Dem
47
GOP
53
It's the last Saturday of the month, which means only politics-free questions. We have decided not to divide these last-Saturday-of-the-month posts into sections anymore, as that gives us a little more flexibility.
If you are still pondering this week's headline theme, we'll give the additional hint that we very much wanted to write a headline that included the phrase "The Dark Knight," but there was no plausible way to do it, except to cheat and write something like "The Dark Night."
R.D. in Austin, TX, asks: Being a huge sports fan and especially of baseball, I wanted to know which of the major United States sports do you feel like you are most qualified to write about: baseball, football, basketball or hockey? Along that same line, do you have a preferred American sports playoff format, or would you prefer that the regular season have more value and we run our leagues the way they do in European soccer?
I could only imagine how the NFL might operate if they played one game per week over 33 weeks with no Super Bowl, and the team with the best record was crowned champion. A tie would be broken by who won the head-to-head matchup, since all 32 teams would play a single game against the other 31 franchises in the European soccer model of NFL competition.(Z) answers: Two of us, namely (V) and (A), are not sports people at all. Of the remaining two, I am rather more steeped in the world of sports than (L) is. And of the major sports, there is absolutely no question I am most qualified to write about baseball. If you put me and 99 other randomly selected people in a room, I would know more about baseball than probably 98 of them. For football and basketball, that number would be somewhere in the realm of 90-95. For hockey, it would be something like 75.
I tend to prefer American-style playoffs, as those provide maximum "hope" to the largest number of fans. As I have written before, the entertainment is in competing for a championship. Actually winning is just icing on the cake. No matter what system is used to determine a champion, there is a certain amount of arbitrariness in it. For example, if the NFL played a 31-game season, then there would absolutely be fluky games decided by an odd bounce, or a strange penalty, or a (rare) blocked kick, or some other unusual event. In some seasons, the best team in the NFL would win the title cleanly. But in most seasons, there would be three or four or five teams in the running, and the champ would end up being the team that got the most lucky breaks, and not necessarily tbe best team.
P.R. in Arvada, CO, asks: Three weeks in, what are your feelings about football season? Zero prizes for predicting a first-round postseason exit for the Steelers.
(Z) answers: The Bills, Chargers, and Packers (last week's disaster notwithstanding) look like potential juggernauts.
The Colts, Eagles, Commanders, Vikings, Lions, Rams and Seahawks could be very good, but the jury is still out.
The Jaguars, Bengals, Steelers and 49ers are playing above their heads, and are not as good as their records suggest. The Steelers aren't going to make the playoffs this year, and should think about moving on from Mike Tomlin.
The Chiefs are better than your usual 1-2 team, but are also not the team they were, and won't be back in the AFC title game.
The Ravens and Broncos are also better than their record suggests.
The Bears are going to be saved from winning the title of "most disappointing team of 2025" by the Dolphins.
The Saints are the worst team in the league. Don't sign a long-term lease in that city, QB Spencer Rattler. The Titans aren't much better.
C.J. in San Francisco, CA, asks: Given the nice analysis of causality of sharks and ice cream, and the proximity to Rudi Johnson becoming the latest in a long line of NFL suicides tied to CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), I thought it timely ask about something that has been on my mind for a while.
How does (Z) reconcile his obvious enthusiasm for college football and the solid CTE data from Boston University, et al.? Is it acceptable for an educational establishment to promote entertainment that seems very likely to result in permanent degenerative brain damage to the students on the field?(Z) answers: Your question included many links to many studies. We excluded those in the interest of space, and will stipulate that CTE is a risk of playing football.
As to an answer, these days, any player who chooses to pursue college and/or pro football does so with eyes wide open as to the risks and rewards. They are adults, and it is not my place to decide what is best for them and their families. We do not discourage students from pursuing dentistry or psychology (both of which have high suicide rates), or police work (which comes with obvious dangers), or other jobs that come with above-average risk, and football players deserve the same consideration.
That said, you assume too much when you assert that I am "enthusiastic" about college football. I follow it, the way I do many things, and I'll put it on the TV if I happen to be home anyhow. However, of the sports I follow, it is the one that holds my interest the least. And if it disappeared tomorrow, I would not be upset.
T.J.R. In Metuchen, NJ, asks: Who are the ten best baseball players ever? Please consider everything, including personality.
