Starting IX Newsletter: The definitive Best Baseball Moment, some Big Klu love, and the best ballpark features
For those unfamiliar with the set-up — welcome! Here’s the scoop. Otherwise, let’s dive right in.
“One Final Imagination of the Baseball Hall of Fame” Pre-excerpts: The best ballpark features and some Klu love
This space has been filled with themed excerpts the past couple months but let’s get back to what the heart of this book is: random thoughts about random players.
Johnny Pesky: In honor of the foul pole in Fenway’s right field corner for which Pesky is best-known today, here are the Top Floor Baseball Stadium Features (throughout history):
** Tal’s Hill — Minute Maid Park, Houston (rest in power, Tal’s Hill)
** Beer Slide — Miller Park, Milwaukee
** Outfield Ivy — Wrigley Field, Chicago
** Green Monster, Citgo sign, and Pesky Pole — Fenway Park, Boston (has to be said it’s the best trio of features at any stadium in baseball)
** The bump in center field at old the old Baker Bowl in Philadelphia that came as the result of building over train tracks
** Home Run Apple — Shea Stadium, New York (which is now sadly located outside the stadium, alas)
** The municipal swimming pool beyond the right field fence at Jerry Park in Montreal that Willie Stargell (as a visiting player) peppered so often it was called “la piscine de Willie”
Honorable Mention: Monument Park — Yankee Stadium, New York, but only when the club weirdly decided it was a good idea to have them IN PLAY. Yes, that’s a real thing. The video of Bobby Murcer trying to maneuver them is wild.
The swimming pool in Arizona was left off because they insist on calling it… wait for it… The Ram Trucks Pool…
Ted Kluszewski
A behemoth of a man who cut off his jersey sleeves for peak effect, his personality couldn’t have been further from the tough guy image he exuded. Of course, that didn’t mean he was entirely impervious to a bit of fire, as described in Baseball Anecdotes: “The only time they saw him angry, teammates said, was when Milwaukee’s Ernie Johnson threw behind his head. Kluszewski dragged a bunt on the next pitch and came down hard with his spikes on Johnson, who was covering first. Johnson lost his temper, but then reconsidered: ‘I looked at him standing there, just waiting for me, and said to myself, ‘You’re smarter than this.’’”
“Big Klu” had a hell of a peak, with a 1954 season to rival any others. He put up a slash line (.326/.407/.642/167) sexier than Carrie Coon’s neck, and he left the yard 49 times with just 35 strikeouts. The list of players to complete a season with at least 14 more home runs than strikeouts? Lou Gehrig (1934), Joe DiMaggio (1941), Yogi Berra (1950), and Tommy Holmes (1945). None of those players topped Big Klu’s 49 homers in such a season (Gehrig also had 49 homers). That same year, he was worth 7.9 WAR and finished second in the MVP. The next year, rather impressively, he led the league in hits as well as intentional walks (the first year it was tracked officially as a stat), a feat accomplished in baseball history by only Norm Cash, Rod Carew, and Ichiro Suzuki (twice), in addition to Big Klu.
Two final notes on Klu:
- He would have hit .300 for his career if it wasn’t for his final season;
- From 1953–1956, he averaged 43 homers a year, while totaling more dingers than strikeouts all four seasons.
OOTP Year-by-Year Re-Simulation: 1913
We continue our trek through re-simulating each season in baseball history using Out of the Park Baseball 21, the most realistic baseball simulation game on the market.
MVP: Gavvy Cravath and Eddie Collins
Cy Young: Rube Marquard and Walter Johnson
Once again, we have a perfect chance to spotlight a pair of lesser-known greats — who were still definitely great! — paired with two familiar names who we don’t need to re-hash again here (Collins and Johnson).
Cravvath is best known as the home run king before Babe Ruth, and while that is true (he held both the single-season and career home run records before Ruth came along a few years later and demolished those marks), the cause of Cravvath’s numbers only go to show just how bonkers Ruth was. Cravvath led the league in home runs six times from 1913–1919, but that was thanks in large part to playing his home games at the Baker Bowl, the oddly shaped stadium in Philadelphia where the dimension in right field were friendlier than Clifford the Big Red Dog (280 down the light and 300 in right-center). In those six seasons leading the league in home runs, Cravvath blasted 78 long balls in the Baker Bowl compared to a far more pedestrian 16 on the road.
