Need a buddy?
I'm on Disability and a stay at home dad. I very rarely leave the house. Like seriously once a week. I don't have any friends AT ALL. I'd absolutely love to have someone to talk to throughout the day. I get so lonely. I only have my 6 year old and my wife to talk to. That's it.
I'm interested in gaming , reading a large variety of books from fantasy to horror or sports to biographies. I love music and I have a large taste in music. I'll make you a playlist!! I love baseball and basketball. For specific reasons I'm really only interested in talking to someone close to my age. I'm sorry but I just don't have much in common life wise with a 20 yr old. So please feel free to message me. I'll just be sitting at home, losing what little I have left of my mind.

Need a buddy ?
I'm on Disability and a stay at home dad. I very rarely leave the house. Like seriously once a week. I don't have any friends AT ALL. I'd absolutely love to have someone to talk to throughout the day. I get so lonely. I only have my 6 year old and my wife to talk to. That's it.
I'm interested in gaming , reading a large variety of books from fantasy to horror or sports to biographies. I love music and I have a large taste in music. I'll make you a playlist!! I love baseball and basketball. For specific reasons I'm really only interested in talking to someone close to my age. I'm sorry but I just don't have much in common life wise with a 20 yr old. So please feel free to message me. I'll just be sitting at home, losing what little I have left of my mind.

Hey Sportsfans — it's time for Week 7 of baseball Power Rankings: These baseball numbers have been forwarded directly from Manfred's office. They are accurate and caanot be questioned.
Every voter has their own style / system and the only voting instructions are these:

"To an extent determined individually, you must take into account how strong a team is right now and likely to be going forward. You must, to some degree, give weight to the events and games of the previous week."

TRANSPARENCY: This link will show you who voted each team where and has added neat statistics!
Check out the Auxilliary Post for added statistics and fun!
If something is a little messed up, feel free to pester me let me know.
Total Votes: 30 of 30. Another Perfect Vote!.

#		Team	Δ	Comment	Record
1		Dodgers	0	The Dodgers started off a mediocre road trip by sweeping the Marlins in dominant fashion, followed by a sleepy series against the padres. My early season prediction of the Dodgers's infield defense being the biggest issue was completely wrong. Mookie looks natural at short, and Muncy has been playing pretty darn well at 3rd. We will be using our prayers this week to pray that Shohei is going to be okay	27-15
2		Phillies	+1	It's tough to end the week on a walkoff loss to the Marlins and feel good, but it's hard to complain about a 4-2 stretch. Nick Castellanos might finally not be the worst hitter in baseball after he says he started treating hitting like glorified batting practice again. Ranger Suarez has arguably been the best pitcher in baseball, pitching to a 1.5 ERA and an astounding 0.72 WHIP with team wins in each of his starts. Somehow this performance isn't even all that surprising for a guy with a 4.18 ERA last year. He was this dominant in a half season between the bullpen and rotation in 2021 and has a career 1.62 ERA in 7 postseason starts and 2 relief appearances. This week: another weird scheduling quirk as they play a 4 game set against the Mets with the first two at Citi Field and the next two in Philly before the Nats come to town for a 3 game series.	28-13
3		Orioles	-1	I was hoping the Orioles would go 5-1 this week but they went 4-2. Still nothing to be super upset about. I think the main concerns right now are Mullins is hitting under .200 and Santander still not hitting the way he can. Yesterdays game was just not great so hopefully it was just a one-off and can be flushed and they move on. Blue Jays and Mariners are in town this week so it doesn't get any easier.	26-13
4		Yankees	0	Our pitching is so good right now. Anyone in the rotation could pull a Glasnow and write their number on a ball for a cute girl, and she’d call. Doesn’t even have to have their name. She doesn’t care if its’s Nestor Cortes or Clarke Schmidt. Yankees starter? She’s calling, and she’s shaving her legs beforehand. If we signed Pete Davidson for some spot starts there'd be a second baby boom. By the way, my nickname for Clarke Schmidt used to be Farte Schidt. He has very much made me eat my aforementioned schidt this year, and officially has the second-best starter ERA behind Luis Gil, as we all predicted. In other news, Judge and Stanton both have their pop at once, Soto is doing what Soto does, and Verdugo is playing sneaky good right now. We also officially took the season series against Houston 6-1, which feels GREAT. If only they were a playoff team so we could finally bounce them this year. Oh well. A Yankees-A’s ALCS it is.	27-15
5		Braves	0	The walk off loss hurts, but can't be too upset with a 4-1 bounce back week! Big time perfromance from our SP. Giving up only 4 ERs in 23.2 IP (1.52 ERA) in these 5 games. Our bats are not what we have come to expect, but that can't last much longer. Signs of life from Acuña and Olson and continued performance by Ozuna. If by the end of May we don't see massive improvement to our offensive numbers, I will be surprised. Until then, buckle up because the offense is coming.	24-13
6		Twins	+3	Another great week, Sausage be praised! We took series from the Blue Jays and Mariners with both blowouts and well-pitched close games. I think it's safe to say that the team has found its groove, and this is how the Twins can be expected to perform moving forward. The only blip has been that the bullpen is having a slight slump, but that will even out shortly.	24-16
7		Brewers	0	Paul Who? The only starting pitcher debut I care about is BOBBY GAS who threw 6 innings of 2 hit, 0 run ball in a win against the Cardinals. He fills a much needed spot in the Brewers rotation, and likely would have been up sooner if not for an injury of his own. Rhys Hoskins also had a monster week, racking up 3 HR and 9 RBI in hist last 5 games. I had my doubts this young lineup and shaky rotation actually could be a contending ballclub over 162 games, but I'm not going to argue with the results.	24-16
8		Guardians	-2	Another bad week. The Guardians had rough series against the Tigers and the mighty World Champion favorite White Sox. This coming week, we play the reigning World Series champs and the hottest team in our division. I'm not worried. Not at all.	25-16
9		Cubs	-1	The Cubs went 3-3 this week in what felt like a complete microcosm of their season. While they did get Justin Steele, Cody Bellinger, and Seiya Suzuki back from injury, they lost Dansby Swanson and Yency Almonte, who had been a rare reliable bullpen arm. Christopher Morel also had a scare after tweaking his knee sliding into sexond, but fortunately is alright. Otherwise, the offense remained inconsistent, the starting pitching was outstanding, and the bullpen was abysmal at worst and heart-stopping at best. While he didn't continue his usual dominance against them, Ian Happ extended his streak of 62 consecutive games reaching base vs the Pirates. This week, the Cubs travel to Atlanta to take on the Braves before hosting the Pirates for 4 games.	24-17
10		Royals	+2	The Royals have a chance to be in first place by themselves this late in the season for the first time since 2016. It feels like a lifetime ago. Yes, it is just seven weeks into the season but hopes are usually gone by this point. Maybe this year can be different.	25-17
11		Mariners	0	Apologies for any typos, doing this from mobile is miserable. Not the best week, but given the pitching hiccups I can't complain too much. Woo is back (and hopefully staying back, him getting pulled was a bit of a scare.) The next few series are another gauntlet, and if the M's can make it through playing relatively well they'll be in a good positon to take advantage of their schedule for the end of the month and early June. Up next: 3 vs. Roy L's, 3 @ Oreo L's	22-19
12		Padres	+2	The San Diego Madres beat LA on both día de las Madres (friday) as well as Mother’s Day, wherein both we got great pitching performances from King and Darvish respectively. Arraez capped off the walk-off win on friday, and it was nice to see Bogaerts get one deep on Sunday. So far in ‘24 the Padres haven’t lost a series to the Dodgers, whether in LA, San Diego, or South Korea. It’s a bit cathartic, though I do wish there was less blue in the stands this weekend though. Really interested to see how they come out against the rocks, as SD was only able to split the 4-game series earlier in the season. This one lines up between the series’s vs LA and ATL, it could be a bit of a trap, hoping the Pads continue their series winning streak (which is now at 4) and just take care of business.	22-21
13		Rangers	-3	The baseball gods are unforgiving. Sacrfices have to be made and will continue to be made to the baseball gods. Oh dear baseball gods please forgive our hubris for thinking the baseball suffering was over. It was not but also, flags fly forever.	22-20
14		Red Sox	-1	The Sox have not been having a good May. Losing Casas has been brutal, and the expected bump in performance from Vaughn Grissom at 2nd hasn't happened (well, at least not yet). As a team we have a decent looking triple slash, but situationally they've been horrible. In high leverage PAs, the Sox are hitting .195/.264/.272 in 247 PAs. We have loads of talent, but there's always some issue whether it be defense or clutch hitting that holds us back from being truly competitive.	21-19
15		Tigers	0	The City Connects... phew phew phew. Looks like we got tire tracks laid on us after a truck ran us over. No thanks. I hate it... and that's not even mentioning the dumb hat. In terms of actual baseball, though, Tarik Skubal is still Skuballing. This week: 3 vs. MIA, 3 at ARI.	20-20
16		Rays	0	It was a .500 week for the Rays, and the good news is things are looking better, but only like maybe? Randy and Yandy seem to be coming back a bit; glancing at the lineup's batting avg in the game threads isn't painful anymore. Ben Rortvedt is over .300 in the catcher position which is unheard of for this team. The bad news is pitching is only bouncing back from abysmal to below average. A week against division opponents on the road will test if that improvement is here to stay or if it was just a new uniform bounce.	20-21
17		D-Backs	+3	The Diamondbacks have been winning more games of late but are still underperforming their Pythagorean record and are 3 games below .500 despite a +17 run differential. Reinforcements should be coming back from injury soon which should help.	19-22
18		Mets	-1	I prewrote a big and extremely negative blurb about the Mets getting swept by the Braves. That did not happen, Brandon Nimmo hit a walk off homer on Sunday Night Baseball immediately as I was about to close my computer. Never been so glad to be wrong. Bring on the Phillies and Marlins.	19-20
19		Nationals	0	Two large accomplishments for the Nats in the last week - 1) For the first time since 2021, the Nats climbed over .500 with an opening win over the Orioles in a 2-game series. 2) Patrick Corbin recorded a win this week vs the Red Sox (his first since 9/11/23 vs the Pirates). The Nationals quickly slid back under .500 losing the 2nd game vs the Orioles and then 2 of 3 against the Red Sox. James Wood is hitting everything in AAA (over 1.000 OPS) so there are lots of calls for HRCHU.	19-20
20		Blue Jays	+1	Very up and down week for the Cyrulean Winged Creatures of Ontario. A 1-1 split with Philly and a 1-2 tilt vs Minnesota extended a too-long stretch of not winning series. Turns out, the combination of bad offense and a bad bullpen is bad. But there have been some glimpses of hope, at least. Alek Manoah threw a gem on Sunday, giving up 0 ER and 1 BB over 7 IP with 6 Ks. Also, Vladdy is hot as shit right now; since the last week of March, he's been hitting over .400 with a nearly 1.000 OPS. Still, the Jays in general continue to underperform and hover just below .500. Mid-May is not the time to freak out and this team is in too deep to consider a full tear-down even in a lost year, but things will be getting worrisome if they can't pull out of this middling stretch that has defined the first quarter of the season.	18-22
21		Giants	+4	Believe it or not, the Giants had a winning week. They continue their flirtation with being a decent team. However, we would like the world to know about several issues	19-23
22		Athletics	0	Happy Mother's Day, say hi or I'll drop by. Rough week, our bullpen had some awful games esp w/ Kotsay's choices. Will possibly fall below the Astros this week as we play them along with the Royals, and unlike last year I don't think we're a better team than KC. Toro and Harris have been playing well with Soderstrom getting some reps in (A+ defense from them), but Gelof will likely return and change something there.	19-23
23		Reds	-5	What is the meaning of suffering? This question has stumped philosophers throughout the ages, but nobody has come up with an answer. On the opposite side of this, we have also been in search of evidence of the divine, and we’ve searched for it in things like the miracle of our world. But again, we haven’t found anything. What if we’re looking in the wrong place? What if suffering is the greatest proof of a divine presence? Suffering is an art. Perhaps the greatest art ever devised. Devised by who or what though? Some greater power looming over us all? Some great cosmic being who looks upon us the same way as we do ants? Some primordial consciousness created trillions of years ago in the Big Bang that’s been merely existing all this time and only gets enjoyment out of the suffering of others? How do we figure this out? Who do we ask? I have a suggestion, we can ask baseball fans. We are connoisseurs of suffering. Ask an A’s fan about the meaning of suffering and you’ll get your answer just by looking into their eyes. Ask a Rockies fan, or a White Sox fan, or even a long dead Expos fan. It’s weeks like this that make me ask why do people even like baseball. Why do I even like baseball? Well, I remember my grandfather, since I live in the midwest we always called him Papaw, and he was the biggest baseball nut I know. He got me into baseball at a young age, and I remember one day asking why he loved it so much. When I say he was a baseball nut, I mean he was a season ticket holder, bought all the merchandise, had books about baseball and biographies written by baseball players, he had all of it. He could tell you everything about the sport with ease. So I asked him why did he love baseball so much because at that time I found it boring, and you know I still to this day remember his response. He told me baseball is 3 hours of nothing happening, but when something did happen, it was the most beautiful sport god ever created. I loved that man. Anyway this is all a long way to say the Reds suck ass right now.	17-23
24		Astros	0	Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, especially yours. I'll visit her later, don't worry. The Astros continue to take 1 step forward and 3 steps back. Kyle Tucker is the man and we should extend him immediately. Our pitching is still mostly trash and no one deserves an extension.	15-25
25		Pirates	-2	Paul Skenes made his highly-anticipated debut on Saturday, and it was one of two games the Pirates won last week. And they only won that game after first blowing a 6-1 lead thanks to 6 (SIX!) walks with the bases loaded. At one point. Kyle Nicolas threw 12 straight balls with the bases loaded. The bullpen was so depleted that Nicolas had to pitch the next day after Aroldis Chapman gave up 2 runs and 2 walks in the 10th inning, only for Nicolas to give up another run on a wild pitch. The Pirates then hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the inning and lost 5-4. So yeah, that's how things are going in Pittsburgh right now.	18-23
26		Cardinals	0	Bro, I'm straight up not having a good time.	16-24
27		Angels	0	Hot and then cold and then hot again, Jo Adell hit three homers this past week. With a wRC+ on the season now standing at 134 and a wOBA of .363, the next step for him is now maintaining a level of consistency. With a bottom-ranking farm system, his future may not ultimately be in Anaheim. The looming rebuild is going to be a long and slow process and at the age of 25, it is hard to see much point in keeping him if someone else starts looking his way.	15-26
28		Rockies	+2	We have the longest winning streak in baseball. We just swept the defending champs. I'm pretty sure that means Rocktober is coming. In all seriousness, the Rockies finally gelled for the first time this season. The Rangers didn't play poorly, the Rockies just played well. The concern now is what kind of "Coors Hangover" we'll see.	12-28
29		White Sox	0	The White Sox had a shockingly good week while clinching the season series against the Rays and winning 3 of 4 from the Guardians over the weekend. They have been playing objectively better baseball lately (which means that their 72 wRC+ season stat was at 84 last week, and their pitching has been middle of the league since the start of May). It's not much, but it's something. Myself, I'm excited to attend my first ball game of the year tonight. Of course, I'll be going to the Schaumburg Boomers home opener.	12-29
30		Marlins	-2	So the fish still cant produce runs but at least we got burger back. Luzardo looks much better in his return to the bigs but oof braxton garrett. Somehow miami managed to squeeze out a win this week against two top teams but well see how they do against the tigers and mets this upcoming season.	11-31

"I played major league baseball for parts of 10 years, and I played in the magnificent city of New York, and as a child in St. Croix that was beyond dreams. Yes, I am a happy man." -- Horace Clarke
The worst stretch of Yankee baseball since the Highlander days, the mid 60s to the mid 70s, is remembered by those who lived through it as the Horace Clarke Era. Unfairly or not, the bespectacled switch-hitting middle infielder from the U.S. Virgin Islands came to symbolize all that was wrong with the Yankees in those sad years.
Horace Meredith Clarke grew up on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He was just the fifth player from the U.S. Virgin Islands to play in the majors, and the first Yankee. His father had grown up playing cricket, and because there were no youth baseball leagues on the island, young Horace played softball. He said he didn't see his first baseball game until around age 13, when he saw some U.S. Navy sailors playing.

“We were poor kids in St. Croix. We played on a field which was right on the ocean and had no fences. We couldn’t afford baseballs. So the coach made the lefthanded batters hit righthanded and the righthanded batters hit lefthanded. This was so they couldn’t hit the ball so far. It saved us from losing the baseballs in the ocean.”

