Who Can Really Say?

Eddie Layton, the organist at Yankees Stadium since what seems like the invention of dirt, has died. He also played at Madison Square Garden for the Knicks and Rangers, and later at the Nassau Coliseum. From his NYT obit.

When he was hired in 1967 to play for the Yankees, Layton had never been to Yankee Stadium and knew nothing about baseball.

"I thought that a sacrifice fly had something to do with killing an insect," he recalled in an interview with National Public Radio, shortly after his retirement at the end of the 2003 baseball season. "I didn't know where first base was or third base. But I quickly learned within a week, and I started doing the famous chants, the hand-clapping things, and the dun-dun-dun-dun-da-dun."

"And I was the first guy to do that," he said of the "charge."

. . . .

If the occasion fit, Layton would depart from his standard fare. When the Yankees' Alberto Castillo got a hit in mid-May 2002, after going 0 for 14 to that point in the season, he played the "Hallelujah" chorus.

When a Rangers opponent went to the penalty box for slashing, "If I Had the Wings of an Angel" might accompany him.

. . . .

Layton was not supposed to play during the baseball action, but he told National Public Radio how once "I just got lost in the moment" with the Yankees' Reggie Jackson at bat.

"I kept playing and playing and playing and playing," he remembered. "And Reggie looked up at the booth, and the umpires looked up at the booth. Reggie threw down the bat and he started dancing at home plate."

But there were also somber times. When the Yankees played the Baltimore Orioles on Sept. 11, 2002, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Layton played a slow, poignant version of "Ave Maria" after a moment of silence at 9:11 p.m.

. . . .

As the summers passed, recorded music pumped in through speakers cut into Layton's musicianship at Yankee Stadium.

But he expressed no regrets.

"I've had my day," he told The New York Times in October 2003 as he closed his career. "Playing with 50,000 watts of power, what rock star has an amplifier like that? I play for up to 56,000 people a night. Not even Madonna has done those kind of numbers."

The NPR interview mentioned in the Times is here.

Posted by Peter at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Comments have been disabled since the server underwent a heavy duty comment spam attack earlier today. They'll be back in business shortly (I'll announce when that is) after the NetKungfu Babes^TM make some changes that will stop auto-spam bots.

I've enjoyed the holidays so far. I'll have some more about that later, after $359.95 is credited back to my credit card by an execrable vendor, soon to be named. But that's another story.

In the meantime, I highly recommond this excellent site.

UPDATE to UPDATE: Comments are back and the spammers can fuck off.

Posted by Peter at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

2004 may well be the Chinese Year of the Monkey, but here at WCRS it's been pretty obvious lately that this is the year of the toilet. It started with sitzpinklers in August and naught was heard until November when the flush hit full force, and began scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl. But I'm not done. Not by a long shot (you know, when you stand a foot or two back from the bowl and . . . oh never mind).

Today we return to the sitzpinkler. Via Tim Blair, I discovered that in addition to all of the the usual reasons to fight Islamic extremism to the end, they're against sitzpinkling itself.

Q5-: How bad is it peeing while standing in cammod (the english style toilet) but taking tahara or istanja with tissue paper!

. . . .

5. It is not permissible to stand and urinate as this is now the culture of the Kuffaar. However, if one does urinate standing due to necessity and cleans himself with toilet paper, he will be excused provided the urine does not splash on his clothing or body.

Well, I think that's the last straw.

But moving right along, after reading the next link you've gotta wonder whether the Imam's sense of cleanliness doesn't have a point, although I also wonder whether this transgression has more to do with the lack of a toilet than whether one's weight is supported by the soles of their feet.

Sadly, I must admit your humble correspondent has standpinkled without the benefit of a toilet on more than one occasion. Those who would provide details in the comments are cautioned that a) I can delete comments, b) I can ban you from commenting on this site, and c) I know where you live.

Posted by Peter at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I fart a lot enough, and as often as not it's a brain fart. Once when I was a kid, a tore open a candy wrapper, removed the candy bar, and while holding the wrapper in one hand, tossed the candy bar into the garbage with the other. But enough about me.

