This is what happens when you play by the odds.

You pull your starting pitcher and you load the bases and lose.

I remember the dark days of baseball. When they expanded the leagues from eight to ten teams, the season from 154 games to 162. When the season ended in September and the World Series was oftentimes done by now, certainly by October 15th.

Then again, they play hockey in June and basketball too.

It’s very simple, it’s about the money.

That’s what privatization will do. Owners who only care about the buck will do what’s right for them, the fans be damned. Raise ticket prices to the point where it’s better to stay home and watch on TV, extend mid-inning breaks to contain more commercials, such that a game lasts longer than it took you to take your SATs.

And now the game has been ruined by Moneyball.

Sometimes, you’ve got to trust your instincts.

Today it’s all data, it’s all odds, but players are not machines, they’re human, they’re fragile, that’s why we watch sports to begin with, because we don’t really know how it will all turn out.

We know if we click on Chrome it will launch. We’d be stunned if our smartphones didn’t wake up. When cable poops out it’s a crisis. Yup we depend upon our devices, those run by technology, to work, all the time, from the very first time, out of the box.

But not people.

People start as babies. They’re influenced by their parents, their schools, their friends. Some end up winners and some end up losers. Some rich people are pricks and some poor people are saints. It’s a crapshoot, and you do your best to influence the game, but that doesn’t mean you always win.

You work hard to get into a good college. But that does not mean you’ll have a successful career.

But the elites don’t want to go into sports, unless it’s in the front office, doing sabermetrics. As if data could determine the outcome of every game.

So, Walker Buehler is in complete control of the contest, he’s whomping the Nationals.

But the data says he’s got to come out. He’s thrown 117 pitches, he’s got to go!

But Tommy Lasorda did not pull Orel Hershiser. The Dodgers went on to win the World Series. Lasorda is a legend and so is Hershiser, even if his arm broke under the strain.

Which game are we gonna play? And who is in control, the players or the managers/owners?

We’ll never know if Walker Buehler insisted on coming out, but if you know any sports stars, one thing’s for sure, when the going gets tough, the best always say…GIVE ME THE BALL!

So now maybe Walker Buehler will have a longer career.

Or maybe he’ll just be forgotten.

But the strange thing is last year the same thing happened, the Dodgers were winning and the statistics, the data, said to pull the pitcher and they lost.

So, the Dodgers win 106 games and are out of the playoffs. Done. Zip. Over.

How can this be?

Now the season is long, as I pointed out, 162 games, do they not mean anything? Oh, home field advantage, the odds say you’re better off, BUT NOT ALWAYS!

They call them odds. They were in Hillary’s favor. But Trump won anyway. Because they’re just odds, the numbers are not set in concrete, and even though you might only have a 40% chance of winning, even a 1% chance of winning, you still could, win that is.

That’s one of the great things about baseball, unlike football and basketball, it’s never over ’til it’s over, you can always come back.

But after the grand slam it was clear the Dodgers would not. They had no momentum, they’d expended what they had at the beginning of the game.

If you win, you win, right?

Not in today’s sports, losers can triumph. Of course the supporters of said teams cheer, but how about those who did the best during the season?

I can see playing division off against division, but within the division? YOU ALREADY WON!

Oh, no, you’ve got to prove it one more time.

So what have you earned in 106 victories?

Very little.

But football became the national pastime and baseball took a back seat. So what did MLB do? Play more games at night! Because they make more money! But this is like the “Innovators Dilemma”…if you keep raising prices for your usual customers, at some point someone comes along with something cheaper and not as good but it gets better and then, seemingly overnight, it steals you’re thunder, you’re toast. Can you say video games?

So tonight’s game ended after midnight on the east coast. My parents would let me stay up that late for a Yankee or Met playoff game, but not one on the west coast featuring different teams.

Sure, when I grew up the World Series was played during the day, meaning if you were lucky and rode your bike right home from school you might catch an inning or two. But we watched, we believed.

And a game was so cheap your parents took you.

In trying to make the game modern, the major leagues have screwed it all up. Sure, data is helpful, but it’s not EVERYTHING!

Just like Steve Jobs said, the computer is a TOOL! It’s what you do with it that matters. Sure, you can use data to assemble the best team, but sometimes you’ve got to go with your gut.

Data says to load the bases for a force-out at every bag.

But, that goes out the window if a batter gets a hit.

And the chance of runs scoring is increased. A three run lead now becomes a four run lead, nearly insurmountable.

So, the Nationals won fair and square.

