Commented out

Haloscan - the service I had used for the comments since the blog's inception in 2005 - is apparently about to be no more. Therefore, I edited the template so that it's now using Blogger's comment form. Unfortunately, this means that every comment in the history of the blog just went down the hatch. This probably isn't that big of a deal - it had already happened at least once, a few years ago - but just FYI.

Capitol steps

First of all, happy birthday to my dad.

The Capitol Dome Project is still in its infancy, but with three capitols down, I think we're seriously on the road to doing this, however long it might take. Nevertheless, I've added a link to the top right of the blog, just below another project that will eventually get done, My Year of Bonds, which is pretty much named ironically at this point.

For no real reason, here's a compilation of my relationship to the 50 capitals: those visited for the project, those I've been to (including drive-throughs or very minimal stays), those I haven't been to but whose states I've visited, and those whose states have eluded me thus far. To some respect this might give you a slight idea of how long it might take me to get to some of these capitals barring an extremely concerted effort (it'll probably take that for a few of them anyway, of course).

FINISHED FOR PROJECT
Carson City, NV
Raleigh, NC
Richmond, VA

BEEN TO/THROUGH CITY
Phoenix, AZ
Denver, CO (brief overnight stay related to air travel)
Hartford, CT (drive-through only)
Atlanta, GA
Springfield, IL (drive-through only)
Indianapolis, IN (drive-through only)
Des Moines, IA (drive-through only)
Boston, MA
Lansing, MI
Saint Paul, MN (drive-through only)
Trenton, NJ
Albany, NY (use of airport, only as young child)
Columbus, OH (drive-through only)
Providence, RI (possibly drive-through only, only as young child)
Nashville, TN (drive-through only)
Austin, TX
Salt Lake City, UT (use of airport only)
Madison, WI

BEEN TO STATE, BUT NOT CITY
Montgomery, AL
Sacramento, CA
Dover, DE
Frankfort, KY
Baton Rouge, LA
Annapolis, MD
Jackson, MS
Jefferson City, MO
Concord, NH
Harrisburg, PA
Montpelier, VT
Olympia, WA
Charleston, WV

NEVER BEEN TO STATE
Juneau, AK
Little Rock, AR
Tallahassee, FL
Honolulu, HI
Boise, ID
Topeka, KS
Augusta, ME
Helena, MT
Lincoln, NE
Santa Fe, NM
Bismarck, ND
Oklahoma City, OK
Salem, OR
Columbia, SC
Pierre, SD
Cheyenne, WY

Airport update

Because I feel like keeping track somewhere, here's the updated list of airports I've been to, which expanded by a few in the past year, as I last updated this on 1/9/09. As before, comments only on the additions. We go from 40 - 28 domestic, 12 international - to 45, 33 domestic and 12 international.

Domestic
ALB - Albany, NY
ATL - Atlanta, GA
AUS - Austin, TX
BOS - Boston, MA
CLE - Cleveland, OH
CLT - Charlotte, NC
CMH - Columbus, OH

CVG - Cincinnati, OH. Technically this is "Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky," and I think the CVG refers to Covington, KY - but the metro area served is that of Cincinnati, and it's the only major airport there, so that's how I'll refer to it. We flew in here for one of Alma's interviews.
DCA - Washington National, DC
DEN - Denver, CO
DFW - Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
EWR - Newark, NJ
IAD - Washington Dulles, DC
IAH - Houston, TX
JFK - New York JFK, NY
LAX - Los Angeles, CA
MDW - Chicago Midway, IL
MOB - Mobile, AL
MSP - Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
MSY - New Orleans, LA
OAK - Oakland, CA
ORD - Chicago O'Hare, IL
PHL - Philadelphia, PA
PHX - Phoenix, AZ

RDU - Raleigh/Durham, NC. We actually first went here last summer to visit Alma's sister, and did so again this month.

RIC - Richmond, VA. Alma's final interview was in Richmond.

RNO - Reno, NV. Alma's fourth interview was in Reno.
SAN - San Diego, CA
SAT - San Antonio, TX

SEA - Seattle/Tacoma, WA. Flew in here for my Seattle business trip last August.
SFO - San Francisco, CA
SJC - San Jose, CA
SLC - Salt Lake City, UT

International
AKL - Auckland, New Zealand
BNE - Brisbane, Australia
CCS - Caracas, Venezuela
CPT - Cape Town, South Africa
JNB - Johannesburg, South Africa
LGW - London Gatwick, UK
LHR - London Heathrow, UK
MNL - Manila, Philippines
NRT - Tokyo Narita, Japan
SID - Sal Island, Cape Verde
SYD - Sydney, Australia
TBH - Tablas, Romblon, Philippines

We were actually in seven different airports (and all four time zones) in a five-day span at one point in January - between the 19th and the 23rd, we were in Midway, Phoenix (twice), Reno, Charlotte, Richmond, JFK and O'Hare. But of course only two of those were new.

A note about home runs allowed

Since Jon Heyman loves to talk about them as regards Bert Blyleven. Blyleven does have two of the three biggest HR allowed seasons in history:

1. Bert Blyleven, 1986 - 50
2. Jose Lima, 2000 - 48
3t. Bert Blyleven, 1987 - 46
3t. Robin Roberts, 1956 - 46

But:

Blyleven, 1986: 17-14, 4.01 ERA (107 ERA+)
Blyleven, 1987: 15-12, 4.01 ERA (115 ERA+)
Roberts, 1956: 19-18, 4.45 ERA (84 ERA+)
Lima, 2000: 7-16, 6.65 ERA (75 ERA+)

Lima and Roberts both led the league in ER allowed. Blyleven did not, either year.

So what do home runs allowed really mean? I'll tell you: longevity. Here's the top 21 (there was a tie for 20th) in baseball history:

1. Robin Roberts, 505
2. Jamie Moyer, 491
3. Fergie Jenkins, 484
4. Phil Niekro, 482
5. Don Sutton, 472
6. Frank Tanana, 448
7. Warren Spahn, 434
8. Bert Blyleven, 430
9. Steve Carlton, 414
10. Randy Johnson, 411
11. David Wells, 407
12. Gaylord Perry, 399
13. Jim Kaat, 395
14. Jack Morris, 389
15. Charlie Hough, 383
16. Tom Seaver, 380
17. Mike Mussina, 376
18. Catfish Hunter, 374
18. Tim Wakefield, 374
20. Jim Bunning, 372
20. Dennis Martinez, 372

So, of those 21, ten are in the Hall of Fame. Johnson is a slam-dunk first-ballot. Mussina could very well make it.

Not in the Hall: Moyer, Tanana, Blyleven, Wells, Kaat, Morris, Hough, Wakefield, Martinez. Of those guys, only Morris and Wakefield did not pitch in more than 20 big league seasons (Wakefield might yet).

And then there's this: how do they rank in terms of HR/9? Baseball-reference only does it to one decimal place, but:

1t. Moyer, Wakefield, Wells - 1.1
4t. Hunter, Jenkins, Roberts, Tanana - 1.0
8t. Bunning, Hough, Johnson, Morris, Mussina - 0.9
13t. Blyleven, Kaat, Martinez, Niekro, Sutton - 0.8
18t. Carlton, Perry, Seaver, Spahn - 0.7

So while he ranks eighth in total home runs allowed, Blyleven only gave up 0.8 per 9, which compares favorably with Hall of Famer, and total home runs allowed career leader, Robin Roberts.

For that matter, Roberts never led the league in ERA, and he twice led in losses, and three times in earned runs and homers allowed. He doesn't have 300 wins. His winning percentage and ERA+ are comparable to Blyleven's (slightly higher WP, few points lower in ERA+). I'm not saying we should set the Hall's standards by its weakest member, but...

The point is, Jon Heyman needs to find a new stat. This one is clearly worthless. But then, he'd know that, if he knew anything.

Maybe you should just stop talking

Did Jon Heyman stop with what he put on Twitter? Of course not!

"I consider impact more than stats. I like dominance over durability. I prefer players who were great at some point to the ones who were merely very good for a very long time. And I do recall it's called the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Numbers."

