We've had quite a tradition of music posts around here, which I could find if I weren't too lazy to look them up. The last one was particularly good -- folks were listing their 3 favorite songs that people haven't heard of. If you aren't too lazy, you could look it up too.

Well, it's after Christmas and I got $15 worth of iTunes burnin' a hole in my pocket. So I ask myself, who better to take life advice from, especially musical life advice, than the RR crew? Plus, if I wanna know, probably there's a whole bunch more of you that wanna know too. I know, if I weren't so lazy, I'd look up the old one and get some of that stuff. But I am. +1.

So what new music should I get? It doesn't have to be NEW new, just new to me, but it gets a bonus for being new.

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Talk of expanding the playoffs in the immediate future seems to have died down.  That seems strange, given the exceedingly boring nature of the races this year.

In the AL, the Yanks and Sox are in.  No drama there.  Detroit has a pretty solid hold on the weak Central.  The Angels still have an outside shot at the West, but it's not likely.  The Rays are 7.5 games out of the Wild Card, so nothin' doin' there, either.

This makes the AL Wild Card pointless.  Neither East team has much incentive to try to beat the other.  Home field advantage is nice, but resting your starters and setting up your rotation is better.  Not even ESPN can cook up something interesting to say about that race.

Things aren't much better in the NL.  The Phillies have it wrapped up, of course, as do the Brewers.  The Cards and Giants are about 9 games out of the Wild Card, so you can hand that to the Braves.  Unless the Gigantes somehow discover the secret to scoring runs (hint: get some hits first), the D-Backs will take the West. 

So, here it is September 1st, and all the races are basically wrapped up.

Now, pretend with me that there was a second wild card in each league, with a one-game playoff.  In the NL, the Cards and Giants would be feverishly trying to squeeze ahead of each other, currently separated by half a game.  If the Cards win, you move the last game (Wed Sep 28th vs. Houston) up to a day game.  Thursday the 29th, Cards play the Braves in a winner-take-all.  You add one solid playoff race (Giants/Cards) and make the Braves sweat out the season, trying to catch Philly to avoid the 1-gamer.

In the AL, Tampa Bay and the Angels are separated by only 1.5 games.  So add another race there.  And now, down the stretch, you have the Titanic Struggle of All Titanic Struggles, where the Yanks and Sox claw and scratch for the all-important division title.  Nobody wants to face either the Rays or Angels in a 1-game series.

So, instead of exactly zero interesting races, you'd have 3 interesting races, with one of them dominating all MLB sports coverage 24/7.  The beauty of the second wild-card is that it actually makes winning the division more important, not less.

More revenue, more excitement, more importance on winning all season long.  What's not to like?

So, I took the big leap this year, abandoned Extra Innings, and got MLB.tv.  Before I did it, I had some trepidation. 

As it stands, I have mixed feelings.  There's some good, and some bad.  Also, there's still things I'm figuring out about how to make it go the way I think it should.

Seriously important, then, is that we share some tips and tricks to get it to do what we want.  Also, this being RR, we should rant a bit about what it would have been if it had been done properly, and what Chris Carpenter will tell his kids when the game is blacked out in their region.

If you are so inclined, share with us your MLB.tv experience, your computer/bandwidth, and what you think.  I'll go first, after the jump.  I've always wanted to write something after the jump.

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So, I'm trying to get ready to watch the Reds win the 2011 World Series from California.

I've had MLB Extra Innings for several years now, and I've been pretty happy with it.  However, I'm looking at updating my ancient A/V equipment (non-HD CRT and DSL) to the modern millenium.  One of the options has me leaving DirectTV and MLB Extra Innings, and streaming mlb.tv to my (hypothetical) new HD flatscreen.

Have any of you tried this?  I know there were a lot of complaints about mlb.tv when it first came out.  How did it work this past year?  Is MLB still screwing you on the charges?

What is the difference between the regular and premium levels?  The MLB.com site is very unclear on that.  Do you get the playoffs included, or is that extra?

How often did it actually work? Did you get HD without horrible lags and stuff?  Did you try streaming it to a TV?

Potentially, there are a lot of nice things about mlb.tv: portability to any device anywhere, games on demand, plus it's about half the cost of Extra Innings.  Still, I'm a little nervous about it.

I've read various opinions from dogs on the internet, but I trust you guys a lot more, because I know what kind of dogs you are.  Thanks!

So, a bunch of you are musicians, and a bunch of you have kids.  Probably some of you musicians have kids.  If so, you know that the great majority of kids music out there was originally developed for use at Abu Ghraib.  10 minutes of that stuff, and I'd confess to anything, just to make it stop.

I'm always on the lookout for kids music that (in this order):

#1) Doesn't drive me insane

#2) The kids like

#3) Has some redeeming musical value, in the hopes that ideas of good music will eventually sink into their little heads.

Here's what I've found, but I bet you guys have found a lot more.

Dan Zanes.  Formerly of the Del Fuegos, he now does funky folk-style kids music that's actually pretty good.  I like it better than the kids do, though.

Laurie Berkner.  Borders on annoying sometimes, but the kids love it.  A few decent harmonies, and embarrassingly catchy tunes.

Justin Roberts.  Excellent stuff, loved by kids and Mom and Dad.  Musically interesting, lyrically interesting, and yet still the kids like it.  This guy remembers what it's like to be 8 years old.

