On today’s episode of Math and Musings Franklin and I celebrate all things fall.
There’s a lot to celebrate, and you better believe it’s pretty damn fabulous.
Plus an old favorite: trivia.
Enjoy.
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Last week Dodgers star pitcher Clayton Kershaw announced he would retire at the end of the season, his 18th in the big leagues.
A season in which he’s 10 and 2, by the way.
Kershaw’s accomplishments on the mound are a bit mind boggling. He’s led the league in multiple categories multiple times, from traditional stats like wins and ERA to modern stats like WAR and FIP. Most impressive, probably, is the most old-school stat of all: his entire career has been in Dodger Blue.
Five years ago I noted the following: that Clayton Kershaw might end his career with the highest winning percentage of all time. His winning “percentage” (yeah, yeah, not really a percentage) at the end of the 2020 season was .697, just ahead of all-time leader Whitey Ford. I noted that everyone tails off at the end of his career–if Ford had retired three years earlier he would have ended at .710, not .690–so we’d have to see with Kersh.
Right now he’s sitting at .698.
Yes, his winning percentage the final five years of his career was higher than it was the first 13.
That’s incredible. And he’s added two World Series rings since that post as well. (Sure, the second one was mostly honorary, but that first one he carried the team on his back.)
Clayton Kershaw will go down as one of the greatest pitchers of all time, no question a first-ballot Hall of Famer. True, he was never a favorite of mine, as he played for a rival, but still you’ve got to tip your cap to someone did it so well for so long. And I suppose I can forgive that he’s about to kill not one but two of my favorite stats. (Breaking the Ford record is one thing, but ruining the great symmetry that .690 was also Babe Ruth’s slugging percentage? Only a legend is allowed that one.) And my God that curveball he can still snap at age 37. It’s the equivalent of watching a Ken Griffey Junior home run swing.
The only question now is, will it be two World Series rings or three?
Two weeks ago I’d never heard of Charlie Kirk. Literally never. I had no idea who he was.
In the days since his death my entire news feed is stories, not so much about Kirk, but about the various comments “people” have made regarding said death. In general the storyline goes something like this: person posts that A.) they’re happy that he died, or B.) somehow he had it coming. And then others either applaud this or the original poster receives backlash.
This is what passes for “news” these days.
See opening sentence for how I feel about Charlie Kirk. I at least know that he wasn’t a murderer or a war criminal or anything like that. Yeah, “people” were probably happy when Hitler died; this is a little different.
Nobody deserves to be murdered. Come on, “people.”
Today on Math and Musings Franklin and I discuss our recent trip to central Virginia. In addition to realizing that a Trump third term may not be out of the question, we visit the University of Virginia, the Blue Ridge Tunnel, and our most American stop of all, Buc-ee’s.
It’s been two months, but I think now I’ve finally wrapped my brain around exactly what happened to me the night of July 16, 2025. Both times I experienced it.
Allow me to explain.
The morning of July 16, 2025, I left my hotel in Kyoto, Japan, headed for the airport in Kansai, about an hour and a half away. Interestingly enough, during my cab ride I was listening to a baseball game occurring in the United States. On July 15. Live.
It was the MLB All-Star game, actually, which ended with a home run swing-off.
All of those details were totally normal compared with what was about to occur.
We arrived at the airport several hours before our flight from Kansai to San Francisco.
(Kansai International Airport, by the way, sits on a man-made island in Osaka Bay. Another uninteresting detail unrelated to the story.)
Our flight was set to depart at 4:55 p.m. local time. It did. And we arrived in San Francisco about 11 in the morning. That morning. Like, earlier in the day from when we left. This was still July 16. From our perspective it was a red-eye flight, but in actuality it was a reverse red-eye, landing earlier in same day.
And here’s where it gets weird.
Our flight from San Francisco to D.C. was your standard leave at 1:00 or so and arrive at 9:00 or so. It’s really not as long as you think because you’re crossing a few time zones. Five hours in the air, three-hour time difference: eight hours total.
