Had the great pleasure of seeing a wonderful concert Monday night at Keyspan Park, the Coney Island home of the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Class A minor league team in the NY Mets system. The bill paired Wilco with Yo La Tengo. Wilco and its leader Jeff Tweedy continue to get better and better as a band. This was the strongest show I have seen them perform, with 2-1/2 hours of solid rock and roll under a perfect July night sky. Yo La Tengo opened with a solid hour of their special kind of indie rock.
In addition to the venue, the link to sports is the name of the band Yo La Tengo. The name is taken from a famous incident in the epochal 1962 debut season of the NY Mets. Richie Ashburn was the Mets' veteran center fielder, and he had communication problems with the shortstop, Elio Chacon of Venezuela. After colliding several times attempting to field shallow pop flies, Chacon taught Ashburn how to say "I got it" in Spanish ("Yo la tengo"). At a subsequent game, Ashburn ran toward shallow left field shouting "Yo la tengo," Chacon gave ground, but left fielder Frank Thomas was not on script. Having missed a meeting that reviewed the Spanish phrase, he plowed into Ashburn as the ball dropped to the field. Later he was heard to ask, "What is this 'yellow tango'?"
Whatever it is....Wilco got it!