Oh, God. This old chestnut. So are you going to vote for Jose Canseco? Did you vote for Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden? Both had short bursts of excellence and certainly were very famous.

"The reason I haven't yet voted for Raines is that while he was a star in Montreal, he was merely a good player for the bulk of the rest his career, spent mainly with the White Sox and Yankees. Raines' offensive career is a little like Mattingly's in that he was exceptional for about a half-dozen years but far less than that for several more. But while Mattingly (who I didn't vote for the first seven years he was on the ballot) was greater in his great years, Raines did have many more seasons of solid performance, and I'm starting to lean in his direction."

Remember, again, that this is the same Jon Heyman who bragged about how consistent he was for continuing not to vote for Bert Blyleven. Raines' career OBP was .385 - only three points behind Tony Gwynn, who was a shoo-in because he had 3,000 hits. Also, don't compare latter-day Raines to latter-day Mattingly. After 1989 - a season in which he turned just 28 years old - Mattingly was basically league-average, aside from an Indian summer in 1993 and 1994. But he was retired by age 35. Raines put up a .306/.401/.480 line at age 33 for the '93 White Sox - a better line than anything Mattingly put up after 1987. In other words, 33-year-old Tim Raines (and, for that matter, 35-, 36-, and 37-year-old Tim Raines) was better than Don Mattingly at any age after 26. I know you just said you prefer dominance over durability... but how dominant was Mattingly, even? In 1985, when he won the MVP, he wasn't even the best player on his own team (Rickey Henderson). He had three great years, was very good for three more, and then was pretty much average until an early retirement. Fine, he had injuries. But let's not pretend he's Hall-worthy. And why did it take you seven years to vote for him anyway?

"My contention regarding Blyleven is that almost no one viewed him as a Hall of Famer during his playing career, and that is borne out by the 17 percent of the vote he received in his first year of eligibility in 1998, followed by 14 percent the next year."

Um...

Uh...

Why the FUCK does that matter? Who cares how people viewed Blyleven during his playing career? Until he clawed his way to 300 games, were people constantly talking about how Don Sutton was a Hall of Fame shoo-in? How about Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter? People assumed Mark McGwire was a slam-dunk first-ballot guy in 1999... granted, there are some extenuating circumstances there. But still, who CARES? The whole argument for Blyleven is that he was undervalued while he was playing. Our minds are made up now because people 20 years ago might have been looking at the wrong things?

(Also, was Jack Morris looked at as a Hall of Famer during his playing career? I have my doubts about this.)

Jack Morris' first two years of eligibility: 22.2%, 19.6%. Sure, they're better than Blyleven's numbers, but they're still nowhere near Hall of Fame numbers. Clearly people did not think Jack Morris was a Hall of Famer while he was playing, by Jon Heyman's logic.

Oh, I forgot. When a stat shames Blyleven, he mentions it. And when a stat pumps up Morris, he mentions it. But aside from that, he "doesn't look only at stats."

FUCK YOU.

"I look at numbers, too, and while my numbers may be slightly more simplistic than WHIP, WAR or VORP, I think they tell a story of a pitcher who was extremely good, consistent and durable but not quite Cooperstown-worthy. Blyleven was dominant in a lot of at-bats (thus, the 3,701 strikeouts) and even a lot of games (60 shutouts). But he was never dominant for a decade, a half decade or even a full season."

I look at numbers too! By the way, you know Jon Heyman's dumb when he cites WHIP as a complex stat. WHIP = walks + hits per inning pitched. Oh no! For fuck's sake, Heyman, that's not even as complicated as ERA.

So Heyman's argument is that Blyleven was "never dominant for a decade, a half-decade or even a full season." Well, I can cite some pretty dominant full seasons, I think:

1973: 20-17, 2.52, 25 CG, 9 SHO, 158 ERA+ (led league), at age 22
1984: 19-7, 2.87, 12 CG, 4 SHO, 144 ERA+
1989: 17-5, 2.73, 8 CG, 5 SHO (led league), 140 ERA+, at age 38

Or how about this? Between 1971 and 1978 - more than a half-decade - Blyleven's ERA was above 3.00 just once (and that was 3.03). He had 38 shutouts (ten more than Morris' entire career) and led the league in K/BB twice (another extremely complicated stat).

On the other hand there's Jack Morris. He never had an ERA under 3.00. Not ONCE. This great pitcher, who Jon Heyman is implicitly defining as dominant, not once had an entire season where he shut opponents down to the tune of under three earned runs per nine. His best ERA+, to take yearly context out of it, was 133. Blyleven had nine sub-3.00 ERA years and six years better than 133 ERA+.

So WHAT MAKES MORRIS DOMINANT? Because you SAY he was? That's not good enough, Jon. You can talk all you want about people trying to reconstruct Blyleven's career from a stat sheet... but I trust that stat sheet more than I trust your memory.

Look at Blyleven's 1973 season. The guy is 22 years old. His ERA is 2.52, second to Cy Young winner Jim Palmer's 2.40 but ahead of Palmer by two points in ERA+, 158 to 156. (Also, Palmer's team won 97 games; Blyleven's 81.) Blyleven finishes first in shutouts, second in WHIP, first in K/BB, second in BB/9, third in K/9, second in total Ks, fourth in innings, third in complete games, and - hilariously given what Heyman tried to hang him with last time - fourth in fewest HR/9. He also finishes top ten in starts, H/9, and wins, with 20. Oh, and losses, with 17. Because the 1973 Minnesota Twins did not score for him. He got 4.18 runs of support. Jim Palmer got half a run more per game.

I mean... that's a pretty dominant season. Sure, 20-17 doesn't jump out at you, but Nolan Ryan went 21-16 that year. Does Jack Morris have even one season that compares to just that one year of Blyleven's?

Answer: no, he doesn't. For starters, Morris never finished in the top four in ERA, let alone second. He certainly never led the league in ERA+; only four times was he even top ten and only once top five. (Blyleven: 12 top tens, 7 top fives.) He had two top fives in WHIP; never finished above fourth. He did lead the league in shutouts once, in 1986. So let's compare Blyleven's 1973 to Morris' 1986:

Blyleven 1973: 20-17 (4.18 RS), 2.52, 158 ERA+, 1.117 WHIP, 258 K, 25 CG, 9 SHO, 325 IP
Morris 1986: 21-8 (5.46 RS), 3.27, 127 ERA+, 1.165 WHIP, 223 K, 15 CG, 6 SHO, 267 IP

So, aside from the losses... where is Morris winning here? (Note: he started five fewer games and had twice as many no-decision starts as '73 Bert.) He has a slight edge in K/9, I guess. Blyleven trashes him in ERA/ERA+ despite throwing 58 additional innings, and Morris only won one more game in spite of his sizable edge in run support.

I mean, here's how snakebit Blyleven was when it came to that. In 1976 his ERA was 2.87; ERA+ of 125, not among his very best years but better than all but three of Morris'. And what was his record? 13-16! Because his shitty teams - he was traded midseason - averaged, get this, 2.66 runs of support for him. 2.66! Morris' lowest full season RS number was 3.54, close to a full run higher, and that was only once, for the 103-loss '89 Tigers, the only bad team he really played on. And he went 6-14. Aside from that year, his lowest full season RS was 4.17, more than 1.5 runs above what Blyleven got in 1976.

In other words... WINS ARE SITUATIONAL. And if you throw out wins... Blyleven looks pretty dominant for a while there! Whereas Morris never does.

"Only four times in 22 seasons did he receive Cy Young votes (he was third twice, fourth and seventh once), only twice did he make the All-Star team and only twice did he win more than 17 games. I tend not to vote for players who I see as great compilers rather than great players, which is why I don't see Lee Smith or Baines as Hall of Famers, either. Baines and Blyleven compiled similarly in some key areas, with Blyleven finishing with four percent short of 300 victories at 287, and Baines four percent short of 3,000 hits with 2,866. And actually, a case could be made that Baines had more greatness, as he made six All-Star teams, three times the number of Blyleven."

