Baseball Bloggers Know Music

It started out rather innocently.* I noted on Twitter that several of my fellow High Heat Stats writers were folks I've bonded with to varying degrees about music. Or, rather, I said they have good taste in music, in that their tastes have considerable common ground with mine.

*OK, so it actually wasn't all that innocent, as I kind of poked fun at our "boss" in the process. But, he defended himself in the only way he knows how. He told me I was fired. Jokingly, of course. I think. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a paycheck since the incident (or before, for that matter).

In the ensuing conversation, a suggestion was made that we all collaborate on a little music-related post. I'm using the term "little" rather loosely here, because as it turns out, said post will end up in the ballpark of 3000-5000 words.

So, you can look forward to early January, when you'll get to read 25-40 words on each of the following baseball bloggers' top 25 albums of all-time. Why 25 albums and 25-40 words, you ask? Because a baseball team generally consists of 25 players, with rosters being expanded to 40 in September. Yeah, not that clever, I know.

Adam Darowski (@baseballtwit) is possibly the most "indie" of the group, although since he was a teenager in the '90s, he's probably been known to use the term "alternative" on occasion. We'll see if that's reflected in his selections, although if his baseball interests parallel his music taste at all, there will be a lot of old-timey stuff on his list. He's the creator of the brilliant Hall of Stats, and writes for High Heat Stats and Beyond the Boxscore as well.

Dave England (@juniusworth) is the brainchild of the idea, and is also our token non-east coaster. He writes for Big Game Claws, the Texas Rangers site on the aeryssports.com network, as well as MLBDirt and Baseball: Past and Present. Dave and I share a love for alt-country and have learned that if we were playing Six Degrees of John Wetton we could be connected in just two steps. He's friends with Will Johnson and the rest of the Centro-Matic crew, who are friends and frequent collaborators with my hometown pal, Anders Parker.

Dalton Mack (@dmack1291), currently a student at Rutgers University, is the young whippersnapper of the group. He writes for High Heat Stats and hosts "DM in the PM" on Rutgers radio station 90.3: The Core. Despite his youth, Dalton and I have discussed our common reverence for Yes and Steely Dan, but I also know we share two top ten of 2012 selections in common as well.

Bryan O'Connor (@replevel) is the guy most likely to mock the others for their selections, although he's not as tough in this regard as some other friends of mine who will remain nameless. He is the man behind The Replacement Level Baseball Blog and also writes for High Heat Stats and southern Maine regional newspaper The Forecaster. His top 100 albums of each decade posts on Facebook are what opened my eyes to his pretty similar taste to mine, although I predict Dave will have the most albums in common with my list.

Oh, and you'll be hearing from me too. But, you already know me...right?

Like I said, look for this post to appear here in early January (although I might be using the word "early" loosely here as well). In the meantime, you can expect the countdown of my favorite albums of 2012 to get underway shortly.