by John Walters
The Shohei Kid
The line last night for Los Angeles Angel pitcher Shohei Ohtani: 8 innings, 8 strikeouts, 1 earned run, and the Win. He also hit his 40th home run of the season while improving his record to 8-1 and lowering his ERA to 2.79.
As ESPN’s Jeff Passan has pointed out, this is historic stuff. Ohtani leads the bigs in home runs and his ERA would be in the Top 10 if he had enough starts.
All that and he got Jack Morris suspended without even trying…
And That’s Why They Call It…
A husband, wife, their one year-old daughter and even the family dog were found dead after going for a hike near their home just outside Yosemite National Park this weekend. No signs of trauma on any of the bodies.
So what happened? The couple had lived in the San Francisco area, where he’s a software engineer, but had relocated to just beyond Yosemite for a simpler, cleaner life. Now they’re all gone. Was it noxious fumes from a deserted mine? Tainted water? The Taliban? Who knows.
By the way, I’m really looking forward to a week or two from now when the NFL season starts and America can go back to not giving a sh*t as to what happens in Afghanistan…
Where You Really Do Earn An Mrs. Degree
In Reykjavik, Iceland, you will find the School of Housewives, which really does teach Nordic lasses how to excel in the art of husbandry-pleasing. And now, of course, someone has made a documentary about it…
College Football’s Big Weekend
As it stands now, and we have no reason to believe the preseason rankings will change, college football’s opening weekend will feature five games between a pair of Top 25 schools. That’s 10 schools. That’s 40% of the Top 25, for those of you who like the maths. The contests:
No. 23 Louisiana (Lafayette) at No. 21 Texas
No. 19 Penn State at No. 12 Wisconsin
No. 17 Indiana at No. 18 Iowa
No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 14 Miami
No. 5 Georgia vs. No. 3 Clemson
Sexy games not on the list: No. 16 LSU at UCLA and No. 9 Notre Dame at Florida State.*
*And no, we presently have no idea whether The Athletic will ask us to bring back The Bubble Screen.
Predictions? Why not. Let’s go with Louisiana breaking in a new QB, Penn State and the power of James Franklin, Indiana and Tom Allen’s Ted Lasso coaching talents, Bama to crush the Canes, and Clemson in a battle of red-ass coaches.
We’re Back? Are You Sure?
There’s a big concert on The Great Lawn in Central Park this weekend to celebrate New York being “back.” Performers include Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, Earth, Wind and Fire, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Wyclef Jean, The Killers and Journey. Did they say back or back to the Eighties?
We’re not overly militant here about reminding people about the pandemic and the Delta variant. At this point in the game, our attitude is pretty much live and let live. If you’re vaccinated, you may get sick but not too sick. If you’re not, well, someone probably advised you to quit smoking a long time ago, too. At this stage of the game, it’s on you.
Have a good time, everyone.
The Athletic better bring you back to write The B.S. or I’m going to cancel my subscription! … Well, probably not, but I’d be upset and would maybe think about writing a strongly-worded email complaint.
I love baseball, but really only follow the St. Louis Cardinals closely (and by extension, the NL Central). But, how do the LA Angels of Anaheim have both Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani but are only playing .500 baseball (10-games back in the AL Central)?
It’s a legit question. My guess is this is proof that you need strong pitching. If you look at the top 7 pitching staffs, by ERA, they are 7 of the 8 top teams in baseball by record. The only team among the top 7 in record that is not also in the top 7 in ERA is Tampa Bay, which is 9th….
And to follow up, the Angels are 23rd. The 3 worst teams in baseball also have the 3 highest ERA’s
They don’t “have both Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani” because Trout hasn’t played since May 17. He’s played in 36 of the Angels’ 122 games to this point.
Well, that explains that. I hardly keep up with MLB outside of the NL Central. Though, Mike Trout injury news seems like something I would have picked up. Oh, well.
A parallel Devil’s Gulch exists in the county of Mariposa? Mind blown. MH readers need to know how this mystery plays out!
C.S. Lewis is making the rounds again, for good reason. Here’s his 1948 essay “On Living in an Atomic Age”:
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat at night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented… It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
What the atomic bomb has really done is to remind us forcibly of the sort of world we are living in and which, during the prosperous period before, we were beginning to forget. And this reminder is, so far as it goes, a good thing. We have been waked from a pretty dream, and now we can begin to talk about realities.
It is our business to live by our own law not by fears: to follow, in private or in public life, the law of love and temperance even when they seem to be suicidal, and not the law of competition and grab, even when they seem to be necessary to our own survival. For it is part of our spiritual law never to put survival first: not even the survival of our species. We must resolutely train ourselves to feel that the survival of Man on this Earth, much more of our own nation or culture or class, is not worth having unless it can be had by honorable and merciful means.
Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs. Those who care for something else more than civilization are the only people by whom civilization is at all likely to be preserved. Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best. Those who love man less than God do most for man.
Let the bomb find you doing well.
Amen!