December 6 - The Thursday List: An Evening With The Piano Man

"A bottle of red, a bottle of white
Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight
I'll meet you anytime you want
In our Italian Restaurant."

-- "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" by Billy Joel

I know this is a baseball blog.

I know I should be writing about:

1) ...the fact it is a pretty sad statement about how the Rangers are percieved by players, other teams and fans when they can't even sign one their last options for the OF - a troubled player with injury and attitude problems (Milton Bradley).

2)... or taking issue with Jamey Newberg when he says that a combo of Elvis Andrus/Eric Hurley will be as valuable next off season as Detroit's Maybin/Miller duo that landed Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Caberera with the Tigers this week.  I almost agree on Andrus, but not on Hurley.

Eric may be the best pitching prospect in the Rangers farm system, but that is faint praise considering the awful track record this organzation has for scouting and developing top shelf starting pitching.  My guess is that Hurley will never be in Baseball America's Top 20 list of overall prospects, or their Top 10 list of overall pitching prospects.  As I said before - Hurley is a nice prospect - will have a good career - but is nowhere near elite.

3) ... how much I missed the Monday Morning Manager on Postcards from Elysian Field this week (and mentioning that I liked the Tennesee Waltz theme - by the way the best recording of that song is Tom Jones with Chieftains on "The Long Black Veil" CD).

4)... reminding myself that I knew many of the local fans (and unfortunately some of the local media) would be moaning and groaning about the Rangers lack of activity this off-season.  Re-building a team the right way is tough - ask the Braves fans who suffered through Bobby Cox's rebuilding in Atlanta in the late 1980's - or Detroit fans who suffered through a 116 loss season in 2003.  Just remember the Braves had a playoff team every year in the 1990's and the Tigers went to the World Series just 3 years after that horrendous 2003.  Patience for fans is tough - it's made even worse when local media fans the flames by endless, uninformed whining and jokes at the Rangers expense.

....but I'm not going to go there - none of the Texas baseball news is upbeat  and I don't want to ruin my good mood.

The foundation of my bliss: an unexpected musical distraction this week. One of  my customers called me Monday to offer complimentary tickets to the Billy Joel concert the next day.   I talked my sister, Mrs. Schmenge, into accompanying me to the AAC - truthfully - she was very easy to convince.  Neither of us could  remember the last time we'd been to a big arena concert.  The most amusing sight: instead of holding up cigarette lighters during favorite songs - the audience held up their cell phones.   Speaking of which - the blurry picture on the left is one that I took with my cell phone at the concert.

We knew all but one of the songs he performed and we sang along - my voice is still recovering.  I've always enjoyed a well crafted pop song - hearing my favorite Joel tune, "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" live was fabulous (and, yes, I did hold up my cell phone during that song)  There's no doubt Billy Joel is one of the better pop songwriters of my generation and he puts on a darn good concert.  You can read the glowing reviews in the Fort Worth Star Telegram and Dallas Morning News (shame on the DMN critic for admitting in print that he left the show early). 

It was much appreciated that Billy didn't hide the fact that he's older, has a lot less hair and can't hit the high notes quite like he used to - although he sounded just fine on "An Innocent Man".  At 58 years old he still puts on a high energy show - a little over 2 hours with no intermission - which gives those of us who are quickly coming up on our entry into that decade the satisfaction of knowing that we can still be "cool" in our 50's.

Thanks to my associates at the AAC for the tickets, to Mrs. Schmenge for coming along and singing along and to Mr. Joel for a highly entertaining evening of music and memories.

It's a long, long off-season - plenty of time to talk baseball - and we'll get back to it next week.

"Don't wait for answers, just take your chances, don't ask me why" -- Marla Hooch

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P.S. By the way if you want to get a taste of the Billy Joel concert experience - I   suggest the "12 Gardens" CD recorded in 2006 and the impetus for Billy's return to concert touring.