Freak Nasty Friday
bring on the designated hitter
This pandemic is going to change the world around us. It is also going to offer us the chance to make permanent, needed changes to parts of our society that this has exposed as a failure. Today, I’m going to talk about one of those – Major League Baseball’s very smart proposal to have the National League finally adopt a designated hitter.
Look, I would love a world in which pitchers were great hitters. The occasional pitcher dinger is one of the most exciting things in the sport. But it’s very clear that we’re never going to get that world. Pitchers fail to make it to first base 85% of the time they hit.
We watch sports to see the greatest athletes in the world do things we are incapable of doing. 100 MPH fastballs and knee-buckling curveballs check that box. Watching them very slowly bunt every time they come up with people on base definitely does not. I want to see Randy Moss jump over someone, catch a pass, and flip the ball back over his head to the running back for a touchdown. I do not want to watch him kick field goals.
Once we make this change, things are never going back. Traditions are meant to be broken. The fun “strategy” of replacing your pitcher then double switching to get a new pitcher in a new spot in the lineup is exciting for .5% of the population (I count myself in this category). Watching a team hit an extra 30 dingers every year is exciting for 100% of the population. Baseball needs to do whatever it can to be a bit more exciting, and being able to add another roided up home run hitter that can’t really run into each NL lineup can only be great for the sport.
Some things shouldn’t go “back to normal”. And if I ever have to watch Zach Greinke sac bunt again, we’ll know that we’ve failed.
Interesting Links
A short animated film that traces a fish dinner back into the sea.
Celebrating the magical baobab tree.
The secret lives of fungi that power the world around us.
How Saudi propagandists stole Twitter accounts from obscure baseball players and musicians and used them to spread misinformation.
40% of Americans that make $40k or less lost their job in March. Meanwhile, the bailout is working really well for the wealthy.
People are getting yelled at for not wearing masks. People are getting yelled at for wearing masks. The internet is largely making this worse. The reason? Catastrophic government response that offloaded policing & safety to individuals.
If you want to understand Trump, you need to view the strange outcasts of the American conservative movement’s past, not the story the movement has been telling about itself.
A brilliant story about the journey to go deeper in the ocean than any human has ever gone. Maybe they’ll fine more animals like the glitter-covered worm, which lives in underwater volcanos and eats dead whales.
Marcus Hutchins saved the internet from one of the most vicious hacking campaigns of all-time. Three weeks later, the FBI arrested him.
The Polish bear that helped beat the Nazis.
6 boys were stranded on a desert island for 15 months. Instead of the Lord of the Flies, they banded together to survive.
Unlike many of the delivery companies, Grubhub made money from day 1. It’s a well-structured business. It couldn’t survive against a bunch of other companies that never had to do the same.