Jeff Kent being in the HOF is really stupid when 2B like Lou Whitaker and Bobby Grich are not. Those two were comparable at the plate (Grich a little better, Whitaker a smidge below) when compared to their eras, but were so much better defensively. Kent is in b/c "most HR by 2B" in HR-inflated era.

It remains stunning to me how even with Magic and Bird, the NBA still was not that popular in the 1980s. The NBA as we know it didn't really happen until the 1990s. Here's a clip from the ABJ in March 1983 looking at the Major Indoor Soccer League vs. the NBA. Look at even those "good" NBA numbers.

Codify hot take: the introduction of an ABS Challenge System will increase Steven Kwan's batting average.

Seems you can make a pretty good living with consistent paychecks by being the person who writes those "The lottery prize is enormous, but the winner will take home less than that" stories. The people-who-know-how-to-read-but-have-never-heard-of-taxes demographic is highly coveted and catered to.

Congratulations to Lionel Messi for amassing 67% of the MLS Cup assist total of 2008 #Crew96 Guillermo Barros Schelotto. You approached the general vicinity of greatness, Leo, and that's quite a feather in your cap.

I wonder if @michaelarace1.bsky.social ever went to see the Hartford Hellions.

Just saw a newspaper ad from 1981 where you could get a buy-one-get-one offer for Cleveland Force tickets if you filled out a form and mailed it in with two UPC cut outs from packs of Newport cigarettes. The good old days.

Yet @mrgeorgewallace.bsky.social keeps inciting the Yo Momma Wars. This award is a sham!

Why is the soybean oil always PARTIALLY hydrogenated. Finish hydrogenating that shit, you lazy wockaflockas!

Dashboard display of an adjacent contact while pulling up someone to call. Sometimes it’s nice to get a random reminder of the weird things that have happened in my life.

The white helmet sucks. The brown helmet sucks. The Oregon Duck-ification of NFL teams with classic, rock-solid identities is annoying.

One of the cool things about being a #Crew96 fan is thinking, "Man, that first championship was so long ago" when it really wasn't that long ago, but it's so long ago compared to the more recent championships.

Announcer just said Nagbe was "cool as a cucumber." To be clear, cucumbers are cool as Nagbe. #Crew96

Flawless sports day. Crew won. Cavaliers won. Browns didn’t play. Couldn’t have gone any better.

For the 6th year in a row, a player named Will Smith has won the World Series 2020 - Will Smith (C), Dodgers 2021 - Will Smith (RP), Braves 2022 - Will Smith (RP), Astros 2023 - Will Smith (RP), Rangers 2024 - Will Smith (C), Dodgers 2025 - Will Smith (C), Dodgers

Incredible playoffs. Incredible World Series. Yet in the end, the bajillion dollar super team that everyone anointed as the champion well before the season won the title as expected. Such a bummer that baseball’s brokenness won out in the end to put a damper on all the thrills of the past month.

8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for baseball

If the game is still going by the time of first pitch Game 4 they have to play both games simultaneously

The classic Larry Miler “Five Levels of Drinking” standup bit, but adapted to be about this #WorldSeries game.

OK so you know the gag on the Simpsons when Sideshow Bob is stepping on the rakes, it's funny, then it's too much, then it's terrible, then it's transcendently hilarious this baseball game

Ohtani tonight double homer double homer intentional walk intentional walk intentional walk intentional walk totally normal evening you wouldn't think he could still do things that you insist you've never seen before, and yet

“no position player has pitched in a world series game. we hope it doesn’t get there” NO. WE HOPE IT DOES GET THERE. HOPING SOME WEIRD THING HAPPENS IS THE WHOLE POINT OF BASEBALL.

they should make tomorrow a holiday for baseball reasons

This game is like I got caught smoking a baseball and now I have to smoke a whole pack of baseball

We’ve progressed from watching the baseball game to being held hostage by the baseball game.

if you've got a one-run lead with no one on against the greatest player in the 150-year history of pro baseball, you simply have to throw him a pitch that is roughly over the middle of the plate and dick-high

Has there been a more senseless change to football broadcasting than switching the field goal point of view to behind the kicker so it’s impossible to see the ball because of the wall of fans, when they used to do the POV from behind the uprights which made the ball super easy to see?

