Should start about 3:00 this afternoon and end sometime around sunrise. Might even turn sunny late Saturday and into Sunday which will have a high of 12ish. Then Tuesday we're looking at another 3-5 inches which will go from drive time Tuesday morning to drive time Tuesday night.
High temps will be hovering between 15 to 20 for the next 10 days. THANK YOU DECEMBER for doing this to us. December was so warm that it push a wobble into the polar vortex which is now wobbling into our area.
The Kansas City Chiefs football game will be played in temps about 25 degrees below average.
*********************
Baseball
Baseball
Bill James 2019 book is out and he explains why MLB is suffering a small decline in attendance and it mirrors what I have said but MUCH more succinctly.
If you are on ANY baseball forums there is a lot of complaining about how analytics are ruining the game and people are no longer watching. WRONG!
In a nutshell - baseball attendance is in a decline because there is nothing exciting happening. LIKE ALL SPORTS. There is no Tiger Woods to get fans excited, No Wayne Gretzky, no Babe Ruth or massive rule changes of new stadiums.
Attendance in baseball was pretty constant until 1920 when Babe Ruth came onto the scene. BAM attendance spiked and then after a few years evened out and slumped. Then in 1945 attendance spiked again because of night baseball and integration.
Then teams started to move around. The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee and attendance went from 280,000 to 1.8 million. The St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore BAM attendance went from 297,000 to more then a million. The Giants moved to San Francisco and attendance doubled.
It was good for baseball. Then in the 1970s the DH rule happened and BAM attendance rocketed and stabilized.
In the 1990s a whole slew of new ballparks opened BAM . . attendance. And now - nothing really new is happening and thus attendance is stagnant.
Some people argue it's because of too many strikeouts - well . . . last year was sort of different.
The number of K's in a game has been increasing for over 100 years at a pretty constant rate. HOWEVER - for the first time in a decade something happened last year.
BEFORE last year - if you took the top 10 teams with total strike outs batting AND hitting. Those teams were pretty much the 10 best teams. Take the 10 teams with the LEAST among of K's and those were the bottom teams. Seems opposite doesn't it.
The reason is that statistically the good pitchers strike out the most batters and the good batters are the ones that strike out the most. Home runs and strikeouts go hand in hand and we are in a age of home runs.
LAST YEAR - it reversed for the first time. Has MLB reached the critical mass? Stay tuned.
Then there is shifting. It works.
Moving on with a few tidbits.
Lorenzo Cain was the #1 BEST defensive CF in the league last year and in fact the Brewers were the #2 best defensive team in MLB in 2018 and a LOT better then the 3rd place team. Arizona was the #1.
Cain was the best OF at going back on a ball over his head. Lead all of MLB on balls hit deep and saved 20 runs, teh most of all CF'ers.
One thing that might be fading in analytics is "launch angle" which is a fun thing but as MLB players have found out . . . not a viable thing to worry about.
YES - hitting the ball on the ground REALLY slows down a ball but IT SEEMS hitting a 95 mph baseball is REALLY hard and trying to adjust a launch angle is leading to more strike outs and NOT helping batting average or home runs.
Yelich proved this last year. His launch angle did not change at all BUT he hit a lot more line drives and Home runs. Its not how high you hit the ball it's ow hard. Exit velocity is the key.
Then there is bull penning. Again this is nothing new to baseball and for 140 years the tendency for starting pitching is to pitch less and less innings. 100 years ago teams had ONE starting pitcher and he would pitch the whole game, then teams got more starting pitchers and then they added a reliever and it goes on and on until we have Tampa Bay bull penning with nothing but relievers.
It won't happen in the rest of the league as there are way to many problems doing this. The only time MOST teams will try this is if they HAVE too! (Brewers). Most teams just don't have a roster where you have so many good relievers.
You can't bullpen if you only have 3 viable middle relievers.
And for balderdash - The Hall of Fame.
The best three players NOT in the HoF?
#1 Bill Duhlen
#2 Lou Whitaker
#3 Ted Simmons - really?
Looking at current players that will likely make it to the HoF
Mike Trout (age 26)
Clayton Kershaw (30)
Max Scherzer (33)
Ryan Braun - CLOSE but no cigar (34)
Miguel Cabrera (35)
Albert Pujols (38)
Adrian Beltre (39)
Ichiro Suzuki (44)
The WORST Hall of Famer - Tommy McCarthy
***************
Couple news pieces on cannabis -
US Virgin Islands are now a medical cannabis area as of yesterday.
Connecticut is moving a bill to legalize cannabis with 25% of The House co-signing the bill.
Hawaii is considering legalizing and will be a priority in the budget.
