Mike O'Connell

Last week on Math and Musings I asked my son trivia questions from the year 2010, four years before he was born. On today’s episode he flips the script, quizzing me on events from 1978.

Oh, how the turntables have turned.

Enjoy.

I never follow IndyCar racing and I never care much what happens in Washington, D.C.

Bring them together though for something awesome?

I’m in.

If you missed yesterday’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix… what in God’s name were you doing? This was the thing to watch yesterday, even if you weren’t among the 140,000 or so people along the streets of D.C. witnessing it in person. Just watching the thing on TV from 20 miles down the road was good enough for me. I swear I could hear the cars from my Northern Virginia suburb, or maybe that was a combination of military bands, jets flying overhead, and 140,000 screaming fans.

One of those fans was the President of the United States, who was taking credit for the whole thing… and why shouldn’t he? I’m calling this the third leg of the Trump Hat Trick of 2026, a trio of events worthy of a semiquincentennial. The MMA event, the world’s largest fireworks show, and now this? This is why I’m a fan of Donald Trump. He likes America and he puts on a good show. He knows he’s not the main attraction–he gives credit where it’s due, to the actual athletes and organizers and such, but hey, it’s his baby out there. He’s kinda like Hugh Hefner in a way I guess. You’ve got an idea, and you know how to find people who put out the product. Trump’s an impresario of all things American, and I’m in favor. (And hey, when I thought Obama was doing something cool I gave him credit too.)

Three cheers for the Freedom 250 Grand Prix and all the people who worked to make it happen, from the folks who make the headlines to the people with the real boots on the ground making it happen. I know a thing or two about throwing parties and it ain’t easy. This was a good one.

D.C. throws a good party.

One of my favorite players/managers of all time is Davey Johnson. Last year when he passed away I gave him a more complete profile, but coming upon the one-year anniversary of his death I thought I would take a further dive into one of his more amazing stats.

The man did appreciate the numbers behind the game.

In 1973, his first season in Atlanta, Johnson hit 43 home runs. (He was one of three Braves to hit 40 that year.) His next-highest season total was 18. Quite the jump.

I wasn’t around in 1973, but people my age will always point to Brady Anderson’s 1996 season as a statistical anomaly for home runs, assuming steroids, of course, for the juiced-up stats. (No steroids back in ’73.) But Anderson three years later had 24, and equaled or bettered Johnson’s 18 half a dozen times. The ratio here is 2.08, whereas Johnson’s highest/next-highest ratio (43/18) is 2.39. Sure, we could take this to ridiculous extremes, say where someone once had three home runs in a season but never had more than one otherwise and was therefore tripling his total, but that’s one of those equations where a percent difference isn’t actually the best comparison.

A fun hunt, no?

Wade Boggs hit 24 home runs in the “rabbit ball” year of 1987 while his second-highest was 11; that’s a 2.18 ratio. Then of course there’s 1980 AL Rookie of the Year Joe Charboneau, who had 23 home runs that year but a total of six the rest of his career, kind of the ultimate one-hit wonder but sort of a different set of circumstances compared to the above.

Luis Gonzalez hit 57 home runs in 2001 for the World Series-winning Diamondbacks (still pains me to say that) and his next-highest total was 28 (a 2.04 ratio), but he did hit at least 15 homers in 12 different seasons.

New season at school and already starting on what sounds like a new chapter to From Box Scores to Test Scores.

Last Wednesday I teased the subject of today’s episode of Math and Musings, writing that the Pennsylvania cities of Lancaster and York have several things in common.

Still stumped?

There are two big ones.

One, both cities were at one time temporary capitals of these United States.

Related, they are two of the 10 cities that have housed the Declaration of Independence.

As of last week Franklin and I had been to eight.

We’ve now been to all 10.

Yeah, nerdiest vacation of all time.

Enjoy!

I haven’t posted at all this summer about Larry David’s new show on HBO Max, Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness… mostly because it just hasn’t been that good. Sure, there has been a funny sketch or two in there, but on the whole it’s light-years from Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm. I saw it promoted for months and I really looked forward to it… then I watched the first episode. And I had to curb my enthusiasm.

Ha.

But then came last Friday’s finale. Final sketch of final episode, and Larry’s got a famous co-star. Not really known as an actor, one Barack Obama was sharing the set with LD, and most of the seven or eight minutes of hilarity is just the two of them. Obama’s an executive producer on the show and presumably fills that title well, but it was his acting chops that had me impressed Friday night. Yeah, give credit where credit is due… Obama was funny on screen with Larry David. He’s clearly doing the Larry part, saying Larry lines in Larry tones, but hey, it works. Not everyone can do this, and not everyone can make fun of himself as the former president does here, making hay of his infamous press conference a dozen years ago at which he committed the unforgivable sin of… wearing a tan-colored suit. The other sideplots in the recreation are about as ridiculous as worrying about the color of a jacket, and they all end up being kind of hilarious.

Well done, Barack Obama, and well done, Larry David…

eventually.