I’d suggest a children’s book on the erratic Pirate hurler Dock Ellis setting out one day to bean every single Reds hitter (and mostly succeeding) before being yanked five batters in.

Since Steve enjoys statistical anomalies I’ll also mention here that Luis Ortiz started a recent Pitates game by giving up a triple, homer, homer and homer — the first time in the modern era that the first four batters in a game have amassed 15 total bases

Home to a park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, Newburgh has now devolved to 98 percent shithole and 2 percent fabulous people fortunate enough to live overlooking the Hudson

Not to mention the Covid lockdowns

Joe Rogan’s people will be calling your people

Just learn to roll your R’s and you’re in.

Also study old TV shows where actors such as Henry Silva proclaim stiffly pompous lines like “I must go fight beside my peepul! My peepul cry out not just for bread but for justice!” If Leonard Nimoy could ably pose as a Castro/Guevara type revolutionary on Mission Impossible it can’t be that hard.

My favorite is news anchors and other media types who — despite a Latino last name — are obviously utterly white Americans with no accent whatsoever who nonetheless suddenly break into an overripe Latino accent on isolated Latino places and names.

Also on the plus side, Noam’s cousin Marvin directed several standout Star Trek episodes — Day of the Dove and All Our Yesterdays

Oh for Chrissake, as soon as a couple of Pirates start hitting 100 on the gun we need to change the rules so Mookie Betts or Aaron Judge doesn’t get a booboo

It’s already becoming a dumpster fire for the WNBA — Can you imagine the drama if Clark were not just white and straight but also certifiably gorgeous?

Their forwards were forgettable but the New Orleans Jazz in the late 70s had a wonderfully entertaining white backcourt of Maravich and Gail Goodrich.

The Knicks may have had Bradley, Lucas and DeBusschere all at one time

The Israel/Jewish Lobby wins for one reason only — they buy both candidates in every race. They buy every platform and they buy every pundit.

Every special interest aims to do just that. So why can’t the Anti Israel/Anti Jew Lobby get its shit together and fight it out on those terms? This is like whining that the Yankees and Dodgers sign all the free agents, or that Alabama gets all the 5-star recruits. Go make some money and buy some influence. Or run for something and don’t be bought

Too bad there’s no comparatively obsessive spotlight on black crime stats

Since MLB is not just a US but an international operation — as the Blue Jays and late Expos unavoidably demonstrate — why not throw in the Mexican and Japanese leagues? What does MLB have against these statistics of color?

Thanks! Danny Guzman in 2018? Some online accounts seem to overlook that one while saluting Clemente.

Noodles Hahn and Hippo Vaughn raise another question — Who had the 200 best MLB nicknames and why are nicknames so badly on the decline? Are Scooter Gennett and Rowdy Tellez the last of a dying breed?

I knew Steve would come up with a baseball post this week, and slightly OT I need someone’s help with this trivia question.

The Pirates just hit grand slams in two consecutive games (rare enough!) and yet ended up losing both games. When was the last time this happened, if ever? I have not been able to find an answer

(Pirate pitchers posted another rare feat recently, walking in six runs in a single inning, and it was quickly noted that this had not happened in 65 years)

Relating to the discussion here, the Buccos’ main problem is that their good youmg starters are only allowed to go six innings, before the bullpen comes in and sets things on fire

Well six people left permanently due to death, and there was a mass exodus to the hospital for 62 more. My point was that a very small demographic percentage is nice but no guarantee of calm and safety

“Well known dogwalker in the community” doesn’t even make clear if people are paying him to walk their dogs or he’s just frequently seen walking his own. I am “well known” in several local neighborhoods just from walking my own dogs.

If people actually are putting their pets in his paid care on a regular basis that might at least provide a reference that he’s not totally crazy and erratic. Someone has to pass a pretty high bar of reliability before many dog owners would trust them

One crazy black guy with an SUV was enough of a tipping point in 2,5 percent Waukesha several Christmas seasons ago

Even in that case the controversy was not about locking Horton up in the first place but that rhe convicted killer was inexplicably let out on a weekend furlough

The wiki recap is funny, it seems quire concerned that Horton’s name was actually William, not Willie — how dare we stereotype him like that!

https://beerawardsplatform.com/home

Is proto worse than alt or neo?

