York" and "Mets" with "San Diego" and "Padres" would break the rhythm.

Incidentally, $30 for a concert, not including the Ticketmaster "convenience" charges that brought it up to nearly $45, and I didn't even get to sit down! Baseball is truly your best entertainment value, although it's somewhat unlikely that you'll hear a lot of Scottish art-school alterna-pop at a baseball game. (But if you are very lucky, you will hear "Walk Away Renee" -- referred to in "Piazza, New York Catcher" -- played on the organ.)

Which reminds me...only two weeks till the season starts.

Labels: mike piazza, music

Paul Tagliabue now contends that his "as boring as standing in line at the supermarket" comment specifically refers to when he was on his law firm's softball team in the 1970s and they made him play right field. He should have listened to Peter, Paul and Mary's inspirational song about playing that position!

Labels: music, paul tagliabue, sports illustrated

Sandy passes along this iTunes link to playlists consisting of the favorite songs of the White Sox and Astros, and would like to call special attention to Damaso Marte's choice. Well, maybe it's his favorite video.

Labels: astros, damaso marte, music, sandy weisz, white sox

Shout! Factory, the imprint of the folks who used to run Rhino, has a new 4-CD box set out called "The Great American Baseball Box." Looks like only one CD is songs; the other three seem to include play-by-play clips and whatever other audio they could dig up. I've got almost all the songs already, so if they sold Discs 2 through 4 separately, I might be tempted.

Also, when the White Sox revealed that their playoff anthem is Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," it didn't take long for the record company to take advantage. This week, they released a 1981 live version as an iTunes single (maybe elsewhere as well). Actually, some of the iTunes reviewers claim the release is to promote a DVD release of the concert the song is taken from, but we know better -- everything comes back to baseball.

Labels: music, white sox, world series

Exactly one year ago to the minute from the time I'm typing this (6:04 P.M. Eastern time), Levi and I were really enjoying listening to the Fenway Park organist. In honor of that anniversary, here's an article about him from the Boston Globe last month.

Labels: Fenway Park, music

The September issue of Playboy has an article about Jose Canseco's ex-wife Jessica, to go along with some photographs of her in which she's wearing ballet shoes but seems to have forgotten to put on her tutu, or her leotard, or anything else a ballerina might wear. Actually, I take that back -- she's wearing leg warmers in a couple of the photos.

Anyway, the article is chock full of fascinating facts. For example, Jose met her at a Hooters in Cleveland, where she was only in her third day on the job -- and the very next night, Jose made blooper-reel history with the home-run-bouncing-off-his-head incident. She says he likes his women "meaty," so he often encouraged her to eat more. Also, she claims to have had sex with him in Fenway Park. And, yes, she reports that there was a lot of steroid-related testicular shrinkage, but since he was also taking human growth hormone, the other part of the frank-'n'-beans combo was larger than normal. (They did have a daughter together, so everything was apparently working well enough.)

Things went badly once she realized he was cheating on her; she found such items as Jose's private cell phone (she cracked the voice mail password and found messages from four women) and a little black book in which Jose had made copious notes about physical descriptions of various women so he could remember who was who. Her last-ditch effort to save the relationship was a menage a trois involving her, Jose, and a friend of hers, but it didn't work.

Elsewhere in this issue of Playboy, we learn that "when you're Hef, every day is an adventure," as we have been learning in Playboy for over 50 years now. (I mean the royal "we," obviously.)

Actually, there was some useful information in this Playboy, although it's not baseball-related: I learned of the existence of this upcoming Rhino box set, although I'm a little dubious about the August 30th date, since it's listed on neither Amazon.com nor rhino.com (although rhino.com only lists their releases for the 16th and 23rd).

Labels: Fenway Park, jessica canseco, jose canseco, music, steroids

I believe it is every team's--and every fan's--duty to make a trip to an out-of-town ballpark to watch his team as the visitors an enjoyable experience. I believe it's incumbent upon fans not to shower abuse (or beer) in greater quantity than they would shower same on any hometown fan. I believe the correct response to "Is this Aisle 527?" doesn't involve profanity.

