A Line-by-Line Breakdown of "All About That Bass"

While most attention to crowning seasonal pop music champions is focused upon declaring a "Song of the Summer", 2014 has produced an interesting battle for the pop hit which defined the Fall. 

In one corner, you have "Shake It Off" by pop veteran (who is 24 years old) Taylor Swift, a song which, for lack of a better phrase, is what it is: It's not a particularly profound song; it's built upon a few hooks and catchy, inane melodies; it's the very epitome of pop music. Some people like this song a lot but nobody is claiming it to be great art--it's a fun diversion.

In the other corner, you have "All About That Bass" by newcomer Meghan Trainor. The 20 year old has, in "All About That Bass", a huge pop hit with her very first single. But unlike Swift, who wrote a pop song, Trainor's song has been praised as something more. I fully expect the song to be nominated for a Grammy and it has a very good chance of winning it. Purported lyrical profundity is a good way to gain kudos.

Here, I am going to break down, line by line, the lyrics to "All About That Bass", since lyrical content is a major reason for its acclaim. I have little to say, really, about the musicality of the song--arguing about whether non-lyrical elements of music sound good seems a bit like arguing whether a person is attractive or not to me. Though don't worry--I have plenty of potshots to go around!

Because you know I'm all about that bass, bout that bass, no treble (Repeat a few times)

First of all, I'm amazed by how many people apparently think she's saying trouble. Are people not familiar with bass and treble? Am I dating myself by observing that as a child, I learned what bass and treble were through an actual, real life stereo? Anyway, I can sort of buy "bass" as an analogy for being larger since "bass" is a heavy sound. It's kind of weird but I THINK I GET IT. But treble? Like, I get that treble is the opposite of bass musically but can you imagine a body being referred to as "treble"? Does that mean it looks like a treble clef? Treble clefs are pretty damn curvy!

Yeah it's pretty clear, I ain't no size two, but I can shake it shake it, like I'm supposed to do

Here is a picture of Meghan Trainor.

Okay, she's probably not a size two. But she's not exactly big. If you knew a girl who looked like Meghan Trainor...wait, why am I being condescending here? You do know a girl who looks like Meghan Trainor. Several. She's a pretty girl who isn't super skinny. The implication that she has faced any kind of serious level of discrimination for her size is ludicrous. I don't tend to read too much into lyrics as a reflection on personal experiences--to steal a sentiment once used by Ice-T, I don't get mad that David Bowie isn't ACTUALLY an astronaut. But if we're going to make this song out to be Trainor's personal rally cry, it's probably worth questioning the validity of it.

And as for the fact that she can shake it shake it like she's supposed to...good for her. Just...cool. I question a little bit that you're supposed to do anything, or that you're under any obligation to do something in particular, but I'm just nitpicking here.

'Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase, and all the right junk in all the right places

I want you to remember this line for later. I have nothing to say about it just yet, but I will. OHHHHH, I will.

I see the magazine workin' that Photoshop. We know that shit ain't real. C'mon now, make it stop

In a weird way, this is the point where "All About That Bass" starts to remind me a little bit of "Royals" by Lorde, in the sense that both songs are perfect autumn "message songs". Coming off of the summer songs, which are almost uniformly decadent good time jams, people decide they want a song with some kind of lyrical depth, but in both of these cases, the lyrics reach for some low-hanging fruit. Lorde expressed the pretty safe social critique that having money isn't all that important and Trainor expresses here that the media portrays a disingenuous image of women. Like, they're both right, but who is arguing with them? Now, mind you, I liked "Royals" for reasons aside from the lyrical content (until you heard it five billion times and got sick of it, it was pretty hard to deny that the production was pretty great). I don't quite hear the same accolades for the production of "All About That Bass".

If you got beauty beauty, just raise em up, 'cause every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top

A lovely sentiment. I mean that. Perhaps somewhat trite, but that's okay. But let's revisit that line from before I told you to keep in mind. And now you have a mixed message. In this line, the message is that you're beautiful because of who you are. In the previous line, the message is that if you're not a "size two", you meet a special categorization of beauty because, well, boys like it. Honestly, I think Meghan Trainor was very well-meaning when she wrote the song and that she wanted to write a largely feminist anthem, but that she still felt the need to dip into cliches about empowered sexuality--I don't even mind songs about empowered sexuality, but a message of "It doesn't matter what anybody thinks" is quite different from a message of "Take advantage of what other people think."

Yeah, my mama she told me don't worry about your size

You have a very good mother.

She says boys like a little more booty to hold at night

I question my previous statement. Not that I endorse the conventional parenting wisdom that you should make young girls ashamed of their sexuality, but this seems somewhat extreme on the other end.

You know I won't be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll

Isn't the criticism of Barbie's physique generally less that she's a stick figure and more that she has an incredibly unrealistic bust size? Perhaps Barbie is the one who's all about that bass, Trainor.

So if that's what you're into then go ahead and move along

This line in and of itself is okay. If it weren't for a whole bunch of other lines saying the opposite, this line essentially saying "If you don't like the way I look, then fuck off" would be quite nice.

I'm bringing booty back

THANK GOD! I'm so sick of pop stars like Iggy Azalea and Nicki Minaj and Beyonce who forced "booty" (this sentence feels ridiculous on any level so I'm compromising by putting "booty" in quotes and adding this disclaimer) into a dark corner.

Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that

I am strongly opposed to discrimination against people because of their size. I have dealt with weight issues almost my entire life and I remain paranoid that if I ever slip up and fall back into unhealthy habits that once had me dangerously overweight, I will quickly undo everything I have done to keep my health under control. I understand that for some people--hell, for most people--their weight is a factor that, while they technically do have some agency in the matter, it can quickly spiral, and that any spiral that occurs is not a reflection on them being any lesser of a person. If a person is overweight, it's usually due to some combination of genetics (which they can't control), diet and inactivity (both of which they can control but what the hell difference is it to you, an independent human being, what he or she does?). So in summation, screw you for discriminating against overweight people.