Clarke was spotted by a Yankee scout in the Caribbean and assigned to the lowest run of the Yankee farm system -- the Kearney Yankees in Class D ball. Imagine being an 18-year-old kid from St. Croix in the Caribbean, and arriving in Kearney, Nebraska in the spring of 1958. The culture shock must have been overwhelming. Maybe not surprisingly, Clarke hit a disappointing .225/.322/.283 in 187 at-bats. He said the biggest adjustment wasn't the cold weather, but night games played under the lights, something he'd never done before.
The following year Horace was in the Florida State League, and he thrived in the warmer weather, hitting .293/.375/.366 in 571 at-bats. He also stole 34 bases that year. The year after that, he was back up north, playing for Fargo in the Northern League, and hit .307/.389/.369 in 537 at-bats. The following year was Amarillo in the Texas League, where he hit .300/.364/.429.
Then the next three years in the International League, where he hit .281/.345/.352 in 1,494 at-bats while playing shortstop and second base.
But despite Clarke's promise, he was blocked by Bobby Richardson. By the time Clarke had reached Triple-A at age 24 in 1963, the 27-year-old Richardson had already been a four-time All-Star, a two-time Gold Glove winner, and had won three World Series rings... plus the MVP for the 1960 World Series, the only time in baseball history a player for the losing team won the award!
But the Yankees knew Richardson was planning on retiring, so they kept Clarke waiting in the wings. He opened the year with the Toledo Mud Hens, then the Yankees' Triple-A team, and then after a month he finally got the call to the show.
Fifty-nine years ago today, on May 13, 1965, Clarke was sent up to the plate in the 7th inning as a pinch hitter to make his major league debut in a game the Yankees were losing, 4-1, to the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park.
Clarke, facing Dave Morehead, beat out an infield single. It was a promising beginning. But, as if scripted to be symbolic of his career, Clarke's success was short-lived as the next batter bounced into a fielder's choice. Forced out at second base, Clarke watched the rest of the game from the dugout. The next day he'd get the start and go 0-for-4.
Hitting .250/.298/.269 at the end of June as a utility infielder, Clarke was sent back down to Toledo for two months to get more regular playing time. It helped. When he returned on September 3 -- coincidentally, also against the Red Sox -- he went 3-for-5 with an RBI. Overall that month, Clarke hit .273/.298/.327, and for the season, .262/.298/.299 in 115 plate appearances. But the Yankees, the reigning A.L. champions for the past five seasons, finished a shocking 77-85, all the way in sixth place.
That off-season, Phil Linz -- the harmonica playing utility infielder -- was traded to the Phillies, opening up a roster spot for Clarke. Richardson, though only 31, had told the Yankees he would retire at the end of the 1966 season, and the Yankees wanted him to mentor Clarke as his successor.
Clarke started just seven games over the first half, but a series of injuries forced him into regular service. Over the second half, he played almost every day, hitting .276/.334/.404 in 300 plate appearances. He was mostly used at shortstop, where his defense wasn't great, but in 16 games at second base he looked good enough that the Yankees were confident he could be a regular there. Yankee fans were no doubt a little sad when Richardson officially announced to the press on August 31 that it was his last season, but at least we knew who would be playing second base the following year.
Indeed, second base was the least of the Yankees' problems. New York finished dead last at 70-89 in 1966, the team's worst performance since 1925, as injuries fell Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Elston Howard, and Whitey Ford.
Entering 1967 as the starting second baseman, Clarke hit a solid .272/.321/.316 (94 OPS+) in 633 plate appearances while leading the league in fielding percentage, assists, and range factor as a second baseman. He also stole 21 bases in 25 tries, a second-best .840 SB%. His 3.7 bWAR that year was better than any season Richardson ever had -- his career high was 3.2 bWAR in 1962.
The following year, the Yankees finished 83-79 -- above .500 for the first time in four seasons -- but a whopping 34.5 games out. Clarke had one of the worst years of his career, hitting .230/.258/.254 (60 OPS+) as he played through injuries all year.
He rebounded in 1969 to .285/.339/.467 (101 OPS+), with 33 stolen bases. It was, statistically, the best season of his career (3.9 bWAR). But once again the Yankees were terrible -- 28.5 games out.
In 1970, Clarke again disappointed, hitting .251/.286/.309 (68 OPS+). The Yankees won 93 games that year, but it amounted to naught as the Orioles ran away with the pennant, going 108-54 to win it by 15 games. In fact, it was pretty much over by July, with the Yankees 7 games out at the All-Star break.
It was around this time that Yankee fans began focusing their frustration on Clarke. One New York sportswriter routinely referred to him as "Horrible Horace". Miscast as a leadoff man -- he had a career .308 OBP -- and criticized for "bailing out" on double plays, manager Ralph Houk years later offered a tepid defense of his second baseman:

“I know I got a lot of criticism for playing Horace Clarke as much as I did, but he was a lot better ballplayer than anyone gave him credit for. He did a lot of things good but nothing great, and that was his problem. Besides, I didn’t have anyone else.”

The lack of a replacement was certainly an issue. In 1971, there was talk in The Sporting News about a prospect named Fred Frazier being the heir apparent to Clarke at second base. That year, Frazier hit a disappointing .261/.316/.313 in Triple-A; the next year, .216/.302/.281. The year after that, he was in the Orioles organization. He never made it out of the minors.
In fact, Clarke was the only constant in the Yankee infield in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Yankees during the, ahem, Horace Clarke Era had holes everywhere, with a revolving door at first base, third base, and shortstop. For five years, from 1967 to 1971, Clarke was the Opening Day starter at second base; during that same stretch, there were five different third basemen, five different third basemen, and three different shortstops. Between 1967 and 1973, he started 1,017 games at second base, or 90% of all Yankee games.
But that, explained Yankees PR man Marty Appel, was kind of the problem. "Fans especially didn’t like the second baseman, the beleaguered Horace Clarke, whose major flaw seemed to be longevity. It wasn’t his fault that no one better came along, and he was a better player than the fans gave him credit for. But because he was out there, year after year, he came to stand for this disappointing run by the club."

"I always did my best. I always played as hard as I could. I never was concerned about how the fans reacted to me." -- Horace Clarke

The following year Clarke hit .250/.321/.318 in 696 plate appearances, but the Yankees again were out of it, finishing 82-80 in 1971.
Yankee fans had been miserable since 1965, but frustration with the team in general -- and Clarke in particular -- reached a boiling point in 1972. It had been seven years since the Yankees had been in the post-season, and 1972 was the first year the Yankees had the playoffs within our grasp since winning the pennant in 1964. (The "closest and latest" the Yankees had been since the 1965 season was 9 games out of 1st place on September 8, 1970.)
On September 12, 1972, the Yankees were a half-game out of 1st place at 74-64, with 17 games left to go in the season. The Red Sox were in 1st at 73-62, the Orioles tied with New York at 74-64, and the Tigers a half-game behind at 73-64. Over the rest of the season, the Yankees went a heartbreaking 5-12, while the Tigers won 13 out of 19 to win the A.L. East.
There was plenty of blame to go around for that collapse, but Yankee fans were particularly irate at Clarke, who hit .225/.267/.296 during those final 17 games.
To his credit, Clarke never complained about the boos from fans or the criticism in the press. As quoted by Dick Young in the New York Daily News in 1972:

"Sure, I would feel bad when I saw in the papers that, 'the Yankees can never win the pennant with that guy at second base.' But why get mad. I figure that's his opinion, and he's entitled to it. I must have been able to do something. Don't tell me a ballplayer can fool a manager for seven years."

Years later, Thurman Munson said his adversarial relationship with the media was based on how Horace Clarke was treated.
In 1973, the 34-year-old Clarke hit .263/.317/.308 (80 OPS+), his defense was no longer among the league leaders, and the Yankees were once again double-digit games behind by Labor Day.
It was finally time to move on. That off season, the Yankees acquired 23-year-old utility infielder Jim Mason from the Texas Rangers and installed him as the starting shortstop for the upcoming 1974 season; Gene Michael, the Yankees' on-again, off-again shortstop since 1968, was moved to second base; and Clarke to the bench. It wasn't exactly an earth-shattering move -- Mason was coming off a season in which he hit .206/.273/.290, and Michael .225/.270/.278. If anything, the two represented a substantial downgrade from Clarke's numbers. (By bWAR the previous season, Clarke was still the best option of the three, 0.6 compared to Mason's -0.7 and Michael's -0.9.)
After hitting .234/.294/.255 in 53 plate appearances as a pinch hitter and spot starter, on May 31, 1974, the Yankees finally ended the Horace Clarke Era by selling his contract to the San Diego Padres along with minor league pitcher Lowell Palmer for $25,000. At the time of the deal, Clarke was still the Yankees' best option at second base as Mason was hitting .214/.287/.307 and Michael a putrid .134/.224/.179!
Six weeks later, the Yankees tried to address their second base problem again by acquiring former All-Star Sandy Alomar from the Angels. Alomar, who fathered major leaguers Sandy Jr. and Roberto, played for the Yankees for the next two and a half seasons, hitting .248/.287/.302... again, worse than Horace's career average of .256/.308/.313.
And yet getting rid of Horace Clarke immediately turned around the Yankees' fortunes. With Horace, the Yankees were 23-27, the worst record in the American League; without him, a second-best 66-46. New York finished 89-73, just two games behind the Baltimore Orioles.
The Yankees finally found a solution to the second base problem on December 11, 1975, trading previously forgotten Yankee Doc Medich to the Pirates for Dock Ellis, Ken Brett, and a 20-year-old prospect named Willie Randolph.
Meanwhile, Clarke went to San Diego and hit .189/.255/.200 in 99 plate appearances. He was released at the end of the season and retired. He was a frequent attendee at Yankee Old Timers' Games, and promoted baseball in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He died at age 81 on August 5, 2020, from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.
The Clarke Side

• Horace's nickname was "Hoss". Yankee play-by-play man Bill White loved to draw out the "s" sound.
  
• Clarke had a reputation of being timid on double plays -- the team's pitchers thought he was apt to hold onto the ball and hop aside rather than try to get off a throw if it meant getting barreled over by the runner. (And in those days, runners came in hard -- just ask Willie Randolph!) Yankee pitchers complained to the press about it, and fans started watching for such plays. Any time the 175-pound Clarke didn't complete a double play, the boo birds came out. To be fair, despite his reputation as being afraid of contact, Clarke led the league in double plays turned as a second baseman in 1969 and again in 1971, and finished in the top five every year he was a regular.
  
• Clarke was the last Yankee to live within walking distance of Yankee Stadium, at the Grand Concourse Hotel. His commute to work was a three-block walk... which could be a problem sometimes. Sportswriter Dick Young reported Clarke had an awkward moment when a fan, "this kid, maybe 11 or 12," walked up and asked: "Hey Hoss, how come you can't make the double play?" Clarke replied: "Well, we can't all be stars. I guess I'm just a lousy ballplayer."
  
• Clarke had an unusual batting stance, a throwback to the Deadball Era. He stood with his legs far apart and he choked up high on the bat. Not surprisingly, he had just 27 home runs in 5,243 career plate appearances... but apparently all of them were of the over-the-fence variety.
  
• The first of those 27 home runs was a grand slam! It was off Floyd Weaver of the Cleveland Indians on September 21, 1965. The two-out grand slam in the 4th inning helped power the Yankees to a 9-4 win.
  
• And Clarke's second career home run? Another grand slam! It came on July 16, 1966. Clarke came up with the bases loaded and one out in the top of the 10th of a 5-5 game. Clarke crushed Jack Aker's offering to deep right to clear the bases and give the Yankees a 9-5 lead; Pedro Ramos pitched a perfect 9th to preserve the victory. Whitey Ford, who had entered the game in the 9th inning in relief, got the win. Clarke's first and second home runs were the only grand slams of his career!
  
• Aker was later Clarke's teammate with the Yankees from 1969 to 1972, and the sinkerballing reliever was one of the pitchers who criticized Horace about bailing out on double plays.
  
• Long before John Olerud made it cool, Horace sometimes wore a batting helmet while playing the field. He never explained why; some speculated it was because he'd once been hit in the head by a thrown ball.
  
• Clarke said he grew up listening to Yankee games on the radio, and Phil Rizzuto -- a similarly undersized infielder -- was his favorite player. Horace was 11 years old when the Scooter won the A.L. MVP in 1950.
  
• Mickey Mantle, his knees shot, moved to first base for the final two years of his career. Clarke, the regular second baseman both of those seasons, said that Mantle told him to get every ball he could. Horace led the league in range factor as a second baseman both of those seasons.
  
• The Sporting News reported on March 14, 1970, that Clarke had a "novel twist" during salary negotiations for the upcoming 1970 season. He told the Yankees he'd take less money in salary if they helped him secure a $1 million loan for a construction project in the Virgin Islands. Sportswriter Dick Young speculated: "It's a very simple gimmick. First you get the Yankees to lend you $1 million for an investment. You bank it at seven percent. That brings in $70,000 a year. Then you negotiate your contract with the independent feeling that you don't have to play baseball for a living." Clarke and the Yankees eventually agreed on a more conventional contract at $32,000 -- and no loan.
  
• Check out Horace Clarke's leadoff single on Opening Day in 1970, called by Phil Rizzuto! #23 playing first base for the Yankees is not Don Mattingly, but previously forgotten Yankee John Ellis.
  
• Clarke set the major league career record -- since tied by Joe Mauer -- of most no-hitters broken up in the 9th inning. Both players did it three times in their career... but Clarke did it three times in the same season! He had 9th inning singles to break up no-no's by Kansas City's Jim Rooker on June 4, 1970, Boston's Sonny Siebert on June 19, 1970, and Detroit's Joe Niekro on July 2, 1970. No other hitter has broken up more than two no-hitters in the 9th inning in his career, according to the book Baseball's No-Hit Wonders by Dirk Lammers, but Clarke amazingly did it three times in 24 games spread over 28 days. Mauer's 9th inning heartbreakers came over a six-year stretch.
  
• Clarke went 5-for-6 with an RBI in the second game of a doubleheader on April 19, 1970 -- and had 11 other games where he had four hits. In terms of fantasy scoring, his best day was either May 21, 1969, when he went 4-for-6 with three runs scored and three stolen bases, or July 22, 1971, when he was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and three RBIs.
  
• Clarke was involved in one of the most surreal moments of baseball history on the final day of the 1971 season. The Yankees were playing the Washington Senators -- not the original Senators, who had moved to Minnesota to become the Twins in 1961, but the expansion team founded that same year to replace them. Rangers owner Bob Short, who had bought the team three years earlier, announced he was moving the team to Arlington, Texas, to become the Rangers. (Coincidentally, in 1957, Short had bought the Minneapolis Lakers and, three years later, moved them to Los Angeles.) The final home game of the Senators at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., was on September 30, 1971 against the Yankees. The game was tied, 5-5, but the soon-to-be Rangers scored a pair in the bottom of the 8th to take a 7-5 lead. In the top of the 9th, Felipe Alou and Bobby Murcer grounded out to bring up Horace Clarke. Before he could get to the plate, however, a fan ran onto the field and pulled up first base, prompting hundreds more fans to run onto the field in search of their own souvenirs. Clarke and the Senators ran off the field and the umpires called it a forfeit in favor of the Yankees.
  
• Horace wore #20 all 10 seasons he was with the Yankees. It was never a particularly popular number before him, as the only player who wore it more than a few seasons was Tiny Bonham (1940-1946). Bucky Dent wore #20 from 1977 to 1982, and previously forgotten Yankee Bobby Meacham from 1983 to 1988. Another previously forgotten Yankee, Mike Stanley, wore it from 1992 to 1995, then Jorge Posada had it until Stanley returned in 1997 and reclaimed it. After Stanley left the Yankees, he asked Posada to take it back, saying that number should belong to a catcher. And now it always will, as it was retired for Posada in 2015.
  
• His obituary in The New York Times noted that among major leaguers from the Virgin Islands -- "a relatively small roster" -- Clarke still holds the records for games played, hits, runs, RBIs, and stolen bases.
  
• After he retired, Clarke helped promote youth baseball in the U.S. Virgin Islands. One of the players he mentored was Jerry Browne, who played 10 years in the majors between 1986 and 1995 with the Rangers, Indians, A's, and Marlins. In his SABR biography, Browne credits Clarke with teaching him baseball fundamentals.
  
• According to the book Where Have All Our Yankees Gone? by Brian Jensen, Clarke played a uniquely Caribbean instrument called "the vibes." "The vibes is like a xylophone, marimba-related type sound. It's a keyboard-type related instrument." Clarke said he played the instrument during his Yankee days, but -- unlike Bernie Williams, who frequently strummed on his guitar in the clubhouse -- only during the off-season. "When I was with the Yankees, ya know, the instrument that I had, the vibes, I was doing it, ya know, but never in the clubhouse, though. Once you are in the clubhouse, it is all work, ya know. That was never so much allowed. I had the instrument all the years that I was a Yankee but I was involved with baseball. That was my full time and I didn't have full time to play music but, ya know, in the off-season I would have a vibe and try to learn a song by hearing from a tape or a record and that's what it was." After retiring, Clarke played the instrument with a local band called Out of Nowhere.
  
