Uncle Scoopy's Fun House

Thursday

Scoop's notes: My take on the First Basemen. Yeah, like there was ever any doubt. Gehrig never missed a game in his entire career, he averaged .340 lifetime, he played on the best team of all time, and had his best year in their best year. Oh, and by the way that was pretty much the best year anybody ever had (except Ruth). In 1927, Gehrig had 117 extra base hits, knocked in 175 runs, and slugged .765. He hit .373 and also drew 109 walks. That wasn't his best RBI year. He knocked in 184 one year, and had two other years over 160. He once knocked in 358 runs in two consecutive seasons - averaging a mere 179 per year. He also was awesome in the post season, was a nice man, got an Ivy League education in an era when many ballplayers were illiterate, and died tragically young. Like you were gonna NOT vote for him?

Gehrig's RBI totals are, of course, inflated by two things

1. He played his entire career in the twenties and thirties when offensive production was high

2. He batted behind some fat guy with an OBP near .500

To understand the context, imagine if McGwire and Ted Williams played for today's Cleveland Indians, and McGwire batted behind The Splinter. The 1927 Yankees and the 1999 Indians produced a comparable mumber of runs, and Williams (lifetime OBP of .483) is the only guy comparable to Ruth (.474).

Interestingly, McGwire is not such a bad comparison to Saint Lou. He already has more lifetime homers, despite having 2300 fewer at-bats, but he's still far behind in the big picture.


Lifetime per 600 AB
         HR  RBI   OBP  Slug 
McGwire  55  136  .394  .587
Gehrig   37  150  .447  .632

Bagwell and The Big Hurt and McGwire and Foxx have been about as good as Gehrig in their peaks, but Gehrig never had a valley. The seasons below are almost identical per at-bat, but even the slight difference favors Gehrig. In addition, Gehrig played every game, thus extended the same quality over more at-bats.


Best single year:
           OBP  Slug 
McGwire   .470  .752
Gehrig    .474  .765 
Foxx      .469  .749  
Bagwell   .461  .750 
Thomas    .494  .729

One more baseball thought:

My editorial: I'm tired of all the arguments about Pete Rose that hinge around double top secret probation. I say if Pete wants his ass back in baseball, he agrees to let MLB release all the evidence to the public and to an impartial arbritrator for a public hearing, where his lawyers can cross-examine the witnesses. If not, he shuts up. If MLB wants to ban him against our wishes, they owe us compliance with the request, if he has the balls to make it. (My bet is that he would not.)

It's our game, not theirs. We pay the bills, we sustain it, we're not stupid. Thousands of smart people will dissect the evidence in minute detail, and expose all the crap. We'll decide who can and can't play for our dollars, or be honored by them. If Pete is guilty, and has refused to admit it or apologize for it all these years, maintain the ban, but we'd all like to know what he really did or didn't to. Pete says there's no evidence he bet on baseball, he maintains he never bet on the Reds, and nobody contends he ever bet against the Reds. I'd like to know once and for all.

Here is CNN's take on the issue. This is the best job of summarizing the case. Part two is especially good.

The Gist and Lawdog

Blinky has Nicole Anderson today.

(#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8)

Yesterday: Here's Jade, 25, from Colchester. (#1, #2, #3, #4)

Gold is Mia, from 11 April, 1987.

Requested is Janine James (#1, #2)

Ever wonder what the Playboy, Page Three, and other softcore models do when not modeling for Playboy or the British tabs? Fred does. Fred, or as he is known in the ancient Elventongue, "Frodo", specializes in "outing" the harder action from these ostensibly wholesome girls. Frodo's comments:

"Abigail Toyne, of Page 3 and Playboy Pubs. I realize I've posted her before, but I couldn't pass these up. Somethoing about packaging."

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

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"Living Out Loud", from Tuna

Great nude scenes from holly hunter, but I don't really recommned the movie because you just can't sympathize with the main character. Holly Hunter is the wife of a philandering doctor. She kicks him out and finds life more difficult on her own, because she put he own life on hold to support their life as a couple.

My problem was this: Holly has been left with bazillions of dollars, a Park Avenue Apartment, great looks, great health, and enough brains to get into medical school. OK, so the problem is what, exactly? How many of you out there find her situation a real tragedy? I don't see many hands out there. Not exactly Schindler's List, is it?

Queen Latifah plays a sympathetic local lounge singer who never made it to the big time. I knew she could sing but I never knew she was that good. Damn! Danny Devito sings pretty well himself for a non-singer. He plays a loser, a likeable night elevator operator who's always hanging around with sharks out of his league, and who falls in love with Hunter when fate throws them together. He is shattered to find that, as a potential love interest, he is pretty much beneath her notice.

Hunter shows off her great buns and a lot more when she swings her leg up on the massage table. (See the brightened enlargement in #12).

(#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12) "Sea of Love", from Tuna

A female killer is stalking with the personal ads. Al Pacino is the cop working undercover to break the case. Is Ellen Barkin the murderer? Maybe, maybe not. Is Pacino in love with her? Maybe, maybe not, but his vulnerability scares the shit out of him. That's what the whole deal is about, and the suspense is managed very effectively. And you get an overheated Barkin as a bonus. The theme linking these two movies is songs by non-singers. In this case, it is the gigantic Goodman pinch-hitting for the diminutive DeVito.

(#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14) "Dead Calm", from Johnny Web

Here is my Billy Zane theory: all Billy Zane movies must now have a sinking ship. In Dead Calm, his schooner is sinking. In Cleopatra, he and his flagship are sunk in a famous naval battle. And I think we all know the general plot of Titanic. Susan's Plan didn't have a sinking ship, but it did have Rob Schneider, which is pretty much the same thing.

Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman are sailing the Pacific, trying to heal after the death of theri toddler. Somewhere in the middle of the ocean, they come upon a sinking schooner and the aforementioned Zane. Turns out Zane is a psychotic who turned the sinking ship into a bloodbath. Zane kidnaps Kidman in the good boat when Neill checks out the sinking ship. Neill, an expert sailor, has no choice but to pursue in the sinking ship full of dead bodies. There you have it. The execution is just OK, and the story has many flaws. Examples:

(1) When she gets the upper hand, Kidman leaves Zane floating in the ocean. Hours later, they return, and Zane is no longer on the little raft. OK, no problem, they sink the raft and sail off. The next morning at breakfast, Zane somehow comes back, and no explanation is offered. Is he immortal, like that Friday the 13th guy?

(2) There is absolutely no reason for the first 10-15 minutes of the film, which shows Neill arriving by train, not met by an expected Kidman. It then shows her in the hospital, and flashes back to the accident in which Kidman is injured and the toddler killed. This setup had no bearing at all on the rest of the movie, and really should have been axed.

Everything in the plot is exactly what you expect. The execution of the plot is so-so. It is a completely average movie, except for a good cast and a good atmospheric use of silence, music, and sea noises in the proper proportions to lend drama to the scenes.

It's interesting to see Kidman as she looked a decade ago. In some scenes you can't belive that Kidman used to look like that. In other scenes she looks like the Kidman of today. She probably looks younger now that she has discoveed the value of fitness.

(#1, #2, #3)

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