Trent Reznor is industrial’s George Brett, Green Day is punk’s Ozzie Smith

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Patrick Garvin

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 30th Annual Induction Ceremony is Saturday. This year, the inductees are notable for who is getting in on their first year eligible and who is finally getting in after languishing in the ether for years. And, ss with most years, who isn’t being inducted is just as notable as who is.

This year’s inductees:

Ringo Starr
The “5” Royales
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Green Day
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Lou Reed
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
Bill Withers

Notably not among this year’s inductees:

Chic
Kraftwerk
The Marvelettes
N.W.A.
Nine Inch Nails
The Smiths
The Spinners
Sting
War

Among past inductees:

Daryl Hall and John Oates
Randy Newman
David Geffen
Madonna
Public Enemy
Run D.M.C.
Beastie Boys
Donna Summer
R.E.M.

I mention past inductees not to throw shade on those inductees, as that list includes some of my favorite artists. I merely mention those artists for context. In other words, why those guys and not their counterparts who’ve been neglected?

This year was the first year that both Green Day and Nine Inch Nails were eligible. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts have been eligible a few years now. Ringo Starr, Lou Reed, and Bill Withers have been eligible for decades.

The interesting thing is that while both Green Day and Nine Inch Nails were eligible for the first time, Green Day was inducted and Nine Inch Nails was not. These two have more in common with each other than they do with any of the others who were inducted or eligible but not inducted, which is why inducting one and omitting the other seems so noticeable. To put this in perspective, let’s think of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame like the Baseball Hall of Fame, and let’s think of Green Day’s and Nine Inch Nails’ respective genres — punk and industrial — of music as Major League Baseball teams.

Punk is like the St. Louis Cardinals, having had several inductees in the Hall of Fame: Patti Smith, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, The Clash. Green Day, thus, is the genre’s Ozzie Smith: immensely popular and one of the more well-known players of the last 30 years. They aren’t the all-time best, but they are considered up there, particularly among younger fans. And don’t think age doesn’t matter in the context of punk. Any punk fan of a certain age can’t have a barstool or coffee shop conversation about punk without bringing up Green Day and modern acts just to point out how inferior they are to the forefathers, whether it’s because Billy Joe affects an over-the-top faux-British accent whine or because the band has moved into “Time of Your Life” ballad-type cheese. Now, I don’t think any Cardinals fan will ever dare hate on Ozzie, but if you ask Cards fans who their favorite shortstop is, age will divide your answers: Ozzie among younger fans, Marty Marion among older fans. Marty Marion, like the punk band Black Flag, never made it into the Hall of Fame. But both were among the best at their game.

If punk is the St. Louis Cardinals, and the goofy Green Day is its backflipping Ozzie Smith, then industrial music is the Kansas City Royals and Trent Reznor is its dour-faced George Brett. Ozzie Smith, a contemporary of Brett’s, was one of many beloved players for the Cardinals. But there is no Royals player more beloved or well-known than George Brett. If you’re only a casual baseball fan, then Brett is probably the only Royals player you can name, just as Reznor and Nine Inch Nails are the only industrial act that mainstream music fans probably know. Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” off 1994’s “The Downward Spiral” cemented Reznor’s stature the way that the Royals’ 1985 World Series win cemented Brett’s. Only fans with some deeper knowledge would really know much about:

Dan Quisenberry, who was the Royals’ version of Ministry
Bret Saberhagen, who was Kansas City’s Skinny Puppy
Frank White, KMFDM to Brett’s Reznor
Amos Otis and Hal McRae, the Die Krupps and Throbbing Gristle who set the stage
Carlos Beltran, the Frontline Assembly to Saberhagen’s Skinny Puppy

If you only knew a few of those bands or players, you prove my point: George Brett is the standard-bearer of the Kansas City Royals and Trent Reznor is the commercial face of industrial music. Not that these are bad things. Neither guy is anything to sneeze at, to be sure. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average. The others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and punk rock St. Louis Cardinal Stan Musial. Brett had longevity, being the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. Reznor has had success not only with Nine Inch Nails, but in his film scores as well. The man has won Golden Globes, Grammy awards and an Oscar. He’s immensely talented and driven, which is why he’s still recording and performing 26 years after 1989’s “Pretty Hate Machine” introduced many squares to industrial music.

I’m hammering this point home like George Brett’s 3-run home run off Goose Gossage in Game 3 of 1980 ALCS because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has managed to have artists from almost every genre of rock. Nine Inch Nails’ induction would give industrial a presence that no other mainstream commercial artist could give. They’re certainly not going to induct Al Jourgensen. (Or Dan Quisenberry.)

