Oh, the places you go

NEW YORK – It wasn’t too long ago that Major League Baseball clubs used to fly commercial. These were in the days before a person had to take their shoes off and throw away their toothpaste just to walk into the waiting room before boarding a flying Greyhound bus, but it’s still amazing nonetheless. Imagine dropping in to Denver International and seeing the Kansas City Royals these days. The traveling secretary would be gathering all the suitcases and bags while Mike Sweeney and Zack Grienke sported over-tailored suits with single-breasted jackets and mock turtle neck shirts.

Someone get those guys an Oxford shirt and a clip-on tie.

Yes, we’ve come a long way since 1974... kind of. These days teams like the Phillies fly chartered planes from city to city because they don’t want to mix with the rabble lying shoeless about the concourse inhaling Cinnabon and begging for autographs or snapshots from a cell phone. They also get to avoid the security lines by going through their preflight screening at the ballpark.

Yes, that’s right. Big league ballplayers go directly from the clubhouse and through a metal detector with a TSA representative waiting on the other side so the players can autograph the Homeland Security-issued handheld scanner.

Nope, don’t expect to see pro ballplayers dashing through the airport like O.J. in that old TV commercial on his way to the Hertz counter. Hell, don’t expect to see anyone you recognize from red-and-white pinstriped double knits renting a car at the airport. Not when it’s easier to send for a town car if the shuttle from the hotel to ballpark leaves early.

Anyway, aside from the splendor of private, first-class travel with no lines or shoe removal, ballplayers get their own private cars on the Amtrak train when they roll into towns less than two hours away. Oh, even though the MLB players’ union is the most powerful union in history (you know, since the average salary of the rank-and-file is over $2 million), even they aren’t so wasteful on insisting on a chartered flight from Philly to New York or D.C. … you know, because buses and trains are so efficient.

The point is the Phillies are rolling up to New York for a four-game (wrap-around) series this weekend and Monday. In an unforeseen twist of fate, the series isn’t built up as a clash of teams seeking revenge or battling for the top spot in the NL East. Instead, the big news is the return of an ex-Met turned Phillie and an ex-Phillie turned Met.

Weird, wild stuff.

But not as weird and wild as the stories coming out of some of the other transportation hubs in and around New York City. According to reports via the wonder of social media, musicians Ted Leo and Biz Markie were stranded at LaGuardia Airport. The thing about that is Ted Leo was supposed to be in Toronto with his bandmates, The Pharmacists, for an opening spot on a bill with Pearl Jam.

You know… that Pearl Jam.

Apparently three-fourths of the quartet, including Philadelphian Chris Wilson, made it Toronto ahead of the fierce weather the tore through the eastern seaboard. Leo, however, spent the day wiling away the time in Queens hoping for a flight to get him to the gig on time.

Word has it he’s still in Queens… right next door to CitiField, in fact.

A text message was sent to Chris Wilson – the splendid drummer as well as hardcore Phillies and Eagles fan – for the finer details of the evening, but according to preliminary tweets from Leo, The Pharmacists will play before Pearl Jam’s proper set this evening. We haven’t heard back from Wilson yet probably because, you know, he’s on stage rockin.

“Word I'm getting is that there WILL be a Pharamcists' show, just w/o the ‘Ted Leo & the’ part!” Leo tweeted. “I have to admit, I wish I was in the audience.”

Yeah… here-here. Then again, it’s always a good thing to be in the audience for a Ted Leo & The Pharmacists show. More intriguing is the idea of Eddie Vedder & The Pharmacists, which just might be the opening act in Toronto this evening.

Ain’t that something?

Anyway, maybe the best way to make up the gig would be for TL/Rx to play one of the four shows at The Spectrum in late October.

Finally, it’s worth noting that even some of the Phillies had trouble getting out to Queens this afternoon. Pedro Martinez was supposed to be at CitiField for a press conference at 3:30 p.m. but got snarled up in the traffic leaving Manhattan. In one of the stranger sights the visitors’ clubhouse was completely bare at 3:30, though since the game was delayed by 76 minutes at the outset, it all worked out in the end.

It is worth noting that the baseball scribes were all seated in the press box long before 3 p.m. …

That No. 7 train runs like clockwork.

updated Aug. 25 Eddie Vedder + The Pharmacists

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkfmm5afwog&hl=en&fs=1&]

Look who's out of the house

I don't get out much. That's pretty obvious. I go outside to run, I buy groceries and I hang out with the kids in the yard or the Country Day playground across the field from my house. My friends have jobs and kids with early mornings looming. As a result, most of my conversations with people are electronic. Then there is work, which usually takes place in a large stadium or arena with professional ballplayers and media types. Obviously, the nature of the conversation in this realm is limited as well. After the game is finished and the stories all finished it's usually close to midnight or a little after and  I have to drive all the way back to Lancaster. That means my post-game social life is limited to time spent in the car with an iPod loaded with downloaded podcasts and loud music to keep me alert on the way home.