But it works both ways. And you can't call people "skinny bitches" and expect to be taken seriously if your point is that discrimination is bad. Overweight people can be cool and awesome and vibrant and whatnot but so can skinny people. So much for every inch of you being perfect from the bottom to the top--this rule only applies if you aren't deemed a "skinny bitch."

No I'm just playing, I know you think you're fat, but I'm here to tell you, every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top

As long as you think you're fat. If you're insecure because you don't think you are shapely enough (which isn't exactly an uncommon insecurity), you evidently aren't invited to the party.

In conclusion, this song is lyrically not for me. If you enjoy whitewashed pseudo-doo wop, that's up to you. But as for me, I'll go ahead and move along.

The Unique Pain of Rams Fandom

The St. Louis Cardinals are a team I root for. The St. Louis Rams are my team. There is a difference.

The Cardinals are the team that everybody roots for. They're the team that people who don't like sports watch because they're the team that wins. They aren't the team for sports fans--they're the team for fans of parades. There are few, if any, teams in professional sports in the United States for whom being a fan is easier than the St. Louis Cardinals--this is a team that has never finished back-to-back full seasons with  a losing record in my mother's nearly fifty-six years on Earth. For Cardinals fans, "pain" is being eliminated in the playoffs or maybe (GASP!) occasionally having to settle for a couple mostly irrelevant weeks in September.

Pain for a Rams fan is a decade of irrelevance and constant threats of the team leaving town. It's knowing that my team, the team whose successes and failures actually alter my mood, may leave me and knowing that a substantial segment of St. Louis will be happy to see it happen.

St. Louis, at its core, isn't a good sports town. That's not even a unique indictment--few towns are. But it's a town full of people who have deluded themselves into believing that the relative lack of passion for the Rams is somehow unrelated to the lack of on-field success of the team. Note, of course, that the popular non-Rams teams in the area are uniformly teams with tremendous, successful histories (Packers, Steelers, 49ers, Cowboys--the Cowboys ones even try to defend their fandom by claiming that they "suck", since they evidently have a dramatically different definition of ineptitude than anybody who has watched the last decade of the Rams). The next fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars I meet in St. Louis will be the first. But everybody has an excuse. Everybody has family in the successful NFL city (yet I don't know hoards of Pirates or Stars fans, oddly enough); people became fans before the Rams moved to town (again, nobody ever seems to have jumped on board with the Buffalo Bills, and if they did during their early 90s heyday, they appear to be long gone). Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.

But this isn't about the Rams losing or even the Rams being non-competitive. It's about the seeming inevitability that it's going to end and that there is not a damn thing I can do about it. And all I will have is a Cardinals team with self-congratulatory, "loyal" fans (until the team sucks, at least) and a hockey team that is eight years removed from being terrible and thus having the #30 attendance in the NHL. And it's considered a joke. The fact that a region whose entire identity is (sadly) built around sports doesn't care. The times got tough and the masses got going to Lambeau. And St. Louis refuses to believe that it could happen again with a different sport, as though St. Louis in September of 1999 was still fully invested in baseball above all else.

If the Rams move, and I'm not going to say "when" they move because I refuse to speak in the vernacular of the bandwagoning shits who may cause my team to move in the first place, it would create a permanent hole in my sporting heart. It will make me root less for the Blues and especially for the Cardinals. I don't think I will be able to go to Busch Stadium, see people trash-talking what losers the Cubs are, and compartmentalize it as something other than "these people cost me my team". That these people haven't earned their success with anything beyond minor heartbreak.

Of course, if the Cardinals fall apart and start losing 100 games a season (it seems crazy, but it seemed crazy after 1999-2001 that 2007-2011 would happen for the Rams), Busch Stadium will be a ghost town, relatively speaking. Not after one season, but if the Cardinals had a decade, say, like the Kansas City Royals had from 2000-2009, an average attendance of around 20,000 would be reasonable to expect. And then maybe I'd frequently pick up cheap tickets on Stubhub and maybe it'd feel like my team for the first time in my life. But it sure seems like some kind of sick personal issue that I would need a team to play poorly to feel like I belong as a fan. It makes me think of the legendary Groucho Marx quote: "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member."

Of course, maybe if the Rams get good again in St. Louis, I wouldn't feel the same way. Maybe that's how I know they're my team, after all.

Audio Johnapedia--Game 5 and the Offseason

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8_5dfo2vik

Charlie

Tonight, the only dog I have ever owned passed away, a month shy of what would have been his sixteenth birthday.

Charlie Brown was adopted by my family in November of 1998, when I was in fourth grade, and we knew early on that Charlie was going to be around for a while—his father was adopted by my uncle, now 50, while he was in college (for historical reference, he was named Spuds MacKenzie). He died in the mid-2000s. And Charlie held up his end of the bargain.

Charlie was always there for me, even if he didn’t know it. Obviously he didn’t know it—even after hearing it thousands upon thousands of times, it’s doubtful he ever learned my name. But whether he really grasped it or not, Charlie was always there.

When my dad and I leapt out of our seats to bob-and-weave after the Rams won the Super Bowl, Charlie was there (startled, and presumably not very happy with us, but nevertheless there). When I needed a hug while watching news coverage on 9/11, Charlie was there. When I was an unhappy high school freshman, totally incapable of making friends after being immersed into a social situation in which a vast majority of my school went to the same middle school which I had not attended, and I felt destined for a permanently lonely existence, Charlie was there. When I overcame my social struggles, and then when I graduated from high school, and then when I went away to college, Charlie was there. When I moved back in after college and when I moved out a year and a half or so later, Charlie was there.

I can say with absolute certainty that Charlie didn’t remember any of those things. I doubt he had memories, really—just enough to know that he loved sitting in one specific recliner in the living room, he hated the sound that a toaster makes, and he had a definitive preference for “human food”. But for me, his presence was valuable in ways I couldn’t begin to measure. It is completely impossible to explain, but I am glad Charlie was there for so many important years of my life. I assume this is the way most pet owners feel—I probably just needed somebody to be my friend, whether it was a human or a small animal, and he was that.