• Of the 15 major leaguers to have been born in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the only other Yankee was Elrod Hendricks, a backup catcher for the Bombers from 1976 to 1977. Jabari Blash, born in St. Thomas, gets an honorable mention for the three months he spent as a Yankee during the 2017-2018 off-season. Blash was acquired from the Padres for Chase Headley on December 12, then traded to the Angels for a PTBNL or cash considerations. I guess we got the cash, because apparently no player was ever named.
  
• There's a Horace Clarke High School in Jamaica, but it's not named after the Yankee. It's named after the Horace Clarke who was a member of parliament in Jamaica from 1972 to 2002.
  
• Also not him: Horace Clarke, a teenager shot and seriously wounded by a Blackfeet Indian named Owl Child on August 17, 1869. Clarke's father, Malcolm, was killed in the same attack, which was purportedly revenge for Malcolm Clarke having attacked him two years earlier... which Malcolm claimed he'd done because Owl Child had stolen horses from him... which Owl Child said he'd done in revenge for yet an earlier dispute. The pursuit of Owl Child resulted in a massacre of at least 170 people, mostly elderly men, women, and children. As for Owl Child, he escaped to Canada and was never seen again.
  

"I remember the first game I played in Yankee Stadium in 1965. There were more than 40,000 people in the stands. I had just come from my country where there are 30,000 people in the entire country. That was some adjustment." -- Horace Clarke

Overall, Horace Clarke hit .257/.309/.315 in 5,144 plate appearances as a Yankee. His numbers aren't quite as bad as they appear, as he played during one of the lowest offense eras since deadball... an 84 OPS+. That ranks him ahead of fondly-remembered Yankees like Shelley Duncan (81 OPS+), Rick Cerone (80 OPS+), Miguel Cairo (80 OPS+), Bucky Dent (72 OPS+), and... Bobby Richardson (77 OPS+). And while many complained about his defense, his defensive metrics -- such as we have for his era -- indicate he was at least an average defender. He led the league in range factor three times, in fielding percentage once, in assists six times, and in double plays twice.
People tend to think about Clarke -- if they think about him at all -- as either a terrible player, representative of the teams he played on, or a good player who was wasted on bad teams. The truth is somewhere in the middle. As sportswriter Maury Allen said, he was "an average big-leaguer on below-average Yankee teams."
And in fact, Clarke's 16.0 career bWAR as a Yankee is twice as much value as the player he replaced, Bobby Richardson (8.0 bWAR). But Richardson was a fan favorite, while Clarke was scorned. But of course... Richardson won three rings. And Yankee fans love a winner!

"New York is New York. You don’t win, you’re going to hear about it. I was in the middle." -- Horace Clarke

Had Clarke come along a few years earlier and been part of the early 1960s dynasty, he might be remembered fondly as a scrappy infielder, a Tony Kubek or a Bucky Dent or a Scott Brosius -- a good but not great player who had some memorable moments.
Instead, Horace Clarke defines an era of futility.

Brad Ausmus wore #11 for most of his career: 1993-96 (Padres), 1997-98 (Astros) and 2001-08 (Astros). He is currently the bench coach for the Yankees, after an 18-year playing career for the Padres, Tigers, Astros and Dodgers. He managed the Tigers for 4 years (2014-17) and the Angels in 2019; guiding the 2014 Tigers to the playoffs before being swept by the Orioles. And, no, he was not the only Jewish manager. Based on information from jewishbaseballmuseum.com, here is a list of Jewish managers:
Harold “Lefty” Phillips became the Los Angeles Angels’ second manager in 1969. After an 11-18 start under Bill Rigney in 1969, Phillips took over as manager and led the team to two third-place finishes. The team won only 76 games in 1971, and Phillips was fired with a 222-225 record in 2 1/2 seasons. He continued with the Angels as a scout, but died in the middle of the 1972 season.
Benjamin Fine was the second of three St. Louis Cardinals managers who led the team to a last-place finish in 1885.
Jacob Morse, a baseball journalist in New York and Boston, managed Boston of the Union League for part of the 1884 season. In 1908 he founded Baseball Magazine, the first monthly periodical devoted strictly to baseball.
Louis Heilbroner — A business manager for the new St. Louis Cardinals in 1900, the 4-foot-6 Heilbroner took over as manager at the end of the season, moving the team up two spots into a tie for fifth place. ISee individual player biographies for the following:
Gabe Kapler (Philadelphia Phillies, 2018-19; San Francisco Giants, 2020-23)
Jeff Newman (Oakland Athletics, 1986 — 10 games)
Norm Sherry (California Angels, 1976-77)
Andy Cohen (Philadelphia Phillies, 1960 — 1 game)
Lipman Pike (Troy Haymakers, 1871; Hartford Dark Blues, 1874; Cincinnati Reds, 1877)
Ausmus also managed the Israel national baseball team in the qualifying round of the 2013 WBC and was a coach for Team Israel, under manager Ian Kinsler, when it competed in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
Other Jewish players to wear #11: Garrett Stubbs (Astros 2019-21); Rowdy Tellez (Brewers 2021-23); David Newhan (Orioles 2004-06); Kevin Pillar for the Blue Jays (2014-19), Rockies (2020) and Mets (2021); and Adam Stern for the Brewers in 2010.

Previous posts
Introduction/Methodology
236-250
221-235
206-220
191-205
176-190
164-175
155-163
140-154
131-139
121-130
111-120
110-101
100-91
90-81
80-71
70-61
60-51
Master List
All stats and info through the 2023 season.
Top 50 time! We're into the real heavy hitters now. You should know everyone listed beyond this point, and if you don't, you should rectify that. Also, reddit has been doing this weird thing with my last couple posts where I'll write "#3 retired by the 76ers" or whatever and it's showing up in giant bold font. If anyone knows how I fix that, please let me know, otherwise, please ignore it. It's some weird markdown thing that I haven't figured out how to correct yet.
​

• 50. Allen Iverson - 289.3
  • Career - 234.7
    • 1997-2010
    • PHI, DEN, DET, MEM, PHI
    • 99.0 Win Shares
    • 1.566 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top five finishes, 1 win: 1999 - 4th, 2001 - 1st, 2005 - 5th)
    • 3x All-NBA First Team Selection (1999, 2001, 2005)
    • 3x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2000, 2002, 2003)
    • 1x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2006)
    • 11x All-Star Selection (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010)
    • 2.7 Finals Win Shares (2001 PHI)
  • Peak - 343.8
    • 1999-2003
  • Other achievements
    • Rookie of the Year (1997)
    • 2x All-Star Game MVP (2001, 2005)
    • 1x Olympic Bronze Medalist (2004)
    • 20,000 Point Club (24,368; 28th all-time)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (5,624; 52nd all-time)
    • #3 retired by the Philadelphia 76ers
  • It's difficult to overstate the impact Iverson had on basketball in the late 1990s/early 2000s. He certainly wasn't the first player to have great ball-handling skills, but he was the first one in quite a while to make it look so cool. He was also the first player that I can personally remember where the goal wasn't just to score, but to make the defender look stupidly incompetent and demoralize him in the process. Every crossover was basically a diss track. (Larry Bird did this, too, but it was less clear Bird was doing this because his game wasn't about breaking ankles and putting guys on the floor, so it was less obvious to people watching.)
  • To clarify, I don't know if making defenders look dumb was Iverson's personal goal/mindset about how he played the game, or if it was just a byproduct of how he played. But for people watching, it definitely seemed intentional.

​

• 49. Paul Arizin - 290.2
  • Career - 225.4
    • 1951-1952, 1955-1962
    • PHW
    • 108.8 Win Shares
    • 1.144 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top five finishes: 1956 - 2nd, 1957 - 3rd, 1959 - 5th)
    • 3x All-NBA First Team Selection (1952, 1956, 1957)
    • 1x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1959)
    • 10x All-Star Selection (1951, 1952, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962)
    • 2.2 Championship Win Shares (1 title - 1956 PHW)
    • 4.0 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 1958 PHW, 1960 PHW, 1962 PHW)
  • Peak - 355.0
    • 1956-1960
  • Other achievements
    • 1x Consensus College Player of the Year (1950)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (1952)
    • Eastern Basketball Association MVP (1963)
    • Eastern Basketball Association champion (1964)
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Most of the time I'll preface my grandiose statements about a player's ability with things like "probabaly" or "there's a case to made that" or "you could certainly argue..." Well, not this time. Paul Arizin was, definitively the best small forward of the 1950s. Elgin Baylor was the 1960s. Rick Barry was (most of) the 1970s, and then it gets tricky after that. But up until 1960, Arizin was the model for how a small forward should play the game.
  • Interesting fact about Arizin - the man was a Philadelphia lifer. Born there, went to college at La Salle, got drafted as a territorial pick by the Warriors and played there until 1962 (10 seasons, but 12 if you count the two years he missed for military service early in his career), then when the Warriors decided to move to San Francisco after the 1962 season, Arizin retired and immediately began playing for the Camden Bullets of the Eastern Professional Basketball League (which would later become the Continental Basketball Association), where he won an MVP and a title in three seasons there.
  • I have a strong suspicion, though no actual confirmation, that Arizin's unwillingness to move with the team to San Francisco is why his #11 jersey was never retired. Maybe they can rectify it someday and do a double retirement once Klay Thompson retires, but it's still a little weird it was available for Klay in the first place.

​

• 48. Sam Jones - 292.1
  • Career - 232.1
    • 1958-1969
    • BOS
    • 92.3 Win Shares
    • 0.169 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (2 top five finishes: 1965 - 4th, 1966 - 5th)
    • 3x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1965, 1966, 1967)
    • 5x All-Star Selection (1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1968)
    • 12.9 Championship Win Shares (10 titles - 1959 BOS, 1960 BOS, 1961 BOS, 1962 BOS, 1963 BOS, 1964 BOS, 1965 BOS, 1966 BOS, 1968 BOS, 1969 BOS)
    • 0.4 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 1958 BOS)
    • 1.2 Conference Finals Win Shares (1 Conf. Finals loss - 1967 BOS)
  • Peak - 352.0
    • 1962-1966
  • Other achievements
    • #24 retired by the Boston Celtics
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Here's an anology - Sam Jones:1960s Celtics offense::Bill Russell:1960s Celtics defense.
  • Also, while researching Sam Jones, I found out he'd been inducted into the "American Basketball Hall of Fame," which led me to discover that the "American Basketball Hall of Fame" existed. This, of course, begs the question: can anyone start a Hall of Fame? Can I make my own Hall of Fame? The NBA pretty famously doesn't have its own, so can I just, like, do it?

​

• 47. Patrick Ewing - 295.7
  • Career - 258.4
    • 1986-2002
    • NYK, SEA, ORL
    • 1.423 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (6 top five finishes: 1989 - 4th, 1990 - 5th, 1992 - 5th, 1993 - 4th, 1994 - 5th, 1995 - 4th)
    • 1x All-NBA First Team Selection (1990)
    • 6x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997)
    • 11x All-Star Selection (1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997)
    • 4.2 Finals Win Shares (2 Finals losses - 1994 NYK, 1999 NYK)
    • 2.9 Conference Finals Win Shares (2 Conf. Finals losses - 1993 NYK, 2000 NYK)
  • Peak - 333.0
    • 1990-1994
  • Other achievements
    • NCAA champion (1984)
    • NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player (1984)
    • 2x Big East Player of the Year (1984, 1985)
    • 1x College Player of the Year (1985)
    • Rookie of the Year (1986)
    • 3x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (1988, 1989, 1990)
    • 2x Olympic Gold Medalist (1984, 1992)
    • 20,000 Point Club (24,815; 24th all-time)
    • 10,000 Rebound Club (11,607; 25th all-time)
    • #33 retired by the New York Knicks
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2012)
  • Ewing put up 1.0 playoff win shares over 11 playoff games for the 1999 Knicks, so despite not playing in the Finals (he was hurt in the Eastern Conference Finals that year), he gets credit for being a contributor on a Finals team.
  • Here's some wild information about Ewing's citizenship: he was born in Jamaica in August 5, 1962, and in 1975, his family moved to Massachusetts, where he eventually gained United States' citizenship. That all seems fairly straightforward, however, Jamaica was a colony of the British Empire on August 5, 1962. It was granted its independence the day after Ewing was born, August 6, 1962. This is fascinating, but also somewhat confusing to follow because of British citizenship rules and laws and revisions, and I'm not sure I've fully figured it all out. But I believe Ewing was, for a single day, a British national, which was called a "Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies," or a "CUKC" (yes, it was actually called that). He then automatically became Jamaican when he was one day old, when the country gained independence. (Someone please correct me if any of this is wrong.) All of which is to say, I really want a biography of Ewing's childhood/upbringing and the transition to independence for Jamaica titled "Patrick Ewing: CUKC for a Day."

​

• 46. Artis Gilmore - 301.1
  • Career - 253.3
    • 1972-1976 (ABA), 1977-1988
    • KEN, CHI, SAS, CHI, BOS
    • 107.4 Win Shares
    • 0.092 Adjusted MVP Award Shares
    • 6x All-Star Selection (1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986)
    • 1.4 Conference Finals Win Shares (2 Conf. Finals losses - 1983 SAS, 1988 BOS)
    • 82.3 ABA Win Shares
    • 2.260 Adjusted ABA MVP Award Shares (3 top five finishes, 1 win: 1972 - 1st, 1973 - 4th, 1974 - 2nd)
    • 5x All-ABA First Team Selection (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976)
    • 5x ABA All-Star Selection (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976)
    • 4x ABA All-Defensive First Team Selection (1973, 1974, 1975, 1976)
    • 3.0 ABA Championship Win Shares (1 title - 1975 KEN)
    • 3.4 ABA Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 1973 KEN)
    • 3.1 ABA Conference Finals Win Shares (2 Conf. Finals losses - 1974 KEN, 1976 KEN)
    • 1x ABA Playoff MVP (1975)
  • Peak - 349.0
    • 1972-1976
  • Other achievements
    • ABA Rookie of the Year (1972)
    • 1x ABA All-Star Game MVP (1974)
    • 1x NBA All-Defensive Second Team Selection (1978)
  • Now, I'll admit two things here: this is too high for Gilmore. In order to make the ABA numbers make sense for the vast majority of the ABA players, the players at the fringes get stretched a little more than they should. Consequently, the all-time great ABA guys, who spent more than a couple years in the ABA, really benefit from this. I may work on a fix for it, but it really only affects Julius Erving and Gilmore (and to a much lesser extent, George Gervin, Rick Barry, Billy Cunningham, and George McGinnis), so I'm inclined to just leave it with a disclaimer that Gilmore is probably 10-15 spots too high.
  • That said, the second thing is this: Artis Gilmore is vastly underrated. He started his career in the ABA right as the league was starting to peak, winning MVP as a rookie. He averaged 22.3/17.1 with 3.4 blocks per game during his ABA tenure (five seasons), winning one title, going to the Finals another time, and making the Conference Finals twice more.
  • He didn't really slow down in the NBA either until injuries took their toll. Through his first seven NBA seasons he averaged 19.8/11.6 with 2.2 blocks. He never made All-NBA, but as we've noted before, making All-NBA from the 1970s forward was notoriously difficult with Kareem perennially taking up one of the two slots, and then battling half a dozen other Hall of Fame players for the other one.
  • Anyway, Gilmore was one of those players, like Dr. J, who could've played in either league and been highly successful. Are his ABA numbers slightly inflated due to playing against some not-quite-NBA caliber competition, sure. But that doesn't really take anything away from the guy's actual skill levels.

​

• 45. Russell Westbrook - 307.7
  • Career - 247.8
    • 2009-2023
    • OKC, HOU, WAS, LAL, LAC
    • 108.4 Win Shares
    • 1.619 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (4 top five finishes, 1 win: 2015 - 4th, 2016 - 4th, 2017 - 1st, 2018 - 5th)
    • 2x All-NBA First Team Selection (2016, 2017)
    • 5x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018)
    • 2x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2019, 2020)
    • 9x All-Star Selection (2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)
    • 2.1 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 2012 OKC)
    • 6.5 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 2011 OKC, 2014 OKC, 2016 OKC)
  • Peak - 367.6
    • 2015-2019
  • Other achievements
    • 2x All-Star Game MVP (2015, 2016)
    • 1x World Cup Gold Medalist (2010)
    • 1x Olympic Gold Medalist (2012)
    • 20,000 Point Club (24,457; 27th all-time)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (9,162; 9th all-time)
  • There should be a name for the phenomena (there probably is one and I just don't know it) where someone does something seemingly impossible, and everyone is amazed, but then they keep doing it, and everyone says, "oh, huh, I guess it wasn't actually that special."
  • This is exactly what happened to Westbrook, where he averaged a triple double for the first time since Oscar Robertson and everyone went "oh my god that's amazing!" and gave him the MVP. And then he did it three more times and everyone just went "eh."
  • Would this happen in other sports? If (and I don't know that many baseball players, so forgive me if this is a bad analogy) Shohei Ohtani hit .400 for a season for the first time since Ted Williams, everyone would rightfully lose their minds, but if he did it three more times, would everyone be over it, or would we all just agree that he was the greatest baseball player of all time and be done with it?
  • (Note: I am not arguing that Russell Westbrook is the greatest basketball player of all-time. That was just the best cross-sports analogy I could think of.)