Omitted are Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio (the first two because they were nasty people, the latter two because of general surliness). Also Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle for messy personal lives.(Z) answers: In order to put this on some sort of systematic basis, I will start with the list of players who made the Hall of Fame. If they cleared that bar, then they were good enough to at least be considered "good," and often "great." And of those 278 guys (the only woman in the BBHOF is an executive), these 10 seem like the best people (presented in alphabetical order of last name):
- Yogi Berra: He has the most World Series wins of any player (helps to have played for the Yankees in the 1950s and 1960s), and was a beloved figure in New York and around baseball, in significant part because of his malapropisms.
- Roberto Clemente: The award that baseball gives out for community service is named after him, and with good reason, because there may not be a ballplayer who gave more of his time and energy to community service. That was true to his dying day—literally—as he was killed in a plane crash while trying to hustle supplies to Nicaragua after an earthquake.
- Lou Gehrig: He and Babe Ruth often didn't get along because Gehrig was so upstanding. He faced his terminal diagnosis with much dignity; "For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth," he told Yankees fans in his farewell to them.
- Tony Gwynn: Not many players were happier playing than he was, and he is absolutely revered in San Diego.
- Sandy Koufax: A nice Jewish boy who became a role model to many other nice Jewish boys (and, of course, many gentiles, as well). He's as popular in Los Angeles as Gwynn is in San Diego.
- Christy Mathewson: They called him "The Christian Gentlemen," and umpires would ask for his help during games in which he was a participant, because he had such a reputation for honesty and integrity. He's one of the numerous folks on this list who died young; as he was about to succumb to illness/injury that were inflicted during his service in World War I, he told his wife: "Now Jane, I want you to go outside and have yourself a good cry. Don't make it a long one; this can't be helped."
- Stan Musial: Perhaps the lowest-profile superstar ever, and certainly the most under-the-radar of the 10 best players in MLB history. A man of great integrity who supported Jackie Robinson and the Civil Rights Movement, and refused to endorse tobacco after its carcinogenic properties became publicly known.
- Buck O'Neil: This is cheating a little, because he was inducted into the Hall as an executive, not a player. However, he was a player, too, and that induction category was somewhat arbitary because the Hall doesn't have a category for people who earned distinction in several areas. In any case, O'Neil was an absolute champion for baseball in general, and for preserving the history of the Negro Leagues in particular. He refused to allow personal slights to get him down, was a raconteur without equal, and was perhaps the best ambassador the game ever had.
- Jackie Robinson: There's a reason his number is retired throughout baseball.
- Ted Williams: You took him off the list, but I am putting him back on. He was a war hero (albeit a reluctant one), and one of the half-dozen best players to play the game. While he was indeed surly during his playing days, the Boston sports media gave him more than a few reasons to behave that way. And later in life, he became an elder statesman of the game, and much more outgoing.
M.D. in San Tan Valley, AZ, asks: The Major League Baseball NL MVP award was already a forgone conclusion over a month ago, but the AL MVP award is definitely not and I foresee the voting is going to be very close. Who do you see winning it? Cal Raleigh or Aaron Judge?
(Z) answers: Tough call. Their teams are both headed to the playoffs, with near-identical records. The Yankees will end up with an extra win or two, but the Mariners will have the higher seed. So, this common "tiebreaker" is a wash.
Judge is clearly the more valuable player, as he has about 100 points in batting average and on-base percentage on Raleigh. That's massive, and has produced a bWAR lead of more than 2 games; 9.5 bWAR for Judge, 7.2 bWAR for Raleigh.
That said, sportswriters tend to like a "story." This was more true in generations past, but the tendency is still definitely there. And Raleigh is the better story, since it is unprecedented for a catcher to hit 60 HR, and since he has never won an MVP (while Judge has two). So, I will predict it goes to Raleigh.
R.H.D. in Webster, NY, asks: Who do you think will win the World Series? I'm going with the Phillies.
(Z) answers: I'll go with the Mariners. They are a well-balanced team, and they have a good bullpen, which is key in the playoffs (sorry, Dodgers fans). Plus, Seattle sports fans are some of the best in the country, and the Mariners have never even made the World Series, much less won it. So, it would be nice to see those folks get their turn.
D.M. in Shallotte, NC, asks: OK, here's the softest softball question I could ask of you guys. Since he's turning 50, do you think Tiger Woods will attempt to play on the Senior Tour, now known as the PGA Tour Champions? With everything he's been through, personally and physically, I still admire and like the guy and would love to see him play in person. Years ago, I saw Jack Nicklaus, Arnie Palmer, and Chi Chi Rodriguez play on the then Senior Tour. What do you think?
(Z) answers: Woods will certainly attempt it. I don't think it will work out, however.
