Sunday, April 12, 2026

My Comments on Bruce's Journal

 


This is journal entry #5400 since October 2005, so I thought I should make some comments about this journal:
  • There have been over 8,500,000 hits to this journal, but how many of them are real and how many of them are from robots?
  • What people access this journal regularly?  I understand that people choose to be anonymous when they surf the web.  I am aware of a few regular readers who access it after I post the most recent entry on Facebook. Are my readers acquaintances or complete strangers?
  • Very few people make comments either on the journal directly or on Facebook.  Does my journal have any impact on anyone, or is it just a vanity press for me?
  • Some of the things I reported never happened.  Paul McCartney never teamed up with Bob Dylan.  There was never a movie based on Dylan's album Blood on the Tracks.
  • Many of the YouTube videos I posted were taken down for various reasons.  It would be a very time-consuming project for me to revise the entries with "defunct" videos.
  • Likewise, many of the linksin my entries are no longer valid.


Friday, April 10, 2026

Diamondbacks 7 Mets 1 at a Cold Citi Field

 


Last night's game was part of our 20-Game package, so we went and dressed warmly as the temperature was in the 40s.  The two earlier games in this series were moved up to 4 PM due to the cold weather, but Thursday's game started at 7 PM.

The game started well as Luis Robert Jr. hit a first-inning home run.  That lead held up until the 7th inning when the starting pitcher, Nolan McLean, began to falter.  The following relief pitchers, Luke Weaver and Luis Garcia, were ineffective.  The Mets lost 7-1.




Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Bob Dylan and Question Mark

 


The other day Bob Dylan performed in Saginaw, Michigan, the home of Rudy Martinez, professionally known as Question Mark.  His group, The Mysterians, had a big hit in 1966 called 96 Tears.


Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Len Levin of SABR Has Passed Away at Age 95 (Society for American Baseball Research)

 


For several years after my retirement, I was active in the SABR Games Project.  Authors would research and write accounts of professional baseball games.  As Coordinator of Fact Checking, I either reviewed the game myself or sent it to another team member.  After the game was fact-checked, I would send the manuscript to Len Levin to copyedit before publication.  I must have exchanged hundreds of emails with him over the years. I did meet him at two SABR National Meetings. It was always a pleasure to work with him.

Obituary by Jacob Pomrenke, SABR's Director of Editorial Content

Comments about Len by John Fredland, Coordinator of the Games Project:

Sad news for the Games Project and SABR in general: Len Levin, who served as copy-editor on a remarkable variety of SABR publications, including nearly every Games Project article during my five-and-a-half years as committee chair, died today at age 95. Len's reviews of our articles facilitated our weekly output until he broke his hip last December, and he struggled with his health after that.

I will miss how Len's revised articles arrived in my inbox overnight, with countless improvements in phrasing and citations brought into compliance with the SABR Style Guide. He once told me he worked on the articles after his wife Linda went to bed at night. He was born about a month after Ernie Banks and three months before Willie Mays, when the Philadelphia Athletics were defending World Series champions. He was a great teammate, and it is heartbreaking that he is gone.





Saturday, April 4, 2026

Radio Log Saturday April 4th

 


Here is a list of radio stations I heard today:
  • 1010 WINS
  • WFUV
  • Classic AT 40 with Casey Kasem
  • Elvis Radio on SiriusXM
  • Rewound Radio
  • 60s Gold on SiriusXM
  • WBGO - Rhythm Revue with Felix Hernandez
  • WABC - Cousin Brucie

Thursday, April 2, 2026

Passover Seder in the NYC Subway

 


The story on the TV News last night states that this seder took place on the #6 train.

  • A rapper known as Kosha Dillz started hosting pop-up Passover Seders on subway trains three years ago.  It is obviously an abbreviated version.
  • The moving celebration brings together riders of different backgrounds, including some attending their first Seder
  • Organizers say the quick, unconventional format is designed for people who might otherwise skip the holiday
  • Participants say the experience is both meaningful and uniquely New York
I think there should have been a seder on a New Jersey Transit train.  With their history of long delays, there could have been a complete seder.

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Everybody Plays the Fool by the Main Ingredient on April Fools Day

 


I have to be careful about what I read on the Internet on April Fools Day.  Somebody stated that the Mets traded Richard Lovelady to the Baltimore Orioles for Pete Alonso.
 
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