Hello New York City!
Posted: October 1st, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 36 Comments »
So, I’ve got the big book event at the JLA Studios in Brooklyn tonight — doors open at 7 p.m., event starts at 7:30 p.m. I won’t be wearing a Snuggie for this one, but I will be joining two excellent writers — Larry Tye who wrote an fascinating book about Satchel Paige, and Jennifer Ring who wrote a heartfelt book about why girls don’t play baseball. It should be a fun night.
And I hear there could be some pretty interesting mystery guests in the crowd.
Here are details for the event.
And here is a link to the longest interview ever conducted … this is between David Roth and me. I believe it runs 7,000 words. And … yes, it was cut.
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Can’t wait!
David Roth as in David Lee Roth?
I’ll be there tonight–this is totally making my day. I was wondering, though; I don’t know if you’ll get a chance to answer this, but will you be signing books at the event tonight? I’m not sure how it’s going to work. Whatever, I’ll be bringing along my copy of The Machine tonight, no matter what!
I’m not a regular commenter here. But I’ve popped by enough times, engaged and on-topic, that I hope I can be excused for liking to an essay I wrote a couple years back, when I was a quasi-professional music reviewer, on “We Built This City”, a topic I figure might come up at this signing too.
http://www.epinions.com/content_4818706564
It is, unfortunately, one of the best and most profound pieces I’ve ever written; “unfortunately” because it is — in part, among other things — a full-throated defense/celebration of the song. Despite the many very nice comments I got, it was unlikely ever to convince anyone. Joe and other Starship haters, you will not agree with the piece; I know this. But I’d love it if Joe or others would take a look. It won’t hurt you.
Joe,
In the David Roth interview (fascinating, of course), you say one thing that puzzles me: in the discussion of Pete Rose, concerning the time he moved from left field to third base solely for the good of the team, you say “Would Derek Jeter move to center field if the Yankees asked him?”
I had been laboring under the impression that Derek Jeter *did* refuse to move away from shortstop when the team acquired some guy, I forget his name, who played shortstop much better than Jeter a few years ago, so this other guy had to move to third base and give up his chance to be the best shortstop in history. Do you know something I don’t know? At the very least, he certainly didn’t *offer* to move to second or wherever; but I really thought, from everything I read, that he *refused* to do it.
Can you enlighten us on that point? (I assume you know stuff that I don’t know.)
Oh no! I can’t make it tonight Joe! – any other NYC (or dare I say New Jersey) appearances over the next few days? Sad I’m gonna miss it tonight!
Joe, I will be there tonight as well and am really looking forward to the event. I hope you will be going to reBar for the “after-party.”
i’ll be there too… see you all then…
Voxpoptart:
You’ve got a pretty compelling argument there. I’ve at least reconsidered trashing We Built This City.
“I’ll be there, man.”
“I had been laboring under the impression that Derek Jeter *did* refuse to move away from shortstop when the team acquired some guy, I forget his name, who played shortstop much better than Jeter a few years ago, so this other guy had to move to third base and give up his chance to be the best”
I almost feel like this is a “Dark Knight” situation.
Would the Yankees have been better off if Jeter moved to center? No, because they had Bernie Williams. Would they have been better off moving Jeter to third? No, his arm and inability to move to his left would make him a huge liability there. They’d be sacrificing massive amounts of offensive value by moving him anywhere else; A-rod was much better suited to third than Jeter was.
Should that be considered when comparing A-Rod and Jeter? Sure. Does that mean that the Yankees made a terrible choice to leave him at shortstop? Not at all.
Jeter made the choice not to be the hero.
Jeter is Batman.
Ha. I moved to LA from NYC yesterday! Have fun, Joe.
Xavier is awesome.
Hey man, while you’re there see if you can get them to take back Mangini. Tell them we’ll even throw in Randy Lerner.
@11:
I recall the discussion mainly being about Jeter moving to second, not third. The Yankee second baseman in 2004 was, ahem, Miguel Cairo. Does anybody really think that Jeter at second, where his limited range (especially to his left) would be less of a factor; A-Rod at short, where his increased range and better arm would be much more of a (positive) factor; and who-knows at third, even Cairo, who did play plenty of games at third in his career, would have been a worse solution?
Yes, there was some talk about moving Jeter to center. Bernie was getting old, and Jeter had better offensive numbers that year than Bernie did–and might well have been a better centerfielder too, since Bernie really wasn’t all that good (haven’t looked up his stats, but he sure had trouble tracking fly balls).
Dunno. Anyway, my original question was only: *Did* Jeter refuse to move? Discussion of which way did or would have worked out best is great, of course, but wasn’t my point.
Enjoy your time in DUMBO, Joe. Be sure to walk up Henry Street afterward and grab a plain slice (or go Sicilian) at Fascati’s, far and away the best pizza parlor in the area. (Yes, it is FAR superior to Grimaldi’s.)
@ 2: … lights the menorah.
Damnit! You owe us a Snuggie picture!
Dan V.: yay! Thanks.
Joe- Great interview. It was like 10 mini blog postings rolled up into one.
Do you think there will ever be another team with as much firepower/star power as the ‘75 Reds? Will it just be a bought-and-paid-for Yankees team?
Thanks for the plug, Joe. I’ll be in attendance tonight as well. (And my middle name is Joseph, not Lee, although I do prefer OG VH to Van Haggar)
Also, most of what I cut (to get under 7500 words) was from my rambly, essay-style questions. But with Joe’s permission and if anyone (somehow) wanted even more of that interview, I’d be happy to share the two larger-scale Q’s and A’s that cut. One’s about Bruce Springsteen, the other’s about the post-playing lives of some of the Machine guys. I think that’s about it.
