Free Friday: The Trouble with Transparency
You know what’s a fun daily exercise? Comparing the top stories at MLB.com and ESPN.
Today at MLB.com: Ten sluggers with a case to take the 2024 HR crown
Nothing too surprising here, but the MLB.com folks listed their top five “candidates” to win the home run title and their top five “dark horses.”
Candidates
Aaron Judge, Yankees
Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers
Ronald Acuña Jr, Atlanta
Matt Olson, Atlanta
Adolis García, Texas
Dark horses
Julio Rodríguez, Seattle
Royce Lewis, Minnesota
Spencer Torkelson, Detroit
Corey Seager, Texas
Christopher Morel, Cubs
I don’t have too many arguments with the candidates section. I mean, well, I don’t see how you can leave Kyle Schwarber out of the top five list. He’s probably the second favorite behind Judge, no? He led the NL in homers in 2022, finished second last year, and he’s among the group of players who insist that they’re in the best shape of their lives. I’d probably have Austin Riley up there, too.
The dark horses? Well, the MLB.com folks limited themselves to ONLY players who have not hit 35 home runs in a season since 2021. Corey Seager slipped JUST under the line; he hit 33 home runs in 2022 and 2023.
Even with that limitation, however, I’m kind of stupefied that their list did not include Bobby Witt Jr. I assume the list is meant to introduce us to some of the potentially hot young sluggers like Lewis, Torkelson and Morel, but strictly speaking, it’s kind of hard to imagine that any of them have a better shot at leading baseball in homers than Kyle Tucker or Freddie Freeman. Anyway, it’s fun.
So, that’s what’s going on at MLB.com. What baseball stuff are you talking about, ESPN?
Today at ESPN: MLB players add see-through pants to complaints
Ah, there you go. I love that the story is not only about the see-through pants but about how the players are only ADDING this to their already sizable list of complaints.
Yes, MLB went to Nike and Fanatics to create new “performance jerseys”—Has 25% more stretch! Dries 28% faster!—and in addition to them looking like the sorts of jerseys you might find in a Hallmark movie about a major league player who falls in love (or doesn’t!) with his rival’s agent, apparently, the pants are see-through.
Now, look, I’m not a stickler for fashion.
But you would probably prefer that the pants not be see-through, except maybe on Studio 54 remembrance day or something.
I’m torn on this question: Does MLB keep doing preposterously stupid and self-destructive things like this which end up making the big headlines at ESPN or the morning shows? Or is baseball at the point where only preposterously stupid and self-destructive things like this CAN make big headlines at ESPN or the morning shows?
Happy Friday! Our Friday posts are free so everyone can enjoy them. Just a reminder that Joe Blogs is a reader-supported newsletter, and I’d love and appreciate your support.
We don’t follow the NHL nearly closely enough here at JoeBlogs, but there is one thing we’ve been desperately wanting for years and years now: We’re rooting for Canada to win a Stanley Cup. It has been more than THIRTY YEARS since the Montreal Canadiens beat the Kings in 1993. Funny: I distinctly remember rooting pretty hard for Los Angeles. That Kings team had a bunch of players I really liked—Gretzky, obviously, but Luc Robitaille was a big favorite, and I also like Jari Kurri and Paul Coffey and Marty McSorley, you know, all those old Edmonton guys.
Anyway, I wouldn’t have been rooting for the Kings had I known that it would be so long until the entire nation of Canada won another Cup.
The underperformance of Canada in the Stanley Cup playoffs is astonishing. Not only has it been 31 years since a Canadian team has won, you have to go back to 2011 to find a Canadian team in the Stanley Cup finals. That year, Vancouver led Boston 3-2 going into Game 6 and got blitzed 5-2 and 4-0 in the final two games.
Before that you have to go back to 2007, when Anaheim beat Ottawa in five games.
The year before that, Carolina beat Edmonton in seven games.
I happen to really like Carolina; it’s where I can go for my NHL fix. But the fact that a team in Raleigh, a team in Anaheim, a team in Las Vegas and a team in Tampa have won a Stanley Cup since any Canadian team is kind of a crisis. This year, it’s looking like Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver and maybe Toronto (?) have a real shot at the Cup. The playoffs don’t start until April 17, but we’re ready to start paying attention.
Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!
On this week’s PosCast, Mike Schur and I wrap up our sports card PosCast thing, or, as Mike puts it so pithily: “Joe and Mike’s Annual Offseason Sports Card Opening Podcast Marathon Extravaganza, Benefitting an ALS Charity as Chosen by a Friend of Ours Whose Family Has Been Affected by ALS 2024.”
The deadline to enter the raffle—which you can do by donating $25 or whatever you can to the amazing folks at Project Main Street and then gmailing us the receipt at PosCastRaffle—is midnight tonight. Mike and I spent a fair amount of time on the PosCast discussing whether that’s midnight Eastern time or Pacific. This is the sort of stupid thing we do on the PosCast; rather than coming in prepared and deciding stuff before we go on the podcast, we just decide stuff in real-time. Anyway, we decided on midnight Pacific time.
We’ll give you a grand total of how much we raised after the deadline, but let’s just say you have been amazing and you’re making a real difference in people’s lives. Plus, you’ll get a bunch of super-cool baseball cards, plus other stuff if you win!
