Deus Ex Machina

If I recall correctly, the above title translates from Latin to roughly "God, from a machine". The title is appropriate, given the topic of today's musings.

More than any other sport, baseball is a numbers game, and its numbers are revered by its followers. 3000 hits. 500 home runs. 300 wins. 3000 strikeouts. Hitting .400.

With that in mind, let us consider the following numbers a moment:

.314 batting average.
99 runs scored.
103 driven in.
32 dingers.
.394 on-base percentage.
.561 slugging percentage.

By any reasonable measure, those numbers add up to a hell of an All-Star level season. Guys have a year like that in The Show, they dine out on it for the rest of their lives.

Those particular numbers also happen to represent the LOWEST single-season totals in each of those categories over the nine-year career to date of the remarkable Albert Pujols.

As a kid, I lived in Cooperstown, NY, for two years, and have an overwhelming respect for the Baseball Hall of Fame. As a certifiable baseball nut, I am loath to place a player in Cooperstown prematurely. In fact, my default answer when asked by my sons if so-and-so will make it to the Hall is, "Ask me again in five years."

One of the many purities of this grandest of games is how the numbers manifest themselves over time. Time is the great equalizer in baseball; at 24 years of age, Dwight Gooden was well on his way to establishing himself as one of the great righthanded pitchers in modern history; no less an eminence than Mike Lupica wrote a 1986 column in the NY Daily News entitled "The day the Doc won 300". Cautionary tales abound in baseball. Celebrity, blown-out arms, and life in general can make you yesterday's news in a hurry. For every Greg Maddux, there are a hundred Dwight Goodens, Don Gulletts, and Mark Fidrychs.

That said, carve this guy's plaque right the hell now.

He is not yet thirty years old, and keeps himself in inhuman shape. He does not drink, smoke, cavort, or do anything outside of praising his God, supporting his family, giving of himself and his resources to charity, and working every day on being the "baddest man on the planet swinging a bat for a living" (Joe Posnanski wrote that quote, I do believe). If he is alone on an elevator, and a woman gets on alone, he will get off, to protect himself from the foolhardiness that passes for celebrity these days.

There are those who will claim that he has used some sort of performance-enhancers; if you Google "Pujols & steroids", you'll get a gazillion hits. In response to that, he has, publicly and otherwise, offered to be tested by anyone, at any time. Until such time as a single one of those tests comes up with ANYTHING, he's clean in my book, and my money is on Albert.

That he is baseball's finest player is almost beyond dispute at this time. Really, only Joe Mauer of the Twins, the newly-minted AL MVP, is his recent equal in terms of all-around brilliance. The question becomes where do we start to look at this guy, historically? It can be fairly easily argued that Albert Pujols has had the best first nine years of ANY BALLPLAYER IN HISTORY. In fact, no less a statistical wizard than Bill James has posed that very argument (in an SI article from July of this year, written with the aforementioned Mr. Posnanski).

Think about that for a moment.

Albert Pujols led all National League players in the Triple Crown categories (BA, HR, RBI, OBP, OPS, yada, yada, yada) for the first decade of the twenty-first century. He did so despite having spent the entire 2000 season in the minor leagues. Thus, his nine seasons this decade were better than anyone else's ten.

Unless there is an upset of monumental proportions, he will win his third NL MVP award in a few hours, putting him some in extremely elite company (He did, and by unanimous vote). Willie Mays didn't do it; neither did Henry Aaron, and those are two guys on baseball's Mount Rushmore.

If he stays healthy (an admittedly significant "if"), judging by past performance, here's what you're looking at for career-to-date numbers 5 seasons from now: .330 BA, 1700+ RBI, 560+ HR. Stretch that out ten years, and even factoring in some decline with age, you're still looking at 22-2300 RBI, 700 dingers, 3500 hits and .325+.

He will not be forty years old.

I will argue here and now that we are looking at the greatest right-handed hitter since Henry Aaron, and maybe since anybody. His consistency, nine years into his career, is just ridiculous. Please see the top of this post for what passes as "off-year" numbers for this fellow.

