The idea that Ruth was facing railroad workers and coal miners is a bit overstated. In the 1800s, yes, players were barely even professionals. Pre-1920, yes, a lot of players would have relied heavily on offseason jobs. But in Ruth’s era, salaries did improve. I looked at a number of players on baseball-reference, but…

Lots of excellent points in here. Samer is absolutely wrong about Ruth’s bat speed — as you said, he didn’t wish those balls over the fence; the laws of physics didn’t change in the last 100 years. He had to generate the same exit velocity modern players do.

I look at a guy like Will Clark, who was a contemporary of Baines. Baines played 5-6 years longer, but Clark played defense — very good defense — finished with a >.300 career average, won a gold glove, finished in the top 10 in WAR three times, was NLCS MVP, and NL MVP runner up.

Baseball-Reference.com boldfaces any statistic on a player’s page when he led the league with that figure. In his 22 year career, Harold Baines has a grand total of ONE boldfaced number on his page: a .541 SLG in 1984.

Shit. Did Williams Sonoma put a hit out on Drew????

I laughed and starred this. Now I (really) hope Drew’s accident is just some silly Christmas-related back spasms and he’s not dying.

I’m in this camp. I think it’s done. Here’s my tin-foil hat explanation for why:

I see your point, but there are only 5 episodes in the final season, correct? Are there enough episodes left for the Starks/Targaryans to have a massive battle against the Night’s King, lose, regroup, fight again, win, re-mass to battle Cercei, fuck Cercei up royally, and then give us more of the aunt/nephew fucking…

Let me throw an idea by you. What if the NCAA took over scheduling the non-conference games for the Top 40 pre-season teams and scheduled 4 games against other Top 40 out-of-conference opponents?

I don’t understand why a G5 team gets an automatic bid every year.

I’m not sure how neat and tidy that is, because it seems like your formula is based entirely on trying to get UCF in to the playoffs.

The problem with expanding the playoffs is that the natural cut-off point for “doesn’t deserve” changes every year. In 2018, an 8-team playoff would make sense.

If only their defense showed the same resiliency.

People lose sight that the act of communication doesn’t necessarily mean communicating well.

It doesn’t look like the draft was THAT complicated. Basically, all of the eligible QBs were assigned a region that correlated with the teams in the league. Those teams had the right of first refusal on the QB assigned to their region.

Not only was Hack a 2nd round pick in the NFL (all of those other guys were 5th rounders or UDFA), but everyone else graduated college between 2008-2014. Hack’s only been out of school for two years!

In fairness, both conservatives and liberals like to cling to centuries-old policy and practice when it benefits them. Conservatives cling to the 2nd amendment; liberals now are pointing to the Statue of Liberty with “we’re a nation of immigrants” rhetoric.

It may be a generational thing, but the proliferation of entertainment choices isn’t helping. I was 3 when All in the Family went off the air, but as an 18 year old I could have told you the names of all of the characters and some of the jokes from the series. Mostly because there weren’t many TV choices in the 80s,…

Do you realize that next July is the 30th anniversary of Seinfeld’s premier?

I voted for the second-to-last-red Gruden. When choosing a wine in a restaurant, most people pick the 2nd least expensive. Considering that Gruden’s hue is now similar to a Cabernet, merging this decision with the wine menu seemed appropriate.