I have a fairly varied professional life. I get to write, I get to work in the music industry, I get to front a charity and help people who are in need. Each day can be different.
And December Gave Birth to a Boxset………..
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Listen to the Music
The Doobie Brothers
October 29th 2010
Hammersmith Apollo, London
On the Road with Paul Cookson
What did you do this week, Darren?
It’s one of the questions I get asked most often but with the least predictable answers……..
An English Rock Institution
Judie Tzuke UK tour
Martletts Hall, Burgess Hill and elsewhere
October 8th 2010 (tour 1/10-18/10)
The Yankees in September – The Pitchers
And September was the month when Mariano Rivera went into meltdown when in the year until then he had produced his best ever ERA. How was it really for him and the rest of the pitching staff?
The Yankees in September – The Batters
September was the month that finally saw the Yankees falter. At the start of the month, they had the best record in baseball and leadership of the American League East. By the end they were hanging on at 3rd best in the majors and the wild card was their route into the post-season. Despite the general lack of cohesion and direction during these final weeks, some lesser players came up with the goods. Let’s begin with those guys swinging the bat:
The Yankees in August – The Pitchers
The story of the Yankees bullpen in August was Kerry Wood. The finest player on the team was C.C. Sabathia. It is fair to say the pitching had a good month.
The Yankees in August – The Batters
The Yankees have maintained their record of being the best team in the majors. In August, one additional factor fell into place – the bullpen. The bullpen which had been previously erratic and with roles constantly changing fell into place with the arrival of Kerry Wood. But before we get to that let’s attempt an overview of the batters – those who were strong, those were weak and those who were just plain confusing……..
All It Could Be
All My Sons, written by Arthur Miller
Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London
18th August 2010
Arthur Miller was regarded with something approaching awe in the post-Second World War period. Seemingly critical of American capitalism, investigated by McCarthy’s Un-American activities committee, married to Marilyn Monroe and the author of four hugely popular plays, he garnered a lot of media attention. Those plays – Death of a Salesman, A View From the Bridge, The Crucible and All My Sons – are still frequently seen on the worldwide stage.
As the years went by Miller’s notoriety, critical acclaim and success receded very substantially even though the later years of his career saw him write many plays which were the equal of his earlier successes. If anything his later plays were subtler in their approach and had less of a tendency to attempt to sum up the moral issues of the day (and the play) in the death of a lead character in the final scenes of the script.
Given all of this, it is no surprise that the play currently being seen by sold-out audiences in the West End of London is one of the four huge commercial and critical successes mentioned above which were written at the height of public awareness of his career. There is also no surprise that a review from the Telegraph observing the link between the story of the play – about a man who allows faulty aeroplane parts to be shipped to the air force for use overseas – and the current controversy about badly supplied UK soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq is printed large on the outside of the building. The play may have been written in 1947 but we are assured that it is still relevant for today.
Both that review and the conclusion of the play may be a little simplistic for my tastes but that shouldn’t detract from the fact that this is a very good production indeed. One of the reasons why it is hard to identify the best performance in this play is because the whole cast are producing work of a very high standard.
On the face of it there is nothing revolutionary about this production. Director Howard Davies previously worked on the play some ten years ago and the stage set here is very similar to others I have seen used for the play over the last thirty years. But it is the acting of the company which means that this version of the play is a huge success. David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker are well known to the audience from their TV work and are on outstanding form as Joe and Kate Keller. Ms Wanamaker displays the necessary mix of distraction, fatalism and strength which are part of the character of Mrs Keller while Suchet catches just the right blend of headstrongness and ebullience which are found in Mr Keller. The would-be-married couple of Chris Keller and Anne Deever, supported by Joe but stridently opposed by Kate, are captured excellently by the twin talents of Stephen Campbell Moore and Jemima Rooper.
This is a production where there are no real flaws. The play has its limitations and has dated but it is well worth its revival as would be virtually all of Miller’s work. On one hand it would have been nice to see some risks taken with the direction but with acting on display of this strength there is very little need to change a winning formula.