The Electoral College voters in the several states met on the 13th (maybe they should change that date?) and in Minnesota, a state won by Kerry, the 10 electors voted as follows: John Kerry 9, John Edwards 1. It was a secret ballot -- the electors were instructed to write the name of the Presidential candidate of their choice on a piece of paper and to deposit the paper into a ballot box.

None of the electors owned up to being the rogue, faithless elector. From the Slate link above:

But one elector wrote John Edwards' name instead. None of the electors would admit to having done it, and it's possible none of them actually remembers having done it. (That even a highly active Kerry supporter would have trouble remembering his candidate's name a little more than one month after the election is, sadly, plausible.) So Minnesota's errant elector is not only faithless, but faceless.

But not fartless! I have no idea what this means for Instapundit's long campaign ("Paper always works") for the return to paper ballots.

Posted by Peter at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jane Galt is waiting, but it's probably a good thing she's not holding her breath as well.

Posted by Peter at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eugene Volokh is "wrong, wrong, wrong"! But worse, the error involved vaginas. Sort of.

Volokh corrects an assumption he made in a prior post when commeting about this quote, made about a production of The Vagina Monlogues:

In flyers handed out to audience members at the show, University graduate Nicole Sangsuree Barrett wrote that while there was "diversity" in the show, it was minimal. Women of "a variety of skin colors, body sizes, abilities and gender expressions" were not adequately represented, she said.

Volokh figured the variety of "abilities" referred to disabled women, as opposed to women with no acting "ability". He figured it must be the latter but today admits that no, indeed the criticism was that the show was not diverse because it didn't include women with no acting ability.

Which begs the next question: what was meant by women with a variety of gender expressions? With Volokh already fooled over whether or not it's a good idea to put on a stage performance with folks who can actually perform on stage, there's no way I'm taking a stab on what that means.

[Linked to the Beltway Traffic Jam.]

Posted by Peter at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blogging will be light as I'm under the weather, and have to do the Christmas shopping thing.

Tomorrow's excuse is four hours and ten minutes of hobbity goodness.

Posted by Peter at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I guess he didn't think this was a good day to die.

Posted by Peter at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Will Jason Giambi don a Yankee uniform next year?

Giambi, through his agent but with his chin up, says yes.

"Jason Giambi is an extremely dedicated athlete and a caring and loyal teammate," Tellem said in the statement. "Jason loves the game of baseball, the Yankees and the extraordinary New York Yankees fans.

"Jason has always appreciated the steadfast support of the fans who have been there through good times and bad," continued the statement. "He is determined, focused and working hard to return to form in 2005 and help the Yankees get back to the World Series."

Yogi, his head wagging, says no.

"I don't think so," Berra said when asked whether he would permit Giambi to play for the Yankees next year.

In the same article as Yogi, demonstrating diplomatic skills that could land him the job of U.N. High Commissioner for Baseball (when they appoint one several years from now), says . . . nothing. Although to be fair to Torre, even as a diplomat I think he's heartelt in his comments.

"As far as where he's going to be playing, I don't want to comment on it," Torre said. "You never know what's going to happen. I wish Jason well whatever happens."

Torre said major league baseball must immediately resolve the issue of steroid use. The players' association instructed its lawyers Tuesday to attempt to reach an agreement with management on tougher steroid rules and testing.

"This is not about who's better than someone else; this is about who's stronger than someone else," Torre said. "I think baseball players will have to push for changes to make sure they've got the trust of the fans. That's what this is all about. The only way you get to do this is to get both parties to come together on this."

Torre said baseball cannot allow its most sacred records to be tainted by scandal or doubt.

"Statistics are such a big part of baseball because the rules haven't changed over the years," he said.

Unless something else comes to light, I think Giambi will report for camp and start the regular season, barring physical problems the likes of which I can only speculate about after the bizarre injuries that benched him last year. Purely from a team performance standpoint, I hope he knocks the stitches off the ball. If he does it will be very interesting to watch the fan reaction, which I think will drive the boo birds away.

Remember, the only thing we've got right now is what is reported to be a part of his testimony. The neither MLB nor the Yankees have the transcript, but only a newspaper report of a partial transcript. If nothing else comes from the continuing investigation or eventual Balco trial/plea deals, Giambi remains smeared but not guilty.

Posted by Peter at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mystery Pollster continues to follow-up on the election tracking polls (here, here, and here only for example), and it's always good stuff. Since the election if there's been a polling story in the news, or a new theory/rumor floating around, MP's pretty much covered it, explained it, or exposed it. More than any other blog I read, his is like a seminar unfolding in real time. You might miss sessions 4 and 5, but you'll eventually want to go back and read them after getting to session 10. That sounds like it could be a criticism but in fact, that's why the blog is so good.

Beldar is more cynical about polling:

I've stated before my view that pollsters, from the right or the left, are witch doctors practicing a pernicious brand of quackery; but politicians and would-be political savants from both the right and the left, and especially from the left, still take them seriously.

He excerpts from a New Yorker article that's not yet online:

The really salient demographic statistic from the election is one that most Democrats probably don't even want to think about: If white men could not vote, Kerry would have defeated Bush by seven million votes.

and hilariously responds:

To which Beldar says: "Piffle and balderdash." Or in the unabridged West Texas translation, "Ain't none o' yew boys got the sense to pee yer pants iff'n yer leg's on fire."

He finishes with a point counter-point involving the concluding paragraph of the New Yorker piece, which I'm not quoting because it would be too much of a pain to format in html -- so just scroll down and look for the paragraph with the alternating standard, bold, and blue colored text.

I have a problem with this stuff about how whether the Dems did well because Kerry increased Gore's vote total by X million, or Bush because he beat his earlier vote total by Y million. (Kerry did five million better, Bush 9 million better). Beldar seems to think Bush's increase is impressive in a defining electoral sense -- that it holds tidings for future elections. I'm not so sure.

But I think it's silly to measure these vote totals only against the last election's totals because there were so many more voters this year. The size of the pie increased, and to a large degree we're arguing about how that slice was split between the two. We'd been averaging a turnout of around 50% or lower in recent elections -- in this election we got really close to 60% (and my numbers are rough here -- maybe we beat that). I think it's been an old saw of the Democrats that increasing turnout would always favor their party and that notion took a real beating in this election. That's important, no doubt, but the real question for each party in the next election is "How do we get that extra 10% (or our portion of it) to come back and vote again this year?" Because if they don't, then aren't we back to square one?

And while I share Beldar's frustrations with poll interpretation, Mystery Pollster remains a credible voice for the profession. Remember -- statistics don't lie -- people do.

[Linked to the Beltway Traffic Jam.]

Posted by Peter at 8:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

UPDATE 01/12/06: This post has been updated here.

Instapundit is looking for advice on iPods. He's not sure whether to get the iPod Mini or the 40gb model, but figures the 20gb model is the compromise in the middle that he doesn't want.

Here's my experience. The iPod mini is the compromise, and you should only buy one if you cannot afford the 20gb or 40 gb models. It's physically smaller than the others, but that's a marginal advantage when you consider just how small iPods are already. And if size is really that important, then you don't want to consider the 40gb model, which is slightly larger than the 20gb.

As between the 20gb and 40gb, I own the 20 gigger, on which I've got 2,200 songs with 6.8 gb of space remaining. (Most of my songs are ripped at 192kb/s rather than 128kb/s, so they take up a bit more space). Although I don't expect it to happen soon, it's obvious to me that I could conceivably run out of space before the gizmo's useful life is up. Given how storage space is always used up more quickly than we think it will be, my advice is get the most storage space you can afford. When you consider just how little storage space the Mini has, it really isn't competitive in my view.

Last, (and I assume Glenn doesn't need this advice) what I tell anyone thinking about buying an iPod is that they need to understand exactly what it does and doesn't do. What does it do? It makes the music collection stored on your Mac or PC portable in the sense that you can listen to those songs anywhere. It doesn't make them portable in the sense that you can easily move songs off your iPod onto other machines.

It's not easy to copy songs off an iPod. The device is designed to copy songs ON TO it, and to do that you've got to have songs on your PC or Mac in the first place. If you have a collection of ripped music already, or want to build one and carry it around with you, then the iPod is great. If you think you're going to get an iPod, go to your friends house, grab his music, and then copy it FROM your iPod to your PC when you get back home, well you'll learn quickly this isn't the easiest thing to do. Yeah, you can do it, but it requires some work-arounds that aren't for everyone.

Oh -- and although I haven't done it (yet), consider getting the extended warranty. I've already had my iPod die on me and although it was replaced, I can easily imagine being frustrated and disappointed once the one year warranty is up. I generally don't get extended warranties, but think in this case it's a good idea.

Posted by Peter at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Via Jeff Jarvis, PunditGuy quotes the LA Times's Tim Rutten on why Dan Rather got the boot. It was the ratings, stupid. Punditguy:

That's the truth, and the fact that Rutten (being a member of the MSM himself) is willing to put it that plainly is impressive. Dan has no one to blame but himself. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if he's looked in that mirror yet.

I think the only thing Rather had going for him in the last several (many?) years was his reputation, and when that was gone there wasn't any reason to maintain him as the flagship journalist of the network. You know, the last straw on the camel and all that.

I know I'm going out on a limb here but cut me some slack guys.

[Linked to the Beltway Traffic Jam.]

Posted by Peter at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Those who shit in glass outhouses, shouldn't . . . shouldn't what? Pass kidney stones?

Via Outside the Beltway.

Posted by Peter at 6:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds are in the news the last two days. Their grand jury testimony last winter has been leaked, and both stars are now reveal as having admitted taking steroids, although Bonds denied knowing that's what they were. Dave Pinto offers an interesting defense of sorts on their behalf, agreeing with Tim Kurkjian that Pete Rose's foul against baseball was worse.

One difference between the two situations is that baseball deeply fears gambling because it leads to players throwing games. Steroids are the opposite -- players take them to perform better so that their team wins (or the player gets a bigger contract). I'm not sure how that plays out in the larger picture of what baseball should do about the scandal, but it is a difference.

Anyway, earlier today while listening to the replacement iPod, Billy Joel sang a lyric I'd forgotten about -- from 52nd Street's Zanziber, here's the first two lines following the first run through the chorus:

Rose, he knows he's such a credit to the game
But the Yankees grab the headlines every time

I wonder if Joel changed the lyrics after Rose's downfall?

Posted by Peter at 7:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stupid is as stupid does.

Posted by Peter at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jeff Jarvis links to a justly praised NY Times Op-Ed by Eugene Volokh today, but that's not why I'm linking to Jarvis.

Here's the first phrase in his first sentence: "Eugene Volokh rights a superb op-ed in today NY Times". Yes, he wrote "rights" instead of "writes".

I due that all the time and hope I catch most of them. But if I'm making the same mistakes as a pro, then I must be . . . .

Posted by Peter at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Provacative, and highly recommended. [Behind a free subscription wall].

Via Instapundit, who links to this response, sent as an email to Andrew Sullivan.

Posted by Peter at 6:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The bat that Babe Ruth used to hit the first home run in Yankee Stadium, in a winning game against the Red Sox, is for sale tomorrow at Sotheby's. Sorry for the short notice.

My questions - can anyone even imagine some memorabilia of comparable value? This bat has the greatest player in the most famous stadium against their legendary rival - try and top that.

Secondly, does this bat stay in the US, or go to Japan? Ahhh!

I have a rooting interest - my son and some dads were invited to a showing last night, and the display is as cool as you might hope.

I bid 3 quatloos. [sigh.]

Posted by Peter at 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is pretty cool.

The only entertainer I've met after a performance is this guy. His family lived across the street from my family when I was a kid and the families became close friends. He's been on the road for almost 40 years now I'm guessing. I last saw him in 1999, I guess, and after that show he joined us in the bar for drinks and some snacks. I hadn't seen him in 20 years and it seemed more like 20 days. I only wish he'd post his show schedule on the website.

He ain't Kevin Spacey, but then I did get to have those drinks with him. And back in the 60's he and his wife performed a number or two at a party in my parents house, around the time of his acclaimed off-Broadway show. I always like Spacey, but I don't feel cheated.

Posted by Peter at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I guess I have a hard time resisting the urge to toilet blog. I'm not alone.

Posted by Peter at 7:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)