Comedian By Steve Taylor

 I lived in Russia between the end of 1992 and the end of 1994.  During those 2 years abroad, I missed many things.  By missed I don't mean longed for, although I certainly did miss Mountain Dew and Lou Malnatis's pizza by that definition and was glad when my brother brought those along when he visited me.  I also don't mean by miss that I wasn't there for it, yet heard about.  While I want there for the Bronco chase , Nolan Ryan's pummeling of Robin Ventura, Michael Jordan's retirement announcement , or  the birth of my first niece,  I was acutely aware of all 4.

No, what I mean by missed is there were some events that I did not hear about until I was back in the states, sometimes for several years.  Some of these were deaths of famous people, others were books, movies, or music that came out during that time.  It wasn't uncommon to hear someone talk about a movie I had never heard of, only for me to ask if it came out in 1993 or 1994 and quite often it had.  Finally, I had to come to grips that due to my decision to leave the U.S. and plant a church in Russia in the early 1990's that there would be indeed certain things that I left behind and missed entirely.  I never regretted that decision and certainly experienced many more things that I would have never experienced in the states had I stayed put.

Over the past few years I have realized that I have experienced another gap without leaving the U.S. for more than a fortnight every 10 years or so.  I experienced it today when I was playing with my Spotify account in between classes.  There was a recommended song by Steve Taylor and some band he was in and I had never heard of the song or the band.  Now not to be confusing Steve Taylor uses to front for a band called Some Band.  So, I am not referring to them.  The name of the band is The Perfect foil,  and according to Wikipedia it is an alt. rock supergroup featuring artists from 2 more of my favorite groups (Peter Furler from Newsboys & Jimmy Abegg from (A Ragamuffin Band).  What was odd is this super group was formed in 2010, and I was only just hearing about it 11 years later.  Not really odd when you think that in 2010 I was homeschooling my 3 children all under the age of 11.  Listening to old music on c.d.s is something I did when I had the occasional spare time. Keeping up with music was  not something I invested much time in.  Again, I would not trade that time in my life for anything but it does explain how a song like Comedian stayed off my radar for so long.

A nice thing about discovering something you missed from long ago is that when you do eventually discover it, you also  discover many other things alongside it.  In finding out more information in this missing chapter of Steve Taylors musical journey I discovered a blog that writes an awful lot about Christian Music and other topics that interest me.  It is a blog by Keith Shields called Thirst  and he does an entire post about this song.  I encourage you to do what he suggests in his post which is listen to this song (I have put the Spotify link below at the same time you read the lyrics to the song and then read how the song affected him.  (The link to his post is here.) 

I enjoyed his interpretation of a song from 11  years ago that I only just discovered this morning.  Still in all I'm glad I didn't miss it.  

Taking 2020 from 1677 and Staying Positive.

 Penultimate is one of my favorite words.  It means second to last.  I use the word so often it drives my family a little crazy.  So, when I woke up this morning on the day before New Years Eve, 2020, penultimate popped into my head pretty quickly.

I turned to the Merriam Webster website for the last word on penultimate. It seems the word was first used in  print all the way back in 1677.  Thanks to the time traveler feature at the MW site, I discovered many words that came into print in 1677 still had special significance in 2020.  To illustrate I will jot a few words about 2020 as it draws nigh and embolden  the words from 1677. I have also put links on each word to their definition as some of these 1677 words were new to me. 

I always like to be veracious so as I look back at the year 2020  I must say that after some introspection I am somewhat glad that this is the penultimate day of a year that was  as oppressive as it was implausible; as riveting as it was slatternly. 

I don't like to sound huffy, but it upset me when  I found out this March that both my jobs were inessential. I would turn on the television to watch the splutter of unsustainable overpromise. Never-mind the tug-of-war between the ballot box and the electoral college that tried to make  the courtroom function as a middleman. 

I'm sure that years from now when we unpack a yearbook from a duffel ,2020 will still be considered a difficult year; with some exertion and by being intentional we were able to configure a new normal. I'm sorry I hope you didn't doze off while I went on like someone giving a keynote at a quarterly meeting.

 

 

Remembering Dick Allen

 Dick Allen died earlier this month on December 7,2020 at the age of 78. Allen was the NL rookie of the year for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1964, the year I was born. He played for the White Sox form 1972 to 1974 and was a big part of the reason why I switched allegiances from the Chicago Cubs to their south side counterpart  White Sox. 

It transpired something like this.  My sister was the grade ahead of me at school and achieved straight A's at school one year.  Our school had a promotion with the White Sox that if you had straight A's or perfect attendance you would receive 2 vouchers for tickets to a White Sox game.  My Dad took my sister to a game and I decided that the next year I would get perfect attendance and he could take me

Sure enough, the next year I had perfect attendance for the first and only time in my academic life. My Dad took me to a game in 1972 or out the roof shots and it was1973 against the Baltimore Orioles.  He taught me how to keep score and Dick Allen hit a home run.  

From that day on I was a White Sox fan. I watched games on T.V. and listened to the rest on the radio.  I even became a country music fan as the White Sox games were broadcast on the local country station.  The rest of the family remained Cubs fans (I still like the Cubs because no one told me other wise, ) but my exuberance was for the White Sox.  Each year our family took a pilgrimage to Wrigley to watch a game.   Each year my Dad found away usually near my birthday to take me to a White Sox game as well.