Marquard never reached the same heights as Cravvath in terms of his leading the league in any statistical categories, but 1913 did cap the best three years of his 18-year career, a career that ended with a plaque in Cooperstown. The towering southpaw posted a combined 73–28 record from 1911–1913, finishing twice in the top of the MVP (remember, there was no Cy Young Award in real life at this point) and earning more than half (17.8) of his career rWAR (34.8 — no one ever said he was a deserving Hall of Famer).
American League pennant winners: Philadelphia Athletics
National League pennant winners: New York Giants
We don’t need to spend an exorbitant amount of time here before breaking down our re-sim World Series, but it’s worth nothing that the A’s got their best regular season test of this run from the Nap Lajoie-led (and named) Cleveland Naps, with the Naps in first in the AL as late as two weeks to go in the regular season before the A’s hit the gas pedal to pull away for their fifth straight pennant in this OOTP sim version of baseball history.
World Series: Athletics 4, Giants 2
Of course, even more impressive than those five consecutive pennants is that they have converted on the big stage each and every time in this OOTP simulation. These OOTP version of history Athletics have now tied the real world Yankees for the most consecutive World Series won, so let’s take a look at how they got there in their closest championship bout in a few years.
The more heralded Christy Mathewson got the start in Game One for the Giants, but it was Chief Bender (who we learned about last week) who easily outpaced “Big Six” and delivered the Game 1 win to Philadelphia, 9–1.
In Game Two, our man of the hour, Marquard, did the unthinkable, going in to Shibe Park in Philadelphia and leading his Giants to a 5–2 win to even the series at 1–1. Rube got all but the final out, while Fred Snodgrass and Rube’s battery mate Art Wilson each had two-hit days to send the series to New York all tied up.
The Giants went ahead 3–0 in the bottom of the first inning in Game Three thanks to a Laughing Larry Doyle double, and the balance of power seemed to have shifted for a moment. But Home Run Baker lived up to his name in the fifth to tie up the game, and Eddie Collins did enough with a sac fly in the top of the ninth to steal back home field for the A’s.
Game Four was another one-run win for the A’s who have had a seemingly mystical ability to win these tight games throughout this re-sim dynasty. I guess that’s what you get when the man with the most managerial experience in all of baseball history is at the helm. This time it was an Amos Strunk double that sunk the Giants — poor Mathewson went the full nine and only gave up one earned run, but the A’s took the 3–1 series lead with a 4–3 win.
Cy Young winner Marquard ensured the Giants would live to see another day with a complete game win in Game Five (4–2), but Chief Bender and the incredible depth of talent on the A’s proved simply too much when the A’s got back to their home digs, winning yet another one-run game (3–2) in Game Six to secure their record-tying fifth straight title.
The A’s still have one more year before they tear down the roster, so it will be incredibly interesting to see if they can set a new record with six straight World Series victories when we get together to re-sim 1914 next week.
“Starting IX” Excerpt: A bracket to determine the best moment in baseball history
This was one of my favorite sections of the book to write, and while it reads a little dated and a little off-topic, I think it still holds up on its over-arching point for the most part. Heads up, this is a lonnnnnng excerpt.
SS Cal Ripken Jr. (1981–2001)
Undoubtedly the man most people think of when they think of the Orioles, “The Iron Man” certainly deserves the recognition. Ripken played all 21 years of his career for Baltimore and is the team leader in basically every statistical category you can imagine. Due to the extreme length of his career, you get a bit of the good with the bad. Although he is the all-time leader in home runs by a shortstop, he was also baseball’s all-time leader in double plays grounded into for more than a decade (Albert Pujols just passed him), and he is fourth all-time in outs made. This makes sense. While Ripken’s counting stats were inevitably helped by all his games played, his slashes (and negative counting stats) were hurt by playing through injuries and fatigue to keep his streak going. However, like Brooks Robinson, Ripken was an excellent fielder and brought the Orioles over 30.0 wins with his defense at a valuable position. When we get down to brass tacks, though, what Ripken will always been known for is the fact that he played in 2,632 straight games, shattering what was previously believed to be an unbreakable record set by Lou Gehrig. During the middle of his streak, he played five consecutive seasons without missing so much as a single inning of game play.
