I don't think I'm breaking any news when I tell you that 2016 has been the worst presidential campaign season ever. It's been the worst because it has been by far the least issue-driven. Trump doesn't really have a deep understanding of any issues and Hillary's team has made the strategic decision ( I'm still not sure if it is the right one ) to fight Trump on his own turf and allow this election to be about personalities and personal insults.
Well, I'm here to tell you that none of that should really matter. If you are voting because you like or dislike a particular candidate, you are voting for the wrong reason. Ultimately your vote is going to affect the policies that are implemented in this country for the next 4 years ( and perhaps 30, considering the direction of the Supreme Court is at stake ). All of us collectively have a great power to determine the direction of our nation, and as all Spider-man fans know, with great power comes great responsibility. If you think Republican policies are the best thing for America, you should vote for Donald Trump regardless of how may pussies he has grabbed. If you think Democratic policies are the best thing for America, you should vote for Hillary Clinton, no matter how dishonest you think she is.
Of course, if you do think that Republican policies are the best thing for America, then I'm also here to tell you that you are wrong. Yes, I know that's just my opinion, and it's unlikely that I'll be able to sway yours, but as a former Reagan-loving Republican, I know that minds can be changed, and I feel like I wouldn't be doing my duty as a patriotic American if I didn't try to change some minds myself.
So, for the last 9 years, I've been using social media to try to change minds and win hearts regarding our nation's political path. Everyone reading this might not agree with my views, but if you want to know why I hold the views I have, the social media posts below will give you a very good picture of why I'm a liberal.
The post below are from my blog and my YouTube channel ( If I tried to find and include all my political facebook posts, it would probably take me until the 2020 election ). I created a lot of YouTube videos from 2007 - 2009, and have mostly used blog entries to express my political views since then.
The posts below are organized by topic, with the topics listed in chronological order relative to when I first covered the topic in a post. Within each topic, the post are arranged in chronological order. I intend to amends this blog post going forward each time I post a new political blog or vlog.
Clearly, nobody reading this introduction is going to have any desire to read/watch all the posts below, but if you are at all curious about what I'm all about in a political sense, just about everything you might want to know is listed below.
So, that's the full list ( for now ). If you are a US citizen, and happen to be reading this on or before November 8, 2016, please make sure you do ( or have done ) this.
I believe in competition.
I believe in hard work.
I believe that society works best when it allows people to compete and rewards those who win.
I believe that competition is what drives an economy and produces wealth for a nation. I believe competition is what makes a nation strong and keeps a nation strong.
Above all, I believe that while this competition needs to be fierce, it also needs to be fair. I want success to be based on merit, and I'm completely against the idea of some people having an unfair, unearned advantage.
And that's why I'm a Democrat.
I'm a Democrat because while the Republicans are certainly in favor of an economy based on competition, they also favor policies that limit the number of people who get to compete.
Let's face it, while everyone in American has the opportunity to compete, some people begin the competition with a huge head start. A child of wealthy parents growing up in a rich neighborhood has far more advantages than a kid growing up with middle class parents, and that middle class kid has many advantages over a kid who grows up poor.
It would best for our country if all three of the kids described above could compete on a level playing field. It would be best for our country if the most talented and hard-working of those three was the biggest success and had the most impact on our country.
However, we all know it doesn't work that way. We know that the further down you start on the socio-economic ladder, the harder it is to climb to the top. We know that more wealthy kids are more likely to go to good private schools, more likely to live in a district with great public schools, more likely to have tutors, more likely to be sent to enrichment classed after school or on weekends, more likely to have successful parents who can give them both academic and career advice, more likely to go to schools where they can feel safe, more likely to grow up in a two-parent household, and more likely to have friends and family who can get them valuable summer jobs to pad a resume and have connections that can help them land a job.
That's just a partial list, but I think you get the idea. It's an idea that's been understood for centuries. Thomas Grey expressed it beautifully more than 250 years ago ...
Anybody who has been paying attention for the last century knows that Democrats believe in taxing the rich to help the poor far more than Republicans do. Republicans won't even deny this. They look disdainfully on "bleeding heart liberals" and often accuse them of being "socialists".
Well, I guess I'm one of those "socialists", but I'm no bleeding heart. Heck, I don't even like most people I meet. However, I am a patriot who wants America to be a stronger and greater nation. And I don't think our nation will ever live up to its potential until we fully realize the talent of our human capital. As Grey wrote, too often a great talent will "waste its sweetness on the desert air", and quite often that desert is poverty. I want every one of our nations "gems" to be unearthed, and those gems in the most "dark unfathom'd caves" won't be unearthed without a little help.
I'd also like to emphasize that when I wrote "a little help" above, I did actually mean a "little". I understand that there is no way to give a poor child every advantage a rich child has short of completely eradicating income inequality. And while it may surprise those of you who think my liberal political views make me a communist, I'd never advocate completely leveling the playing field between the rich and the poor. As I strongly implied in the opening line of this piece, I'm actually a strong believer in capitalism, and capitalism doesn't work without ample incentives. Providing a better life for your children is one of the most important incentives there is. For capitalism to work, people need to believe that hard work and success will give them the opportunity to provide their children with a better life. So, Mark Zuckerberg should be allowed to give his kids more advantages in life than his less successful Harvard classmates. However, while Zuckerberg has made thousands of times more money than most of his Harvard classmates I don't believe his kids' chances of being successful should be thousands of times greater than the chances of his Harvard classmates' kids . His kids' chances of "making it" should not be millions of times greater than the chances of a poor child just because Zuckerberg has more financial resources than millions of poor families combined.
You can't have effective capitalism if you mandate a completely level playing field, but in order for capitalism to work best going forward, the playing field needs to be MUCH more level than it is now. Our nation and our nation's economy can't afford to lose the next Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg to the cycle of poverty.
I know some will say that a truly talented person doesn't need any help from the government to escape the cycle of poverty. I know some people reading this will point to the many great Horatio Alger stories in American history. There are certainly many examples in American history of people born into poverty "making it" and making it big. However, these people are the exception rather than the rule. There is no doubt that all these people are extraordinary individuals, because you need to be extraordinary to make it in America if you are born into poverty. The average person doesn't need to be extraordinary to "make it". I've living proof of that. By most standards, I've "made it", but I'm far from extraordinary. I would have never made it as far as I have in life without all the advantages I've had.
Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't grow up rich, and I worked my ass off every step of the way to achieve my current level of modest success, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy all sorts of advantages that I would not have had if I had grown up in poverty.
For starters, while I didn't grown up rich, my dad did make enough money that my mom was able to stay home with me. I was lucky enough to spend every hour of every day of my childhood being nurtured. * Not every child is that lucky.
