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What do baseball and politics have in common? I have no idea, but Henry Olsen does. Actually, the kinds of data measurements we use in baseball can be applied to politics as well, and few do it better than Henry. So in this "classic format" episode, we talk about why President Biden is just biding his time in office, having squandered his election by mis-reading the public mood, and how this may very well tip the off-year gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey to Republicans, as it did in 1993 and 2009, when, in what has become a recurring pattern, Democrats overreach.
Then we talk about baseball—in particular the decline of starting pitchers and .300 hitters, and the rise of the so-called "bullpen game." Give me those old 20-game winners like Jim Palmer and .325 hitters like Rod Carew and Pete Rose, please. But you'd expect this from a reactionary like me.
Discussion (2)
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Is this the same Henry Olsen who admitted on election night 2020 that the entire election polling industry
didn'tdoesn't know what it is doing?That same Henry Olsen?
It might have been fun to talk about Major League Baseball before MLB
* started using ghost runners in extra innings;
* played seven inning games;
* lied about Georgia's election law.
I didn't so much as check the standings in 2021. Statistics in MLBaseball are, after the past two seasons, meaningless for historical analysis.
I only know enough about MLB 2021 to know that I hope the Atlanta Braves play in the World Series, and if the Braves do so, I pray that they will mercilessly - and as a matter of principle - rub MLBaseball's nose in it.
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Now that I've learned that the Atlanta Braves are playing in the World Series, I would be willing to pay the ~$1,000 it would cost for a ticket to a game in Atlanta, just so I could join in a rousing cheer of
Let's Go Brandon,
Let's Go Manfred!
Chaser: Crazy bit of LibertyDefender/Powerline . . . coincidence, I suppose. Atlanta ace starter Charlie Morton and I are alumni of the same high school in a small Connecticut town (Larry Kudlow's home), and the high school is named after Joel Barlow, an influential writer and diplomat from America's early days. Steve Hayward has discussed Joel Barlow's influence in an earlier Powerline podcast. Cruel irony is that Charlie Morton fractured his fibula in the game, and is out for the rest of the Series.
Let's Go Brandon,
Let's Go Manfred!