While driving home recently, it began to rain as I got on Hwy. 66. It was the fourth time in a row this had occurred, breaking the previous record of three times in a row set back in 2014.
It began to rain extremely hard, forcing me to slow down to about 40 miles per hour for about 5 kilometers… the first time this had happened on a Friday evening in history.
Upon reaching the end of Hwy. 66, I encountered bottled-up traffic covering all four lanes, only the second time in the last four years this had occurred.
Back home, some rain fell during the next five consecutive days, marking the first time since 2016 that this had happened in the first week of October.
On one of those days, it rained hardest from 10 to 10:30 am, only the second such occurrence on a Tuesday since 2004.
No… this article is not about rain, although it may very well seem that way. Oddly enough, this article is about baseball.
Maybe it’s just me… but it seems as time goes by, Major League Baseball becomes more and more buried under tons of (sometimes meaningless) statistics. Disclaimer: I am a “statistics guy.” I love numbers; and (meaningful) statistics in sports fascinate me.
However, there IS something known as “too much of a good thing.” When listening to commentary on baseball and getting a “first time since…” or “breaking the record of…” just about every time something happens, you realize one of two things.
One, there are people with way too much time on their hands. Or… two, fascination with records and statistics has snowballed beyond control, to the point where everything needs to be scrutinized until it becomes a record of some sort.
One thing is to hear an interesting statistic of someone who has broken the record for runs batted in, as a catcher in their rookie year.
It’s quite another to hear about the record set for runs scored in one inning on a Thursday in August, against a left-handed pitcher over 5’-11”, when the game time temperature is over 80 degrees… in an indoor stadium.
Who… cares?
Baseball is not the only culprit, but is probably the guiltiest. Another disclaimer: I love baseball. But this sport just seems to lend itself to the biggest collection of statistics imaginable, just by its nature.
In any case, I’ll get off my soap box. I had not written a blog article about sports since February 10th of this year… and with this article, the “Sports” category of articles will have broken a tie with “Movies & Music” for the 2nd least populated category in the blog.