But if you’re a Dodger fan…

I’m not even a Dodger fan, I believe in the American League. Sure, I grew up with the ’61 Yankees, but eventually the team turned sour and started to lose, did I still believe? OF COURSE! Otherwise the buildings of losing teams would be completely empty, but they’re not.

But ever since Steinbrenner everybody’s a Yankee fan, because they love a winner, no matter how you win. And winning is nice, but a lot of losers are left behind, and there’s always next year.

But next year, you double-down, you improve, you win 106 games, and then in a short playoff series, the best of five games instead of the subsequent seven, you could lose it all.

Of course I hate Dave Roberts, he pulled the same thing two years in a row, blow him out. As for his predecessors, who can remember them, some were good, but they didn’t win, Lasorda won. That’s the public trust, we invest our time, we root for you, but you’ve got to do your best.

But Roberts didn’t even let Buehler do his best, he hewed to statistics, and he blew the game and the whole damn season.

Our world is screwed up in so many ways. One is in the denigration of the liberal arts in favor of STEM. Liberal arts teach you how to think, and adjust for situations. Which is why your future will not be made up of AI songs or movies, because a computer can beat you at chess, but it cannot create artistic breakthroughs. You can teach a computer about the past, but not the future.

Then again, if you’re not a rich data scientist no one will listen to you anymore.

The Dodgers earned the right to be in the World Series, at least the NLCS. Sure, the Astros might have murdered them, but they deserved a chance.

But now they don’t have one.

As for Kershaw blowing it…his agony on the bench, his self-hatred, that’s humanity, that was almost worth the loss.

We can’t guarantee outcomes, but we can guarantee chances.

I’m not sorry for the Dodgers, but the fans. Life is based on belief. And you cannot believe in machines, you can only believe in people, and when cash supersedes people…

It’s hard to believe.

Tune in today, Tuesday October 8th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: LefsetzLive

He’s a gunslinger.

This is not the show I expected. I expected Dave would come out and do a soft rock rendition of his hits for a geriatric audience which remembers “We Just Disagree,” and maybe a smattering of fans of “Alone Together.” Instead, it was just like 1969 or ’70, when the Fillmores were still open, before rock moved to the arenas.

Back then it was about the bands. Sure, they had hit songs, as in many knew them, but the concert was more like a space trip, if the act did its job well, you were lifted by the sound, your burdens were released, you did not expect the live version to sound exactly like the studio take, and the entire show was organic, this was long before ELO used tapes, never mind hard drives.

Dave told me that left to his own devices he’d be on the road 365 days a year, it’s the only thing he knows how to do, what he wants to do, and he’s got no hobbies.

Everybody likes the money, but he’s not dependent upon it, he’s just building up his wife’s trust fund.

As for making it to begin with, his father ran a candy store, and had a small ice cream factory, but Dave knew he was gonna make it in music, he was confident.

I’m not confident, certainly not of making it, how did this guy from Worcester make it?

I mean he was in Traffic then out, he put out one of the great solo LPs of all time, with no clunkers, “Alone Together” is a legend, he had a hit on Columbia…wasn’t he more of a hanger-on with a couple of moments of brightness? Wasn’t he lucky to hook up with Winwood? Was he a second-tier guy?

But then I heard him wail.

There was a drummer, another guitarist and a keyboard player. At a few times during the show there was video, mostly of people who covered “Feelin’ Alright,” but it was really purely about the music.

Who was coming to these shows? I mean if you work constantly, people have seen the act, they’ve heard the hits, why would they come back? But Dave said they did, and it wasn’t about youngsters, he had his audience.
The opener was “World In Changes.”

World in changes still going through
You’ve got a lot to learn about me too

Yes I did!

At this point Dave was playing a twelve string acoustic, but after “World In Changes” finished he switched that for a Strat. Which he testified about later in the show, how owning a Strat was a dream back then, how a radio repairman, Leo Fender, had come up with the idea, and irrelevant of the sound, the shape alone was enough to endure.

And with this red Strat…

Now you’ve got to know, the late sixties especially, maybe the early seventies too, was about the guitar. We worshipped the gods, we bought our own axes to play along, a transcendent guitar player defined an act.

Of course there was Clapton in various configurations, same deal with Beck. Page blew up with Zeppelin. But there was also Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple, and of course Hendrix.

Why did Dave Mason play with Hendrix? Why was he on “Crosstown Traffic”? Why was he on “Beggars’ Banquet”? Why was he gonna be one of Derek’s original Dominos? He got kicked out of Traffic, what was his key to success?

Now I get it, it was his skill playing the guitar.

