A Few Rambling Thoughts About 2026

Baseball numbers, fading passions, and other things that crossed my mind this as we wander into another new year.

The sun rises on a new year! And baseball! Soon! (Getty Images)

Let me be the first — after Vineyard Vines, STK Steakhouse, RetailMeNot, MacCase, IDAGIO, CSMG, Bon Vie Café & Bistro, The Ick, Hilsinger-Mendelson, VitalSleep, Team IRC, Adobe, and 436 other companies that somehow got my email — to wish you a Happy New Year!

Today is the 59th birthday of the great Mike Vaccaro, New York Post columnist deluxe. Mike was born one week before me. This is the week I get to call him an old man.

So, 2026, eh?

No baseball player has exactly 2026 hits — the closest are the Phillips Guys, Tony and Brandon, with Tony Phillips at 2,023 and Brandon Phillips at 2,029. Tony did walk more than three times as often, though, 1,319 walks to only 420.

Nobody scored exactly 2026 runs — A-Rod gets closest to the pin with 2021.

Nobody drove in exactly 2026 RBI — Barry Bonds wins the Price is Right this time with 1,996 RBI. That’s one more, by the way, than Lou Gehrig for sixth place overall.

No pitcher has struck out exactly 2026 batters — the closest is a tie between Lance Lynn and Rick Reuschel, who each had 2,015. This is why I love doing silly statistical things like this. The numbers bring together Lance Lynn and Rick Reuschel.

With innings pitched, we get OH SO CLOSE. Vern Kennedy (who, in different seasons, led the league in losses, earned runs, and walks) and Johan Santana (who should be put back on the Hall of Fame ballot) each threw 2,025⅔ innings in their very different careers. I mean, I say we round up and count it, though, realistically, they hit their mark on October 1 at exactly 6 p.m.

Nobody has finished within 300 walks of 2026, but this is a good time to remind you that the career list for walks looks like so:

1. Nolan Ryan, 2,795

2. Steve Carlton, 1,833

There has never been anyone in sports like Nolan Ryan.

No manager has won exactly 2026 games, but Terry Francona did win the 2,026th game of his illustrious career on September 17 in St. Louis. Spencer Steer’s three-run homer was the big blow. Francona now has 2,033 career regular-season victories. But you probably want to add in his 44 postseason wins.

In the 2010-11 NBA season, Derrick Rose scored exactly 2,026 points. So that’s fun. That was the year that Rose won the MVP over LeBron James because everybody was kind of mad at LeBron for “The Decision” to go to Miami. I know I was. In the five seasons between 2008 and 2013, LeBron won four MVPs. This was the one year he didn’t.

Eric Dickerson had 2,026 yards from scrimmage in his superb 1986 season. He carried the football 404 times that year — an utterly absurd number. Even though the season has expanded to 17 games, nobody has carried the football 400 times since 2006, when Kansas City Chiefs coach Herm Edwards kept giving the ball to Larry Johnson. I was there for all that — Larry Johnson was a true force of nature. The Chiefs had a legendary offensive line — maybe the best ever offensive line with Will Shields and Willie Roaf (just before he retired) and Brian Waters — and for two seasons, Johnson plowed over defenders like a modern-day Jim Brown.

But Jim Brown was plowing over defenders 50-to-75 pounds lighter, and it is unconscionable in today’s NFL to give a running back the ball 400 times. Johnson was never the same after his 416-carry season. And how could he be?

No NHL player has 2,026 points — Jaromir Jagr is the closest with 2,122 points, counting his playoff totals. We watched the full season of “Pluribus” — it was spectacular — and have found ourselves wondering what the world will be like in 2122. My guess is Justin Verlander will win his 843rd game that year.*

So many of you have asked me to give my review of “Deliver Me From Nowhere,” the movie about Bruce Springsteen making the Nebraska album. I suppose that I promised I would do that — and I’ve been avoiding it because my review is: “Meh.” If I’m being honest, “Meh,” is pretty much the worst review I could give to a movie about my favorite superhero Bruce Springsteen. I didn’t hate it. I certainly didn’t love it. I mostly didn’t get it. Actors who I adore fell flat. Plot devices overwhelmed the screen. I could never figure out why this movie exists. It doesn’t feel like much for us obsessives. Maybe this was more to introduce new people to Bruce, but if that’s the case why in the world would they present him as a brooding depressive recording grim and somber songs on a 4-track cassette recorder? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Nebraska with all my soul but if I’m trying to introduce a young music lover to Bruce Springsteen, I’m not starting with “State Trooper” anymore than I’m using “Wi$h Li$t” to convert unbelievers to Taylor Swift’s wonders.**

**OK, I’ll admit it — I used that last Taylor Swift joke simply to make the point that at the top of Taylor Swift’s “Wi$h Li$t” is to “have a couple kids” and a “driveway with a basketball hoop.” Who knew that all along, Margo and I have been living Taylor Swift’s dream life! That’s an M. Night Shyamalan twist!

