An Op-Ed piece about slugger Mark McGwire in the NYT prompted this letter to the Editor:
"When Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927, he totally dominated the baseball statistics. The second and third highest totals in the American League [AL] were Lou Gehrig's 47 and Tony Lazzeri's 18. The National League [NL] was lead by Hack Wilson with 30 homers. The rest of the AL hit 379 total homers, averaging 1.895 per player. Ruth hit 14% of the AL homers and more, as an individual, than all the other teams in the AL. The NL hit a total of 483 or 2.45 per player. Five of the NL teams hit less than 60 home runs.
Just as a random comparison, the AL in 1987 hit 2634 homers. Fourteen percent of that would be 369 homers.
McGwire's 70 is paltry in comparison with what Ruth did in his era, even longer seasons, juiced balls, juiced players, more teams, etc all considered."
I forgot to mention in the letter that the stats came from the Baseball Encyclopedia and that the occasion was McGwire’s being passed over for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Regarding the weather, the applogists for administration are blaming the hot January on El Nino. While El Nino does affect our weather by lifting the Jet Stream northward and giving the East Coast of North America a warmer and wetter winter, the effect is superimposed on a warmer baseline temperature from the green house gases spewing out of our smoke stacks.
It is pleasant to work in the yard wearing only a light jacket. I just finished spreading the second truck load of wood chips on all the muddy patches of what used to be the lawn. Between four big dogs and a lot of shade, the grass doesn’t have a chance. Now what goes well with chips?
New Blooms: Vinca minor, Snowdrop. I guess the first day of spring is now New Years Day.
Last week with the very warm weather, many insects were swarming that disappeared with the colder spell, now flowers are opening. Are the pollinators and flowers going to be out of sync?
Chips and Culprits.
Snowdrop, or Snowlessdrop.
Before its time.
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