Of course, these things aren’t always fair, which is why Bill Withers is just now being inducted. Or why Daryl Hall and John Oates got in before Stevie Ray Vaughan. Or why Chic hasn’t been inducted yet. Or why so many others aren’t in the Hall of Fame. Finding instances of unfair omissions in the Hall of Fame’s history is like finding MLB players who used steroids: not difficult. Pontificating on all of those oversights would take a while. A lot more than nine innings.

The main thing to remember here is that contemporaries George Brett and Ozzie Smith each entered the Baseball Hall of Fame when eligible. I don’t think many fans would disagree, nor would any fan argue that either one shouldn’t have been inducted.

Thus, if Green Day can enter but Nine Inch Nails can’t, well…

Wake this basketcase when September ends.

Coverage of the final Border War basketball game between Missouri and Kansas

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Patrick Garvin

Yesterday was a historic day for fans of Missouri and Kansas, as the two universities’ men’s basketball teams faced off in what is ostensibly the last of their meetups in the historic Border War rivalry. Mizzou is leaving the Big 12 Conference and will play with the SEC next season. Coaches and officials at the University of Kansas have said Kansas will not play Missouri out of conference. KU basketball coach Bill Self even said, “The majority of Kansas fans don’t give a flip about playing Missouri.”

When the teams played their last football game against each other in November, Mizzou won the game and the distinction of winning most of the football games between the two teams.

————

THE LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD
Lawrence, Kan.

The University of Kansas’ hometown paper stripped a photo of victorious fans celebrating the “grand finale” of the “epic border battle.” Not that these fans “give a flip.”

————

THE HUTCHINSON NEWS
Hutchinson, Kan.

————

THE TOPEKA CAPITAL-JOURNAL
Topeka, Kan.

Here’s a close-up of that photo:

So, Bill Self, when you say that Kansas fans “don’t give a flip” about playing Mizzou, what fans are you talking about? These guys seem to give pretty much of a flip.

As they should. Their team was behind and then Mizzou blew a 19-point lead. That’s flip-worthy.

————

THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Kansas City, Mo.

This was pretty fitting play for the Kansas City Star, the biggest daily newspaper between Lawrence and Columbia.

It pains me to see that photo of smiling Jayhawks celebrating. But that’s a great photo, showing a majority of beakers… giving a flip.

————

THE COLUMBIA MISSOURIAN
Columbia, Mo.

What a heartbreaking photo by Andrew Mitchell of The Missourian, showing Missouri guard Michael Dixon on the court after the game. With the Jayhawk mascot in the background, even.

————

THE COLUMBIA DAILY TRIBUNE
Columbia, Mo.

The other daily paper in Columbia picked a slightly less heartbreaking photo, though the disappointment is still apparent.

————

THE ST. JOSEPH NEWS-PRESS
St. Joseph, Mo.

The News-Press does a good job picking above-the-nameplate photos. They used a variation of the Dixon scene. This photo shows more of the Jayhawk mascot than the Missourian photo, but it makes sense: St. Joe is a lot closer to Lawrence than it is to Columbia, so News-Press readers aren’t necessarily reading this outcome as heartbreak.

————

As a Missouri native and Mizzou alum, I can’t overstate how big this rivalry is. Games against KU were as important to Mizzou sports as the “Battlestar Galactica” episodes when you found out the identity of another Cylon. To Mizzou fans, Kansas was the rival among rivals. Kansas is the Cavil among the other Cylons. If the Big 12 were “The X-Files,” Kansas was Cancer Man among the Syndicate, foiling Mizzou’s Mulder and Scully. Watching Mizzou beat KU was like watching the trailer scene in “Kill Bill” when Darryl Hannah gets what she has coming.

I could come up with dozens more pop culture references, but you get the point: This was a big deal, about which we gave a huge flip.

As you can see, I’m pretty hacked off about that Bill Self comment. A friend of mine who used to cover the rivalry for a radio station put it pretty aptly: “He can say that, but I sure don’t ever see Kansas fans making ‘Muck Febraska’ T-shirts.”

Touche.

On Tim Wakefield, oldest active player in Red Sox history

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Patrick Garvin

On Friday, Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield announced he’s retiring after 19 seasons in the major leagues, 17 of which were with the Red Sox.

Wakefield got his 200th career win this past season. Of those 200 wins, 186 were with the Red Sox. Sports Jedi Luke Knox put together this chart showing Wakefield’s wins and how he stacks up with other Sox players.

Indeed, among Red Sox pitchers, he’s high on many leader lists, right up there with Cy Young and Roger Clemens.

