Archive for the ‘baseball’ Category

Yesterday the talk of Boston Sports Radio was the Bruins signing of Mitchel Miller who was apparently quite an ass as a youth when he was 14.

The thing that really clinched the anger was the sudden “apology” just before the signing and the fellow insisting it had nothing to do with Hockey, which confirms he’s still an ass.

The whole principle of a juvenile court system is so people aren’t punished as adults for things they did as kids but re is a reason why we have a juvenile court system on the other hand you also want to provide an incentive for folks to avoid this kind of thing in the future so here is what I’d do.

He wants to play in the NHL fine, 5% of his contract should go to the kid in question and since he waited six years to apologize, that 5% should continue for the first six years of his career. And since the Bruins decided to make the signing let them match that 5% as well.

You can’t make a person virtuous who is not but you can provide incentives to make virtue less expensive than vice. I guarantee if a young jock figures this kind of thing will cost him real money it will at best stop cold or at worst produce the required contrition without a six years wait.


Kyrie Irving has been suspended five games for tweeting out a link to an Holocaust denying documentary.

Given the left’s embrace of this kind of thing and the NBA’s embrace of the left it’s almost a shock Brooklyn punished him even if the team does reside in one of the most Jewish sections of the nation.

The NBA itself has decided to leave him alone and leave things to the Nets. After all as far as the NBA is concerned he didn’t do something really horrible in their eyes, like hitting China for slave labor etc. If he had Irving would have gone the way of Enes Kanter Freedom and not see the inside of an NBA court again. Irving cost him embarrassment, Kanter cost them money.

One more thought. The idea that Kyrie actually might have bought the idea that the black race are the actual tribes of Israel is no surprise to me. It’s been 25 years since Mary Lefkowitz warned us about this stuff in Not Out Of Africa: How “”Afrocentrism”” Became An Excuse To Teach Myth As History With 25 years of this going on since the release of this book without any pushback the wonder is that it isn’t more prevalent.


Boston sports radio is all over the place on the New England Patriots. Nobody seems sure about anything except that they’re not good enough to beat Buffalo. Here is their remaining schedule:

  • vs Colts
  • vs Jets
  • at Vikings
  • vs Bills
  • at Cardinals
  • at Raiders
  • vs Bengals
  • vs Dolphins
  • at Bills

With the exception of the Bills there is not a team on the list they aren’t capable of beating nor any time not capable of clearing their clock. Given the parity in the league, the quality of their roster and the uneven play of everyone. I’d not be surprised to see them finish anywhere from 11-6 to 4-13.

It’s bad for the nerves but good if you want some mystery in how a game will go.


There has been a lot of fuss about the fact that there are no American born black players on either roster in the World Series this year. This is being pushed as a stain to baseball, but frankly it’s not a stain in terms of racism but a stain in terms of marketing.

Part of it is cost you can play football or basketball with a single ball and a small group, but you need at least 10 or 12 for baseball, plus bats gloves but more importantly both the NFL and the NBA have done a much better job of marketing of both marketing its stars, both in general and to the black community in particular. Meanwhile the Latino stars from central and south America are huge in their countries and within the communities.

Personally I think it’s crazy. MLB besides being a better game has guaranteed contracts, less physical punishment in terms of contact and the potential for a longer career if you can’t sell that and the players to kids dying to become athletes then you need another career.


A great example of this lack of marketing is the current world series. It’s been a great playoffs and a spectacular series but game four illustrated exactly why.

The Astros put together five runs in the fifth to give them a 5-0 lead in a game they desperately needed to win. Meanwhile Christian Javier pitched six no hit innings, and then was pulled with a five run lead.

Now I understand priority one is to win the game and the Phillies have a history of coming back. But there is no reason why the Astros could not have had Javier pitching in what is likely his final start of the year and a five run lead could not have come out for the 7th with Bryan Abreu ready in the pen if he gave up a hit.

There is a reason why Don Larson is remembered 66 years after his perfect game in the 1956 World series, but I had to look up who the starter was to see who pitched in the Astros no hitter.

Personally I think MLB should fire their entire PR staff of the league and start again.

The St. Louis Cardinals were up 2-0 in the top of the 9th of game 1 when a graphic came up on the screen saying that the Cardinals had never lost a postseason game when up 2-0 in the ninth. The Phillies ended up scoring 6 runs winning the game and the series.

Yesterday the Astros were up 5-0 going into the 4th when on the screen came a graphic saying the Houston Astros have never lost a postseason game when up by five. The Phillies tied the game by the 5th and won in extra innings.

As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over till it’s over”.


As of yesterday Justin Verlander who got a no-decision in yesterday’s game is 0-7 in World Series play and holds the highest ERA of pitchers with more than 30 innings pitched in World Series history.

I find that rather incredible. Verlander is without question a first ballot hall of famer1. He led the league in Wins, ERA WHIP and hits per 9 innings last year With 244 wins he has an actual chance of getting to the 300 win mark and if you watch him pitch over the years the person who most comes to mind in terms of style is Curt Schilling. Throws strikes and strikes out a ton of guys, walks very few but on the down side gives up HR’s and doubles on occasion to guys who can make contact.

Yet Schilling is legendary in World Series 4-1 with two more rings (3) than Verlander (1).

Given the similarity of stuff, style and grit I just can’t see how Verlander and Schilling produce such different results in World Series play.

Of course if Hoston wins this series nobody will be talking about or worrying about Verlander’s series stats except Verlander.

1Subject of course to having acceptable political beliefs in the eyes of the liberal sports media


How DARE Tom Brady decide to honor his contract and all those fans who bought season tickets to watch him play this year! No wonder his wife left him!

Gisele will of course land on her feet. She’s much richer than him and will have no shortage of a choice of rich accomplished men who will want her to choose from.