That’s right, the show demonstrated Mason’s dexterity, his ability to hit every note, work his way up and down the neck, it was positively astounding. The guy’s over seventy, this should be a last dash for cash, instead Dave’s still got something to prove, he still lives for that seventy five minutes on stage. He not only enjoys it, he wants to show you that he’s got it, as much as anybody!

Now the funny thing is Dave played Traffic songs he neither wrote nor sang, like “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” and “Rock and Roll Stew,” which was on record after he was gone. This seemed a bit strange, maybe the audience wasn’t that well-versed in his canon. But he also played “Black Magic Woman,” which of course was first a Fleetwood Mac song, written by one of the original gunslingers, Peter Green. And there was a version of Hank Marvin/the Shadows’ “Apache.” Dave said he loved the song, that he didn’t care whether we wanted to hear it or not, he was gonna play it for himself.

Now you might think the audience was pissed, that the sound was too loud, that they thought this was gonna be an evening of soft rock, but there was standing ovation after standing ovation. People who looked retired or close to it, with white hair, wearing slacks and button-down shirts, they rose up joyously, some of them even danced, what was going on?

I mean when we die, this music will be gone. Sure, some kids today are into the classics of yore, but this is really baby boomer music, for people over the hill. But I don’t know of any other musical era that was like this, where the players in their twenties came back with the same enthusiasm and skill in their seventies. This was not the Florida condo circuit, this was rock and roll.

And Dave let the band members sing. The other guitarist did a note perfect version of “Can’t Find My Way Home,” best live take I’ve heard other than Winwood’s.

And “We Just Disagree” was in the middle of the set, shouldn’t he have been saving it for the end?

Now some of those legendary cuts were performed also. Ironically, not “Hole In My Shoe,” the hit from the first Traffic LP, the first song Mason ever wrote.

And no “You Can All Join In” or “Cryin’ To Be Heard.”

But Dave did do “Look At You Look At Me” and “Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave,” the two extended opuses from “Alone Together.”

And usually, if there’s no hard drive, these songs of yore are frail replicas of the originals. But all the parts were there, the little flourishes, Dave and the band were so tight. I mean nobody was dressed up, there was no flash, it was only about the music. And even though the tunes were old, Dave was positively making them fresh again.

Now they did “Can’t Find My Way Home” because Dave opened for Blind Faith as part of Delaney & Bonnie, who he kept bugging Chris Blackwell to sign. And then, while images of those two and the rest of the band performing flashed on the screen, Dave ripped into the number.

I don’t mean to mislead you
It’s just my craziness coming through
But when it comes down to just two
I ain’t no crazier than you

Now that sounds like Delaney and Bonnie themselves, looking at their images took you back when…when there was no internet, when musicians were cool, had chops, and were still in their twenties. That’s why you became a musician, to play music and be crazy, you couldn’t be contained by four walls, you couldn’t work at the factory, this was all you were capable of and you worked damn hard to make it continue, having more fun with the perks than worrying about the money. Why would you endorse some product, it would detract from your essence, what you believed, your credibility.

And all that money is gone now anyway. From high living back then. From getting ripped-off, the only thing left is your skill.

So the band walks off stage and then comes back for what you’re expecting, the encore of “Feelin’ Alright.” Dave prefers Joe Cocker’s version, that’s the one he plays, not the original from “Traffic.”

It was the opening cut on Cocker’s debut album, you heard it all over FM radio, before “With A Little Help From My Friends.”

Dave said the song only had two chords, that was about his speed.

But suddenly over the speakers comes Artie Butler’s keyboard part. I had to look at the player to make sure he was, playing that is, the sound was so perfect.

He was.

And on screen were images of all the people who had covered the song. Blackwell had the publishing, but Dave still has the writer’s share.

Everybody’s standing, one person even with a cane, they’re grooving on the sound, literally fifty years later.

They were feelin’ alright.

And when the music stopped, I told myself “I’d come see this again.”

Usually the oldsters are just a notch in your belt. They pretend they’re still young and give you what you want and it’s creepy, once is enough, even though they keep selling the same show.

But if you look through Dave Mason’s setlists, you find they’re not identical. He’s done “In The Midnight Hour.” “Chain Of Fools.” “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” It’s about music, not stardom, just like it used to be.

These acts are old, sometimes physically incapable, most of their contemporaries in the straight world have already stopped working. But Dave Mason is remaining true to himself, he’s doing the one thing he always did, that he’s great at. You can come and experience the blistering guitarwork or you can stay home in the peace and quiet.

But you’ll be missing out.

He was the first guy we saw with two bass drums and the first guy to do an extended drum solo on record.

