The best.

Aren't unintended consequences amazing?

All. The. Time.

This is an amazing photo by @GabyLikesPhotos. It’s worth noting the skill involved here. Wonderful composition. Perfect timing. Great angle. The light off the trophy is fantastic. And somehow, miraculously, all that confetti stays out of the foreground. There’s something magical and irreplaceable about news photography, let’s continue to support it. Thank you Gaby. I don’t know you, but I appreciate you!

As far as I know, we have only one person from all of professional sports in the 1920s who is still included in the GOAT debate of his sport. That alone sounds a lot like an “insane freak of nature” argument. Ohtani is a freak athlete. For a host of reasons (my loyalty to the Yankees, my belief that Judge is a generational talent), I would like to ignore what he is achieving. I have been less impressed (sneering would be too strong a word) about his accumulation of stolen bases in a year in which stealing bases was made demonstrably easier. But I see his current pitching performance, his usual hitting performance and his all-around play as a gift. My point is, I admire Ohtani and it makes me appreciate Ruth all the more to see a two-way player in today’s game. You don’t need to denigrate the past to celebrate the present.

We’re entering “Tungsten Arm O’Doyle” territory. Can he hit?

Incredible, indeed.

A little extra love for Stan Musial’s 475 home runs leading this list. (And Yogi Berra second at 358.) nine of the guys on this list didn’t crack 100 for their career. Stan the Man was amazing.

There are all kinds of players that evince questions like this (Bonds, Shoeless Joe, Clemens, etc,) and I think it’s silly to have a hall of fame and omit some of the greatest players in the history of the game because they failed a moral (or in some cases criminal) standard. The integrity of the game is important, but ignoring history doesn’t advance integrity. There should be an Asterisk Committee that evaluates all the candidates who aren’t in for reasons having to do with integrity, and then great writers should be appointed to write clear, honest plaques.

And on this list of the top 20 career OPS leaders, Aaron Judge is tied for fourth in career OPS+ 1. Babe Ruth (206) 2. Ted Williams (191) 3. Barry Bonds (182) 4 (tie). Aaron Judge (179) 4 (tie). Lou Gehrig (179) Pretty elite company!

For a minute, I read this as “even those prior to *his* first ever radio broadcast of a ballgame on Aug. 5, 1921”

I’ve sung this song dozens of times and this take is wrong. I don’t even know why it’s a discussion. The feeling of rolling from “lightning” on the back end of the first line to “thunder” at the start of the first line is incredibly satisfying. Only someone who does not sing would want to change it.

Fixed it. 1. Josh Gibson, 580 2. Babe Ruth, 575, Detroit, 7/18/21 3. Mickey Mantle, 565 4. Ruth, 560, Cleveland, 7/31/21 5. Ruth, 550, Chicago, 8/17/21 6. Ruth, 545, Boston, 5/25/26 7. Ruth, 540, Philadelphia, 5/22/30 8. Ruth, 540, Pittsburgh, 5/25/35 9. Reggie Jackson, 539 10. (tie) Ruth, 535, St. Louis, 5/25/21 10. (tie) Stargell, 535 This is based on the work of Bill Jenkinson, in his meticulously chronicled account of every home runs Babe Ruth ever hit. “The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs” says that Ruth hit 47 home runs greater than 500 feet in his career, not including two in the World Series. And if the dimensions of today’s ballparks were in place in Ruth’s time, Jenkinson claims Ruth would have had more than 1,100 home runs. (The title of the book refers to 1921 when — adjusting for the cavernous Polo Grounds and the much larger visiting ballparks — Jamison documents an additional 45 home runs that he says would have been home runs in today’s ballparks.) It’s a fascinating book and of course you can agree or disagree with it. But it does make a strong case that Ruth wasn’t playing against plumbers, but rather was an athletic aberration who was even better than his legend suggests. Well worth a read if you’re a baseball stats nut.

Yesterday was Aaron Judge's 34th birthday, and suitably he hit a home run to celebrate. With 378 home runs, there is a fair amount of discussion about how many home runs he'll end his career with. Judge famously got a late start, with his MLB debut happening at the age of 24, in August 2016. Looking at the list of the top 20 career leaders in home runs, only Rafael Palmeiro and David Ortiz had fewer homers before their 26th birthdays. And of course, Judge's progress has been impeded by the shortened COVID 2020 season, a concrete step in the outfield at Dodgers Stadium, and various injuries along the way. That said, he has been remarkably consistent. Since 2022, he's been averaging 59 HR/162. Rarified air. And he seems to be on a pace to top 200HR in his age 31-35 seasons, which is the kind of accumulation you need to make in order to get to 500+ or 600+ HR. When you look at the top 20 career leaders in HR, it's interesting. Sammy Sosa stands out as the guy who hit the most homers in a five-year span, with 292 in his year 29-33 seasons, the peak PED years of 1998-2002. If you divide careers up into home runs hit <26, 26-30, 31-35 and 36+, 13 of the top 20 career HR leaders hit 200 in five years at least once. Bonds, Ruth, Pujols, ARod and Sosa did it twice. If Judge does that in the next five years, he's sitting on 578 home runs on his 39th birthday. What if, like Mays, Bonds and Aaron, he keeps playing until he's 42? If you look at who hit the most home runs after age 34, five players have topped 200 (Bonds, with 340 tops the list, but Nelson Cruz, Hank Aaron and Palmiero also got 200+). Lots of people observe that we've never seen a 6'7", 280+ lb ballplayer have the kind of success Judge has, and most say that to back up a judgment that he won't sustain it as he ages. But we could also say, since we haven't seen this before, we can't really predict where it's heading. Happy birthday, Captain!

Yesterday — just yesterday! — my son and I were talking about cyberpunk and I mentioned my affection for William Gibson, who was a progenitor of the scene. And today, this gift. I loved Gibson’s 2003 novel Pattern Recognition and here it is, the inception point of a very cool line of clothing 20 years ago and I didn’t know it. Pattern, recognized. Thanks @dieworkwear