The Daily Dose/July 29, 2023
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around our human experience.
HEY BATTER, BATTER…SWING: The Los Angeles Angeles decided this week to keep Shohei Ohtani, the best player on the planet, for the rest of the season, in the hope that the Angels will make the playoffs. They really had no choice in the matter. To have traded him would not have been keeping faith with their fans.
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: Almost interesting is the fact we would’ve been saying the Angels had no choice had they decided to trade him. Sure, the Angels are in the thick of the American League wild-card race, and they’re not completely out of the American League West title hunt, either, but let’s be honest, they’re the Angels for crying out loud. They haven’t been in the playoffs since being swept by Kansas City in 2014, so in the six seasons Otani and the second-best player in the world, Mike Trout, have played together, they’ve appeared in zero (0) playoff games and they probably aren’t going to start now.
Dry, Technical Matter: Sure, maybe the Angels catch fire, make the playoffs, and win the World Series. Probably they don’t, though, and probably Ohtani goes somewhere else at the end of the season, leaving them nothing except a compensatory draft pick.
The Bottom Line: This was a tough call. On the one hand, the only pennant you can win is this year’s, and if you trade Ohtahni you’re telling your fans the towel has been thrown in on 2023. Still, though, the Angels could’ve traded Ohtani for enough prospects to give their fans something to look forward to in the next few years…Either way, they had no choice.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow encounters some first-world problems. Today’s Diary.
Then we go out to the hot tub and the goddamned jets aren’t turned on…Again…For the second week in a row…Now, to the lifeguard’s credit he got right on it but still, ol’ Sparrow was obliged to sit in non-bubbling water for at least 60 seconds…
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On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
In 1976 – David Berkowitz, known to History as the Son of Sam killer, shoots his first victims, two young women, one of whom dies. The shootings occurr in the Bronx and were the first of eight shootings attributed to Berkowitz. Berkowitz was arrested in August 1977, after a follow-up investigation for a parking ticket he had been issued. Berkowitz pled guilty and remains incarcerated in southern New York, regularly declining to apply for parole.
In 1948 – The London Summer Olympics open at Wembley Stadium. They were the first Summer Olympics since 1936 due to World War II and they are known as the Austerity Games because no new facilities were built. Athletes from 59 nations participated, with the US winning the most gold (38) and overall (84) medals. It was the second of three Summer Games held in London (1908, 2012), a club that will later be joined by Paris and Los Angeles.
In 1967 – The Doors are at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the first of three consecutive weeks with Light My Fire. It was the first of seven Top 40 hits for the group and their first of two #1s. The song also went to #1 in Ireland (1991), peaked at #49 in Great Britain, and was Billboard’s 6th-biggest song of the year. In 1968 a version by Jose Feliciano went to #3 on the Hot 100 and in 1979 a version by Amii Stewart peaked at #69.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
We are always getting ready to live, but never living.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Knowledge is power.
Of the ten teams in the NFL in 1933, the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Pirates/Steelers, Green Bay Packers, and the Chicago Bears are still in the same city. The Boston Redskins are now the Washington Commanders, the Portsmouth Spartans are the Detroit Lions, the Chicago Cardinals are the Arizona Cardinals, and the Brooklyn Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds folded.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
What was Billboard’s #1 song of 1967? – Answer next time!
