slikmar

Good hitting pitchers always stood out simply because they were such an aberration.  
 
Also, I'm not trying to nitpick here, but pitchers listed 2, 3, 4, 6, and 10 all played no later than 1933.  The figure from the second article...huh, link's there but not the image.  Oops.  Anyway, in that period, pitchers hit *significantly* better...in the 20's, the average for all pitchers was over .200.  Now...ok...the average for non-pitchers was almost .300.  This covers the explosive years when the game went from dead ball to live ball, including Ruth's 60 HR season.
 
The game changed, tho.  I used the numbers in the sabr.org article above and built this quickly.  The decade...that's the first year, so 0 is 1900-1910.  The averages, I dropped the decimal point.  70-72 is separate as this is for the pre-DH period.  Note the *serious* roll-off in the 60's and 70's...and, I suspect, we might see it more in the 40's and 50's if we split out the war vs. post-war years.  
 
Decade pitchers Non-pitchers P / N-P 0 181 261 0.69 10 180 263 0.68 20 204 293 0.70 30 193 287 0.67 40 177 268 0.66 50 169 267 0.63 60 143 257 0.56 70-72 147 257 0.57  
I'll suggest it's because pitching became more specialized over time, at least in part.  We certainly know that's the case now.  It wouldn't be true in HS, but in those days, players would sign out of HS and most commonly go to the minors for several years.  I'm thinking, the trend was, in the minors, they were pushed to pitching and away from the field, to a greater degree than in the very early decades.  

Another factor is probably here:
https://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/picomg4.shtml
 
Though the dead ball era, the leader in CGs was typically over 30.  Slide forward to post-WWII, and even more dramatically, post-Korean War, and the numbers drop off substantially.  Pitchers who throw lots of CGs get more at-bats...so their ability to hit becomes more significant.  Even if relievers throw longer when they're used...their overall hitting doesn't really matter.  Their ability to sacrifice?  Yeah.
 
So someone like Hampton or Zambrano *really* stand out relative to the pathetic hitting of the rest of the pitchers of their day.  It's HARD!!! to compare different eras without contextual considerations like that.

Bob Costas dropped a nugget...Yanks-Phillies, so it's a Yankee nugget, sort of.
 
50 years ago this week, a Yankee became the first player to be the designated hitter.
 
I honestly forgot it was that long ago...of course, by the same token, I can also pretty much say, I can't recall a time when the AL *didn't* have it.  Yeah, OK, I was old enough...but the only baseball I followed was Dodger radio broadcasts.
 
 

I picked up this game recently, as I had a little money to spare.  It was a very slow download from Steam for me, for some reason but loads up pretty fast.  The start up screens are very slow; you get a 1-minute Epilepsy warning, then a 1-minute (or more) screen where its checking shaders.  Just a tip, when you are first installing it, you will get a big screen with a zillion options for things like color blindness, then a screen of options, and if you click to adjust the options, you have to go BACK from that screen to then start up the game.
 
Overall the game plays well and has a great feel to it.  Its got the same whimsical feel as Harry Potter, overlaid with a sense of darkness in the background.  So you have odd cute animals and names like Poppy Sweeting and somewhat silly behavior from some NPCs, but also some very dark and tragic storylines.  Very British, in other words.  The world feels incredibly magical and unexpected (for example, one of the ways to get through an area involves having big frog status swallow you and spit you out of another frog statue).
 
The game hits most of the elements you want from Harry Potter: the spells, the setting, Hogwarts Castle which is vast and confusing, butterbeer, flying on brooms, wands, school uniforms and houses, etc.  You get very brief experiences in classes from the books such as Defense against the Dark Arts and Potions, you get flying lessons.
 
There are many, MANY puzzles and minigames, at least a dozen just in Hogwarts alone if not two dozen.  There are doors that open by solving algebra equations cleverly hidden as magical symbols, puzzles that require spells to interact with, puzzles involving catching things, and so on.  The world is absolutely filled with this stuff, and rewards exploration and curiosity very well.
 