The Bronx in July – Yankees pitchers
Releasing Chan Ho Park and signing Kerry Wood looks like a good piece of business for the Yankees right now but before that happened there was July. July when Andy Pettitte went down injured. July when Phil Hughes was relying on high-levels of run support to gain his wins. What was good, bad and indifferent before Park was released?
| New York Yankees – Pitching – Month – July | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Name | GP | GS | GF | IP | H | RA | ER | BB | SO | W | L | Sv | ERA | OBA | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Marte, Damaso | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | .000 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Rivera, Mariano | 10 | 0 | 8 | 9.1 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0.96 | .206 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Logan, Boone | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5.0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.80 | .211 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Burnett, A.J. | 5 | 5 | 0 | 27.0 | 24 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 20 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2.00 | .242 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Sabathia, C.C. | 6 | 6 | 0 | 43.0 | 46 | 16 | 11 | 17 | 35 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2.30 | .282 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Robertson, David | 11 | 0 | 2 | 11.2 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 15 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3.09 | .200 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Moseley, Dustin | 5 | 1 | 2 | 16.2 | 11 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3.24 | .200 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Vazquez, Javier | 5 | 5 | 0 | 32.1 | 28 | 12 | 12 | 8 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3.34 | .237 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Albaladejo, Jonathan | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2.2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3.38 | .222 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Park, Chan Ho | 9 | 0 | 7 | 10.1 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3.48 | .225 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Pettitte, Andy | 3 | 3 | 0 | 16.1 | 16 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3.86 | .258 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Gaudin, Chad | 4 | 0 | 2 | 9.0 | 10 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5.00 | .286 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Hughes, Phil | 5 | 5 | 0 | 29.1 | 31 | 18 | 18 | 7 | 21 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5.52 | .270 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Chamberlain, Joba | 11 | 0 | 3 | 12.2 | 15 | 9 | 9 | 4 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6.39 | .288 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Mitre, Sergio | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6.1 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 7.11 | .308 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 86 | 26 | 26 | 234.0 | 219 | 99 | 90 | 77 | 183 | 19 | 7 | 5 | 3.46 | .251 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Good
C.C. Sabathia. Sabathia is rolling towards twenty wins and very little is getting in his way and when something does 90% of the time he finds a way to get the win regardless. His 2.30 ERA on the month was good enough but his resilience shows up in the Wins column where he added four more.
A.J. Burnett. A.J. Burnett had his best month of the season, finishing ahead of Sabathia in ERA and OBA. He still is unlucky in not getting the run support he needs but this month managed to pull in 3 wins
Mariano Rivera. Mo gave up one run this month and that is high by his standards.When the meltdowns come, they are not pretty but they are so very few and far between as he continues to make his way through an amazing and seemingly never-ending career.
Boone Logan. With the injury to Damaso Marte, Logan has become the left-handed specialist out of the bullpen and he is carrying that weight very well. In a very good month for the pitching staff, he was third in ERA.
Bad
Sergio Mitre. Mitre looked like one of the obvious candidates when Pettitte went down with a groin strain but he failed to take his chance and Moseley is now the guy just about hanging on to that slot. His one start was a primary cause of his ERA ballooning to 7.11 this month.
Chad Gaudin. Gaudin continues to be persistently ordinary. He eats up two innings per appearance – mainly in games that the team has already lost but his OBA on the month was only saved from being the highest on the team by Mitre’s disastrous start and his ERA was once more in the five run region.
Phil Hughes. It is hard to call Hughes bad but it really is only the run support he gets from the team that is making the outcomes less ugly. Whilst he managed to have a 2-2 month, his ERA for the month was 5.52 and he rarely manages more than five innings per start.
Joba Chamberlain. It seems so long ago now that he was going to be the next young phenom on the team. It hasn’t worked out that way and July 2010 was a particular low point and if the rumours are to be believed the month when the Yankees almost gave up on him and traded him away.
Surprises
David Robertson. Robertson has regained whatever it was he lost in the early months of the season and has managed 18 strikeouts in his last 11 innings pitched. The increasing stability in the bullpen is largely down to him.
Dustin Moseley. Moseley produced a good first start for the team and some quality outings as a reliever. He lacks consistency but with Aceves, Marte and Pettitte out, we’ll take one good game in two at this stage of the season.
Damaso Marte. Marte only managed three games on the month before being added to the disabled list but let’s not overlook the fact that they were all good performances. He has not had a smooth time with the Yankees. He’s had times when he looked like he couldn’t pitch and too many injuries but I’m not going to be slow pointing up the good stuff.
Jonathan Albaladejo. Albaladejo has had an outstanding season at Scranton and looked like he was finally to be rewarded when he was called up. Whilst it wasn’t the smoothest outing, he recovered but was sent back to the minors the very next day. There are better candidates for reassignment who are still on the roster.
twilightdawning 