On September 29, 1941, Ted Williams would become the last major league baseball player to hit .400 for a season. A batter hitting .400 for a season has always been a mystical thing for baseball fans. There have been thirteen .400 seasons in the World Series era. Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby each accomplished it three times. George Sisler did it twice. On this day, Williams defined his legend. The Red Sox had to play a doubleheader on the final day of the season against Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s. The Red Sox were 17.5 games out and nothing was at stake except Williams hitting .400. New York Giant Bill Terry in 1930 was the last player to achieve the milestone before Williams. Statistically, Ted had already qualified with his average at game time .39955. Baseball now rounded statistics up. Williams could have sat and secured .400. The tempestuous Williams would have none of that. He played both games and went 6 for 8 for a final average of .406. It has never happened since. Tony Gwynn .394, George Brett .390 and Rod Carew .388 all gave it a run in our era. Pitching dominates today’s game. The Splendid Splinter will be the last .400 hitter in baseball history.
Williams' exploits have stood the test of time and so will Shohei Ohtani’s. He cost a billion but so far it looks like a great investment. He is a unicorn. The first 50/50 person in baseball history is a ridiculous stat in a career full of them and he is only 30. Any team would love for their leadoff batter steal 50 bases but to hit 50 home runs also WTF? Ricky Henderson never did that. After the season, he will be named MVP of the National League, becoming only the second player to win the award in both leagues. Next year, he starts 30 games on the mound and bats leadoff. Who has ever done that or will ever do that in the future? This is a generational player for generations to come. Shohei is not done for this season or with his legend. Fans will be discussing his exploits for decades after he is done playing.
After the first 150+ games, baseball becomes a must see for baseball fans. There are many outstanding regular season games and an evening at Chavez Ravine is special. Baseball in the fall is where heroes are revealed. Exploits and errors are exaggerated. Billy Buckner could never get that squibbed roller between his legs back. Carlton Fisk willing his walk off homer fair in 1975 will never get old. David Ross hitting a game 7 homerun in the last at bat of his entire career is ridiculous. Madison Bumgarner trotting out to pitch five innings of relief to help the Giants win the 2014 WS title is legend. There will be stories in the coming weeks that will be told for years.
Padre fans are all clamoring with the second half play of San Diego. They have the best record in baseball since the all-star break. They played the Dodgers tough and swept them last year in the playoffs. They will be a handful for any team this postseason. The Yard forecasted this when the sons of O’Malley’s bought the franchise in 2012. The Padres have been middling for most of their history. Dodger fans would go to see the Blue play at San Diego because the tickets were cheaper and more readily available. Those games were like Dodger home games. The Padres have won one WS game in franchise history in nine tries. The city is a proud one but has suffered the ignominy of having the Clippers and Chargers both leave for the verdant pastures of LA. The city is eager for their first championship in any professional sport. The Padres won’t ever match the Dodgers six titles, but this might be their best chance for a first. The Yard is rooting against it but won’t begrudge them if it comes to pass.
Billy Joe Armstrong called out Las Vegas from the stage at whatever the name of the place the Giants play is. He laid some serious expletives on LV about being an accomplice in the A’s moving to the desert. Since his outburst, Green Day has been banished from the airwaves in Las Vegas. They will never play another date or festivals in Las Vegas. Rock and Roll bands generally want to play dates here. And Armstrong could not have been more wrong. The real criminal in this story is the San Francisco Giants. The Oakland Athletics had several proposals over the decades to relocate the team to the San Jose/Santa Clara area. The SF 49ers got that deal done. But every time the A’s started to get traction on a new stadium, the Giants cried sovereign market and the A’s could not close the deal. MLB supported the Giants claim and forced the A’s to make a deal with Oakland or leave. The investment in the Raiders has been great financially. Allegiant Stadium is the most profitable venue in the world. That Yard does not care about those metrics because the team sucks. Good for the city, not so great for the fans and we are not sure if we are one?! The jury is out on the ROI on a baseball stadium and this version of the Oakland Athletics sucks also. Mark your calendars, The Tropicana is getting imploded on October 9, 2024, at 2:00 AM. This might be the last LV hotel implosion in our lifetimes. There will still be personal implosions in the casinos nightly.
Local News: UNLV football has their best team in 40 years. One must go back to the halcyon days of John Robinson coaching the Rebels to recall such football success. Head coach Barry Odom has done an outstanding job of building a team in his character. After a 3-0 start, starting QB Matthew Sluka resigned from the team declaring the team had reneged on promises. Sluka contended the offensive coordinator told him UNLV would get him $100,000 to transfer from Holy Cross. The NIL money did not materialize and Sluka left the program to pursue his last year of eligibility somewhere else. Casino owner Derek Stevens offered to pay the $100,000 but that was against the rules. With the transfer portal and NIL money, rules are being broken faster than they are written. Barry Odom’s UNLV football team crushed Fresno State with their second-string guy. With the transfer portal and NIL money, rules are being broken faster than they are written. Story for 30 for 30.
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