Nobody has completed 2,026 passes in the NFL, but Terry Bradshaw did complete 2,025. So his year has come and gone. I’m sure Franco or Swann or somebody dropped at least one pass, though — every year seems to come up Terry Bradshaw, right?

I often think there are so many things in our society that would be impossible to explain to an alien from an advanced planet, but I’m not sure that anything is less explainable than NFL pregame shows.

I think I spent maybe 2,026 seconds (33 minutes, 46 seconds) watching college football in 2025. I really checked out. It wasn’t a purposeful thing — I didn’t just stomp my foot one day and say, “THAT’S IT, I WILL NOT WATCH STAND FOR EVEN ONE MORE NOTRE DAME GAME!” — I just, you know, there were other things to do, and I got out of the habit, and it never even occurred to me to turn on the television on Saturdays.

I used to love college football. Love it. I’ve probably been to 50 bowl games in my life, no joke, and I enjoyed writing them all, even the Poulan/Weedeater Bowl (ESPECIALLY the Poulan/Weedeater Bowl, which I covered TWICE).

I used to love it.

Now, I don’t care at all. I just lost it. I can’t even say why.

I thought about this on New Year’s Eve — I know I said that I would go to bed at 10 p.m., but there was work to do — I’m writing a new book, for crying out loud — and a little after 11, I stopped working and went to watch TV with my family. They were watching some sort of show reviewing the trends of 2025 (Six-Seven!), and I asked to change the channel and saw that the Miami-Ohio State game was on. I grew up an Ohio State fan. So I turned it on, and there were 55 seconds left in the game, and Miami had just scored a touchdown to pretty much put it away for the massive upset.

And I turned it off without any feeling whatsoever.

It’s weird how that intense college football passion could just fade away, entirely unmourned. But it might be a lesson for MLB going into 2026. They seem very serious about shutting the game down in search of more money for billionaires. The danger, it seems to me, is not the anger that will surface. Yes, that anger will be the most obvious consequence, but the owners know they can outlast anger because that’s still an emotion, and it still shows that people care.

No, the danger is all of the people who, like me with college football, will just stop caring. They won’t rage-quit the game. They will age-quit the game because the older you get, the more you realize that there are other things to do, other places to get your joy, other ways to spend your time and money, other paths to occupy your mind. Maybe I’ll come back to college football. Maybe I won’t. I have no idea. But my best guess is that, no, I’ll never be a college football fan again because I already don’t have enough time for all the things in my life. I suspect that once they lose you, they probably never get you back.

Finally, two Davids of the infield — former Dodger Dave Anderson and former Angel David Fletcher — finished their careers with 2,026 at-bats. I love how quirky at-bats are; it’s so baseball that at-bats don’t include times you walk, times you get hit by a pitch, times you bunt a runner over a base, or times you hit a fly ball deep enough to score a runner from third. Those are not “at bats” even though you were at bat to accomplish them. Baseball!

David Fletcher, for unclear reasons, received an MVP vote after the COVID season when he hit .319 in 49 games. He has been an outstanding defensive player who can play pretty much anywhere.

Dave Anderson was a big guy — 6-foot-2 or so — who also could play pretty much everywhere. He didn’t hit with power, and he wasn’t particularly fast, but he was useful enough to get 10 years in the big leagues and a World Series ring.

He got one plate appearance in that 1988 World Series, by the way: In the eighth inning of Game 3, the score was tied 1-1 and Dodgers DH Mike Davis was scheduled to come to the plate. The Athletics put in lefty reliever Rick Honeycutt, and Lasorda, doing the manager thing, pulled Davis for Anderson to get the split advantage.

Anderson finished his career with a .646 OPS against lefties.

Mike Davis finished his career with a .727 OPS against lefties.

But Anderson hit slightly better against lefties than righties, and Davis hit slightly worse against lefties than righties, and managers have always loved pulling levers. Anderson struck out on four pitches. But the Dodgers won the World Series anyway.

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Thirty-nine days until pitchers and catchers report, and here’s your daily splash of joy — Why You Love Baseball:

Brilliant Reader Andrew: “I love the stories from a long history of colorful characters — from Rube Waddell chasing a fire engine to Sandy Koufax sitting out for Yom Kippur to Dock Ellis, Mark Fidrych, and Manny being Manny.”

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