Cool illustration. Who drew it?

Tell me more about this cracker factory you speak of. I love crackers.

Yeah, that was Onion-esque.

I follow and the premise is false. There aren't a lot of guys that can do what Puig can do. Maybe none, in fact. There are some other great young players, but the number as good as him is pretty small. Maybe four or five. The number of borderline NFL QBs who were good in college is much higher.

This discussion calls to mind the bit in Moneyball where Michael Lewis compares Billy Beane to Lenny Dykstra and says, more or less, that being kinda careless and maybe even a bit stupid can be an asset for a ballplayer. Players need a short memory and the ability to not get too frustrated when something doesn't go…

We used to see adds for the place on WPIX (one of the only channels we got in Central Pa 0n our rudimentary cable in the 70s and 80s). We went there as a family around 86. They told us that loopy slide never opened because they sent a crash dumbly through and it came out with no arms. Had the internet existed then, I…

I don't think that he has enough information to support that generalization. How much Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese baseball does Hawk watch?

There's no parallel. Tebow isn't actually any good at quarterback. Puig is a potential hall of famer who is especially interesting because he's so good and a bit of a fuck-up at the same time.

All of that.

As a regular at the Spikes, I follow the NYPL closely. But I haven't heard who is moving to Morgantown? I heard it was either the Muckdogs or the Jammers, but probably the Jammers.

Yeah, I see that point. I'm not interested in sanctimony or moral condemnation. (Well, the guys that lied about it deserve some scorn for the lying. They can't claim that they weren't really doing anything wrong if they're not willing to stand-up for themselves on that point). But if we're trying to figure out who…

I love black bean soup. Always get it when it's on the menu.

And he doesn't understand Kant for shit. I can tell you that.

Agreed. Ferguson's show is great in that it's so low-key. Almost quiet. There's no band. His side-kicks are a talking skeleton and a panto horse. The guests seem to know and like him. It's a very chilled way to end the evening. That would be all gone if he had to do Late Night.

Different between the 80's and the 90s? How so? Prove it. Because I've certainly read of a lot of evidence to the contrary.

Sure, they turned a blind eye to help baseball after the strike. No doubt. But baseball had slipped from being culturally dominant before that.

I don't think you understand the difference between what they do and what amphetamines do. Amphetamines don't actually make one stronger. They make you feel like you're stronger and more tolerant of pain, which could help in weightlifing, but nobody was really lifting weights in the 60s anyway. They weren't illegal…

Baseball had ceased to be the National Pastime before the steroids thing happened. Before even Bud got there.

I'm with you on that. I don't understand why so much energy is spent on this topic.

Well said.