Speaking of fantastic prizes… I’ve been cleaning out my office. You should see it now. Well, tell you what, I’ll do a video next week so you can see how my new office is set up. It’s pretty cool.
Anyway, I’ve found a whole bunch of cool things that I should probably give away to Brilliant Readers. We’ll come up with a contest. For example, Margo was going through some old stuff and found two of these.
So, that is a cardboard picture frame. And it is signed by—Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, Pat Cash and John McEnroe. I assume it was supposed to go around some photo I took with them when I got the chance to play with them in 2014. I don’t remember ever taking such a photo (I don’t do that sort of thing much). And I don’t remember getting this either (I don’t collect autographs, really).
Anyway, I have two of these. I imagine someone would like them, right? I mean, it seems like a pretty cool thing.
Lots of stuff like that. We’ll get a contest going sometime this spring, after I get back from my next crazy book tour.
The next crazy WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL book tour:
March 2: I’m at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival at the Fort Myers Regional Library in Fort Myers. According to the schedule, I’m doing an event at 11:15 on “Adult Stage B,” which, you know, sounds a bit daunting, but not to worry, I will not be wearing those new MLB uniform pants. I’m signing books at 12:15 and again at 3. It’s totally free! Here’s the full schedule.
March 5: I’ll be at the Boca Raton JCC. Tickets are $18. I’m hopeful that the subject of my favorite essay in WWLB will be there.
March 7: Yep, I’m back home in Kansas City at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum for a night that I guess they’re calling “Joe Posnanski & Friends.” Based on the poster, I think we’re supposed to keep my friends “secret” (probably a good strategy) but I will tell you that Bob Kendrick is going to be one of them, and that alone should make this worth the price of admission. Especially because the price of admission is: $0.00. You can register here!
March 9-10: I’m so happy to be back at the Tucson Festival of Books. It is a truly incredible thing. I’m not entirely sure, but I believe there will be 4.3 trillion authors there. Seriously, even if you live in like the Phoenix area, it’s worth the drive to Tucson for this event. And you can see me: I’ll be doing an event called “Loving Baseball” at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, and one called “Celebrated Sports Writers” at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Check out the full schedule: It’s incredible. To see books celebrated like this, well, it makes my heart sing.
March 17: I’m also back home in Cleveland for a super-fun event at the Beachwood JCC. I’ll be doing the event at 11 a.m. that Sunday. Tickets are $12. This will be a great time to geek out on Cleveland sports.
March 23: OK, we’ve got a two-fer in Cincinnati. On Saturday night, 7 p.m., I’ll be at Joseph-Beth Booksellers—one of my favorite independents. You don’t have to RSVP, but it would be nice if you did.
March 24: Next day, Sunday, 2 p.m., I’m getting the CASEY Award for WWLB. That will be great fun—it’s at Poor Michael’s Sports and Karaoke Bar in Springfield Township. Admission is $20 but includes a one-year subscription to awesome Spitball Magazine, and all the hot dogs you can eat, unless you’re Joey Chestnut.
There’s more after that.
Along the way, I’ll be talking a bit of WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL, coming out on Sept. 17. Reminder, you can preorder the book from the good folks at Quail Ridge Books and get me to sign and inscribe it any way you want. And I should tell you that while finishing the book, I kind of got hooked on the “Friday Night Lights” television series. Long story (one that is in the book with a super-special guest star!) but, you know, if you want a “FNL” quote, I can do that. Clear eyes! Full hearts! Can’t lose!
One more quick book bit: I mentioned a little while ago that WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL is going to be published in the UK by Old Street Publishing on May 28! I couldn’t be more excited, and I even added a couple of special UK bonuses just for this edition!
I like this line in the promotion:
These are moments so powerful they feel like myth—even to a Brit raised on googlies, leg-slips and silly mid offs.
Details are still being worked out but… I think I’m going to be there for the London Series between the Mets and Phillies on June 8-9. I’m hoping to be doing some super-cool stuff connected with that. We’ll see how it plays out but, yeah, I’m pretty fired up.
JoeBlogs Week in Review
Monday: Does Mike Trout want to win enough?
Tuesday: Fame 47: Donnie Baseball.
Wednesday: Fame 46: A Good Head of Hair.
Thursday: Guest Post: The Miracle on Ice.
Joe - the Montreal Canadiens made the Stanley Cup Finals in 2021, though a lot of people like to stick a gigantic asterisk on the “bubble season.” It was the last hurrah for goalie Carey Price, often considered one of the best goaltenders in the world during his prime.
What's happening in MLB right now is pretty much just the point we're at in capitalism: Company A (MLB) wants as much money as possible for everything. Company B (Fanatics) offers then a bucketload of it to be the exclusive merchandise and uniform provider for the league. However, Fanatics also really likes money and since they gave MLB so much of it, they need to cut costs as much as possible and quality control is a really easy way to do it. Everyone knows their retail items are garbage, they're now in the process of ruining baseball cards with all kinds of nonsense like putting unsigned cards that were supposed to be signed into packs, forgetting to number other cards, and just other madness, and now we're seeing it on the actual field.
When we allow monopolies to happen, this is what we get.