Ramblin' with Roger

…aren’t they?

Your Taste in Music:

Classic Rock: Highest Influence 80’s Alternative: High Influence 80’s R&B: High Influence 90’s Pop: High Influence Progressive Rock: High Influence

How’s Your Taste in Music?

So, no, I’m not surprised that Classic Rock is my largest influence.

But there’s no mention of classical music. And speaking of which: someone on a listserv I monitor wanted to find a list of all the symphonies in the country and beyond. The two I’m citing do that, but there’s more.

At Meet the Music, there is a narrative and sonic section called “Meet the Composer”, where one can get a sense of the music of a variety of contemporary as well as old-line composers.

The American Symphony Orchestra League offers research, including a 260-page PDF about the 2005-2006 season.

The most frequently performed work: Beethoven’s 7th Symphony – 89 times
(Contemporary: Joan Tower, Made in America (2004) – 58)
Most frequent composer performed: Mozart – 1453 times
(American: Aaron Copland – 201)
(Living American: Joan Tower 81)
***
It’s funny, not necessarily in the ha-ha sense, that it almost always feels about a week before our Advent and Good Friday VESPERS service that we’re going to crash and burn, yet it generally comes out all right. See if luck holds:
The Chancel choir and orchestra of First Presbyterian Church, 362 State Street, Albany, under the direction of Victor Klimash, will perform Mozart’s Vesperae de Dominica as part of an Advent Vespers service on Sunday, December 10, at 7:30 p.m.
The program is free. Parking available on the street or in Washington Park.
***

Your Lust Quotient: 45%

You are definitely a lustful person, but you do a good job of hiding it. Your friends would be surprised to know that you’re secretly very wild!

How Much Lust Do You Have?

OK, I admit it; I changed the word your to you’re in the latter meme.

I know you’re tired of hearing what a wonderful child I have – well, tough. But it is true that Lydia seems very suspectible to runny noses, which develop into coughing jags, especially while sleeping.

At first, we thought they were colds. On her first visit after Lydia was born, my mother said that she was “sickly”. But we’ve since determined that it is a sinus infection that she gets with frustrating regularity. Indeed, many of the symptoms noted here under rhinosinusitis are applicable. We took her to a specialist recently, and he recommended the removal of her adenoids.

SURGERY?

Well, here’s the breakdown:

PRO: Carol’s talked to people whose children have had the surgery and they claim the very positive results in terms of not only no more runny noses and better breathing generally, but improved speech, fewer ear infections, and more.

We can probably get rid of all of her nose sprays, her quarterly doses of antibiotics, etc.

It is a minimally invasive surgery that can be done in about 7 minutes.

CON: It’s surgery.

Using general anesthesia.

On my child.

So, we’re thinking on it, praying on it, getting second opinions about it. Other feedback is appreciated.