Except our “1:00” flight out of San Francisco was delayed. And delayed. And delayed by every excuse airline personnel could conjure.
“Bad weather.” Runway congestion. Overworked unionized flight crews.
Food delivery running late. Food delivery arrives but is the wrong temperature.
Idiot pilot scrapes the plane against the jet bridge while backing up.
Yeah, that one actually happened and we had to get a whole new plane.
Finally we’re set to leave, and now it’s late in the evening.
Still on July 16, by the way.
Except now it’s a red-eye flight, for real this time, as we won’t land in D.C. until the morning of July 17.
And that’s how I took a red-eye flight two nights in a row.
Two nights in a row… that actually were… the same night, twice in a row.
And nothing else ever seemed strange to me for the rest of my life.
Yesterday afternoon (and long into the night) I got to see the “Outlaw Music Festival” at Merriweather Post Pavilion, proof again that it’s often fun to root for the bad guys. If the headliners really were on the run from the law they’ve been doing a really good job of avoiding capture, because they’re two of the most famous musicians of the 20th century. (I am aware we are already a quarter into the next one.) Admittedly Bob Dylan at 84 spends his entire act hiding behind his piano, but hey, you’re seeing Bob Dylan, right? And Willie Nelson at 92 doesn’t have much of a voice anymore, but damn he plays the guitar like a boss.
Star of the show was Sheryl Crow, who let’s just say at 63 (she mentioned her age multiple times) still has it. She made only one error, the classic opening act faux pas: upstaging the headliners.
But no one seemed to mind.
And I’d be remiss if I did not mention Madeline Edwards and Waxahatchee, two groups I’d never heard of but now will follow, proof that the outlaw subgenre of country music is in good hands going forward.
Though honestly if anyone is still playing music when they’re 200 years old it’ll probably be Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan.
Those outlaws ain’t being captured for a long time.
Today on Math and Musings Franklin and I do our best to describe our recent trip to Glenstone, the most incredible museum you’ve never heard of.
Until now.
You’re welcome.
When it goes on the blog it’s there forever, and I want the following cemented among my observations.
Bobby Bonds is one of the most underrated Major League Baseball players of all time.
Bobby Bonds played 14 seasons in MLB, retiring at age 35 in 1981. I never saw him play, and there were only two things I knew about him growing up. They were both knocks. One, he was Barry Bonds’ dad, and since Barry was a punk, his dad must have been a punk too. I think this characterization is unkind and perhaps untrue, but that was the sentiment.
Two, he played for a lot of teams. This was a dig as well. In fact there were eight, which nowadays is probably less than average. At the time it seemed as though he couldn’t stick with a team, either for performance, attitude, or financial reasons, but again I question this. His on-field performance speaks for itself (more on that later), and whether either of the second and third points were ever true, through a modern lens who can blame him? No one now faults players for wanting to get paid, and I kind of give any Black man in this country born before about 1960 a pass for having a chip on his shoulder. Ugly words like “uppity” and the like are just code for a racism that still lived in baseball way too long after Jackie Robinson.
This said, let’s look at Bobby’s on-field performance. The greatest knock against him in his day was that he struck out a lot. True, he made a lot of outs, but he got on base a lot too, and with 461 career steals took extra bases as well. Even with tailing off a bit at the end he had a career OPS+ of 129, and 57.9 WAR according to Baseball Reference. From 1969-1975 (his peak WAR seasons) his WAR was 40.3, or 5.8 per season. During those years he averaged just under 30 home runs and 40 steals. That’s basically seven 30 homer and 40 steal seasons in a row. No one ever had more 30-30 seasons than he did (five), and the only other man with five… is his son.
So he struck out a lot. I’d call this “ahead of his time.”
So he spoke his mind a bit. I’d also call this “ahead of his time,” especially for a Black man.
