pop

3 days until the u2 rock and roll extravaganza.  4 albums left.  u2 released 'pop' in march of 1997.  i don't recall if it was the album's release or the announcement of the subsequent tour that prompted the press conference that was held in a kmart.  i did not buy this album, nor have i since purchased it.  there are a few songs on it that i have grown to like, such as 'if god will send his angels' and 'please'.  i did purchase the 'please' single and the 'if god will send his angels' single because of the b-sides - the version of 'sunday bloody sunday' (performed in sarajevo) from the 'angels' single is fantastic.

as for the dodgers in 1997, it was mike piazza providing the pop.  and i don't mean what folks in the midwest mistakenly call soda.

piazza had a monster season in 1997.  he scored 104 runs, had 201 hits, 40 home runs, 124 rbi, a .362 batting average, and an ops of 1.024.  unfortunately for piazza, he finished 2nd in the mvp voting for the second year in a row.  that's because larry walker bested him in all of the offensive categories i mentioned above.  still, it was the most impressive offensive display by a dodger since pedro guerrero's 1985 season, and was certainly better than that from a pure numbers standpoint.  however, guerrero's team in 1985 made the postseason - piazza's 1997 team did not.  his pop was not enough.

zooropa

released in july 1993, zooropa is one u2 album that i do not own. i bought it, i am pretty sure, when it came out as u2 had earned 'buy first, listen later' status with me after i heard war for the first time. this one got traded in at the used record shop pretty quickly, however. as such, i'm not too familiar with a lot of the songs on the album. i know 'numb' and 'stay (faraway so close!)' is pretty good, but the rest are lost on me. kind of like the 1993 dodgers. cory snyder, jody reed, steve wilson, rick trlicek, tom goodwin (the first time around).

they were all dodgers in '93, and i was at least somewhat aware of the fact, despite however uneventful their dodger tenures were. but i have no recollection of john desilva, kip gross, jerry brooks, or rod nichols as dodgers.


the day after the album dropped, the dodgers played in philadelphia and it took 20 innings before the phillies emerged victorious. the dodgers tied the game in the top of the 9th thanks to some wildness from mitch williams and, of all things, an eric karros infield single with the bases loaded. later, rod nichols, in one of his 4 appearances as a dodger, relieved ricky trlicek in the bottom of the 20th inning. the dodgers had taken a 6-5 lead in the top of the inning but trlicek allowed two singles to open the bottom of the frame. nichols allowed a third phillie to get on base on a botched sacrifice bunt before getting the first out of the inning, but then gave up a walk-off ground rule double to lenny dykstra. trlicek, who had pitched 4 scoreless innings in relief before the 20th inning, was saddled with the loss.

my ambivalence towards the 81-81 1993 dodgers (except for the arrival of mike piazza) doesn't extend to their cards or ttm attempts.  here are some tricky ricky trlicek cards i was fortunate enough to have him sign and return - 1994 score

1994 topps

and 1992 donruss the rookies (as a blue jay)

thanks rick.

achtung baby

the 1991 dodgers were up 1 game over the braves with 4 left to play in the season.  they lost 3 in a row and were knocked out of the playoffs on the next to last day of the season by trevor wilson and the giants.  about a month and a half later, u2 released 'achtung baby'.  i understand that achtung means 'attention' or 'look out'.  so, in that sense, 'achtung baby' could refer to the atlanta braves who were 9.5 games out at the all-star break, but came back and won 8 of their last 9 games to overtake the dodgers and win the west. however, i will suggest that u2 was warning me to look out for just how bad the dodgers were going to be in 1992.

jose offerman seems like a good representation of the 1992 dodgers.

the 1992 dodgers were the worst la dodger team of all-time.  they lost 99 games that year.  5 pitchers lost 10 or more games, including their 'closer', roger mcdowell.  they had only one player with more than 6 home runs (eric karros), darryl strawberry had ongoing back problems and eric davis was a bust.  the only bright spots were karros (the nl rookie of the year who made the team out of spring training essentially because kal daniels couldn't handle first base defensively and todd benzinger was working his way back from a calf injury), and pedro astacio, who had 4 shutouts in his 11 starts.

offerman, meanwhile, made 42 errors as the dodgers' shortstop.  'nuff said.

there's a song on the album called 'so cruel'.  it ends thusly: 'to stay with you I'd be a fool.  oh, sweetheart, you're so cruel.'  that tears it - i'm a fool for the dodgers.

rattle and hum

6 more days 'til u2.  6 albums after today to draw parallels to with baseball cards.