He, like most dogs, was constantly happy. When my family got Charlie, we didn’t even have dial-up; in the ensuing decade and a half, my eyes were opened to a much more cynical world than I had anticipated (whether that was because of the internet or just growing up as a whole, I’m not entirely sure). But Charlie was always happy. Even as he was dying and certainly going through pain, he lit up the lives of not only me but my family. Anybody outside of my family who met Charlie probably didn’t think much of him and I can’t blame them—until he went almost totally deaf late in life, he would bark at just about anybody who walked through or near our front door. But to the four of us, he was a galvanizing ally who kept us together through the enormous changes that happen as a family’s children go from 9 to 25 and from 8 to 23.

I’m sad that Charlie is gone, but I’m happy that he was able to go peacefully, and I’m delighted that he was ever a part of my life.

Audio Johnapedia 42--The Haiku NFL Preview

http://youtu.be/yJEUG9tr9xU

I have given up on embedding, but click this link and you can watch what I'd have just embedded here anyway. Timestamps are there too!

A Hypothetical Question about Barry Bonds

NOTE: This is not a blog post in any traditional sense of the word. This is just a way to post a long question that would otherwise require an obnoxious number of tweets.

Let's say that Bud Selig, about to end his tenure as MLB commissioner and ravaged by guilt, makes a bombshell confession: A conspiracy to prevent Barry Bonds from breaking Hank Aaron's all-time home run record which in turn is now keeping Barry Bonds from reaching the Hall of Fame.

Bud Selig is the former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and is known to have a close relationship with Hank Aaron, the great Milwaukee baseball icon. Under this hypothetical, which I cannot stress enough has no basis in reality, Bud Selig became alarmed that the great record of the terrific baseball ambassador Hank Aaron would be threatened by Barry Bonds, a frigid and generally unlikable personality. And as such, around the time of Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco making their confessions of steroid use, Selig and MLB planted evidence that Barry Bonds used steroids--connections to BALCO, whispers of improprieties, etc. Mind you that MLB is not creating or in any way affecting Barry Bonds's on-field performance--he is still putting up his 762 career home runs and absurd walk rates and what have you. The purpose of the conspiracy was to force Barry Bonds to wilt under pressure while chasing 755 and it did not, though the cloud of steroid suspicion remains to this day.

Now, to recap, we now know that the evidence surrounding Barry Bonds was cooked--the only reason we now have to suspect Barry Bonds did steroids is that he hit a bunch of home runs and he physically grew. But nothing tangibly connecting him to PEDs in any way exists. He has the exact same statistics that he has now and he was still playing in an era in which PEDs were rampant--we just don't have any strong reason to believe that he was one of the people doing PEDs.

What percentage of votes does Barry Bonds get for the Hall of Fame in 2015? Does this percentage change if we can somehow amend the story to include evidence that somehow proves a negative and that Barry Bonds definitively did NOT do steroids?

Audio Johnapedia 41--John and Gabe revisit their stupid preseason MLB picks

Eh, just follow the link. This is mostly just for accounting purposes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_t8MQC0fjE

John's 2014 MLB All-Stars

By request, I created my own MLB All-Star teams. I was asked to judge from a "reward the best first half" perspective--I have no particular ideological bias towards this or towards the "pick who you think is the best player" school of thought. This isn't an explainer--if anybody has anything specifically to ask or just comment upon, I welcome it. I just don't feel like saying "he's good" in 68 different ways. With the bench and non-starting pitchers, I listed alphabetically because I didn't spend a ton of time differentiating guys unless they were on the bubble.

American League

Starting Lineup:

RF Jose Bautista

CF Mike Trout

2B Ian Kinsler

1B Edwin Encarnacion

DH Victor Martinez

LF Alex Gordon

3B Josh Donaldson

C Salvador Perez

SS Erick Aybar

SP Felix Hernandez

Bench:

C: Yan Gomes, Derek Norris

1B: Jose Abreu, Miguel Cabrera

2B: Jose Altuve, Robinson Cano

SS: Ben Zobrist (on the ballot as 2B but is a capable SS)

3B: Adrian Beltre, Lonnie Chisenhall, Kyle Seager

OF: Adam Jones, Brandon Moss

SP: Yu Darvish, Corey Kluber, Jon Lester, David Price, Max Scherzer, Masahiro Tanaka

RP: Dellin Betances, Sean Doolittle, Greg Holland, Andrew Miller, Glen Perkins, Koji Uehara

National League

Starting Lineup:

LF Andrew McCutchen

SS Troy Tulowitzki

1B Paul Goldschmidt

RF Giancarlo Stanton

C Jonathan Lucroy

DH Yasiel Puig

CF Carlos Gomez

3B Todd Frazier

2B Dee Gordon

SP Clayton Kershaw

Bench:

C: Evan Gattis, Devin Mesoraco

1B: Freddie Freeman, Anthony Rizzo

2B: Daniel Murphy, Chase Utley

SS: Jhonny Peralta, Hanley Ramirez

3B: Matt Carpenter, Anthony Rendon

OF: Billy Hamilton, Hunter Pence

SP: Johnny Cueto, Zack Greinke, Ian Kennedy, Stephen Strasburg, Julio Teheran, Adam Wainwright

RP: Aroldis Chapman, Steve Cishek, Zach Duke, Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, Pat Neshek

Mr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Tim McCarver

When it was announced in December that Tim McCarver, seemingly fresh off of the conclusion of a three-and-a-half decade career as a baseball broadcaster, would be working as a color commentator for thirty St. Louis Cardinals games in 2014 on Fox Sports Midwest, I was less than ecstatic. The first World Series I can actively remember watching was in 1998: With the exception of 1999, during which commentary was provided by legendary broadcaster Joe Morgan, Tim McCarver has been a constant presence throughout the most important baseball games of every season of my baseball fandom. And when I heard that Tim McCarver would now be broadcasting games in a capacity which would actually increase my own exposure to him, I felt a bit like Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III. Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.

