Album Review: Air Supply

It is 1980, and here are some nice-looking Australian soft-rock explorers, gazing back into the future from which they came. What is that pyramid? What is that font? And why are these people calling themselves, “Air Supply”? 

Oh, I just dropped the needle, and now I know. The first song is the title track, and for two verses and a bridge, it is simply a breathy and pleasant confection happily destined for all of the forthcoming elevators of our lives. But wait! what is that? It is Russell Hitchcock's brilliant and deadly laser falsetto, and he is severing our heads from our bodies. We are writhing. We are obliterated. Three and a half minutes later, Air Supply is piling all of our carcasses back on the spaceship that they rode in on and battening down for their return trip to Then. We are pelts from a hunting expedition across space and time. We are gloriously and forever Lost In Love; it is a cookbook.

The rest of the record? It’s OK. If you’re here today to read this, you’ve heard a few of the tracks. But those songs are there only for utility and decoy, because 12 mixes or 45 minutes of "Lost In Love" would’ve disintegrated all of the stereos in our land. The officials would’ve grown suspicious. They might have positioned a better defense for the next time, had Air Supply ever decided to come back to take more of our kind. 

Fortunately for you, they did not. Do not attempt to avenge my death.

All of the stars for this one perfect song, highly recommended

Album: The Best of the Seekers (The Seekers)

I'm not going to call these "album reviews" because I don't want to do stars. I just want to listen to my records and write a little thing or two about them at The Heath Post, and so calling them "reviews" would be both inaccurate and a disservice to what Matthew has done about 900 times at the HP.

I read on Wikipedia that this album came out in November 1968, upon the Seekers' breakup. But I'm a little confused by some of what I read, and I'm not finding my cover matched to the Wikipedia entry. I imagine that has something to do with being a U.S. release by Capitol Records of an Australian album, but then the liner notes make no mention of the breakup. So I don't know exactly.

Doesn't really matter, anyway, to the key point I want to make here, which is that the Seekers were huge.

And they broke up pretty much at the zenith of their hugeness, when the woman lead announced to the guys in the band that she was ready to go do solo stuff, which reminded me of the 10,000 Maniacs.

The Ashes

For the last few weeks, Australia and England have been going back in their usual tussle over The Ashes, the most legendary trophy in all of cricket.  As usual, they are playing five test matches against each other.  Here's what has happened:

Match One at Edgbaston (Birmingham, England):

August 1-5, 2019:

Australia won the toss and elected to bat, putting up 284 runs in their first innings.  England responded with 374 runs to take a 90-run lead after one innings.  But in its second innings, Australia scored 487 runs, and would have kept going indefinitely except for the fact that the Aussies wanted to leave themselves enough time to retire England.  So they stopped batting.  England could only get 146 runs in its second innings.  So Australia won by a final score of 771-520.  In cricket terms, they say that Australia won by 251 runs.

Match Two at Lord's (London, England):

August 14-18, 2019:

Australia won the toss and elected to bowl.  England scored 258 runs, and then Australia scored 250 runs in its first innings.  In the second innings, England scored 258 more runs, declaring for a total of 516.  The English needed to retire Australia to win the game, but the Aussies had scored 154 runs and were still batting when the five-days allotted for the match were over.  Accordingly, this match was a draw.

Match Three at Headingly Cricket Ground (Leeds, England):

August 22-25, 2019:

England won the toss and elected to bowl.  In the first innings, Australia put up 179 runs to only 67 for England.  In the second innings, Australia scored another 246 runs -- meaning that the Aussies led 425-67 when England started to bat again.  Australia was heavily favored to win, and sure enough the Aussies mowed down almost all of the English batters.  But they could not retire Ben Stokes, who just kept batting and batting.  When it was all over, Australia had gotten 9 of the 10 wickets that they needed -- but England had scored 362 runs, which put them ahead 429-425, and gave them a legendary victory.  Stokes had 135 runs by himself, and was still batting when the game ended.  In cricket terms, they say that England won by 1 wicket.

