Let’s take two (straight): LeBron James wins Eastern Conference Player of the Week — again
April 4, 2016What I believe about the 2016 Cleveland Indians
April 5, 2016
Happy Tuesday WFNY!
Last Tuesday, I opened my While We’re Waiting with the following sentence: “This is the last While We’re Waiting I will write for this site before the start of the Cleveland Indians’ 2016 campaign.” So how about that Tribe game yesterday!
Sigh. Ugh. All of that.
The way the whole situation was handled all around yesterday was incredibly frustrating. I feel so sorry for all the people who took off work, traveled to Cleveland from across the state, paid for parking, got all excited…..all to be told to turn around and go home. Oh, but hey, look on the bright side, you can take off another day of work Tuesday and travel back. Or you can dish out money for a hotel room. Whatever, your choice. All of this because it was cold in Cleveland in early April.
I have a couple thoughts about all of this. First of all, the forecast was the forecast. Other teams postponed their openers early in the morning. Why did the Indians have to wait until the afternoon? Second, the Indians later corrected their ticket exchange policy and now are offering tickets to two games in exchange for your opening day ticket. Had the Indians just done this from the beginning and postponed the game first thing in the morning, there would be a lot less angst and frustration among fans today. It seems simple in hindsight, but life is always much easier in reverse. In real time, the team simply mishandled the situation and created the hostile fan environment. It is what it is, I suppose.
The bigger issue, of course, is that MLB continues to play with fire scheduling opening days in cold weather cities. I’ve lived in Ohio my whole life, and I know that it is still often cold in early April. It snows in April. If I were planning outdoor activities, I wouldn’t schedule them until mid to late April at the earliest.
Of course, there’s a problem with this. It’s not really fair to all the east coast and northern midwest teams to tell them they can never start the season at home. Opening the season at home should be a way to get off to a great start. If the Indians have to open every season with a two week road trip in the south, how much of a detriment to their season must that be?
There is a solution. Well, there are several. One is to have cold weather teams open at “home” in either warm weather cities or in parks with retractable roofs. If you recall, in 2007 the Indians opened their season at “home” in Milwaukee. They could also play their opening series at “home” in any number of warm weather teams’ stadiums when they’re not using them. But that’s not really the same thing as truly opening at home.
My preferred solution would be to reduce the number of regular season games and push the start of the season back to mid April. In that scenario, the odds of weather being a problem are greatly reduced. There can still sometimes be some unseasonably cold weather in mid April, but it’s just not as frequent. Mid April is a fine time to play baseball in Cleveland, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, etc.
Of course, that will never happen. The owners will never, ever give up revenue to accommodate cold weather cities. It’s just not going to happen. But it’s too bad. 162 games is too many anyway. Every sport plays too many games, in my opinion. NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL….they would all be better with fewer games in their season1. Sports are not about the fans, though. We should all know this and all have come to terms with this by now. Sports is a business. Big business. Money is what matters most, and that’s why fans will continue to be inconvenienced by teams who have to postpone their openers in cold weather cities in early April. Such is life.
*****
What a shot! What a game!
My Monday sports viewing plan was to get home in time to catch the Indians opener, and then watch the start of the NCAA basketball National Championship Game before inevitably falling asleep around half time2. But there’s that saying, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Well, awry my plans went.
There was no Indians game to watch. OK, no big deal. “I’ll still watch the start of the basketball game at least.” By halftime, though, it was clear there was no way I was sleeping through the rest of that game. It was perhaps the best played half of college basketball in a title game I’ve ever seen. Those two teams just battled, played hard, went at one another, and there were few fouls or stoppages in play. It was fluid, fun, and just so well played.
The second half was a little sloppier and the refs decided they needed to interject themselves into the game a little more. This is their stage, and their opportunity to be on national TV, so of course they took it. But still, it all led up to a simply amazing finish. I’m sure I don’t need to rehash the details, but these two shots back to back to end a championship game is everything that’s great about basketball wrapped up in 5 seconds.