Psychologists say strong pair-bonding occurs when an activity is engaged in with your honey at the same time, and the same place, with moment-to-moment synchronicity.

Yes, I believe expert scientists refer to this as “sex.” The next best thing was making a cassette mix tape for someone you were sweet on. Not sure what the modern equivalent might be.

Anyway, in the days of vinyl looking though friends’ huge stacks of meticulously alphabetized records was always a fun time, alhough with girlfriends it was usually fruitless and discouraging — Harry Chapin, Cat Stevens, Streisand, maybe some early Beatles or Heart. One shocked me out of the blue asking to go see Tull, fortunately UK was the opener.

I also alphabetized my stack, so when UPS lost one box during a move there went Wishbone Ash to Yes

Whether it’s I-95, Q-102 or Z-103, the absolute annual high holy days of classic rock are the Memorial Day or July 4 weekend-long countdowns of the top 500 songs of all time. (No doubt as officially determined by Price Waterhouse)

A random trip to Shoprite for potato salad can land you in at 276 — that was Boston, Don’t Look Back. And before that we heard Priest with Turbo Lover. Steffi is out at the Honda dealership all day, y’all stop on by! Back with another 30-minute rock bloc — including number 275 — after this! You might just be rockin with Dokken!

Yeah, they always flash that Isaiah 53:5 on their vids and whatnot (Like that guy at the football games with the John 3:16 sign), Of course they went a little crazy with the all-too-literal stripes motif

If I show you a photo or play you a song from the 20th century, you’d probably be able to guess the decade.

This is so true and a fascinating comment on the lack of discernable style or flair thus far in the 21st century — 2024 looks a lot like 2014 or 2008, aside from the masks of course. It’s not just the clothes, the hair, the cars themselves but there is no particular photographic style to depicting them, while previous decades had “a look” on both sides of the lens

If Metal and Christian are so widely disliked, imagine the plight of Christian Metal groups like Stryper. My wife actually thought I was making stuff up when I told her Christian Metal really is a thing, and there’s really a song called To Hell With the Devil. I will spare you the full version …

I heard a few years ago that Every Breath You Take is the most played song on radio, not sure if that was at the moment or a cumulative total of breaths.

Thin Lizzy is not bad but I’d have to guess that the annoying The Boys Are Back in Town is number two. Doodle lee doo doo, doodle lee doo doo, doodle lee doodle lee doodle lee doodle lee doodle lee doo doo …

This is the mirror image of the infamous Fox Buttefieldism — If crime is down, why are the prisons so full?

What a time The Times’ great obit writer McG would have had with this one

What guys? Citation please regarding me personally. I hate to hate, I love to love, now fuck off

(I do hate the Capitols and Flyers)

Thanks for setting this Maher stuff straight. Now please do Joy Behar!

As I said yesterday and cannot say enough, if people want to hate on Jews at least hate on actual Jews rather than seeing imaginary Jews everywhere you look. The “every single time” stuff get tiresome when dedicated Jew-haters are allowed to presumptuously throw in some ringers who happen to just be obnoxious lefties with vaguely German-sounding names.

In an ugly coincidence, the kid just murdered in Wyoming —- See Kersey’s column — was named Maher

This NPR chick seems truly hateful and might conceivably be yet another lefty Jewess, but to me the most annoying thing about Jew-haters is when they hate on people they merely assume or suspect are Jewish with no verification

I’m going to call this Joy Behar Syndrome

Maher’s already been getting raked over the coals the past two days on ZeroHedge, for her ridiculous resume, absurd tweets, high-handed manner and of course for having a name that sounds kind of Jewish.

She’s a prime example of the three-headed monster that has consumed journalism — corporatism, wokism and femaleism. Especially the third, which I’ve rattled on about for years here.