But I don't believe that hospitality should extend to playing a song the visiting team is familiar with from its home ballpark, so imagine my surprise when "Sweet Caroline" began blasting from the Wrigley Field speakers last night. Now, if the P.A. guy had, right after "Touching warm . . . touching you!" given the turntable a solid kick, sending the needle skittering and screeching across the vinyl, then it would have been okay. But just playing the song, straight, is like the French translating all the road signs just in from the Maginot Line into German.

Original comments...

thatbob: "Blasting from the Wrigley Field speakers..."?

Wrigley Field shouldn't even have speakers that blast. That would solve your problem right there.

Labels: cubs, music, red sox, Wrigley Field

Could this band have the greatest baseball-related band name of all time?

No, unfortunately for them, because this band does.

Original comments:

thatbob: Those links don't work on my work computer. Can't you just tell us what the bands' names were?

Jim: But what fun is that?

Band #1 is called The '89 Cubs.

Band #2 is Ghost Runner on Third.

Labels: music

Tonight's Final Jeopardy! answer, in the category Classic American Songs:

"The introductory verse of this 1908 song begins 'Katie Casey was baseball mad.'"

Labels: jeopardy, music, take me out to the ball game

For the second straight year, Pepsi is giving away iTunes downloads to improve their sales during the dead of winter. The actual promotion apparently starts January 31st. We'll have to see how long it takes the Pepsis with the promotional caps to show up in the Los Angeles area. (Last year it took about six weeks from the time the promtion started nationwide, because the local Pepsi bottler was running a promotion of their own.) But the good news for me is that the caps are supposed to be on 20-ounce bottles of all Pepsi products, including Wild Cherry Pepsi -- and Mountain Dew Code Red, although I don't recall ever seeing that in a 20-ounce bottle.

I'm not sure how many baseball songs have been added to the iTunes Music Store since last year, but I guess I'll find out. It'll be fun!

Labels: music

This "compilation" is currently featured on the iTunes Music Store front page. Where would they have gotten the idea? Actually, a couple of songs on their baseball-related playlist were ones I thought of but discarded, including "Glory Days" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light."

Labels: music

A thought on Saturday night's Dodgers-Cardinals game: since Joe Buck was off for his NFL football broadcasting duties, wouldn't it have been great if Fox had told Tim McCarver to stay in St. Louis and instead had the game called by a certain Los Angeles-based announcer who's been around since the last Ice Age and has more broadcasting talent in his little finger than Tim McCarver has in all the shoe-polished strands of his hair combined?

No such luck, and even if I had been watching live instead of TiVo-delayed, I couldn't have listened to him on the radio because of the delay inherent in DirecTV. Eventually, I put the TV on mute and listened to Brian Wilson's "Smile" on my iPod instead.

Original comments...

Toby: Levi, Did you happen to catch Fox Sports' "Beyond the Glory" special on Kirk Gibson's WS Game 1 HR in 1988? It was narrated by Joe Buck. ...Was a great piece.

The thing that struck me, though, was that they played Vin Scully's call of the homer first, then used Jack Buck's a little later. I had never heard anything but Jack Buck's call of that homer. It was very interesting.

You're so right about Vin Scully and McCarver, though. Why does he seem to worry so much about how deep the outfielders are playing?

Toby: Whoops - Just noticed that Jim posted that. Regardless, my comments wouldn't change--just direct it at Jim, instead of Levi.

Jim: They did an entire "Beyond the Glory" on Kirk Gibson's home run? Wow. I've closed-captioned a couple of those, and they're pretty good, but I've never watched one at home.

In the video of the home run, you can see one car in the parking lot beyond center field leaving early. Its taillights suddenly come on just as the ball leaves the stadium, and it apparently syncs up perfectly with Vin Scully's call, as if the occupant of the car was listening to the game on the radio and reacted to the home run by slamming on the brakes.

