Pinball Wizard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK33CY68s1w

Easy peasy Doc!!  Old guys like Daddy and I knew that one right away.  Or is it now GrandDaddy....I forget the nuance of this aging stuff.
Zunino:  "How do you think he does it? I don't know."
Cruz:  "What make him so good?"
Morrison: "From LoMo down to Brighton he must have played them all"   
OK...I got creative on that one.  But it was a pretty good tweak I think.
Fate owed Norman a major or two I will give him that.  But he blew two or three as well.  Nothing owed there.
I'm WAY with you on Taylor.  They guy can hit a bit.  Ackley's a mess.....well mostly he's just not the player everybody thought he was.  Stuff like that happens.  He's a better player (or more valuable) than Austin Jackson however.  I am not eager to see Jackson back at the top of the lineup. 
When did Jackson go down?  I forget.  But what is our record since then?
OK a low blow probably.  But he certainly wasn't bringing a lot of WAR (a stat I hate) to the ballpark.
Wasn't it Earl who said something like "A dose of Dr. 3-Run Homer will cure what ails you!"
Well he should have said it anyway.  Can we give back three of those homers from last night and bank them for today?
BTW you all need to watch the video of Stanton's homer.  The response of the Dodger LF is priceless!  He never moves.....not an inch....but just leans back and looks ove his left shoulder as that ball lands somewhere near Vegas (which is where a ball hit in to the LF parking lot in LA should be heading if I've got my southpaw direction correlated).    Give that LF'er an award for the most understated /classic response of the year.  That's how you would watch a Saturn V leave the park.
 

Jackson at least works the pitcher for deep counts - and plays a better defensive CF - Ackley is a negative WAR disaster...Jackson is a RLP
As for Stanton's homer...I think the reaction of the fans in the back row of the seats is even better...one guy shrugs and holds out his arms as if to say "are you kidding me??" as it sails out of his reach and into the night...the guy next to that guy laughs hysterically.

Was in 1970 in the back seat of a souped up Camaro Z-28 owned and driven by the "bad boy" of our church youth group Tom. The car was stuffed with other older teenagers. I would have been 15 a couple of years younger than most and decidedly out of my normal environment. Tom would race madly and dangerously around town in his muscle car filling the interior with cigarette smoke (which was decidedly frowned upon in our Baptist church) and playing rebellious raucous rock music at ear-splitting levels while everybody else carried on. It was my first time (and probably my last) in Tom's car and I was scared to death. But I remember the opening acoustic guitar chord riff of "Pinball Wizard" coming off the 8-track tape system and immediately being fascinated and loving it as The Who belted out that song. Then when "See Me Feel Me" played I was hooked by those two songs from The Who's rock opera album. To this day they are in my music library and I still enjoy them immensely.
Postscript. Tom outgrew his rebellious teenage years and went on to become a sincere pastor. He still pastors a church in a town near Visalia California. God fitted him to endure unbelievable hardship and sorrow in recent years as his unusually beautiful brilliant and successful daughter's life was turned topsy-turvy by a car accident that left her wheelchair bound and handicapped in other ways. Not long afterwards his son a trained Navy Nuclear Machinists Mate 3rd Class became despondent and committed suicide in New York. I'm not sure why I'm including this postscript except that it illustrates that sometimes "bad boys" develop into quality men.

We're soooo thin at CF that I think we have to keep him around no matter what. Even if he's not great at defensive CF and not hitting much.
OTOH if this daytime hitting splits thing is real (only showing up over the last year or so) maybe as the days grow longer his eye will improve and his bat will heat up. I guess that could explain why he tents to get stronger in the 2nd half every year. Seems like a stretch but I think we're stuck with him anyway.

Instead of a R/L platoon do a first half/second half platoon! What a novel concept. Starting next year trade for a somewhat productive veteran with a reputation for fast starts then offload him in a mid-season trade. Meanwhile keep Ackley mostly in reserve for the first two months then in June start him enough that come July he's raring to go. Not sure that it's practical but worth noodling over.

I love that guy.
Cop stopped him and asked whether he realized he was going 60 miles per hour.
He replied 'Yeah but I wasn't planning on being out that long.'

Made me wonder: Is Austin Jackson the only MLB player whose first and last name are both major U.S. cities?

I haven't been impressed at all with Jackson. I'd rather just hand CF to Ackley at this point. He'll learn the position make the plays (Ackley almost always makes the plays even if he looks bad doing it) and we at least have a hot-hand month in the summer to look forward to. I don't expect anything from Austin Jackson: no power no hot hand no good consistent play nothing but average joe production. He is the most average everyday player out there.
Based on everything I've seen of the two Ackley will somehow cobble together a 1.5-2.0 WAR by the end of the season. Jackson? He'll be lucky to give you 1.0 and more likely closer to .1 than 1.0.
And Ackley can also play LF 2B 1B. That's not adding much to this team I know - so can Ricky Weeks.

You're essentially saying "I'll take the guy who is terrible except when he's hot over the guy who is average". That's...bizarre to me.
Jackson isn't any great shakes but Ackley absolutely destroys the line-up when he isn't hitting...it isn't worth it to me to catch his hot month if I have to sit through 5/6 of a season where he's a worse hitter than Brendan Ryan.