The cherry atop all this was the 9-year-old girl just getting slugged at Grand Central by a puncher who had already broken one female nose but was let back out with no bail.

My initial interest in this ongoing punchout spree was linguistic: all three women interviewed one day used “literally.” E.G. “I was literally just walking down the street,” “He just literally punched me,” “He punched me literally out of the blue” and so on.

Then it dawned on me that this widespread misuse of “literally,” especially by women, has become the feminine substitute for the F Word. A guy would likely say “He fuckin’ punched me,” “I was just walking down the fuckin’ street” etc. So for people too polite to use the F Bomb, we now have the L Bomb. Trump is literally Hitler!

I’ve never heard this whole mess blamed on Casablanca before, but if you want my advice go back to Bulgaria

So the question is, will all this ignite a wave of 90s mania — The clothes! The hair! The music! Larry King!

My own nostalgic memory is how much my mom enjoyed the trial, sitting there in the kitchen with her little GE b&w portable, though sadly she did not make it to the verdict

WaPo readers can be excused for their ignorance. A recent headline about cops gunning down a black guy after a traffic stop reportedly neglected to mention he had first started shooting at them point-blank, as verified by the copcams

We also get “sinister” from the Latin for left-handed or the left side. Clearly showing a linguistic prejudice against lefties. Sinister vs. dexter for righty

I associate cocaine with the 1980s, but a memorably goofy Mission Impossible from back in ’72 has Peter Lupus donning a white lab coat to convince gullible bad guy William Shatner that he has invented a dirt-cheap way to make “synthetic cocaine”

Sherlock Holmes always had that pipe handy too, and reportedly other harder stuff

It’s too bad about NPR, Cory Flintoff read the news report so beautifully

Since we no longer make long drives through the southern boonies where NPR might incongruously be the only news station coming in, I no longer have to worry about it. My last NPR memory will be of female correspondents agreeing that “Trump has no guardrails! No guardrails!”

I have mentioned the one weird time my wife mistakenly set her alarm for NPR instead of a far more agreeable buzzer. Imagine waking in the dark at 4 AM to hear strangers in your bedroom murmuring about environmental racism in Africa

Citation please?

https://modernity.news/2024/04/05/japan-to-embark-on-an-era-of-mass-foreign-migration/

This is discouraging news. Not even Gamera the Flying Turtle will be able to save them once all this kicks in

This would be ripe material for a Poltergeist or Amityville Horror sequel — The ghosts don’t slaughter anyone but go around loudly grousing about crime stats and Chuck E Cheese brawls

Wait til NYC property owners and developers hear about this new landmark dodge. Though I think it would work better if the building can somehow be tied to slavery

All this makes one ponder what the Biden Library will look like, not to mention Trump’s

One of our neighbors has a pair of concrete lions, two feet tall or so, flanking the steps to his front door… The twin lions thing seems sort of popular around here, especially at the ends of driveways.

Mizzou’s J-School is guarded by a big stone pair of Chinese lions supposedly carved around 1400, giving things a nice PF Chang’s kinda look. Supposedly they roar when a virgin walks through

That book he was reading to the kiddies when informed about the 9/11 attack

Baseball players once were more low-paid and blue collar, even had to find part-time jobs over the winter. So they were in no position to mentor and pamper their kids and let them hang around the dugout and clubhouse. Today’s big money helps make that upbringing possible

The kids meanwhile probably had to work too rather than hanging around the batting cage, and maybe find a more remunerative career than baseball. So in a word, it’s all about money as well as nurture and nature

the internet is saying that Cal, UCLA, and USC now require applicants to send a video of themselves.

I wonder if orchestras are likewise doing away with blind auditions

You supposedly can feel quite a distinct sway up in those needle towers; I wouldn’t personally know and do not plan to find out.