In 2002, MasterCard set up a vote for baseball fans to determine the Most Memorable Moment in Baseball History. Ripken breaking Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games played ended up as the people’s choice as the winner. Not that this moment wasn’t a great moment in baseball history, but it seems like a good opportunity to do a completely subjective, picked by me, mini-bracket to determine the same question. I’ll use the top nine moments from the MasterCard vote and add in seven other essential moments in baseball history that I thought should’ve been there to start. With those 16 moments, each will be randomly assigned a number 1–16, and we’ll do this March Madness style.
Round One
1) 2001 — New York’s first game after 9/11 vs.
16) 1985 — Pete Rose passes Ty Cobb as the all-time hits leader
As I said before, I randomly assigned these seeds, and not to foreshadow too much, but in terms of “Chill Factor,” it’s hard to top the goosebumps anyone got who watched the night that baseball returned to New York. This game showed the rest of the country that we may have been down, but we weren’t out and showed New York City’s strength as much as a silly game is able to. Top it off with the fact that it was a great game, and that the Face of the Franchise at the time, Mike Piazza, hit the go-ahead home run in the eighth, and it is a candidate to make a good run. Rose never had a chance.
2) 1941 — Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak vs.
15) 1941 — Ted Williams posts most recent .400 batting average
Quite appropriately this matchup offers a similar dilemma to the one that 1941 American League MVP voters faced seven-plus decades ago. While the MVP should have been given to Williams — that will be discussed later in the book— DiMaggio’s streak is maybe the most-discussed event in the baseball lexicon, and with good reason. Sorry Ted, but you’re losing to Joltin’ Joe again.
3) 1998 — Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa break Maris’ single-season home run record vs.
14) 1920 — Babe Ruth sold to Yankees
McGwire and Sosa’s run towards 61 revitalized the sport in a way that has only really been done a half dozen or so times in baseball history, if that. Sadly, they are up against the man that revitalized the sport the first time it needed it. After the Black Sox Scandal rocked the baseball world in the 1919 World Series, Ruth moving to baseball’s biggest stage and becoming a home run god was exactly what baseball needed. Ruth went on to be the game’s biggest star and played a large role in making baseball the nation’s pastime for so long. There has also never been another moment that got the credit for sealing the fate of two franchises for as long as the sale of Ruth did to both Boston and New York. This is not to say that the curse was a real thing, but instead that from that moment on, the Red Sox were the Bobby Brady to the Yankees Greg Brady — at least until 2004.
4) 1939 — Lou Gehrig retires with his “luckiest man” farewell speech vs.
13) 1995 — Cal Ripken breaks Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game streak
These two men will obviously be tied together in history forever, and right around now you’re probably thinking I fixed these match-ups because they have been pretty perfect, but I promise it was random. This is a hard one because without Gehrig, Ripken’s moment loses a lot of its meaning. On the flip side, when Ripken made his run at Gehrig it meant that a lot of fans from the younger generation were able to learn more about Gehrig, including digging into the MLB archives to watch his farewell speech. For me, Gehrig’s speech, added to the fact that he was suffering from ALS, a disease that would later take his name, means that this moment is just a little bit more special, although Ripken got a tough draw to say the least.
5) 1960 — Bill Mazeroski’s World Series walk-off vs.
12) 1999 — Ted Williams at Fenway All-Star Game
These are two completely different events and the first real oddball match-up in the bracket. Mazeroski’s home run came in Game 7 of the World Series, the most important game of the year; Williams’ appearance came in the All-Star Game, a glorified exhibition game, and one in which Williams wasn’t even playing, obviously. Mazeroski’s home run capped a series victory in which the Yankees outscored the Mazeroski’s Pirates by 28 runs, which resulted in a Pirates championship that if it wasn’t lucky, was certainly fluky; Williams being enveloped by every star in the game, in such sheer revelry that it appeared as if Zeus himself had descended from Olympus was far from fluky, it was a brilliant piece of marketing by MLB. Seriously, go find the video on YouTube and just look at the players’ faces as they surround Williams on the mound, they can’t help but smile in awe and admiration.
So with this apples and oranges comparison, one of the best ways to settle it is which would be a more memorable event to attend. Although a World Series walk-off is every kid’s dream when they’re playing baseball growing up, the buzz in Fenway as Williams circled the field and then threw out the first pitch is giving me goosebumps just writing this. Williams moves on.
6) 1951 — Bobby Thomson’s shot heard round the world vs.