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) April 5, 2016
FOR THE TITLE?!?! WHAT??!https://t.co/aFvWVQDEr9
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) April 5, 2016
There have been some incredible finishes in college basketball title games, but in my lifetime, this one was the best. Just an incredible game all around. I’m definitely glad I stayed up for this one, even if I am feeling more than a little sluggish this morning.
*****
Who wants to watch NFL games on Twitter?
Huh? What does that mean? I sure don’t want that. Twitter is great for many things, but it’s pretty awful for watching live games in which you have a rooting interest. There is nothing worse than watching fans in-fighting over the nuances of the game and seeing instant hot take after hot take just spewed onto your timeline. Overreactions, anger, pointless arguments. All of that. It’s awful.
But it appears the NFL is coming to Twitter. According to reports, Twitter has won a deal for the rights to stream Thursday night NFL games. I don’t know exactly how this will work or what it will look like, but it’s certainly interesting. I don’t mind Twitter as much for neutral games3, so this could be fascinating to see how Twitter does this. Combining streaming media directly into the conversation makes a lot of sense on every level. This is definitely something worth keeping an eye on.
*****
New music of the week
There is perhaps no band more frustrating in my life than Weezer. In the early/mid 90s, they released a pair of instant classics, 1994’s “Blue Album” and 1996’s “Pinkerton”. Ever since then, however, following Weezer has been a lot like chasing the dragon, forever looking for that initial high, but never quite being able to get there.
Weezer has put their fans on quite the traumatic roller coaster ride. They could hide elements of greatness (the first half of the “Red Album”, for example) in their albums, but the emotion or feeling most often associated with Weezer albums in recent years has been embarrassment (see albums “Raditude”, “Hurley”, and “Make Believe”). Weezer could always tease that this great band was still in there somewhere, but they just could not get out of their own way. Many fans were lost along the way, many fans stayed loyal for the whole ride, and then there were fans like myself, who just followed along out of morbid curiosity, always hoping that maybe someday this once great band could collect themselves and put it all together again.
That waiting game paid off for me with their last album, 2014’s “Everything Will Be Alright In the End”. I love that album. There were some dull moments in the middle, a few things that didn’t quite work, but that album didn’t have any embarrassing moments. It tooks some risks. It did the things that made Weezer great, only in a slightly different way.
Now Weezer is back with their latest self-titled color themed album, the “White Album”. Obviously, naming your album after this particular color carries a lot of heft4, recalling the iconic Beatles album. When I saw the album cover, I was worried. Making a “White Album” made me think Weezer was perhaps retreating back to their old bad habits.
But they didn’t. I have no problem unequivocally stating that the “White Album” is my favorite Weezer album since “Pinkerton”. If you’re the type of fan who is still looking for the “Blue Pinkerton” band, you’re not going to be happy with this album. It’s not that.
This is definitely still the modern incarnation of Weezer, but they are once more doing things natural to themselves without creating too many of the embarrassing lows. This feels like a concept album, with so many recurring themes which does, of course, recall the thematic consistency of “Pinkerton”.
There are moments that recall classic iconic Weezer songs, sure. You’ll hear things here and there that will remind you of “Pink Triangle” or “Butterfly”, but they are only fleeting moments. But then there are things like the song “LA Girlz”, easily the best Weezer song since the Pinkerton era, and a song that is kindly reminiscent of the Weezer B-side “Suzanne”.
The biggest way this album reminds me of vintage Weezer, though, is in the way flow of the album close. Just as Pinkerton closes with the amazing run of songs “El Scorcho”, “Pink Triangle”, “Falling For You”, and “Butterfly”, the “White Album” closes with a stellar set (“Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori”, “LA Girlz”, “Jacked Up”, and “Endless Bummer”) that leaves me wanting to start the album and listen all over again5. “Jacked Up” may be a divisive Weezer song, a song that some feel leans dangerously close to a pure pop song in the way something like “Beverly Hills” once tried to be, but for me, the piano arrangements of the song and the infectious vocal melodies just works for me.