I’m not a heights person, and mystery shopping the Empire State Building tour was a little nerve-wracking out on the observation deck. My parents both lived in high-rises at one point but mercifully on the ground floors. My dad did have one business that let out onto a 12th floor roof right across from the Empire State; we’d go out there and bbq on Fridays

And you can hoist thuhhhhh jolly roger!

Steve need not worry about book sales because today’s season lid-lifter marks the start of the fourth annual iSteve Buccothon — And with the Pirates taking dead aim on a .500 season it figures to be the most lucrative yet!

If you’re playing along at home, remember the rules — For ebery Pirate victory, another dollar goes in the treasure chest to be donated to our host, as how else could I possibly decide how much this blog is worth. Yaaarrrrh, mateys!

One little string attached, however — Much like the “migrants” getting free debit cards from Mayor Eric Adams, Steve must now vow to use the Buccothon proceeds only for food and baby-care products

Get Jim Dale — He was great on the Harry Potter audiobooks!

Or maybe one of those women who narrate the lesbian detective potboilers my wife so loves

The funny thing about Steve is that he seems to be utterly indifferent about actually playing golf, but he’s passionate about about the course itself. This is like the (over) intellectualizing of modern art

You see this with ballparks, countless books and articles praising or trashing their ambience and design, sense of history or generic mediocrity, and of course the food. Baseball fans go on frantic treks to visit all 30 MLB stadiums, or venture deep into the minors or spring training facilities, like they’re walking the Appalachian Trail with Bill Bryson. We fondly reminisce the good and bad about ballparks now long gone.

The game itself is usually irrelevant — as seen with Daniel Okrent’s great Nine Innings, which IIRC masterfully deconstructs baseball via a completely meaningless Brewers-Indians tilt. It’s the ballpark itself that shapes the experience

Racetracks are like this too, but sadly most hockey arenas have become pretty generic

Yes indeed, I’m pretty sure the course of my life was largely set in motion by Rocky & Bullwinkle

It hardly matters how long your drive is going to be if you crash leaving your own driveway

I was reminded of the Sunshine Skyway, it was the most awful story of my Florida career. As someone on ZH pointed out, there were two spans there — only one collapsed so the other was made bi-directional, somewhat easing the logistical fallout.

I had a friend around that time who already had a white-knuckle phobia about bridges, and I don’t blame him one bit

Come to think of it, my wife had to cover a much less spectacular but still deadly bridge collapse, maybe 40 years ago. One corpse they pulled out in his car was fully decked out in women’s clothing

I don’t think back then you could get them with custom lettering

Didn’t The Guess Who wear hockey jerseys onstage back in the 60s?

Hey is it too late for another book blurb?

If the left wants to bring back book-burning, Steve Sailer’s dangerously combustible Noticing would be the place to start. A gasoline-soaked pyre of unpleasant social and racial truths, Noticing is sure to ignite a bonfire of woke insanities

The talented folkie Steve Goodman (City of New Orleans) was a big Cubs fan

I’m surprised California hasn’t given sports gambling the green light, as NY and NJ have for the desperately needed revenue (not to mention the pot dispensaries).

As much as I love the ponies, I’ve never had the slightest urge to bet on any game. I did spend two days in Vegas in March 1987 I think, visiting my wife’s retired aunt, and won a hundred playing San Francisco to win the pennant — after noticing that one casino had much juicier odds than the rest

Hockey Hall of Famer Jaromir Jagr was another big star always known for racking up big gambling debts but mainly on casino games, not sports, and never got into serious trouble with the NHL. Who the heck would bet on hockey, anyway?

I play the Japanese ponies (though very rarely because of the time difference) and they certainly do have parimutel odds. Japanese owners are in fact a big presence now in the rich international races held in the Arab states, as well as Europe and occasionally the US.

