From time to time, I tend to write about Christmas music on this site, mainly because I enjoy the stuff (in moderation) and because it’s an interesting phenomenon. While music trends tend to go all over the place, with styles constantly changing and tastes bouncing to whatever the latest song in rotation is, Christmas music remains unchanged. Every year, currentish artists release Christmas albums (usually somewhat established - new releases this year from James Taylor
, Sarah McLachlan, Bette Midler, Wynonna, and Rachael Ray… WHA?) that are usually well received but break no new ground (Ray’s is a joke, obviously. The album has her name on it but is a collection of songs by other artists that were selected by Rachael, I guess. Her site kind of sucks.) Newer artists put out more “current” Christmas music, usually either changing regular Christmas music into their particular style or occasionally putting out an attempt at a new song, usually keeping it vague enough as to not really mention Christmas or even “holiday” that much so that the song can stay in rotation more than one month of the year. (more…)
The holiday season is one of those things that causes stress in any family, regardless of finances or family or anything else. It just happens - people freak because they’re making food for more people or seeing people they don’t normally see or spending money they normally wouldn’t - it’s a lot of work and stress in order to have that day/weekend/whatever of happiness.
Of course, with as much stress as it causes, people do it every year because they enjoy it - a sadomasochistic practice if there ever was one. We’re no different, although our stress is probably going to be different in future holiday seasons. (more…)
Just a few hits here and there re: free agency and the Yanks.
- Checking out an Ask BA article and saw that Tony Graffanino, he of the .734 career OPS, is a Type A free agent. Since the Brewers offered him arbitration, Milwaukee could potentially receive a team’s first round pick in addition to a bonus pick between the first and second round. While the Yanks have the last pick of the first round, it’s still not really worth it at this point.
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When the Cincinnati Reds were purchased by Bob Castellini, one of the first things that he did was to fire current GM Dan O’Brien and replace him with someone that he hired. In this case, it was Wayne Krivsky, who was the top candidate to become Reds GM when O’Brien was hired. Krivsky came with a pedigree of small-market baseball knowledge, having been the Minnesota Twins assistant GM for eight seasons before taking the Reds job. Krivsky would see success early, and as a result end up making the kinds of mistakes that see promising GMs fail. (more…)
I started to post this over on the OTBL boards, but it got bloggy enough to pull it over here, since it’s bound to ramble. In discussion over the Yankees winning the bidding for Japanese pitcher Kei Igawa there was a reference to the Yanks not having any excuse for the lack of depth in their bullpen, since they have the resources to be able to offer more money to relievers and sign the best ones, worrying about roles later.
It’s not as easy as that, as my ramble would end up showing. But it allowed me to dig a little deeper into the Yankees slash and burn style of player acquisition that ended up throwing a huge monkey wrench into the Yankee dynasty and nearly caused Brian Cashman to walk away from the team twice, and possibly explaining why Joe Torre sticking around for another season wasn’t on my wish list. (more…)