Played for a bunch of teams? That’s the definition of the modern player.
And in those peak WAR seasons he played in an average of 154 games a year. That’s much better than the modern player.
Other than his son, he’s still the only player in MLB history with at least 300 home runs and 400 steals. The only people on that list are named Bonds. Not Aaron, not Mays, not A-rod. Just Bonds. His “power-speed number” as developed by Bill James? Fifth all time, after Barry, Rickey, Willie, and Alex. Not a bad list. Adam Darowski and company’s “Hall of Stats” calculates Bonds with a 112 rating, placing him comfortably among the ranks of those mathematically qualified for Cooperstown.
Sure, Bobby had his faults. For part of his life he was an alcoholic. But he joined AA after his playing career ended and he mended his relationship with his family, and he was a mentor to many young Giants in his role as coach, scout, and front-office employee.
Bonds died in 2003, and it’s unlikely he’ll ever get a posthumous vote into Cooperstown, but you never know.
He got his mention here.
Not long ago I read a book titled My Wild Ride in Baseball and Beyond, the autobiography of a man who spent nearly 50 years in MLB.
Davey Johnson never won an MVP and he’s not in Cooperstown, though he’s been close to election several times.
If he’s ever inducted it’ll have to be posthumously.
Davey Johnson passed away last week at the age of 82.
Born in Florida and successful all over the world, Davey Johnson probably isn’t many fans’ favorite player or manager, but damned if he didn’t check a series of boxes for me that makes him one of my favorites of all time.
Indulge me for a moment.
- The aforementioned autobiography. It is in fact a wild ride, and is not his only book. In 1986 Johnson collaborated with the most legendary of all baseball collaborators, Peter Golenbock, to pen Bats, one of the most engrossing baseball books I’ve ever read. Because it’s actually about baseball.
- As a player, Johnson was a World Champion for both the 1966 and 1970 Baltimore Orioles, two of my favorite teams of all time.
- Those great Orioles teams won with incredible pitching and defense. In both 1969 and 1971 they had three Gold Glove winners (Johnson among them)… in their infield.
- When Johnson went to the Braves in 1973 he hit 43 home runs. Forty-three. He had never hit more than 18 before. (No steroids in 1973.)
- That ’73 Braves team had three players hit 40 home runs. First time that ever happened.
- “After” his MLB career he played in Japan when it was exceedingly rare for Americans to do so. And after two seasons in Japan he came back to MLB.
- When his playing days really were over and he took his talents to the manager’s office, he was a pioneer of using what would later be called “sabermetrics” or “Moneyball” stats to evaluate players and make in-game decisions. (He held a degree in mathematics and dug into stats during his days as a player too.)
- Not only was he the manager of the World Series-winning ’86 Mets, one of the greatest and most fun teams of all time, he won minor league championships in 1981 (Double-A Jackson) and 1983 (Triple-A Tidewater) as well while developing those future major leaguers.
- He came to D.C. even before I did, taking a front office role in 2006 and accepting the manager’s position starting in 2011. He brought the team to a division title in 2012 and was the manager for the first postseason baseball game in Washington since 1933. I was there for it. (The 2012 one, not 1933.)
- He was the manager for the Orioles in the infamous “Jeffrey Maier game,” won by the Yankees thanks in part to a fan-assisted home run. Often lost in the story is that on the play in question… Johnson was ejected for arguing.
Awesome.
RIP, Davey Johnson.
Today on Math and Musings Franklin and I discuss our recent excursion to the old country. Last weekend we visited both my hometown of Binghamton, New York, and a town I actually enjoy visiting… Watkins Glen, New York. No auto racing or music festivals this time (that’s what one does in W.G.), just hiking and sailing, specifically sailing aboard the schooner True Love. Believe it or not there’s actually a connection there to Hollywood, European royalty, and three of the most popular singers of the 20th century.
But you’ve got to tune in to find out what.
Enjoy.