Cream straddled the transition from AM to FM. When their first album came out, the only underground FM radio station that existed was WOR-FM in New York. We were still California dreamin’ on the last train to Clarksville. The Beatles were huge, but we all lived in one big homogeneous musical society.

Of course there were hipsters, as there have always been, like the folkies and blues lovers of the late fifties and early sixties, there were always people ahead of the scene, but it was much harder then, there was no internet, only true word of mouth, nothing went from zero to hero overnight unless it was played on AM radio, and Cream was not.

“Disraeli Gears” was released in November ’67, the year underground FM radio began to burgeon, with KMPX in San Francisco joining the aforementioned WOR.

Yup, the scene was that small. So most people were unaware of “Fresh Cream.” And “Disraeli Gears” too.

And then, during the summer of ’68, “Sunshine Of Your Love” crossed over to AM and the band and the scene exploded.

There were a few renegade radio years back then, before Lee Abrams came along and codified the rock format on FM in the seventies. It was kinda like the internet back in the mid-nineties. There were people who had modems from the eighties, and others who got the word in ’96 and instantly bought computers to play on AOL. There was no hate, only exploration.

Never forget the influence of public radio back then, especially WBAI in New York. That’s where I first heard Phil Ochs’s “Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends.” We twisted the dial, we looked for excitement, we found it, it drove record purchases, but most people were out of the loop.

Of course some people knew Eric Clapton, being blueshounds, knowing his work with John Mayall, but that “Bluesbreakers” album didn’t really blow up until after Cream broke through.

So, you heard “Sunshine Of Your Love” on FM.

Now “Fresh Cream”‘s production was credited to Robert Stigwood, it’s unclear who really twisted the dials, who was really responsible for the sound, but it didn’t have the edge of what came after, it was almost like a blanket was thrown over the speakers.

But Felix Pappalardi produced “Disraeli Gears,” and it was a much better representation of the band’s sound. This was back when stereo was stereo, when instruments were in different channels, when we sat in front of the speakers, put on headphones to get the full effect. This was also when there was so much less on the records, you could hear all the instruments. You could hear Jack Bruce’s voice on “Sunshine Of You Love,” but the key to the track’s success, it’s infectiousness, was that guitar.

But not every track sounded the same. I couldn’t get over “Tales Of Brave Ulysses.” And you didn’t like all the tracks immediately. It was like they were cut in an alien world and delivered to you on this vinyl platter for you to consume, digest and understand.

By now it was ’68. “Are You Experienced” was released in August of ’67, “Axis: Bold As Love” came out in January of ’68, so Cream was no longer alone, “Purple Haze” sat along “Sunshine Of Your Love” at the apex of riff-rock, which really didn’t become a genre, didn’t reach its apotheosis until Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water” in ’72, really the live version from “Made In Japan,” which dominated the AM airwaves during the summer of ’73, before everybody had an FM radio in their car, when suddenly the alternative sound was a staple on AM radio and what was left was irrelevant.

But it was still 1968. “Sunshine Of Your Love” was a hit on AM radio and then “Piece Of My Heart,” by Big Brother and the Holding Company. Janis Joplin got a lot of ink, she was a dynamic performer, she could not be denied and when people purchased “Cheap Thrills,” with its R. Crumb cover, we were not in Kansas anymore, although eventually we did get bands from that state, the screw had turned, it was a whole new world in music.

And “Wheels Of Fire” was released in August of that same year, double albums were not unknown, but this one came in silver foil and the second record was a live one.

Now Janis Joplin was the star, she had the energy in Big Brother.

But the energy in Cream all came from the man behind the kit, Ginger Baker. Clapton just stood there. As did Jack Bruce. You couldn’t help but focus on the drummer, who seemed on the verge of losing control as he stoked this freight train down the track. The sheer power impacted your gut.

And the Fillmores were open, but arena rock was still in the future. Acts played the typical music venues, there were few purpose-built spaces, I saw Cream at the Oakdale Theatre, a tent in Wallingford, CT. They added an afternoon show after the evening one sold out. It was theatre in the round, but not in the afternoon, the place was maybe a third full. The band punched the clock, played forty five minutes, but the star was definitely Ginger Baker.

And then “White Room” became a hit and the word got out. Suddenly everybody was talking about Cream. People you thought were decidedly unhip, out of the loop, got the message. And “Wheels Of Fire” started to explode. And on side four, there was a sixteen minute drum solo entitled “Toad.”

