Tinker to Evers to Chance (album)

Tinker to Evers to Chance
Compilation album by Game Theory
Released	March 1990
Genre	Rock, power pop
Label	Enigma Records
Producer	Mitch Easter and Scott Miller
Game Theory chronology
Two Steps from the Middle Ages (1988) Tinker to Evers to Chance (1990) Distortion of Glory (1993)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

Tinker to Evers to Chance is a compilation album of songs by Game Theory, released in 1990. The liner notes describe the included tracks as songs which "reached national obscurity, as opposed to local obscurity." Band leader Scott Miller went on to form The Loud Family.

Production

The album's ironic title refers to Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance, who played baseball for the 1910 Chicago Cubs, and who were immortalized in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon." According to Miller, their famous double play was "a case in baseball where someone didn't get a hit, so it was definitely an appropriate title for our greatest hits."^[2]

The cover image adds Miller's visual puns on the "evocative" names of the three players,^[2] featuring a piece from a Tinkertoy set ("tinker"), a stopwatch ("evers"), and a die ("chance").

Critical reception

The Chicago Tribune wrote in 1990 that Tinker to Evers to Chance, while displaying all of Miller's shortcomings during the band's "seven-year history of obscurity", also made a "powerful case" that Game Theory had been "unjustly overlooked."^[3] Citing songs such as "the jangly, angst-ridden '24,' the lush 'Regenisraen' and the soaring 'Room for One More, Honey'", critic Mark Caro wrote that Miller "covers heart pains and dissatisfaction with a liveliness and playfulness missing from other literate popsters", displaying "an instinctive feel for pop hooks and textures, and his ambition often pays off, allowing him to hit climaxes like the acoustic guitar rush that elevates 'Throwing the Election' after you'd have thought the song was over."^[3]

Track listing

1. "Beach State Rocking" – 2:56
2. "Bad Year at U.C.L.A." – 2:58
3. "Sleeping Through Heaven" – 4:06
4. "Something to Show" – 2:39
5. "Penny, Things Won't" – 5:18
6. "Metal and Glass Exact" – 3:37
7. "Shark Pretty" – 4:00
8. "Nine Lives to Rigel Five" – 2:49
9. "The Red Baron" – 3:42
10. "24" – 2:49
11. "Curse of the Frontier Land" – 3:33
12. "I Turned Her Away" – 3:00
13. "Regenisraen" – 3:29
14. "Erica's Word" – 3:56
15. "Crash into June" – 2:58
16. "Like a Girl Jesus" – 2:40
17. "We Love You, Carol and Alison" – 3:26
18. "The Real Sheila" - 3:35
19. "Together Now, Very Minor" – 3:32
20. "Room For One More, Honey" – 3:02
21. "Leilani" – 3:02
22. "Throwing the Election" – 4:11

Personnel

• Jozef Becker – drums, knee slaps
• Nancy Becker – keyboards, vocals, vocals (background)
• Guillaume Gassuan – bass
• Dave Gill – drums, audio engineer
• Fred Juhos – bass
• Scott Miller – vocals and guitar
• Michael Quercio – bass, vocals, vocals (background), reverb, producer
• Gil Ray – guitar, drums
• Donnette Thayer – vocals, guitar arrangements
• Suzi Ziegler – vocals
• Shelley LaFreniere – keyboards, vocals

External links

• Tinker to Evers to Chance at Discogs (list of releases)

References

1. AllMusic review
2. Cohen, Jason (September–October 1993). "Exploded View: With the Loud Family, Scott Miller Engineers a Brand New Theory". Option 52. Copy of interview at the Wayback Machine (archived November 6, 2013).
3. Caro, Mark (June 10, 1990). "Game Theory Tinker to Evers to Chance". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 2013-12-13.