Edgar Villchur, who was ninety-four years old, gave the world the acoustic suspension loudspeaker. The AR-1, made by his company, Acoustic Research, changed the way speakers were produced. Unlike many of the existing speakers at the time, his speakers were fully enclosed, and virtually airtight. The vacuum inside would cause the drivers to “spring” back to their proper position automatically, whereas other speakers at the time used actual mechanical springs, and the cabinets that enclosed them were enormous. With Villchur’s technology, people could finally have loudspeakers that were unobtrusive in the home. My AR-3as are actually quite handsome, with walnut cabinets and grill cloths of Irish linen. Stereophile and The Absolute Sound will tell you that the 3a is at or near the top of the most important loudspeakers ever created.

For me, though, it isn’t the innovative technology or the appearance of my AR loudspeakers that makes me love them. It’s the sound. These speakers have changed the way I hear music. My enjoyment has been increased in ways I cannot fully articulate. Considering how important music is to me, I can, without hyperbole, tell you that they have made my life better. For that I am extremely grateful to Edgar Villchur.

I know many people who use an Apple product of some sort or another. Mrs. Hill uses an iPhone, and many of my friends and classmates have iPods and iMacs. Some of these people, like Miriam, find their Apple product useful, and appreciate whatever convenience it offers, but have not succumbed to the Cult of Apple. Others, however, are obsessed. Sadly, many journalists are in the latter group. I get why. They have iPads and iPhones and apps and all that, and since it’s cool to them they suppose it’s cool to everybody. And I admit, I have seen some iPhone apps that I have thought interesting and even amazing. But the coverage Jobs’ death has received seems somewhat out-of-proportion, as do the accolades some have gone out of their way to heap upon him.

Is the iPhone cool? Sure. But it wasn’t a radically new idea. The iPad is just a bigger iPhone, or, more accurately, a smaller, less-capable notebook computer. And the iPod, while ubiquitous (indeed, you cannot cross a college campus or ride any public transit system without seeing legions of them), is just a small Walkman. People have had it for decades. I don’t even think the iPod was the first portable MP3 player. None of these products was really shockingly new or revolutionary. Steve Jobs was no Johannes Gutenberg or Thomas Edison. I don’t mean this as a criticism of Mr. Jobs, and, to the best of my knowledge, he never compared himself to those great inventors. My point is merely that some in the media have treated him that way.

Was Steve Jobs a great businessman? Given the apparent success of Apple, I’d say undoubtedly. But far more than technological innovation, I think Jobs’ success with Apple was due to clever and aggressive marketing. And when I say aggressive I mean extremely aggressive. Apple commercials have been, and continue to be, omnipresent. Television commercials, print ads, and billboards for Apple products are everywhere, and these ads have been perfectly crafted to appeal to a certain type of consumer. In one type of commercial, Apple uses a catchy, sing-along-type song that viewers cannot forget. This is a tactic that many companies have used, but Apple did it with remarkably effective simplicity. In another commercial campaign–and one that I hated–Apple took two guys, one representing a Mac, the other representing a Windows-based PC, and made the actor representing the PC appear foolish or stupid. Again, the hipster-quotient was excessively high in these ads. The last campaign I will mention is one I think truly insidious. The “If you don’t have an iPhone…” commercials, which feature shots of the iPhone, while a narrator tells you that, “if you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have an iPhone”. Obviously. But what the commercial is trying to say is that if you don’t have an iPhone you are not cool; you are not relevant; you are not a good person. That campaign appeals to the basest acquisitive consumer impulses. It’s the ugliest sort of advertising: buy this or you’re nobody. The folks at Conan did a pretty accurate parody of an Apple commercial last April:

The title of one of the many op-eds that appeared following Steve Jobs’ death this week hit on something that reminded me of this comedy bit. “Steve Jobs, Enemy of Nostalgia“—which appeared in the New York Times, a newspaper published in the heart of Apple-country—is about the Apple CEO’s lack of reverence for any technology. “One of the keys to Apple’s success under his leadership”, writes Mike Daisey, “was his ability to see technology with an unsentimental eye and keen scalpel, ready to cut loose whatever might not be essential”. Apple customers who found their iPhones or iPads suddenly usurped by a newer, more-expensive model, must understand the drawback of such an “unsentimental” business model.

Granted, a key requirement for success in business is making people buy something new when they already have something old. Light bulbs burn out, cars break down, and clothes go out of style. But Apple fanatics seem have had to endure this to an absurd degree. And if, as Mike Daisey argues, Steve Jobs was an “enemy of nostalgia”, all the focus on buy-and-replace makes sense. Apple users, then, are not meant to experience long-lasting relationships with any single technology, because the future success of Apple requires that these users embrace a new technology. That may be a smart business strategy in the short term, but what will it mean in years to come?

Whether or not any aged hipster will one day write a “Long May You Run”-style ballad about his old MacAir is probably not important. But the anti-nostalgic mind is capricious and is always searching for the new thing. Apple may have seemingly-faithful users today, but if they are as unnostalgic as Steve Jobs, they will only stay if Apple appears to be the newest. If their products are not unique, and their marketing style is easily imitable, what will happen when someone comes along and out Apples Apple?

Last year Cliff Lee shut us down. This year the Rays shut themselves down.

Still, I give Texas credit where credit is due. Their bats are dangerous, and their pitching is effective. If Detroit cannot dispatch the Hated Yankees, the Rangers are my team.

Meanwhile, I won’t be all gloom and doom. I am still proud of my guys. They gave me what I always have said I wanted: a winning season. Contrary to what many predicted at the conclusion of last season, the Rays still made the playoffs, and did it without Crawford, Soriano, Benoit, Garza, and others. They demonstrated an astonishing ability to replace big names with nobodies who play hard for much, much less money. Johnny Damon plays with an energy and attitude I love to watch. And this kid Moore who won big last Friday is extremely promising.