Ugh. Who cares about this shit? Number of All-Star teams made does not equal greatness. Blyleven didn't make a lot of All-Star teams because he was toiling away on lousy teams and didn't have the star power of someone like a Nolan Ryan, even though aside from a ding on the strikeouts there's a large chunk of their careers that compares pretty favorably. And Baines is a bad comparison if you look at more than one stat. Only once was he even top ten in OBP; he was only top ten in batting average three times and never top five; he led in slugging one year but never again was even top ten. Blyleven's three league-leading shutout years and his one ERA+ year alone are more impressive than that.

Also, way to imply that you still believe that 300 wins and 3,000 hits are absolute sacrosanct numbers - make it and you're in, fall slightly short and fuck you. Because that's how we judge greatness: arbitrary round cutoffs.

"Some will say that Blyleven's career was equal to Hall of Famer Don Sutton's but I say it is just short of Sutton's. They both had big totals in other categories but Sutton wound up with 37 more victories, going over the magic 300 mark by 24."

"I say it is just short of Sutton's! Because of one number."

Blyleven career ERA+: 118
Sutton career ERA+: 108

Blyleven 162-game average record: 14-12
Sutton 162-game average record: 14-11

To be fair, Sutton's two or three best years top any of Blyleven's. But he was a real feast or famine guy. He had below-average ERA+ in 1978 and 1979, then suddenly ripped off a 160 in 1980, with a sub-1.00 WHIP. In 1970 he was pretty awful but managed to win 15 games for a second-place Dodger team; two years later his ERA was two full runs lower. I mean, what the fuck? Blyleven had longer strings of very good years than Sutton, who could never seem to put together more than three. There's also this, since Heyman talks about Blyleven being a compiler and implies that Sutton's 324 wins made him a better pitcher:

Wins after age 40
Blyleven: 8
Sutton: 44

So in other words, if Bert Blyleven and Don Sutton both drop dead on their 40th birthdays, Blyleven has 279 wins and Sutton has 280. The ERA+ difference would still be around what it is now. Does this change your answer? They're nearly the same pitcher at this point, except that most of Blyleven's non-win-total numbers are better. I mean, good for Sutton that he managed to be above-average in ERA+ as a 41-year-old, the year he got his 300th win. But let's not pretend he wasn't a compiler. And in 71 more starts, he still had two fewer shutouts for his career than Blyleven.

"Many stat people suggest wins are not important in evaluating careers. But until wins don't decide who's in the playoffs and who's out, who makes the World Series and who doesn't, I will continue to view them as important. A pitcher's goal for each game is to win the game, not to strikeout the most batters. And until that changes, I will count wins and losses. I also believe the truly great pitchers pitched to the scoreboard with the real goal in mind."

Oh, no.

Wins are a TEAM accomplishment, Jon! If a pitcher throws a one-hitter, but that one hit is a solo home run and his team gets shut out, is he a piece of shit because he didn't win the game? No! He's probably a great pitcher on a terrible team! And who was even talking about strikeouts? If you want to throw those out, can we drag Nolan Ryan into this? His winning percentage was even lower than Blyleven's (and so was his ERA+). And talk about compiling... dude won his 300th game at age 43! Throw that asshole out of the Hall of Fame!

Oh, wait. You'd never advocate for that, because Nolan Ryan won 300 games. Even though his 162-game average was a 14-13 record (Blyleven: 14-12).

Also, as I already said, Joe Sheehan disproved the pitching to the score bullshit. Just because you believe it doesn't make it true, you idiot. And really, let's say it is true - it still just verifies the idea that Jack Morris' teams scored a lot more runs than Bert Blyleven's teams. And the one year that Jack Morris was on a really shitty team that never scored runs for him, he went 6-14. Because he couldn't "pitch to the score," because that's a fucking myth. If it was true, surely 34-year-old Tigers ace Jack Morris could have pitched to the score by becoming dominant like 1972 Steve Carlton. Oh wait! He didn't! His ERA was 4.86 and he only won six games! Because pitching to the score is a fucking MYTH.

"Some will say Blyleven was handicapped by playing for a string of horrific teams. But his many teams combined for a record of slightly over .500. For the most part, they were mediocre. While his career mark of 287-250 is clearly better than his teams' overall record, it isn't that much better."

Covered this last time. It was about as much better as Morris' was over his teams' win percentage. Seriously, do you even look at this shit?

Again, I know it seems like I'm picking on Morris. But the whole point is that Heyman is sure Morris belongs in, and equally sure that Blyleven belongs out. And yet his reasons are AWFUL.

"Clearly, I don't grade on stats alone, but it is interesting to note that while Blyleven never led the league in wins or ERA he did lead the league in losses, earned runs allowed and home runs allowed. (He did lead once in strikeouts.)"

And this again. Jack Morris: never led the league in ERA. Also led in losses and ER allowed. Gave up more homers per 162 games than Blyleven over their careers. You are a fucking moron who knows nothing about anything.

Why is Jon Heyman allowed to write about baseball when he is willfully ignorant?

I can't believe we have to keep doing this

Jon Heyman is apparently quite good at getting news just before it breaks in the world of baseball. This is impressive since he clearly knows nothing whatsoever about baseball.

Heyman tweeted his Hall of Fame ballot. Here it is:

Roberto Alomar
Andre Dawson
Barry Larkin
Dave Parker
Jack Morris
Don Mattingly

Let's start with the picks that are fine. Alomar is a worthy Hall choice. Larkin strikes me as a little more borderline, but I think you can make a pretty strong case for him.

Then there are the more borderline picks: Dawson, Parker and Mattingly. Dawson probably has the strongest case of the three - he hit more than 400 home runs and was a good outfielder when healthy. His OBP stinks (.323 career, which is outside the top one thousand in baseball history), but his OPS+ was still 119, which isn't terrible. Joe Cronin's in the Hall with a 119 OPS+. Whatever.

Parker has always struck me as a weird case. From 1975-1979 he was one of the best hitters in the game, and won the MVP in 1978. He also helped lead the "We are Family" Pirates to the World Series the next year. Then he had a few lost years thanks to injuries and drugs. Then he had one more great season at age 34 in 1985... and then kind of hung around until 1991. Basically, he had six great years and 13 years in which he was, at best, good. In some of them he was basically league-average. But his career OBP was .339 and OPS+ 121, both better than Dawson, and he's maybe even more of a "what could have been" guy than Dawson. His 1978 MVP was better than any of Dawson's seasons, including 1987. I think it's weird to induct a guy based on missed potential - why not Darryl Strawberry, then? - but if Dawson is a borderline candidate, Parker has to be considered just as highly. (Of course, I wouldn't put either of them in. But I'm trying to give Heyman the benefit of the doubt here.)

Don Mattingly is a classic example of just looking at peak value (and also being swayed by hype). Mattingly's first six full seasons are, indeed, great. But he pretty much falls off a cliff at age 29 and was done at 34. The key argument for someone like Mattingly is the fact that Ralph Kiner is in the Hall, but Kiner at least was punching up multiple 1.000-OPS seasons at his peak. Mattingly didn't do that, and he played a power position. I also think his election would be a triumph of New York hype. If you had a pretty good fielding first baseman with only decent power (20 HR/162 g) and only six really good years under his belt, and he played in Kansas City or something, would he have lasted more than a year on the ballot? Yankees fans love Mattingly - no Yankee who didn't win a World Series has ever been loved more by them - and the corresponding exposure has led to the memory of Mattingly as being better for longer than he was. The guy was basically washed up by 1990. Heyman should know this, given that he was a beat writer in New York for most of Mattingly's career... but then that pretty much explains his inclusion, doesn't it?

Whatever. Mattingly's not a HOFer and fortunately he still has pretty low vote totals. I can at least understand voting for a guy based on a pretty strong peak.

Then, of course, there's Jack Morris.

So, right after posting his ballot, Heyman adds this (possibly in response to other Twitter posts wondering where Bert Blyleven is):

"regarding bert, 86% voted "no'' his 2nd yr. unlike others, i'm consistent. he never led league in wins, ERA but led in HRs, earned runs, Ls"

Do we really have to keep doing this?

Let's take these down one at a time.

1. So 86% of the BBWAA voted no on Blyleven in his second year - of course it's really more accurate to say that only 14% did vote for him. Why does that matter? Heyman voted for Mattingly, and 80% of the BBWAA voted no on Mattingly in his second year. Also, a few tweets after bragging about how consistent he is for refusing to vote for Blyleven, he states that he isn't voting for Tim Raines right now, but might in the future after reevaluating his career. Jon Heyman: consistently inconsistent.

2. Okay, Blyleven never led the league in wins or ERA. He was, however, top five in ERA seven times. And look at something like 1979 - that was one of the better teams that Blyleven pitched for (the Pirates won 98 games) - and yet even though he started 37 games, Blyleven was just 12-5. Why? Well, it helps when you have ten no-decisions in games where you gave up two earned runs or fewer. I don't know, is that Blyleven's fault?

3. Heyman brings up that Blyleven had years in which he led the league in homers allowed, earned runs allowed, and losses. These are all true statements - in 1986 and 1987 Blyleven gave up a combined 96 home runs for the Twins, then in 1988 cut back to 21 homers but gave up 125 earned runs and lost 17 games. That 1988 season was pretty bad, but when you look at '86 and '87 you have to consider that Blyleven was better than league average in ERA both years. He had a 4.01 ERA both times, not great but good enough for ERA+ of 107 and 115. (Both, amusingly, are better than Morris' career ERA+ of 105.)

While we're on the subject, Morris also once led the league in earned runs - in fact, with the exact same number, 125, two years after Blyleven did it. He also lost 18 games that year, more than Blyleven lost in his league-leading '88 season. Also, in 1986, Morris allowed 40 home runs - not as many as Blyleven's 50, but good enough for second-most in the AL! That was one of Morris' best years (21-8, 3.27), which just proves that HR allowed really isn't a meaningful number when stripped of all context.

Oh, and Heyman's big thing that he holds over Blyleven - never leading the league in wins or ERA? Well, Morris never led in ERA either. And only twice was he top five, next to Blyleven's seven. And I don't want to hear that bullshit about Morris pitching to the score, since it was disproven by Joe Sheehan years ago. Morris did lead the league in wins twice. Once was in 1981 - a strike year, when he led with 14 - and the other was in 1992, when he went 21-6 with a 4.04 ERA. His run support that year? 5.56. He won four games in which he gave up 5 runs or more; if the team doesn't score for him in two of those and he doesn't win 20 games, are we even having this conversation? Jimmy Key had a better ERA for the Blue Jays but somehow went 13-13, while Juan Guzman was probably their best pitcher, going 16-5, 2.64. Though I will grant that Morris's 60 additional innings made him a pretty good guy to have.

So far it's pretty clear that much of what Heyman holds over Blyleven can be held almost equally well over Morris. Let's see what else he's got.

"i dont mean to pick on blyleven, but his teams werent as bad as folks claim. they were a bit over .500 (& only a touch worse than him by %)."

Heyman might be right that Blyleven's teams weren't as bad as often cited. He did pitch for two WS winners. Blyleven's teams won 90 games five times; Morris' six. But Morris also pitched for below-.500 teams far less often - Blyleven did it ten times, Morris just three. And between 1978 and 1988 - an eleven-year stretch that encompasses the majority of Morris' career and pretty much his entire peak - Morris didn't pitch for a sub-.500 team even once. Between 1974 and 1984, the years in which Blyleven was the same ages as Morris during his stretch, Blyleven pitched for five winning teams and five losing teams. Also:

Blyleven's teams: .502
Blyleven: .534

Morris' teams: .539
Morris: .577

Difference between Blyleven and his teams: .032
Difference between Morris and his teams: .038

Pretty negligible. Over a 162-game season, Blyleven's teams go from 81-game winners - .500 - to 86 or 87 game winners if he pitches every game (if we buy into the idea that these percentages are meaningful). Morris' teams start at 87 and go to 93. Basically both guys add between five and six wins. The only real difference is the baseline. Next!

"i guess im going on more than stats since i saw both guys' entire careers. morris was ace of 3 WS winners"

It kills me that this canard comes up every single time Morris' candidacy is discussed. "He was the ace of three World Series winners!" Never mind that this is demonstrably untrue, unless you're using "ace" as a completely subjective, nebulous term that really doesn't mean anything.

Let me just talk about the "I'm going on more than stats since I saw both guys' entire careers" thing for a minute. According to Wikipedia, Jon Heyman grew up in New York. He graduated college in 1983. This put him in prime position to witness, as a professional journalist, the majority of Morris' career - but he'd already missed more than half of Blyleven's, and since Blyleven was pitching in Minnesota, Texas and Pittsburgh in the 70s, I really doubt Heyman saw him pitch very often... which means that the only thing he's probably really going by is stories he heard from guys who did see Blyleven and/or box scores, or as they might be called, "stats." For that matter, Heyman spent the entire period between 1983 and 1999 writing for Newsday. How often was he ever seeing Blyleven or Morris pitch live? The four times a year they started against the Yankees? What a load of crap.

Back to the "ace of three World Series winners" bullshit. So, Morris pitched for three teams that won a title: the 1984 Tigers, 1991 Twins and 1992 Blue Jays. But let me ask you a question: how does one define "ace"? Is it "best pitcher during the regular season?" "Best pitcher during the postseason?" "Guy who everyone believes to be an ace even if his stats don't bear it out so much?" If it's the latter, that's such a ridiculous dodge that I don't even want to address it. So, is it the former? If so, I will go on record as saying that it's very easy to argue whether Morris was the best pitcher on any of those three teams. But let's say - since Morris backers love to talk about the postseason - that it's his postseason performances that really made him the ace.

1984 World Series: 2-0, 2 CG, 2.00 ERA
1991 World Series: 2-0, 1 CG, 1.17 ERA
1992 World Series: 0-2, 8.44 ERA

*record scratch sound effect*

Whaaaa?

Let's get this straight once and for all. Jack Morris was, by no objective measure, the ace of three WS teams. If you want to say his regular seasons made him the ace, I would argue he was not the ace of any of those teams - Dan Petry was better in 1984, Kevin Tapani and Scott Erickson were better in 1991, and I could easily argue that Key and Guzman were both better in 1992 although Morris' innings make more of a difference that year. If you want to say his postseasons made him the ace, that's fine and I would agree he was the ace of two teams, but the 1992 Blue Jays lost two games in the World Series and Jack Morris was the losing pitcher in both of them. Also, his ERA was fucking 8.44.

And if Morris was so acey and it was so obvious to people who watched him play during his career like Jon Heyman... why did Morris never win a Cy Young? Why did he never come particularly close? If you want to hammer on Blyleven for things he didn't do, this seems like a pretty glaring omission from Morris' CV. He was the ace on three World Series teams and yet never cracked the top two in the Cy voting? In 1984 he was seventh, behind two of his own teammates (Petry and winner Willie Hernandez). In 1991 he was fourth, two spots behind Erickson. He was the only Jay getting votes in 1992, but he was fifth, not close to winning. So I repeat: the ace of three World Series teams was not considered the best pitcher on two of those teams by Cy Young voters.

Lest you think I'm ignoring Blyleven's similar lack of Cy credentials, he also had just two top-three Cy finishes, Morris had one more top-five finish and three more overall appearances on the ballot. On the other hand, at least Blyleven was always the top vote-getter on his own team. I also think it says something that three of Blyleven's four appearances on the ballot came when he was playing for teams that were .500 or worse. None of Morris' seven appearances were for sub-.500 teams and four were for playoff teams. What does this mean? Well, this is just an opinion, but I think it's a lot easier to get on a Cy Young ballot when you have a good season for a playoff team than when you have a very good season for a non-playoff team, and particularly one that isn't even very good. In 1984, Blyleven went 19-7, 2.87 for an Indians team that was 75-87 and finished sixth in the AL East. Morris went 19-11, 3.60 for a Tigers team that won 104 games. Blyleven was third in the voting, Morris seventh. Frankly, considering it was 1984 I'm a little amazed the voters got that one right.

"@petzrawr its not just that i saw them. i covered them. i saw morris be the ace of great teams. he made major impact. bert is very close tho"

This is a delightful pander since I think it's pretty clear he doesn't think Blyleven is really that close. We've already discussed how Morris was not "the ace of great teams" by objective measurement, but again with "I covered them." Hey, great. You missed half of Blyleven's career. Does that seem fair? This is like if you became a reporter in 2000, and then refused to vote for Ken Griffey Jr. because "I covered him - he wasn't a bad hitter but he was always injured and wasn't great in the field." I'm not saying that Blyleven gets a pass on the part of his career that Heyman did see, but he's ignoring an awful lot.

And again, what impact did Morris make that Blyleven didn't, or couldn't have if placed on the same great teams? The '84 Tigers didn't win 104 games because of Morris. And when it comes to being an "ace" and having a "major impact" on your teams, is there a better measurement than (1) ERA - if you're not giving up runs, you're helping your team win; (2) complete games, and (3) shutouts? Forget wins; they're situational. You can get a win if you pitch five innings and give up 10 runs so long as your team scored 11 while you were out there. The lower your ERA, the more likely that your team will win every time you go out there.

Blyleven ERA: 3.31
Morris ERA: 3.90

So on average, every time Jack Morris took the hill, his team would have to score 0.6 more runs to win the game than if they had started Blyleven. Jake Westbrook's career ERA is closer to Morris' than Morris' is to Blyleven's.

How about this: the complete-game shutout is the only way that you, as a pitcher, have almost total control over whether or not your team wins a game. Forget ERA, right? Runs allowed, who cares. You could have a few bad games and that sucker shoots right up. Morris was dominant because he could shut you down.

Blyleven complete games: 242
Morris complete games: 175

Blyleven shutouts: 60
Morris shutouts: 28

Oops. But Morris once led the league in shutouts! I'm sure Blyleven just compiled... oh, no, he did that three times.

"@DashTreyhorn i believe he was chosen to start game 1. his stats may not hold up as "best.'' but managwes consistently gave him ball game 1"

[Sic] there. So, in fact, Heyman's entire rationale for Morris being the "ace" is that he started game one in the playoffs. Not that he was the best starter... just that, for whatever reason, he always started game one. I guess that's nice, but what does it prove? Heyman's clearly an old-school guy who likes to believe that what's truly noteworthy about a pitcher is what his manager thought of him. Sure, Morris was clearly the third-best starter on the '91 Twins, but hey - Tom Kelly thought he should start Game One of the playoffs! It could be because he thought of Morris as his ace. It could also be because Morris started game 158, Tapani started game 159 and Erickson started game 161 - in other words, it was Morris' turn in the rotation. The same could be said in 1992, when Juan Guzman pitched closer to the end of the season than Morris. (Key was even fresher but he barely pitched in the ALCS - then he went 2-0 in the World Series while Morris went 0-2.) I'm not surprised Morris was picked in '84 because Dan Petry was only 25 and didn't quite have Morris' track record... but again, Petry pitched closer to the end of the season than did Morris! Heyman's argument rests on nothing more than how the rotation happened to line up? Good God. (I guess it was late in the year and you could argue that the rotation was being purposefully lined up to get Morris a Game One start; I'd have to do a lot more research to try and see which it was. Still, Morris was the most veteran of the good pitchers on his teams. It doesn't surprise me that a manager would want the most senior good guy to lead off a series. It doesn't mean that Morris himself was possessed of endemic pitching qualities that made managers choose him. It means he was in situations where he was a senior guy and baseball men like veterans. These are not HOF credentials.)

"@andytworischuk i dont believe i said "stats shouldn't be used.'' ive said i dont go by stats alone."

Come on, Jon. You don't go by stats at all! What does Morris have over Blyleven aside from winning percentage, which I've already pretty much disproved? Even the stats that you used to try to bury Blyleven simply don't hold up. Earned runs? Sure, he had one really bad year where he led the league - but so did Morris, and Blyleven's career ERA is markedly lower. Home runs? Again, a couple bad years there - but here's a fun fact for you:

Home runs allowed, 162-game average
Morris: 25
Blyleven: 21

Losses? Both averaged 12 per 162 games. What does Morris have that Blyleven doesn't? Postseason performance? Because that's an old canard too:

Blyleven postseason: 5-1, 2.47 in five series
Morris postseason: 7-4, 3.80 in seven series

I'm really supposed to believe that even though every available statistic says that Blyleven was not just better than Morris but often significantly better, I should just think that Morris was better because he was in the right place at the right time to start a few Game Ones? Who CARES?????

Last point, because this is rapidly turning into a dissertation: Heyman's entire argument seems to boil down to this: "Yes, the stats say Blyleven was better, but that's not what I remember." Here's the problem, Jon: human memory is notoriously fallible. They've done whole studies about this. There's something called "flashbulb memory," which refers to memories that stick in the mind very clearly because of their connection to traumatic events, like a car accident or something more global like the Challenger disaster or 9/11. But here's the thing: it turns out that flashbulb memories, while they are more vivid than regular memories, aren't necessarily more reliable. People interviewed within 24 or 48 hours of the Challenger explosion gave one account of what happened that day, and then a completely different one when asked again five years later - except that they still thought the memory was vivid and accurate, even though it wasn't. It was also discovered that things like television coverage often caused other information that they didn't originally have to bleed over into the memory, making them think they'd experienced these other things at the time, even though they hadn't.

What does this have to do with Jon Heyman? Well, what he's basically saying is, "I was there and I saw Morris be dominant." But did he? The stats - an objective record of the games played - certainly don't suggest dominance on Morris' part. They suggest a very good pitcher with a handful of great seasons and a few big playoff moments. Of course, Blyleven's stats suggest the exact same thing and they're better across the board, so you can't very well point to that and use it to say why Morris should be in and Blyleven shouldn't. So that leaves "personal experience." You can't just go by the stats! I was there and my memory tells me Morris was dominant!

Except that Jon Heyman's memory is almost certainly not more reliable, or less prone to alteration, than the average person's. What is the one thing that everyone knows about Jack Morris? He had clutch postseason performances. He was a big-game pitcher. Like Game 5 of the 1992 World Series, when Morris took the mound and clinched the title for the Blue Jays... oh, no. What actually happened was he gave up five runs in the top of the fifth with the game tied at two, including a two-out grand slam to Lonnie Smith of all people, and the Blue Jays had to go back to Atlanta, where they won Game 6.

That's not entirely fair, of course, but it proves my point. Jon Heyman remembers Jack Morris as a big-game pitcher for the same reason most people do: Game 7, 1991 World Series. And sure, that was a really great game. But it was one game. That's not enough, yet it's clearly coloring memories because it's not like Morris did that every time out. In the 1991 ALCS, Morris was pulled in the sixth inning of Game One because he had just let the Blue Jays close the gap from 5-1 to 5-4. (He was just pitching to the score, right?) The bullpen shut the Jays down and Morris got the win (yet another reason why wins are kinda bullshit). He's allowed bad games, but let's not pretend he was never anything but lights-out in the postseason. Heyman's memory is being affected by all the coverage that game continues to get to this day. But because people really can't be aware that their memory is altered like that, he continues to insist that he was there and he saw it happen. Even though, apart from a relatively small number of games, he probably didn't. (And of course Heyman is unlikely to remember games he saw in which Morris pitched poorly, so that just leaves memory of the "dominant pitcher" that Morris certainly could be at his very best. But so could Blyleven. Just because Heyman doesn't remember seeing it does not mean it didn't happen. That's why we have statistics, because it's impossible for one dude to remember everything that happened in one game, let alone hundreds of them.)

Really, if Jack Morris ever does get elected, he owes it all to Kirby Puckett. Why? Because without Puckett's home run to win Game Six, Morris doesn't get that chance at Game 7. And then his postseason resume goes from 7-4, 3.80 to 6-4, 4.26, and no one remembers that indelible moment which subsequently affects all their memories of Morris' talent, and we're not even having this conversation.

I don't mean to kill Morris here. It's not like he was a bad pitcher. But his ERA+ was 105. He was not a dominant starter any more than Blyleven just because he did it for a few more winning teams. Maybe you still want to argue that he's a Hall of Famer, and that's fine. But if you're going to put him in, how you can suggest that Blyleven belongs out when you have four more spots on your ballot into which you could put him... I just can't understand that.

Albums of the Decade, #10-1

#10

The Long Winters, When I Pretend to Fall (2003)



I believe I mentioned my affinity for albums that take several different styles and meld them into a seamless whole. When I Pretend to Fall is one such, blending basic indie rock with folkier sounds, the "traditional" sound of "Bride and Bridle" (which always reminds me of songs like "Gallows Pole"), an acoustic number ("It'll Be a Breeze") and more piano-driven tracks like "Nora," which defy obvious categorization. The album is astonishingly good - in spite of its tangential connection to one-hit wonder Harvey Danger, it never drew much notice - and has multiple songs that could and/or should have been big pop hits, such as "The Sound of Coming Down," "Blue Diamonds" and "Prom Night at Hater High," to name just three. Every track is outstanding front to back; there are few albums on which I'm unsure of my favorite track, but my answer for this one probably changes every time I hear it. Unsurprisingly, the band hasn't been able to duplicate When I Pretend to Fall; the only successive LP, 2006's Putting the Days to Bed, was good but not great.

#9

Sufjan Stevens, Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State (2003)

Sufjan Stevens basically came out of nowhere with 2003's Michigan album - prior to that, his only records were A Sun Came and Enjoy Your Rabbit, two rather strange concept albums. Michigan, of course, is itself basically a concept album, but one that, like his later Illinois, holds together on every level - tonally, conceptually, emotionally. "For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti" is the track everyone knows now (thanks to its use on The O.C. of all places), but the album is full of moments like that - on "Romulus," "Sleeping Bear, Sault Ste Marie," "Vito's Ordination Song," and everything else. Stevens' first great album is at once an ode and an elegy to his home state, and it is constantly moving, gorgeous and haunting.

#8

Snow Patrol, Final Straw (2004)

Snow Patrol's first two albums aren't bad, but they gave very little hint of the explosion that was to come, starting with their best album, Final Straw. Along with much of the best of British pop/rock from the last two decades, Final Straw finds Snow Patrol taking small-scale, emotional human issues and blowing them out into virtual arena rock. "How to Be Dead" is about a couple's fight, while "Grazed Knees" finds the band exploring the aftermath of another such confrontation. The singer in "Chocolate" is confessing to infidelity, while "Spitting Games" is about an unrequited schoolyard crush. "Run," my favorite track on the album, is a song sung from one parting lover to another. Much rock music is about such relatively mundane topics, of course, but it's the way the band brings them to you that makes all the difference. Snow Patrol's songs on Final Straw are fabulous and lush, with compulsively singable choruses and the elevation of their everyday topics into full-throated anthems. And at quieter moments, the emotion is in full swing on tracks like "Same." The best art, to me, encourages identification, and even if you can't relate to every single topic on Final Straw, the connection is always there.

#7

The Decemberists, The Crane Wife (2006)

Categorizing the Decemberists is a bit of a challenge. Are they "art rock," or just archaic? Or are they just eclectic? Frontman Colin Meloy brings together folk, rock and pop, along with something of an old-time sensibility, and his masterwork is The Crane Wife, a quasi-concept album based around an old Japanese folk tale. The album's opener, "The Crane Wife 3," is actually the third part of the story as the name suggests, but it's the best track on the album and not 11 minutes long like "The Crane Wife 1 & 2," which can actually be found near the album's back. The order isn't the issue - it's Meloy's haunting lyrics and melodies, which are sublime. The rest of the album is just as good, sometimes pairing upbeat music with downbeat lyrics, such as the Romeo and Juliet-like story in "O Valencia!" A song like "Shankill Butchers" is deliciously menacing, and the album's closer, "Sons and Daughters," is a delightful bit of folk-pop. The album marked the Decemberists' jump to a major label, and with their beautiful story-songs, they certainly made the most of it.

#6

The New Pornographers, Challengers (2007)

Deciding on my favorite New Pornographers album seemed tough at first, but ultimately it wasn't that close. The first four tracks of this album - "My Rights Versus Yours," "All the Old Showstoppers," the title track, and Dan Bejar's "Myriad Harbour" - are right there with any four-song stretch of the decade, particularly when it comes to kicking off an album. Things stay just as good, with tracks like "Failsafe," "Unguided," "Go Places," the delicate, moving "Adventures in Solitude" and Bejar's "Hey Jude"-like closer "The Spirit of Giving." Even as they expand and diversify, the New Pornographers are losing none of their ability to produce killer records. Four years after Electric Version, the sound is almost totally different, but the album is even better. The emotional connections have grown stronger - "Challengers" is probably their best song ever on that front - and Neko Case is even better used on songs like that one and "Go Places" than she has been belting out songs like "Letter from an Occupant." We can only hope that the upward trend continues on the expected 2010 album.

#5

The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow (2003)

Fortunately for the Shins, the hype from "New Slang" didn't hit critical mass until the release of Garden State in 2004, and by that point they'd already put out their second album. Who knows whether it would have mattered, of course, since it's hard to imagine an album this good being thrown off by accident. At just under 34 minutes, it kind of has to be perfect - fortunately, it is. I don't even know how to explain this album if you haven't heard it - just know that there isn't a second that's out of place. It can go from mellower tracks like "Kissing the Lipless" and "Saint Simon" to more rocking tracks like "So Says I" and "Fighting in a Sack" without missing a beat, and the two best tracks might be the slower "Young Pilgrims" and "Pink Bullets." It's hard for me to imagine you disliking this album if you liked any of the other albums in the top 20, so if you haven't heard it... get on it.

#4

The Essex Green, Cannibal Sea (2006)

The Essex Green might have the lowest name recognition of any artist on this list, but it didn't stop them coming up with one of the best albums. Singers Sasha Bell and Chris Ziter pretty much alternate tracks, but the sound hangs completely together, jangling pop in the style of the late 60s and early 70s. "Uniform" and "Elsinore" are my favorite tracks, but the whole thing is a lush mixture of gorgeous vocals and perfectly compact melodies. I could listen to this album over and over again. That the band isn't more famous - and that they seem to be on hiatus and could possibly never produce a follow-up - is more than a little disappointing. In fact, they're so dang non-famous I can't even find a suitable video to put here... so, Google them, I guess. Dammit.

#3

Okkervil River, Black Sheep Boy (2005)

This album just continues to grow on me. No one ever accused Will Sheff of not liking to put together concept albums, but this is certainly his masterpiece of the form. The album opens with a cover of an older folk song that shares its title, but it immediately spins much deeper. The raw, dark emotions are rarely far from the surface - "For Real," the album's first original song, contains lines like "I really miss what really did exist when I held your throat so tight," while "Black" finds the singer urging a female friend (their exact relationship is unclear) to "wreck his [her ex-boyfriend or -husband's] life the way that he wrecked yours." The emotions aren't all so dark - on "A King and A Queen," Sheff's character pines for a woman he knows he can't have, but still pledges to "lie by your side for sublime centuries, until we crumble to dust when we're crushed by a single sunbeam." Morbid, perhaps, but delicately sung and touching nonetheless. The album's best song is the epic "So Come Back, I Am Waiting," which takes the themes from the rest of the album and runs them together, as the album's title character informs the object of his affection that he is "calmly waiting to make you my lamb." The album's thematic success, its emotion, its blending of rather poetic lyrics with outstanding music, all mark it as easily one of the very best of the decade, if not of all time.

#2

Death Cab for Cutie, Transatlanticism (2003)

This one also gets my vote as favorite album cover of the decade. We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes is a good album, but there wasn't a lot of warning that Death Cab were going to put out an album like this in 2003. (By the way, check out the dates on the rest of the top ten. 2003 was a pretty good year in music, right?) Yet the album bounces from one indie classic to another, all centered around the titanic eight-minute title track. As with Final Straw, Transatlanticism harnesses basic emotions and mundane moments and, yoking them to perfect melodies, turns them loose. "Passenger Seat" is about someone being driven home, for crying out loud, yet it's one of the most beautiful songs of this or any decade. The acid of "The Sound of Settling" and "Tiny Vessels" is contrasted by the hurt of "Title and Registration" and "A Lack of Color." And on tracks like "The New Year" and "We Looked Like Giants," Death Cab shows they can bust out the rock whenever they feel like it. Swap out the slightly weak "Death of an Interior Decorator" and this could have been #1. It's the perfect mix of music and meaning.

#1

Sufjan Stevens, Illinois (2005)



The very definition of a concept album, Sufjan Stevens' Illinois hangs together far better than it has any right to - which is to say, perfectly. A collage of songs with both very direct and very indirect connections to the titular state, Illinois is a combination of ambitious folk-pop, stories and character sketches that nod at the best of Ben Folds and other artists for whom such lyrics are the bread and butter, and an overarching theme that at once makes no sense and all the sense in the world. A nearly seven-minute Vince Guaraldi sound-alike about the Columbian Exposition and a visitation from the ghost of Carl Sandburg fits perfectly next to an instrumental piece about the Black Hawk War, or a song about being stung by a wasp along the Mississippi River, or a quiet, haunting six-minute acoustic track about a girlfriend dying of bone cancer. Stevens' work can be challenging at times, but he has an ear for melody and a knack for lyrical composition, and if you're willing to take the risk of joining him on the journey, you may just find that, somehow, no one ever covered the state better. Maybe the lack of a serious follow-up is owed to the near-impossibility of topping this album - since 2005, Stevens has released only The Avalanche - basically just an appendix to Illinois - an album of Christmas songs and, just this year, the instrumental work The BQE. While it's clear by now that he never was actually going to make an album for all 50 states, considering how good the two he made were, we can at least hope that he takes another crack at it. But I can understand why he might not want to. Albums like Illinois only come around... oh, maybe once a decade.

Albums of the Decade, #20-11

#20
Brendan Benson, Lapalco (2002)



A wall-to-wall outstanding slice of pop rock. There's pretty much nothing I don't enjoy about this album - the melodies are fabulous, and Benson seems to inject a lot of himself into the record. The keyboards are particularly well-used, with a driving piano on the opening track, "Tiny Spark," and the fuzzy keys on the closer, "Jetlag." Why isn't this higher? I think it's full of grade-A tracks, but so are all the albums at this point, and only a couple tracks nudge past the rest to me. To use a baseball metaphor, every track is a double with two or three triples. But to get into the top ten, you need more homers. Nevertheless, I would recommend this album highly to any indie pop/rock fan.



#19
Spoon, Gimme Fiction (2005)



An awesome, moody rock album with gritty guitars and often mysterious lyrics. I don't think it would have been out of place in the early 70s scene. Britt Daniel's voice is just strained enough to sell the darkness in each track. My personal favorite from the album is "They Never Got You," but "I Turn My Camera On" is the track most people will have heard, and with good reason.



#18
Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)



Bizarrely, I didn't really discover this album until just this year even though it pretty much dragged Wilco into the mainstream. I've got no real excuse except that until 2006 or so I was regularly behind the curve on music like this and I guess it took some time to work my way backwards. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" alone makes the album; it's an absolutely monster opener, and not in the anthemic sense, but just in the way it builds and builds, and somehow manages to make what at first seems like a droning opening into a perfect coalescence of instruments just before Jeff Tweedy starts singing. "Jesus, Etc." and "Poor Places" also stand out to me, but the album is stunningly consistent. iTunes lists Wilco as country, but just listen to the record - they can't be pigeonholed that easily (and under no circumstance would I call them country, anyway). I have a real appreciation for a band that can pull out several different sounds on one album and have the whole thing hang together - see also Sgt. Pepper's and Physical Graffiti in particular. And yes, I just compared this album to those. Had I found it sooner, it might have had time to move higher than #18...



#17
Jack's Mannequin, Everything in Transit (2005)



Andrew McMahon is almost exactly my age (five days younger), which might have something to do with my affinity for his work. I haven't had many life experiences like the ones he relates on Everything in Transit, but his two albums as Jack's Mannequin have both been extremely personal, and that sense of twentysomething anguish can still really resonate when you're the same age. Plus, the guy just writes great melodies. How many bands could take a song about a mixtape good enough to "burn a hole in anyone" and make it anything other than completely ridiculous? It's a goofy premise, yet "The Mixed Tape" has me going every time. "Into the Airwaves," the album's closer, is brilliant. There are a few self-indulgent moments on the record, in particular the spoken-word portion on "I'm Ready," but overall it's a great collection of music and lyrics that really bring home a moment in time.



#16
The Killers, Hot Fuss (2004)



I probably like the Killers' last two albums more than most people who aren't 16 years old, but the one that everyone liked is still the best overall. I admit I think the second half is a little weaker, but you can't deny that first half - five straight techno-pop grand slams. "Change Your Mind" is a grand slam too and "On Top" another home run, but the remaining four songs are not nearly as strong, a main reason why this didn't crack the top ten. "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" and "Mr. Brightside" back to back, though, are about as good a one-two punch as any band ever opened their career with.



#15
A.C. Newman, The Slow Wonder (2004)



For anyone who was wondering just who was most responsible for the success of the New Pornographers, Carl Newman's first solo album answered the question and then some. Brilliant front to back, the album hits epic indie rock highs with "On the Table," "Secretarial" and "The Town Halo." After this album came out I concluded that Newman simply could do no wrong; his next solo album, 2009's Get Guilty, unfortunately couldn't live up to that kind of expectation (which is why it's not on this list, though it's still a good album). Fortunately, later New Pornographers work still could.



#14
The Shins, Wincing the Night Away (2007)



Following up a masterwork (spoiler!) is always difficult, and it took the Shins more than three full years to put out a sequel to 2003's Chutes Too Narrow. In spite of a sound that might have seemed dangerously broadened on first listen, Wincing very nearly matched its predecessor with a rollicking opening and track after track of winning melodies, whether disarmingly sunny ("Phantom Limb," "Turn On Me"), more obviously dark ("Sea Legs"), or just curious ("Red Rabbits"). It's hard to live up to perfection, which might explain why it's now been very nearly three years since Wincing's release and we're once again stuck waiting for the next album.



#13
The New Pornographers, Electric Version (2003)



The title is absolutely accurate, because the driving force behind this album is track after track of ringing melodies pounding out of electric guitars. There's nothing close to an acoustic number, or anything like that. The similarity of the overall sound really helps blend Dan Bejar's songs into the whole, perhaps more so than on any other NPs record, too. Oddly, even though you could argue that the sound is almost too consistent, that never becomes a problem for me. The different arrangements spread out just enough to keep massively entertaining tracks like "From Blown Speakers," "It's Only Divine Right," "Miss Teen Wordpower," "The Laws Have Changed," "All For Swinging You Around" and "Ballad of a Comeback Kid" from really sounding anything alike, in spite of the consistent aesthetic (which no other NPs record matches).



#12
Sufjan Stevens, The Avalanche (2006)



It's really saying something when you can release a collection of "outtakes and extras" and market that as a whole new album when you've only got four albums to your credit (and really only one or two that most people have heard of). It's saying even more when that album is nearly as good as the one that spun it off. The unified tone that makes Michigan and Illinois so brilliant (spoiler!) is missing on The Avalanche, but it's about the only thing lacking amid delicate folk-pop tunes like "Pittsfield," slightly more rock-leaning songs like the title track, "Springfield" and "No Man's Land," and Stevens' typical instrumental collages like "Kaskaskia River" and "For Clyde Tombaugh." In spite of the less cohesive progression from start to finish, and not one but three alternate versions of "Chicago," The Avalanche proved both that Illinois could easily have been a double album and that Stevens' leavings were just about as good as anyone else's best work.