But in a shocking turn of events, Tim McCarver has grown on me.

Now, let me be very clear about something: I am not claiming that Tim McCarver is a great announcer. But after hearing him broadcast on FSM, rather than during significant nationally televised games, it seems as though McCarver has, at 72, found his niche.

A big part of my evolution on McCarver is the context of the games which he is calling. Which is to say he is not being tasked with calling World Series games, during which malapropisms about alleged doubles that are actually triples are aggravating. And fans who criticized McCarver’s verbal flubs in this case were justified—it’s well within reason to expect a higher level of analysis (or in this case, simply accurate analysis) if you are watching a vitally important playoff game. But in the earlier stages of the season, it has been less of a problem. Not that I particularly enjoy the mistakes, but I can live with them, because it means that McCarver’s strengths are able to shine.

Even his most ardent critics can concede one thing about Tim McCarver—he is an overwhelmingly likable person. Even if you detest his broadcasting, it is not as though you have some kind of personal vendetta against him. It takes a man very comfortable in his own skin, a man with some sort of perspective on life, to release an album of standards while in the midst of a high-profile career broadcasting baseball. And as much as we all may love the baseball season, you would be hard-pressed to find somebody who did not find it to be at least somewhat interminable.

You cannot, as a fan, treat every game with the passion of a playoff game. You wouldn’t be able to survive. In the NFL, you can pull it off—the worst team in league history lost 16 games. The best team in MLB history under the current schedule format lost 46 games. A little bit of serenity isn’t just preferable—it’s necessary. And Tim McCarver offers a fresh set of anecdotes to sprinkle throughout these dog days of summer. It is an inherent thing working against Rick Horton and Al Hrabosky: All of their best stories have already been told on FSM airwaves over the years. And rather than simply citing an accomplished Major League Baseball career as an open-and-shut case for why you should listen to what he has to say, McCarver is self-deprecating and authentic. He is of the Bob Uecker School of Ex-Jock Broadcasting—which is ironic, since he was actually an accomplished player who put up nearly six wins above replacement for a World Series champion.

The era of uniformly beloved broadcasters is nearly over. There’s Vin Scully and that’s it. Jack Buck, Ernie Harwell, Curt Gowdy, Harry Caray, and Harry Kalas are all gone. That Tim McCarver is not an immortally great announcer is an excessive grievance. All we can ask is that, for three hours during a long baseball season, a broadcaster allows us to enjoy ourselves. And so far, FSM’s rookie broadcaster has done just fine.

An Analysis of Purple Rain via Baseball

Thirty years ago today, American rock music reached its peak when Prince and the Revolution, a regrettably short-lived band fronted by the ubiquitous multi-instrumentalist megastar Prince, released Purple Rain. No album produced by an American artist before or after this album has been as great.

Certainly, some will decline to categorize Purple Rain as a rock album because of its many non-rock influences (dance, gospel, R&B, funk, soul, even a little bit of folk in there for good measure), but it is precisely because Prince did not feel obliged to fit his work into an easy digestible genre that he was able to write and perform an album which holds up after hundreds of listens and which has stood the test of time like few others. The most frequent album of comparison to Purple Rain is one of the few albums ever made to have sold more copies than it--Michael Jackson's Thriller. But whereas MJ's blockbuster, released a mere 19 months before Prince's, has an overproduced and dated track for every "Billie Jean", Purple Rain sounds like it could have been released at just about any point over the last thirty years. In fact, if I had to compile a list of the nine best tracks from these two nine-track albums, I'd go with "Billie Jean" and eight Prince songs.

But that's enough of my general Prince adoration. There's plenty of tributes to this album out there. What I like to do is to make completely preposterous comparisons, and that's what I'm going to do here. It occurred to me today, while listening to Purple Rain, that the album is strangely like a baseball lineup. Okay, let me explain. Unlike in football, for example, where there are enormous differences between players of different positions, baseball players all play within what is pretty much the same general framework but there are still noticeable differences at play. Much as Purple Rain is nine songs united by the same spirit but still quite different in structure and overall sound, baseball operates in a similar vein. So here are some comparisons, for those of you unfamiliar with the album or the sport (because I'm sure people who don't know this album will be ALL OVER this).

1. Let's Go Crazy--"Let's Go Crazy" is a straight-forward rocker, but one which has everything you should want to have in a great rock song. It was a #1 hit on the pop charts and features two of the most blistering electric guitar solos on Earth--how this isn't a mainstay on classic rock radio is probably the best argument in the world that unless your name is Jimi Hendrix (and your band is predominantly white British guys), artists of color are artificially blocked from the playlists. But the song has it all--it's fast, it hits you hard, and particularly in the final thirty seconds or so, it is ridiculously flashy. And that is why the baseball equivalent is...

Mike Trout. The only flaw in "Let's Go Crazy" is the admittedly silly spoken-word intro, which is a bit similar to the opening track on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in that it *seems* to be setting up a high concept but doesn't even a little bit. Consider this the equivalent to Trout's banal Twitter account.

2. Take Me With U--This is a nice, fundamentally solid pop song. A late-run single, this song would be a low-level hit at any point in history: It's just too nice and too happy and too innocuous to not be. This isn't really a compliment nor an insult--keep in mind I do *like* the song. I just don't think it's anybody's favorite song on the album. If this is your favorite song on the album, you probably didn't care much for the album.

Meet Ben Zobrist. Like "Take Me With U", Zobrist is predicated on reliability--he is a consistent player most notable for his versatility rather than for being a superstar. Also, just as "Take Me With U" is unnecessarily a duet with Apollonia Kotero, Ben Zobrist is also part of an unnecessary duet--his Twitter account, which he shares with his wife, because apparently Ben Zobrist is of the belief that once you get married, you are no longer your own autonomous person.

