Who's the drummer?

 The only thing I have been doing consistently since 1963 is following the Orioles, and none of the players from their 1963 are still around on the field.  

I started following The Rolling Stones in 1964, though, and that was a year after their drummer Charlie Watts joined the band. Unlike Buster Narum, Brooks Robinson, and Robin Roberts (no, not THAT Robin Roberts!), who were with the O's back then, Charlie is still the drummer for the Rolling Stones.

Except when he isn't. He just underwent a medical procedure (that's the word they use on old people; it makes us less anxious than "operation") and so he will miss at least the first leg of the Stones' upcoming "This Is It, I Swear to Heaven Above" Tour, set to begin next month. Steve Jordan will fill in for him on the kit, although it will be awkward, because, at 64, Jordan is not even old enough for the senior discount when the band breaks their fast at Denny's.

And this talk of substitute drummers reminds me of a day when another English beatkeeper was unable to get on the sticks, as it were. Set your wayback machine to November 20, 1973. The place is the Cow Palace in San Francisco, and that evening, The Who were set to perform, and began to do so, in fact, in support of their "Quadrophenia" album tour, when their legendarily crapulous drummer, Keith "The Loon" Moon, having had his standard pre-show tipple of horse tranquilizer and brandy, fell off his stool at the end of "Won't Get Fooled Again." Lovers of irony, please take note.

After a short period of trying to rouse Moon, it becomes apparent to many that he will not be able to finish the show, unless he could do it from the ambulance that was taking him to the drunk tank hospital to have his stomach pumped.

You've probably seen movies where the Broadway star turns up lame and the producer turns to her understudy and says, "You're going out there a nobody, but you're coming back as a star, kid!" because that's how it works in the pictures.

In real life, Scot Haplin, 19, a longtime Who fan and drummer, was up near the stage, having paid his way into the show. When Moon's incapacity became certain, Scot's friend told a security guy, "My friend can play the drums!" And just as Who leader Peter Townshend was asking the crowd if there are any volunteers to be Keith For A Night, famed concert promoter Bill Graham was asking Scot if he could play for real.

 "Can you fly this plane and land it?"

On his way to the throne (that's what a drummer calls that little stool), someone handed Scot a Dixie Cup of brandy, and he sat down, picked up the sticks, and told Townshend he was ready. Like a rookie up from the minor leagues to replace a slugger, Haplin warmed up, with the band playing the old blues tune "Smokestack Lightning," segueing into "Spoonful." And once he was up to speed, The Who got back in high gear with the nine-minute song "Naked Eye."

"Sure I can!"

There is no recording from that night; from all accounts, Scot acquitted himself well on the drums. He was no Keith Moon, but then again, that night, neither was Keith, who died of predictability in 1978.

Haplin was given an official Who tour jacket, which someone ripped off that night. He went on to earn an MA in interdisciplinary arts and still played drums for a number of local bands in California before moving to Indiana to work in the visual arts field. He passed in 2008, a footnote long remembered.