By the way, it turns out that if you actually go to a Division Series game at Dodger Stadium, not only do you not have to listen to Tim McCarver on your TV, you get to listen to Vin Scully's calls of memorable moments from the past season. His call of Steve Finley's grand slam to clinch the division was something like:

"Wherever it comes down, the Dodgers are division champs." (35 seconds of crowd noise)

Can you imagine Tim McCarver being quiet for 35 consecutive seconds?

Toby: NO! He'd be talking about how one of the fans in the seventh row was playing too deep to catch the home run ball.

maura: chris berman was silent after vladdy's grand slam the other night. as was ALL OF FENWAY. it was totally creepy and everyone at work was just looking at each other all alarmed-like.

thatbob: fucking yanx

Labels: Cardinals, dodgers, joe buck, music, tim mccarver, tv, vin scully

A follow-up to the last post, now that it's the morning...

I can't believe the Dodger Stadium audio booth didn't pull out their copy of Danny Kaye's "D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh, Really? No, O'Malley)" -- which I know they have because I've heard it there before -- and cued it to this portion of the song...

Bottom of the ninth
Four to nothing
Last chance
Hit the button
We're pleading, begging, on our knees
Come on, you Flatbush refugees

Original comments...

Levi: The only bad thing about last night's game that I can see is that you got no Gagne. Comeback wins by the Dodgers suck!

Jim: I've seen the Dodgers four times this year, and haven't seen Gagne, except pictured on the outfield wall at Dodger Stadium, and also as depicted on those "Game Over" T-shirts.

Labels: music

Over on the Baseball Songs page, all of the songs that are available via the iTunes Music Store now have direct links to the iTMS. So now you have no excuse for not adding some baseball-related music to your collection...what, you can't afford 99 cents?

Original comments...

Jon Solomon: How long did it take you to get your iTunes Affiliate Program application approved? I am eager to add similar links to the MPGR site.

Jim: I got the approval in less than 24 hours.

You can add links without being an affiliate, although then you don't get the affiliate money when someone clicks on them...here's the link to the iTunes Link Maker.

thatbob: So I guess this is your disclosure of commercial interest. Thanks. Were AAA, MLB, and Motel 6 paying you, too?

Jim: I already disclosed the monetary rewards, way back on September 6th when baseballrelated.com became an affiliate. I wish those entities had been paying us! Actually, we didn't stay at Motel 6, so they would have to have been paying us not to stay there.

Jon Solomon: I got my approval. Very nice.

Labels: admin, music

To give you a sample of the famous "Baseball-Related" iPod playlist, I've uploaded MP3 files of some of the radio station jingles included on it. There are links to them within the list on the Baseball Songs page. You probably haven't heard these unless you were in the car with us (we didn't play any of them on Maura's show, because they mention -- gasp -- other radio stations).

If you only listen to one of them, make sure it's "The Pirates Are What We're All About" (from KDKA, Pittsburgh, 1980).

Original comments...

Toby: Awesome!!!

It's like I'm 9 years old again, watching "Pops," "The Cobra," Omar Moreno, Tim Foli, "Scrap Iron," Lee Lacy, Bill Madlock, Mike Easler, Ed Ott and Kent Tekulve all over again.

Thanks for the pleasant blast from the past.

Labels: music

Surprisingly (because I didn't think we got quite enough traffic for Apple to care about us), baseballrelated.com is now an iTunes affiliate. So if you're going to buy and download some songs, why not first click on the link at the bottom of this page, or the one at the top of the Baseball Songs page? Unfortunately, they don't seem to have a way to link to specific tracks and get the affiliate credit (at least not yet), or I would have done that on the songs page. The other problem is that iTunes doesn't have the two "Baseball's Greatest Hits" CDs.

If we actually make any money from this, rest assured it will go towards retroactively paying for all those Hostess Baseballs we ate.

Original comments...

maura: the radio show playlist is here: http://www.wprb.com/printplaylist.php?show_id=1822

Labels: admin, music