But that's all fine. Besides, is there anything more pathetic than a guy pushing 40 just hanging out?

No. No there is not. It's just plain creepy.

Anyway, because I don't get out much and because my wife and I are always looking for different forms of entertainment, excitement and travel opportunities, she went all out and surprised me with tickets to see Pearl Jam in Washington, D.C. last Sunday. Actually, it was a Father's Day gift for me, which is totally unnecessary. As long as I get a drawing from the kids or a bottle of Brut or Old Spice, I'm as happy as can be. I don't wear anything like that - in fact, I don't even brush my rapidly thinning hair [1]- but if my kids got me some I'd splash it on like it was pay day.

Hell, if they got me a wacky tie that didn't match anything I have in my closet I'd wear that, too. If they took the effort to get me something, by golly I'm wearing that thing out in public... all the time.

But instead of Old Spice or a gaudy tie, we left the kids with my mom and went to The District so she could stare at Eddie Vedder for three hours (more on that in a bit). Sure, we could have gone to one of the two shows in Camden just before the band hit Washington, and perhaps I should have picked up on her hints when she asked me about going to Philadelphia vs. Washington. Instead, I lauded the drive from The Lanc to The District and ripped away on the town where I work.

"There is no comparison between the cities," I told her and quickly tamped down any type of social activity that involved me going to Philadelphia for something other than work.

Clearly we made the correct choice. In comparing notes with a friend who attended the shows in Camden, the D.C. crowd was treated to a better show and the folks who skew toward the older end of the demographic didn't have to tolerate ridiculousness from fellow concert-goers.

I'm sure there is another rip job on Philadelphia fans between those lines there. Let's just leave it with what my friend told me:

"Everyone was either 18 and looking to buy drugs or trying destroy anything they could get their hands on," he said, noting that Washington and Philadelphia "Were totally different."

Having lived in both places I agreed, noting that the D.C. natives I knew well all were similar in that they were all intensely into what they liked. They focused on it passionately, yet always knew where to draw the line. With Philadelphians, the line doesn't exist.

Needless to say, both approaches have their plusses and minuses.

Just like sweeping generalizing about residents of specific geographical areas.

When presented with a choice between seeing a rock show in Washington or Philadelphia, it's a pretty easy decision. Barring that, if both cities were equal in terms of things to do and cultural selections, Philadelphia would lose simply because one has to drive on the Schuylkill Expressway to get there.

Yes, ultimately it comes down to the pavement.

So we went to Washington to see Pearl Jam, though, truth be told, I was more interested in the opening act, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists. In fact, had any other outfit opened the gig for Pearl Jam, I doubt we would have even considered going and I'm sure there might have been like five or six other folks in the big Verizon Center, right there in the heart of downtown, with the same sentiment.

Regular readers of this little dog & pony show already know that we are big fans of the Pharmacists led by Ted Leo. In past missives I believe I wrote that I follow Ted Leo's rock-n-roll outfit the way some folks follow baseball. If he plays within driving distance of my house and I can get away, I go. If not, I'll check out the set list on the web and maybe even find an audio copy of what I missed because I was hanging out with the kids or watching a baseball game or something like that.

Generally, though, the venues Ted Leo typically performs in are nothing like the Verizon Center. When he played in Lancaster in November of 2006, Leo played at the Chameleon Club, which is a medium-sized rock house a lot like the 930 in D.C. or the Trocadero in Philly only... well, nicer. It's in those types of places - or the steady amount of live radio interviews and sets - where Leo built his following and continues to pack them in with (strapping on the newspaper writer hat to drop the clichés) an energetic assault of melodic punk rock with a solid ‘70s feel, harkening back to the early Clash.

That's what they always write, and it's true. But there's something missing there that doesn't quite grasp the appeal of Ted Leo. Sure, he and the Pharmacists are energetic and have a tight, melodic sound - but there's more. Maybe it's something about the ethic of the guy and the fact that at 37-years old, there definitely were easier routes to take rather than fighting for everything in the indie scene? Maybe there is some hopefulness in just seeing someone like Leo - a Jersey native educated at Notre Dame with stints in D.C., Boston and NYC - sticking to the notion that the work and the aesthetic is the most important thing? Maybe with Leo there's something there that people can touch - it's real?