11) 1956 — Don Larsen’s World Series perfect game
Two Cold War baseball events that took place in New York less than five years apart find themselves head-to-head here. Thomson’s blast was a walk-off home run that capped a near-month long charge back from a 13-game deficit to the Dodgers. (With a little help from their friends… aka Herman Franks with a telescope in the centerfield clubhouse. But more to come on that later in the book.) The home run itself came in Game 3 of a playoff for the pennant before baseball had a League Championship Series, and it capped about as exciting a pennant race as baseball has ever seen. Larsen’s perfect game came in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series and was part of a Yankees come back from down 2–0 in the series, en route to winning their 17th World Series. There has been only one other no-hitter in postseason play, and no other player has ever thrown a perfect game in the playoffs, let alone in the World Series. However, maybe it’s the fact that we saw three perfect games in 2012 alone, or the fact that the history major in me loves the Revolutionary War reference of Thomson’s blast, or maybe it’s even the classic call from Russ Hodges, but for my money I’m taking Thomson’s shot.
7) 1936 — Original Hall of Fame class induction vs.
10) 1947 — Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier
Sorry, no breakdown here. Sure, seeing Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson enter the “hallowed” Hall would have been amazing, but Robinson breaking the color barrier blows that out of the water.
8) 1974 — Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record vs.
9) 1988 — Kirk Gibson hits pinch-hit home run to win Game 1 of the World Series
A pair of epic home runs that are pictured as much in the mind’s eye for each player rounding the bases as much as the home run itself makes for another great matchup. In Aaron’s case, the two fans who decide to escort him on his way around the bases, and in Gibson’s case, his limping trek around the bases while fist-pumping to a level never seen before Tiger Woods. In the pro-Gibson column, there’s the fact that he was injured and watching the game from the clubhouse television before Lasorda called upon him — pretty epic. While not a walk-off, it did win the game for the Dodgers, and it eventually propelled them to their sixth World Series victory. The game was also called by the man who should voice every baseball moment — Vin Scully.
As much as Gibson’s home run benefits from the “Scully Bump,” it’s just not possible to leave Aaron breaking the most hallowed baseball record out of the second round. As outfielder Bill Buckner (yes, that same Bill Buckner) said when explaining why he climbed the wall even though he knew Aaron had hit that 715th home run way out of his reach, “They were offering $30,000 for it.”
Round Two (The Quarterfinals)
1) 2001 — New York’s first game after 9/11 vs.
8) 1974 — Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record
This is where the match-ups start to get real interesting, and where a bit of bias may come in. As a baseball historian, one always wants to make sure that events are put into their proper historical perspective. Baseball, and its writers, have done a phenomenal job of making sure baseball history is learned by today’s generation. That being said, there is something to say for having lived through the moment. When the World Trade Center was attacked I was in fifth grade, and it had about as big an impact on my childhood as any world event. The amazing thing is what I remember most isn’t the fear that we felt for the few days following the attack, but the feeling of camaraderie that brought our nation together and left us stronger than ever. As I write this, it is important to note that I am living in Boston, only three days removed from the Boston Marathon Bombings. That same sense of unity is taking over the city, and it is a feeling I am proud to be a part of.
It seems silly that a baseball game can really be on people’s mind after such a horrible attack on humanity, but, often times, sports and entertainment are exactly what are needed to get people’s minds off the horrible things in life and focused on the little things that can bring us joy. The Mets game on September 21, 2001 did just that, and for that reason it is moving on.
2) 1941 — Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak vs.
10) 1947 — Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American Major Leaguer
Here comes what very well may have been the top two seeds had they not been seeded randomly pre-bracket. (How dumb would that have been, though? Hmmm, he ranked Ripken’s consecutive game streak higher than Gibson’s pinch-hit homer, I wonder who will win?)
No two moments in baseball history have as much written about them as these two. Here’s the big difference, though — only one of them truly affected the rest of baseball history. Sure, whenever a player gets a hit in 25 straight games, the clamor about Joltin’ Joe’s record begins, but it really can’t compare to Robinson (and Larry Doby in the far less forward-thinking American League) coming to the big leagues to make the game a better place for all athletes in the future.
14) 1920 — Babe Ruth sold to Yankees vs.
