Five Aaron Judge hits #62 Thoughts Under the Fedora. Yankees Lose, Arraez Rests, Anybody but Othani for MVP, Only Yanks OF need apply and where’s the juice?

Posted: October 5, 2022 by datechguy in baseball
Tags: , ,

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! Let’s see some other son of a bitch match 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.

Novena to St. Matthew for the FBI Agents involved in the Mark Houck Arrest: Day 9 Don Surber on Substack for the Finale

Posted: October 4, 2022 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, blogs, catholic, catholic devotions, internet/free speech, official oppression
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

In a post earlier today I talked about how corruption has a lot to do with the failures of Russia in their War vs Ukraine and also how the media protecting them helped preserve this corruption.

Don Surber is a retired newspaperman who writes a very good blog at donsurber.blogspot.com and has for a lot of years. A few days back he wrote a good, but not all that provocative post about the corruption at the FBI. A couple of days ago in his daily update of the news closed with this:

FINALLY, I received this email from Blogger.com:

“Your post titled ‘How to end the FBI’ has been deleted.” No reason. No rhyme. No appeal. Just deleted. The email cited community standards but the community has no say in what those standards are, so they are by definition not community standards.

Readers can still read it here, and decide for themselves if it meets our community standards.

Meanwhile, I started a substack — donsurber.substack.com Guess what the first post is…. 

This tells me that none of this is happening in a vacuum and that it will either end it a collapse of this corruption or a collapse of our freedoms.

If anything confirms the need for this novena, confirms the choice of St. Matthew as the best patron for it.

So let’s go out on a high note of prayer.

St. Matthew Novena - Day 9
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

Amen.

Dear Lord, we thank You for giving us St. Matthew as an example of holiness. Help us to imitate the devotion to You he showed in his years of service to Your Church.

St. Matthew, you were called by Jesus to leave behind your old life as a tax collector and follow Him. After this, you devoted the rest of your life to following and serving Him.

Please bring my petitions before Christ Whom you served so faithfully!

You wrote of Jesus’ life and ministry in your Gospel so that others could come to know Him. You devoted the rest of your life to preaching the Good News and helping to establish the Church.

Pray for me, that I may be as faithful a servant of God and His Church as you were. Pray that I may always be eager to put my gifts to use serving God. 

Please also pray for the FBI agents involved in the arrest of Mark Houck.

St. Matthew, pray for us!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

Amen.

Read more at: https://www.praymorenovenas.com/st-matthew-novena

The GOP and Pennsylvania

Posted: October 4, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
Tags:

By Christopher Harper

As the country slouches toward the midterm elections, Pennsylvania provides a microcosm of the battle between Democrats and Republicans.

In 2016, the state put Donald Trump over the top by less than 1 percent of the vote. In 2020, Joe Biden got slightly more than 1 percent of the total.

Down the line, the Keystone State mirrors almost every demographic of the nation from ethnic makeup to average income to the severity of poverty.

On the West Coast sits the Democrat stronghold of Pittsburgh. On the East Coast stands Philadelphia, another Democrat hovel. In between, where I live after 17 years in Philly, the flyover country of Pennsylvania votes almost entirely Republican down the ticket.

In the U.S. Senate race, Mehmet Oz has pulled almost even with John Fetterman. Oz takes conservative stands and has Trump’s backing, while Fetterman ranks to the left of Bernie Sanders and George Soros. Oz isn’t a great campaigner, which is why he isn’t running away with the race.

But one of the main reasons Oz has been gaining ground is that Fetterman had a stroke earlier this year and hasn’t convinced many people, including the media, that he can handle the pressure of the U.S. Senate.

Gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano is a stout Trump supporter, but the media have portrayed him as too conservative. Unfortunately, that caricature has left him far behind.

As Common Sense put it recently: “The Democrat is covered in tattoos, favors hoodies, and just had a stroke. Will Pennsylvania send the anti-politician to the Senate?”

Josh Shapiro, an unaccomplished liberal, is likely to follow in the footsteps of our state dictator, Tom Wolf, whose COVID clampdown made him all-powerful for much of the past two-plus years.

Fortunately, the Pennsylvania Senate and House will remain solidly in Republican hands, although the all-Democrat delegations from Pittsburgh and Philly prevent the GOP from overriding vetoes by the governor. The Republicans are pushing for the ability to override executive orders, such as those during COVID, with a majority vote, but legal requirements have prevented such a move until next year.

Also, according to most polls, the U.S. House of Representatives delegation—now nine Republicans and nine Democrats—is likely to add two Republicans into the mix.

Apart from the governor’s race, Pennsylvania looks good for the GOP—perhaps a positive omen for 2024.

