The Daily Dose/February 20, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…
PLAY BALL: Major League Baseball recently tossed out the idea of expanding their playoffs to 14 teams, seven in each league, three division champions and four wild-card teams. This would be up from the five teams in each league that make it now, three division champions and two wildcard teams. The division champions head to the first round, while the wild card teams play one game to determine who joins them.
Now they want four wild card teams to join the division champions and here’s where you have the carnival barker standing by: the division champion with the best record gets a bye into the Division Series while the other six teams play a best-of-three series. In order to get Barnum and Bailey on as the title sponsor, MLB is proposing that the higher-seeded teams not only get to pick their first-round opponents but get to host all the games.
Oh, Jesus H: Teams picking their playoff opponents and teams playing an entire series on the road. Fabulous. Maybe they could have Hulk Hogan and Ronda Rousey as special guest umpires, too. Maybe runners can only score if they can dropkick the catcher or, perhaps, members of the losing team get their heads shaved by members of the winning team.
OTOH: Baseball has to do something. Interest in the game is going down harder than a whore with the fleet in. While local TV ratings are OK, attendance has dropped every year since 2014 and has dropped by 11 million since its peak of 79.4 million in 2007. World Series TV ratings continue to plummet, too, with more people watching your average NFL game on Sundays than the Fall Classic.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow helps a fellow Navy vet at the Veterans Service Office. Today’s Diary.
It takes a while for Stanko to get here [with the post’s debit card], so we BS for a while, insulting each other as sailors will do – he even asked me if my wife was hot, a perfectly reasonable question – and when Stanko does get here I buy him two bus tickets, one from here to the big city and another for tomorrow morning from the big city to the Springs…
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On This Date
Great moments in us.
In 1933 – What would become the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, the Blaine Act, which would repeal Prohibition, is passed by the US House and sent to the several states for ratification. The US Senate passed the act on Feb 17. The act was ratified by state ratifying conventions on Dec 3 and took effect immediately. It remains the only amendment passed by state ratifying conventions.
In 1944 – The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Chicago Blackhawks play to a 0-0 tie in a game that also features zero penalties. While 0-0 ties and penalty-free games have both been far from uncommon over the years, this remains the only game in NHL history with a blank score sheet. Every other game has featured at least one goal or one penalty.
In 1978 – The Bee Gees are at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the third of four consecutive weeks with Stayin’ Alive. The song went to #1 in seven other countries, including Mexico and South Africa and peaked at #4 in Great Britain. It was Billboard’s fourth biggest song of the year, the ninth biggest of the decade and ranked 59th on Billboard’s 60th-anniversary Hot 100 in 2018. It was the group’s fifth of nine #1 songs in America.
Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. – Seneca the Younger, Roman philosopher
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
Patti Austin had eight Top 40 hits on Billboard’s soul chart between 1981 and 1986.
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
What was the Bee Gees’ first appearance on any singles chart? – Answer next time!