6) 1951 — Bobby Thomson’s shot heard round the world
Another all-New York match-up, this once again pits off-field versus on-field. As mentioned before, Thomson’s blast not only won the pennant, but ended a comeback of epic proportions in the final weeks of the season. It also claimed the Giants and Dodgers East Coast, OG, rivalry in its favor, as well as the fact that both teams would soon move out to California, leaving two fan bases shell-shocked on the Eastern Seaboard. However, when baseball’s most famous player is sold within the division, Thomson’s shot simply doesn’t have enough firepower to compete.
One fun game to play is wondering just how different “The Shot Heard Round The World” would have been if it occurred in 2016 instead of 1956. Would the moment have been even crazier if it single-handedly made Twitter explode, or would some of the mystique be taken away by everybody sharing his/her pointless opinion on the game via his/her Facebook status immediately after.
(The best sports moment to play this game with is Willis Reed’s Game 7 appearance in the 1970 NBA Finals. Reed came out of the tunnel to play despite a severe leg injury, and the buzz from the crowd seemed to propel the Knicks to their first ever title, despite Reed only making two baskets for the entirety of the game. [They were the first two shots of the game.] If that had happened today, wouldn’t Adrian Wojnarowski have tweeted out that Reed was playing before the actual game? And since everyone at the game is on their phones the whole time now, the crowd would have known about Reed’s big moment before the fact, and the magic of the moment would have been gone. There’s a lot of good to be said about all of today’s technology, but the aura that comes with not knowing every single detail, and relying on anticipation instead, seems truly lost with the advances in the “right now” generation.)
4) 1939 — Lou Gehrig retires with his “luckiest man” farewell speech vs.
12) 1999 — Ted Williams at Fenway All-Star Game
Two incredible off-field moments. In case you couldn’t tell by now, even though this book usually favors the cold hard numbers of baseball, when it comes to this bracket, I’m a sucker for spine-tingling moments that seem ripe for the movies. While Williams at Fenway was spine-tingling, Hollywood literally made a movie about Gehrig with the key scene being his speech. A biopic about Williams could easily include a scene with his Fenway farewell, but it wouldn’t be the defining scene, as Gary Cooper’s speech in Yankee Stadium was in Pride of the Yankees.
Round Three (The Semi-Finals)
Before we move on to the match-ups it’s interesting to note just how well the random number generator that that Google gave me was at producing a storyline-filled bracket. On one side of the bracket there’s Gehrig’s farewell speech and New York’s first post-9/11 game going in a match-up to decide the winner from the “Most spine-tingling-wish-you-were-there” category. On the other side, there’s Robinson breaking the color barrier pitted against Ruth’s sale to the Yankees in the “Moment that had the biggest impact on the game” category. Good job, randomness.
1) 2001 — New York’s first game after 9/11 vs.
4) 1939 — Lou Gehrig retires with his “luckiest man” farewell speech
Once again, another all-New York match-up. It would be interesting to see a non-Yankee fan do this bracket, huh? Too bad. One of the best things about brackets are the surprises. We see it every March, and it’s why we as a nation fill out millions of brackets on ESPN, but every year there’s nary a perfect bracket by the end of the first weekend. It’s why growing up whenever I made a bracket of my favorite songs, somehow my favorite song never actually won. Brackets are filled out in the moment. One game Florida Gulf Coast can beat Georgetown, and “Skinny Love” can knock off “Baba O’Riley.” Brackets like this can give us an in-the-moment glimpse of how we were thinking at the exact time they were filled out. This is a match-up that will feel that impact. As mentioned above, the fact that I am currently living in Boston and attended the 2013 Boston Marathon (thankfully I watched far from the finish line), right now I am feeling that energy that envelops a city after an attack on its security. The outpour of support from friends, family, neighbors, and the city as a whole has been a remarkable thing to see first-hand, and although the devastation was not nearly on the level of the World Trade Center attack, it has had me thinking about how awe-full it is to be in a city when something like this happens. I spelled awe-full that way on purpose. Obviously the attack was awful; it was thoughtless, spineless, and an act of cowardice that took the lives of three innocent civilians and scarred many more physically as well as emotionally. Since the attack, however, I have also been full of awe, seeing the runners who ran that twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth mile to give blood that they were surely lacking after the marathon. Full of awe at the togetherness of this city in helping out the Boston Police Department’s investigation with any and all helpful tips they can send their way. Full of awe at how resilient the city is. Maybe I will look back somewhere down the line, and say, “Gehrig probably should have topped the Mets post-9/11 game,” but for now — for this bracket — the Mets move on.