Ralph's World.  Ralph Agresta (?).  Kids and Mom like it, I'm meh.  At least it's not cloying.

Who else is out there worth listening to?

I'll be in Cincinnati this summer for the first time since GABP opened.  In return for attending Miami Reunions, my wife has agreed that we can all go to a game.  We'll be there for the June 17th day game against the hated Dodgers.

So, I checked out the Visitors Guide to figure out where to sit.  While it was very helpful at outlining the pros and cons of various smoking policies, neither my two little kids nor their two little cousins smoke, so that's not really a driver.

What I really want to know is: Where should we sit?  We'll have 8 of us, so I'd like to keep the ticket price under control.  Family friendly, near some decent food, with an overall good park experience given that we won't be back for a while.

Do the bleachers get too rowdy for little kids (4 kids under 8 years old)?  Are we going to get baked by the sun in a day game?

Common, guys, make me look like a genious for picking great seats when we get to the park.

Well, I didn't get Fantasy Camp for Christmas, but I did get a ball covered with replica autographs of Your 2008 Cincinnati Reds.  Of course, they didn't tell me who exactly is on there. Hey, I thought, this ought to keep the RR gang amused for about 5 of the approximately 61,000 minutes until pitchers and catchers report.

It's very unclear when the signatures were gathered -- quite possibly before the season, so perhaps no Cueto and Volquez.  There are 27 signatures, and one is Dusty.

So, here are the pictures.  How many can you figure out?  One million points to whoever can identify the most autographs, with a bonus one million to whoever gets the 27th one.

Picture #1:

Jeff Keppinger is easy in this one.  Looks like Ryan Branyan in the middle, except that Ryan Branyan doesn't exist.  Maybe it says Ryan Farney?

Picture #2:

Stanton is easy.  The other one is hard.

Picture #3:

Looks like Hit By Pitch, but maybe it's #4 Brandon Phillips?

Picture #4

CoCo and Jr.  and.... Dan Valentine?  Huh?  Could be Alex Gonzalez on there, too.

Picture #5

Looks like Bronson is a better singer than speller.

Picture #6

Dusty and Weathers and a bunch more.

That's 7 I'm reasonably confident in, leaving 20 more.  Li'l help?

(Besides, I'd get hurt in fantasy camp anyway.  Yeah, that's the ticket.)

(And by the way, it's not for sale.  This baby is my retirement.  You can't get these reproduction autographs anywhere except at www.autoball.com for $12.)

Well, it looks like Ozzie doesn't have as much respect for Junior as Dusty does -- he batted 7th last night, and 2nd today.  The Veteran Presence who fills the 3-spot: near-rookie Carlos Quentin.  Of course, CQ has about 140 points of OPS on Jr...

Of course, my WhiteSox-fan friends are irate that they are actually playing him in CF.

Which leads to a larger question: is the fanbase of any team in baseball generally satisfied with their manager?  It seems like most of the other SBNation blogs generally think their managers are idiots.  Maybe it's less a function of the manager, and more a function of the nature of the job.

Or, maybe its just that idiot managers who play the book, know how to win, and inspire veteranicity are the only ones who get hired.

Sorry for sending this to everyone; I couldn't figure out how to send it directly to Verka.  That being said, I'd love to hear anyone else's input on this.

Verka, I don't understand exactly what you are doing, but I think it's enough to say that you are working for social justice -- that is, a kind of equality -- for disadvantaged folks in the Latin Caribbean.  First off: Good for you, and thanks!

Now, my question.  I've often wondered whether the much-discussed inequality of income is as important as the absolute level of income.  That is, which is better: to have everyone get nearly equal income, or to have a bigger spread, but have the median be higher?

Of course, you have to define what "better" is.  But for these purposes, I think something like "satisfaction," "economic stress-level," or "contentment" might be the right definition.

I can answer this question for myself.  I'm doing reasonably well --don't have to worry about what I'm going to eat, don't have to worry too much about paying the mortgage.  It doesn't bother me a bit that Griffey's option year alone would bring him over 100x my income.  Because I'm content with what I've got, I don't care what he gets.

This makes me wonder if we shouldn't focus on raising "the bottom," and not worry about the disparity, except secondarily insofar as the megaincomes actively screw the poor.  If we could raise the standard of living of the 5th percentile in income in each country -- get it up to the point that the 5th percentile lives a decent life, maybe it doesn't matter what the 99th percentile is making.

So, Verka -- in your experience, which would make people more content?  Reducing the disparity, even if that means everyone is poor, or boosting the 5th percentile, even if some people are making 100x or 1000x that amount?

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Hi all,

Well, after last night, and remembering how last year it seemed like the Reds kept leaving ducks on the pond in inning after inning, I decided to do a little analysis to see how the Reds compare to the rest of the league in leaving men on base.

The summary is: the Reds were just about dead on the league average in 2007.  They are obviously on the high side for this year, but the sample is still small.

I put the whole analysis on my blog: http://briansbaseballblog.wordpress.com.  Most of that blog is about a fantasy league that I am commissioner for (but not playing in) so you won't care about all that.  (Listening to blather about someone else's fantasy league is usually about as interesting as listening to someone else's latest medical saga...)

The good news is that if the Reds return to their usual form, these current LOB issues are just temporary.

Anyway, you are all pretty smart about such things -- I'd appreciate your reactions, either here or there.

Thanks!