Let’s see, what were we talking about this time last year? Two years ago? Four years? Six?

2007

We were chatting with our pal Steve Poltz about music, baseball, and life:

I have a song coming out on my new CD that’s called “A Brief History of My Life.” It starts off with us moving to Pasadena from Halifax and taking an oath that we wouldn’t join the Communist party. That’s the first thing I remember — standing next to my dad, and him becoming an American citizen.

Then later in the song, the chorus goes:

We talked Hollywood and baseball in the car
The voice of Vin Scully will travel real far

The next chorus says, “The voice of Jack Buck”; the third one says, “The voice of Ernie Harwell”; and the last one says, “The voice of Jerry Coleman still travels really far.”

2006

Ah, yes: Bud Black replaces Bruce Bochy as manager; Josh Barfield is shipped to Cleveland for Kevin Kouzmanoff:

The one concern I have is that in filling one hole, the Padres are opening another. This is mitigated to a large extent, I believe, by the fact that second base should be a much easier hole to fill than third base has proven to be over the past few years (Sean Burroughs, we salute you!).

The key word there is should. Marcus Giles and Tadahito Iguchi, it seems, had other ideas. That said, Barfield promptly turned into nothing on reaching Cleveland, so at least the Padres got something for him. And Kouz has been pretty solid at third base, which is more than can be said for most of the other clowns that have manned the position since Phil Nevin’s glory days.

2004

Hot topics include the dreadful Jason Kendall rumors, the Diamondbacks’ hiring and immediate firing of Wally Backman as manager, Khalil Greene and Jason Bay, and the defense of Mark Loretta and Jay Payton. I even made a brief foray into football, defending the then-maligned Drew Brees. On Kendall:

No disrespect to Jason Kendall, who is a fine catcher, but I don’t think he’s likely to be much better than Ramon Hernandez over the next few seasons.

In fact, Kendall was a good deal worse, although Hernandez has faded badly the past couple of years in Baltimore, as anyone with half a brain could have told you he would.

2002

I was off on several tangents here. Rereading this one, I’d forgotten how much fun I used to have writing songs. Maybe that is something I will pick up again one day when I have more time.

I also learned that among founding fathers of the United States, I am most like Alexander Hamilton:

You have very little faith in humanity, but still care a great deal about the little dolts, despite your best efforts not to.

Heh. Guilty as charged.

Finally, this is where the quest for Bucksnort, Tennessee, first made itself known. It ended, of course, in the “town” itself several years later. Good times…