3. The Beautiful Ones--The first two-thirds of this song is, frankly, pretty boring. It's a piano ballad that is more or less in the mold of a Thriller ballad (think "Human Nature"). But then, in the third act, Prince cranks up his vocals and LOSES HIS DAMN MIND. Every single word he utters in this song from "What's it gonna be, baby?" onward makes the hair on the back of my neck rise to action and bludgeons my feels. I suspect the only reason this song isn't the biggest karaoke song in the world is because nobody that isn't Prince Rogers Nelson can pull it off.

Like "The Beautiful Ones", Chris Carpenter's career started out pretty boring. It just kind of...was. Nothing you'd give a second thought to. And then, as seen above, Chris Carpenter lost his mind and became, in his own strange way, a legend.

4. Computer Blue--It didn't even dawn on me until after, I don't know, probably a couple hundred times hearing this song that the guitar is awesome in it. That's because, as is typical of many Prince songs, the guitar isn't really front and center. His virtuosity is different from that of the Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, dudes-loitering-at-Guitar-Center rock, in that it is often buried in the mix for the sake of the song's overall quality. But make no mistake--it's Prince's immense talents that make this song what it is.

Baseball fans have gotten to a point of at least knowing who Josh Donaldson is but not quite realizing just how good he is. It's like how people will make lists of the greatest guitarists of all-time and still put Angus Young or something above Prince, who gets left in the honorable mentions. But just as Josh Donaldson is a kind of boring, great defensive third baseman (he doesn't have the highlights of a Manny Machado but makes every play he should and positions himself to go beyond that), Prince's "Computer Blue" seems to fall by the wayside.

5. Darling Nikki--Not a single but perhaps the most historically significant song off the album, it was "Darling Nikki" that inspired Tipper Gore to form the Parents Media Research Council. And with reason--a song with lyrics as dirty as these doesn't usually end up on an album that goes platinum thirteen times. But beyond the words is a funky bit of hard rock. When Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor says he was inspired by Prince, I feel like this song had to be a big part of the reason. The claustrophobia and sexual angst exhibited by the feel of the music ends up saying more than the literal verbiage used.

Carlos Martinez, like the 5'2 Prince, has an awful lot of power in his small frame. You don't look at the guy and think he will fire a fastball around 100 MPH, and you don't see Prince and think industrial rock riffs, but that's just what you get. Also, sexual references.

6. When Doves Cry--This is Prince's biggest career hit and when you think about it, it makes not a damn bit of sense. The song starts with a wild guitar solo and then has another short guitar solo three or four minutes later, with zero guitar in the interim. There is no bass. The song is essentially an exercise in minimalism; it's arguably the weirdest song on an album that, while popular, wasn't exactly afraid to do its own thing.

Hunter Pence barely looks like a human being playing baseball. He has a weird, awkward stance and his swing looks unnatural and yet...he's one of the better hitters in baseball. You do you, Hunter.

7. I Would Die 4 U--Confession: This is my least favorite song on the album. It's not even that I think it's bad: It just feels so disappointing. Prince delivers vocally and he certainly is taking a stab at lyrical profundity--the song just can't live up to the expectations left when you consider that the three singles which preceded it had peaked at #1, #1, and #2 on the charts.

Cameron Maybin is a perfectly fine Major League Baseball player. That's just what he is. If you look at him in the context of Earth, he's a successful person. Not many people play Major League Baseball, let alone make successful careers out of it. But in 2008, Maybin was the #7 prospect in baseball. #8 was Clayton Kershaw. With the weight of expectations comes an objectively unfair standard by which we judge people and by which we judge songs.

8. Baby I'm a Star--God love Prince. You see, I see no reason to deny the popular perception that he is a raging egomaniac because, well, he is. He absolutely is. But I don't mind. It can actually be quite endearing when a guy backs it up. And on "Baby I'm a Star", Prince is leading The Revolution on a quest to show off everything they've got. Play spectacular guitar, talk about how great you are, go ahead and give your weirdo keyboard player who for some reason always wears scrubs his own little segment. It's all fun.

Carlos Gomez is baseball's embodiment of fun. I was going to just go ahead and talk about his bat flips and his trolling of Brian McCann and his use of Fun Baseball tenants like stealing bases and spectacular defense but, well, that picture came up. So there's that too.

9. Purple Rain--This is the song that in the most ways works. It is well-rounded and, other than not really alternating its speed, covers every base. "Purple Rain" is an exercise in musical beauty--its gospel flair is one thing, but the power of the all-time great closing guitar solo makes it a well-rounded finale to a tremendous rock accomplishment.

Like "Purple Rain", Troy Tulowitzki captures everything you could possibly ask for (with the possible exception of exceptional bursts of speed). He has contact, he is a superb fielder, and he can bring the power at will. It's terrific. Purple Rain is terrific. Baseball is fun. 

Purple Rain forever.

Drinking German Beer in the Most American of Ways

Two weeks ago, I purchased a 16.9 ounce bottle of Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel, a beer brewed by a nearly-millennium old brewery in the German region of Bavaria. It is one of my favorite beers in the world and after going many months without purchasing beer for my personal consumption, I decided that it was time to jump back on the wagon (or is it on the wagon?).

It didn’t even dawn on me at the time that I was, on the second day of the World Cup, buying a German beer just in time for the United States to be in Germany’s group during the World Cup. So I have been hesitant to drink it. But now, with the United States three days away from a huge matchup against Germany, I feel that I need to drink it while preserving my reputation as a fine and upstanding American.

So I asked Twitter.

So I have a German beer in my fridge. What would be the most patriotic way to consume it in light of Thursday?
— John (@johnjf125) June 23, 2014

I got several responses but there was no contest as to the best response. It was from Twitter user @lazyrasmus. The suggestion was then confirmed via tweet favoriting from Twitter users @Buddha6883 and @lil_scooter93, themselves fine and patriotic Americans. Everybody involved brought their a-game, particularly Mr. Lazyrasmus. And here is the winning suggestion.