We’re never going to get another “Pinkerton”. That Weezer doesn’t exist anymore. But honestly, while the “White Album” lacks the louder, more aggressive moments of “Pinkerton”, it still feels to me like the closest thing we will ever get. I don’t want to raise expectations unrealistically, though. This is not an all time great album like “Pinkerton”. But there are so many elements of that style of songwriting hidden throughout this album. It took me a couple listens to appreciate it, but it grows even more on me with every such listen.
*****
That’s all I have today. Enjoy the rest of your week, and hey, lets hope we can actually watch some baseball at some point this week, yeah?
- Ok, NFL isn’t as bad as the others, but I still think the 14 game season makes more sense than 16. [↩]
- I’m old, and I get up extremely early. These late starts for sporting events don’t sit well with me. Now get off my lawn! [↩]
- There was a lot of fun following the Twitter conversations during last night’s National Title Game, for instance. [↩]
- I do wonder if Weezer will ever attempt a “Black Album”. You have to believe Metallica and Jay Z look like an awfully daunting shadow to take on. [↩]
- I have already done this twice while writing this very piece. [↩]
28 Comments
The aggression was my favorite part of Pinkerton. Also the part where it was released near the time when I was an angsty teen.
I like to pretend that everything between Pinkerton and Everything Will Be Alright in the End doesn’t exist. (The green album had a few moments.)
I love the first three tracks on the Red Album, but after that it goes off the rails. The Green Album had a couple songs I really liked at the time, but I have a hard time going back and listening to that now. It doesn’t hold up well at all.
“Other teams postponed their openers early in the morning. Why did the Indians have to wait until the afternoon? Second, the Indians later corrected their ticket exchange policy and now are offering tickets to two games in exchange for your opening day ticket. Had the Indians just done this from the beginning and postponed the game first thing in the morning, there would be a lot less angst and frustration among fans today.”
This 1,000 times over. the policy swap was such a reactive measure. And the exclusion of third-party purchases (where folks likely paid MORE for their ticket) is all the worse. Don’t share these thoughts on Twitter, though. The Sensitive Mafia will be all over you.
the team simply mishandled the situation and created the hostile fan environment.
I agree the Indians should have offered 2 games right away as Opening Day has an added cost associated with it, so it is just worth 2 “other” games.
But, I applaud that they wanted to get the game in. The Yankees aren’t worried about the extra concessions being sold that day, which likely played into it. If the Indians would have just cancelled before they opened the gates, then I think it would have been fine (happened 20 minutes after).
It sucks all around, but the team did well enough to ensure they covered the fans. The fans were going to be “hostile” at a cancellation regardless of how they handled the situation.
I still enjoy the Blue Album and Pinkerton, but Weezer really lost me due to something else entirely. I remember reading an article once in Rolling Stone in which Rivers Cuomo painted himself as this tortured artist forcing himself to give up the trappings of fame, which he so clearly loathed. Then, throughout the article, he takes the writer with him to various clubs, using the line “Um, I’m in Weezer” to skip the line outside the door multiple times.
I’ve always felt that he was just a bit too faux-pretentious–if that’s a thing that makes sense–for my tastes. I get it. You went to Harvard and had trouble talking to girls all while being a rock star. I’m weepy.
I can honestly say I haven’t listened to an entire Weezer album since Maladroit, and I’m pretty much OK with that.
I still like Hash Pipe alright, but the rest of that album is rough. I’d get into consistent arguments with my college roommate (around the time the green album came out) insisting that Pinkerton was better than the Blue Album… and while part of that argument was me being defiant and trying to stick up for the more under-rated of the two, I do think they’re on the same level.
Thanks for posting, might have to check this one out.
You put it best. They could have called the game in the morning. Or at least attempted to start it.
Just in case nobody noticed, Sashi signed some FAs!