There’s another distinction that Wakefield earned in the 2011 season: he became the oldest active player in the history of the Boston Red Sox, including the time when the team was called the Boston Americans in the early 1900s. On Tuesday, May 10, 2011, Tim Wakefield was 44 years, 281 days old, a day older than Deacon McGuire was when he played final game for the team in 1908.

It seems like a nitpicky distinction, but it’s one I will remember, because it was the topic of one of my first enterprise graphics at The Boston Globe. Click for a larger view.

When I first got to the Globe in November 2010, I knew I wanted to learn more Flash. And I knew I wanted a project about the Red Sox. And I know that for both, the man to talk to was Daigo Fujiwara, who knew Flash and Red Sox baseball very well. He has his own baseball sites and even hosts a Red Sox podcast.

In talking with him, I mentioned Jamie Moyer, whom I had just seen mentioned in an article as being the oldest player in major league baseball in the 2010 season. A few years behind him in age was Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield. I went home and did some research on Baseball-Reference.com, and found that there had been other Sox players who played at the age of 44. But a comparison of birthdays showed that none of them had been as far into 44 as Tim Wakefield. Some time into the upcoming 2011 season, Tim Wakefield would become the oldest Red Sox player in the history of the team.

I told my boss that this might be a fun project to work on in my down time at work when I didn’t have any other pressing projects. That is, if he thought people would be interested. “Almost anything Sox-related gots lets of traction in this town. People will definitely be interested.”

So, using Baseball-Reference.com, I created a spreadsheet. I noted the youngest and oldest player of each season, dating back to the days when the team was The Americans. Additionally, Baseball-Reference determines the average age of every player on the team, so I included that as well. It was a tedious task, going through each page for each season, looking through their rosters. But a pretty cool data table was shaping up.

When finished, I plugged the data into Illustrator’s graph tool, showing the youngest, oldest and average ages per season. The nut graph was that there were no noticeable trends. Carl Yastrzemski played for a bit when he was 44, but was a younger 44.

Throughout the winter of 2011, when I had no more dailies or short-term projects on my plate, I would turn to this project, and how we would present it online. Using the Actionscript from projects I had worked on with Daigo, I created a template for what the Flash version would be. I turned the Excel spreadsheet into an XML file that fed into the Flash file. While the print version had been a static version of the chart, the Flash version would allow the user to roll over each year and see the oldest and youngest players. My boss, David Schutz, suggested I include photos of each player. The aforementioned Luke Knox directed me to some old Red Sox press guides, which is where I found the bulk of the photos.

So, by the end of April, this thing had come together in bits and pieces over a period of several months. On Tuesday, May 10, the day that Wakefield became the oldest active Red Sox player, we ran the graphic in the sports section of The Boston Globe, and this interactive went live on Boston.com.

To this day, it’s one of my favorite things I have ever done, especially at The Globe. Of course, by the time Tim Wakefield was the age I am now, he had already won 56 games in the majors.

Not bad. Indeed, not bad.

How Kansas area newspapers covered Turner Gill’s firing as KU football coach

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Patrick Garvin

On Sunday afternoon, acting KU athletic director Sheahon Zenger fired Turner Gill as football coach. Gill had been at the University of Kansas for two years.

This move comes after Saturday’s Border War loss to Missouri, which you can read about on the blog here. The Jayhawks, once a dominant force in Big 12 football, have had a string of losses in the last two seasons. And by “string of losses,” I mean, they’ve only won one Big 12 game.

I saw this firing coming, even before kickoff on Saturday. But hey, at least he’s not the Kansas coach who said, “The majority of Kansas fans don’t give a flip about playing Missouri.” Not that I’m bitter.

Here’s a round-up of newspaper front pages from Newseum.

————

THE LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD
Lawrence, Kan.

To read Matt Tait’s story, go here.

————

THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Kansas City, Mo.

At the bottom of that package is an info box about potential replacements for Turner Gill:

————

THE TOPEKA CAPITAL-JOURNAL
Topeka, Kan.

The subhed gets at a point that the others didn’t: Gill only had one Big 12 win in two seasons. One. It was against Colorado in 2010.

————

STRIPPED SKYBOXES

Several Kansas papers stripped the story in skyboxes. Hutchinson gave the all the skybox space to the story, whereas Wichita and Garden City split the space among a few stories.

THE HUTCHINSON NEWS
Hutchinson, Kan.

————

THE WICHITA EAGLE
Wichita, Kan.

————

THE GARDEN CITY TELEGRAM
Garden City, Kan.