10) 1947 — Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American Major Leaguer vs.
14) 1920 — Babe Ruth sold to Yankees
If this were a real NCAA bracket, the previous match-up would have been your typical Kentucky versus Louisville showdown. A closely contested battle between two rivals who are in close proximity to each other, somewhat like the 2012 Final Four game between the two aforementioned schools. By that logic, this match-up would be the two teams that you don’t realize are on totally different levels until they matchup — think Duke versus West Virginia in 2010. Sure, West Virginia looked good on it’s trip to the Final Four, but Duke was just too talented. Jackie Robinson is Duke. Ruth’s sale may have greatly impacted two franchises, but Robinson’s, and — I’ll continue to say it — Doby’s, impact breaking the color barrier affected the league unlike Ruth’s sale ever could.
Round Four (The Final)
1) 2001 — New York’s first game after 9/11 vs.
10) 1947 — Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American Major Leaguer
While it has made a fairy-tale run, the buck stops here for the Mets. Robinson’s breaking the color barrier not only impacted baseball history but was one of the first steps towards the Civil Rights movement that would define much of the latter half of the 20th century. (And is still defining our current moment.)
Now that that has been settled, and Jackie Robinson is our winner, two quick Ripken anecdotes and the most random stat of all time.
Actually, let’s lead off with the random/awesome stat: Ripken homered when his games played streak reached 250 games, 500 games, 750 games, 1,000 games, and 1,500 games. Some have made the case that this is because he always came through in big games (like his final All-Star appearance when he homered and took home the game’s MVP award), but this more likely seems like one of the coolest coincidences in baseball history.
On to the anecdotes: In 1998, Ken Rosenthal, who was writing for the Baltimore Sun, wrote that Ripken should voluntarily end his consecutive games streak. Ripken “responded” by hitting a foul ball into press row that smashed Rosenthal’s computer. Obviously this is a story that stretches the boundaries of what Ripken could or could not purposely do, but who’d doubt it from a man who didn’t miss a day of work from the time Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder had a #1 hit single (“Ebony and Ivory”) until after Titanic was busy breaking box-office records?
Ripken’s write-up will conclude the way he wanted to be remembered, an excerpt from his speech at the baseball Hall of Fame during his first-ballot induction.
“Did you ever stop to think about how your life would unfold or imagine how you would like your life to turn out? One of those reflective pauses happened in my life when I was around eighteen years old. I thought I had it all figured out: I would play big league baseball until about forty-five and then worry about the rest of my life after that. It took me a little while, but I did come to realize that baseball was just one part of my life — with the possible exception of this weekend, of course. This was never more clear to me then when we had children. I realized that the secret of life is life.”
Who Is This Player?
Answer at the end of the newsletter (I’m debating formats here, so feedback on how easy/difficult this section is would be appreciated)
Pop Culture Recommendation of the Week
First up, I would recommend listening to Effectively Wild basically always, but for those who haven’t stumbled across the baseball podcast, go subscribe! And then make sure to listen to this week’s episode: “If (the) Baseball Were Different.” And from there we get to the actual recommendation for this week: Andrea Williams’ Baseball’s Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues. We covered Manley briefly in this newsletter a ways back, but Williams is a baseball history savant and I’m ecstatic to get my hands on this book.
Keep You On Your Toes
I want to zag a little bit here this week, inspired by this tweet from one of my favorite content creators (click the link to open fully; stupid Medium):
We do see so many of the “inspirational” stories of kids giving up their college tuition to pay their grandmother’s mortgage etc. And it’s easy to praise charity, etc. but let’s also not lose focus on dismantling the system that makes people have to do this, and makes charity at all a necessary thing for the masses when the richest out there could easily easily easily end poverty and eliminate a vast majority of disease riddling countries with less access to wealth than the U.S. It’s great when Joe and Jane Everyday can help out in their own little way, but it really shouldn’t even have to be like that.
Quiz Answer
That’s the latter half of the career of the man who delivered the moment that made the crazy run in our Best Moment in Baseball Bracket earlier in the newsletter: Mike Piazza.
Remember to follow along here on Medium for the first few months before I move to the actual email newsletter format.
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