The Combat system is really complicated-seeming but easy to pick up and use.  You will find it very interesting figuring out combinations of attacks and flinging your opponents all over the place.  Most of the classics from the books and films are there to play with, and have very proper and fun results.  And yes, you can learn the dark "Forbidden" curses.
 
As for drawbacks, there are some.  The game has a LOT, and I mean a LOT of dialog cutscenes, which are unskippable and lock you up so you cannot access the menu or pause.  The tutorial is very long and is mostly you walking around as Professor Fig talks.  Death happens in the game but is almost casual, your reactions are minimal as you simply don't care (especially the male voice actor is very dull and flat and has odd reactions like they read the lines isolated from the story and didn't know exactly how they were supposed to be responding).
 
The broom flight controls are absolutely abysmal, especially on PC.  The PC port is very weak, and did not in any manner take advantage of the much broader flexibility of keyboard and mouse.  The game engine tends to stutter and blur sections at times on the PC as well.  There are a few bugs, but not many.  One of the most obnoxious things to me in the game is the way the "alohamora" spell works (the unlock spell).  Instead of actually just unlocking doors, it picks the lock, and you have to do a pointless little minigame to unlock the door, instead of, you know, the magic doing it.  There are other minor annoyances, but they don't take away from the game particularly, they're just unfortunate, like how you cannot sit down anywhere, or how sometimes the repeated dialog lines get tedious.  
 
A personal annoyance: your character is the Chose One who can do no wrong.  Literally.  The worst you get is a few lines of critical dialog for using forbidden curses.  You're great at everything you do.  You can literally walk into houses and steal from them.  A curfew is mentioned but it only comes up once in the game and otherwise you can do anything you want.  This is a minor annoyance in a game where it would be absolutely obnoxious in a book or film.
 
There are some bits missing you might want.  You almost never actually attend real classes or learn stuff other than new spells.  There's no Quiddich, which to me is no problem but others might miss it.  There is no romance storyline.  There's very little interaction with most of the world except for very specific things.
 
I haven't finished the main quest, but I have read it is a bit of a letdown, and that a side quest involving a Slytherin friend ends up being more powerful and dramatic.  
 
Overall I can recommend this game, and there's a good reason the thing has sold a kajillion units.  There will be expansions to it that will address some of these little problems, and I expect it to get bigger and more impressive as time goes on.

Not much of a secret if they're making trailers for it.

My wife's going into a stage I clinical trial for a new medication for her cancer.  Part of the entry physical for that trial, which she had last week, was a pregnancy test, and this after she'd had all those internal bits removed surgically about 15 months ago.
 
(merged unintentionally)
 
http://www.dorktower.com/files/2023/03/Dorktower2061.jpg
 

Someone liked Invincible too much and thought using Mon-El would be perfect in that role.

I had fun watching this one last night.  Very convoluted plot, but fun.
 

I couldn't help it. 
 
 

To the TV viewing audience, there is, in fact, a downside to these faster ball games.
 
More time for the MORONIC postgame coverage.  NO ONE does postgame well, IMO.  Local stations pretty consistently rate around a 2.  YES, NESN, the other big "local outlets" and Fox get a 3...unless Ortiz is part of the Fox coverage, in which case it's a -1.  ESPN probably gets a 4...?  MLB Network cuts away to the studio, for the most part.
 
Disclaimer:  I loathe chummy-chummy feel-good type stories, which is what local postgame *is* for the most part.  I know I have to be a Vulcan because the vast majority of 'human interest' stories are drivel, as far as I'm concerned.  Or maybe they're just massively overplayed, much of the time.

The run expectation for 1 out, runner on first, with the 3 and 4 hitters coming up...is probably a lot higher than the probability Judge will hit a dinger.  

Same Difference.

I took my mom to a live concert last Wednesday. Some of the second-year Adler Fellows (think of the program as a PhD in music) were the performers. The theme was like the Days of Future Past by the Moody Blues, except the sequence went from dusk to morning. The performers were great. My mom and I both enjoyed ourselves.

Saw John Wick: Chapter 4. Appears to be the conclusion of the series. Loved The Warriors reference in the last 3rd. Otherwise, pretty much more of the same.