————

Overall, I was surprised that it was not a bigger story, though this was no surprise. This season has been appalling, especially when you consider that these guys were once considered pretty good. For the fans, this can — and should — be good news.

Ya know, if you give a flip about playing Kansas.

Fred Taylor: A class act to the very end

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Patrick Garvin

Running back Fred Taylor, who played 11 seasons for the Jacksonville Jaguars and two years with the New England Patriots, is retiring today. From The Boston Globe:

Today, Fred Taylor will sign a ceremonial one-day contract with the Jacksonville Jaguars, the team which drafted him eighth overall in 1998, and then he will announce his retirement from the NFL after 13 seasons and 11,695 yards, which is 15th most all-time.

I feel a special connection to Fred Taylor. Not just because he played for the Jaguars when I worked in Jacksonville, or because he also left Jacksonville to come to Boston. But because I met the man, and he was really humble and earnest.

Four years ago, Taylor joined an elite group of players who’ve rushed at least 10,000 yards. At the time, he was one of only two active players in that list of 20 players.

Not too shabby, Fred.

As that milestone was coming, the staff at The Florida Times-Union began thinking of how to cover it. AME for Visuals Denise M. Reagan and I talked with Sports Editor Chet Fussman and assistant sports editor Justin Hathaway about potential graphics. The more we talked, the more ideas we had.

I had remembered a Columbia Missourian graphic that converted Brad Smith’s stats into distance across Columbia. I liked that because I can find sports statistics kind of abstract. I wanted to put it in perspective for casual fans such as myself. We could have simply converted it to miles, but I thought showing it to readers in the context of their city had greater impact. I made it lighter and more whimsical to indicate this wasn’t a traditional map.

Click for a larger version:

Meanwhile, we knew we wanted to do something awesome for when he finally reached 10,000 yards. Whenever that fateful game happened, we wanted a breakdown of his career ready. In the preseason, we pulled statistics and started organizing our pieces. We decided I would do a full-page, season-by-season, game-by-game chart of every yard he’d rushed in his career, color-coding the games in which he rushed 100 yards or more.

Click for a larger version:

After it ran in the paper, we printed a version we could frame and give to Taylor. We went to the locker room and presented it to him. Charles Apple did a Q&A on that.

He was not what I expected a pro athlete to be. There was no cocky bravado or sense of entitlement. He was extremely gentle and humbled by his accomplishment. Other reporters have said he’s extremely friendly and down to earth.

Fred Taylor, to me, epitomizes the best of Jacksonville. He’s not the star of the team or the flashiest player, but he worked hard and did his best, despite injuries and age. He stuck with it, and when it came time to retire, he decided to do it with class.

The symbolism of signing a one-day contract with the Jaguars means a lot to fans. In the four and a half years I lived in Jacksonville, there were often fears that the team would move to another market, presumably Los Angeles. Taylor’s return to the team lets them know they are important and not forgotten, which goes a long way in Jacksonville.

To read Times-Union reporter Tania Ganguli’s piece on Fred Taylor’s retirement, go here.

More of The Boston Globe’s Bruins pages, infographics

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Patrick Garvin

Last weekend, The Boston Globe published a special section commemorating the Boston Bruins’ season and Stanley Cup victory. The section was emblematic of all the good coverage that the paper had published all season, both in the sports section and throughout the paper.

Here are some of my favorite pages The Boston Globe produced for the Bruins’ appearance in the series with the Canucks. Click on any of them for a larger view.

————
The preview section
June 1, 2011

—

Here’s a closer look at that “Raising the cup” package:

—

Here’s a nice comparison of the two teams:

—

————
Game graphics

Both Daigo Fujiwara and Luke Knox worked hard at putting together full pages breaking down the shots, the goals and the performances of each player for each game. Each of these ran the day after the game.

—

In total, there were seven of these pages, one after each game. Daigo had quite the task: plot each point on the ice, and then find a full-body photo that wouldn’t cover the points, and then cut it out and put it in the graphic. And do it all on deadline.

—

You’ll recall game 3 when Aaron Rome of the Canucks hit Bruin Nathan Horton on the chin, knocking Horton down. The instant replays tried to show what happened, but it wasn’t until I saw this graphic by Dave Butler that I fully understood what had happened.

————
The special section
June 19, 2011

—

This page features another great graphic by Daigo. I helped plug in some of the initial numbers, but he did much of the heavy lifting.

————
Other

Daigo and Tom Giratikanon put together this cool online graphic showing how far into the playoffs each of Boston’s four main teams have gotten, going all the way back to the Boston Americans (now the Red Sox).

I got to put together the print version:

—

These pages are only some of the great pages that the Globe produced this past season. I hope we’ll get to do it all again next year.