Joe Maddon is a remarkable manager. He did what few expected he could do, by taking a team with few recognizable stars, and finishing second in baseball’s toughest division, knocking out a team everyone assumed would win the World Series this year. But I am sorry he couldn’t capitalize on the big opportunity his team had in the post-season. If the Rays could have won the pennant, he’d be a shoo-in for manager of the year. As it is, I fear the Rays’ second-October-in-a-row loss will come to be seen as inevitable, as though the team didn’t belong in the first place. It’s bad enough that the Rays don’t get the respect they deserve considering their do-more-with-less situation – I don’t want to hear people say, “that’s what we expected”. The talking heads on ESPN, MLB-TV, and elsewhere, in a fawning love for New York and Boston that borders on obsequiousness, display demonstrable lack of enthusiasm for the Rays. It would have been nice to rub it in their faces.

So, farewell 2011 baseball. I will eagerly await your 2012 return.

The Yankees hadn’t lost a 7-0 lead in the eighth inning or later since 1953, and that’s what happened. The Red Sox were undefeated this year when holding leads after the eighth inning, yet they lost. There were four games involving the wild-card races Wednesday, and in three of those, a team came to within one out of victory, and lost. At 11:40 p.m., the Atlanta Braves matched the greatest September collapse in history, and 25 minutes later, the Red Sox set a new standard for September collapses. And Evan Longoria’s game-winning homer was merely the second in history that propelled a team into the playoffs, on the last day of the season; the other belongs to Bobby Thomson.

Olney adds that someday, “somebody will write a book on baseball’s greatest day ever”.

[Addendum: Dave Sheinin at the Washington Post writes, ""What that was, quite simply, was the best day of regular season baseball the game has ever seen".]

Meanwhile, MLB.com has a convenient timeline in text and video format, chronicling what went down last night. A Hollywood screenwriter could not have invented a more dramatic scenario.

And, best of all, at SI.com, Tom Verducci begins his column with this:

Everything had to fall into place tonight. The Red Sox had been collapsing all month. The Rays had been improving. The last three games of the season would find the battle for the Wild Card take place between two very different teams, against two very different teams: Boston would get to play against the last-place Orioles; the Rays against the first-place Yankees. Two days ago, when it appeared the season would come down to this do-or-die scenario, I dubbed today “Baseballmageddon”. But I couldn’t have imagined this ending this way. I am not capable of writing articulately right now.

The Rays and Red Sox entered their respective games tonight absolutely tied. If both won, or if both lost, a tie-breaker game would be required tomorrow. If Boston won, the Rays were done, and vice versa. So when the Rays found themselves down tonight 7-0 in the eighth inning tonight, I told my friend Anthony it was over. In fact, I left his house convinced my baseball watching was done until next year. When he texted me ten minutes later to say the Rays had just scored six runs, I thought he was pulling my leg. I turned the game on in the car to hear that Orioles fans in Baltimore were chanting, “Let’s go Rays!” When the Rays tied the game I was stunned. But as the game dragged on and on, and reports from Baltimore looked grim, I began to lose hope. I went to bed, listening on the radio while the Rays batted, then turning it off while the Yankees batted. Then, out of nowhere, the radio announced Baltimore had stunned Boston in the bottom of the ninth at Camden Yards, which meant, at the worst, the Rays would get another shot if the game against New York didn’t work out. Then, as I listened in near panic, Evan Longoria hit the game-winning home run. I jumped from bed, letting out a scream that terrified my beloved wife. I still can hardly believe it. Everything had to work out just so, and it did.

I have watched and listened to baseball my entire life. I can say with certainty, I have never experienced a day of baseball like this. People will talk about this forever.

How will I sleep?

Almost none of these protests cited the one and only important reason capital punishment should be immediately and permanently abolished everywhere: capital punishment is wrong. Plain and simple. It’s wrong. Black or not black, fair trial or unfair trial, guilty or not guilty, capital punishment is still morally and ethically indefensible. So I don’t care if Troy Davis was not guilty of killing a police officer. And I don’t care if he received an unfair trial because of incompetent attorneys or a prejudiced jury. All I care about is that Troy Davis was a human being and that no man has the right to willfully take the life of any other unless his own life is in immediate mortal danger. Capital punishment does not meet that standard and never will.

According to reports,

Petry did not speak during the ceremony, but afterward, he told reporters that “to be singled out is very humbling.”

“I consider every one of our men and women in uniform serving here, abroad, to be our heroes,” he said.

Of course he does. You never hear someone like Petry boast or showboat. They are not like us.

I am simply in awe of the men, living and dead, who have received the Medal of Honor.

As I wrote at the time, the frantic scramble fans undertake these days for baseballs has reached a dangerous extreme. I felt certain that things would get worse until someone actually died. I am sorry to report that that has now happened.

Last night at Rangers Ballpark (just an unfortunate coincidence; it could have been anywhere), a fan reaching for a ball fell to his death from the bleachers above the bullpen. This story has an extra layer of tragedy, though, since this fan wasn’t reaching for a foul ball or a home run, but for a ball tossed to him by a generous player. That is something that often happens at games, and even I have been the surprised recipient of such free souvenirs (one is pictured here). But even that is a dangerous practice. My heart aches for the poor young son who watched his father’s fall, and for whom the game of baseball will never be the same.

But, please, let this be a wake-up call to professional baseball. The lust for free balls has become deadly. If parks have to install protective barriers above the fences and along railings to keep fans from reaching too far, so be it. But, as I said before, things cannot go on like this; something will happen.