Yup, blame “Toad” for that execrable five to twenty minutes in every live show where everybody takes a pee break and the drummer flails on. They were all inspired by Ginger Baker, he was the progenitor, they all wanted to BE Ginger Baker, suddenly the drummer was no longer an afterthought, but a virtuoso who could express himself.

And then the band said it was breaking up and went on a final tour. I saw them at the New Haven Coliseum. I stood maybe six feet away. There were maybe a couple of thousand people there. I made a cassette of the performance, long before bootlegs, I listened to it incessantly.

And the victory lap, “Goodbye Cream,” had a bigger impact in the public’s consciousness than anything that came before, it was the zeitgeist, people bought it after the band broke up, lamenting they’d never gotten to see the act. “Goodbye” resurrected “I’m So Glad” from the first LP. “Sitting On Top Of The World” was definitive. And “Badge” was a gift for those who’d been there all along.

It was like not only the band, but its members had died, there were posthumous live records, everybody wanted more of what they could never get again.

But they did get Blind Faith.

Jack Bruce was the frontman, in many cases the writer, but he was not the star. Yes, his solo album “Songs For A Tailor” was anticipated, but despite some airplay for “Theme For An Imaginary Western,” it was ignored, and the work after that was only for cultists.

The stars were Clapton and Baker, nearly equal. And with Winwood thrown in…

Blind Faith was the first supergroup. That was the definition back then, they had to coin it for this concoction, an act made up of the stars of other acts, come together to make something new and triumphant.

And of course Blind Faith imploded, but the album gets short shrift, the first side is phenomenal, everyone knows the cuts, from the explosive opener “Had To Cry Today” to Clapton’s first shining solo moment, “Presence Of The Lord” and the cover of Buddy Holly’s “Well All Right” to Winwood’s piece-de-resistance, “Can’t Find My Way Home.”

The second side had Ginger Baker’s fifteen minute opus “Do What You Like.” Filler or a nod to Baker’s genius, who knows?

And when Blind Faith broke up, Winwood tried to go solo but got back together with Traffic. Clapton decided to play small, with Delaney & Bonnie, Ric Grech disappeared, and Ginger Baker formed his Air Force, yup, he was gonna continue to play for all the marbles.

Now testimony to the ascension of rock and roll was the fact that Blind Faith did play arenas on their one and only tour in ’69, that’s how hungry and dedicated the fans were.

Baker’s Air Force album sold, but then the act faded away, there was great playing but no songs.

Clapton joined up with Delaney Bramlett for an exquisite first album which was to a great degree overlooked, but when Eric hooked up with Duane Allman and other greats ultimately named the “Dominos,” Clapton established a place in the firmament that would never go away.

“John Barleycorn Must Die” was the most successful of the initial post-Blind Faith albums, people now knew who Winwood was and they embraced this work of art.

And then there were more acts and it became harder to focus and Ginger Baker…he was no longer omnipresent, he wasn’t gone, but he was always in our minds.

Eventually Baker played with the Masters Of Reality, in the nineties, which seemed a step down, but the truth was there was no band big enough to contain him. He was kinda like Joe DiMaggio, if DiMaggio had had an edgy personality and could still play ball. Everybody knew who Ginger Baker was, it’s just that we didn’t hear his playing that much.

He was one of the first to go to Africa.

He was drunk, he was stoned, but he was the original Keith Richards, nothing could kill him.

He played polo, he was involved in shenanigans, which were ultimately detailed in a documentary, but the legend always exceeded the present. What Ginger Baker meant, his playing, his place in the rock firmament as a legend, as a progenitor, as maybe THE progenitor, exceeded the man himself.

Yes, there were the Cream reunion shows. A triumph in London, an almost queasy afterthought in New York. He was still Ginger Baker, he could still do it, but this was nostalgia.

And now he’s dead.

How will history treat him?

Well, what will be remembered at all?

But one thing’s for sure, no one ever challenged Ginger Baker’s skill. Oh sure, at the height of his fame, naysayers said he was bombastic, always loud, but when you’re that big there are always people who have to put you down.

And eighty ain’t a short life. This is not a guy who got cut down before his time.

But they’re dropping, if not quite like flies, they soon will be. Ian Hunter is eighty too, he just had to cancel his Mott The Hoople reunion tour because of his health, Overend Watts and Dale “Buffin” Griffin are already dead, and Mick Ralphs has health issues.

If you weren’t alive back then, if you weren’t musically conscious back in the late sixties, these might just be names to you. But if you talk about legacy…

Ginger Baker is right up there. He was the first. He showed what could be done with the kit. He was a trailblazer, a true rocker, one who couldn’t be contained, there was nothing corporate about him.

He was a beacon, may he continue to shine.