That she would break up their family over a season of football when Brady had stated that he would be playing through age 45 for years and for which he had a contract to play, is to me a narcissism on a huge scale. Would it really have been that hard to wait three more months?

This goes to show that wealth and fame does not guarantee happiness.


It’s day three of the Musk Era on Twitter and if you want to see the difference in real terms here it is explained in one tweet:

I’ve never got beyond 3500+ followers myself despite questioning Trump at press conferences and long interviews with Ted Cruz and some serious coverage of presidential campaigns and given that the blog is not of the scale it once was I likely will never reach the numbers other have but I’ve always presumed that was on me.


A lot of people think the return of Donald Trump to Twitter will be the sign that the era of censorship will be done. The moment I’m waiting for is different.

I use tweetdeck and because I follow Stacy McCain so closely I kept a column of his tweets up. On the day he was suspended the error messages: User has been suspended came up.

Stacy had 80,000+ followers at the time and his blog is his primary source of income. This was a direct attack on a conservative with six children’s ability to support his family by a bunch of leftist apparatchiks out to crush dissent and was the herald of what cumulated in the banning of Trump

Rather than remove the @rsmccain column I’ve left it there all those years and every time I open tweetdeck the “User has been suspended” message has come up and it refreshes several times an hour while I’m on the page.

When that column is populated again then I’ll know that free speech has returned to twitter.

As you might have heard if you follow baseball at all Aaron Judge led off the Yankees penultimate game of the regular season with his 62 home run of the season to set a new American League all time record.

On the other hand it wasn’t enough to give the Yankees a win as the once unbeatable team dropped the game to the lowly rangers by a score of 3-2


The one mountain that stands between Judge and the triple crown (lead in HR, RBI & AVG) which would be on the 2nd of the 21st century is Luis Arraez or more specifically his hamstring which has kept him out of games since Saturday. Judge will need to go 4-4 or 5-6 to catch him. If he manages to do this then people will not just be comparing him to Maris this season but to Ted Williams who famously went 6-8 in a doubleheader to finish the 1941 season at .406 the last man to hit .400 rather than settling for .3995 if he sat and making the landmark via a rounding.


One thing that 62nd home run does is take some of the pressure off the MVP voters.

You might think that Judge, would be the clear favorite over last years’ MVP Shohei Othani if you put their triplecrown stats side by side

PlayerBatting AvgHome RunsRuns Batted In
Aaron Judge.31162130
Shohei Othani.2783495

However Othani’s has something the Judge doesn’t have, a Pitching line

PlayerGames as PitcherIPWinsLossesPctStrikeoutsERA
Aaron Judgenonenonen/an/an/an/an/a
Shohei Othani27161158.6522132.35

Judge is 1st in Wins above replacement among batters with Othani 2nd, however Othani is also 2nd in wins above replacement among PITCHERS in the AL, 4th in ERA, 4th in wins . 3rd in strikeouts and did all of this for a team that is going to miss the playoffs and not even get to a .500 record..

Othani is clearly the more valuable player but as long as he is putting up batting and pitching stats like this he would naturally win every single year which the voters don’t want, Judge reaching a thrice in 122 year milestone give the voters and excuse to place Shohei 2nd.


When Babe Ruth (the other great hitting pitcher who was converted to the OF to take advantage of his bat every day) hit his 60’s HR in 1927 he reported said:

“Sixty! Count ’em, 60!ย Let’sย seeย someย otherย son of a bitch matchย that!”

It took 34 years and a slightly longer season (162 vs 154 games) for someone, namely Roger Maris to do so with 61

It took a further 61 years and both a DH rule and interleague play for that American league record of 61 to become 62.

Here’s the real oddity.

The only people in American League History to hit 60 homes or more have all been Left Handed Yankee Outfielders playing in a year the Yanks finished 1st.

You have to go back to Hank Greenberg of the Detroit tigers for the next highest man at 58. Mark McGuire’s 58 were split between Oakland (AL) and St Louis (NL)


This also raises a buggaboo for me.

A lot of people are making a larger fuss over Judge because his 62 was done without “juicing” or any kind of steroids, but consider he also was not facing pitchers who were juicing as well.

Or to put it another way. Despite the steroids the number of players who have reached 60+ home runs in the National league is the same number of player who have reached 60 home runs in the American League three (AL Judge, Maris, Ruth), as there have been in the national league (Bonds, McGuire, Sosa)

The difference is quantity Bonds reached 73 home runs in 2001 but never reached 50 any other year. McGuire would manage 70 in 1998 and 65 the next year before age and injury got to him. The real Irony is Sosa who would actually manage it three times while never leading the league with 66 in 98, 63 in 99 both times 2nd to McGuire and 64 in 2001 the year Bonds broke the record.

My thought is it was just as tough to hit those HR’s in the steroid era as without them because again, Judge, Maris and Ruth didn’t have to face juiced up pitchers at the same time.

Baseball will be a lot better off admitting that white regrettable the steroids’ era was a fun time in the game, the fans loved the game of that era and the players that played it and the sooner we get over it the sooner the game will recover.

Let’s forget the problems in the world for something cool.

As you might recall last season in my 1969 draft league I made it to game seven of the world series losing to the Mets (Daytraders) here is the Box score from the mets Game Seven victory downloaded from Dynasty

And here is Denny McLain the winning pitcher in that game signing it

I’m sorry if you’re a baseball online gamer it doesn’t get cooler than that.

Alas Pete Rose was apparently several tables away, if Bobby Tolan hadn’t caught up to that ball Rose drove over his head with the tying and go ahead runs on deck it might have been him signing my victory page, but then again I wasn’t there so it’s unlikely the Mets would have wanted to have a loss autographed.