Match Four at Old Trafford Cricket Ground (Machester, England)

September 4-8, 2019:

Australia won the toss and elected to bat.  This time the Aussies put up 497 runs in their first innings, declaring a halt when they still had two wickets left.  England could only put up 301, and were immediately back in a hole.  In the second innings, Australia scored 186 runs before declaring another halt.  England tried for another comeback, but could not get there -- scoring only 197 runs in their second innings.  The final score was Australia 683, England 498 -- meaning that Australia won by 185 runs.

So in four matches, we have seen 2 wins for Australia, 1 win for England, and 1 draw.  There is only one match left, so England can do no better than 2-2-1.  Since Australia already has the Ashes, this means that England cannot take them away.  Thus, Australia has retained the Ashes, and our cricket coverage can stop at this point.

The Rugby World Cup

So here's the deal with rugby:  every four years, they play a Rugby World Cup, which is modeled on the Soccer World Cup.  The Rugby World Cup features 20 nations from all over the world.  But there are only about 9 or 10 countries that are good at rugby.  So the whole group stage is basically an exercise to eliminate one or two teams.  The rest of the games are blowouts, or games among teams with no chance to move on.  For example, here was how the United States did at the Rugby World Cup:

Samoa 25, United States 16
Scotland 39, United States 16
South Africa 64, United States 0
Japan 28, United States 18

As you can probably tell, South Africa and Scotland advanced from our group.

But this year, for reasons that I still don't understand, three of the best rugby-playing nations on earth -- England, Australia, and Wales -- were all drawn into the same group (along with Fiji and Uruguay).  This Rugby World Cup is being played in England, and Australia almost always beats Wales, so the Welshmen felt a bit put out by this whole development.  Here's what happened:

1.  On September 26, England led 25-18 in the second half -- and two Welsh players had been stretchered off with injuries.  BUT NEVER UNDERESTIMATE WELSH SPIRIT!  The Welsh hate England above all teams, and they FOUGHT BACK to take a 28-25 lead.  Nevertheless, England still had time to tie or take the lead.  The English drove down into Welsh territory, and were in a good position to kick a field goal (or whatever the equivalent is called in rugby) for three points and a tie.  But England decided to go for the win.  They did not kick for three points, but went for a try (the rugby version of a touchdown) and victory.  BUT NEVER UNDERESTIMATE WELSH SPIRIT!  The injured Welsh team HELD, and Wales beat England 28-25.  Welsh media filled up with video clips that looked almost exactly like the clips you see of Kentucky fans after UK wins a big game.

2.  On October 3, Australia stomped England 33-13, thus effectively eliminating England at the group stage.  As you might imagine, the Welsh were transported with joy over this development.

3. On October 10, Australia and Wales met to decide first place in their group.  In a hard-fought match, Australia ground out a 15-6 win.  The English press pointed out that if England had taken the tie with Wales, the tie-breaker would have favored England, who could have advanced to the elimination rounds.  BUT MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE SHOWN WALES MORE RESPECT.

Anyway, nothing of interest happened in any of the other groups, and we are now looking at the following quarterfinals:

October 17:  South Africa v. Wales.  South Africa is favored by 9 1/2 points with an over/under of 39 1/2 points.  So that would work out to something like a 24-15 win for the Springboks.

October 17:  New Zealand v. France.  New Zealand is favored by 12 1/2 points with an over/under of 40 1/2.  So that would work out to something like a 27-14 win for the Kiwis.

October 18:  Ireland v. Argentina.  Ireland is favored by 4 1/2 points with an over/under of 37 1/2 points.  So that would work out to something like a 21-17 win for the Irish.

October 18:  Australia v. Scotland.  I couldn't find an over/under line on this game, but Australia is favored by 15 1/2 points.

So as you can see, even in the quarter-finals, three of the games feature heavy favorites.  But at least the Welsh will get one more chance to show their mettle.

Here's a list of the Rugby World Cup Finals:

1987:  New Zealand 29, France 9
1991:  Australia 12, England 6
1995:  South Africa 15, New Zealand 12 (after extra time)
1999:  Australia 35, France 12
2003:  England 20, Australia 17 (after extra time)
2007:  South Africa 15, England 6
2011:  New Zealand 8, France 7

England Wins the Ashes

On Friday, England won its third match in four tries against Australia in the ongoing Ashes series.  Since England leads 3 matches to 1, and there is only one match left, England has regained the Ashes from their ancient rivals.