@johnjf125 wear a tie
— Condescending Wacha (@lazyrasmus) June 23, 2014

Now I, like most men of a certain age, own several ties. But for this particular occasion, there was only one choice of which tie to wear.

America so hard. pic.twitter.com/eHCLPqSkqw
— John (@johnjf125) June 22, 2014

Well, this is a start. I can prove my love for America by wearing a United States flag designed bowtie. Is this sufficiently American? Well, maybe for some. But not for me, damn it. I need to make this the most American beer-drinking experience of all-time. So let’s get this started with Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 ode to the American spirit (of drinking until you forget how miserable your life is).

The National Anthems

Out of respect to Germany, I will play their national anthem. After all, we don’t hate Germany. In fact, if Germany could just go ahead and agree to a 0-0 draw which would allow the United States to advance, I wouldn’t argue.

What a bad song. And you wanna know something? That’s the best selling single to ever come from Germany. And from a band who made perfectly good big dumb rock songs before they got into writing the national anthem of Germany.

But that’s just a warm-up act for the United States of America.

The United States of America has a beautiful, diverse culture which can foster so many unique, equally valid components, but if listening to Jimi Hendrix rip off the Star-Spangled Banner doesn’t make you want to run through a goddamned wall in the name of liberty, you can go ahead and move to Communist Sweden.

Next, I will pull the beer out of my refrigerator. I have to admit, the Germans make one regal looking bottle of beer. And before I continue, I should add an important disclaimer: Anybody who hopes to MERICA like this should be at least 21 years old. Additionally, this is far from the only way out there to MERICA. If you do not drink, be it for ethical, health, or taste reasons, do not let this limit you. Representing your homeland is a little like being a member of the Wu-Tang Clan—it’s less about you subscribing to a certain set of rules and boundaries and more about FEELING what it’s all about.

Next, though, comes glassware. I know I’m drinking some expensive beer here, but I don’t want to sound like the beer snob here, but I’m not drinking this beer out of that bottle. What kind of college freshman douchebag would that make me? Answer: Some kind of. But anyway, considering I don’t really drink that much, I have an inordinate amount of glasses that would suffice for the job. My most recently acquired glass came via a fraternity in which I belonged in college, but the fraternity is an international fraternity. There’s nothing wrong with being international or diverse, but for maximum MERICA, the presence of Canadian chapters aren’t going to do the job. I have a glass with a disintegrated Dave and Busters logo which, frankly, makes me sad. So that leaves me with a choice of American breweries.

Ain’t a damn thing more American than Sierra Nevada. Named after a mountain range along the Oregon Trail, after all. Approved.

Now, it’s time to pour a glass.

DON’T TREAD! Now, it’s time to taste it.

The Germans are good at that beer they made. Shoutout to them forever for it. I should take pride in “my people”. You see, on both sides of my family, my ancestors arrived in the United States from Germany in the late 1800s. Four generations later, I came along. And you know what? They can root for Germany in the World Cup all they want. They are Germans. I am a real American.

I. I believe. I believe that we will win or at least maybe get a draw or if we lose that Portugal and Ghana will draw or the winner will have an insufficient goal differential to advance out of the group over the United States. Game on.

I Kill Baseball Part 2: The Great Clayton Kershaw Experiment

Four and a half months ago, I wrote basically the best thing I ever have or ever will write. It is the logical conclusion of every stupid thing I’ve ever written—no less of a source than a man with whom I recorded a one hour and fifty-two minute World Cup preview in which we declared that Brazil's national sport is basketball has declared it the peak of me putting forth objectively stupid hypothetical questions.

You see, I’m not particularly interested in boring baseball hypotheticals like “how would the Cardinals do if they had Mike Trout in center field instead of a platoon of Peter Bourjos and Jon Jay” because I more or less already know the answer—better, because Mike Trout is super good and Peter Bourjos and Jon Jay aren’t as super good as Mike Trout. I’m interested in peculiarity. In the case of my first edition of hacking Baseball Mogul, I dipped somewhat into science fiction (note: as of the time this was written, human cloning is not known to have happened), but this time, I’m dipping merely into the realm of unlikelihood.

CLAYTON KERSHAW THE BASED BALL GOD:

It can be argued that on Wednesday night, Clayton Kershaw had the greatest pitching performance in the history of Major League Baseball. I think I would still defer to Kerry Wood, who was a questionable official scorer’s decision away from, like Kershaw, having a no-walk, no-hit pitching performance not converted into a perfect game due to an error, while striking out 20 batters to Kershaw’s 15. And hell, Sandy Koufax and Matt Cain both pitched actual perfect games with 14 strikeouts. But this is really just splitting hairs because no matter what way you slice it, Clayton Kershaw was super duper awesome. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which his awesomeness wouldn’t have carried the Dodgers to victory against any team in baseball. And that’s where I come in.

The thing is, as easy as it would be to dwell on Hanley Ramirez for his error, it’s not like factors outside of Clayton Kershaw, whether they his defense or luck, let him down on the whole. Kershaw struck out 15, which means 12 outs were recorded by fielders, which means that, since there was an error, there were 13 balls in play. The Rockies’ team BABIP in the loosest sense of the term (one in which the Ramirez error, which was very much an error, was ruled an infield hit) was .077, which is, um, bad. Now, there were a lot of weakly hit balls and all that but regardless, Kershaw wasn’t exactly alone out there, as awesome as he was.

But now, Mr. Kershaw, you will face karmic revenge that you do not especially deserve via your defense. They will let you down. They will make you hurt.

But don’t worry: I’m not a total masochist. I will give ClayClay (this is a nickname people use for Kershaw, right?) some offensive help. In fact, I will give him some of the best damn run support I can. In fact, some of these guys will be really good fielders. They will merely be used, um, unconventionally.