#11
Ben Folds, Rockin' the Suburbs (2001)



We might all have been better off had the Five not broken up - their first two albums are likely both in my 90s top ten - but with solo albums like this, who was complaining? If anything, Folds' piano was cut even further loose. Just watch him go on tracks like "Zak and Sara" and "The Ascent of Stan," to say nothing of the solo on "Fired," one of my favorite solos on any instrument in any song in history. What's more, we basically got a whole album full of vintage Folds character sketches, in particular "Fred Jones Part 2," one of his most moving songs. "Still Fighting It" is also brilliant and "The Luckiest," while perhaps a little sappy, became a go-to wedding song for a reason. Folds' ability to create genuine emotion in even small sketches has always been nearly unparalleled - look at "Eddie Walker," which sounds half-finished and is still somehow perfect - but here he almost outdoes himself. In this world, the title song is actually kind of out of place, but it's still incredibly fun and perhaps a needed break from the heaviness of songs like "Carrying Cathy." (Whatever and Ever Amen followed "Brick" with "Song for the Dumped," after all.)



Coming before the end of the year: the top ten!

Albums of the Decade, #30-21

#30
Ben Lee, Awake is the New Sleep (2005)



Ben Lee is so earnest a songwriter that at times it becomes insufferable, but Awake is the New Sleep captures him at his most perfectly balanced. The acoustic guitar-driven pop is at its peak on "Whatever It Is," "Ache for You" and "Into the Dark," but the whole album really walks the tightrope perfectly. It's easy for a twentysomething guy with a guitar writing songs about relationships and the meaning of life to sound like a total douche, but Lee's largely peppy tunes hold everything together even when the lyrics get a little iffy. (The same can't be said of Ripe, the follow-up album, which has some good songs but too often gets bogged down in its own self-importance.)



#29
The Killers, Day and Age (2008)



A lot of the focus when this album came out went to the song "Human," which had odd lyrics and seemed too dance-ready for fans who came in more on Sam's Town. Of course, this ignored the fact that "Losing Touch" and "Spaceman," the songs on either side of "Human," are two of the most fun and infectious songs the Killers have released to date. Aside from the fairly weak "Joy Ride," the whole album is pretty strong, though it never returns to "Spaceman"-level heights after the third track. For all the crap they take, the Killers just keep proving that they know how to put out solid albums and how to knock at least a couple tracks per record completely out of the park.



#28
Okkervil River, The Stage Names (2007)



By this point, no one should be surprised to see a concept album from Okkervil River, whose frontman Will Sheff seems to take real delight in tying things together. What's amazing is that The Stage Names works as well as it does, given how headlong it dives into the world of pop culture in a way their previous album (stay tuned) had not. Consider "Plus Ones" in particular, which references a good nine other songs in its lyrics, a tactic I usually can't stand, or "A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene," which actually describes scenes from real TV shows over which other Okkervil River songs were played. The music holds everything together, as well as a strong vein of emotion which Sheff mines to particularly strong effect in "Savannah Smiles" and "John Allyn Smith Sails." Few bands would be able to write a first-person song from the perspective of a poet who killed himself in 1972, much less make it deeply moving by weaving it together with "Sloop John B" - but here's the proof that Okkervil River can.



#27
Steve Burns, Songs for Dustmites (2003)



I feel bad for Steve Burns. By all rights, Songs for Dustmites should have made him a rock star; instead, few people could forget that he was "the Blue's Clues guy" and this album was never given the attention it deserved. By no means is it perfect - the production is conspicuously low-budget, and Burns' vocal talents might best be described as "capable." Still, these things don't take away from the fact that this is a great set of songs, led off by probably the best track, "Mighty Little Man." "Troposphere" and the sort-of title track, "A Song for Dustmites" are both pretty epic tunes as well, and the rest of the album is solid throughout. There's no real reason this album shouldn't have found its way onto the shelves of indie rock fans everywhere.



#26
Doves, Some Cities (2005)



The Last Broadcast is also a good album, and it's just off the bottom of this list, but the Doves album that really jumped out at me was Some Cities. The ringing guitar kicking off the title track immediately signals that this is something worth paying attention to, and the second track, "Black and White Town," continues the feeling. Much of the rest of the album is considerably moodier, on tracks like "Snowden," "The Storm" and "Someday Soon," but the whole thing still has a consistent feel, which can be attributed to a great set of tunes and the vocals of Jimi Goodwin, which pull various styles of song together. If there were any justice in the world, these guys would be as big as Radiohead.



#25
Something Corporate, Leaving Through the Window (2002)



It's a testament to how eclectic my taste is that I can follow up Doves with Something Corporate, an emo-rock band fronted by a then-20-year-old. But Andrew McMahon can really write a tune, especially one driven by a piano, which I always appreciate. For so young a band, there are surprisingly few spots on Leaving Through the Window where the age really shows - I wouldn't have put "Punk Rock Princess" as track two, "Drunk Girl" is clumsy and "iF yoU C Jordan" is just kind of petty, albeit still fun to sing along to. But the album has 14 tracks, and nearly all of the rest range from good to brilliant. "I Woke Up in a Car" may call to mind a particular age range, but it's singularly evocative, and "The Astronaut" should have been a monster rock hit. "Cavanaugh Park" and "Globes and Maps" are both great piano ballads. It may be an album that absolutely reminds me of college, but who says that's always a bad thing?



#24
Mates of State, Re-arrange Us (2008)



There aren't that many songs I feel like I could listen to on a loop almost indefinitely, but "My Only Offer," track three on Re-arrange Us, is one such. I'm not sure how long it would take me to get sick of it, but I bet it would be at least ten times through, which for a single song is probably ridiculous. It's that good. The whole album is a thoroughly effective piece with the voices of husband and wife Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner mixing perfectly with the indie-pop musical style. They've got some perfect tunes in here - "Get Better," the aforementioned "My Only Offer," "Blue and Gold Print" - and do a fabulous job of taking at times melancholy lyrics and pairing them with music in such a way that you simply can't help but sing along.



#23
Ben Folds, Songs for Silverman (2005)



"Landed" might very well be Ben Folds' best song, at least as a solo artist, but it's still just one piece of the puzzle on Songs for Silverman, a fairly melancholy album that contains virtually none of Folds' trademark humor. What it does have are a lot of great piano-driven songs, including "Late," a touchingly small-time farewell to Elliott Smith. It does lack a lot of booming highs, but I have to admit to a bias when I say that for me, good Ben Folds songs stand alongside very good to great songs by a lot of other artists. I love piano-heavy rock and I love Folds' flair for the everyday, which stands out in excellent tracks like "Bastard" and "You to Thank," along with those already mentioned.



#22
Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs (2008)



After the dreary nature of Plans, Death Cab sort of bridges the gap between that darkness and their earlier work (often still dark, but more entertainingly so) with Narrow Stairs. "Bixby Canyon Bridge," which opens the album, is plenty dark in its lyrical content, but the music isn't as much of a downer; track three, "No Sunlight," is pretty conspicuous in the contradiction between the lyrics and tune, which is curiously peppy. The album's best track, "Cath...", is about a woman giving up and marrying a guy she doesn't particularly love, but it absolutely rocks the place out. Ultimately, that's the best of Death Cab - regardless of what they're singing about, they're perfectly capable of giving you an impeccably crafted rock song with a chorus you're ready to belt out at a stoplight.



#21 The New Pornographers, Twin Cinema (2005)



For the most part, the New Pornographers just keep getting better. I do tend to think of Twin Cinema as a tiny step back, though really it was more of a lateral move. The hits here are just as strong as those on any NPs album - "Use It" is a masterpiece, and songs like "Sing Me Spanish Techno," the title track, and "Jackie, Dressed in Cobras" are great pop-rock tracks that stand with the best work the group has done. But similarly to Mass Romantic, something about the second half of Twin Cinema leaves me sort of cold. These aren't bad songs at all - in fact they're very good songs - but I just don't have the same connection to them that I do to most of the album's first half, or to the entirety of other NPs albums which will show up later. It's a very subjective opinion and I can't really defend it from a musical standpoint, but few things are as hard to quantify as exactly why a given song makes me feel a certain way. People can talk about various aspects of music all the way, but few forms of art are quite this personal. The New Pornographers are probably one of my five favorite bands, maybe of all time, but not all their work moves me the same way. Still, it says something that even an album whose entire second half "leaves me sort of cold" can find its way to just outside the top 20.