* I'm adding this note here to make sure you don't think I'm trying to imply that parents who use daycare, or nannys, or relatives to watch the kids are bad parents. Having two working parents ( or a single working parent in a one-parent household isn't bad for a child at all as long as the person ( or persons ) providing the childcare provides the child with a nurturing and stimulating environment. Unfortunately, poor parents who can't afford to stay home usually don't have the financial resources to afford top notch childcare service. So, by having my Mom at home with me all day during my childhood, I had a big advantages over a lot of my peers.
My Mom read to me every night without fail. She starting reading to me at such an early age, that I could read children's books independently by the age of 4. So, I started school with a big head start thanks to my mom.
My Dad gave me a big head start by buying an Apple II+ computer for the family shortly after I started 7th grade. My junior high school offered courses in computer science ( once again, I was extremely lucky here. Not many kids had the opportunity to start taking computer science as a 7th grader in the Fall of 1982 ), and my Dad decided that buying the Apple II+ ( the same type of computer we were using in my junior high school computer science classes ) would be a great thing for my education ( and my younger brother's education ). I know that buying that Apple II+ wasn't an easy decision for my Dad to make. It may be hard to believe, but back then an Apple II+ cost as much as a new compact car. We didn't have a lot of excess money to throw around on just anything, so buying that Apple II+ was big decision.
My Dad had always been a bit of a car buff, and I'd sometimes hear him wax poetic about buying a Corvette if he ever had enough extra cash to spend. Well, my Dad never did buy that Corvette. The first and only time my family bought a new car was in 1975. That car was a green Toyota station wagon ( this was back in the day when all Toyotas were cheap compact economy cars ) and we ran that thing into the ground until it gave out in 1988. Actually, it's more accurate to say that my Mom ran it into the ground, because my Dad barely drove that car. My dad would drive the Toyota on weekend family outings, but the Toyota was my Mom's car from Monday to Friday. My Dad's car was always a used car, or rather a series of used cars he'd use primary for commuting. Some were pieces of junk that would break down within a year and some were in good enough shape to occasionally handle the weekend family outing duties, but there wasn't a Corvette in the bunch. Maybe if I'd grown up in another family with another Dad, our family would have had a sporty car for Dad rather than an Apple II+ for the kids. My brother and I were lucky to have a Dad who cared about out education and made enough money to give us resources to improve our education. I'm convinced that my brother and I would not be professional software developers today if we hadn't had that Apple II+ in our basement.
So, the point I'm trying to make here is that only a very extraordinary group of people can be a success without significant help, and very few of us can say we're one of those people. When somebody tells you "I made it on my own. Nobody ever gave me anything.", that person is either extraordinary or extraordinarily full of shit. Almost nobody makes it on talent and hard work alone. I'm a software developer today because I worked my ass off writing code on that Apple II+ in my basement, but none of that would have happened if I didn't have access to that Apple II+, or for that matter, a basement.
So, growing up a middle class kid with a pair of great parents, I was given the opportunity to compete in the world. With the love and resources provided by my wife and me, our kids will certainly have the opportunity to compete someday. However, as great as that is, that's not good enough for me. I don't just want my kids to be able to compete, I want all kids to be able to compete. I want every poor kid in America to have all the support he or she might need to succeed. I want those poor kids to be competing against middle class kids, rich kids, and my kids. I'm not afraid of that competition - I welcome it. The competition will make all those kids better, and our nation will be better for it.
Speaking of making our nation better, I don't think our nation can reach its potential without a regular infusion of new blood. Immigration has always been the lifeblood that leads to innovation and achievement. 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant, and as of 2014, 28.5% of new entrepreneurs were immigrants. I want immigrants to come to this country and compete for jobs. I'm not suggesting that our country admit an unlimited amount of immigrants each year, because the pool of available jobs can only grow so fast in the short term, but I do think we need to admit enough immigrants to allow their spirit and drive to make our economy larger and our nation stronger.
I know that a lot of people are afraid of change and are happy with the status quo. They don't mind if some people in our society are trapped in a cycle of poverty and they feel threatened by the idea of immigrants competing in the job market. However, I firmly believe that we are a better nation if more rather than less people are competing to get to the top. After all, a little competition never hurt anybody.
Let me start with a question - a question I'm going to direct particularly at any Catholics who happen to be reading this.
Do you think all Catholic priests are pedophiles?
Of course you don't. I'm sure all of you, regardless of your religious affiliation, know that most priest are good men who do good work in their communities. Most Catholics reading this can probably recall a parish priest they admired.
At that same time, I don't think anyone, even the most religious Catholics, would deny that some priests have committed horrible acts of pedophilia. We also all know the church hierarchy has a shameful history of protecting and enabling pedophile priests by shuffling them between parishes rather than defrocking these priest or bringing them to justice. This may be a hard truth for many Catholics to face, but the evidence is incontrovertible, and every Catholic I know has accepted the truth. However, most Catholics I know haven't considered leaving the Roman Catholic Church. Most Catholics believe in the mission of the Roman Catholic Church, and consider the Catholic Church to be an important part of their lives. However, they all want the Catholic Church to clean up its act. They want the Catholic Church to be purged of all pedophile priests, and they want the church to fix the systemic problems in the church that enabled and protected these pedophile priests.
Still, they love the Roman Catholic Church, and none of them believe that defrocking and arresting all the pedophile priests would in any way be an indictment of all the good priests out there.
So, with all that in mind, why do so many people seem to believe that pointing out the failures of some cops is an insult to all cops?
Why do so many people think that pointing out systemic problems in our police forces is an insult to all cops?
I see a lot a parallels between the police issues with bias and deadly force and the pedophile problem with the Roman Catholic church.
Just like the vast majority of priest are good people worthy of admiration, the vast majority of cops do an extremely difficult job with honor and dignity and deserve to be treated with respect.
However, just like it is undeniable that some priests have done a terrible things, it's clear that there are both bad cops and incompetent cops who have badly failed in their mission to "protect and serve".
Just like the Roman Catholic Church has systemic problems that have protected and enabled pedophile priests, police forces and police unions have systemic problems that protect and enable bad cops. Cops stick up for other cops without fail. It's generally a good thing to have each's other's back, but it's detrimental to the force when cops support other cops who have done wrong. We've also see plenty of examples when District Attorneys have failed to indict cops who have may have committed crimes. DAs and cops often work closely to together to win indict/convict suspects, so DAs often take it easy on cops that have done wrong. More often than not, bad cops who escape conviction also get to keep their jobs, because police unions protect them. This is despite the fact that most of the cops who faced indictment clearly did their job poorly. If a police encounter ends with an unarmed person dying, I think it's fair to say the that at least some cops involved with that encounter did their job poorly. However, because of police union protection, almost all cops involved in such encounters get to keep their jobs
It can also be argued that both the the Roman Catholic Church and some police forces have a problem with recruiting. Police forces are clearly hiring some people who should not be given the power and responsibility that a police officer has, and the Roman Catholic Church would certainly be able to get a better set of people into the priesthood if they changed some of the requirements for entering the clergy ( for example, allowing women to be priests, and perhaps allowed married people to be priests ).
So much like the Catholic Church, America's polices forces have some members of the organization that should certainly be fired and/or jailed, and systemic problems that need to be fixed. However, just as Catholics are willing to admit these problems without thinking less of their parish priest, people who point out the problems with the police for should not be seen an the enemy of the police.
Criticism of the police does not undermine the police - on the contrary, it's helping the police to be more effective and respected. Every time there is a police incidents involving the potentially unwarranted use of deadly force, the public's confidence in the police drops. It's important that communities work with police to help keep communities safe. An engaged community make it easier for cops to do their job and it keeps cops safer. I'm sure most cops and people who care about them are aware of the "Stop Snitchin'" movement in urban African American communities. The "Stop Snitchin" movement is terrible for both cops and the Black communities they serve. There is plenty of blame to go around regarding this movement, but it's also clear that this movement did not develop in a vacuum . It's important that cops take step to make sure the worst members of the force do not alienate the Black community further.
The first step should be to make sure there are less bad cops on the streets. I'm by no means saying that there are a lot of bad cops, and I'm also not saying that all bad cops are bad people. In fact I believe that most "bad" cops are good people who are ill-suited for their job or just needed better training. I'm not going to pretend I understand how scary being a cop can be how it feels to put your life on the line every day. Being a cop is obviously an extremely stressful job, but it's also obvious ( in all phases of life ) that some people are better at handling stress than others. Some people are also better at recognizing and accounting for their implicit bias than other people. I'd like to believe that most cops would have handled situations like the Philando Castile incident better than the cop who shot and killed Mr. Castile.
I think it's just common sense that if Mr. Castile had intended to pull out a gun and shoot the officer talking to him, he would not have announced to the officer that he had a gun in the car. Common sense tells you that Mr. Castile made the announcement because he wanted to avoid being shot. However, I believe fear and implicit bias overrode common sense for the officer who shot Mr. Castile. If you watch the video of the aftermath of the shooting, it seems clear that office who shot Mr. Castile is in a state of fear and panic. He's still pointing his gun in the car and scream at the woman shooting the video to keep her hands where he can see them. I'm not denying that being a cop is an extremely stressful job, but it's clear that some people can't handle that stress. People who can't handle the stress simply should not be police officers.
As we all know, there have been many other similar incidents over the last few years ( and I'm sure there were many other incidents like this in the 200+ years in our nation prior to the invention of smartphones ), but I'm not going to review them all here. This is partly because I simply don't have time to give an analysis of most incidents, but mostly because I don't have all the facts on all the incidents. I'm not going to pretend that I'm 100% sure that deadly force was unjustified in every single one of those incidents. I'm sure there have been cases in which a white police officer was justified in using deadly force in self defense when a Black person was truly a mortal threat to the police officer. I'm sure the will also be plenty of cases in the future where deadly force will be justified. However, when those types of incidents happen going forward, a large percentage of people in this nation will not give the white police officer the benefit of the doubt. Assumptions will be made that the police officer is a racist loose cannon, even before all the facts are known. This truth should serve as motivation for police forces to clean up their act. Cops can't do their job affectively when a large portion of the population is under the false assumption that most white cops are racists. This bad reputation is a bad thing for cops, and the only way for cops to fix their reputation is to get rid of the cops who are giving all the good cops a bad reputation. Note, that when I say "get rid of", I don't necessarily mean permanently. I do believe that any cops who commits an unjustified homicide should be fired and/or imprisoned, but improved training on crisis management and bias could turn sub-par cops into good cops and make all cops better ( Let's face it, everyone has issues with racial bias. Anyone who says they are completely colorblind is either a liar or oblivious to their own faults ).
The bottom line is this, if you care about the police you should want all police forces to be full of well-trained individuals suited to handle the stress associated with the job. I know it is natural for any organization to want to circle the wagons and defend their own when members of the organization face criticism, but the truth is that most of the cops responsible for these terrible shooting are not doing all the good cops any favors. The police forces of America should not feel like they're under attack, just because citizens want to hold them to a higher standard. Higher standards are a good thing that we should all strive for. Nobody ever gets better if they're already convinced they are the best they can be.
Rich
P.S. Sorry if this blog was a bit rambling. I know is not my best work ( I've been too busy with my job and family this month to spend enough time on this ), but I hope I go my basic point across. I actually wanted to talk about Black Lives Matter and Kaepernick in the post, but I guess that will have to wait until next month.
The title of this post is a bit misleading. I don't really think swimming in general is silly. I actually think swimming is an important life skill that everyone should learn. However, as I watched the Olympics this month ( Full disclosure: Swimming is probably my favorite Olympic event to watch - I think I've watched Michael Phelps win all 23 of his gold medals over the last 12 years ), I had a revelation that Olympic swimming is actually a little bit silly. Why? Well consider the following ...
I think everyone can agree that Usain Bolt is the greatest sprinter of all time. He holds world records in both the 100 meter and 200 meter sprints ( his world record times are much faster than anyone else has ever run ), he's won both the 100 m and 200 m sprints in three straight Olympics and his victories in the 4x100m relays in those same three Olympics gives him an astounding 9 sprinting gold medals ( and he'd probably have 12 if the Olympics had a 4x200 meter relay ).
So, Bolt's the undisputed king of short-distance races, but let's imagine for a moment that we lived in a world where in additional to the types of sprints Bolt competes in, the sport of track also held sprint events that were run in non-conventional ways. Let's say there were races in which the competitors were required to run backwards ( "the backsprint" ), races in which competitors compromised their balance by keeping their hands on their chest the entire race ( "the breastsprint" ), and a really odd style of racing in which competitors were required to alternate clapping their hands in front of their bodies and behind their backs which each step ( This style of racing made it look like the racers were flapping their arms back and forth, so it was given the name "the butterfly". ).
Let's imagine that there were 100 meter and 200 meter Olympic races in all these odd styles, and there were also individual and relay "medley" races in which either an individual or different members of a relay team would race using each of the 4 styles of sprinting.
Let's also assume that Bolt had a teammate who had won gold medals in each Olympics from 2004 to 2016. We should give this hypothetical sprinter a name, so let's call him - I don't know - Pikul Melps.
In our hypothetical world, Melps had an outstanding track career. The 19-year old Melps won the 200 meter "freestyle" sprint in 2004 ( Before Bolt ( then 18 ) started to dominate the event in 2008 ). He also won 3 Olympic gold medals as Bolt's teammate in the 4x100 meter relay freestyle sprint and 3 more gold medals without Bolt's help as a member of the 4x400 meter freestyle relay team. All in all, Melps won 7 gold medals in "freestyle" sprinting. Not quite as impressive as Bolt's 9 gold medals ( especially because Bolt won 6 individual freestyle gold medals while Melps won only 1 ), but still mighty impressive. However, Melps wasn't just a freestyle sprinter; he was also the best butterfly sprinter of all time, and he was also good enough in the backsprint and the breastsprint to be the best individual medley sprinter in the world. His Olymipic heroics in the butterfly and medley events added 16 more Olympic gold medals to his total, making Melps by far the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time.
Yet, despite Melps 23 gold medals, nobody really thought of him as the best sprinter of all time. After all, Bolt could beat Melps in any freestyle sprint event Melps was the best of all time at the less efficient styles of sprinting, but when it came right down to it, everyone thought Bolt was the best because could get from point A to point B faster than Melps - even Melps admitted as much.
"Am I better than Bolt?", Melps replied incredulously to reporters. "Of course, not. Just look at that guy run. Every time I race him, all I ever see is the back of his shirt. To suggest that I'm better than Bolt is just silly."
At this point, anyone reading this probably thinks I'm being silly. I know I'm being a bit over the top here, but seriously, swimming one of the few Olympics events in which you can win an Olympic medal by doing something in a less than optimal way. Could you win an Olympic medal throwing a javelin underhanded? Could you win an archery medal blindfolded? Could you win a diving medal by doing the best cannonball? Could you win the cycling race on a tricycle? Could you win a golf medal by using a putter for every stroke? Could you win a boxing medal by fighting with one hand tied behind your back? Could you win a track event by walking instead of running ( You can? Well, shit. I guess that kinda undermines my whole thesis here ( but not really because nobody really pays any attention to race walking.) )?
Look, I'm not trying to say Michael Phelps isn't an all time great athlete. It's remarkable that he made 5 straight Olympics swimming teams. It's remarkable that he was good enough to be on both the 4x100 and 4x200 relay teams for 4 straight Olympics ( and win 6 gold medals in those relays ). I loved watching him win those 23 gold medals over a 12 year span. He's definitely an all-time great athlete, but during his entire career he's only won 1 individual gold medal in a race in which all of of his competitors were swimming as fast as they could for the entire race. So, with that in mind, I don't think we should be putting Michael Phelps on a pedestal as the greatest Olympian ever. I'd take Usain Bolt instead. I'd take Carl Lewis ( 9 gold medals - 7 of which were individual medals ). I'd take Eric Heiden ( Competing in the days when financial restraints only allowed most Olympians to compete in one Olympics, and competing in a sport without any relays to pad medal totals, Heiden won 5 individual gold medals in the 1980 Olympics in distances ranging from 500 meters to 10,000 meters ( That would be like a runner winning the 400 m, 800 m, 1500 m, 5K, and 10K in the same Olympics ). ). I'd take Ashton Eaton ( The dude has won 2 straight Olympic Decathlons ). I'd take Katie Ledecky ( At 19 she already has 4 individual gold medal in freestyle swimming, and she'd almost certainly have 2 more if the 1500 m race was an Olympic swimming event for women. ). Heck I'd even take people you may not have even heard of like Bob Mathias ( won the Olympic Decathlon in 1952 at the age of 21 after winning it in 1948 at the age of 17 (!!!). ) and Al Oerter ( won the discus gold medal at 4 straight Olympics ).
Once again, Phelps is great. I get into just as much as a semi-jingoistic pro-USA fervor as the next guys when watching the Olympics. 23 gold medals is awesome. But can you be the best Olympian of all time when you win most of your medals using a swimming style that nobody would use if they wanted to swim somewhere quickly? Of course not - that's just silly.
Rich
P.S. To be fair, Olympic track and field isn't without some silliness of its own. Race Walking is an absolutely ridiculous sport ( Bob Costas once said that being the fastest walker is like being he loudest whisperer ), and I've always thought that 1500 meter was a silly distance for a race. Why? Well, consider the following:
1) Olymipics track and field has a 100 meter race, a 200 meter race, a 400 meter race, and an 800 meter race. What distance do you think should be next in that sequence?
2) OK, I could see why track and field might want races in round numbers of kilometers for races longer than 800 meters; that's why there is a 5K race and a 10K race in the Olympics, and a 3K race in non-Olympic track meets But really, if you are going to have a 1.5 K ( 1500 m ) race, why not just make it a 2K race? Why bother to run 1.5 K?
3) I'll tell you why - it's because the mile is a distance full of romance and tradition ( If you don't believe me, I have 2 words for you - "Roger Banister". The 4-minute-mile is the most hallowed milestone in all of track and field. You probably think sprinting is more glamorous than middle distance running, but do you have any idea who broke the 10-second 100 meter barrier or the 20-second 200 meter barrier? ), so when track started to use metric distances they wanted to have a "metric mile" race. I've often heard announcers refer to the 1500 m race as "the metric mile". There's one probablem with that however - a mile is about 1609 meters. So, if you really wanted to have a "metric mile" race, why not make it a 1600 meter race?
4) Here's the clincher: One lap of an Olympic track is exactly 400 meters, so a 1600 meter race would be exactly 4 laps. A 1500 meter race is 3.75 laps. Why the hell did anyone think it would make sense to run a race 3.75 laps long? Would it make sense if the Indy 500 was 199.75 laps long?
Yeah, I know I'm nit-picking, but every 4 years I get a little passionate about this stuff.
If you're a a Hillary-hating Bernie Sanders supporter, I'm going to consider it a small victory that you're even reading this sentence. I say that because I'm sure you're sick and tired of reading articles like this. I'm sure you're sick of people telling you "I really wanted Bernie Sanders to be president too, but now that there's no chance for him to win the presidency this year, we need to hold our noses and vote for Hillary to keep Donald Trump from becoming president." I'm sure you consider people who tell you that to be traitors to Bernie's movement.
Well, I guess I'm one of those traitors, but I'd like to humbly ask you to spend a few minutes of your day having a discussion with me - and I do mean a discussion rather than a one-way lecture that talks down to you and insults your intelligence.
If you're kind enough to read further and have anything you'd like to say to me, please email me at hillbernletstalk2016@gmail.com. I promise to spend as much of my free time as a I can to have a civil discussion with any Bernie Sanders supporter.
Ever since I came to the disheartening realization that a true progressive would not be elected president this year, I've been trying to convince Bernie supporters to vote for Hillary to keep Trump and the GOP from taking the White House. Thus far, none of my appeals have been successful. Perhaps that's simply because I'm in the wrong here. Perhaps there's no way for a Bernie supporter like you and person like me to find common ground. However, I want to give this kind of discussion one more try. I want to start by responding to a sentiment I've heard from many Bernie supporters, a sentiment exemplified by the quote below ( This quote can be found 10:44 mark of this podcast ( about 15 minutes before the end of the podcast ).):
"I'm really sick and tired of hearing about 'Vote Hillary, or you'll get Trump'. I'm like, OK, that's not what voting is about. You're not supposed to vote based on fear. You're supposed to vote based on what you believe in and who you think will be the best president. If that's Hillary, fine. If that's Trump, fine."
I've got a very different idea of what voting is about. I believe voting is about exercising our power to effect public policy. I believe voting is about exercising our power to choose the path our nation takes. It's a great power and ( as this guy might say ) a great responsibility. I believe that if you refuse to cast a vote for any of the candidates who have a chance of winning an election, you are ceding that power and shirking that responsibility.
OK, so that's my side of the argument ( which I've decided to call "The Spider-Man argument" ). Now, it's your turn - please go ahead and email me. FYI, I haven't gone into the details of Clinton's or Trump's policy positions, because I believe 99% of the people reading this understand that Donald Trump will take our nation on a very different path than Hillary Clinton. However, if you happen to be a person who insists that there would be no difference between Trump's policies and Clinton's policies or believes Clinton would be just as bad as Trump for our nation, please read what I wrote in the "P.S." below and let me know what you disagree with.
Thanks for taking to time to hear me out. I look forward to hearing from you.
Rich
P.S. OK, while I could recite a long laundry list of policy positions differences between Clinton and Trump, I'm instead going to make a case for why their presidential policies will be very different.
Either Hillary or Trump would be a first-term president. All presidents have their own ideas and policy goals, but one thing that all first-term presidents have in common is that they want to become second-term presidents. It's very difficult to become a second-term president if you have to face a primary challenge in your re-election campaign ( just ask Jimmy Carter or George H.W. Bush ). In order to avoid a primary challenge, first-term presidents rarely ( if ever ) stray very far from the standard policy positions of their political party. So, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that regardless of what crazy or dishonest things Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump might say in hopes of getting elected, in the end, a President Hillary Clinton or a President Donald Trump will follow about 95% of the policy positions of the party that nominated them.
So, President Trump would rubber-stamp any bills passed by by a Republican Congress and veto any bills passed by a Democratic Congress.
President Clinton would rubber-stamp any bills passed by a Democratic Congress and veto any bills passed by a Republican Congress.
Perhaps most importantly, Donald Trump would nominate conservative justices for the Supreme Court, while Hillary Clinton would nominate liberal justices to the Supreme court.
So President Donald trump would generally follow the orthodoxy of the Republican party and President Hillary Clinton would generally follow the orthodoxy of the Democratic party.
Now, I understand that typical Democratic policies are much too far to right for you ( as they are to me ), but do you really want the our nation's policies to be as far to the right as typical Republican policies? Do you really believe there is no difference between the policy positions of the Democratic party and the policy positions of the Republican party. Do you really think Democrats are just as bad as Republicans when it comes to things like tax fairness, the social safety net, voting rights, women's rights, racial justice, reproductive freedom, union rights, climate science, education, and LGBTQ rights?
Some Bernie people have told me that none of this matters because the GOP will still control Congress, and President Hillary Clinton would not be able to do any good due to congressional gridlock. Some say with ( with great justification ) that President Hillary Clinton would just compromise with a GOP Congress like her husband did, and would not do any good in her years in office.
Well, to those making those arguments, I'd just like to counter with the following:
This election isn't about the good that President Hillary Clinton might do, it's about the bad that President Donald Trump certainly would do.
Yes, I understand that our nation needs positive change and Hillary certainly will not provide that change. She doesn't have the political will to make positive changes. I believe Hillary Clinton's Presidency would almost certain be a status quo presidency. I know that "status quo" is deeply disappointing compared to the vision Bernie Sanders laid out for our nation, but a "status quo" America would feel like a paradise next to President Trump's America.
I, like you, want our nation to move forward in a liberal progressive direction. I'm sorry to say that this in not going to happen this year. However 2020 is only 4 years away. We can still primary Hillary in 2020, win the White House and take the nation in a progressive direction 4 years from now. However, we've got a long way to go before our nation gets to where we want it to be, and it's going to be far harder to do starting in 2020 if we spend the next 4 years sliding backward in a conservative direction under President Trump, rather than remaining in a "status quo" state under President Clinton. We've all fought hard to get our nation this far down the progressive road. Many that have come before us have died to get us this far down this road. Let's not dishonor the memory of all that have worked so hard and sacrificed so much by ceding the progress we've made to Donald Trump and the GOP.
Let's protect the progress we've made so far by voting in November to make sure Donald Trump never sits in the Oval Office.
Earlier this month, Ichiro Suzuki recorded the 2,979th hit in his major league career, giving him 4,257 hits combined between Major League Baseball ( MLB ) and the Japanese equivalent of major league baseball ( where he recorded 1,278 hits from 1992 to 2000). The number 4,257 was considered significant by some because the MLB record for hits in a career is 4,256. This record is held by Pete Rose, and after Ichiro recorded his 4,257th hit, Rose and his supporters started to make noise that Ichiro's 1278 Japanese hits shouldn't count towards his total because the Japanese major leagues are inferior to the American major leagues.
Well, my first impression here is that the Rose crowd is being a bit too defensive, because nobody's been trying to say that Rose no longer holds the MLB record for career hits. When it comes to the MLB record, of course Ichiro's 1278 hits in the Japanese league don't count. Clearly only MLB hits can count towards the MLB records. That fact is true by definition, regardless of whether Japanese major league baseball is as good as major league baseball in America.
The larger point that I think Rose and his fans are trying to make is that Ichiro's 4,257 professional hits do not make him a more prolific hitter than Pete Rose. They want to make it clear to anyone who will listen to them that Pete Rose is the "Hit King" and always will be. They want to make it clear that Ichiro would not have had anywhere near 1278 hits from 1992 to 2000 if he had been playing those years in America instead of in Japan.
I actually agree that Ichiro wouldn't have gotten close to 1278 in MLB from 1992 to 2000.
He would have gotten more than 1278 hits, probably a lot more.
There are a lot a complex mathematical and sabermetrical ways to justify this belief, but the easiest argument is the following.
Prior to playing in MLB starting with the 2001 season, Ichiro played 7 full seasons in the Japanese Pacific League from 1994 to 2000. In those 7 season he amassed 1,242 hits ( He amassed 36 combined hits in 1992 and 1993 as a teen-age part-time player. ). In his first 7 years in MLB from 2001 to 2007, he collected 1,592 hits.
Let's take a moment to let this sink in. After getting 1,242 in 7 full seasons in Japanese baseball, he got 1,592 hits in first 7 seasons in Major Leauge Baseball. So, if the Rose supporters are correct that it is harder to get hits in MLB than in Japanese baseball, why did Ichiro get 350 more hits in his first 7 years in Major League Baseball than his his last 7 years of Japanese baseball? Well, while it is easier to get a a hit in a given at bat in the Japanese Leagues ( Ichiro hit .351 in Japan but only .333 in his first 7 years in MLB ) it's harder to get a large number of hits in a Japanese baseball season, because there are less games in a Japanese baseball season than an MLB season. In the MLB, they play 162 games, but in Japan the season was only 130 games long from 1994 to 1996 and only 135 games long from 1997 to 2000. So even though the easier level of play in Japan helped Ichiro hit for a higher average in Japan than in MLB, the much shorter Japanese season kept his season hit totals below what they probably would have been in MLB. The most hits Ichiro ever got in a Japanese baseball season was 210 ( in 1994 ). Ichiro's had more than 210 hits in a season8 times in MLB, including an all-time MLB single season recordof262 hits in 2004.
All of this doesn't prove that Ichiro could have gotten more than 1,278 MLB hits prior to 2001 if given the chance, but I think it makes it highly likely. If Ichiro has come to America at the age of 18, his biggest impediment to collecting at least 1278 MLB hits before 2001 would have have Major League GMs. Ichiro wasn't an effective player in the Japanese leagues in 1992 and 1993 ( he hit .253 as an 18-year old in 1992 and .188 as an 19-year old in 1993 ). It's unlikely that any MLB team would have promoted him to majors in 1994 based on his 1992 and 1993 numbers. However in 1994, he hit .385 in Japan. That .385 average in Japan probably the translates to over .400 in AAA minor league ball. If Ichiro had hit over .400 in AAA ball in 1994, it seems unlikely that he would not have started 1995 in the major leauges. In fact, he probably would have been promoted to MLB at some point during his 1994 season. In any case, if we assume Ichiro would have only played 6 full season in MLB prior to 2001 and he would have collected hits at the same pace as he did from 2001 to 2007 ( 1592 hits in 7 years is a 227.42857 hits per year pace ), we would estimate that Ichiro would have gotten 1364 MLB hits from 1995 to 200 ( 1364.57, but I'll round down to be more conservative about his potential hit total ). 1364 is still plenty more than 1278. If Ichiro had collected 1364 MLB hits from 1995 to 2000, he would have broken Rose's MLB record of 4256 last season.
However, Ichiro didn't get those 1364 extra MLB hits. He didn't get those 1364 extra MLB hits, just like Ted William didn't get close to 200 extra MLB home runs during the years he missed while serving his country as a Navy pilot in World War II and the Korean War, Satchel Paige didn't get hundreds of extra MLB wins when he was kept out of MLB because of the color of his skin. The history Major League Baseball is full of "What if?"s, but "What if?"s don't count, so Rose is going be the MLB "Hit King" until somebody manages to get 4257 hits in an MLB career. Rose's career hit record is one of the great records in sports, but those who want to prop Rose up should not try to push Ichiro down. Fans of Rose may not want admit it, but I think history will judge Ichiro to be a greater player than Rose. The numbers actually say Rose was little bit better as a pure hitter ( Ichiro has a better lifetime average, but Rose has a better OPS+ due to a higher walk rate and the fact that he played in played in an era of low scoring while Ichiro played much of his career in a high scoring era. However, I think Ichiro career OPS+ ( 108 vs. Rose's 118 ) could have closer to Rose's if he could have added 6 or 7 MLB seasons in his prime from 1994 to 2000. ), but Ichiro's contributions on the base-paths and his spectacular fielding put Ichiro just ahead of Rose in my opinion. *
* For what it is worth, according to baseball-reference.com, Rose accumulated a career WAR of 79.1 and Ichiro has a career WAR of only 59.6. However, as we've noted before, Ichiro played 7 full seasons in Japan before he played in America. Ichiro had a total WAR of 40.9 is his first 7 years in the USA. I we assume Ichiro could have accumulated 6/7 of that total if he had played in MLB from 1995 to 2000, he could have gotten 35 more WAR before 2001 and would now have a total of 94.6 WAR for his career. Of course, there is no way to be sure he's be as good from 1995 to 2000 in MLB as he was from 2001 to 2007, but I believe he would have accumulated enough extra WAR in those years to surpass Rose's 79.1. In any case, they were both incredible players. It worth noting that while Ichiro's total of 40.9 WAR from his age-27 season to his age-33 season ( 2001 - 2007 ) is very impressive, Rose had 42.2 WAR from his age-27 season to his age-33 season ( 1968 - 1974 ).
I hope people will view this post as being more pro-Ichiro than anti-Rose. I admittedly think that Rose should not forgiven by MLB for gambling on baseball games, but I also think was one of the greatest players I ever had the privilege to watch. I still fondly remember his 44-game hitting streak, and I rooted for him during his entire chase of Ty Cobb's career hit record. He broke a record that most people thought could ever be broken, and no one can ever take that away from him.
So, who's the real "Hit King"? It's still Rose, because "what if?"s don't count, but nobody will every convince me that Ichiro wasn't a better player than Rose. In the end, I'll be telling my grandkids about both of these guys.
For this post, I'm borrowing an idea from Bill Simmons. He's written several column about "championship belts" in various disciplines, my favorite of which was The Action Hero Championship Belt. I've decided to apply this idea to baseball, specifically the New York Mets. Here are the rules ...
1) The "championship belt" holder for a given team is generally the best player on a team at given time. However ...
2) A great player doesn't have to relinquish the belt because of just one bad season. For example, here are Mike Schmidt's home run totals with the Phillies from 1974 to 1987. The numbers in blue indicate years he led the league in homers.
1974 36
1975 38
1976 38
1977 38
1978 21
1979 45
1980 48
1981 31 ( strike-shortened 102 game season - on pace for 49 over full season )
1982 35
1983 40
1984 36
1985 33
1986 37
1987 35
Schmidt had an off-year in 1978, but he did not lose the Phillies Championship Belt.
3) A great player could even retain the belt for several consecutive bad seasons at the end of his career depending on ...
- how great the player was
- how great the typical belt-holder is for the player's franchise
- whether or not another great player is on the horizon as the older great player declines.
4) The "championship belt" title could be vacant for a period of time if the team does not have a great player during that period of time. Whether or not a player can be considered a "great" player for the team is tied to the history of the franchise. It's a lot easier to be a "great" belt-worthy Marlin than a "great" Yankee.
5) The belt can be awarded retroactively. For example, when Mike Schmidt had his bad year in 1978, he would not have been stripped of the belt at the time. However, let's say the Phillies best player in 1978 had been a Willie Mays caliber player who wound up being better than Mike Schmidt for the rest of his career. Well, in that case, this hypothetical "Willie Mays" of the Phillies would retroactively be awarded the 1978 Phillies Championship Belt years after 1978.
In other to further illustrate these principals, I'm going to list the holders of the Yankees Championship belt from 1920 until the present.
Babe Ruth : 1920 - 1934
There's no doubt Gehrig was more valuable than Babe Ruth in 1933 and 1934, and Gehrig was clearly not a flash-in-the-pan who was unworthy of the Yankees belt. However, Babe Ruth is Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth was going the be the Yankees belt holder as long as he wore pinstripes.
Lou Gehrig : 1934 - 1938
By 1938, Lou Gehrig was already feeling the effect of the ALS that would end his life 3 years later. Joe DiMaggio was certainly better in 1938 than Gehrig, but if the Yankees belt has been a real thing, nobody was taking it away from Gehrig until he walked off the field 8 games into the 1939 season.
Joe DiMaggio : 1939 - 1951
Yogi Berra was a great player and great Yankee. Yogi was better than DiMaggio in 1950 and 1951 ( when Yogi won his first MVP award ), but much like Ruth, DiMaggio was iconic. Ernest Hemingway didn't write about "the great Berra". Nobody wrote songs about "Joltin' Yogi Berra". DiMaggio relinquished the Yankees belt when he walked out of the Yankees clubhouse for the last time.
Mickey Mantle : 1952 - 1968
Sorry, Yogi. You would have been a belt-holder for at least a decade for almost any other team, but these are the Yankees we're talking about. Berra did win the MVP in 1954 and 1955, but Mantle is up there on the Yankees Mount Rushmore with Ruth/Gehrig/DiMaggio, and actually had far superior advanced stats than Berra in 1954 and 1955. While it's clear Mantle was washed-up from 1965 to 1968, there wasn't actually any Yankees ready to seize the belt in the those years. Mantle was so well-respected at the end of his career that 1968 MVP Denny McLain gave Mantle a going-away gift by grooving a gopher ball to Mantle 10 days before Mantle's career ended.
1969 : Vacant
After 49 seasons of Ruth/Gerhrig/DiMaggio/Mantle as the standard bearers of the Yankees, nobody on the sub-500 1969 team was worthy to wear the Yankees'belt.
Thurman Munson : 1970 - 1976
Roy White was actually the Yankees best player in 1970, but 1970 was also the Rookie of the Year campaign for a player who would lead the Yankees to their first pennant in 12 years during his MVP season of 1976. There's no doubt Thurman was the heart and soul of those 1970's Yankees until his tragic death in 1979. One could argue that the belt should have belonged to Thurman until he died, but I think the belt changed hands when a force of nature arrived in the Bronx in 1977.
Reggie Jackson : 1977 - 1981
I've seen a lot of impressive things in my 40+ years of watching baseball, buy it's hard to top what Reggie did in his last 3 at bats of the 1977 World Series. Reggie hit first-pitch home runs off of three different pitchers, the last of which was a mammoth shot into the black seats beyond the center field fence at Yankees Stadium.
Soon after Reggie arrived in New York, he was quoted as saying ...
"This team, it all flows from me. I’m the straw that stirs the drink. Maybe I should say me and Munson, but he can only stir it bad.”*
Considering his alleged insult of Munson, lots of Yankees fans ( and I'm sure the players ) hesitated to accept Reggie as one of their own, but nobody could deny he was king of the Yankees hill after that night in October.
Back 1973 when Reggie was on his way to winning the MVP ( and the 2nd of 3 straight World Series titles ) with the A's, he said ...
"If I was playing in New York, they'd name a candy bar after me."
Of course, Reggie turned out to be right ...
Not gonna lie - it was a pretty good candy bar. I had a bunch of them in my day.
Dave Winfield was a great player, a worthy Hall-of-Famer, and probably the best all-around player for the Yankees in the 80's. However, be it fair or not, his 1-22 performance in the 1981 World Series ( and George Steinbrenner's "Mr. May" quote ) will always be one of the first things people think about when they think of Dave Windfield's Yankees career.
Don Mattingly : 1984 - 1995
Donnie Baseball's last great season was in 1987. After that, his chronic back problems limited him to being a good player rather than a great player. While other Yankees certainly had better seasons than Mattingly from 1988 to 1995, there is no doubt that the Yankees were Mattingly's team up to and including his fine performance in the 1995 playoffs ( .417 batting average and a 1.148 OPS over 5 games ).
Derek Jeter : 1996 - 2014
Derek wasn't always the best or most valuable Yankee during his career ( especially during the last few years of his career ), and it could be argued that closer Mariano Rivera was the biggest reason why the Yankees won 5 World Series ( and 7 AL pennants ) during the Jeter years ( I'd be one to make that argument ), but Jeter was the easily the most iconic Yankee since Mantle and probably the most revered Yankee since Dimaggio. I'll always contend that he wasn't as good as Yankees fans think he is ( He's certainly a worthy first ballot Hall-of-Famer, but Yankees fans treated him like he was the best player in baseball, which he never was at any point during his career. ), but in Yankees circles, he's a legend whose shoes will be extremely difficult to fill.
2015 - 2016 : Vacant
Nobody has filled Jeter's shoes yet, and nobody will until the Yankees start winning pennants again.
Ok, so with that ( longer than anticipated ) preliminary complete, let's get to the Mets.
1962 - 1966 : Vacant
If you know anything about the Mets' history, there is no need for any explanation.
Tom Seaver: 1967 to June 15, 1997
Mets fans probably don't need of summary of Tom Seaver's resume to agree with this, but I'm going to list a few key points anyway.
1967 Rookie of the Year
1969 : Went 25 -7 with a 2.21 ERA, won the Cy Young Award, and most importantly, led the Miracle Mets to their first World Series title ( The Mets has finished in 9th or 10th place every season prior to 1969 )
April 22, 1970 : Struck out the last 10 batters of a game to finish a game with 19 strikeouts. No Major League pitcher before or since has struck out 10 batters in a row. Who knows how many more he could have struck out in a row if the game has not ended?
1973: Wins his second Cy Young Award and and leads the Mets to their 2nd National League Championship.
1975: Wins his 3rd Cy Young Award. At the time, no pitcher has won more than 3 Cy Young Awards.
1976 : Seaver struck out 235 batters that season, marking the 9th consecutive season he'd struck out 200 or more batters. No pitcher before or since has matched such a streak. Not Nolan Ryan, not Randy Johnson, not Walter Johnson, not Bob Feller, not Pedro Martinez, not anyone. ( BTW, in case you are wondering. If the 1981 strike has not happened and Ryan has struck out 200 or more in 1981, his best streak still would have only been 7 years ( from 1976 to 1982 ). Also, Randy Johnson did manage to keep his 200-strikeout season streak going by striking out 204 in the strike-shortened 1994 season ( and 294 in the slightly shortened 1995 season ), but he never stuck out 200 or more for 9 straight season because he struck out less than 200 in injury-plagued 1996 and 2003 seasons. Also note that Pedro Martinez could have had 9 straight 200 strikeout seasons if 1994 and 1995 has been full seasons, but his 174 K's in 144 teams games in 1995 is only on a pace for 195 strikeouts in a 162-game season. )
Seaver was, as his nickname spelled out was "The Franchise". The first words of his Hall of Fame plaque summed up his impact perfectly.
"Franchise power pitcher who transformed Mets from lovable losers into formidable foes."