Oh, by the way, he is also rated as the best defensive first baseman in the National League, and second only to the sterling Mark Texieira in all of baseball. He has won the coveted Roberto Clemente award for his charitable works, and damned near did it two years' running. He has publicly (and repeatedly) said he hates talking about himself, and boy, if you want to make him mad, have the temerity to call him a home run hitter. His public persona is that of a profoundly modest man, whose absurd level of excellence has dragged him kicking and screaming into the spotlight.

I do not know this man personally, as I have never had the privilege of his acquaintance. I do admire the hell out of his accomplishments, both on and off the field.

Please take the time to enjoy this; his type of excellence comes along once in a generation, if that.

Maybe "Deus Ex Machina" should be re-translated, "To God, from The Machine".

Until next time,

Exclesior!

On the VO Community

Just a few words today, centering on the rather unique community of folks that make up this industry, from a guy who's been involved just a year or so now. While it is unquestionably a competitive environment, with many, many voice actors competing for jobs, I am struck the willingness of these same competitors to share willingly their experience and advice to those of us new to this gig.

I'll give you two specific, and recent examples that I know of, firsthand. On the Voices.com site (full disclosure: I am a member, and use it to audition for jobs; well worth doing if you're not doing so already), there are numerous blogs on the industry; Voices.com is the preeminent VO site in this business. One of those blogs is known as "Master VO", and focuses on the technical aspects of the business; home recording equipment, and the like. I was recently considering the purchase of a new microphone, and had narrowed it down to 2 final candidates. I posed the question to the folks who run Voices.com for their opinion, and they were kind enough to refer me to Master VO himself, Dan Lenard. Mr. Lenard, who knew me not at all, was kind enough to take his valuable time (he's a pretty heavy hitter in this gig) and give a rank newbie some very sound advice that has greatly improved the quality of my auditions. He has my deep thanks.

Second is my good friend, Chris Shaw. Folksinger, teller of tall tales, recording artist, Kennedy Center "National Treasure" and all-around good guy, Chris has repeatedly supported my efforts in this arena with his advice, and his ability to introduce yours truly around to many of his friends in the recording industry. Just this morning, we started planning a trip to some local and regional studios he knows; with luck, we'll pull that off in the next couple of weeks.

The point of all of this? I am struck by the competitive aspect of this work, while at the same time, the absolute willingness of many of those competitors to help each other out. I think I'm going to like this.

Next time out, some baseball. MVP awards are due next week, and if it ain't Pujols & Mauer, I've completely lost my touch. Until then,

Excelsior!

On Voice Acting

Why Voice Acting? For me, it goes back years; I've always done public speaking gigs, and had been told on a number of occasions that I had a good voice. This had been sitting in the back of my head for quite a while, until Thanksgiving '08, when I decided I would take a run at it "after the holidays".

Sure enough, Jan 5, '09,I run across an article in the local paper about an Adult Ed course the very next week covering Voice Acting. The sheer Kismet of it was just too powerful to ignore, and so I went.

Long story short? Following the class, I signed up with the folks at Creative Voice Development Group in Schenectady, NY, and went through their "VoiceCoaches.com" training. It combines hours of one-on-one time in the studio with extensive web class content, and these folks are generally considered one of the best trainers in the industry. I heartily recommend them.

Why Voice Acting? For one thing, it's fun. Further, and while I'm certainly not there yet, it can be a nice way to make some extra money, but it is certainly hard work to get your name and talents know in the marketplace. Hence this blog, among other things.

Excelsior!

On joining the Blogosphere

Well, here we go. I have, on the cusp of my fiftieth birthday, finally entered the twenty-first century, and started my own blog.

Why now? There are a couple of good reasons, not the least of which is the (hopefully) successful promotion of my fledgling voice acting business, as well as to take advantage of the awesome power of the Web to lend my voice to issues I feel strongly about.

We'll try to keep it clean, topical, and with luck, intelligent.

Excelsior!