A cricket match lasts for two innings.  In its one innings, England scored 391 runs.  In its two innings, Australia scored only 313 runs.  So we say that England won by an innings and 78 runs.

From 1989 to 2003, Australia won the Ashes eight times in a row.  But since then, England has won five of the last seven.

This was the 69th Ashes battle, going all the way back to 1882.  The all-time record now stands as follows:

England 32
Australia 32
Draws 5

The Ashes will next be up for grabs in Australia, starting around Christmas of 2016.

The Ashes

In Nottingham, England, the English are on the verge of taking the Ashes back from Australia.  In the five-match cricket series, England already leads 2-1.  And after the first of two innings in the fourth match, England led by the enormous score of 391-60(!).  Australia is now batting in their second innings, and they have to score 331 runs merely to force England to bat.  So far the Aussies have used up one of their ten outs (known as "wickets"), and they have scored 113 runs.  The match now looks like this:

SECOND INNINGS
Australia 173
England 391
Australia batting
Australia has 9 wickets left

The Ashes

So England and Australia are once again playing for The Ashes, the most famous trophy in all of cricket.  Just to bring you up to speed, here's what has happened at The Ashes since the Heath Post was started:

1.  In the winter of 2010-11 (which is summer in Australia), England went to Australia and won there for the first time since 1986-87.  The final score was:  England 3 matches, Australia 1 match, and 1 draw.

2.  In the summer of 2013, England crushed Australia in England, winning 3 matches and drawing two.

3.  But in the winter of 2013-14, the Aussies re-took The Ashes for the first time since 2007, burying England five matches to zero.

OK, so now it's the summer of 2015, and The Ashes are again being played in Britain.  Remember that we have a series of five test matches, and that each test match can last for up to five days.

1.  The first test match was played in Cardiff from July 8 to July 12.  England led 430-308 after the first set of innings, and cruised to a 719-550 victory.  (They never give cricket scores like this, by the way.  They would say that "England won by 169 runs.")

2.  The second test match was played at Lord's Cricket Ground in London from July 16 to July 20.  This time the English bowlers were completely unable to stop Australia, and the Aussies rolled to an easy win by the score of 820-415.

3. The third test match started in Birmingham on July 29 -- and it finished today, after less than three days of play.  Here's what happened.

Australia won the coin toss and elected to bat first.  But they had a disastrous innings.  England needed to get 10 wickets (what we would think of as "outs") to end Australia's innings.  The English did this after allowing only 136 runs.  England then batted, and put up 281 runs of their own.  Australia tried again, and scored 265 runs, giving them a total of 401 runs.  So England came to bat needing only 121 to win.  It didn't take them very long to reach that total -- they only lost two wickets in their second innings before the game was over.  The final score was England 402 to Australia 401.  But of course this does not capture the extent to which England dominated the match.  As you can see, England had 8 wickets that they didn't even use.  So cricket people would say that "England won by 8 wickets."

So England now leads The Ashes 2 matches to 1.  The next match will take place in Nottingham, and will begin on August 6.

Sunday at the British Open

Actually, this great picture is from Saturday, but we'll pick up with comments to this post tomorrow where we leave off in this one today:

Here are the tee times for Sunday at The 143rd Open Championship. #TheOpen http://t.co/kMz4svJw5W pic.twitter.com/ZnD5qyYPMw
— The Open (@The_Open) July 19, 2014

The Ashes, Match 4

Now that England has retained the Ashes, we're not as interested in the remaining matches.  Still, they just finished the fourth test match at Riverside Ground, in Chester-le-Street, England (it's a suburb near Sunderland), so here's a report on what happened.