​

• 44. Jason Kidd - 308.1
  • Career - 267.7
    • 1995-2013
    • DAL, PHO, NJN, DAL, NYK
    • 138.6 Win Shares
    • 0.934 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (2 top five finishes: 1999 - 5th, 2002 - 2nd)
    • 5x All-NBA First Team Selection (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004)
    • 1x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2003)
    • 10x All-Star Selection (1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2010)
    • 4x All-Defensive First Team Selection (1999, 2001, 2002, 2006)
    • 1.9 Championship Win Shares (1 title - 2011 DAL)
    • 4.9 Finals Win Shares (2 Finals losses - 2002 NJN, 2003 NJN)
  • Peak - 348.6
    • 1999-2003
  • Other achievements
    • 1x Pac-10 Player of the Year (1994)
    • Rookie of the Year (1995)
    • 5x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007)
    • 2x Sportsmanship Award (2012, 2013)
    • 2x Olympic Gold Medalist (2000, 2008)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (12,091; 2nd all-time)
    • #5 retired by the Brooklyn Nets
  • It seems strange to say, because their careers overlapped almost perfectly, and they were even teammates for two seasons, but it feels like Jason Kidd was something of a precursor to Steve Nash. It was like they were trying to figure out the exact right components of a flashy yet competent point guard, and didn't quite get there with Kidd, but got really close. Then they got it exactly right with Nash a couple years later. I realize this analogy falls apart when you take into consideration Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson existing, but let's just say point guard play was in a bit of a lull in the early-to-mid 1990s.
  • As a side note: it's somehow fascinating that the All-NBA Teams, from 1956-2023 were position-based, yet not specifically position based. For example, there needed to be two guards, two forwards, and a center on the First Team and the same on the Second Team, but there was no requirement that the two guards be one point guard and one shooting guard. So, some years there were one of each, and some years there were two of the same position. (It's positionless now, so it doesn't matter, and even though I liked the position-based teams, I've thought the NBA should change its designations for these type of things to "one point, two wings, two bigs" for some time now.)
  • Anyway, after Magic Johnson retired before the start of the 1992 season, here are the point guards named to the first team for the rest of the 1990s: None (two shooting guards) 2x, John Stockton 2x, Mark Price, Tim Hardaway, Gary Payton, Jason Kidd. It's not bad, but it's not exactly a murderer's row. If you had to face some combination of those names on your way to winning the title, I think you'd feel more or less okay about your chances. Anyway, then in 2000, both Kidd and Payton made the First Team, marking the first time two point guards had made the First Team since 1986 when Magic and Isiah Thomas were both on the First Team for the third straight year. Then it didn't happen again until 2014 when Chris Paul and James Harden were both on the First Team (and that's assuming you count Harden as a point guard, which he isn't always, but I think we can say he definitely was that season.) It's happened a lot more frequently since, but again, there's some more amorphous definitions of "point guard" in today's game than there used to be.
  • Back to Kidd, I literally always, always forget he has a ring. Any time anyone mentions him, even in his role as the Dallas Mavericks coach, the team he won an NBA title with in 2011, I'm always like "oh, yeah, he got so close with the Nets in the early 2000s, but just couldn't do anything against the Lakers and Spurs dynasties."

​

• 43. Willis Reed - 314.8
  • Career - 215.3
    • 1965-1974
    • NYK
    • 74.9 Win Shares
    • 1.565 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top five finishes, 1 win: 1969 - 2nd, 1970 - 1st, 1971 - 4th)
    • 1x All-NBA First Team Selection (1970)
    • 4x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1967, 1968, 1969, 1971)
    • 7x All-Star Selection (1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971)
    • 1x All-Defensive First Team Selection (1970)
    • 3.6 Championship Win Shares (2 titles - 1970 NYK, 1973 NYK)
    • 2.7 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 1969 NYK, 1971 NYK, 1974 NYK)
    • 2x Finals MVP (1970, 1973)
  • Peak - 414.3
    • 1967-1971
  • Other achievements
    • Rookie of the Year (1965)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (1970)
    • #19 retired by the New York Knicks
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Reed became the first player to hit the MVP trifecta (All-Star Game, regular season, Finals) when he did it in 1970. Granted it was only the second year that was possible to do, since the Finals MVP was created in 1969, but still, it's a fairly rare feat. Michael Jordan did it in 1996 and 1998, and Shaquille O'Neal did it in 2000, but that's been it.

​

• 42. Elvin Hayes - 322.0
  • Career - 266.1
    • 1969-1984
    • SDHOU, BAL/CAP/WSB, HOU
    • 120.8 Win Shares
    • 1.016 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top five finishes: 1974 - 5th, 1975 - 3rd, 1979 - 3rd)
    • 3x All-NBA First Team Selection (1975, 1977, 1979)
    • 3x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1973, 1974, 1976)
    • 12x All-Star Selection (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980)
    • 3.1 Championship Win Shares (1 title - 1978 WSB)
    • 4.2 Finals Win Shares (2 Finals losses - 1975 WSB, 1979 WSB)
  • Peak - 377.9
    • 1975-1979
  • Other achievements
    • 1x College Player of the Year (1968)
    • 2x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (1974, 1975)
    • 20,000 Point Club (27,313; 11th all-time)
    • 10,000 Rebound Club (16,279; 4th all-time)
    • #11 retired by the Washington Wizards
    • #44 retired by the Houston Rockets
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • If not for the next guy on the list, Elvin Hayes would probably be known as the most legendary dick in all of basketball history. Actually, I don't know if that's quite fair, as he typically just gets pegged as a guy who was problematic to coach. I think it had more to do with Hayes' general philosophy of "get ball, put ball in basket" more than any sort of "passing" or "running plays" that earned him that reputation.
  • But he did go to the Finals three times, winning one title (though I'd argue that probably had more to do with Wes Unseld and Bob Dandridge, but regardless), and had his number retired by two teams, so it's not like teams are out here holding grudges or anything. (Note: the Rockets didn't retire his number until 2022, so there may have been a bit of a grudge.)

​

• 41. Rick Barry - 323.1
  • Career - 268.7
    • 1966-1967, 1969-1972 (ABA), 1973-1980
    • SFW, OAK/WSA, NYA, GSW, HOU
    • 93.4 Win Shares
    • 0.874 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top five finishes: 1967 - 5th, 1975 - 4th, 1976 - 4th)
    • 5x All-NBA First Team Selection (1966, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1976)
    • 1x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1973)
    • 8x All-Star Selection (1966, 1967, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978)
    • 3.1 Championship Win Shares (1 title - 1975 GSW)
    • 1.6 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 1967 GSW)
    • 2.2 Conference Finals Win Shares (2 Conf. Finals losses - 1973 GSW, 1976 GSW)
    • 1x Finals MVP (1975)
    • 35.5 ABA Win Shares
    • 0.954 Adjusted ABA MVP Award Shares (3 top five finishes: 1969 - 5th, 1970 - 2nd, 1971 - 5th)
    • 4x All-ABA First Team Selection (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972)
    • 4x ABA All-Star (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972)
    • 2.7 ABA Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 1972 NYA)
  • Peak - 377.6
    • 1972-1976
  • Other achievements
    • Rookie of the Year (1966)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (1967)
    • #24 retired by the Golden State Warriors
  • Barry, the most legendary dick in all of basketball, is probably ranked a little bit low compared to his skill level here, because he didn't get the MVP votes one would typically associate a player of his level getting. Why? Because he played at a time when other players voted for the MVP and, as noted, people hated Rick Barry. I've heard it theorized that he's (partly) the reason the media votes on the MVP now and not the players, but I haven't been able to definitively confirm that anywhere.
  • Barry was also super attached to his number, #24, and wore it at every stop except for his final two years in Houston. Moses Malone was already wearing #24 at the time so it wasn't available. So what did Barry do? He decided he'd wear #2 for home games and #4 for road games. (The NBA also would not allow this today, but it was from 1979-1980, so we were still in the Wild West a bit as far as what sports leagues would allow to happen.)

Bio from The Festival Voice

Artist Biography by Daniel Karasek
Mike Stud, aka Michael Francis Seander, Jr., is a rapper who was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1988. He grew up playing sports, lettering in baseball and basketball in high school. When he graduated from St. Raphael Academy in Pawtucket, he was named Rhode Island’s 2006 Gatorade Player of the Year. Additionally, he received a Louisville Slugger scholarship to attend Duke for his pitching. In his freshman year of college, Mike set a record for the lowest ERA in the history of Duke’s baseball program at 1.61. After his second year at Duke, he injured his arm, requiring surgery. While recovering, Mike started writing rap lyrics to pass the time. He wrote the song “College Humor” about his college exploits and recorded it using GarageBand. The song got a positive response, so in 2010 Mike produced a video for the track and distributed it under the name Mike Stud. “College Humor” racked up millions of views on YouTube alone. In 2011, he released his first mixtape A Toast to Tommy which made it to the number two spot on the American iTunes Hip-Hop Charts. Two years later Mike released his debut album Relief which got the attention of Atlantic who released his next album Closer in 2014 via the 300 Entertainment imprint. The album topped the Billbaord 200 Albums Chart and hit number two on the R&B/Hip-Hop Chart. Following more chart success, in 2016 the Esquire Network debuted the reality series This is Mike Stud which followed the rapper at home and on the road. In 2019, after touring on his fourth album 4THEHOMIES Mike changed his stage name to mike officially.

 
Genre: Hip-Hop, Experimental
Scheduled: Saturday
Songs & Sets:
Mike Stud - Swish (official video)
mike. - malibu breeze (visualizer)
Mike Stud - These Days (starring: Marcus Stroman)
Mike Stud - Brightside (official video)
Have you seen mike before? Please share your experience and favorite songs.
 

Days Until Bonnaroo: 46

Remember to drink water and warm up those high fives!
 
Link to previous AotD post

Posting before Shabbat starts here in Israel:
Lou Gehrig was not Jewish, but if you watched Pride of the Yankees or read Jonathan Eig’s biography of Lou (Luckiest Man), you might get the impression that Lou’s mother (Anna Christina) was a bit of a Jewish mother. Lou did live on Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights, only 10 blocks from Yeshiva University.
Lou Boudreau wore #5 for most of his career with the Indians, but he wore #4 for the Red Sox in 1951-52 (Vern Stephens was wearing #5). So? We all “know” that the only Jewish Hall of Famers are Greenberg and Koufax. But, according to the SABR bio of Boudreau written by Ralph Berger, he “was born on July 17, 1917, in Harvey, Illinois, to Louis Boudreau Sr., of French descent, and Birdie (nee Henry) Boudreau, of Jewish and German descent. Although his mother was Jewish, Lou and his older brother Albert were raised as Christians.” He is not listed as Jewish in the Jewish Baseball News list (http://www.jewishbaseballnews.com/players/), but he is listed in the Baseball-Almanac list (https://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/Jewish_baseball_players.shtml) (right next to Ralph Branca!). I understand that even if a player has Jewish heritage in his background, and even if (as prescribed by traditional Jewish law) his mother is Jewish, JBN doesn’t consider him Jewish unless he views himself as a Jew. He is not identified as Jewish in Jews and Baseball: Volume 1 by Burton W. Boxerman and Benita W. Boxerman, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field: Sport and the American Jewish Experience by Peter Levine, or The Jewish Baseball Hall of Fame by Erwin Lynn. Lou’s mother was Jewish, but he did not consider himself to be Jewish (his parents divorced when he was young and he was raised Catholic by his father). Boudreau’s funeral mass was held at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Frankfort, Illinois.
Now that I have had some more time, let’s go back to Buddy Myer (see Day 1). Myer played for 17 years (1925-41) for the Washington Senators and he was often mistaken as Jewish. It was reported that during his playing days he was subjected to much antisemitic abuse. An article in the Jewish Journal by Peter Drier from January 2024 reports that “[o]pposing players called him a “kike.” Pitchers threw at his head. In 1933, Yankees outfielder Ben Chapman, a notorious racist, intentionally spiked Myer when he slid into second base. The two players then got into a fist fight that led to an on-field brawl between the two teams, requiring police intervention. The next day, the Washington Post’s Jewish sportswriter, Shirley Povich, wrote that Chapman ‘cut a swastika with his spikes on Myer’s thigh.’” (As an aside to the tangent, Peter Drier co-authored two great books with Robert Elias, Major League Rebels: Baseball Battles Over Workers’ Rights and American Empire and Baseball Rebels: The Players, People, and Social Movements that Shook up the Game and Changed America.)
Myer was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and he’s included in the books authored by the Boxermans, Levin and Lynn. But, according to Myer’s family he was not Jewish; he grew up in a small town in Mississippi and was raised Baptist. When he died, the memorial service was held at the First Baptist Church. The family ancestry was originally German Jewish, but they converted to Christianity at least two generations before Buddy was born. His son is quoted by way of explanation: “He didn’t think it was right when they inducted him into the Jewish Hall of Fame, but he didn’t correct them because he was afraid it would be taken the wrong way.”
Harrison Bader has worn 4 different uniform numbers, including #4 last year in 2023 for the Reds. Mike Epstein wore 8 different uniforms/numbers over his 9 year career, including #4 for 9 games with the Orioles in 1967 before being traded to the Senators (he batted .154 with a slugging percentage of .154 in his 13 at bats, so you know what his 2 hits were).

I am Jon Finkel, the award-winning author of 1996, Hoops Heist, The Athlete, “Mean” Joe Greene, and more. John Cena, Mark Cuban, Spike Lee, and Kevin Durant have endorsed my books and I've done major magazine cover stories on Triple H, Batista, Brock Lesnar and other sports and entertainment stars. I also write the 'Books & Biceps' newsletter, read by 13K+ every Friday.
My newest book is Macho Man: The Untamed, Unbelievable Life of Randy Savage, the sensational, definitive biography of the WrestleMania headlining, Spider-Man fighting, Slim Jim snapping, minor league baseball playing American original. In researching my book, I spoke to everyone from Randy Savage’s neighborhood friends, his high school teammates, his minor league teammates, and superstar wrestlers to extras on the set of Spider-Man (2002). I also spoke extensively with Savage’s brother and best friend, Lanny Poffo, before his untimely passing. Here to answer all your Macho Man questions, AMA: https://jonfinkel.com/macho-man-the-untamed-unbelievable-life-of-randy-savage/

Hello, friends and contributors of SquaredCircle! Next week we welcome author Jon Finkel to answer any questions you have after the release of his latest book about "Macho Man" Randy Savage.
Stop by NEXT THURSDAY, April 25th at 2:30 PM Eastern! Here's an introduction from Jon:

I am Jon Finkel, the award-winning author of 1996, Hoops Heist, The Athlete, “Mean” Joe Greene, and more. John Cena, Mark Cuban, Spike Lee, and Kevin Durant have endorsed my books and I've done major magazine cover stories on Triple H, Batista, Brock Lesnar and other sports and entertainment stars. My newest book is Macho Man: The Untamed, Unbelievable Life of Randy Savage, the sensational, definitive biography of the WrestleMania headlining, Spider-Man fighting, Slim Jim snapping, minor league baseball playing American original. In researching my book, I spoke to everyone from Randy Savage’s neighborhood friends, his high school teammates, his minor league teammates, and superstar wrestlers to extras on the set of Spider-Man (2002). I also spoke extensively with Savage’s brother and best friend, Lanny Poffo, before his untimely passing. Here to answer all your Macho Man questions, AMA!

