Avril Lavigne Is Back, Please Don't Share This Photo Of Clay & Ohtani Puts On Another Show
Is there any doubt that we're witnessing the greatest personal performance in the history of baseball?
Shohei Ohtani hit his 40th home run Wednesday night in Detroit while pitching eight innings of one-run ball while striking out eight and lowering his ERA to 2.79 (8-1 record). The guy leads baseball with those 40 home runs and an ERA that would be in the top 10, but he has started 18 games while the league leaders are at 24. He's 4th in RBI and 9th in stolen bases. He leads baseball in slugging percentage, total bases, and intentional walks.
Take 30 seconds and let all of that sink in for a minute. Close your eyes and soak it in. All of it. What all of it means. This is without a doubt the single greatest personal performance in baseball history, and it's not even close. I will go right out on that limb and say it. It takes some real balls to say that considering the fact that we've never seen anything like what Ohtani is doing.
I know football is back and all attention has quickly shifted over to fantasy drafts, Gauntlet auctions, fall football plans, etc. I just didn't want you guys to lose track of what is happening with this guy who just goes about his business and dominates. See below for more stats to put all of this in perspective.
• Sean K. writes:
Joe, just wanted to say 'thank you' and 'keep at it!!' for your work at OutKick on the Daily Screencaps. I'm a longtime Washington Redskins fan who can't get over the name change nor the 'corporatization' of our (formerly) beloved team. Back in the 'Skins 80s heyday, you could get cheap $10 seats on the field at decrepit RFK Stadium and your seatmates would be welders, bricklayers, pipefitters, truck drivers, and other hard-working blue-collar stalwarts. Now FedEx field is all lawyers and lobbyists and $15 beers.
That's a long way of saying your top posting on Screencaps today (August 18) about how most sports reporters actually seem to hate sports really hit home. I used to love watching 'Inside the NFL' back in the day and ESPN College GameDay. Now it is all 'Woke Sports' all day and all night. That's before we get to the TV pundits and the newspaper reporters etc. So thanks for being so blunt about how covering sports for a living is a joy and how it provided you with such a great career. So few people today appreciate what they have and the simple joy of watching sports on TV while sharing beers with friends. Hopefully with the help of your readers and the Thursday Night Mowing League that joy can make a comeback.
Just FYI on the TNML: My weekly yard waste pickup occurs on Wednesdays so that forces me to be a Tuesday night mower. I can push it to Wednesdays night (putting the yard waste in my trash for Thursday garbage pickup) but joining the TNML would put me too far out of synch with my refuse collection provider. I won't ask for a waiver, though, Commish; not fair to the TNML rank and file!
Thanks again for all you do. Screencaps is my daily sanity break from the awful realities of today's world (the Afghanistan debacle is just gut-wrenchingly horrific) so the work you are doing is more important than you know.
• I feel bad for Sean and that waste pickup day. That's a terrible draw getting Wednesday. You're absolutely screwed. The trashcans are nice and empty Thursday until you start those weekend projects Thursday night, which then leads into Friday events, then Saturday. What an absolute disaster.
New homebuyers: You need to be asking your real estate agent about trash day. Figure that right into how much you love that house. Are you willing to have a Wednesday trash day like Sean? Think long and hard about how that fits into your life and work schedule. Zillow isn't telling you this stuff. You have to come to Screencaps to hear these little life nuggets.
• Gerald W. in Illinois (not Chicago) writes:
Thought I would share why I think your TNML has taken off so well. The history of men has been hunting and gathering “farming”. I am a part-time farmer who happens to have an “office” job in the agriculture industry. The majority of the time I am in the office, I am thinking about getting out to the farm and getting dirty. There is something wired in men to go out and grow food and supply much-needed nourishment to the women and children. I wonder if taking care of lawns is fulfilling that void to hunt and gather? Who wouldn’t rather be outside than sitting in an office looking at a screen????
Farmers are the only people I know that want to talk about work when they are done with work. When my farmer buddy’s and I get together, guess what we talk about, farming. That doesn’t happen in any other profession. Those patio beers (out here that would be “tailgate beers”) would come to an end the minute I talked about my day job.
Keep up the great work!
• Great point by Gerald about the literal tailgate beers. I grew up in rural Ohio where men rested their arms over the side of pickup truck beds or used the tailgates as their bar tops. They would rehash cutting down trees, softball games, days on the lake fishing. Manly stuff. I believe TNML has filled some of that void in a digital way. I'm hearing from guys who are converting their entire neighborhoods to TNML. Then they're standing in driveways rehashing their Thursday nights like those dads I remember back in the late 1980s.
Another great point is Gerald making a correlation between farming and mowing. I think he's onto something there about it being in our nature to want to be on the land and working that land. I'm sure there's some anthropologist amongst the Screencaps community who can help us here.
Go ahead, step up and give us the needed insight: joekinsey@gmail.com
• Love the emails Wednesday from Sean and Gerald. Nothing emotional. Just guys being guys, using their brains and nobody getting all text book-y.
Keep the messages rolling. Let me know about the world you're living in. I'm curious about readers outside the U.S. Is Screencaps catching on around the world? Let me know.
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Stuff You Guys Sent In & Stuff I Like: