Like other classic aces, he’s been long overrated as a sure thing in playoffs. Generally, there is about a three-year lag separating the perception of a baseball player’s prowess and what he actually is at present.

No, gold goes to Ham-off-the people telling you that wearing a suit that is anything less than a $1,200 bespoke model reveals you as a shabby rube. Never mind that a properly tailored suit from Men’s Wearhouse (!)—which Ham views as one step up from wearing a cardboard box—looks perfectly fine to 97 percent of the…

I would say “conceivably” rather than “probably,” since if they had kicked for the tie they had at least a 50-50 shot of winning (at least, because the Bears defense was altitude-gassed, and Flacco was more likely to make plays than woeful Trubisky; and of course, Bears probably would have played more cautiously in…

I used to go to weeknight games; now never. When it comes around to 9:30 and the seventh inning is just starting and the pitcher is staring at the catcher for 30 seconds and all I can think about is how late I will get home ... forget it. No more.

So the fact that by one metric average age rose from 50 to 57 from 2000 to 2016 can be chalked up to “it’s always been that way.” Sometimes the trend is real, and one-way.

Yet he also said, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

I know. That small number is only significant in that it’s not a decline. It could just be a blip due to the year’s weather, who the interleague opponents were, a popular giveaway or two, which days the Cubs and their many traveling fans were in town, etc.

Blaming the customers for not understanding your product is seldom a good business strategy. You might be right, but you won’t be successful.

That happened to me when I was in Baltimore this summer and checked out the prices on a game that night. They were bafflingly high for a horrible team that doesn’t draw well, but it turned out they were having a high-demand giveaway. Something Star Wars, I think.

To go with all the baseball-is-dying article there are ones like this one telling you not to put much stock in a blip, attendance has gone down before and it always comes back, etc. That might be true until it isn’t. 9 percent drop in 4 years? Maybe it will rebound as it has in the past, but there is no guarantee that…

Doesn’t copper oxidize to blue-green?

Clover seems to think the majority of the world’s population is English-speaking, Christian, and in the Western Hemisphere.

Perfection.

In Chicago last year, this con man had Mayor Rahm announcing that there would be tunnel transit from downtown to O’Hare in a year, for just $1 billion. Gullible press covered it like it was real. Obviously, no ground has ever been broken. 

Yet they say it simply because they aren’t assigned a specific seat and wrongly interpret the process as a free-for-all for seats. 

Two things I’ve learned in a long life:

. Even with a basic economy ticket, if weather is bad or your flight is canceled, you can move up to stand by for a earlier flight. A bit misleading. Yeah, if your flight is canceled way in advance, you maybe can get on an earlier flight, though you may well be able to get on an earlier flight, but many cancellations…

Airline fares are all based on “yield management” not on distance or actual cost to the airline. In other words, they charge as much as the market will bear. Especially when they control the hub you have to fly to, or if it is a small city destination, that can be more than on a route with a lot of competition. So,…

Plus, the old “cattle call” complaint is no longer valid. For average passengers, the Big Three have more of a cattle call, because everyone is doing the gate-cluster in desperation to have overhead space for their bag. Southwest, every person is assigned a number, and that’s where you stand, calmly to await boarding,…

It seems nonsensical, but they are doing it basically to exploit their advantage of market control of their “fortress hub.” Same logic as the old Saturday-night-stay rule; it wasn’t because it was cheaper for them to fly you if you stayed over a Saturday night; it was to make business travelers pay more for the…