How Massachusetts, Canadian papers played Stanley Cup win

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Patrick Garvin

Last night’s Stanley Cup game was big news for a few reasons. It was the first time the Boston Bruins had won in 39 years. And on top of that, there were riots. In Vancouver.

So, take a look at how papers in Massachusetts and Canada played the game and the riots. Click any of the pages for a larger view. In a few days or so, I’ll have a look at how The Globe has played the Bruins in the playoffs and finals.

All images come from Newseum.

———
The Boston Globe
Boston, Mass.

———
The Boston Herald
Boston, Mass.

———
The Enterprise
Brockton, Mass.

———
Telegram & Gazette
Worcester, Mass.

———
The Herald News
Fall River, Mass.

———
Cape Cod Times
Hyannis, Mass.

———
The Vancouver Sun
Vancouver, Canada

———
The Province
Vancouver, Canada

———
The Globe and Mail
Toronto, Canada

———
Edmonton Sun
Edmonton, Canada

———
Calgary Sun
Calgary, Canada

———
Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg, Canada

———

INFOGRAPHIC: Pro-wrestling deaths compared

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Patrick Garvin

Last week, WWE wrestler “Macho Man” Randy Savage died in a car crash in Florida. He was 58.

When Savage’s death was announced on Friday, there was speculation that he might have suffered a heart attack before crashing his car. As of now, there’s been no confirmation of that speculation. But if Macho Man did die of heart-related conditions, he would not be alone when compared to his fellow wrestlers who have also died before turning 65.

I conducted a brief, non-exhaustive survey of the wrestling stars to die in the last 20 years before reaching their 65th birthdays. This includes both men and women who were in WWF/WWE or WCW. I culled my list from a larger list, and then looked up individual wrestlers. I left off Terry Garvin because there’s speculation on his birth year. (He does have a really cool surname, though).

Of that group, a good number of these deaths were heart- or drug-related, if not both. Additionally, there were two suicides.

Some things to point out:

Andre the Giant was a huge guy, so it’s understandable that he’d have heart issues.
Yokozuna and Earthquake were also huge guys, so it’s understandable that they’d have general health issues.
Dino Bravo was rumored to have been murdered because of mob connections.
Owen Hart died during a WWE performance.

If looking purely at this list, it would seem that “Macho Man” Randy Savage is one of the older wrestling stars to die. In this list, he’s second only to Gorilla Monsoon.

Again, this list does not include every wrestler, and is not meant to imply that Gorilla Monsoon and Randy Savage were the oldest former wrestlers at the times of their deaths. It does succeed in showing, though, that in dying at 58, Savage outlived some of his colleagues by at least 10 years. In the grand scheme of things, 58 would be considered a young age. But in pro-wrestling, where these guys put their bodies through all sorts of physical activity, Savage was almost elderly.

Remembering St. Louis Cardinal Marty Marion

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Patrick Garvin

Former St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Marty Marion, who played on three World Series championship teams (1942, ’44 and ’46), died Tuesday night of an apparent heart attack. Read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch story here.

Marty Marion (No. 4) joined the celebration after the St. Louis Cardinals won the 1946 World Series. Others who turned around their jerseys to mark the occasion were Whitey Kurowski (1), Enos Slaughter (9) and Stan Musial (6). (Post-Dispatch photo)

I grew up in St. Louis, but most people my age wouldn’t have known his name. I’m fortunate that I got to know him as a person, as he was my neighbor. It wasn’t until I got older and started researching that I realized how legendary he was.

He had been known as the Cardinals’ greatest shortstop until Ozzie Smith played for the team in the 1980s. He was one of the best players on the team from the ’40s, an era when the Cardinals won the National League pennant four times and the World Series three times. He was a teammate and friend of Stan Musial, considered the greatest Cardinal to ever play and a larger-than-life hero in St. Louis.

According to the Post-Dispatch story, Marion indirectly influenced another great shortstop: Cal Ripken. According to Tony LaRussa:

“I heard that [former Baltimore Orioles manager] Earl Weaver said the reason he thought about moving Cal Ripken to shortstop is that [Weaver] grew up in St. Louis watching Marty Marion. That’s a helluva compliment.”

Marion’s Baseball-Reference.com statistics are interesting, specifically during the World War II years when some of the players were, ya know, fighting in the war. Marion’s stats look odd with modern stats in mind, but the game was different then. (For starters, no andro.)

To see a Post-Dispatch/STLtoday.com gallery of Marty Marion photos, go here. Here’s how the Post-Dispatch played the story on A1 on Thursday: