Musical Interlude: Charlie Byrd

I purchased a couple of CDs by Charlie Byrd at Amazon.


Byrd's Word!

from Riverside
recorded in 1958

I decided to get this CD
because it has two tracks with
Charlie Byrd's wife Ginny Byrd
singing:
Blue Turning Grey Over You and Don't Explain.

I liked her style of singing on another CD,
Charlie Byrd Trio and Woodwinds.
Aparently there aren't many recordings by her.


Homage to Jobim

is a live recording from Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival in 1994.

It features Ken Peplowski too. So it's doubly enjoyable for me.
Like Bossa Nova Years album, I like their blissful collaboration.
I like the hermonica part, by Hendrik Muerkens, too.

Also I bought the Grenadilla album by Mr. Peplowski.
I would listen to it as soon as I have a chance.

Here's Johnny!

Baseball Briefly

Johnny O. Back in baseball.

He had three hits.
Almost five, if the ball didn't hit the pitcher twice.
Redsox had a 27-hit game against Yankees today.
I taped and watched it as far as the fifth inning.

I was unaware that Olerud had signed with Boston until a few days ago.
Now he's been to the minors, too.
He looked just the same as always.
But it's funny to see him wearing the Redsox jersey.

I saw the M's game against Tampa Bay.
(With the Tampa guys doing play-by-play, it was not bad,
but it's not as entertaining as M's team.)

Sele pitched well again with Borders behind the plate.
Whatever he is doing, it's working.
The offence scored a couple of runs with bases loaded,
courtesy of the error by Alex Gonzalez playing 3B (Richie's sharply hit grounder.)
That's all they did today against Casey Fossum.

Except, Borders hit a huge homerun in the seventh,
and that proved to be the difference.
A huge contribution from a 42-Yrs-old back-up catcher.

Mariners beat Rays 3-2.

Multi-Tasking Dilutes Enjoyment

Mariners Briefly

M's beat the red hot Padres.

Mr. Sele pitched brilliantly, throwing the first shut-out game
since the two-hit shut out game against Arizona, 8-0, July 15th 2001,
which I attended and witnessed the feat from a RF seat.
It was the second official game I had ever been to.

Incidentally, did Podsednik hit his first hit, a triple, on the same day
or against San Francisco a few days earlier? I was there for it too.

Pat Borders was credited for today's win profusely.
Once again, he is a major league catcher at the age 42 and 9 days.

On the previousday, Meche struggled but pitched well enough to earn a win.
Adrian and Richie went back-to-back, which I saw on TV.
Here in the Far East, it was taped and aired later in the evening,
so during the day, I avoided looking at any baseball related websites.
I was in for a treat.

Why do people do two or more things at the same time unnecessarily?

Having said that, I must finish this and go back to listening to Northern Lights.
Today, it's a special for Gardening music, in honor of Queen Victoria.
Loved the Nutcracker, Waltz of the Flowers, by the Modern Mandolin Quartet.

Blogging is for just Fooling Around

Mariners Briefly

Welcome back, Pat Borders!

If I'm not mistaken I saw him hit a game winning walk-off single last year.
I have forgotten since then M's were playing against which NL team on that day,
but I was there to see it. That was exciting.

As for the standing in the AL West, I don't think M's will improve much
from where they are now.

Unless,
the mystery man Jorge Campillo comes in to go on a long winning streak.

And maybe Chris Snelling gets called up and wins a few games,
although it is hard to make a room for hin in OF or DH at the moment.
But he'll be fun to watch.

As for the past few serieses against Boston and New York,
before the roadtrip began,
I had predicted the outcome of these games would decide
where M's would end up eventually.
Unfortunately, against two of the best teams in AL, M's were no-match,
so, actually being .500 against Boston after two serieses is better than I expected.

I was expecting much worse from the last home stand.
The last game against the Yankees, M's came back from 4-0,
6-2 deficit and won eventualy by 7-6.
It's something we had not seen for a long time,
a big come-from-behind win.
By the contribution from Reed, Valdez and Olivo at that.
The one-run lead was too close for comfort, but M's bullpen did a good job without Eddie.

After all, it's the meltdown of the starting pitching,
namely Jamie and Joel who should have been the top two of the rotation.
Meche and Franklin were mostly doing what was predicted from them.
But I'm afraid we might have seen the last of Mr. Sele in the last Yankee game.

The question I have now is,
will M's give up early again and bring in youngsters?

Now for Something Completely Different

I have to find some new hobbies the way Mariners are playing.

So, I spend more time sitting over my iBook
writing to people I, sort of, met, but not in person.

I'm doing some language exchange by e-mails.
It's fun but it takes a lot of time because my French is very limited.
I need to look up in my dictionary almost every word I write,
to check my spelling, the genders, the accent marks,
and in case of verbs, the correct endings.
French is doubly difficult because of the accent marks.

It's a lot of commitment when you have several people to write to.
Some people write regularly, and some only occasionally.
So far, I have been fortunate in finding someone
who is willing to respond to me each time I write.

Here's a question:
if one doesn't get a reply within a reasonable amount of time,
should one pursue any more correspondence or simply wait for a reply?
I don't know what the standard protocol is, but some people get tired of it soon.
It's understandable, because most people have a... life.

I have never been to France,
but someday when I have enough money to travel,
I would like to visit these people.

Get Well Soon, Dan Wilson

I'm very shocked to learn that
Dan "The Man" Wilson suffered a torn ACL
and he may miss the rest of the season.

I saw him slide back to 1B yesterday on Ichiro's line drive to
Anderson. He left the game a few pitches later
but I never thought it was so bad.

Yesterday's game was his best so far this season,
in terms of his offesive and defensive contribution.

What will M's do without him, I mean, really?

Already, the hope of winning the division is fading quickly
after the dismal performance this past week against A's and Angels.
I never really mind whether the team wins or not,
as long as there's something to talk about,
but losing a fans' favorite player, that's tough.

I sure hope he'll recover soon and come back.

Mariners vs. Angels

Mariners Briefly

I saw the Catch by Ichiro the other day.

Congratulations, Shin-Soo Choo!
Getting a first MLB hit and a RBI.
(it came today in the Bot. ninth, two out bloop single to LF,
off Scot Shields. M's second run of 5-2 loss)

Apart from that two bright spots,
nothing much was memorable in the first two games
against the Halos.
Offence: re-run of 2004.
Beltre in mighty slump. With bases-loaded, terrible.
No solid contact from Olivo, quite puzzling.

Randy Winn gives his money's worth, though.
He is hitting above .300 now.
He doesn't put up any unrealistic numbers
but always shows up ready to play.
Pretty steady performance.

Anaheim, better than the rest of the Western Division team,
in one category: aggressive base running, among other things.
Scioscia forces the opponent to play perfect.
Also their bullpen, lights out.

Chone Figgins continues to dazzle me.
He's now a favourite player.
He's fun to watch.

About Betre,
If Jeter or A-Rod are hitting .230 four weeks into the season,
they are even scarier, because you know they are due to go on a tear any day.
If Adrian were to become a franchise player like them,
he would need to prove he's worth five years 64 million dollars
(I know he is trying the best he can, but he has had only one great season so far).
The argument that he's new to the league is, to a certain point, valid.
But when bases are loaded, the count 3-2, the pitcher has to throw a strike,
he should be able to put the ball in play, at least.
He was very good at that earlier in April.

Vladimir Guerrero never had the same problem of
learning new pitchers when he came to AL.

His philosophy: see the ball, hit it.

One never walks out of Dominican Republic.

He was quite fun to watch in Montreal.

Briefly, the BlueJays are a contender!
They shut out the O's today.