Then again, what do I know? Michael Bolton has sold 53 million albums[2].

Nevertheless, the idea of Ted Leo in the Verizon Center warming up the crowd for Pearl Jam was an intriguing concept. How would that D.I.Y. vibe and stripped down sound and stage work in a basketball arena? Would 20,000 people be in their seats waiting for him to go on? What would it look and sound like from the nosebleed section?

Truth be told, seeing Ted Leo & the Pharmacists in a quarter-filled arena looking like a Gibson-playing dervish dressed in white was... interesting. Yes, it seemed as if he was bringing the energy from the clubs into the big building, but with so few people in the seats there wasn't enough to absorb the sound. As a result, the sharp-edged melodies bounced all over the place just like something Gilbert Arenas tosses around in the joint.

Still, in the 45 minutes he played, Ted and the Pharmacists ripped through 12 songs, half of which were brand new. Leo told the crowd that since he was a DCite of sorts and the people who were hyped on him likely knew his body of work, he trotted out the new stuff, which should appear on an album this fall.

I wish I could report on the details of the new material, but it took a lot of concentration to keep up with the sound before it was swallowed up by the vastness of the arena. However, compared with the last record, the spring '07 Living with the Living, the new stuff sounded angrier.

That's good. What also was good was my wife leading my four-year-old son in a sing along of the chorus of "Rappaport's Testament," the tune Ted sang to close his act.

I never gave up, I never gave up I crawled in the mud but I never gave up

Afterwards, Ted and the gang helped the crew pack up the gear to clear the way for Pearl Jam.

***

OK, how does one write about Pearl Jam in a way that hasn't been done before? Have they become so ubiquitous and so entrenched in the pantheon of agit-rock that all that's left is for them to cruise into the ether much like their predecessors? Will they turn out to be like The Who, a group that lead singer Eddie Vedder claims "saved his life" and whose guitarist, Pete Townshend, Vedder says should receive a father's day card from him every year? Twenty years from now are we going to see a Pearl Jam reunion tour like something out of the Rolling Stones' playbook? You know how they do it - it's always the last one ever until the next one.

I doubt it any of this will occur with Pearl Jam. You don't stick round for a long time and produce meaningful work by getting old.

But whatever. The notion that someone should quit doing what they want just because they get old is arrogant and stupid. Who doesn't want to do what they love forever? Hell, I hope I'm engaged in all of my passions when I'm old. Better yet, I hope I'm lucky enough to get old.

When Pearl Jam gets that old and takes their act out on the road, I suspect it won't be any different than what we saw last Sunday in Washington. Stripped of all the bloated, rock-star excess, Pearl Jam played for nearly three hours. That includes short breaks between the pair of encores, though the extra sets lasted nearly as long as the initial, 18-song preliminaries. Actually, the 13-song encores went on so long that some of the workers in charge of cleaning up the Verizon Center had gathered near one corridor waiting for Eddie and the gang to call it a night.

Even when the house lights went on a little after 11 p.m., the band raged on for another 30 minutes.

But rather than beat the crowd into submission with a show longer than my last few marathons[3], Pearl Jam hosted a sing-a-long in which 20,000 folks screamed, chanted, pumped fists into the air and recited the lyrics back at the band. Unlike a lot of big-arena rock shows where some folks in the audience are intent on ingesting various organic and inorganic substances meant to alter some sense of reality, the Pearl Jam crowd in Washington was rapt by what was taking place on the spare stage decorated with just a mural of a pair of waves crashing toward each other in the background.

Some critics have written that the Pearl Jam crowd seems to be an updated version of a Grateful Dead audience in that many of the fans will travel from city to city to see the shows, they take a painstaking interest in the set lists and the scarcity of the performances of particular songs and they collect the "bootleg" versions of the shows the band offers for download on its web site.

But unlike Dead shows that I witnessed in three different cities in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was more of a sense of community in Washington last Sunday. Everyone (at least where I was) was focused on the music and the performance instead of "where their trip might take them."

Besides, is there any band more overrated than the Grateful Dead? OK, how about The Doors?

However, similarly to Dead shows of a generation or two (or three) ago, the mainstream media (I guess that's me, right?) likes to charge Pearl Jam shows as some sort of cultural statement or at least the antithesis of popular culture. That's especially the case when it comes to Vedder, who in Washington railed against the White House, the war, off-shore drilling and voiced his support for a certain presidential candidate when he said, "It's going to be great to get some color in the White House!"