Portugal is looking into legalizing
Cory Booker (D-NJ) - MY candidate for the 2020 election tweeted
"I support adult & medical use. But that's not enough! The failed drug war unfairly targeted the poor, veterans, brown people. It's now not enough to just make it legal. We must have expungement. We must invest tax proceeds back into those communities targeted by the drug war."
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) appeared at a press conference with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and praised his moves to allow patients to smoke medical cannabis.
Attendance in baseball was pretty constant until 1920 when Babe Ruth came onto the scene. BAM attendance spiked and then after a few years evened out and slumped. Then in 1945 attendance spiked again because of night baseball and integration.
Then teams started to move around. The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee and attendance went from 280,000 to 1.8 million. The St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore BAM attendance went from 297,000 to more then a million. The Giants moved to San Francisco and attendance doubled.
It was good for baseball. Then in the 1970s the DH rule happened and BAM attendance rocketed and stabilized.
In the 1990s a whole slew of new ballparks opened BAM . . attendance. And now - nothing really new is happening and thus attendance is stagnant.
Some people argue it's because of too many strikeouts - well . . . last year was sort of different.
The number of K's in a game has been increasing for over 100 years at a pretty constant rate. HOWEVER - for the first time in a decade something happened last year.
BEFORE last year - if you took the top 10 teams with total strike outs batting AND hitting. Those teams were pretty much the 10 best teams. Take the 10 teams with the LEAST among of K's and those were the bottom teams. Seems opposite doesn't it.
The reason is that statistically the good pitchers strike out the most batters and the good batters are the ones that strike out the most. Home runs and strikeouts go hand in hand and we are in a age of home runs.
LAST YEAR - it reversed for the first time. Has MLB reached the critical mass? Stay tuned.
Then there is shifting. It works.
Moving on with a few tidbits.
Lorenzo Cain was the #1 BEST defensive CF in the league last year and in fact the Brewers were the #2 best defensive team in MLB in 2018 and a LOT better then the 3rd place team. Arizona was the #1.
Cain was the best OF at going back on a ball over his head. Lead all of MLB on balls hit deep and saved 20 runs, teh most of all CF'ers.
One thing that might be fading in analytics is "launch angle" which is a fun thing but as MLB players have found out . . . not a viable thing to worry about.
YES - hitting the ball on the ground REALLY slows down a ball but IT SEEMS hitting a 95 mph baseball is REALLY hard and trying to adjust a launch angle is leading to more strike outs and NOT helping batting average or home runs.
Yelich proved this last year. His launch angle did not change at all BUT he hit a lot more line drives and Home runs. Its not how high you hit the ball it's ow hard. Exit velocity is the key.
Then there is bull penning. Again this is nothing new to baseball and for 140 years the tendency for starting pitching is to pitch less and less innings. 100 years ago teams had ONE starting pitcher and he would pitch the whole game, then teams got more starting pitchers and then they added a reliever and it goes on and on until we have Tampa Bay bull penning with nothing but relievers.
It won't happen in the rest of the league as there are way to many problems doing this. The only time MOST teams will try this is if they HAVE too! (Brewers). Most teams just don't have a roster where you have so many good relievers.
You can't bullpen if you only have 3 viable middle relievers.
And for balderdash - The Hall of Fame.
The best three players NOT in the HoF?
#1 Bill Duhlen
#2 Lou Whitaker
#3 Ted Simmons - really?
Looking at current players that will likely make it to the HoF
Mike Trout (age 26)
Clayton Kershaw (30)
Max Scherzer (33)
Ryan Braun - CLOSE but no cigar (34)
Miguel Cabrera (35)
Albert Pujols (38)
Adrian Beltre (39)
Ichiro Suzuki (44)
The WORST Hall of Famer - Tommy McCarthy
***************
Couple news pieces on cannabis -
US Virgin Islands are now a medical cannabis area as of yesterday.
Connecticut is moving a bill to legalize cannabis with 25% of The House co-signing the bill.
Hawaii is considering legalizing and will be a priority in the budget.
Portugal is looking into legalizing
Cory Booker (D-NJ) - MY candidate for the 2020 election tweeted
"I support adult & medical use. But that's not enough! The failed drug war unfairly targeted the poor, veterans, brown people. It's now not enough to just make it legal. We must have expungement. We must invest tax proceeds back into those communities targeted by the drug war."
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) released her budget proposal, which includes her marijuana legalization plan.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said he wants lawmakers to hold hearings on marijuana legalization this year.
New Hampshire lawmakers filed a marijuana legalization bill.
There are a total of 14 cannabis bills in the works for next week.
and in Ohio - the first day of medical cannabis, $75,000 in cannabis was sold
Nuff said
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