My original point was to keep Ackley seated as much as possible until he begins a hot streak....OK I know you can't quite predict that but you can get a sense by playing him a game or two a week.  Day games are fine.  Miller and Ruggiano can man CF the rest of the time. 

My introduction to the song was the 1969 album not the 1975 movie which to be honest I never saw until a few years ago.

And because I reserve my right to hold defensive metrics wholly unreliable I'm able to apply my eye test.
And to my eye Jackson is light years ahead of Ackley in center: speed route reading arm etc.
Remember that Ichiro was all-world in his corner in right...but often helpless in center. It's a different world. And if Ichiro couldn't make the transition I don' t hold much hope for Ackley.

Dustin will make some all star teams on some other team. A lot of us kinda feel there's a spec of truth in this but we are tired of holding on til it happens. Let it happen someplace else certainly. In the meantime while we make plans to pull the plug I don't see any upside in Austin Jackson and as bad as Ackley hits he'll hit better than James Jones. So in the meantime I'll take the guy with upside over the guy without it. Ackley can job share with Ruggiano move around some hit a ton in the daytime. Meanwhile Jackson apparently has to be in the lineup every day because he's an "everyday player". He's probably a worse hitter than Ruggiano or maybe the equal of Ruggiano vs. left handers. But Ruggiano doesn't have to play everyday. Ruggiano isn't going to mope around the clubhouse if and when he's sitting. Maybe Jackson wouldn't either but we're in a job share environment until better talent comes along. In that case give me Ackley.

Sorry Daddy
I'm with Doc.
Probably the first time I heard Pinball Wizard was in the high school student center where we used to gather playing cards for nickle and dime antes.  Guts and Blood and Guts were the games of choice.  The student center had logging wire spools for tables vending machines and a juke box for your listening enjoyment.
I don't remember which version likely The Who's....but Elton John was pretty big about then.  I liked Jim Croce if you remember him.
Meaner than a Junkyard Dog....That's Cruz right now.
 

As in...the dictionary definition. One guy is worth zero wins. The other guys is worth -1 win...but we'll take the -1 win guy because he gets hot for a month at some point? I don't mean irrational all the time...just in this case. I don't think it's possible to bench a guy until he gets hot and then play him...you can't sit your way to a hot streak.

Funny - Jackson's OPS is a paltry 620 while Ackley's is a pathetic 567. Are we really arguing between the two? For that you might as well just call up Jones. At least he does something well. Unlike the other two. 
I've preached patience with Ackley but I'm over him now. 

Sure I remember Croce. You Don't Mess Around With Jim Operator Leroy Brown. Time In A Bottle I Got A Name I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song. Like 'em all especially the latter two.
And I have ton of Elton John in my library starting with his first hit "Your Song" which came out in 1970 when I was a sophomore in high school.
I have a pretty extensive collection of popular rock and country music starting with a few from the 1940's (mostly Glenn Miller) some from the 1950's (about 40 songs) then I hit my stride in the 60's (nearly 1000) and 70's (nearly 500) before tapering off in the 80's (200) and then about 60 songs since. A lot of variety.
This does not include a pretty decent library of both classical music and Movie Musicals and Soundtracks. I began assembling my digital music library in the late '1990's. For a long time iTunes gift cards were my standard birthday and Christmas wish list.
Croce is still on my To Be Added Some Day list but he is on the radar.

"if worse comes to worst we're screwed."

We are all tired of Ackley but we know he'll hit better than he has so far. We know the routine. Slow start heat up in the summer. Full season of work? It'll be "Meh". But horrid Ackley is due to end and good Ackley is on the way. And he hit .751 OPS vs. right handers last season. He'll probably do that again. Don't get me wrong he should be much better We have lots of right handed hitters who hit better than Jackson or just as well. Weeks Ruggiano probably Romero. But we're a tad short on left handers. We can use a left handed outfielder like Ackley for the time being.
In CF yeah he makes you cringe a bit. But he'll make the plays and he'll get better. And an Ackley who can play CF and second base is an Ackley you can trade for something useful.

Matt good managers do it all the time:  A bench guy gets hot and they ride him like a thoroughbred!  That's the Ackley ticket....

If he keeps blowing up your rallies looking blind just to get to the Tootsie Pop center then there's no point.
He doesn't go from below replacement to Barry Bonds.
He goes below replacement to kinda okay.
The question becomes how many games can you blow before you need something to click.
I don't like 20% of the season let alone the 40% it took last year.

That Stanton bomb pulled to right or the dead center blast by Zunino?
They call it pull for a reason right?

...one out of every fifty times they might catch a hot streak. The thing is...he still has to play regularly enough while he's benched to even get hot.

...and change the car to a Plymouth Valiant. Another "bad boy" named Tom from a different Baptist youth group and change the song to "Funkytown" on a cassette... and your story sounds eerily familiar DaddyO. I have no idea if this Tom ever became a pastor. *grins* Thanks for the memory!

Any time I can be of memory-triggering service (GOOD memories that is) it is gratifying. Having turned 60 in March I find that such memories increasingly become like fine wines worthy of special savoring. (Of course in the Baptist church of my youth drinking wine was frowned upon just as much as cigarette-smoking. The human penchant for turning prudence ("Do not get drunk with wine.") into precept ("You shall not drink wine") is amazing.
Funny though I remember "Funkytown." A little late disco anyone?
Just yesterday for some odd reason I thought of a song from that same period "Chuck E.'s In Love."