But come on... how alternative can a group be when it has sold approximately 50 million records? How "anti-" can people be if they take one specific side in a two-party system? Better yet, why are people shocked when I guy with a microphone uses it to say something?

Hell, even some Pearl Jam fans don't like hearing Vedder's politics or opinions. That seems to be the general opinion about all celebrities too - a lot of people want their celebrities and rock stars to be just as vapid as there are.

And that's a damn shame. Frankly, I wanted to see the Pearl Jam show in Washington more than any other city specifically because it would be more politically charged. I like hearing other people's ideas - I know, it's crazy. In fact, I don't care if I agree with what's being said at all, I just want to hear someone say something interesting. For instance, take baseball pitcher Curt Schilling - he and I probably agree on very few political issues. I'm sure I'd even ridicule some of the things he says to friends or in print (check the archives here, I'm sure I ripped him). But Curt Schilling isn't boring. That counts for something.

Eddie Vedder isn't boring either. Though he fronts a really tight band with guys who are stars in their own right, all eyes were on the singer. I know that because my wife was damn-near swooning from the second he took the stage. During a couple of stretched out jams, Vedder left the center of stage to wait in the wings where he drank from a bottle of wine, caught a quick smoke and chatted up some of the fans. Yet the entire time the band was wailing away, I heard, "Look at him... I wonder what he's saying to them."

It was the same thing in July of 2003 when Vedder showed up at Veterans Stadium before a Phillies game. Everyone swooned. Mike Lieberthal got an autograph, others tried to wiggle past the extremely large body guard to get close enough to say something to the singer. Hell, even I wanted to walk over to the guy and tell him that Fugazi is the greatest band of the past 30 years because I knew he'd agree.

And then we'd both be right.

Regardless, only one person - a player's wife - penetrated the wall and chatted up Vedder and even she had the same look on her face that my wife had last week. Shoot, the guy was so short and wiry that I thought about picking him up and putting him in my pocket.

Yeah, that was creepy.

Anyway, Pearl Jam is far from perfect. There a few songs that are so odious that they have become very difficult to listen to. But presented in a nearly perfect rock show format even the bad ones are kind of good. For instance, the song "Black" is so heart-wrenching that I can't stand to hear it. When 20,000 people sing along to one of the saddest songs outside of Elliott Smith, it's tough.

The same goes "Last Kiss," the remake of the early-‘60s number, which gave me a good chance to sneak out to the nearly deserted concourse to find the restroom. "Crazy Mary," the sublime number from the Victoria Williams benefit soundtrack was a little overdone with the addition of keyboards.

However, "Yellow Ledbetter," another one I always found a little... well, awful, was pretty good with the house lights up and guitarist Mike McCready finishing it off with a Hendrix-style "Star Spangled Banner."

The highlight? Try Vedder singing "No More" from his solo record made for the film Into the Wild. Actually, it was just Vedder and an acoustic guitar singing a perfect, folk/protest song that he wrote as a tribute for a soldier injured in Iraq.

The song also made it onto the documentary Body of War.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTbvqRytwgI&hl=en]

Finally, the most in-the-know bit of stage banter came when Vedder introduced "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" with, "This one is for Mt. Pleasant..."

He didn't have to come out and say Ian MacKaye, right?  I mean, Vedder is on record saying that MacKaye should be put up for sainthood - and he's right - but everyone got that reference...

Right?

*** Afterwards, we rolled up to Adams Morgan to The Amsterdam Falafel Shop only to find it closed at 12:15 a.m.

Oh well, at least I got out for a change.

---

[1] I wash the hell out of it, though.

[2] Do you know anyone who owns a Michael Bolton album (or will admit it)? Fifty-three million! Who is buying 53 million Michael Bolton records?

[3] Was that me bragging? Yes, I believe it was.

Full plate

So I went into Starbucks this morning and ordered the big, big Sidamo coffee. Of course I mispronounced it which drew a bunch of blank stares from the baristas, before they realized what I wanted and corrected me. "Oh... you mean Sis-AH-mo."

"Yeah. Coffee."

The Sidamo brew was described on the board above the urn as "delicate yet complex." OK. But when I quipped, "Delicate yet complex... sounds like me!" I got nothing.

Blank stares.

Anyway, there is a lot going on today. To start, the struggling Phillies offense takes its road show to Arlington, Texas this evening to play the Rangers. Actually, when I write struggling offense, I really meant all-or-nothing offense. That really seems to describe the Phillies' hitters perfectly.