'rattle and hum', an album with live tracks, new songs, and some odd fillers came out on october 10, 1988.  do you know what else happened on 10/10/88? the dodgers beat the mets in game 5 of the nlcs to take a 3 games to 2 lead in the series thanks in part to a 3-run home run by kirk gibson, that's what.  five days later, gibson took dennis eckersley deep in game 1 of the world series.

you may have heard about it.

if i may take some poetic license with 'bullet the blue sky':

in the socal wind
comes a rattle and hum
gibson wrestled the closer
and the closer was overcome

good times, even though i didn't see the movie until it was out on vhs.  remember vhs?

the joshua tree

in the spring of 1987, u2 released 'the joshua tree'.  it was/is their best selling album and it is chock full of good songs.  also in the spring of 1987, the dodgers broke camp without a member of their vaunted infield for the first time since 1968.  bill russell had retired.

there are a few songs from the joshua tree that might fit with russell here - 'exit' could work, but 'with or without you' is probably better.  the name on the front of the jersey remains, but the names on the back always change.  not that that is what the song is about, but the title works for my purposes.

the team itself, meanwhile, was 'running to stand still' in '87.  they repeated their 73-89 record of 1986, but moved up to 4th place in the nl west.  still, that's the third worst record the dodgers have posted since the move to the west coast.

the 1987 team was fairly recognizable in that it had the same folks that had helped win the nl west in 1985 (pedro guerrero, orel hershiser, bob welch, mike scioscia, steve sax, fernando valenzuela, etc.) but it also gave playing time to the last gasps of bill madlock, ken landreaux, and phil garner (although madlock and garner would both play for a short time after leaving la).  heck, even ron davis was on the '87 dodgers.

not that i remember ron davis as a dodger.  i was pretty busy with other things that summer, including listening to the joshua tree. a lot.

wide awake in america

8 days to go until i see u2 live again.  that means it's time to link a u2 release that included two live tracks to baseball cards.

it's not a full length album, but i feel pretty strongly about wide awake in america being one of u2's most important releases, so i'll give it its own post.  the four song ep was released in may of 1985, and the live version of 'bad' blew me away. then, a couple of months later, they played 'bad' at live aid and it was all over.  i was convinced that u2 was the best live band ever, even though i had never been to a concert.  critics (for what they are worth) seemed to agree about u2's elevated status as a live act.

do you know what else was bad in 1985?  tommy lasorda's decision to have tom niedenfuer pitch to jack clark in the 9th inning of game 6 of the nlcs.

it was only a bad decision because clark hit a 3-run home run.  if he had struck out, as lasorda hoped, the game would have been over and the series would have been tied at 3 games apiece, and lasorda would have made a successful, although questionable, call.  lasorda points to the fact that niedenfuer

had struck clark out earlier in the game (when niedenfuer entered the game in the top of the 7th) so it was only logical that he would get clark out on strikes again.  never mind first base was open, the tying run was on third with the go-ahead run on second, niedenfuer was in his 3rd inning of work and that he hadn't pitched more than 2 innings in a single outing since september 2.

is there anything worse than a card that is from 1985 featuring jack clark as both a giant and a cardinal?

well, yes there is.  this is actually a pretty fantastic o-pee-chee card.  the subject matter is bad though.  very bad.

the unforgettable fire

when u2's 5th album the unforgettable fire came out in october of 1984, the dodgers had just completed a very forgettable season.  they finished four games under .500 and in 4th place in the nl west.  the padres, of all teams, had won the west by 12 games over the astros and braves.  anyway, i remember listening to the record around it's release and loving it's ethereal quality and the depth of most of the songs. it was (and is) a good album top to bottom.

i thought about showing a steve garvey card from 1984 in this post, since he was still alive and well in the postseason when the album was released, and he certainly had my attention at the time.  in fact, he was busy winning his second nlcs mvp award and leading the padres to the world series for the first time.  however, i remember seeing an interview with bono when the record came out wherein he talked about people that had 'the unforgettable fire' (even though the band apparently took inspiration for the album title from an art exhibit comemmorating the hiroshima bombing).  in that interview, he listed martin luther king and elvis presley among people who exhibited whatever strength, perserverance and drive that inspired him.  so, for the dodgers, that would mean jackie robinson

it's a roundabout way to post a 2001 upper deck legends card of jackie, but it works for me.

as for the album, or cassette as it were for me, it was instantly shoved into the boom box at home and my parents' car on the road and enjoyed until it wore out and i had to buy another one.