I liked all the players, Bucky Dent. Wilbur Wood, Jorge Orta, Bill Melton but Allen was by far my favorite. Over the years the players changed but my passion for the White Sox never ebbed. I have had many favorite White Sox players over the years Kessinger, Fisk, Thomas, Buehrle, and Konerko just to name a few,  but those fond memories of watching Allen at first base or at the plate never  did fully dissipate.

Click here to watch footage of Allen with commentary from teammate Bill Melton. I also have put some video and audio clips of Allen at my vlog, Dave Out Loud. 

Allen at the Bat

Allen in the Field

Iconic Sports Illustrated Cover

    

    

Dick Allen: Sights and Sounds

This post is a supplement to a post in my sports blog, Crazy Uncle Dave's Sports Blog. Video about Allen and the 1972 White Sox.

1967 All Star Game: Allen homers for National League

Allen was a front man for a do-wop band in the 60's

Hall of Fame 2020 If I had a vote and used it

 Since the inception of this blog I have always previewed the Baseball HOF voting with a number of posts. Last year was only the second year that I did not do this.  I was just too busy and I thought I had finally given up blogging. As I am back and blogging again I am in  the midst of previewing the 2021 Hall of Fame selection next month.  I thought I would spend a few minutes and say who I would have wanted to vote for on last years ballot if I were afforded one.

Each member of the Base Ball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) is given up to 10 votes each year. As I do most every year I will pretend I have as many as 10 votes down to as few as 1 vote and state who I think I would have voted for.  I will also mention how many people I think I would have voted for if I could vote for any number from 1 to 10. Again, I say I think because this is an exercise in pure revisionist history as I already know the results of the election.  After saying who I voted for in what position, I will reveal what % of the vote they actually received. Anyone receiving less than 5% will not be on the ballot this year. Anyone who received at least 5% of the vote and less than 75% of the vote who still is within their first 9 years on the ballot will return to the ballot in 2021. Anyone who received more than 75% will become a member of the HOF.

 If I were give 10 votes in  the 2020 election, I think my10th vote would have gone to Andy Pettitte in his 2nd year on the ballot.  I had not voted for Pettitte in his first season on the ballot.  Pettitte received 11.3% of the vote in 2020 which was up from 9.9 % in his inaugural year. 

If only able to vote for 9 people in 2020, I believe my 9th vote would have gone to Andruw Jones in his 3rd year on the ballot.  I had not voted for Jones previously. Jones ended up receiving 19.4 % of the writers votes in 2020 which was up quite a bit form the 7.5% he received in 2019. 

If there was a rule that said I could vote for 8 and  only 8 players on the 2020 ballot, I'm thinking my 8th vote would have been  for Curt Schilling in his 8th year on the ballot. I had not voted for Schilling in previous years. Schilling received 70.0 percent of the vote in 2020 which was up from 60.9% in 2018. 

If I could only vote for 7 people in 2020. I think my 7th vote would have gone to Gary Sheffield in his 6th year of eligibility. In 2019 I would have considered voting for Sheffield if I had been given as many as 12 votes.  Sheffield received 20.6% of the vote in 2020 which was a great increase from the 13.6% he got in 2019.

If I could only vote for 6 players in the 2020 election. I'm pretty certain my 6th vote would have gone to Jeff Kent in his 7th year on the ballot. This would have been 2 places better than I vote for him in 2019/ In 2020 Kent received 27.5 % of the writer's votes which was up from 18.1 % in 2019.

Todd Helton would have been my 5th vote in the 2020 election If I had to vote for exactly 5 people. 2020 was Helton's 2nd year on the ballot.  In his inaugural year on the ballot he was the 7th player I would have chosen. Helton garnered 29.2% of the vote in 2020 which was up from 16.5% in 2019.

If I could vote in the 2020 election for as many players as I thought were worthy to be enshrined in Cooperstown, I think I would have voted for 4 people/  Before I tell you who the 4th person was, I offer the following caveat. Since I did not research the vote last year, I did not allow for voting for any returning player on my official unofficial ballot who was not on the OUB previously. It is my possible that Helton or even Kent may have raised in my estimation if I took the ample time to review their case prior to the 2020 voting. I did not, so they are both on the outside looking in.  

With 4 votes in my pocket the 4th vote would have gone to Larry Walker in his 10th and final year on the ballot.  In 2019 Walker had been my fifth vote in my official unofficial ballot of 6 players. In 2020 the voters saw clearly to elect Walker to the Hall of Fame with 76.6% of the vote up from 54.6% in his penultimate year of eligibility.

If on the 2020 ballot I could only vote for 3 players I am positive that my 3rd vote would go to Omar Vizquel in his 3rd year of eligibility. In 2019 He was also the 3rd on my ballot. Vizquel received 52.6% of the votes up from 42.8% in 2019.

My last 2 votes would have both gone to players in their 1st year of eligibility in 2020.  mu 2nd vote would have gone to Derek Jeter who received 99.7% of the vote and made it to the HOF. My #1 vote would have definitely gone to my guy, Paul Konerko. Unfortunately the voters don't know him like I do and he recieved only 2.5% of the vote, only 1/2 the votes he need for consideration this year.

I will return in a few days for the next installment in the 2021 review.