Need proof? Check out this stat I was e-mailed about the all-or-nothing Phillies:

The Phillies have scored 10 or more runs in eight games this season for 110 runs. In the other 72 games, the Phillies have scored 294 runs, or 4.08 runs per game.

When scoring 10 or more runs the Phillies are 8-0. In the other 72 games they are 35-37.

Feast or famine.

When was the last time a team with numbers so skewed won the World Series?

*** Meanwhile, the track portion of the Olympic Trials begins in earnest tonight in Eugene, Oregon at Hayward Field. For those who don't follow the sport (and you know who you are), holding the track trials at Hayward Field is staging the World Series in Wrigley Field, Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium rolled into one.

Yeah, it's a pretty big deal. It's an even bigger deal when one considers that the Olympic Trials are about as dramatic as it gets in sports. Think about it -- athletes get one chance once every four years to qualify for the Olympic team. If they don't finish in the top three in their event, they have to wait another four years for the next chance.

Needless to say, they bring it at the Trials.

Tonight at 9:20 p.m. the women's 10,000-meters team will be determined. But if Shalane Flanagan doesn't run away with this one, something is up. I'm also predicting that Katie McGregor and Elva Dryer will take the other two spots on the Olympic team.

What about Kara Goucher? Come on, you can't go with the chalk all the time.

*** Finally, the final appeal of the Floyd Landis case will be issued on Monday by the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.

At last.

*** There's more coming later today. I went to see Ted Leo and Pearl Jam in Washington last Sunday so I figured I might as write about that, too.

*** Cryptic sentence of the day:

Clips are back.

(Not so) tough as nails

It's kind of fun to see Lenny Dykstra turning up everywhere as the veritable media dynamo that he has become. By now, most folks have caught the new Lenny on HBO's Real Sports talking about his career as a day trader with Bernie Goldberg. There Lenny was again in the pages of The New Yorker (yes, The New Yorker), discussing his latest venture called The Players Club, which is a magazine aimed at professional athletes on how they can better invest their high incomes so that they don't squander it all before their playing days end.

Dykstra says it will be "the world's best magazine" and throws around such superlatives about nearly everything he has purchased as if he were out for revenge or if he had somehow been shortchanged somewhere along the line. His car, a German Maybach, is "the best car." He bought a Gulfstream plane because, "it's the best in the world and there isn't even a close second."

It doesn't stop with the big things, either. He raves about a door in his $17 million house purchased from Wayne Gretzky, as well as about the house itself and the weather in Southern California. It's all the best and more than mirrors Dykstra's style as a player that was, needless to say, all about him and "look at me." Oh sure, Dykstra wanted to win and all of that. But given a choice between running into a fence and injuring himself or remaining healthy and on the field, Dykstra always went for the short-term glory.

But that theory flies in the face of the mission behind his The Players Club. As he said in The New Yorker:

"I'm forty-four, with a lot of mileage, dude. A lot of mileage." The chaw is gone, and he hasn't had a drink in years. "When the market opens at six o'clock in the morning out here, I mean, dude, you got to be up," he says. "You get to a point in your life where, yeah, I loved baseball, but baseball's a small part. I'm going to build something that can change the fucking outcome of people's lives."

Yes, because helping multi-millionaires from separating themselves from their money is soooooo altruistic.

Anyway, in addition to Real Sports and The New Yorker, Dykstra's name has also appeared in a story in which an accounting firm is suing him for $110,000 for money owed for accounting and tax work.

Then Dykstra's name showed up a handful of times in The Mitchell Report, which didn't really come as a surprise to anyone. Yet, the Mitchell Report and Dykstra's physical health is the one issue that seemed to be glossed over during the HBO profile and the magazine story. With Goldberg, Dykstra's speech was somewhat slurred, a point exemplified in Ben McGrath's story:

His hands tremble, his back hurts, and his speech, like that of an insomniac or a stroke victim, lags slightly behind his mind. He winks without obvious intent. In his playing days, he had a term for people like this: fossils. Nothing about his physical presence any longer suggests nails, and sometimes, as if in joking recognition of this softening, he answers the phone by saying, "Thumbtacks."

But that's it. Dykstra's health, just like the depth and true worth of his financial portfolio are taken at face value. In fact, the only nuance presented in either story came from Dykstra's personality. There, Dykstra appears to be in 1993 form.