Once taken place in a terribly dreadful time, there was a small cat-licking bird that lived on a not-so-big lane by my house whose name was Charles just like every other soul, male or female, that lived on my smelly, stinky, orange , old, rotten, messy, busted cul-de-sac between Belmont and Rose which are both awfully gay Streets Like North street or some shit that reminds me of a celebrity like Paris Hilton or some blonde loser that doesn't even know the capital of her own country, which is the United States of America aka: The U.S.A which is a pristine nation of beauty, opposing to a country as the country of Somalia and Belgium, a part of Europe, which doesn't even have a government, it's just in a complete state of anarchy just like my mind and soul which are both filled with outrageous nonsense that I'm typing down right now into some fat long sentence that probably makes no sense but who cares I'm trying to set some sort of weird record here like most ducks snorted or some weird thing like that and if I do set some sort of record I will be in the Guinness Book of chimkin nungets World Records (though anti-American and pro-European, a place of pitty and despair as Somalia is) which was always my dream because that book has a whole bunch a cool and weird stuff in it and I would Become famous and add to the weirdness of the book like some of their records which reminds me of the Rob & Big where Rob sets all of those skateboarding Records And Big Black eats bananas and donuts and three weeks later they both get plaques saying the record they set and I want to get one of those so that's why I'm writing all of this stuff down without ever using a period or some other sentence ending mark like an exclamation point or a question mark or any other symbol that could possibly end my streak of words that is really long now and would take me a while to count just like counting sheep which is supposed to put you to sleep but it really keeps you awake because you want to keep counting and counting until you don't know what comes after trillions, but that would take Years or something because it would take a while just to count a trillion seconds or minutes would be even worse just like how ducks are worse that geese because they are more aggressive around their young unlike great white sharks which are often eaten by their mothers when they are born and the ones who do make it out alive have no mother to teach them how to hunt or whatever because none of that matters because us human beings have mothers unless they die or run off with some CEO of a big company or someone else who makes a lot of money and then they leave you with your dad and you are jealous of your friends if you have any because they have moms and you don't because your mom was some greedy pig who wanted money but ended up only getting the money part and she bought drugs because she was depressed and ended up killing herself from an overdose and you wouldn't even know about it until you become some rich person and check the files somewhere and learn that she died of a overdose and you eyes get all teary and then you start crying because you know that you wouldn't be alive without that woman you called mom and I just found out right now that the longest sentence is like 10,000 words so I have a ways to go and you have to go with me so let's go to 6th gear and throw out some words like Emphysema which I had to do a report on in 4th grade because we had a ton of projects and this was the disease one and we chose diseases out of a hat and I came out with Emphysema which is a form of lung cancer which is 98% caused by smoking which reminds me of the way my dad describes smoking: "you get plant leaves, wrap them in paper, light it on fire and suck on it" which is normally a sentence but not today because I'm setting out on the quest for a long sentence that I'm typing up which reminds me of a story my grandpa told me about himself when he was "your age" about how they covered the letters on the type writers and they had to type so that they could memorize where the letters are on a type writer and my grandpa says he will never regret taking that class because it helped him out a lot when it came to typing and now a days he is not bad a typing at all because He is almost as fast as me because I am a pretty fast typer and writing this article isn't taking very long and expect being pretty far pretty soon at the pace I'm going right now so there are going to be some serious records getting busted when I'm finally finished writing this article on this dumb website which will probably end up huffing this article even though it is fun-packed and joyful and keeps the reader reading when they use that excuse to mom saying "just one more sentence" but that sentence is 10,000 words long and still continuing to go at a reasonable pace and it is going to shatter most of those long sentence records just like how the chargers are going to shatter the most consecutive years without a super bowl win record and I doubt that they will win one in the near future but they patriots are going to win some serious super bowls because they are the best team ever even better than the cowboys or 49ers and no one cares a bout them so go patriots and boo chargers even though I live in San Diego and Like the Padres I hate the Chargers because they are bad and the padres are bad too but I don't care because they are my favorite team and the dodgers are my least favorite along with the Yankees because the Yankees get a lot of money to spend and the padres and marlins get almost nothing and then the Yankees buy a-rod for a lot and the Rays get almost no money but are still fighting for first place this season without expensive players like Derek Jeter or a-rod or Johnny Damon or whoever because they are an all around better team that can beat the Yankees even though the Yankees can beat the royals a lot who really suck because they suck more that the padres do and so do the mariners and Rockies even thought the Rockies went to the world series last year they lost and haven't stopped losing for a while now, either and they are last place in the NL west and that is where the padres used to be but they started hitting home runs and winning games and are dong pretty good right now despite having little offense except for Adrian Gonzalez who is leading the NL in RBI's even though he is on the team who scores the least runs in the league but they are not last in homeruns though they are like 5 away or something but I’m not sure so screw that and let's talk about something fun like water or food or dirt or something but I think food is the best because their is a lot of things to talk about with food like you r favorite food which mine happens to be some spicy burrito form Chipotle mexican grill and it is very good just like this macaroni my mom made one time that had bread crumbs on top and it was very good like all of the food they serve on top chef which I wish I could be a judge for because they have a lot of good food on that show and it makes my mouth water whenever I watch it and that is why I watch it because the food is totally awesome and sometimes I hate the people but they end up getting eliminated like the Dance crews in France's Best Dance Crew which is a great show and you should watch it because people do good dancing like the JFrabbawockeez because they won the first season and they are very good just like supreme soul and So real crew and phresh select and super cr3w and I’m only at 1500 words right now so I have to write some serious stuff like a life biography about myself and anything I’ve ever done which includes going to big bear to ski, fishing, breathing, swimming, going, farting, eating, sleeping and a whole lot more stuff which reminds me of 4th grade again when my teacher was debating with the class whether "a lot" was one or two words and all of the kids including myself said one while the teacher said two and he was right and we were wrong but no one cared because we all had fun arguing about and I have fun arguing with my friends about football and not baseball because in baseball we all like the same team but in football I like the patriots and my friends like the chargers and the 49ers and the eagles and the saints but my team always woops their team's ass and they say that the patriots "cheat" and that's how they won even though the patriots just pwned their team and they suck and my team is good but we all agree when it comes to baseball because we all like the padres and we never really argue over anything in baseball which is my favorite sport and I play it and I am good a it and I want it to be my profession but I doubt that that will happen so my backup plan is being a cop because you get all of the benefits and you get paid after you retire which is good news and I would also like to be some government dude or something like that because they get the benefits too so it would be cool to work for the government which reminds me that my principal worked at the white house and taught the president email because he was the computer guy or something like that so h knows a whole bunch of computer crap like my dad and he is fat too so everyone makes fun of him and I think he huffs kittens too but I am not sure and about that and what the hell is up with all the noob and kitten huffing on this gay ass website like all of the things like "the writer may have been huffing kittens" and stuff like that it really annoys the hell out of me just like other things such as when people clip their finger nails it makes that weird noise that get me all crazy and I hate it just like how me friend hates the sound of chalk on a chalkboard which I find soothing and relaxing but he gets really annoyed and psyched out and he is also very pale-skinned and so is the rest of his family so it must have been some genetic thing like twins and clones and whole bunch of other confusing science crap that I learned a long time ago in 7th grade or something. Before I continue, I'd like to thank today's sponsor: RAID: Shadow Legends™. RAID: Shadow Legends™ is an immersive online experience with everything you'd expect from a brand new RPG title. It's got an amazing storyline, awesome 3D graphics, giant boss fights, PVP battles, and hundreds of never before seen champions to collect and customize. I never expected to get this level of performance out of a mobile game. Look how crazy the level of detail is on these champions! RAID: Shadow Legends™ is getting big real fast, so you should definitely get in early. Starting now will give you a huge head start. There's also an upcoming Special Launch Tournament with crazy prizes! And not to mention, this game is absolutely free! So go ahead and check out the video description to find out more about RAID: Shadow Legends™. There, you will find a link to the store page and a special code to unlock all sorts of goodies. Using the special code, you can get 50,000 Silver immediately, and a FREE Epic Level Champion as part of the new players program, courtesy of course of the RAID: Shadow Legends™ devs. which was when we watched movies in class like UHF which has "Weird Al" Yankovic in it and it is very funny because "Weird Al" Yankovic has to save a TV station with a whole bunch of weird shows like wheel of fish and rauls wild kingdom with a whole bunch of cool animals like flamingos and turtles and stuff like that but who cares lets get to the meaty part of this article which is the part where I write the longest word known to man which is Methionylthreonylthreonyl...isoleucine which is cut out because it has 189,819 words so Wikipedia had to cut out the middle part and the longest word is the name of a protein which is the largest known to man to so big names go to big things is apparently the moral of this story ladies and gentleman the road doesn't stop here and I have to continue no matter what you say or think so I should just write some story now that has no periods so lets start with a guy named Carl who liked fish and women and he went to Clara’s house and they had a good food but that isn't enough of a story to set the record so I think I’ll just stick to writing random crap which really makes no sense at all and here is some random picture that shows a guy who has two legs and another guy who has three who is mocking the guy with two legs because he rips his flesh in disgust every night and you think about who would be dumb enough to rip their flesh instead of cut the ring off or something that doesn't involve entirely gruesome crap like that and I have another life after this one just like how cats have 9 lives I have three because I’m on my second one right now and it is great and you might think I’m a whole new person but you are thinking wrong it's just when I died I came back t life and next time I die I’ll come back to life again and then when I die I’ll be dead for sure which reminds me of Stephen king's book called pet sematary which is coo because people come back to life because there was a burial ground that bring people back to life if they are dead and that book is a great book and you should read it along with the Harry Potter series which has magic in it and it is cool too so don't shank yourself when you are cutting that meat for dinner or you might die of massive blood loss or might just need a band aid I mean that works too or you don't even need a band aid because I don't use them and I have never gotten and infection in my life so maybe I’m lucky or have an alligator immune system or something but I don't use band aids and I don't use Neosporin on my cuts so I’m some sort of miracle I guess but I’m wasting twenty minutes of my miracle life on this retard article that I just want the Guinness book of world records to see and go that is the longest thing ever and have me in their book so I’m striving towards that goal right now and I’m not stopping until I hit at least 3000 words and then I’ll do the construction thing and finish thing up tomorrow or sometime after now and I will be the author of the longest single sentence on the planet earth which will be a real accomplishment on my part so you can be real jealous right now because I am making history right in front of you and if you are still reading this I am truly impressed because this article must be getting really boring by now and maybe your not even reading this just scanning the article for periods which I’m afraid you will not find until the very end of this article which is a very, very, long way away and if you are a slow reader well sucks for you but now I have to use that construction thing and I will finish this and now I am back after a hard day at work but I’m still going now so get ready to rumble with this long thing called a sentence that is as long as Mt. Everest is tall and the Marinas Trench is deep and speaking of the ocean fish of all kinds live in the ocean such as puffer fish which are poisonous to eat if not prepared right and will make you die after and you ADMINS BETTER NOT DELETE THIS BECAUSE IT IS SOME RECORD and if you do delete it well I will have this saved and what will you do then you people who will want to delete this because you don't care about people trying to break records so don't delete this or I will boycott Uncyclopedia and will be very mad at you guys like how I am Mad at Tim for being so annoying just like Celebrities and loud people and people who don't brush their teeth which makes me think of killing myself except I wouldn't do that because I am some sort of miracle as you probably read before or not because you are tired of reading this jumble of words that are still making a grammatically correct sentence that is breaking records right now and I won't stop until you let me break some serious records like longest sentence and some other weird stuff that I might get an award for or something but I also want that Guinness record plaque that you get for setting a monster record like most consecutive noses picked with boogers in them or something completely obscure like that which is like a bunch of the articles on this website which are actually some times funny like how to solve a one by one by one Rubik’s cube which made me laugh pretty good and the star wars one is good too so never delete those two because they are funny unlike this article because this article is more boring than funny but who cares some retard might laugh at this bundle of crap and I think that I will put that crap tag on this article so people know that this article isn't really funny but that it is long and boring like Dances with Wolves and some other long movies that you actually fall asleep during which is hard for me to do so I tend not to nut I did when I watched Dances with Wolves because it was really boring like counting sheep to a trillion or some other large number that some little kid says he wishes he had that many dollars but he will never get that many dollars because there isn't even that many in circulation right now and if there was that would be some major inflation right there so don't think you can get that much money kid because then you would not be doing this country a favor which it desperately needs I might add so instead burn money instead of make it and lower inflation rates and do everyone a favor except for the people who are already really rich and don't care about inflation and would rather drive an escalade instead of a Prius in times like this with all of the gas prices and stuff that would drive up your bill but they don't notice because they have a lot of money and don't care therefore they should die and burn in hell with all of the lawyers and other bad people on this ball we call earth that really isn't a perfect sphere because of the mountains and valleys makes it look all jagged but from space it looks like a sphere but looks may be deceiving so don't think that the world is a sphere no matter what other people say and tell them to eat themselves when they try to convince you that the earth is really a sphere but it isn't just like how most ignorant people think that Columbus found America but he really didn't that was Leif Erickson, but Columbus really found the Bahamas thinking they were penis outside of china and he was wrong so everyone forget Columbus and remember some other sailor like Henry Hudson who tried to find the northern passage but didn't so his crew killed him but a he was a great man any way so remember him instead of Columbus or remember William Penn who created Pennsylvania or remember your grandma or someone but not Columbus so go ahead and think that the earth is flat even though it isn't and it can have for corners if you think about it so go die and fall off a cliff or something interesting like that or at least get a life that want’ to penis e a cool record like the one I'm setting right now so go to a pawnshop and buy a life or kill yourself and get a new one or something weird like that or I will force you to and if you are still reading this you are an amazing human because I forget most of the stuff I’ve written already except for the great white shark thing at the beginning of the article and I remember that I need to go see some good movies tomorrow or sometime in the near future like within a week or something but forget that I'm only at 3500 words now so lets go to 4000 penis and then maybe I’ll call it quits because this is boring and I would rather write another article that is good and long but not all one sentence like this one so let's come up with some final five hundred words or so to say before I stop writing all of the nonsense so let's brainstorm ideas like poo, ducks, lemons, flanges, more ducks and star wars which sound about like enough and I like star wars out of there so let's talk about some penis star wars stuff like Kit Fisto who has weird tentacle things on his head and Ki-Adi-Mundi who has two brains and is on the Jedi which is penis honor and privilege because it is and Kit Fisto gets killed by Palpatine in the 3rd movie like Mace Windu who is cool and I like his light saber because it is purple unlike the standard blue and green colors which I prefer green out of but most people seem to like the blue colors but who cares about them they like blue and green is better so you better not like blue or you are some lame person that will be lame for the rest of your life like some people who think that they are cool but are really posers and they live their life not knowing that they are continually mocked and made fun of all of the time behind their backs and that they are really dumb or something so go out and tell all of the posers you know to not be posers anymore and tell them that they should go jump in a lake or something insulting like that and make them run and cry and you can laugh at them and hope they don't tell their mom who will be mad at you so maybe you shouldn't even do that you should just laugh at them behind their backs while they live the poser life and I'm near 4000 words now so let me slow down now yeah I have about a hundred words left so let me write down the exact amount before I stop writing so let me finish this thing up by talking about donuts and their fried goodness and how they make you fat and stuff but they do taste good so you should eat them because they are good and they taste good even though you could get fat but no one cares so eat them and be happy and I am starting to near 4000 now so just be a bit patient and this has been fun guys so let me finish right about, where you should wait for it, and wait, 'till right about, where we are almost there, having just two more for that you should wait, while this actually isn’t going to stop because I want this to keep going for a little while longer so that I can still break some record but man am I tired so I think I will actually shut up now, nope this has to continue forever and will continue for years and then a Bert killed the 3-legged guy and ate his orange while pooping and then I shall say the bird's name is "a bird who walked across the street killed a guy with a Minecraft nose and stuff. Jesus Christ is my lord and savior.You guys probably think that that is the worlds longest sentence, but it's not,because I just keep on adding commas, and it's pretty easy, if you think about it, so anyway there is this girl at school and she's my friend, and all but she's turning really mean, its a different person, and I'm trying to beat the record, but that girl, who likes this boy, who likes this girl, and who likes this other boy, and that same kid likes this other girl, but that girl like another guy, but the guy is actually a 40 year old man that eats penis for a living for the ability to never show the meerkats who's doing the write things oh and my last remark is that socialism does not work because look at Europe and Greece which is failing miserably; America always wins, there is no doubt about America's beauty, Amen and I just made it longer, and longer still as I continue to talk and talk and talk and talk throughout this, though I believe it would be referred to more as typing, so I will continue to type and type and type and type and type until I grow bored of it, and I have so I will take my leave soon, but not before I say that I somehow managed to make this already super long sentence longer, so HALLELUJAH, but we are not done yet everything I just said IS NOT RELEVANT to daily life, if you read this all you have no life, did u mention I like waffles and pancakes and people and gay marriage. This is a hell of a sentence peeps. Thank you Raid: Shadow Legends for sponsoring this post!

Hello, I recently had Keith O'Brien as a podcast guest discussing his The New York Times-bestselling biography of Pete Rose. Well worth a listen.
The book is called CHARLIE HUSTLE: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball.
​
SportsLit: SportsLit (Season 8, Episode 5) - Keith O'Brien (New York Times Best Selling Author) - Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball on Apple Podcasts

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I had five days off (including the weekend) for Easter and all my friends and my boyfriend already had plans, so I took myself on a hastily planned solo trip to France.