England won the toss and elected to bat.  They didn't do very well, scoring only 238 runs in their first innings.  And then Australia came back in the bottom of the 1st to take a lead of 270-238.  England did better in their second innings, taking a lead of 568-270 into the bottom of the 2d.  At this point, things looked quite good for Australia, which needed 299 runs to win.  Things looked much better when the score was 568-438 and Australia still had eight wickets remaining.  At that point, it appeared that England's best chance was try to hang on for a draw.  But no!  Suddenly the English bowlers (mostly Stuart Broad, who took six of the last nine Australian wickets), started mowing down the Aussies like ninepins:

The third wicket fell after Australia had scored 168 runs in the inning (remember, they need 299 to win).

The fourth wicket fell after 174 runs.

The fifth wicket fell after 175 runs.

The sixth wicket fell after 179 runs.

The seventh wicket fell after 181 runs.

The eighth wicket fell after 199 runs.

The ninth wicket fell after 211 runs.

The tenth wicket fell after 224 runs.

So Australia could only score 56 runs with its last 8 wickets.  England won, 568-494.  They now lead the series with a record of 3-0-1.  The last time Australia played a complete test series against England without winning a single match was 1977.  But if the Aussies don't win the fifth match, that's exactly what will happen.

The Ashes, Match Three, Day Five

As we expected, Australia declared themselves out first thing in the morning, and then set off in search of the 10 wickets they needed to take in order to win the match.  Play has stopped for lunch (and some rain), and the English still have 7 wickets left.  Here's the score:

AUSTRALIA:  699
ENGLAND:  403
INNINGS:  Bottom of the 2d
AT BAT:  England
WICKETS REMAINING:  7

It would seem that between the rain and the fact that there are only a few hours left, England should be able to hang on for the draw they would need to keep the Ashes in their possession.  But England has lost many matches to Australia down through the years, and the English fans are quite nervous.

The Ashes, Match Three, Day Four

Cricket is an acquired taste, but I can see why some folks take it very seriously.  Today, for example, Australia had to spend most of the day figuring out how long they wanted to bat in their second innings.  Here's the situation:

1.  England leads The Ashes two matches to zero, so Australia has to win the last three matches (including this one) to take the series.

2.  After the first innings, Australia led England 527-368.

3.  While Australia is ahead, the match will be considered a draw if play is still going on after five days.

4.  Today was the fourth day, and it was raining in the afternoon.  Rain is also expected tomorrow.


So you can see Australia's dilemma.  If the Aussies bat too long, they won't have enough time to retire England in the second innings and obtain a victory.  But if they don't bat long enough, they risk the possibility that England can come from behind and win the match outright.

In the event, Australia batted until 4:25 P.M., at which point the umpires suspended play for "bad light," apparently caused by rainy and overcast conditions.  This made no sense to me, as the match was taking place at a field with floodlights.  The only explanation I've seen is that test matches are played with a red ball, which is difficult to see in floodlights.  But no one has explained why they couldn't just switch to a white ball.  Anyway, as you can imagine, the bad light ruling was a huge advantage for England, which would be happy to see the rest of the match rained out so that they can have a draw.  The Aussies, on the other hand, were furious.

Anyway, with one day to go, here is the latest scoreboard:

AUSTRALIA:  699
ENGLAND:  368
INNINGS:  Top of the 2d
AT BAT:  Australia
WICKETS REMAINING:  3

Most of the experts think Australia will declare themselves out first thing tomorrow morning, and spend the rest of the day trying to retire England.  The oddsmakers don't think the Aussies will make it, and the match will end in a draw.  Here are the latest odds from Ladbrokes:

Draw:  1 to 7
Australia victory:  5 to 1
England victory:  16 to 1

The Ashes, Match Three, Day Three

England batted all day today.  They still trail by 233 runs, but they are still batting in their first innings.  Given that there are only two days left, Australia will have to start taking wickets more quickly if they are going to finish this match with a victory  Here is the current score:

AUSTRALIA:  527
ENGLAND:  294
INNINGS:  Bottom of the 1st
AT BAT:  England
WICKETS REMAINING:  3

The Ashes, Match Three, Day Two

Australia was still batting when the day started -- and they were still batting when the teams broke for tea in the afternoon.  By that point, Australia was ahead 527-0, and had three wickets (outs) left in its first innings.  But there is a possibility of rain in the next few days, and a draw does Australia no good.  To win back the Ashes, the Aussies have to win three matches in a row, including this one.  So it does them no good to build a big lead if they can't take enough wickets from England to win the match.