*** Meanwhile, the final stop on Floyd Landis' appeal hearing has planted itself in New York City where the case enters its third day. Landis and the USADA will present cases today and tomorrow before wrapping it all up on Monday. Then they will wait for the panel of three arbitrators with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to make a decision, which will come sometime during the calendar year... probably.

Nevertheless, there has been very little in the way of rumblings from the USADA or Landis camps, which is quite the opposite from last May's hearing. Plus, Floyd likes to talk and hasn't said anything to anyone.

But for a preview of the proceedings in NYC, here's a story from ESPN's Bonnie D. Ford.

*** I don't like to brag[1], but I went 14-for-16 in the first day of NCAA tournament selections. I tripped up on the UNLV-Kent State and West Virginia-Arizona games.

Still, it's not too bad for someone convinced that the tournament is nothing more than a lot of hot air until the second weekend begins.

*** Finally, in an interesting development, arena rock stalwarts Pearl Jam announced that they will take Ted Leo and his Pharmacists out with them for the first part of their U.S. tour, which opens in Camden, N.J. on June 19. Certainly such a decision means that Pearl Jam aims to bust their collective asses during the six dates in which Teddy Rock Star opens up the shows. After all, if Eddie Vedder and the gang give just the slightest of inches, Ted + Rx will own them.

Fortunately for the Pearl Jammers, work ethic has never been an issue. That means it will be an action-packed six shows for all involved.

Jun 19 -- Camden, N.J. -- Susquehanna Bank Center Jun 22 -- Washington, D.C. -- Verizon Center

Jun 24 -- New York, N.Y. - Madison Square Garden Jun 25 -- New York, N.Y. - Madison Square Garden

Jun 27 -- Hartford, Conn. -- Dodge Amphitheater Jun 30 -- Mansfield, Mass. -- Tweeter Center

The always interesting Kings of Leon will take over the opening duties after Ted Leo leaves the tour.

More: Ted Leo covers Rush on WFMU

---

[1] Uh, yeah I do.

The tale of the suburban dad (unfinished)

I never thought my life would take this particular path. I never thought that I would be such a stereotypical suburban dad. I suspect no one ever thinks that way about themselves and as a much more cynical college student and post-graduate, I was CERTAIN that I would never be that guy.

Instead, there I was at the wheel of a black Saturn Vue toting my three-year old son to the local Barnes & Noble as we listened to Daft Punk’s “One More Time.” The idea was his, because he really likes to play with the elaborate Thomas the Tank Engine set that winds its way through an alcove in the expansive children’s section. My plan was to pick through one of Chuck Klosterman’s books on the advice of a friend who told me I’d really like his work[1]. My other goal was to keep my oldest son from smacking the hell out of anyone who tried to snatch away one of the trains he wasn’t playing with. Three-year old boys, as it is, have a very difficult time sharing anything even when they don’t need it, don’t want it, or don’t like it. In that sense they are a lot like just about everyone else.

Perhaps the most alarming part of this scene was the fact that Daft Punk was playing from an iPod attached to the Vue’s stereo system. The truth is I don’t know a damn thing about Daft Punk and I like to stay up to date on those types of things. Actually, I assumed that with the name Daft Punk, the group was likely a west-coast based alt-rock-skate-techno group that was developed through market research of the X-Games/PSP demographic.

Well, that’s almost correct, though I suppose I hastily judged the book by its title.

Instead, Daft Punk could be classified as an “electronic” band, or “techno” as it was (is?) called a decade or so ago when such bands (groups?) were associated with raves, club drugs and incessant strobe lights by the popular media. To me, it all sounds like the music designed for the ride through Spaceship Earth at Disney’s EPCOT about what the “future” is supposed to sound like. First the narrator explains how science WILL change how we live and think about damn near everything in that pitch-perfect voice as we roll past products that we will all purchase in the future not only because we love them and want them, but because it will be a necessity to drink Diet Coke with ginseng.

“In the future, man will keep domesticated animals in his home…” the voice says as we ride into the belly of Spaceship Earth, which, incidentally, isn’t a spaceship at all. It’s just a big silver sphere with dimples like some space age golf ball. Perhaps in the future spaceships will come in basic shapes?

Anyway, after the voice explains what the future will be like, the Daft Punk song comes blasting over the loudspeaker. People then dance in their seats because techno/electronic music is specifically made to make three-year olds and disaffected club kids to respond in the exact same manner. In that sense, the boy and I were having a blast as we drove to the Barnes & Noble. He especially took delight in naming the instruments as they were introduced into the mix.

“That’s the drums!” he yelled as he pretended to play.

“That’s a cymbal!” he said as he continued to drum.