Section 1 - Biography

Age: 27
Occupation: Editor
Hometown: Big east coast city in the US
Number of PTO days: like 9 weeks lol? i get about 5 weeks of proper vacation and then accrue a ton of overtime which usually works out to about 4 additional weeks a year, which is lit tbh

Section 2 - Assets and debt

Retirement balance: Technically zero I guess? I pay into a pension currently but won’t gain access to it unless I do at least 10 years at my current workplace. I should be able to roll it over into another pension plan if I love though. Since I’m an American working in Europe, I don’t really have access to any tax advantaged savings accounts so I’m basically just putting all my money into my taxable brokerage and assuming I’ll eventually gain access to a pension. I have about $100k in my brokerage rn, which is honestly crazy. I just like didn’t spend any money for two years and managed to put $50k in it somehow??
Savings account balance: US account - $216.87 (At the moment I have $20k in I-bonds and $11k in T-bills, which account for my actual savings)
Checking account balance: US account - $7,258.94; EU account - €9,522.95
Credit card debt - I have two US-based credit cards but I pay any balances in full every month
Student loan debt - None

Section 3 - Income

Main job monthly take home: €3917
No side gigs currently (with my current job I’m actually not allowed to earn outside income which is wild, but public sector things I guess!)
I don’t get any money from anyone at the moment (outside of my birthday at least) and I don’t usually dip into savings for anything. I will however likely be taking a big pay cut this year to move to Paris (discussed in the travel diary below), so I’ll probably be earning like €2300 net a month, which is painful, but also I’m in great financial shape so if I need to dial back what I’m adding to savings for a while that’s fine

Section 4 - Travel expenses

Transportation:- €219.90 in train tickets (across 7 different trains) and €3.60 in bus tickets
I have the Carte Avantage Jeune for French trains which costs €50/year and gives discounts on most trains so that’s accounted for in the prices I paid
The tickets I bought before the trip started were:
- train to paris - €69
- paris-rouen - €14.80
- paris to home - €69
Accommodation: In total: €181.66
- Airbnb in Rouen (1 night) - €29.53
- Hostel in Caen (2 nights) - €61
- Hotel in Paris (1 night) - €91.13
Pre-vacation spending - outside of the above I think it’s just my ticket for the Rothko exhibit (€16)

Diary

Day 1

• 10am - I get to the train station (having packed my bag half an hour before) and stop by my go-to boulangerie for a cinnamon bun (technically it’s an escargot), brie sandwich and caramel buerre sable (€11.00). It turns out my train is delayed by 30 min :(
• 10:40 - Our delayed train finally leaves. Ii get a shockingly chatty neighbor (considering it’s Europe) an hour into the trip. She’s off to visit her son and they’re going to prague for easter. Also she’s a psychologist.
• 1pm - We arrive in Paris. I take my time since I have several hours to kill, so I wander. I spend so long trying to decide where to stop for a coffee. The 8th arrondissement is terrible for reasonably priced beverages.
• 3pm - I finally stop at a brasserie for a café allongé. While I’m alternately enjoying the sun/shirking the rain, I also order a chocolate mousse (yum) (€8.70).
• 4pm - Time for my job interview of sorts! I’m trying to move to Paris in the fall and this opportunity is the most interesting one to come up so far, even though the salary isn’t great. Since I was passing through Paris anyway, I agreed to come in person for this test. It’s actually a practical exercise that I have 75 min to do. I eat a proffered dark chocolate and get to work.
• 5:30pm - I finish the test and walk to the train station. I’m feeling pretty good about how it went! I find a babrasserie nearby and drink a glass of white wine and complementary peanuts (€6.50).
• 6:40pm - Time for the train to Rouen, on which i finally eat my sable from this morning.
• 8:30pm - I arrive at the airbnb. My phone has stopped working for some reason so t god the host comes out to get her pizzas that she ordered because I would have been stranded otherwise. We have a nice chat, as she’s very friendly and her apartment is charming and cosy. I’m jealous, as my current apartment is not those things. I refuse to think about how low her rent or mortgage must be here. Pain!
• 9pm - I walk 5 min and get pizza from the same place she did. Neopolitan and a jug of water (€8.90). As I’m eating it, I think, “perhaps I actually didn’t want anchovies?”, but too late to go back now.
• 9:45pm - I return and settle in with Barbara Pym (Less than Angels). Soon I’ll have finished her oeuvre and then what will I do??
• 11:30pm - bed time

Day total: €35.10
Day 2

• 9am - I wake up more or less, futz around the apartment for a while, drink some fruit tea, pack my bag so it’s ready for later and head out. I also realize my phone wasn’t working because i needed to top up the data so I do that (€20 but not really vacation spending and not counted in the total in the title as it’s a monthly bill)
• 10am - wander for a little bit, get cash from an ATM (€30 - not counted in total spend), go to the boulangerie/patisserie that the airbnb host recommended and have a café allongé and a raspberry croissant (€3.90).
• 11am ish - I walk over to the Musée de Beaux-Arts, which is free! You have to buy a ticket for the temporary exhibit, but I skip that. There are lots of nice impressionist works and a special exhibit of david hockney art for the normandy impressionism festival.
• 1pm - lunch! I order the menu formule for fun but have immediate regret when my appetizer comes out because i am an idiot and didn’t think through the implications of ordering a goat cheese and smoked salmon parfait. The taste is good but it’s way too rich for me and the texture is kind of disturbing. I eat it on bread, which is probably a faux pas but I persevere. I don’t finish it. My kir normand is delicious though. The eggplant lasagna is in line with my expectations and I follow up on the meal with an espresso (€22.50). I go to the bathroom afterwards and end up talking to yet more chatty french people!! I’m hitting hall of fame numbers here.
• 2:30pm - I walk over to the Saint-Ouen Abbey and feel a bit sick from the parfait 👍🏻 then head to another church/
• 3pm - I accidentally walk into active mass at the cathedral (church #3), having forgotten that today is Good Friday. The hymns are beautiful but I sneak out after a few min.
• 3:23 - I buy an apple at Carrefour (€0.84)
• 3:38 - I buy pajamas shorts with bugs bunny playing baseball (€25) from a boutique and then go to another cute store and try stuff on, none of which fits me. I also try on the pajama shorts (the changing room was blocked off at the other place) and they’re too small :( so I go back and trade for a medium, thankfully still with bugs bunny.
• 4pm - Then, I head to the place du vieux marché and visit yet another church, this one modern and stunning on the inside. On my way back to the airbnb, I stop at a drug store and find some fave lotion with spf 50 included, which i feel like I've been seeking for months (i guess the pharmacies near me hate me) (€15.90). When I get back to the apartment, I spend a few min charging my phone and buy my train ticket to Caen (€21.10).
• 5pm - On the train. I respond to the email informing me I’ve moved onto the next stage of the recruitment process after the test yesterday :-)
• 7pm - I check in at the hostel and chill a bit. They put a hold on my card for one night’s cost (not counted as it’s never actually taken out of my account, since I don’t trash the room) and charge me the city tax (€1.60). I chat with the other person in the room and she gives me some recommendations for the city including an Iranian restaurant that i decide to go to for dinner.
• 8:15 - I walk over to the restaurant. Kind of weird vibes as I walk the streets but maybe that’s just because it’s much less pedestrianized than Rouen? I will have to see it tomorrow in the daylight to make a real decision.
• 8:30 - The restaurant is cozy and the food is good. i get the vegetarian “assiette découverte”, which is a cold potato egg thing of which I was skeptical but which is quite nice plus moussaka, saffron rice and a little salad. I drink water (France is my ally because tap water is mandatory and free, as it should be!) and a cheap glass of red wine, generously poured. I have a pistachio pastry for dessert. A nice meal and I make knowing eye contact with another woman who is eating alone. The thrill of mutual recognition. I also finish my book. (€20)
• 9:15 - I stroll back to the hostel. There are more people out in the city now so it seems a bit livelier, but I’m still not convinced.
• 9:30 - I do my duolingo and my nyt games and go to sleep at around 11:15.

Day total: €110.84
Day 3

• 4am - Wake up for no reason. The joy of hostel life. Fall quickly back asleep
• 7:12am - Wake up well before my alarm and doze for a while.
• 7:55 - Think to check the train times to go to Bayeux and realize that there’s a gap of an hour and half between trains this morning (sncf!!!), which is a pain in the ass, so i rush to get ready and basically run to the station to make the 8:24 train. I leave my stuff unlocked in the room, so I hope no one steals it!
• 8:18 - I make it on the train and while sitting (before it leaves), I buy my ticket. €6 for a 15min train ride seems kinda steep but ok…
• 9am - I stop by a hipster cafe in Bayeux for a cappuccino and a cinnamon bun (€7.50).
• 9:15 - The big thing to do in Bayeux is see the Tapestry of Bayeux and its associated museum. Very interesting! (€12)
• 10:45 - I explore the town a bit. It’s quite charming imo. Also, my boss is from here or the greater town area, which is fun. On the way to the cathedral, I stop by a small art gallery that is free and has an exhibit of mostly work by art students. There’s one painting of the sea that I especially like.
• 11:20 - The cathedral is beautiful, of course. I’m particularly struck by the couple of “modern windows” that gleam from the outside.
• 11:50 - Train back to caen. It’s only €4.10 this time bc it’s a different train (??), so my discount card applies.
• 12:15 - I buy two bus tickets as I’m now finally going to the seaside at Ouistreham (€3.60).
• 1pm - Off the bus and I find a place where I can fulfill my one mission for this whole trip: oysters and a glass of white wine. I order 9 N°3 Normandy oysters. it comes with bread and a little salad and i enjoy every moment. (€23)
• 2pm - I see two kids eating ice cream and decide to follow their lead. I get a chocolate ice cream cone (€2.50). Then I spend an hour or so walking along the beach, reading the D-Day related plaques and looking at the ocean (really the English Channel but whatever). At one point, there are some people playing the bagpipes right near a monument to a Scottish piper who disembarked with the D-Day forces. I assume it’s a tribute and I find it quite moving.
• 3:20 - Bus back. I use the second ticket i bought in Caen.
• 4:05 - Back at the hostel and no one stole my stuff! I chill for a few min to charge my phone. I also make the tragic decision to skip the museum I wanted to go to tomorrow, which I think would have been very interesting, about WWII and the D-Day landings, because unfortunately the transit situation tomorrow is way messier than I thought it would be, so I’m gonna opt to take the train at 10am, so that I get back to Paris before night fall and also so I don’t have to pay ~€65. I book the tickets. (€35.90)
• 4:35 - I walk the streets of Caen! First I stop by a little community arts center type place and look t a free exhibit about the Orne river and its communities. I grab a free poster from it, since they’re being given away. Then, I visit some churches (ofc) and then walk around the whole castle complex in the middle of town, which is very cool except for the fact that it’s essentially a construction site on the inside ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ One of the churches I go into has gendarmes with big guns keeping watch at the door, which is not reassuring. Overall though I’m happy to correct my impressions from yesterday, as actually the city is very pleasant. I guess it’s just over by the hostel where it’s a bit weird. That being said T do still maintain that Caen is too car centric. So many parking lots and what feels like tons of traffic (outside of the pedestrianized center part).
• 6:45 - I finally settle on a place to stop and order a glass of red wine and a cheese board. Once again, I’m mistaken for German by the bartender, who is amazed that I am in fact American. Truly everyone thinks I’m German when I speak French. It’s quite odd. While I eat/drink, I start My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (€18.40).
• 7:45 - I stop at the grocery store and buy an apple and two bananas (€1.80)
• 8pm - Chaos move time!! I pass an oyster bar and head inside for 6 more oysters and a glass of white wine. I am unstoppable (€17).
• 8:30pm - “Home”. First thing’s first, taking a tums ;) Perhaps the second glass of wine was a mistake but it was really good so #NoRagrets and my stomach settles down basically immediately after I take them. I had intended to eat my apple tonight but now i’m not feeling it so I’ll have it tomorrow.
• 9:30 - A new girl comes into the hostel and is very eager to talk which is nice. She’s from china and is studying in Paris.
• 11:30 - Sleep!

Day total: €131.80
Day 4

• 8am - I’m awake but not ready to get up yet so i set the alarm for 8:30, although I turn it off before it rings. As I’m packing my stuff up to leave, I realize the clocks changed last night, which explains why I feel a bit off – I did not sleep for long enough! Mais ça va. There’s a giant ball of hair lying on the bathroom floor when i enter to brush my teeth, so that’s gross. Hostels 👍🏻
• 9am - I eat one of my bananas and then check out of the hostel. There’s a cute cafe that’s open just a few min away (and has almost the same name as my last name) so i head over there and order a long black and “ouef à la coque”, which i understand to be egg and toast. It turns out to be a soft boiled egg (my French egg vocab is not up to par), which i’m not mad about (€7.90).
• 10:10 - I make it to the train station and find a seat. The train is very crowded, no doubt due to the terrible schedule today.
• 12 noon - I arrive back in Rouen. I have 1.5 hours until my train to Paris, so I go in search of lunch. First, I eat the second banana, not out of any actual desire, but purely because it’s only getting more banged up the longer it stays in my bag. I see an osteria with outdoor tables and decide to eat there. I’ve been quite lucky with the weather as the sun is out again! I have a light lunch of rigatoni with tomato sauce and burrata (and just water to drink), during which I finish My Man Jeeves and start Transit by Anna Seghers. Afterwards, I order an espresso and then pay. Naturally, I managed to splatter tomato sauce on my shirt but life goes on (€15.90).
• 1pm - There’s time to get something at the patisserie next door (which has the same name as my first name! Big day for me and my names). I decide on a chocolate and vanilla tart and take it to go (€4.90). Then I take a looping walk back to the station and pass by La Tour de Jeanne d’Arc, which is apparently a donjon, a word I find hilarious.
• 1:30 - I settle in to my seat. The overhead rack doesn’t fit my backpack, so it seems fairly useless to me. So many trains have terrible overhead racks and I don’t understand why. I’ve also had terrible luck with getting seats facing the direction of travel. Woe is me etc. The woman next to me smells like old people, which I know is probably not very “politically correct” to say but is nevertheless the truth. At a certain point, I realize there are free seats facing the direction of travel so I move and take one fro the rest of the journey.
• 3:30 - I arrive at Gare Saint-Lazare and get on the metro to go to the hotel. My boyfriend lent me his Navigo card and it still has 5 rides on it, so I don’t pay anything for the metro.
• 4:30 - After waiting in the metro station for several minutes due to a sudden and torrential downpour, with thunder and lightning and the whole shebang, I get to the hotel and check in. It’s apparently 4 stars, which I did not remember at all lol. The concierge is visibly taken aback by the price for the room and says as much. I found a good deal (for a nice hotel in Paris) and I’m not complaining! He process the payment and gives me the key (€91.13).
• 5pm - I chill for awhile to wait out the rain and so call my dad and chat with him for a while. we discuss the fact that bitchiness does not need to be grounded in truth.
• 5:45pm - I walk the streets, first up rue mouffetard, where i stop to buy a Lebanese (I think) cheese pie (€1), then over to the Jardin des Plantes — the roses aren’t in bloom yet but there are many beautiful flowers all over — and then across the Seine and into the Marais.
• 7:20pm - I pick a bar with a free table outside and order a glass of sparkling wine (not champagne). The waiter forgets about it, so I get it very late which is fine, I’m not in a hurry. It is however pretty typical Parisian service. Cancel me if you must. While i’m sitting, I give €1 to a homeless guy. There’s a very gregarious man next to me and I can’t help overhear his enthusiastic exchanges with his conversational partner. I read more of Transit (€5.90).
• 8:10 - Heading back to rue mouffetard for some cheap eats for dinner. It has turned into a beautiful blue-skied evening, so I walk back instead of taking the metro. While walking, I reflect on the fact that French women all have great coats and that everywhere I go in Paris, I hear American accents. I pay €5 for a crepe with potatoes, an egg, and emmental and I eat it in the street (no bev sadly). I should definitely eat a vegetable tomorrow, but whatever I’m on vacation!! i eat my apple from yesterday to conclude.
• 9pm - Back at the hotel and time to wind down for the evening. I call my mom and then take an overdue shower. Like almost every hotel in Europe, the shower design is terrible and I get water all over the floor. Alas. I carry out my duolingo and nyt games tasks before reading for a bit and trying to sleep by 11.

Day total: €132.73
Day 5

• 7am - Tragically my alarm goes off. I wish I had arranged thing so that I could have slept in a bit today to fully take advantage of the nice hotel room, but it is not to be. I do however make the calculation that i can snooze until 7:30, which I do.
• 8am - After i pack up my stuff and check out, I go to a boulangerie around the corner for a quick breakfast. I get a café allongé, a croissant, and a little beignet thing (€3.40).
• 9:15 - I take the metro (no charge again thanks to the bf’s card) to the Louis Vuitton Foundation and have to wait in line for a few minutes, as my ticket is for 9:30 (I paid €16 for it last week). The Rothkos are amazing, but the museum is pretty crowded (the exhibit closes tomorrow). I also spend a good amount of time marveling over how rich people dress their children and eavesdropping on kids make remarks about the art (adorable). My goal in situations such as these is usually to follow the flow of the crowd such that i can seize any openings to actually look at the art properly. I also regret the modern tendency to feel the need to photograph every piece of art. Your photos are gonna suck and you’re in the way of people who are actually trying to look at them with their eyes. I understand this makes me sound like a bitch but c’est la vie. This is no nearly as bad as the big Rembrandt exhibit I went to in Amsterdam last year; there, people were deranged with the photo taking and it was even more crowded, so all things considered, this exhibit is pretty well managed.
• 1pm - I’m more or less finished at the museum, so I walk to the metro and take it back into the city proper. I got off at the arts et metiers stop and decide to get falafel for lunch. I order a lunch deal that includes the sandwich, a mint tea, and baklava (€10.50). The guy at the falafel shop is the first person on this trip to correctly guess my nationality. A prize for him!
• 2:45 - I wander for a bit after eating but honestly my bag is pretty heavy, so I’m not that motivated to take full advantage of my remaining afternoon in Paris. I’m not far from a bar that i went to with a friend last June that was nice, so I walk over there and order a virgin spritz (€6).
• 3:30 - I do a little window shopping and browsing at thrift stores but don’t buy anything. I think about buying a Burberry trench for €125 but don’t in the end (something I kind of regret). At one point, it starts raining and I duck into a bag store, where I have a fun conversation with the woman working. Afterwards, I walk up towards the train station and sit in a park for a few min.
• 5:45pm - Early dinner at an Indian restaurant to avoid eating a sandwich on the train. I get a naan platter which is two pieces of naan and a sampler of four different vegetarian curries. It’s nice but I kind of regret not getting the butter paneer because i was scared of being basic. I don’t think the woman running the place would have judged me (€9.50).
• 6:30pm - I just head to the train station an hour early as i need to charge my phone and don’t really have time to complete any other activities. I chill until the track gets announced and then board the train. Good bye France!

Day total: €29.40

Trip Totals

Transport: €223.50
Accommodation: €181.66
Food + Drink: €222.54
Fun / Entertainment: €28
Shopping: €25
Other: €16.90
GRAND TOTAL: €697.60

Reflection

This is pretty typical for the kinds of solo trips I do! Five days is about perfect to for me to be on my own without getting sick of my own company. I did a longer solo trip last year in Italy that was a lot of fun but very exhausting and there I made more of an effort to make friends with people in the hostels and that kind of thing (and I finished that trip by visiting a friend after 8-9 days on my own). This trip was short enough that I could sustain myself on the casual interactions that I had with strangers, and I had plenty of those! I really like France, so I always have a good time when I go and i had never been to Normandy before. It's beautiful, but I need to go back with a car because there were plenty of places I wanted to visit but couldn't because of the transportation options. I don't usually track my expenses in such detail, so it was interesting adding up the totals to see how much I actually spent.

Yula, The Elated Catastrophe

Possessing an array of spells as excessive as they are effective, Yula was one of the best enchantresses the Bandle City Mecha-Arena) competitions had to offer. Teams that sought her aid were propelled to victory after victory, lining her pockets with cuts of their winnings each time. But despite the constant mayhem and destruction surrounding her, Yula seemed to always yearn for something more that her peers could never understand. One night, Yula "borrowed" her most recent employers' munitions, and aided by her most powerful spells created an explosion so strong it tore through reality itself. The Yorldles that rushed to the scene witnessed a fractured pillar of light in the remains of what once was a sacred Bandle Tree, and Yula nowhere to be found. Nobody has properly seen Yula again, but rumors of a yordle dressed in clattering trinkets and tattered robes yielding unfathomable power and a clamoring laugh has since spread across greater Valoran. She appeared during catastrophic events and culminating conflicts only to heighten the caliber of their impact, seeming to have no motivation other than her own amusement. The legends of Yula now speak of a dangerous and unpredictable being that you'd best avoid meeting, or much worse, inspiring.
In game, Yula is a catcher skirmisher hybrid that belongs in the Jungle and Mid lane. Her enchantments turn ordinary objects into dangerous artifacts of destruction, while her salvaging hook and dimension weaving expertise allow her to displace opponents from the safety of their team. Yula's various weapons allow her to duel opponents at a myriad of ranges, and if inspiration happens to strike her unhinged mind, the resulting storm of violent excitement will tear down even the most resilient of foes.
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Ability Summary (TL;DR)

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Passive - Flimsy Verity
Yula's basic attacks apply a stack of Reality Wobble up to 5 times. While at maximum stacks, targets take bonus damage from all sources and grant Yula movement speed while she is near them.
Additionally, Exorbitant Thwack and Finder's Keepers gain bonus effects against targets with maximum stacks and consume all stacks.
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Q - Something New!
Yula blinks to a location and grabs a new weapon depending on how far she blinked. She then gains attack speed for a duration.
Short Blink: Yula retrieves a small weapon with short range. She gains even more attack speed while this weapon is equipped.
Average Blink: Yula retrieves an average weapon with medium range. Her attacks reduce Something New's cooldown while equipped.
Long Blink: Yula retrieves a large weapon with long range. Her attacks slow enemies, increasing based on their Reality Wobble stacks.
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W - Exorbitant Thwack
Yula's next basic attack deals bonus damage and applies maximum stacks of Reality Wobble.
Reality Wobble Bonus: Yula instead vanishes her target and can recast after a delay to bring them back at a location near her.
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E - Finders Keepers
Yula throws out her salvaging hook, tethering the first enemy hit and dealing damage before reeling them in over a duration. If the tether holds, she snaps it, pulling her target to the edge of her attack range and dealing damage.
Reality Wobble Bonus: Yula will snap the tether early if she exits the tether range. The snap also deals bonus damage scaling with the distance her target is pulled.
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R - Inspiration Anew
Yula gains bonus movement speed and empowers her current weapon for a duration. Her empowered weapon's effect gains a significant buff that persists even if she swaps weapons.
if Yula scores a takedown during Inspiration Anew, she ends the ability early but permanently improves her empowered weapon's effect.
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Abilities and Stats

(Spoiler Tags are ability details that explain/clarify things you might be curious about. I put them under spoilers so there's less clutter and text in the post.)
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Base Stats

Above average core stats for a skirmisher, including health, armor, and mana. Stats scale pretty averagely into the late game and are average by level 18. High early game attack damage and mana. Attack ranges vary, but are generally above average for a melee skirmisher.

Health: 690 - 2256	Mana: 310 - 1050
Health Regen: 7.78 - 21	Mana Regen: 9.8 – 14.2
Armor: 34 - 115	Attack Damage: 54 - 109.8
Magic Resist: 32 – 66.85	Crit Damage: 175%
Move. speed: 350	Attack Range: 115 / 250 / 375
Base AS: 0.679	Attack Windup: 24.75%
AS Ratio: N/A	Bonus AS: 0 - 45%

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Passive - Flimsy Verity

INNATE: Yula's basic attacks on-hit apply a stack of Reality Wobble for 5 seconds, refreshing on subsequent hits and stacking up to 5 times. Stacks expire one by one every 0.25 seconds when the duration ends.
While at 5 stacks, targets take bonus damage from all sources and grant Yula bonus movement speed while she is near them.
Additionally, Exorbitant Thwack and Finders Keepers gain bonus effects against enemies with 5 Reality Wobble stacks, consuming them all.
VISUALS: Targets are encircled by faint strands of light and emit a distorting kaleidoscopic glow. Upon reaching 5 stacks, the lines straighten into cracks in reality emitting from the target, and they are surrounded by a faint aura of golden strands.

Effect Radius: 550	Bonus Damage: 10 - 15% (based on level)	Bonus Movement Speed: 40 - 80%

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Q - Something New!

ACTIVE: Yula briefly enters her pocket dimension, blinking to the target location. During the journey, she retrieves a weapon with differing properties depending on how far she traveled. She then gains bonus attack speed for 4 seconds.
Short Blink: Yula retrieves a small weapon with 115 attack range. While wielding this weapon, Yula gains bonus attack speed.
Average Blink Yula retrieves an average weapon with 250 attack range. While wielding this weapon, Yula's attacks reduce Something New!'s cooldown.
Long Blink: Yula retrieves a large weapon with 375 attack range. While wielding this weapon, Yula's attacks applys a decaying slow to enemies for 1 second that increases in strength based on the target's current Reality Wobble stacks.
VISUALS: Yula summons a portal in the direction of her blink and at her destination. She then jumps into it as she tosses her current weapon over her shoulder, where it falls to the ground and disappears after 2 seconds.
Yula randomly assembles a different everyday object when she uses Something New!. Each range threshold selects from a different pool.
- Small: Egg Whisk, Spatula, Hairbrush, Handheld Mirror, Ruler, Candle, Screwdriver
- Average: Hammer, Wrench, Violin Bow, Bottle, Magnifying Glass, Crowbar
- Large: Fishing Pole, Umbrella, Wooden Plank, Shovel, Actual sword (5% chance)
Yula starts the game with a small weapon

Bonus Attack Speed: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80%	Short Dash Target Range: 75 - 200	Medium Dash Target Range: 200 - 400
Long Dash Target Range: 400 - 600	Small Weapon Bonus Attack Speed: 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110%	Average Weapon Cooldown Refund: 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5
Large Weapon Slow per Stack: 3 / 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5%	Long Weapon Maximum Slow: 25 / 27.5 / 30 / 32.5 / 35%	Recharge: 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10
Cost: 50 Mana	Cast Time: 0.15

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W - Exorbitant Thwack

ACTIVE: Yula readies a destabilizing blow, empowering her next basic attack within 4 seconds to deal bonus magic damage and apply 5 stacks of Reality Wobble.
REALITY WOBBLE BONUS: Yula instead knocks her target into her pocket dimension, vanishing them. She can then recast this ability in the next 1.5 seconds, and will do so automatically after the duration.
VISUALS: Yula shifts to a two-handed grip on her weapon and causes it to spark with magical energy. Her empowered swing looks like a baseball bat swing. Against targets with 5 stacks, a portal appears behind them to send them into Realm's End.
The empowered attack deals damage before putting the target into stasis.
Exorbitant Thwack resets Yula's auto attack timer.

Bonus Damage: 90 / 105 / 120 / 135 / 150% AD (+60% AP)	Cooldown: 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 / 11	Cast Time: None
Cost: 65 Mana

RECAST: Yula returns her target from the pocket dimension at a location near herself and stunning them for 0.25 seconds.
VISUALS: Yula snaps her fingers, summoning a portal at the target location. Her target is unceremoniously dumped out of it.

Target Range: 150% of Yula's Current Attack Range	Cast Time: 0.25
Cost: None

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E - Finders Keepers

ACTIVE: Yula throws out her salvaging hook, dealing physical damage to and tethering the first enemy hit. She then pulls them in kinematically towards her every 0.25 seconds for 1.5 seconds.
If the tether is not broken by the end of the duration, Yula snaps the rope, pulling her target to her maximum attack range and dealing physical damage.
REALITY WOBBLE BONUS: Yula immediately snaps the rope if she exits the tether range before the duration. Additionally, the snap deals bonus magic damage, increased by 0 - 100% (based on distance target is pulled).
VISUALS: Yula has two distinct animations depending on if her current weapon is small or average/large. If her weapon is small, she simply grabs the hook from her belt with her left hand and tosses it out underhand. If her weapon is average or large, she spins around as she attaches the hook to the end of her weapon before flinging it out like a fishing line. She then reels in her target with her left hand clutching the rope. Her final tug is accompanied by a burst of enchanted sparkles.
For some reason, there's still no publicly available measurement for kinematic displacements so I can really only provide relatives. The pull strength of Finders Keepers is slightly stronger than Asol's E pull, so you can still walk out of it but it would be similar to being slowed by ~40%.

Damage: 125 / 135 / 145 / 155 / 165 (+35% bAD)	Snap Damage: 130 / 150 / 170 / 190 / 210 (+95% bAD)	Minimum Empowered Snap Bonus Damage: 150 / 165 / 180 / 195 / 110 (+15% bAD) (+70% AP)
Maximum Empowered Snap Damage: 300 / 330 / 360 / 390 / 420 (+30% bAD) (+140% AP)	Cooldown: 10 / 9.5 / 9 / 8.5 / 8	Target Range: 150% of Yula's Current Attack Range
Tether Range: 1100	Width: 180	Maximum Pull Distance: 400
Cost: 60 / 50 / 40 / 30 / 20 Mana	Cast Time: 0.35	Missile Speed: 1900

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R - Inspiration Anew

ACTIVE: Yula becomes struck with inspiration, perfecting her current weapon with a barrage of enchantments over the cast time. She then gains bonus movement speed and gains an additional 200% of her perfected weapon's effect. This bonus persists at 50% effectiveness across weapon swaps.
If Yula scores a takedown during this time, she ends Inspiration Anew after 0.5 seconds but permanently improves her perfected weapon's effect.
VISUALS: Yula throws her weapon upwards, where it spins loftily over the cast time as she jumps up slightly and bombards her weapon with a bunch of enchanted glyphs and magical spells. The weapon then emits a final burst of light before she catches it and returns to the ground. During TBD, Yula's weapon continues to glow and emit floating light glyphs.

Duration: 10 / 15 / 20	Bonus Attack Speed Increase: 10 / 12.5 / 15%	Increased Cooldown Reduction: 0.25 / 0.5 / 0.75
Slow Increase per stack: 2 / 2.25 / 2.5%	Bonus Movement Speed: 20 / 30 / 40%	Cooldown: 130 / 100 / 70
Cost: 100 Mana	Cast Time: 0.75

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Biography

Tales from Bandle City speak of a dangerous, unpredictable realm that lay outside of the very edges of reality. A frightening destination for most, described as a maze of endless tunnels inhabited by inscrutable entities and governed by incomprehensible rules of nature, these stories were often used to scare Yordle children out of staying away from home too late at night.
But for the young Yula, stories of Realm's End would only feed her uncanny appetite for excitement. Even before she knew of this strange realm, Yula often abandoned her friends to seek out strange magical attunements and fantastical beasts, and her knowledge of Realm's End only added fuel to the flame. In a last ditch effort to dissuade her from chasing the dangerous and fantastical goal of finding this mythical land, her parents urged her to towards Bandle City's new mech fighting rings that were surging in popularity over the past decade. The sport was still in its infant stages, and rules were often dictated by the roaring approval of the crowd. So when Yula offered her enchantments to up and coming teams looking to make it big in the pits, their machines would effortlessly become spectacular monsters of destruction that propelled her employers and herself into the limelight.
But even as the dominating competitor among her peers, the fame and fortune Yula received was tempered by the fighting ring's restrictions. If her magic was too too powerful, audiences quickly made their disapproval clear, and she was forced to compromise on the excitement of crafting more lavish enchantments. The rings of the mech arenas that seemed at first to be a playground of violent excitement were now walls that held back a bored and disgruntled Yula.
Yula sought to rekindle her excitement for the sport, offering outlandish proposals to peers and organizers about allowing the use of magic that tapped into Realm's End for an unparalleled factor of unpredictability. Although she was met with empathy to her plight, her ideas were cast aside as dangerous and reckless. Yula's idea of excitement seemed to resonate with none other than herself, and in her plodding frustration she turned back towards her long awaited goal of reaching Realm's End.
One night, a mechanic for Yula's most recent job opened his team's garage to find their munitions crates empty. Yula had stolen the explosives and planted them near a Bandle Tree on the outskirts of the city wrapping the payload in runic seals and volatile enchantments. In a rush of excitement larger than any she'd felt her entire life, she activated the spell. A towering pillar of light, pierced through the sky and splintered off into countless cracks of light. The explosion ripped apart of the sacred bandlewood, melding its various portals into a kaleidoscopic monstrosity that tore through Realms until it arrived at the very outskirts of reality itself. Cackling with joy, Yula lept through the towering portal, leaving the bandlewood to disintegrate in the incomprehensible wake of her magic.
Finding herself in a strange realm that eclipsed even the village elders' most exaggerated descriptions, Yula wandered the twisting halls of Realm's End in rapture. Endless tunnels and portals all led to the same messy rooms, heaped with strange trinkets and scrolls written in indecipherable text. Strange entities that spoke in frazzled, discombobulated nonsense were the only denizens Yula encountered. She worked tirelessly to unearth the unknown rules of her new home, but to her delight she could never quite describe the rules that governed the strange reality.
Her research would still eventually bear fruit, as Yula learned to harness the power of Realm's End itself, plucking at the fragile boundaries to the material plane and enchanting harmless objects into unpredictable catastrophes of destruction. Yula was enamored by the prospect of being able to share her findings with the rest of Runeterra, and she decided she would do so in the ways she had learned in Bandle City's mech fighting pits: With violent, reckless spectacle.
Dressed in tattered robes inscribed with her most useful enchantments and carrying bands filled with clattering oddities, Yula followed wherever interest happened upon mortal endeavors. Whether it was the Spirit Blossom festivities or a bloody Noxian battle, Yula emerged from thin air to bring catastrophic excitement to her surroundings, seeking nothing but to satisfy her own unfathomable cravings. Her rampages followed no rhyme or reason, and after numerous masterminds and manipulators failed to control her, she was revered akin to a natural disaster beyond mortal comprehension. The enthusiasm of the enchantress that razed a simple fighting pit now eclipsed all of Runeterra, bringing a newfound calamity that would soon even catch the attention of the celestials themselves.