It’s official: Fatherhood sucks
Due to unexpected parental duties I won’t be at the reading. I hope that you guys who are going have a blast. Joe, enjoy DUMBO.
David Roth – I for one would certainly want to read the other Q&As. Nice job on the interview.
Had no idea, but will be heading to DUMBO tonight.
I’m a financial journalist, so CNBC is always on in the background of our newsroom.
Today, on CNBC, I saw a Snuggie commercial! Complete with the new leopard print and zebra print snuggies.
And that’s when I new this phenomenon had hit a whole new level… when the Snuggie folks thought that Gordon Gecko would look good in a Snuggie.
I usually go to these things (I write for Gelf from time to time – actually found out about Joe from his previous varsity letters appearance) but of course the one time that Joe is gonna be there I can’t make it…drat.
Allow me to say, Joe, that I think it’s just fantastic that the mighty Justice League of America is helping to sell your book.
…what?
Joe,
I was just checking out the Buzz Bissinger Deadspin chat and your name was brought up in one of the questions. Here was the exchange:
SavetoFavorites: What do you think about Joe Posnanski’s claim that he would “mess you up, Juice-style, two times” in a liveblog race?
Buzz: This is the same Posnanski who has crapped out to Sports Illustrated and acted several weeks ago like he had discovered Dave Duncan when I wrote about him in Three Nights four years ago in much better depth and prose. That Joe Posnanski? He probably still believes in Moneyball? By the way, how did Billy Beane do this year? Or the year before? Or the year before? Biggest fraud in baseball. As for LaRussa, who you all hate, two world series and one division championship in five years.
***
Your statement obviously sounds a little bit more playful than Buzz’s does. Is this all in good fun, or does he have some kind of a problem? And haven’t you explained enough times that Billy Beane isn’t a fraud?
@ Danny D # 27:
I wouldn’t take much of that chat too seriously, as these were some other choice bits of the convo:
“MarkKelsosMigraine: Buzz, what was the Grateful Dead’s best touring year — 1971, 1972, or 1977? And were they better or worse after Pigpen died?
Buzz: I have to say 1971. Definitely better after PigPen died whoever the f**k he is..
—
Theodore Donald Kerabatsos:Who would win in a two-on-two street fight: Lebron James & 1985 Sylvester Stallone or Kimbo Slice & 1985 Dolph Lundgren?
Buzz: Did you actually use your brain to come up with this?”
Considering the history between he and the Deadspin Editorial Staff and Commentarium, Buzz was just playing up the role of the cantancerous old crumudgen to an hillarious T.
Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it was AJD all along…
#4 makes an unusually decent stab at justifying “We Built This City.”
I guess popular music is something that’s heavily influenced by two things:
1) your own personal tastes
2)how old you were when the song was on the radio
Ages 12 though 17 seem to be the bulls-eye ages for loving or at least accepting any and every song that comes out. Popular music is a gigantic part of your life in these years. Indeed, ages 14-16 tend to REALLY be the core years for most people’s favorite music.
Thus, music criticism, in general, is a difficult concept to embrace. Maybe that’s why Zappa said “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”
Garrett Hawk: Thanks! To your points, 1) is certainly correct: music critics can say lots of small, objectively true things about a song, as my piece does, but any critic who thinks “this is good” or “this is bad” are objective statements — and too many do — should be ignored.
2) is flawed, because the most interesting music critics (Tris McCall, glenn mcdonald, Jeff Norman, John Darnielle) are much too curious to stick with what’s on the radio; Norman and Darnielle didn’t even engage with the radio as teens, and neither did I. I first got to know “We Built This City” at 26 or 27 from a girlfriend’s mix cd.
You do still have a point; I absorbed ’80s music as a teen when watching ESPN SportsCenter (sans vocals), “Labyrinth”, “Revenge of the Nerds”, “Fame”, or “Mannequin” (where Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” absolutely did stick in my head). But most of the music I listen to as a 35-year-old has no real analogue to what I grew up with, and I think that’s a common enough part of being really, really into music.
(Actually, Garrett, hang on: I was still only 16 when I discovered the Boomtown Rats, Jethro Tull, Midnight Oil, Tim Finn, and early XTC. Put that with folk songs, musicals, and early Beatles from my mom; weird modernist orchestral music from my dad; and the ’80s stuff from ESPN and movies, then hit “blend”. Maybe your theory explains more of my subsequent discoveries than I first realized. I can handle that.)
Nice interview, but there wasn’t enough discussion of Van Halen.
And there’s hardly anything about golf on that Golf Magazine website.
To DAVID ROTH:
1. Yes, please publish the “lost interview” parts about the Boss and the subsequent lives of the ‘75 Reds. I’d love to read that stuff.
2. Get the original Van Halen back together.
Joe, I thought the Gelf interview was the best thing you’ve done so far to promote the book. Probably in no small part due to the quality of the questions asked by Mr. Roth, and the in-depth answers.
(DR: I’d be another one interested in reading the cuts.)
Thanks for clearing up what happened to many of those great writers and editors at the Star. Sometimes they just seem to disappear.
Heard a great joke last night at a comedy competition: “I know God exists because every once in awhile I hear a voice in my ear. It says, ‘You’re my favorite.’”
Outtakes please! That was an utter joy to read from start to finish.
David Roth: I really enjoyed that interview. Thanks to you and to Joe. If there’s more, I’d love to see it.