Then a vocalist using a voice box-type thingy came in.

“Huh?”

Yeah, exactly.

I don’t know what the point of that was, and I still don’t know much about Daft Punk, either. I do know that Ted Leo has been known to cover “One More Time” from time to time in his wildly entertaining rock shows and since I follow Leo as closely as a lot of people follow the Phillies, I figured I owed it to someone (myself?) to learn more about Daft Punk. Either way, an actual point is that I felt like a quintessential suburban dad. Actually, I don’t think it could get much more suburban-er. A quasi SUV littered with kids’ toys and books and blasting Daft Punk while motoring to the Barnes & Noble in the mega box-store strip mall that also includes a Home Depot, an Old Country Buffet, a Blockbuster, a Circuit City, Sports Authority and Office Max, so the kid can play with the Thomas the Tank Engine and dad could dig through Klosterman books…

Where’s Norman freaking Rockwell?[2]

But aside from the expedition to a popular pop culture palladium where the task will be to look like being an attentive parent even though I'm reading about the cultural significance of Motley Crue and whose kid appears to be well-adjusted with Jimmy Carter’s altruistic sense of community – at least when it comes to letting other kids play with metal toy trains in a book store – the task was to get back home without violence or a classic tantrum that makes strangers think that I’m the masculine version of Joan Crawford. Hey, the Phillies were scheduled to play a day game in Atlanta and I felt compelled to watch.

Needless to say, this was a losing proposition at best. Fighting for what to watch on TV against a three-year old is a lose-lose proposition. If you “lose” and he gets to watch Little Einsteins or whatever, you lose. But if you take control and put on a baseball game, the chances are that you made the kid cry. Even though you won you still lost. In fact, I hear this is specifically the reason why the TV networks make sure that all of the World Series games start past bedtime on the east. There are a handful of dads like me who still watch baseball somewhat regularly and don’t want to have to battle against the programming wizards at Nick Jr. in order to do so. At my house a 7 p.m. start means I only miss the first inning or two, a 8 p.m. start means I can pretty much watch the entire game (until I fall asleep during the middle innings).

But a day game or 9 p.m. start means I’m screwed. Nine o’clock is just way too late to keep a guy with kids up at night, and a day game ensures that no one will watch.

Who sits inside and watches TV during the day anyway?

But with the Phillies still in the thick of things in the NL East and the National League’s wild-card chase, plus with me slated to return to work on Friday for the homestand opener against the Florida Marlins, I figured it would be fun to watch the game from Atlanta. Why not? During the previous two weeks of my paternity leave that has been labeled a “vacation”[3]by a handful of idiots, certain duties kept me from watching the Phillies. But that’s OK, too. After all, I always looked at sports viewership as my job more than anything and likened it to the time that I worked in one of my grandfather’s restaurants for two weeks one summer when I was 15. After getting a look “behind the curtain” I never wanted to eat there again because I knew what went on in the kitchen. Hell, some of it was even my fault.

Be that as it is, I made do with a few visits to some in-progress box scores on the web as well as a few in-game blogging by a few of the scribes covering the club. Truth be told, I’ve pretty much given up on traditional sportswriting in newspapers unless I’m directed there by a blog authored by a newspaper writer.

Is that the definition of a paradox or is that more like an abstract painting in which the artist uses white paint on a white canvas?

So when I saw that the Phillies were safely up by six runs as the game entered the seventh-inning stretch, I figured that all I missed was another offensive assault by the hometown team. According to the box score, the starting eight position players each had at least one hit by the fifth inning. This one, as they say, was oh-vah!

Man did “they” ever get this one wrong.

Instead the Phillies became the first team in 2007 to take a six-run lead into the eighth inning and lose. It’s interesting to note that there were 517 times that a team led by six runs heading into the eighth inning and every single time the team with the big lead won.

Perhaps the 518^th time is the charm?

But simply blowing a six-run lead isn’t the really bad part. Oh sure, considering the playoff implications and the Phillies’ standing in the NL East, the loss was a solid jab to the solar plexus. Certainly every game should be viewed as a so-called “must win” at this point of the season, especially when the team is leading by six runs with just six more outs to go to close it out. Losing a game in such a situation is just really bad. Not just really bad, but really, really bleeping bad.

“I still can't believe what happened,” manager Charlie Manuel told the writers after the game in which several of them specifically pointed out that the skipper’s skin color had noticeably changed its hue. “Totally amazing.”

The most amazing part is that the Phillies blew the lead when the team’s two best relief pitchers were on the mound. To start the eighth inning Manuel turned to 19-year veteran Tom Gordon, who was an All-Star closer last season and had pitched in the team’s previous two games against the Braves.

After Gordon recorded just one out (and allowed four runs), Manuel brought in Brett Myers to get the final five outs, which is a task the novice closer has never been asked to perform. Forget that Myers was the Opening Day starter or that testosterone-charged closers of the past like Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter used to get as many as nine outs to finish up a game from time to time a generation ago, five outs in such a situation is a tall order. It’s a monumental task even though Myers paints himself with such false machismo from his off-the-field demeanor, complete with his penchant for faux-tough music and coterie that makes him look like a star in the WWE instead of an athlete that just signed a three-year, $25.75 million deal last winter.

Apropos, Myers is an interesting character because he is completely uninteresting and without depth, which is something we will examine in fuller detail later.

The important part is that the anchors of the Phillies’ Posh Spice-thin bullpen couldn’t nail down a six-run lead with six outs to go in the final month of the season. Moreover, the reason why they couldn’t do so isn’t really deep, either. Actually, even though Myers was tabbed with the loss and Gordon’s ERA ballooned to 6.49, those two are hardly in the bull’s eye of whom to blame. After all, the Braves did collect four broken-bat hits in the seven-run assault, which is kind of like being beaten to death by pillows. No, in this instance we will place the blame for the loss squarely on one man’s shoulders.

Hello, Chris Roberson.

The game ended when Matt Diaz hit a bases-loaded double to right field. More accurately, the game ended when Roberson failed to catch the fly ball that Diaz hit to right field. Myers’ post-game quote really says it all:

“When [Diaz] hit it, I thought, ‘Game over,’” Myers said. “I started walking off the field. I guess it just got away from him, spinning away. It was a good tennis shot, I guess.”

Yeah, but in tennis most balls at least touch another racket no matter how crafty the shot. Diaz’s game-winner was more serve-and-volley than a blistering, line-hugging ace from Roger Federer. This ball actually hit Roberson’s glove, and not the tip of it where he would have had to make a snow-cone catch either. Replays showed that hit the thin part of leather where if overlaps the thumb. Had Roberson been a centimeter deeper than he was the ball would have landed flat in the pocket, the game would have ended with the Phillies as the victor in a meaningful game, and everyone would have smiled in disbelief reserved for instances when the brakes on the car finally lock to avoid rear-ending the person in front of you who is stopped at a red light.

“Did that almost happen?” you say with mock exasperation. “Did I almost cause an accident?”

In this case, Chris Roberson rear-ended the guy in front of him at the light.

“It was real tough to read the ball,” Roberson said in his defense. “I saw [an earlier hit ball] go up and it was real tough to see if it was coming out at me or staying in the infield.”

He said this after noting that he “just rushed out” onto to the field to start the eighth inning without his sunglasses. This tells me that Roberson doesn’t pay attention to details and wasn’t prepared to play. This point was proven when two seemingly routine flies blooped in at Roberson’s feet to further exasperate the team’s death by pillows. It also tells me that Roberson should probably never play in another game as a defensive replacement – which is what his role was in this instance – ever again.

Never, ever, ever again.

Here’s what I know about Chris Roberson:

• His dad, Will Roberson, played in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons, though I can’t find any record of this.
• He is from Oakland, Calif., which is where shortstop Jimmy Rollins was born and raised.
• Manager Charlie Manuel is not a big fan.

That last one is purely speculation, though it isn’t too far off.

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[1] This is nice. I like when people suggest to me what books, movies and music to check out. Actually, let me rephrase that. I like it when smart people tell me what I should check out. Dumb people tell me what I should read or see all the time and it’s always a letdown. Often some of the stuff they suggest has to do with Jesus. Certainly I have nothing against Jesus, but when it comes to pop culture, His body of work is often trite and made with the intent to make me feel bad about myself and others.

[2] I’m not sure where I read it or saw it, but there was a funny spoof of Rockwell paintings in which one was entitled, “Turn Your Head and Cough.” I think it was from Letterman, but I’m not 100 percent certain.

[3] There is no such thing as a vacation with two kids. I don’t want to be one of those whiny you-don’t-know-what-it’s-like guys, but really, people with one kid or no kids have no idea what it’s like. It’s fun and rewarding and all of that other happy horsebleep, but it’s also really, really hard and time consuming. It’s much more difficult than learning algebra when you can barely divide. You also get kicked in the nuts a lot, which isn’t meant to be metaphorical. The truth is you literally get kicked in the nuts. A lot.