Austin Pasztor, Scott Solomon, Darius Jennings, Kaleb Johnson, and K Travis Coons…
http://www.dawgsbynature.com/2016/4/4/11365676/browns-announce-official-signings-of-their-own-rfa-erfa-players
I’ve designed a 2016 team logo/motto for submission to management…
http://memecrunch.com/meme/BDX50/we-may-be-young/image.jpg?w=1024&c=1
Yup. Poor Rivers had to suffer through success. Even the first track on Pinkerton, an album that became iconic in geek culture, laments having to much sex. Ah, to suffer those slings and arrows of such outrageous fortune….
I was in college when the blue album came out, so maybe I never had quite the level of attachment to their early stuff like I would have as a teenager, but I’ve never understood the hate for Make Believe.
I can’t remember all the tracks off of Make Believe, but I remember that songs like Beverly Hills and We Are All on Drugs never resonated with me. They felt kind of hollow.
“Chasing the Dragon” is absolutely correct when it comes to Weezer. I’m not sold on these last two albums as you are. They are decent, but nothing memorable. Of course, being a ‘decent’ Weezer album after a bunch of subpar 2000’s Weezer albums is almost a revelation. There’s some okay stuff to find in all of their work, but nothing as transcendantly awesome as Blue and Pinkerton.
I’ll concede it certainly has its weak spots, but tracks like Haunt You Every Day and This is Such a Pity are solid even if not in the vein of earlier Weezer stuff. Perfect Situation has a lot of the signature early Weezer style to it.
If we really want to be honest with ourselves they could have called the game last week.
The forecast for yesterday hadn’t altered for 7 days straight.
It was always predicted at freezing with precipitation.
They got roasted for it their handling of it and deservedly so.
It’s a real shame that people who wanted to get drunk at a baseball game don’t have 80 other chances to go downtown and do exactly that this year.
This is the risk of going to Opening Day.
“The fans were going to be “hostile” ”
Don’t forget the quotes around fans too. The majority of these people show up once a year and expect the team to bend over backwards for them.
Yeah, Rivers has never been very likable in my book. I don’t really disagree with your opinions on him. I just like his music when he’s at his best.
For sure, it is indeed all relative to some degree. Neither of the last two albums live up to the first two. But I truly do really like both of them a lot.
The Green albm is ok, but all the songs tend to blur into one another. Only “Hash Pipe” and “Island in the Sun” really have any different sounds to them. Everything else is just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, verse, chorus.
I lost my Weezer love after seeing them in concert with Tenacious D in the early 2000’s. The D opened and just blew them out of the water.
Here is a thread for the people who do not like Wheezer.
Sweater is in my top 5 least favorite songs of all time (factoring in how often I randomly hear it played).
I saw that show in Columbus. I also saw Weezer at Germain (nee Polaris) once. Wasn’t ever really that impressed.
I hear ya. I just have trouble divorcing what a fair amount of his music used to be about from that persona that I felt was largely constructed. But, that’s just me, maybe.
Weezer can’t possibly be as good as their first two albums, because Matt Sharp left the band. He was super important to their sound. Check out the Rentals if you like old weezer if you haven’t already, it’s Matt’s band and they are great.
But yeah I remember an interview with their drummer right before the green album came out where he was all “weezer isn’t a band it’s a job” and 20 year old me just walked away from them entirely. Would hear things on the radio every once in a while but that was it.
Well hey, the Columbus show was the one I was talking about too.
I saw them once way back when too touring the Blue album at Nautica. That was a fun show. I even caught one of their water bottles.
I’m one of those crazy kids who thought (still thinks) the blue album is the best back-to-back rock album made between 1990 and today, and I honestly didn’t even like Pinkerton that much. I bought it and I probably have it memorized, it’s a really solid album, but I don’t think it’s half as good as the blue album.
No love for the hate, it’s ok.
This song has been stuck in my head all day now, so joke is on me.
Serves you right!