I was born in January 1970 into a family of Mets fans still basking of the glow of the Mets World Series triumph in October 1969. Seaver was almost like a patron saint in my family. Family members used to tell me I looked like Seaver in hushed tones, as if it connoted something divine. We were all devastated when the Mets traded Seaver on the night of June 15, 1977. After that, nothing would be the same for a long time.
June 15, 1977 - June 15, 1983 : Vacant
It was a long six years in the wilderness. The Mets finished in last or next to last every year from 1977 to 1983. However, things started to change when the Mets made the best trade in team history on June 15, 1983.
Much like Seaver did in the late 60's, Hernandez was the leading force behind the Mets transforming from perennial losers into a championship team. He led the Mets to a 90-win 2nd place finish in 1984 and finished second in the MVP voting. He was great in 1985 and 1986 as well, but he lost the belt in 1985, becasue Dwight Gooden's 1985 season was the best season a pitcher has ever had since baseball started to use a lively ball with a cork center in 1920 ( prior to 1920, baseball did not have cork centers and pitchers dominated the game. ).
Dwight Gooden : 1985 - 1986
Gooden had a sub-par year in 1986 ( 17 - 6 / 2.84 ERA / 200 Ks ) by his 1985 standards ( 24 - 4 / 1.53 ERA / 268 Ks ), but the Mets won the World Series in 1986, so the glow of his 1985 season was still shining through his 1986 season. However, when checked in drug rehab just before the 1987 season, that glow was gone forever.
Darryl Strawberry : 1987 - 1990
Darryl from 1987 - 1990 :
1987 : 39 HR, 104 RBI
1988 : 39 HR, 101 RBI
1989 : 29 HR, 77 RBI ( only played 134 games that year )
1990 : 37 HR, 108 RBI
He could have been a lot greater if not for the booze and coke, but he was pretty damn good anyway. In 1988 he led the NL in OPS and OPS+.
David Cone : 1991 - August 27, 1992
After Strawberry signed as a free agent with the Dodgers after the 1990 season, both the Mets and Darryl went into a tailspin ( Darryl had a pretty good season in 1991, but he was never a star after that ). The only bright spot on the Mets in the years immediately following Darryl's departure was David Cone. He led the National Leauge in strikeouts in 1991 ( following up a 1990 season when he led the league in strikeouts ) and was leading the league in strikeouts in 1992 when the Mets traded him. He also had a 19-strikeout game in 1991.
Now that I think of it, it's a bit unfair of me to say the Cone was the only bright spot after Darryl left considering that Howard Johnson led the National League in homers and RBIs in 1991 ( while also stealing 30 bases to record his 3rd 30-homer/30-steal season ). However, as important as Hojo was to the Mets 1986 title team, the guy could never manage to string 2 good seasons together.
August 27, 1992 - 1995 : Vacant
The less that can be said about the awful 1993 season and the false promise of Generation K, the better.
Todd Hundely : 1996
Yeah, I know. After documenting Yankees belt holders like Ruth, Gerhig, DiMaggio, and Mantle earlier in this post, it's pretty pathetic that Todd Hundely could be considered worthy of the Mets belt, but as the Mets stumbled to their 6-straight post-Strawberry losing season in 1996, Todd Hundely's pursuit of the single season home run record for catchers was a ray of hope. Hundley's 41 home runs in 1996 was a single-season record for catchers at the time, and is still tied for the best single-season home run total for a Met.
Rick Reed : 1997 - May 22, 1998
OK, once again - the fact that former MLB scab Rick Reed is worthy of the Mets belt while a Yankees Hall-of-Fame hurler like Whitey Ford didn't come close to claiming a Yankees belt is pretty sad, but I was there in 1997, and nothing got me more excited about the 1997 Mets than Rick Reed. The Mets finally broke their streak of 6 straight losing seasons and the pitching of Rick Reed was the biggest reason why. The 1997 season laid the groundwork for strong Mets teams of the late 90's and early 2000s. Reed followed up his strong 1997 season with an All-Star berth in 1998, but the belt changed hands in 1998 because a certain Hall-of-Fame catcher joined the team.
Mike Piazza : May 22, 1998 - June 21, 2004
From the time he joined the team in 1998 until 2002 ( his last great year ), Piazza had the greatest 5-year run of excellence a Mets every-day player has ever had. His performance faded each year after that but he held on the belt for a while after that until the next great Met came on the scene.
David Wright : May 21, 2004 - 2015
When all is said and done, David Wright is going to hold nearly every Mets career batting record. That plus 2 gold glove awards makes him the clear choice as the all-time greatest every-day player for the Mets. Here are his Fangraphs WAR numbers from 2004 - 2008.
2004 2.3 ( half a season )
2005 5.8
2006 4.7
2007 8.4 ( Won Gold Glove Award )
2008 7.0 ( Won Gold Glove Award )
For those who are not familiar with the scale for WAR, a WAR of 5 makes you an All Star, a WAR of 7 or greater makes you an MVP candidate and a WAR of 10 or greater makes you Mike Trout.
Wright's belt run almost ended with his subpar 2009 - 2011, but he was so good in 2012 and 2013, that I think it's fair to say that he deserved to keep the belt at least until the end of 2013.
Year WAR 2012 7.5 2013 6.1 ( in just 112 games )
After that injuries kept him from contributing much in 2014 and 2015. However, because Wright managed to return from spinal stenosis in late 2015 and helped contribute to the Mets run to the NL Championship, I think it's fair to let him keep the belt through 2015.
2016 : ???
However, I think it's clear now that Wright will never again return to his 2013 level. He usually misses at least 2 games a week due to the spinal stenosis, and as of this writing he seems ready to head to the 15-day DL. 2004 - 2015 was a great run, but I think David Wright's run as the Mets belt-holder is over.
So, if David Wright is no longer the Mets belt-holder who is?
Well, to be honest, a month ago I was sure it was Michael Conforto. Conforto was actually my inspiration for writing this post. When Conforto got his 3rd hit in an April 30 game to raise his batting average to .370, I decided the the torch was being passed from Wright to Conforto, and came up with the idea of writing about Mets championship belts.
Sadly, over the last month, Conforto has struggled badly. He's hit .177 in May and his average has dropped to .268. Worse yet , he's only managed to get 4 hits ( all singles ) in 33 at-bats against lefties this year. I still think Conforto is going to hit close to .300 with 20+ homers this year and will someday win a batting title, but I'm not convinced he's ready to take the belt this year ( thought he might be given the 2016 belt retroactively in 2020 or so if he turns into the the great player I hope he'll be ).
Right now, the Mets best player is Yoenis Cespedes, but it's hard to give him the belt knowing that he'll probably opt out of his contract and leave as a free agent after this season. However, if he winds up hitting 45+ homers and 135+ RBI and leads the Mets to a World Series title, I'm giving the 2016 belt to Cespedes even if he leaves.
In any case, only time will tell, and it will be fun spending my time watching the Mets in the years to come.
