Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
By now, most of you have heard about the revelations about Barry Bond's steroid use published in Sports Illustrated. Those come courtesy of an excerpt from Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who chased down the BALCO story beginning in the fall of 2003.
Once you get your full of Bonds' juicing regime, might I recommend you turn to Howard Bryant's Juicing the Game, which puts Bonds, BALCO, and Williams and Fainaru-Wada into context by telling the entire history of steroid use in baseball and the resulting scandal. Juicing the Game, which I edited, is now available in paperback with a new epilogue covering the 2005 season and the Palmeiro revelations. If you need further convincing, check out Alex's objective review of the hardcover.
Since I'm on the topic of books I helped bring into existence, I will be appearing at Coliseum Books this Saturday at 6pm with Steven Goldman and Christina Kahrl to promote Baseball Prospectus 2006, to which I contributed the chapter on the Cleveland Indians.
Later that same night I'll be switching gears to attend the book release party for the US edition of Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again, a history of postpunk music which I edited. The party may fill up, but it's ostensibly open to the public, so come on out and boogie to some death disco
Finally, don't forget to pre-order Alex's biography of Curt Flood, Stepping Up, which is scheduled for release in two weeks.
While I'm at it, I should thank each and every one of you for your support of this site, which has made our participation in the above projects (Alex's book and my BP chapter in particular) possible.
I'm especially interested to hear about your role in . I've just finished reading an exchange on slate.com between Simon Reynolds and slate music critic Stephen Metcalf (http://tinyurl.com/hydfq). Very interesting stuff, indeed. I've been interested in a few of the postpunk bands before (Joy Division, Talking Heads, Gang of Four), but never knew much about the context, as it was a little before my time (I was born just about in the middle of the time period the book covers). I'm definitely picking it up, especially given the influence these bands are having on a lot of the indie bands around today.
Congratulations on working on so many interesting projects. You have my dream life.
I'm particularly interested in the Reynolds book. Jim Windolf's idiotic review in the Times actually made me more interested. It had all the cliches of a music book review written by someone who knows nothing about music. In other words, if such a dope didn't like the book, then it must be worthwhile.
Never thought I'd have a reason to mention that in a comment on a Yankees blog, but here we are.
Coming back to the hip hop/turntablism stuff, one of you turntablists out there (I thought there was one) should check that break at the very end of the first cut of that This Heat record with the yellow and blue cover. That cut as a whole changed my life.
"True fans of post-punk should read this book, however they should read the UK version and not this shortened US version. Three chapters have been cut in their entirety and portions of other chapters have been cut or shortened. In total, the US version of the book is nearly 200 pages shorter."
I (obviously) think the changes are to the great benefit of the book. While Simon's writing is spectacular in both versions, I find the UK version unwieldy and lacking cohesion. The US version, in my very biased opinion, is both a more compelling read and a better book. It's also half as expensive on Amazon, takes up half as much space in your bag, and weighs a fraction of what the UK doorstop does.
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