With these facts in mind, Australia declared its innings to be over just after tea.  England then batted until the end of the day, losing two wickets and scoring 52 runs.  So the score now looks like this:

AUSTRALIA:  527
ENGLAND:  52
INNINGS:  Bottom of the 1st
AT BAT:  England
WICKETS REMAINING:  8

Whatever happens, this is clearly a very strong performance by Australia so far.

The Ashes, Match Three, Day One

The Ashes resumed yesterday at Old Trafford in Manchester.  For the first time in three matches, Australia won the toss.  They elected to bat -- and then batted all day, scoring 303 runs and losing only three wickets. They would have lost only two wickets if not for an umpiring decision so bad that even Australia's Prime Minister is complaining about it.  Apparently, Instant Replay is even more annoying in cricket than it is in American sports.

So here's where things stand:

England leads two matches to none, with three matches left.

After day one, the scoreboard from Match Three looked like this:

AUSTRALIA:  303
ENGLAND:  0
INNINGS:  Top of the 1st
AT BAT:  Australia
WICKETS LEFT:  7

The Ashes, Match Two Wrap-Up

We're only two matches into the Ashes and this competition is almost over.  England needed only 17 of their 20 potential wickets to crush the Aussies.  With the score 710-128 in the top of the second, and still with three wickets left, England declared itself out in order to have enough time to get the ten wickets it needed to end the game.  Australia needed 582 runs to tie -- and they didn't get close.  Here was the final score:

ENGLAND:  710
AUSTRALIA:  363

So England lead two matches to zero.  The next match starts on August 1 in Manchester.

The Ashes, Match Two, Day Two

A big day for England, which held Australia to only 128 runs in its first innings.  England lost some early wickets in its second innings, but the English seem to be in an extremely strong position:

ENGLAND:  392
AUSTRALIA:  128
INNINGS:  Top of the 2d
AT BAT:  England
WICKETS REMAINING:  7

MLB Power Rankings

Baseball comes back from the All-Star Break tomorrow.  Here are the top 10 teams in MLB, according to CBS Sports.  Another big week for Eric:

1.  Oakland Athletics:  56-39
2.  Boston Red Sox:  58-39
3.  St. Louis Cardinals:  57-36
4.  Tampa Bay Devil Rays:  55-41
5.  Pittsburgh Pirates:  56-37
6.  Atlanta Braves:  54-41
7.  Baltimore Orioles:  53-43
8.  Detroit Tigers:  52-42
9.  Texas Rangers:  54-41
10.  Cincinnati Reds:  53-42

Natstown continues to poke around in 16th.  The CBS Sports guy has finally accepted that the Nats aren't going to win the pennant.  He now has the Reds meeting the Tigers for the title.  Personally, I'm still hoping for the A's and the Cards.

U.S. Open -- Day Four

Happy Father's Day from the 2013 U.S. Open champion.

Happy Fathers Day everyone! Happy I've been raised by such a great man! Dad has been here all week with me and its truly been amazing!
— Billy Horschel (@BillyHo_Golf) June 16, 2013

Previous reports:

-- Tournament preview

-- Day One commentary and wrap

-- Day Two commentary and wrap

-- Day Three commentary and wrap

U.S. Open -- Day Three

Oh, Kentucky! They're still finishing up the second round at Merion, but, for the moment, it appears that 34-year-old Josh Teater, a Danville native who went to Morehead State and now lives in Lexington, has made the U.S. Open cut and will continue playing the remainder of this weekend. Our man Josh is 8-over for the tournament and nines strokes behind co-leaders Phil Mickelson, a five-time runnerup in the national championship, and 2013 U.S. Open-champion Billy Horschel.

Previous reports:

-- Tournament preview

-- Day One commentary and wrap

-- Day Two commentary and wrap

U.S. Open -- Day Two

The Internet is amazing™.

Previous reports:

-- Tournament preview
-- Day One commentary and wrap