This is the fifteenth edition of the "AntiCurrent.com Archives", a collection of rare or bootleg-albums I'm releasing through this blog. Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.
My Love of Baseball
I root for The Cincinnati
Reds, but I’m not a “sports guy” by any means. I grew up in Middletown, Ohio
and my uncle Bill would quite often take me out the ballpark to catch games
whenever he was in town. It was there that I developed my love of baseball despite not regularly following the sport. Rather than keeping up
with the latest developments in the game, I spent my youth sitting in front of my
Grandmother’s TV and recorded old replays of The Big Red Machine on VHS tapes.
I value the history, the magic, and the old timey-ness of the game. As a pre-teen, I'd make my
Mother drive me to Reds fan-conventions where I met every single member of The Big
Red Machine (save for Pete Rose). I even have a baseball signed by the entire 1976 team. Other than shaking Johnny Bench's hand and feeling as if he was a giant, the one standout moment of these conventions was meeting The BRM's manager, Sparky Anderson. Though well into his 60's, the dirty old man's libido was seemingly unfazed as he asked my mother out to a "steak dinner" in front of me.*
*I once told this story to my baseball loving friend Andrew and now have a Sparky Anderson bobble-head to commemorate the time the white-haired old man tried to have sex with my mother. Thanks Andrew...
Love of The Cincinnati Reds was the one thing my PTSD’d Grandfather and
I had in common. Thus, he gave me his copy of "The Best of Waite Hoyt: In the
Rain". Several times, we actually sat down together and listened to the album on the self-amplified turntable I had gotten after my school had discarded it. Those
times huddled around the record player were as close to a bonding moment I ever
had with him (outside of blowing up random toys with black powder) and I’ll always prize this vinyl
for that very reason. But that wasn’t my only familial connection to The Reds.
My ancestor Edd Roush played for the team from 1916 to 1926,
he even coached the team during the 1931 season. Though I’d like to say he’s
famous for his amazing fielding, he’s a Roush and we’re a rather anti-authoritarian
family. Legend goes that on June 8th, 1920 there was a disagreement
going on between the managers and the umpires. The argument went on for so long
in fact, that Edd decided to take a nap in center field. Either he was
incredibly comfortable or incredibly obstinate, because the Umpires could not
awake him when play resumed and he was kicked out for delaying the game.
Waite Hoyt
For 24 years, Waite Hoyt was the voice of The Cincinnati
Reds. Beyond being a legendary storyteller, the man was best known for calling
games in the past tense. Rather than stating “here’s the pitch” he would say “there
was the pitch”. He felt this was more accurate, quite correctly explaining, "…as
I speak to you, what happened a moment ago is gone." Though he was a
recovered alcoholic, he had a strong loyalty to one of The Reds main sponsors,
Burger Beer. The man had such a fixed moral compass that after the team
replaced Burger Beer with Wiedemann, he chose to instead retire rather than
promote a new beer as he thought his credibility may be tainted. In 2007, he,
Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall were honored by The Reds with replica
microphones hung under the radio booth at The Great American Ball Park.
Note: The documentary Waite’s World features interviews with Nick
Clooney, Joe Nuxhall, and more. A copy can be purchased here and a stream of it
on YouTube is available here.
This Release
As you can tell, my Grandfather didn’t keep this vinyl in
immaculate shape, but it is entirely listenable audio and is likely the best
this record will sound without a professional machine cleaning. I dusted off
any loose debree, soaked this vinyl with cleaner, scrubbed it clean, and used a
wet-dry vacuum to remove the grit and dirt from years of abuse. I ripped this
on my Pro-Ject USB turntable into Audacity, capturing at 16bit and normalizing
it after. Next I took a sample of the surface noise and removed it from the
entire project. Afterwards, I ran a de-clicker and de-popper to remove more
noise. I then exported this into 16bit FLAC files and 320mbps MP3’s.
I’ve kept this album as two full sides because though it is
segregated track by track on the vinyl, there is no tracklist on the album art.
This wasn’t meant to be experienced one track at a time, this was meant to be
experienced as a whole.