They say we have no “footballing culture” but right now in America, there’s a team named “Sharktopus FC” that just earned a replay of a loss because the ref for their last match turned out to have once been a player for their opponent’s second team. 🇺🇸

Eight years ago that I stood up there and was so overwhelmed by the size and response of the crowd that I totally forgot to talk about what I meant to talk about. Like, at all. This is probably why teleprompters exist. I may have forgotten to say what I meant to say, but I’ll never forget that day.

THAT IS THE CRAZIEST PLAY I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE AND NOTHING WILL EVER TOP IT. HOLY COW. WOW. #Baseball

It’s not fair that the Dodgers have a bajillion-dollar payroll but just won a playoff series on #Guardsball ridiculousness.

I didn’t watch my team get eliminated from the playoffs just to watch other teams do annoyingly stupid things to blow playoff games.

Bunting is the worst.

Updated rooting rankings: AL 1. Seattle 2. Toronto 3. Detroit 4. New York NL 1. Milwaukee 2. Philadelphia 3. Los Angeles 4. Chicago

Nah, this season will never NOT be hilarious to me. A three-game series is a three-game series. Tigers blew a 15.5-game lead including 11 in September to a team that still finished with a negative run differential. Every time I see that 2025 flag I will laugh. A fun story that remains undiminished.

So weird to see Jose, the consumate all-hustle-all-the-time player, take his foot off the gas going to second and look behind him before speeding up and getting tagged out by inches, giving away one of the four precious outs remaining.

Oh well. Still the greatest comeback in MLB history. That flag is gonna fly forever and it's always going to make me laugh. And it's not like the Guardians had the slightest realistic chance to win the World Series anyway. What a fun ride.

That feeling when you can't even win a supremely watered down US Open Cup that was missing all the best MLS teams from it. When you can't win the battle of sixth-place teams at home, your lowered ambitions will not be respected.

Looking at late August through early September you can literally hear the prolonged "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" from them flatlining. And now it's an official @slangsonsports.bsky.social division title probability chart "WHEEEEE!"

I really wanted that one, even after the division clinch. I wanted the biggest overall comeback (15.5 games) and biggest September comeback (11 games) in MLB history to be fully decided in the standings, not on a tiebreaker. So why not rally from 3 down in 10th? LOL. #Guardsball

If you have written a book and you have repeatedly corrected typos as you've re-read what you've written each day and then have gone back and removed a bajillion more typos during a final intensive front to back read-through, I can assure you that you've caught, at most, only 41% of the typos.

But it’s the single greatest and most hilarious image in the entire history of college football. That image is a singular joy of its own, and try as they might, Buckeye fans can never diminish its splendor with thoroughly inconsequential scoreboard talk.

Two-hour chat with Michael King for the Cleveland Force book. Another fine addition to the project.

I did not know @mrgeorgewallace.bsky.social was in the accommodations business.

So in theory, on any given weekend, Cleveland soccer fans will be able to watch their MLS Next Pro and WPSL Pro teams play at one downtown soccer stadium and their USL men’s and women’s teams play at a *second* downtown soccer stadium less than a mile away. This makes sense.

At the rate this is going, Cleveland’s gonna have more soccer teams than London.

#Crew96 trailed 2-0 at halftime in Cucho's debut. He entered in the 62nd minute and Columbus came back to win, 3-2, with Cucho scoring the 83rd minute winner. #OptimisticHistoricalParallel

It started with a steroid suspension and may end in a gambling banishment, but other than that, it was a pretty good run in Cleveland for Clase.

Doing new book interviews five years in is both crazy and fruitful.

Well, ain't this something. Tonight was the 13th time in club history #Crew96 led at the 75-minute mark and lost. The one before this? At Orlando. Enrique scored the equalizer and the winner. 9/16/23 (A). Enrique 86 and 98+. 4-3 ORL. 7/25/25 (H): Enrique 76 and 79. (& Ojeda 96+.) 3-1 ORL.