Click here to see the introductory post about this series.
Click here to see previous entries in this series.
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Claimed National Champions
Princeton (6-0) National Championship Foundation, Billingsley Report, Parke H. Davis
^{Bold indicates main national championship selector recognized by NCAA Championship List
\}The Billingsley Report initially awarded Yale the national championship for this year, however, they have changed their formula three times since. The Billingsley Report currently awards the championship to Princeton.)
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Notable Events

• The Johns Hopkins University Press and The Yale News are established
• The world's First Telephone Exchange begins operations in New Haven, CT
• Mississippi St is established
• Joseph Stalin, Boxer Jack Johnson, and CFB Hall of Famers Gil Dobie, Truxton Hare, Willie Heston, and Andrew Kerr are born

Rules

• The Ball: Egg-shaped, rubber covered Rugby ball.
• The field is 140 yds. by 70 yds., uprights 18 1/2' apart, crossbar 10' high uprights
• Goals are scored when a player kicks a ball through the uprights. They can be scored during play or after a touchdown is scored. A goal can also be scored if a team scores four touchdowns.
• *Each team consists of 15 players
• Holding and carrying the ball is finally permitted
• The game's regulation is separated into two halves, both 45 minutes. If the game is tied at the end of regulation, the next scored point wins the game.

^{Italics denote rule change from previous season.
\}Yale played by all of the IFA rules, except for the player rule. Yale wanted to play the game with 11 players on the field.)
Rule Changes
Yale's still playing with 11 players, other than that, no other rule changes.
The Teams
Of the 10 teams available in the matchup tool, only five qualified and are listed by their seeding in the bracket.

1. Princeton (6-0) Coach - MAYBE Woodrow Wilson
2. Yale (4-1) Coach - None
3. Stevens (1-1-2) Coach - None
4. Columbia (0-0-2) Coach - None

Season Breakdown by Zach Bigalke
Harvard has its first losing season, Yale and Princeton both allow only one point all season, and Princeton becomes the lone team with a perfect season. The most important thing that happened this year is that home crowds are finally costing money. Parke H. Davis alleges that the Princeton-Yale game had somewhere around 4,000 attendees that game, and the cost of the field rental in Hoboken, NJ at the time was $300. He also alleges at the time, it caused tons of controversy within the press at the time with most of the controversy being called a "gross extravagance and a feature of football not to be repeated if the game was to live." Well, I think they're just slightly off on their prediction.
Anyway, you saw who the coach was for this team right? Yeah, that Woodrow Wilson, the future president. Well… Kind of the truth is weird. If you look at the official list of Princeton head coaches, There is exactly one source that this claim comes from and it's the Spalding Official College Guide from 1934. However, according to Woodrow Wilson's biography from A. Scott Berg (which is a book I can't access so I am going on Wikipedia and what I can find online), he was only the secretary for the school's football association. However, that same biographer does claim that he would go and coach Wesleyan's team, but once again, the Wesleyan Cardinals website doesn't mention this at all. He isn't mentioned at all in any official capacity by any of the teams he's associated with.
The main source of this info comes from the blog/website called Football Archeology. Woodrow Wilson transferred to Princeton in 1877 around the time their game with Harvard took place. When the next season came around he was elected to the school's student-run "football board" where he helped coach the team. Why? Well despite agreeing to the rules two years ago, he was the "only one at Princeton that understood rugby." THE ONLY ONE! The same thing more or less happened at Wesleyan when joined the faculty there in 1888. He would be one of three presidents who would coach at the college level and the only one who would be a head coach.
Player of Interest
Ballard, Dodge, and McNair are all still with the Princeton team during this time, with Ballard still Captain of the team. Yale finally has their star back, Walter Camp as their captain. They also have a few new students to join the team as well during this time. Walter. I Badger is a man born in Boston and died in Cambridge, but somehow is with Yale as one of its first QBs as well as the baseball captain. He would later become a prominent Boston lawyer. Louis K. Hull is a rusheforward for the Bulldogs and is also captain of the rowing team. He would become a lawyer and businessman, and when he died in 1931, he was accredited with having more earned letters than any other Yale student.

Playoffs

Final Four
No. 4 Columbia @ No. 1 Princeton - Columbia is trying to score, and trying to win their first game of the season in the playoff. By the grace that they tied each of their games that they're here, but getting into this tournament on a technicality is showing how much they are as pretenders. Princeton scores two goals from the field, and two more from three touchdowns. Princeton wins 4-0 and goes back to the Championship game for the first time in three years!
No. 3. Stevens @ No. 2 Yale - Yale goes on ahead and steamrolls Stevens much like Princeton did to Columbia. It is Even less of a contest than the other Final Four game. Yale went ahead and scored all four points within 30 minutes of the first half, and then just hogged the ball until time ran out. No contest. Yale wins 4-0 to face Princeton in the Championship!

The Championship Game at the Union Grounds, Brooklyn, NY

The last time the Championship game was at these grounds, Princeton and Yale had played each other with Princeton coming on top. The last time these two teams had met each other in the big game was four years ago in the Capitoline Grounds. But the game they are playing today is far from the kicking game they played here last. However, the last game was a defensive battle that led to a Princeton 1-0 win. Walter Camp fields the kickoff and runs upfield. A few tackles, and, a pitch later, Yale scores the first touchdown and makes the kick. It's evident the game won't be the same defensive battle from the first game. Princeton immediately responds and when the end of regulation ends, the game is tied at 3 with Yale scoring four touchdowns and converting two kicks, and Princeton scoring three touchdowns and three kicks. All Princeton needs is one touchdown to win. Princeton's McNair has been covered almost all game and hasn't been able to make any progress when the ball is in his hands. However, he manages to force a Walter Camp fumble and picks up the ball. He breaks a tackle from Yale's halfbacks, and fullbacks, and is left with a wide open field and scores Princeton's fourth TD of the game, giving them the final point to win 4-3. Princeton wins its fifth Championship, their first in five seasons!
Championship
Princeton (6-0) Won against Yale 4-3
Runner-Up:
Yale (4-1) Lost vs Princeton 4-3
Final Four Finishes:
Columbia (0-0-2) Lost @ Princeton 4-0
Stevens (1-1-2) Lost @ Yale 4-0
Other Notes:
I am well aware, that I said the original premise of this is project was to see what a 24-team playoff would look like, and how it would play out in all these seasons. I am also well aware that we can only see a four-team bracket with the same teams so many times. Of the brackets we have left, this is probably the MOST boring. The problem is that the 1870s just don't have enough teams to fill out a bracket. I will go on ahead and say how many teams are actually in the next few tournaments with a spoiler. I won't say which teams will be in them, just how many.
1879 - 5 teams
1880 - 7 teams
1881 - 7 teams
1882 - 7 teams
1883 - 5 teams
1884 - 5 teams
1885 - 10 teams
1886 - 15 teams
1887 - 17 teams
1888 - 16 teams
1889 - 14 teams
And Finally 1890 will feature our first 24 team playoff
That being said I really do appreciate everyone following this series so far. Someone mentioned how this is a project of love, and it truly is. So thank you again, and I hope all y'all stick around to the end of the season.
Sources:
^{NCAA Championship List
1869 to 1890: How American Football Became (The Game You Love Today - College Football History by Corn Nation})
^{Retro Seasons For Stadium Reference
This post that summarizes all changes to football rules over the years
Intercollegiate Football Association - Wikipedia
Football: The American Intercollegiate Game - Parke H. Davis
1878 college football season - Wikipedia
An irreverent look back at the 1878 college football season - Zach Bigalke
Princeton All Time Football Coaches
Spalding's Official Intercollegiate Foot Ball Guide 1934: Parke H. Davis National Champions
Wesleyan CT Cardinals All-Time Football Coaching Records
W. Earl Dodge - Wikipedia
Ted McNair - Wikipedia
Walter Camp - Wikipedia
Walter Irving Badger - Wikipedia
Louis K. Hull - Wikipedia
Louis K. Hull Funeral is Set For Wednesday - Nov 23, 1931 - The Minneapolis Star
Three College Football Coaches Who Became U.S. Presidents - Football Archaeology
Sources for Ratings:
Massey Ratings for Rankings and Games
Dolphin Rankings for Rankings
The Entropy System for Rankings
Loudsound.org for Rankings
plfeming Ratings for Rankings
Sorenson Rankings for Rankings}

FRIDAY

• Durham Bulls FanFest, Durham Bulls Athletic Park, Durham
• NCFC vs. Hartford Athletic, WakeMed Soccer Park, Cary
• Avenged Sevenfold, PNC Arena, Raleigh
• Dogwood Comedy Festival, ComedyWorx, Raleigh
• Pop-Up Birds of Prey Tour, Piedmont Wildlife Center, Durham
• Flamenco Vivo’s Tablao Flamenco, Motorco Music Hall, Durham
• Film Screening: "Pandora’s Box", The Carolina Theatre of Durham, Durham
• Special Event: Donnell Rawlings, Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh
• Room 861 at Goodnights: Chip Chantry, Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh
• Steve Byrne, Raleigh Improv, Cary
• Duke Baseball vs Virginia, Jack Coombs Field, Durham
• North Carolina State University vs. Notre Dame Baseball, Doak Field (North Carolina State University), Raleigh
• Raleigh Little Theatre presents: Trouble In Mind, Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre, Raleigh
• Dino Egg Hunt, Museum of Life + Science, Durham
• Renowned Author of Pauli Murray biography to speak at Books Among Friends, Books Among Friends, Durham
• Fondue & Raclette 3/29 with Meat & Graze, Boxyard RTP, Durham
• Shamu Garcon--Friday Night Dance Party, Succotash Southern & Creole Kitchen, Durham
• Last Fridays & the Art Walk!, Downtown Hillsborough, Hillsborough
• Dinos Alive: An Immersive Experience, Pleasant Valley Promenade, Raleigh
• Friday Night Makes at the Durham Arts Council, Durham Arts Council, Durham
• Deep 6 (Pearl Jam), The Pour House Music Hall & Record Shop, Raleigh
• Emo Nite, The Ritz, Raleigh
• Julian Lage: Speak to Me Tour, Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh
• Opening Reception: 16th Annual Small Treasures Art Exhibition, Cary Gallery of Artists, Cary

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SATURDAY

• CINCH World's Toughest Rodeo, PNC Arena, Raleigh
• Joe Satriani & Steve Vai, DPAC, Durham
• Ali Siddiq: I Got A Story To Tell, Meymandi Concert Hall at Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh
• NC Courage vs. Gotham FC, WakeMed Soccer Park, Cary
• Flamenco Vivo’s Tablao Flamenco, Motorco Music Hall, Durham
• Duke Lemur Center Museum Open House, Duke Lemur Center Museum, Durham
• Photos with the Easter Bunny, Downtown Cary Park, Cary
• Easter Bunny Visits, Videri Chocolate Factory, Raleigh
• Dogwood Comedy Festival, ComedyWorx, Raleigh
• Easter Festival, McLean Farms Nursery & Ice Cream Shop, Fuquay-Varina
• Brälle, The Fruit, Durham
• Waverly Place: Pups, Pints & Play, Wade Park Cafe, Cary
• Room 861 at Goodnights: Chip Chantry, Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh
• Special Event: Donnell Rawlings, Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh
• Steve Byrne, Raleigh Improv, Cary
• RnB Only Live, The Ritz, Raleigh
• Drag Brunch, Fox Liquor Bar, Raleigh
• Dinos Alive: An Immersive Experience, Pleasant Valley Promenade, Raleigh
• Dino Egg Hunt, Museum of Life + Science, Durham
• Film Screening: "Pandora’s Box", The Carolina Theatre of Durham, Durham
• Spring Egg Hunt at Duke Homestead, Duke Homestead State Historic Site, Durham
• The African American Legacy in Gardening and Horticulture, Duke Gardens + Hayti Heritage Center, Durham
• Barkin' Bunnies Pop-Up Market, Truss Veterinarian Hospital, Durham
• The JZM Brazilian Jazz Trio, Succotash Southern & Creole Kitchen, Durham
• Harmony & Healing Concert, Baldwin Auditorium, Durham
• No One Mind / RIBS, The Pinhook, Durham
• Laugh Out Loud: Black And Proud, Mettlesome, Durham
• Pat Metheny — Dream Box Tour, The Carolina Theatre, Durham
• Carrboro Flashlight Egg Hunt, Wilson Park, Carrboro
• Egg-ceptional Egg Hunt, Oakwood Park, Chapel Hill
• Marshall Crenshaw, Cat's Cradle, Carrboro
• Over the Wire, Local 506, Chapel Hill
• The Last Draft Comedy Showcase, ArtsCenter, Carrboro
• UNC Softball vs. Notre Dame, Anderson Softball Stadium, Chapel Hill
• UNC Men's Lacrosse vs. Army, Dorrance Field, Chapel Hill
• Duke Baseball vs Virginia, Jack Coombs Field, Durham
• Idlewild South & Bring Out Yer Dead, Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh
• Liz Hopkins: Growing Brighter Ep Release Show, The Pour House Music Hall & Record Shop, Raleigh
• North Carolina State University vs. Notre Dame Baseball, Doak Field (North Carolina State University), Raleigh
• Raleigh Little Theatre presents: Trouble In Mind, Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre, Raleigh
• The Night Rider Presents: Glitter Crimes with Ghost Rattle, The Night Rider, Raleigh

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SUNDAY (EASTER)

• Easter Sunrise Service, North Carolina State Capitol, Raleigh
• Easter Brunch at Il Falò, Il Falò, Brier Creek
• Easter Brunch, Peck & Plume, Cary
• Easter Brunch, Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley, Raleigh
• Easter Rooftop Jazz Brunch, The Willard Rooftop Lounge, Raleigh
• Easter Sunday at The Durham, The Durham Hotel, Durham
• Easter Dinner Pickup at Plum, Plum Southern Kitchen & Bar, Durham
• Holi Celebration, Durham Central Park, Durham
• Dogwood Comedy Festival, ComedyWorx, Raleigh
• A Night in the Stars, Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh
• Dinos Alive: An Immersive Experience, Pleasant Valley Promenade, Raleigh
• Lua Flora & Hot Wendy, The Pour House Music Hall & Record Shop, Raleigh
• Raleigh Little Theatre presents: Trouble In Mind, Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre, Raleigh
• Patois Counselors / Ekko Astral / Crush Fund / Geeked, The Pinhook, Durham
• VNV Nation, Motorco Music Hall, Durham
• The Zombies Different Game Tour, The Carolina Theatre, Durham

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Hey all! We have been putting this off for some time and just letting threads go up as new articles appear, but with the season around the corner and the news of an MLB investigation, we figured it is time to keep things focused. From this point on, all future threads related to this issue will be removed and referred here (EDIT:) unless they include a major update in an article or press release from a reputable source.
I, like many of you, have been glued to this story since it broke. I will try my best to include noteworthy articles in this post. I'll try to avoid tweets or off-hand comments unless it's super important and there's no associated article. I will not add any opinion pieces to keep things unbiased. If you have any links you think are worthy of adding, have a question, or just want to say 'hi,' post it in the comments and tag me.
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Articles:
--- 3/20/24 ---
ESPN Dodgers fire Shohei Ohtani's interpreter amid allegation of 'massive theft'
LA Times Shohei Ohtani’s attorneys accuse interpreter of ‘massive theft’ tied to alleged gambling
--- 3/22/24 ---
ESPN Shohei Ohtani, his interpreter and wire transfers: A timeline
The Athletic MLB begins investigation into gambling allegations surrounding Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara
--- 3/23/24 ---
The Athletic Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, had inaccuracies in public biography
--- 3/24/24 ---
Ardaya Shohei Ohtani said he will talk tomorrow when approached by reporters.
--- 3/25/24 ---
NBCLA Shohei Ohtani full press conference: 'I never bet on sports'
USA Today Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani says he was duped by his ex-interpreter, blindsided by gambling allegations
--- 3/26/24 ---
Reddit Full translation of Ohtani's statement