Mike Trout, catcher: For all of Trout’s strengths, as I previously explored, he doesn’t have a great arm. It’s not a terrible arm but it’s really nothing to write home about. WHICH MEANS HE ISN’T A FIVE TOOL PLAYER BECAUSE THAT IS A STUPID TERM. But since his offensive value is too great to ignore, it was important to place him somewhere where his world-class range wouldn’t make him anything resembling an asset in the field. So welcome to catcher, Mike Trout. Hey, Mike Piazza was a great hitter who couldn’t throw out runners to save his life at catcher (granted, he was a passable fielder in other facets, but I think in spite of previous history with Mike Trout, he might survive here).

Giancarlo Stanton, first base: Of the eight best hitters in baseball, Stanton has the best arm and the best range. So I’m putting him in the position sometimes played by David Ortiz.

Jose Bautista, second base: Since Joey Bats (brother of the late, great Billy Bats) has played third base, it’s slightly risky to give him a position that he couldn’t handle to a degree. So we might as well limit a pretty good arm and exploit a relative lack of range.

Miguel Cabrera, shortstop: So you thought Miguel Cabrera playing third base was a shitshow?

Andrew McCutchen, third base: Cutch is an interesting defensive player. He makes occasionally spectacular defensive plays but can’t particularly throw and mostly makes up for bad defensive instincts by being fast (which partially contributes to the spectacular plays). Third base is a perfect terrible position for him. This was the first position I decided. But Baseball Mogul remains optimistic about Cutch, though I question their judgment after reading the final sentence in his scouting report.

Troy Tulowitzki, left field: Tulo has been the best hitter in baseball this year so he HAD to be on the team. But he’s a really good fielder at shortstop. I’m optimistic that at left field, Tulowitzki will not be a good fielder because that’s just how Baseball Mogul works, but on the off-chance that he is good, he’s in left field so the “damage” is limited.

Paul Goldschmidt, center field: There are two guys on this team who have never played the outfield in their careers. One is in left field. The one I’m positive would be a bad fielder is in center field. And the guy who has barely played in the outfield (in left) is in right.

Edwin Encarnacion, right field: You get the idea by now.

Okay, so you know how I said that this wasn’t about cloning? Well, I lied. Everything is about cloning. So Clayton Kershaw is getting thirteen clones. Since I will be inputting his stats solely from Wednesday into the game, he will have super good endurance, but since the computer will inevitably go to the bullpen (BBM allows you to manage games but I kind of enjoy my will to live, so I ain’t sitting through 162+ games of this), he gets Clayton Kloneshaws ™. As for the bench, I want to minimize it. So the Dodgers will have three bench players. Every starter will get a perfect health rating and for the bench, I’m going to go with default created players, who are terrible at everything. They will be at least as bad at fielding as these guys and much, much worse hitting. And I will scale down manager substitution and double switches. Each of these guys would get 100 games if Mike Matheny could double switch them into games.

IMPORTANT EDITING NOTE: If you are a Baseball Mogul player, remember to uncheck the box about “sanity checking” stats. Usually the sanity checks only come into play in small sample sizes, like if a guy plays one inning and records three putouts and then it looks like he’s literally a vacuum which encompasses an entire baseball field. Three Cardinals in my experiences have broken the sanity check: 1985 Vince Coleman for steals, 1998 Mark McGwire for home runs, and 2013 Matt Carpenter for doubles. The more you know!

So an interesting thing happened when editing Kershaws. Turns out he was so damn good on Wednesday that Baseball Mogul literally cannot rationalize what he did. His predicted stats show his Wednesday line but…apparently the system is overwhelmed and spit out some pretty, um, erratic, scouting numbers (don't worry, I changed the health after this point). Hurray!

Also, the Kershaws have been differentiated with new first names. The original Kershaw is now Alpha Kershaw, and then Beta, Gamma, etc. Hey guys, I know the Greek alphabet! I am so worldly! That or I was mandated to learn it in college. One of these theories is true. Anyway, because YOLO, I decided to let the computer sort the Kershaws by optimizing the bullpen and rotation and…turns out the actual Clayton Kershaw, Alpha Kershaw, is the team’s fifth starter. The cloning process has bred four better starters—Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. You may recognize these as the next four letters of the Greek alphabet. Thankfully, generations Zeta on were not nearly as strong or I’d have thrown my computer off my balcony and set fire to it. I’ve seen The Terminator. I know what’s going on here.

THE RESULTS

So basically, I figured this would go one of two ways. I honestly didn’t have much of an idea between the two as to how it would inevitably go, but I was pretty sure there was no middle ground here. Either this team would be a wretched mess, an offensive juggernaut with an incredible pitcher being totally let down by a hot mess of a defense. Or my general belief that sabermetrics revisionism has led to defense being overrated in a strikeout era would be validated when offensive and pitching superstars carry the new-look Dodgers to glory.

Well, I was right. One of either the win or loss column included the total of 149. So either this is the best or worst team in baseball history. But first, let’s look at a game which symbolizes just how much I have ruined baseball.

JUNE 4, 2014—Chicago White Sox at Los Angeles Dodgers

The pitching matchup for this game is Beta Kershaw, the nominal ace of the staff, against Jose Quintana, who has bucked the trend I set forth by being an actual person and not a clone.

Anyway, Jordan Danks led off the game with a bunt single to first base. It dawns on me all of a sudden that…how bad could Giancarlo Stanton be at this? Or Andrew McCutchen down the left field line at that? Is this what teams are going to do, lay down bunts and exploit outfielder unfamiliarity with fielding ground balls? If this is a continuing problem, I will have to go back through previous game logs and hopefully discover that the AI didn’t figure this out immediately. Or we are all screwed. The Baseball Mogul managers will slowly learn more and slowly exploit our apathy before we work for them.

Luckily, ol computer Robin Ventura didn’t keep doing this in the first. #2 hitter Gordon Beckham popped up to the shortstop, Miguel Cabrera, who recorded the out. Which isn’t a huge surprise—Miggy isn’t THAT bad of a fielder.

And then, things got real weird.

“Dayan Viciedo grounded to third for a double play (5-4-3).”

