Now that it’s sunk in that our season’s over, all I can think about how much I love Roy Oswalt.
Why?
Because he was an absolute stud down the stretch. Because he accepted playing second fiddle when he’s an ace on most staffs around the league. Because he played left field! To top it all off, he volunteered to pitch in relief.
He does the little things fans in Philly love. He’s a team player and I can’t wait to watch him next year.
When my friend Mark called and asked me if I was interested in attending Game 6 last night, I couldn’t say no. I’d never attended a game in which the Phillies could be eliminated and it seemed like the most exciting experience I could ever has as a baseball fan, short of Game 7 of the World Series.
It lived up to billing, even though the Phillies came up short in a heartbreaking one-run loss. There were ample opportunities to put the Giants away, but our hometown nine failed to capitalize. The Giants won with timely hitting and a bend-but-don’t-break bullpen. The Phillies could do nothing to overcome what Giants fans like to refer to as “torture.”
I’m left with a hollow feeling. Sure, we Phillies fans have been fortunate these past three years. Going to the NLCS is no mean feat and we’ve done it three consecutive years, winning twice. But this was OUR year. The front office made the moves to put us over the top and we fell short. In the end, the Phillies beat themselves and that’s an awful way to lose.
Next year will be different. Jayson Werth will be in a Red Sox or Angels or, heck, Giants uniform and a lot of the players who were role players in our last two pennant runs will be gone. Call me sentimental, but it’ll be odd seeing some of these guys return with different teams. I know it’s the business of baseball, but I feel like we end up facing more of our lovable castoffs every year. It’s a bittersweet feeling cheering for a player who meant so much to us Phillies fans when he’s wearing another uniform.
I don’t think all hope is lost for the 2011 season, but I think it will be even more difficult to accomplish what we once again. Everyone will be older. Dominic Brown still needs polish. The bench will need to be retooled. The bullpen will turnover a bit. Some of the coaches will be gone, too. And the Braves, Giants, Padres and Reds will be doing the same thing.
That’s baseball.
Do I look forward to another season with the Roys and Cole atop our rotation? Absolutely. I think the Phillies are still the best team in the NL East. But being the best doesn’t always matter. The best team doesn’t always win. Who knows what 2011 will hold.
Now I’ll take time to reflect on some of the great memories we made in the 2010 season and be grateful the Phillies turned it around to be the best team in baseball for the regular season. We’ll worry about next season when we get there. See you in April, guys. I’ll be in left field, cheering you on.
Today’s my last day as music editor at comcast.net. It’s a weird feeling to be wrapping up what has been a pretty amazing 10-year journey at the periphery of the music industry.
I’ll be the first to admit that I was never a great music critic.When I first started scribbling about songs back in ’99, I strove hard to connect the music I heard into some social phenomena. Square peg meet round hole. I now realize that most of the music I wrote about never attempted to connect in any way to the events of the last ten years, save for a track or two about New York post‑9/11 or New Orleans post-Katrina. When I look back on the earliest writing I did for Pitchfork and Stylus, I’m tortured by my prose and lack of style.
It wasn’t until I started working with the now infamous Chris Weingarten that I really blossomed as a critic. Chris picked me up off the music critic scrap heap, having been freshly fired from Decibel Magazine, to work on this new site called Paper Thin Walls. There I finally connected with the critical community in the way I’d always hoped: a snarky outsider who simply didn’t understand why so many critics and bloggers all fawned over the same bands at once. Chris helped me discover my voice and he did something no editor I’d worked with before him had done: he would edit my pieces with my input, often in real-time. It was amazing to work with him on that project, doomed though it was. Most of my best work was lost when the Paper Thin Walls servers crashed. Shame, really.
While working there I met my friend Tom Mallon, a former CMJ colleague of Chris’ and the music editor at comcast.net. He and I often chipped in on the blurby, Twitter-on-steroids news items for Paper Thin Walls. It was a lot of fun. Little did I know it was also an audition for my current job, identifying newsworthy items and then finding the right hook to get people to check them out. I have no idea how many people followed our links, but it sure as hell was a lot of fun.
Then the unexpected happened. While I was applying for a job on craigslist, Tom reached out to ask if I was still looking for work. I was. He told me to get him my resume. The rest is history. I started here at Comcast in April 2007, came on full-time in September of that year and have been running things ever since.
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the things I was able to do here that I probably couldn’t–or wouldn’t–have done anywhere else:
The list isn’t as long as I’d like it to be, but something I learned during my tenure here was that the passion I had for music keeps shrinking to ever-more insular communities. It may be hard to believe now, but there once was a world outside of Tumblr where people discussed the music they liked and shared it with each other. It’s sad to see that go, but I feel like it slipped through our fingers, at least for those of us old enough to remember the music industry at it’s peak.
I know far too many critics who watched helplessly as our stories about bands were replaced by stories about the devices that played their music and then just the apps on those devices. The point at which every innovation was hailed as the next great thing was the moment I grew tired of writing about music. I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
Which brings me back to Weingarten. I’ve been promising to interview him for far too long and I hope that happens sooner rather than later. It may be impolitic to say it, but people get far too caught up in his persona to realize that his schtick isn’t simply “personal branding.” He’s been an inspiration to me as he’s carved out a niche for himself, saying unpopular things at a time when people tune criticism out altogether. If he’s really the last rock critic standing, we should be grateful. It could be a lot worse.
Will I completely disengage from music now that I’m moving on? Probably not, but I will say that unsubscribing from the PR circuit, as well as the music blogs that keep them alive has been very freeing. In the past week I’ve found myself trawling YouTube for stuff I’ve been curious about. I’m thinking about wiping my iPhone, too, and just loading it with Echo and the Bunnymen and Marble Sheep bootlegs. It’s really refreshing. Take my word for it.
I’m forever grateful to Bryan Mickle’s discerning taste for reintroducing me to The The.
Just two days left as the music editor at comcast.net. I feel like I’m rediscovering some old favorites that have been gathering dust on my CD shelf. (Yes, I still have one. Saw too many people mourn the loss of all of their music when during the great external drive crash of ’03-’05.)
Marble Sheep are super great. Haven’t listened to them in far too long. Can’t wait to dive back into all the weird stuff I was listening to when I was a freelance critic writing about unheard music.
Ramsayings. Corny, right?
I’ll admit that it doesn’t roll as trippingly off the tongue as I might like it to, but I think it makes more sense as I move away from music criticism and more into being a general interest blogger. I just like incorporating my name into the stuff I’m interested in or I’m working on. I think it makes it more personal. I can live with it being a little silly, too.
Still love Jack Rose’s music very much. You should probably buy as much of it as you can.