Heh, yeah the second Girardi said he'd never seen Mo throw a Wild Pitch before I hopped on to B-Ref to confirm my strong belief that he was wrong. Still, the wild pitch the other night was just Rivera's second since 2002, so it was a freakish thing to have happened.
Sometimes I think we take things too literally. Besides, I am pretty sure I watched every game in which Mo threw a wild pitch and can't remember any. I am shocked that he has thrown as many as 10. There is so much about what Girardi has said recently that can be picked apart, but focusing in on an inocuous statement seems trite.
2 I saw Chip Taylor (it's author, not a Trogg) do it with the Waco Bros. once in the East Village. The Troggs version remains the best, though Jimi Hendrix did a good job with it, too. Incidentally, Lester Bangs wrote a great fictional history of the Troggs (collected in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung).
3 I dunno. One of my pet peeves is when people speak in absolutes. It's a very important life lesson that there is very little is this world that is absolutely true every time. There's an exception to nearly every rule. Note that neither of those statements are absolutes ("very little," "nearly"). I saw Girardi make the comment and he was convinced; he wasn't exaggerating for effect. I do think with my comment here we've now belabored it too much, but the initial post Alex linked to, and the larger point about either Rivera's wild pitches or the fact that things you don't think have ever happened actually have are both worthwhile. At least to me.
7 I guess we disagree. Sometimes, exaggeration is used to prove a point, and I think that's what Girardi was doing. If he had said something like, I didn't send the runners because Jeter never grounds into a double play, I'd agree it was worthy of inspection. In this context, however, I think Girardi's over-emphasis was simply meant to convey how rare he occurrence was. I guess he could have been literal and drop the hyperbole, but sometimes that manner is an effective form of communication.
4 Always preferred the Hendrix version myself, but then I'm obsessed with guitar virtuosos. Its only since I started learning to play this year that I can truly appreciate how freakishly good Hendrix was. The ability to play rhythm and lead at the same time is basically unheard of outside of him. All those little accents he adds, I can't begin to say how hard that is to do.
"Neyer: So I'm not trying to be a smarty pants here..."
I'm pretty sure he was — when it comes to the Yankees, anyway.
8 I actually agree with your take on Girardi, but unfortuately we now live in a world where everything is taken at face value. If it's caught on tape, you can bet money that someone, somewhere will have a 1,000 word breakdown and video analysis on their blog within hours, with roughly 50-100 comments all trying to out-snark each other.
I imagine the look someone would get from Joe if they actually had these facts on hand during the postgame interview.
"Uh, excuse me, Joe? I've got baseball-reference pulled up on my iPhone and..."
10 The shame is that it seems more people focused on that than Girardi's erroneous reasons for not hitting Damon in Minnesota, which retroactively has become Damon needed a rest.
9 This is done all the time. Bands with a one guitar set-up will often have the guitarist overlay the rhythm sequence with a lead line.
13 It wasn't until players like T-Bone Walker and BB King perfected single-note solos that guitarists DIDN'T routinely play rhythm and lead simultaneously.
17 Hendrix was undoubtedly the greatest electric guitarist of all time. No debate there. A couple of contemporary examples of playing lead and rhythm live simultaneously are Stevie Ray Vaughan and Johnny Marr (The Smiths). There are a lot of others. None as good as Hendrix obviously (although Stevie Ray came as close as anyone).
Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.
Hilarious interplay between the producer and the Senator.
http://tinyurl.com/55sex2
I'm pretty sure he was — when it comes to the Yankees, anyway.
8 I actually agree with your take on Girardi, but unfortuately we now live in a world where everything is taken at face value. If it's caught on tape, you can bet money that someone, somewhere will have a 1,000 word breakdown and video analysis on their blog within hours, with roughly 50-100 comments all trying to out-snark each other.
I imagine the look someone would get from Joe if they actually had these facts on hand during the postgame interview.
"Uh, excuse me, Joe? I've got baseball-reference pulled up on my iPhone and..."
I could easily be wrong, but it's always sounded to me like Robert Johnson did that as well.
13 It wasn't until players like T-Bone Walker and BB King perfected single-note solos that guitarists DIDN'T routinely play rhythm and lead simultaneously.
Now off to find it.
Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.