A double play? Kershaw didn’t record one measly strikeout? How exactly did Andrew McCutchen cleanly field contact off Beta Kershaw’s 81 MPH hard curve, fire it to Jose Bautista, who then made a proper turn to Giancarlo Stanton for the third out of the inning? Perhaps players are this good. Maybe social pressures dictated that these phenomenal hitters went to the outfield and didn’t develop into the next Mike Schmidt or something. Perhaps positions are not real—we have merely invented them for the sake of order. Or maybe this is a fluke.

Well, anyway, the Dodgers scored a run in the bottom of the first, but we don’t care about this, right? It should have actually been more damage—Paul Goldschmidt grounded out with the bases loaded. Paul Goldschmidt is this team’s seventh hitter. Jesus Christ.

After three innings, the score was 3-0 Dodgers. This part was fine. But Beta Kershaw struck out one batter and allowed no baserunners since the leadoff bunt. The defense was holding their end of the bargain. A slight reprieve would come in the top of the fourth, when Beta struck out Jordan Danks, Gordon Beckham, and Dayan Viciedo. Maybe all he needed was to figure out the order the second time through. OH DEAR GOD THE CLONES ARE LEARNING!

By the top of the sixth, I’m getting worried. The Dodgers are up 4-0 and Beta Kershaw has “only” five strikeouts. Now, I realize that nine K/9, even when a player is projected for 15 per nine, is perfectly good, but what concerns me is this defense. They—aren’t bad. Please, for the love of Based Ball God, give me some reason to believe that clones will blow it.

The leadoff batter of the top of the sixth, Denis Phipps, got to a full count before grounding the ball to third baseman Andrew McCutchen, who committed a fielding error. On the next pitch, catcher Mike Trout had a passed ball and Phipps got to second. Next, after a weak Hector Gimenez dribbler in front of the mound, Trout committed a throwing error. It was now first and third with nobody out. Eric Patterson came to the plate and…he reached first on an error by second baseman Jose Bautista. A run scored and there were runners on first and second. Presumably rattled by his supporting “defense”, Beta Kershaw then allowed a home run to Jordan Danks, who it bears repeating led the game off with a bunt. Beckham, Viciedo, and Jose Abreu then proceeded to get three consecutive outs, but damage had been done. On one hit and zero walks allowed, Beta Kershaw had allowed four runs and the game was tied.

Welp.

Mike Trout hit a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the sixth, saving some face after his defensive miscues in the top half of the frame, to give the Dodgers a one run lead before the seventh inning began. Apropos of nothing, I wonder what inning the Dodgers have to cut off alcohol sales.

The computer manager did a really weird, stupid thing, replacing Paul Goldschmidt with a guy whose CF defensive rating is inexplicably WORSE than Goldschmidt’s and who cannot hit at all. TRIM THOSE SIDEBURNS, MATTINGLY. But luckily that didn’t affect this inning.

First, Alexei Ramirez reached on another Trout error. I’m starting to think that my Clone Trout experiment gave the impression that cloning an outfielder and putting him at other positions wouldn’t work but that in reality it was a Trout problem. But anyway, after a Conor Gillaspie strikeout, Denis Phipps drove a “double” into the left field gap. According to the play-by-play, he went for an extra base and reached third but I have my suspicions that Tulo blew it. SEE HE CAN’T BE MVP NOW THE MVP SHOULD ALWAYS BE YADIER MOLINA. But next, a Hector Gimenez single to center and the White Sox took the lead. Beta Kershaw overcame another Trout error (Jesus, dude) and going into the seventh inning stretch, the Sox led 6-5.

In the bottom of the eighth, the Dodgers scored six runs and ended up winning the game 11-6. I tell you this for one reason and one reason only—the pitcher who allowed all six runs for the White Sox? Mitchell Boggs. Those of you who are not Cardinals fans are probably confused as to why this detail matters but trust me, I know how to pander to a base.

Beta Kershaw pitched a complete game. His final line reads: 9 IP, 6 H, 0 BB, 1 HR, 6 R, 1 ER, 10 K, 140 pitches. His season ERA increased to 0.60.

This season went well for the Dodgers.

The starting rotation of the Dodgers accumulated WAR seasons of 19.5, 19.6, 20.3, 19.8, and 11.7 (he only had 23 starts. He also got 21, making him the only Dodgers starter who did not reach 30 on the season). Beta pitched three perfect games and an additional no-hitter. Gamma had one perfecto and one no-hitter. Epsilon got a no-no, Delta got four no-hitters, and Alpha (i.e., the actual Clayton Kershaw character pre-cloning) got none. And since he got a no-hitter in real life this year already, the game may have underestimated this team’s force.

The entire pitching staff had these combined statistics on the season: 2128 strikeouts, zero walks, 63 earned runs, 134 total runs. Theta Kershaw was the worst pitcher on the entire team by a sizable margin: He had a season ERA of 1.04 and a season FIP of 1.73. #DFATheta

Amazingly, Mike Trout was not the worst defender on this team. He was merely third worst, with a mere -5.1 lost defensive wins, catching a solid 10% of baserunners while committing 38 errors. Hell, he was even a moderately minus defender in 24 games where Don Mattingly ruined everything and Trout wound up in right or center field.

Miguel Cabrera committed 43 errors at shortstop. He put up -6.5 defensive wins and had a .914 fielding percentage. Jose Bautista was worse. Bautista, at second, was -6.7 wins and rocked 27 errors. I’m still not sure how he was worse but I don’t even really understand these stats in real life—I’m not trying to understand them in this hellish landscape of “baseball” of which I am responsible.

But anyway, now I’m going to simulate the playoffs. I’ve written this entire thing up to this point without having done that! You guys can learn what happens with me.

The Dodgers won the World Series in four games, ironically over the White Sox. Beta Kershaw pitched a no-hitter in the playoffs and won World Series MVP. Baseball is ruined

Human cloning may not be a good thing, folks.