Steve Harley made me smile – some thoughts

In 1991, Steve Harley played the Greenbelt Arts Festival at Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire. Greenbelt had it roots in the Christian music scene, and for some Steve was a surprisingly inclusion. For others – who wanted to check your faith credentials at the door, he perhaps shouldn’t have been there.

He chided the audience jokingly about why they had not been in church this morning instead of hanging around in a field in Northampton. What they hadn’t realised was that at the time Mr Harley was warden at the church he was part of in his home neighbourhood.

Steve suffered with polio as an infant and as a child spent at least 4 long periods in hospital. This hobbled him physically, but it gave him room to develop his love of words and to develop his art.

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The Best New York Yankees of 2023

Each season, we award to players rankings according to outstanding performances during the season. Using this system, here’s how the Batters and Pitchers of the New York Yankees placed:

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New York Yankees Diary – September 9th, 2023

Mike Jerzembeck.

Mike Jerzembeck?

Mike Jerzembeck was introduced to the crowd at Old Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium, and a large percentage of the crowd (including those in the row near me) seemed to collectively go “who?”. Especially since Old Timers’ Day concentrated on the squad of players who played for the Yankees in 1998, and Jerzembeck was one of them.

Now, the 1998 Yankees are one of less than a handful of teams who are considered when the question is raised as to who is perhaps the greatest club Major Leagues history so to even be a minor figure in that story is quite something…

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The New York Yankees in August – Part Two – The Pitchers (2023)

So, we are thinking about the Yankees’ performance in August, and obviously based on their record during the month (10 wins – 18 losses), you wouldn’t expect an upswing in the quality of their pitching performances but in reality there were some positive signs.

Indeed, in the bullpen there were as many significant improvements as there were players who made a significant decline.

Let’s see who the strong performers were, and those who buckled under the strain:

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The New York Yankees in August – Part One – The Batters (2023)

So, you thought the July Yankees could not get any worse in August?

Wrong! 10 wins -15 losses in July, 10-18 in August.

At the beginning of the month, they had been deliberating whether to buy or sell at the trade deadline. At the deadline, they really did neither. Their only change was to bring in right-handed relief pitcher Keynan Middleton (from the Chicago White Sox) for another right-hander from their farm system, Juan Carela.

And by the end of August, as they were out of contention and the rosters were due to expand, they decide to do a little cleaning house. Predictably but expensively, they cut Josh Donaldson. Also going through the out door was Greg Allen, who wasn’t being used much, but did bring something to the team. More surprisingly, they placed Harrison Bader on waivers.

Let’s see what else happened:

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The New York Yankees in Spring Training – Update 3

(with just a little insight into the first few days of the season!)

Well, if you compare my previous two articles on the Yankees in Spring Training,(https://twilightdawning.com/2016/03/18/the-new-york-yankees-in-spring-training-2016-update-1/https://twilightdawning.com/2016/03/25/the-new-york-yankees-in-spring-training-2016-update-2/ ), with what has actually happened you’ll find that I was pretty close to correctly predicting the opening day roster.

But I was lucky!

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Songs and Stories

Who: Judie Tzuke

What: Songs and Stories

Where: Ravenscourt Arts, Hammersmith

When: 20th February 2015

Ravenscourt Arts is a delightful little venue. Seating 160 with immaculate sound reproduction, great lights, an engaging atmosphere and well-thought-out design, it is a great place to host a concert. Consequently, it is the ideal place for the kind of tasty dish that was served up on Friday night.

Tonight is the “secret” launch night for Judie Tzuke’s first ever full acoustic tour in a long and successful career. There’s some joke about the “pineapple gig” that the all-invited audience seem to be in on but we don’t need to dwell on that. What we have is an acoustic set which spans the bases from the debut album “Welcome to the Cruise” right up to the as-yet-unreleased “Woman Overboard”.

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