BBWAA Releases 2007 Hall of Fame Ballot
Harold Baines 1st year. PRO: Six-time All-Star, 2,866 hits. CON: 1644 games played at DH (of 2830)
Albert Belle 2nd year. PRO: Named to five All-Star teams (1993-97). One season with 50-plus home runs, three seasons with 40-plus home runs, eight seasons with 30-plus home runs. Nine consecutive seasons with 100-plus runs batted in and nine seasons with 30-plus doubles. And a lot more. CON: Prickly, unlikable character.
Dante Bichette 1st year. PRO: Six seasons batting .300 or better, with a career average of .299. Named to four All-Star teams (1994-96, 1998). CON: His most productive years were in mile-high Denver.
Bert Blyleven 10th year. PRO: Ranks 5th all-time in strikeouts, 9th in starts, 9th in shutouts, 25th in wins, and 7th in innings pitched. CON: Wasn’t a dominant pitcher.
Bobby Bonilla 1st year. PRO: Named to six All-Star teams (1988-91, ’93, ’95). CON: Didn’t live up to the potential he had when he came up with Barry Bonds in Pittsburgh.
Scott Brosius 1st year. PRO: Was in four World Series, winning three. CON: Not much else to distinguish him.
Jay Buhner 1st year. PRO: Three consecutive seasons of 40-plus home runs. CON: Such potential not realized.
Ken Caminiti 1st year. PRO: Named to three All-Star teams (1994, ’96-97), Won the 1996 NL MVP. CON: A One great year, a couple very good years, but admitted to steroid use, had a drug problem, and died of a heart attack in November 2004.
Jose Canseco 1st year. PRO: Named to six All-Star teams (1986, ’88-90, ’92, ’99). Three seasons with 40-plus home runs, eight with 30-plus home runs. Became first member of baseball’s “40-40” club when he hit 42 home runs and stole 40 bases in 1988 – and I saw him steal his 40th base that year. CON: The steroids; his book about the steroids.
Dave Concepcion 14th year. PRO: Won five Gold Gloves (1974-’77, ’79). Named to nine All-Star teams (1973, ’75-’82), Four World Series (1970, ’72, ’75, ’76), member of two WS championship teams, 1975-’76. CON: Should he get in because other members of the Big Red Machine did?
Eric Davis 1st year. Lots of solid numbers early: His “20-80” season (27 home runs, 80 stolen bases; 1986) was only matched by Rickey Henderson. Won three consecutive Gold Glove Awards (1987-’89) Named to two All-Star teams (1987, ’89). CON: Middling stats after that.
Andre Dawson 6th year. PRO: Won eight Gold Glove awards (1980-’85, ’87-’88. all time: 45th in hits, 24th in total bases, 42nd in doubles, 35th in HR, 25th in RBI, 22nd in extra-base hits, and 9th in sacrifice flies. CON: Not the dominant player in his position.
Tony Fernandez 1st year. PRO: Five time All-Star (1986-87, ’89, ’92, ’99). Won four consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop (1986-89). Four times batted better than .300. Two seasons of 40-plus doubles. CON: Only once finished as high as 8th in MVP voting, so he wasn’t a dominant player, and doesn’t hold career records either.
Steve Garvey 15th (and final) year. PRO: Ranks second all-time in fielding among first basemen (.9959). Ten All-Star teams, including eight consecutively (1974-’81, ’84-’85). Won four NL Gold Gloves, consecutively (1974-’77). Eight seasons with .300-plus batting average. Good hitter, GREAT fielder. CON: His fall from grace (two women each having a child by him at the same time) wrecked his moralist posturing.
Rich Gossage 8th year. PRO: Named to nine All-Star teams (1975-’78, ’80-’82, ’84-’85). Ranks 17th all-time in saves in an era the closer wasn’t as specialized as it’s become. CON: But only 17th?
Tony Gwynn 1st year. PRO: Eight-time National League batting champion, matching Honus Wagner for the most in NL history. Fifteen All-Star selections. Finished in Top 10 of MVP voting seven times, finishing as high as 3rd in 1984. Ranks 17th all-time with 3,141 hits, leading NL seven times in hits. Ranked among Top 10 in NL batting average during every season in which he had enough at-bats, ranking outside the top 5 only twice. Never hit lower than .309 in a full season. Five seasons with 200+ hits. A career .987 fielder. CON: (Really?) OK, not a power hitter.
Orel Hershiser 2nd year. PRO: Finished among top 5 in ERA five times (1984-’85, ’87-’89). And had one great 1988. CON: And his later years paled to his great ones.
Tommy John 13th year. Pitched 26 seasons. Three 20-win seasons. Ranks 24th on the all-time win list, 6th in games started, 18th in innings pitched, and tied for 26th in shutouts. Four All-Star teams (1968, ’78-’80). And he has a surgery named for him! CON: Seldom the dominant pitcher, even on his own teams.
Wally Joyner 1st year. PRO: All-Star selection in 1986 as a starter, the first rookie to do so since fan balloting resumed in 1970. Runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year in 1986. Six seasons of 150 hits or more. Four seasons with .300 or better average. CON: Wally World started off with such promise, but except for a mild resurgence in 1997, never lived up to his exciting start.