I’ve always heard it said that the Chinese will bet on just about anything but I don’t know about other Asian cultures. There’s pretty good horse racing in Hong Kong and Singapore. The Japanese seem to have two or three big, beautiful tracks with high-class cards and large Sunday crowds but also a lot of dumpier tracks like Aqueduct

Fortunately the Pirates don’t pay enough for their players to gamble. Maybe a scratchoff ticket

Short people tend to live longer

Fewer helicopter mishaps

Could the Pretendian craze somehow be linked to the demise of movie and TV westerns? You just don’t see real fake Indians much anymore. (Like the Jews and Italians on F Troop or the bodacious Sabrina Scharf on Star Trek)

Palestinian has cachet right now, it’s cool, it’s new, it’s now — Like women claiming they are bisexual

Kind of a shock to be scrolling along and see Lloyd Bochner on iSteve

This has heartwarming hit movie written all over it — A ragtag band of misfits is whipped into an elite battle unit, complete with inspiring rock music montage sequences as you turn these defiantly diverse clods into masters of math. It’ll be Bad News Bears meets Dangerous Minds — Just make you a flinty young lesbian and we’re set!

This is a crucial point on journalism as a whole, especially as practiced by the NYT. Especially “advocates” — who clearly have a dog in any hunt they’re called to comment upon and thus often lack credibility. What are they “advocating” for — hint, it’s never for the benefit of the general public.

These vague and sweeping appeals to authority can often be translated as “an educator who agrees with me,” “an expert pushing a new book,” or “an advocate my editor told me to quote because she won’t stop calling until we do this story”

Big black girl repeatedly bashes another girl’s head into the pavement, St Louis area school district issues PR word salad

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missouri-girl-critical-condition-video-shows-teen-slamming-head-derang-rcna144034

Interesting about body odor — I guess you have to walk a fine line between smelling manly and reeking like a Dumpster or a Nathan’s hot dog.

Men of course are visually oriented but if you’re in for the long haul your gal should also taste and sound pleasing. I remember one young lady who was ready and willing but her mouth tasted like battery acid, and she was not a smoker or anything like that.

I put voice and speech up near the top because you’re going to be hearing an awful lot of it. I was hanging with friends once when my then-steady called; one of the guys picked up the phone and bantered with her for a few minutes. When I in turn was done talking with her, the guy said, “I never realized what a sexy voice she has!” I told him he was too visually oriented — she was quite pretty but the bespectacled bookworm-looking type, so he had her typecast and had missed this attribute

Pasadena’s lovely City Hall vs. Boston’s horrific City Hall illustrates one quick and easy test for architecture — Can you take some nice wedding photos out front, or does it look like an establishing shot for 1984?

You know you can say what you mean around here without the snide and phony little guessing games. Jewish contributions to American culture need no apology, including as they do Hawaii 5-0, Mannix, the original Mission Impossible, Blazing Saddles and Airplane!

(To be honest, I was a little dismayed to learn that Frank Gehry is Jewish)

Yeah thats ugly, but if you need a Gordita, an oil change and some “quick cash” it’s the Taj Mahal

In fact I didn’t even notice there was a blurb 4 because 3 was so blah, and 4 is not much better

Anyway I look forward to your observations upon visiting our fair state. Today’s absolutely classic NY Post cover will get you in the mood:

https://nypost.com/cover/march-20-2024/

Blurb 2 best but too wordy, cut it off after heard of. And start it at probably

Blurb 1 is funny and imaginative but potentially confusing, idea needs work, and “human diversity” theories sounds dry and tedious. Maybe something short and hyperbolic like Mention this book and destroy your life — But read it before they ban it!

Blurb 3 … zzzzzzz…

I thought by now this was pretty much accepted — there really is a chemistry to romantic “chemistry.” I’d add that voice and manner of speech is a vastly underrated factor in attraction — and that a lot of people who could be more attractive really speak and sound like shit these days. The wimpiness for men and vocal fry for women, ugh

My local public school system has adopted a policy of awarding a minimum of 50 percent on any assignment or test, even if it isn’t handed in

My wife was not allowed to give any final overall grade below 65 for the first three of the four semesters. And this was at a Catholic girls’ high school with supposed standards. The school recently closed

Well yes I suppose — as a tax slave or just a slave. Cannon fodder as well as canon fodder

Oh I know, sad but true — But maybe if we didn’t obsess so much about these few “prestigious” schools they wouldn’t be so “prestigious” any more

There are important broader questions about higher ed — Why is it so expensive, so bizarrely leftist, why is male enrollment dropping and so on. There are some 15 million undergrad students in the US plus 3 million postgrads, and only 21,000 of them attend Harvard

I should add that I didn’t get to read manosphere stuff until into my 60s, at which point it’s like the Kiner’s Korner post-game show — You see all your errors and a few hits in slow-motion replay but it’s too late to replay the game.