Five Russia/Ukraine Thoughts Under the Fedora: Russia Historically as a Military power, A glimpse of our Future, Something the media wants us to forget, Shades of Talleyrand and the endgame

Posted: October 4, 2022 by datechguy in war
Tags: ,

One of the reasons why Russia has as feared a reputation as a military power is their victories over Hitler’s Germany & Napoleon’s France in invasions whose failures changed the course of history.

Of of the things overlooked about both of these events is that they had a lot of help in the sense that England was supporting them financially vs Napoleon while fighting a 2nd front in Spain and at Sea while the US was supplying them with millions of dollars of supplies to keep them going.

In Short with help and allies Russia is a terror when something is trying to invade their homeland, against decent militaries Poland 1920’s, Japan 1890’s Finland 1939 and not Ukraine 2022 not so much.

One of the things that has really hurt Russia in this sense has been the unreality of their military. When you have a one man kleptocracy that puts contracts to friends the idea of actually doing what you claim to be doing with the money doesn’t happen, particularly when if anyone complains they might disappear and the media will back up the powers that be.

I suspect that a lot of the Russian logistical support that they thought they had in terms of supplies and other things actually went into the back pockets of Putin and his allies and has gone there for years so now that they actually need these things they only exist on paper.

I suspect even Putin didn’t realize the full extent of it and nobody had the balls to tell him.

Given that more and more the media and tech are shielding Democrats here at home from this kind of thing don’t be surprised if this becomes the end result for us both in terms of Military and in terms of civilian infastructure. We’re becoming a big Chicago where it’s all graft all the time.

This is indeed Obama’s 3rd term.

A lot of people have forgotten this but remember when this war had not started yet the Biden administration was busy trying to get Ukraine to cede the territory that Russia wanted and was ready to fly out their president to a comfortable exile. It was as if the deal with the US was already made to Putin to take over.

The biggest surprise to everyone still remains that the Ukrainian President decided to fight rather than just take the money and run and it likely remains along with the attack of 9/11/01 the biggest single pivot point in world history in the 21st century.

As I recall at the time nobody called it and everyone expected him to die in Ukraine or in exile. His “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” is going rank in history with Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”

Of course the big thing is that while both Churchill and Zelensky stood for defending their country to the last the big difference is Churchill wasn’t a thief in charge of a kleptocracy and Zelensky is. A lot of people are going to get immensely rich off of Zelensky Ukraine being saved and he’s going to do pretty well himself. In that sense he is more comparable to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, prince de Bénévent the French Diplomat who managed to be a part of government from the French Monarchy to the revolution to Napoleon and back to Monarchy without losing his head or wealth or influence.

Of course to the Ukrainian people fighting for the survival of their country the whole question of graft if moot. Their primary goal is survival an victory and it it means a bunch of people and companies both foreign and domestic lining their pockets in the process they’re not going to care all that much as long as they win.

Elon Musk is getting a lot of pushback for his suggested settlement of the war:

If this was offered the 2nd week the west would have pushed Ukraine to sign on the dotted line and a lot of folks in Ukraine would have gone along, now with Russia in retreat the Ukrainians aren’t all that keen to give an inch, even with Putin mobilizing and rattling the nuclear cage.

Also the pool of graft money is smaller in peace than in war as rebuilding requires actual structures, you can’t claim to have shot away the concrete for a building.

I don’t blame the Ukrainians for balking but Petraeus not withstanding I’m not in favor of a nuclear war for the sake of Ukraine taking back those last two Russian occupied areas.

The real question mark here is Putin. Right now are the Russians willing or able to dump him and if so what replaces him? Does Putin go nuclear to win the war? Does Russia back up such an order? Does Putin make a deal and “declare victory”.

And what about the Russian people? Ukraine was historically part of Russia for a very long time and a lot of Russians likely backed the war seeing it restoring a part of Russia back to Russia but as soon as it proved to be not a romp but a disaster and a killing ground for their sons likely decided it wasn’t worth it, after all World War 2 was about survival, this is just about pride.

Frankly this would be the best time for Ukraine to make some kind of deal. They are more likely to get the max advantage without the threat of a nuclear war while the Russians are running scared then when the mobilization is complete and a weakened Putin is likely less of threat than an unknown successor.

In once sense the west already has more than it hoped for in terms of neutralizing the Russian military as a threat in the end those its Ukraine’s call as they bear the primary cost in lives and the primary risk of being nuked. My thought is if Ukrainian people want to fight on and bear the costs of it, it’s a just cause and it’s on them, but it’s their war not ours.

Older Entries
Newer Entries