Don Mattingly 7th year. PRO: Won AL Gold Glove Award nine times (1985-’89, ’91-’94). Named AL Player of the Year by The Sporting News three times, consecutively (1984-’86). Named ML Player of the Year by The Sporting News (1985). Six All-Star teams, consecutively (1984-’89). Seven seasons with .300-plus batting average. Led AL in batting (.343, 1984), RBI (145, 1985), doubles three times (1984-’86), hits twice (1984, ’86), and slugging percentage (.573, 1986). Led AL in total bases twice (1985-‘86). Ranks 5th all-time in fielding percentage among first basemen (.9958). Led AL 1B in fielding percentage seven times (1984-’87, ’92-’94), in putouts and total chances (1986) and in double plays (1985, ’91). CON: I think Donnie Baseball suffers from the fact that he was a Yankee who never took his team to the World Series.
Mark McGwire 1st year. PRO: Twelve-time All-Star selection. Unanimous AL Rookie of the Year in 1987. Ranks 7th on the all-time home run list with 583. All-time leader in at-bats per home runs (10.6). Led league in home runs four times (1987, 1996, 1998, 1999), including then-major league record 70 HR in 1998, a season in which he, along with Sammy Sosa, practically saved baseball after the 1994 strike. Ranks 10th all-time with a .588 slugging percentage. Four times led league in slugging percentage. Also led league in on base percentage in 1996 and 1998. Led NL in RBI in 1999. Led league in walks twice (1990, 1998). Three times among Top 5 in total bases (1987, 1998, 1999). A career .993 fielder. Success in two leagues. Has the support, FWIW, from his former teammate, Canseco, and his former manager, Tony LaRussa. CON: Should have been a mortal lock except for this from March 17, 2005 in front of a Congressional committee regarding his use of steroids: “I’m not going to go into the past or talk about my past. I’m here to make a positive influence on this.”
Jack Morris 8th year. Three 20-win seasons, 11 seasons with 200-plus innings and three 200-strikeout campaigns. Received Cy Young Award votes seven times. Member the 1991e WS championship teams in 1984, ’91 and ’92; the 1991 10-inning 1-0 victory in Game Seven was one of the greatest pitched WS games ever. CON: None really. Maybe not a dominating enough pitcher.
Dale Murphy 9th year. Won back-to-back NL MVP awards in 1982-83. Seven All-Star teams (1980, ’82-’87); CON: Probably played too long, for he was a mediocre player in his last half dozen years.
Paul O’Neill 1st year. PRO: Five-time All-Star selection. Won AL batting title in 1994 (.359). Fourteen consecutive seasons of 100+ hits. Collected 100 or more RBI four times, consecutively, 1997-2000. Three times among league Top-10 in on-base percentage, including 2nd in 1994 (.460). Hit .300 or better six times, consecutively, 1993-’98. CON: Solid numbers, but HoF? And what a hothead.
Dave Parker 11th year. PRO: Won three Gold Gloves, consecutively (1977-’79). Elected to seven All-Star teams (1977, ’79-’81, ’85, ’86, ’90). Four 100-RBI seasons (led NL in 1985 with 125), three 100-run seasons (consecutively from 1977-’79), three seasons of 40-plus doubles (led NL in 1977 and ’85). Led the NL in slugging percentage in 1975 (.541) and ’78 (.585). Topped NL in total bases in 1978 (340), ’85 (350) and ’86 (304). Led NL in intentional walks in 1978 (23) and tied for intentional walks in ’85 (24). Led AL in sacrifice flies in 1990 (14) and tied for NL lead in 1979 (9). Plus Three World Series (1979, ’88, ’89, winning the first and last ones. CON: Definitely a player on the bubble.
Jim Rice 13th year. PRO: Eight All-Star teams (1977-’80, ’83-’86). Seven .300 seasons, four 200-plus hit seasons, three 100-plus run season (consecutively from 1977-’79),30-plus HR four times, 40-plus HR once, and 100-plus RBI eight times. ed AL in total bases four times in 1977 (382), ’78 (406), ’79 (369) and 1983 (344). One of 31 players with 350+ home runs and a .290+ career batting average. Only player in history with three straight seasons of 35+ home runs and 200+ hits. CON: Prickly relationship with the press, who would note that the one time his Red Sox got to the World Series (1986), they didn’t win.
Cal Ripken Jr. 1st year. PRO: One of eight players in ML history to amass at least 3,000 hits and 400 home runs. Two-time AL MVP (1983, 1991); Named to 19 consecutive All-Star teams (1983-2001).Four seasons of 100-plus RBI and batted better than .300 four full seasons. CON: Yeah, he played in 2,632 consecutive games, 2,216 at shortstop. But should he have?
Bret Saberhagen 1st year. Two-time AL Cy Young Award winner (1985, 1989); Three-time All-Star (1987, 1990, 1994). CON: Had some good years, but not enough.
Lee Smith 5th year. Ranks second in ML history for saves (478). Seven All-Star teams (1983, ’87, ’91-’95); Led NL in saves three times (1983, ’91, ’92) and AL in saves once (1994) Holds NL career record for most consecutive errorless games by a pitcher (546). CON: None, really, if the closer is a real position that merits HoF consideration.
Alan Trammell 6th year Seven .300 batting average seasons.Won four AL Gold Glove awards (1980, ’81, ’83, ’84). CON: Solid player with a 1984 WS ring, but is that enough?
Devon White 1st year PRO:Seven-time Gold Glove Award winner. Three-time All-Star selection. CON: Not nearly enough.
Bobby Witt 1st year. Won a World Series. CON: When “Twice ranked among AL top-10 in wins (1990, 1996)” is the most salient fact in one’s career stats…