But the insight is useful, and the main insight I got was, do not use logic on women and do not expect any logic in return, Where was this advice when I was 20?

Lume is on radio non-stop — I don’t even want to think about what their TV ads might look like

I think you’re mischaracterizing the manosphere. Working out, looking good, feeling healthy and confident is a major theme, far more than just cheesy pickup game, Reading The Rational Male inspired me to up my workout game even though I had no extramarital designs, and it paid off

Enough already. I care about Harvard students as much as Harvard students care about me

Oh, he didn’t leave it out, he was an alum of that school and was close with the outgoing longtime incumbent there and gave her a lot of credit for encouraging his own previous career (even though it eventually failed and he needed to find a new gig)

I guess it might indeed be hard to get this job when every high school needs just one, I merely noted how much he was enjoying the job and seemed sincerely into it

Normally I’d suggest teaching, which is desperate for male role models — But the school setting now just seems too bureaucratic at best and crazy woke at worst. Still, thinking about all the people I interviewed, one of the most fulfilled seemed to be a guy who became a suburban high school guidance counselor after another career flamed out.

Although most of them were female the many nurses I’ve profiled seemed to be a dedicated and fulfilled group as a whole, ditto the one male nurse I spoke with, so maybe go for that. There’s a wide spectrum in nursing from the traditional to the holistic and I always enjoyed speaking with specialists in therapeutic hypnosis, reiki and so on

I knew a typical suburban CT kid who went against the grain, chose West Virginia University and became a forest ranger, had a great life there and then up in Maine

I know, Cookie Monster has been an inspiration to me, so sad. Like seeing Lance Armstrong go down

Televangelist

I wonder if this includes the USPS, which is kind of quasi-federal

Don’t forget the skyrocketing increase in puppet employment,, as Elmo and Cookie Monster sadly have become confirmed Biden shills

Bad for shareholders. But I promise I used the pay to support our many fine local merchants and tradesmen, not to mention vital federal programs such as bombing foreigners. So it was very synergistic economically

He was an excellent first baseman, but despite a couple of big hits he was and remains terminally obscure

Affirmative action can be good for the economy. One of my best clients was a black corporate type who understood she was in over her head and had me ghost-write her substantive stuff while she smoothly served as diversity window dressing

Maybe good soccer players can choose their foot situationally. I was pretty good but if I try to kick a ball (or beer can) right-footed I would probably fall flat on my back

My preference for throwing overhand righty but underhand lefty caused a problem in one softball league where all nine players had to pitch an inning. I developed a little move where I’d slip the glove back on my left hand as I followed through with my lefthanded pitch. Years later I watched Jim Abbott — the fine pitcher with one vestigial arm and hand — do something similar with his glove

As well as the classical world it has always struck me how very few women composers do the themes and scores for movies and TV shows. I was impressed that the great old Avengers series was wonderfully scored by Laurie Johnson — but turns out Laurie was a man.

As far as classical I do suggest people go to YT and dig up some Louise Ferrenc

If I’m reading this right you’ve got it backward Steve — I played hockey left-handed and the dominant arm that way is the left arm, held midway on the stick. Especially shooting but basically all phases of the game. The right hand at the top of the stick is relatively powerless. It’s not like hitting a golfball or baseball

My personal quirk is throwing overhand righty (as well as eating and writing) but throwing underhand lefty — including slo-pitch softball, bowling, hockey and kicking lefty in soccer or football