So the questions:

1. Who should get in?

2. Who will get in?

3. Who will fail to get the requisite 5% and never be on the ballot again?

I decided to look at last year’s voting:

Name/Votes/Percentage
ELECTED
Bruce Sutter 400 76.9
STILL UNDER CONSIDERATION
Jim Rice 337 64.8
Rich Gossage 336 64.6
Andre Dawson 317 61.0
Bert Blyleven 277 53.3
Lee Smith 234 45.0
Jack Morris 214 41.2
Tommy John 154 29.6
Steve Garvey 135 26.0
Alan Trammell 92 17.7
Dave Parker 75 14.4
Dave Concepcion 65 12.5
Don Mattingly 64 12.3
Orel Hershiser 58 11.2
Dale Murphy 56 10.8
Albert Belle 40 7.7
ELIMINATED FROM CONSIDERATION
Will Clark 23 4.4
Dwight Gooden 17 3.3
Willie McGee 12 2.3
Hal Morris 5 1.0
Ozzie Guillen 5 1.0
Gary Gaetti 4 0.8
John Wetteland 4 0.8
Rick Aguilera 3 0.6
Doug Jones 2 0.4
Greg Jefferies 2 0.4
Walt Weiss 1 0.2
Gary DiSarcina 0 0.0
Alex Fernandez 0 0.0

1. Belle, Blyleven, Dawson, Gwynn, John, Morris, Parker, Rice, Ripkin, Smith – yeah, that’s liberal, picking 10 (the max), but I think the writers have been overly stingy in the past.
2. Dawson, Gossage, Gwynn, Rice, Ripkin (the first two are probably, “I hope so”)
3. FOR SURE: Brosius, Joyner, White, Witt. PROBABLY: Bonilla, Caminiti, Davis, Fernandez.
***
The least deserving to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’d agree with Percy Sledge, not with the Lovin’ Spoonful.

Last week, I got an e-mail:

Dear blog author:
We recently came across your site, rogerowengreen.blogspot.com, while searching for fellow Christian bloggers.

A small group of us have started a new site called Christian Bloggers. Our prayer and intent is to bring Christians closer together, and make a positive contribution to the Internet community. While many of us have different “theologies”, we all share one true saviour.

Would you be interested in joining Christian Bloggers? Please take a few minutes to have a look at what we are trying to do, and if you are interested, there is a sign up page to get the ball rolling. We would greatly appreciate your support in this endeavour.

May God Bless you and your blogging efforts. We look forward to hearing from you.

This is fascinating to me, as I never thought of me doing Christian blogging. It’s rather like how my father used to put it: he was a “singer of folk songs”, rather than a “folk singer”, and the distinction was important to him. The former allowed for him to range into gospel or blues, which he did on occasion, while the latter seemed to box him in.

Anyway, I accepted the invitation, and a few days later, I appeared on the blogroll. There must have been a number of invitations issued, for when I first looked at the site, thee were 203 on the roll, but by the time I found myself there, there were 309. This morning, I count 536.

That said, it won’t necessarily won’t be changing the nature of the blog. They asked me to join them “just as I am”, as it were. My example for this is the ubiquitous Lefty Brown, who is Christian, not so incidentally, and is a member of the Liberal Coalition, but doesn’t always write about his politics.

I mean, I’ll throw things such as this free roundtable in DC on religious faith in DC next Tuesday, or location of Religion and Social Policy, not to mention Bioethics and lots of other topics, but I would do that anyway, as it struck my fancy.

For those of you who may have found this blog through Christian Bloggers, maybe I should note myself as a blogger who is Christian. My father would appreciate that, I think.

Carol and I went to see another movie sans child over the past weekend. It’s Stranger Than Fiction, which is a film where Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell, hears a voice in his head. It also features Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, Linda Hunt, Tom Hulce (all but unrecognizable) and Tony Hale (Arrested Development’s “Buster” Bluth).

We liked it very much. You’ll laugh, you may cry. Go see it. I particularly related to the baker who feels cynical about her government, played by Gyllenhaal.

One of the criticisms I’ve read about this film is that the Zach Helm-penned work seems very much in the style of writer Charlie Kaufman. In fact, the CRITICAL CONSENSUS at rottentomatoes.com is:
“A fun, whimsical tale about about an office drone trying to save his life from his narrator. The cast obviously is having a blast with the script, but Stranger Than Fiction’s tidy lessons make this metaphysical movie feel like Charlie Kaufman-lite.”

Feh.

I’ve seen three Kauffman films: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which was my favorite movie of that year, and which Carol also loved; Adaptation (2002), which seemed to lose its way, both Carol and I felt; and the very fine Being John Malkovich (1999). Like “Stranger Than Fiction”, they’re all “quirky”, in-the- head films, but the similarities are superficial, I feel.

If anything, it is more like The Truman Show (1998), written by Andrew Niccol. Both feature a character played by an actor best known as a comedian – Jim Carrey in “Truman” – and both feature a force who controls the action, a character who is a godlike being. The powerful entity in The Truman Show with the not-insignificant name of Christof, played by Ed Harris, is a reflection of predestination, or, in the words of the Messiah in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, “Everything is fixed, and you can’t change it.” Christof, when Truman discovers the secret, gets to say one of my all-time favorite lines in all moviedom, “Cue the sun!” (A former pastor once did a sermon entitled “Cue the Son” after this movie came out.) Christof is a remote, calculating character whose existence Truman is unaware of for most of the film.

Whereas, Ana Eiffel, the neurotic, chain-smoking novelist suffering from writer’s block, played by Thompson, is very present in Harold Crick’s life. He hears her all the time, though he doesn’t quite know what it means. As with most people who hear voices, others think he’s crazy, but ultimately, there is dialogue between creator (and especially her surrogate) and her creation. I don’t want to give away plot points, but I’ve assigned theological role for the characters played by Hoffman, Latifah, Hulce, Hunt, and even Harold’s watch. Maybe I’ll address this after the movie’s been out a while.

The other main criticisms are whether it’s a comedy or a tragedy, which I find unnecessarily reductivist (in other words, what does it matter?), and the ending, which I think the movie comes by honestly.
***
A positive review from USA Today.

Tom the Dog loved it!

The NPR reviewer is a fan, too.