The other senior players, including the ones you name, lost strength, and maybe some small-muscle control, as they aged. However, they were still able to play golf at a high level, particularly if they didn't have to use the longest-distance tees. Woods, by contrast, has wrecked his back with his high-torque swing and (probably) his car accident(s). He just doesn't seem capable of playing 18 holes for 3-4 days in a row anymore.
R.S. in Ticonderoga, NY, asks: I will admit I don't watch a lot of "live" television anymore, other than sports. I'm a big fan of BritBox and Acorn TV, though I do have Paramount+ so I can watch the library of Star Trek shows.
I was watching a season four episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation the other day and recalled that it was aired as a first-run syndication show. TNG (and Deep Space Nine after it) seemed to thrive.
My question: Other than game shows like Jeopardy! and talk shows, are there any first-run syndicated shows these days, or have they been replaced by direct-to-streaming shows?(Z) answers: The era of scripted, first-run syndicated dramas and comedies appears to have come to an end.
First, as you note, content producers are now shopping their ideas to streaming services. It's way easier to sell a show once, than to have to sell it hundreds of times. Plus, you can do a more limited run for a streaming service (say, a season of 6 to 12 episodes). For a syndicated show, you pretty much have to do 22 to 26 episodes a season, which is a lot of work, and can cause the quality to suffer.
Perhaps more important, however, is that the stations that might purchase such content (and there are fewer of them than in 1987, when TNG debuted) have figured out that they can get the same ratings from (much cheaper) reruns of shows like Seinfeld and Friends.
J.O. in Las Vegas, NV, asks: Any idea how KPop Demon Hunters has become such an enduring international phenomenon? The movie has taken Netflix by storm, becoming its most watched movie, and it's music has also consistently topped billboard charts for months now.
(Z) answers: Well, it supplanted Glass Onion. Both movies are very good, and have gotten very strong reviews. Undoubtedly, that helps.
KPop Demon Hunters has the additional advantages that it's musical (so, people can put it on as background) and it's kid-friendly. Kids, of course, often watch their faves over and over and over.
It is also abundantly clear that Netflix has a huge population of customers who really like South Korean content, since their most popular TV show is Squid Game. We assume this huge population of customers includes lots of South Koreans, but we don't know that for sure.
Finally, when Netflix has a hot property on its hands, it can goose the numbers by moving it up in their algorithm, thus causing the film/show to be suggested to more people. The service did that with Glass Onion, and it surely did it with KPop Demon Hunters, as well.
D.S. in Layton, UT, asks: In that my question is inspired by the sadness of Robert Redford's passing I am not sure that it is "fun," but what are your essential Robert Redford films?
(Z) answers: The essentials are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, All the President's Men, The Natural and Out of Africa.
The sleepers, in the sense of "great films that are not as well known" are All is Lost, The Old Man & the Gun and The Candidate.
The films that may not be great art, necessarily, but are great entertainment, are Sneakers, Indecent Proposal and Three Days of the Condor.
And don't forget that his only Oscar came for directing a film in which he did not appear, namely Ordinary People. It hasn't aged as well as some Best Picture winners, but it's still worth a viewing.
R.M.S. in Lebanon CT, asks: Why has Madonna never been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? She has to be the most famous person without one.
(Z) answers: To get a star on the Walk of Fame, you have to be nominated. Then, some person or entity (often a studio looking to promote a movie or TV project, or else a fan club) has to pony up a fee to pay for the star itself and for maintenance in perpetuity (the fee is currently $85,000), and then you have to accept the honor and agree to be there in person when the star is unveiled. For any A-lister, the first couple of parts are easy, so if they don't have a star, it's usually that they declined and/or did not agree to show up in person.
And indeed, the reason Madonna does not have a star is that it was offered, and she declined. That said, we are not so sure she's the most famous person without one. Others who have declined, for various reasons, include Clint Eastwood, George Lucas, Oprah Winfrey, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Robert DeNiro, Jim Carrey and Leonardo DiCaprio.
F.H. In St. Paul, MN, asks: What would you consider the first rock and roll song? A friend, who knows more about modern music than I do, feels the 1950 song "Friday Night Fish Fry" to be the first true rock song.
Me, not knowing any better, figures that there would have been a handful of tunes that would have fallen into that transition period when jazz/big band music morphed into rock and roll around the same time.(Z) answers: I have a lecture about this subject. And my answer to the question, which is hardly original, is the 1951 track "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (basically a front for Ike Turner). While it lacks the electric guitar, it has a backbeat, and it's also based on a raunchy double-entendre (the song pretends to be about an Oldsmobile Rocket 88, but is clearly about Ike Turner's penis, which "gals ride in style, movin' all along").
J.M. in Lexington, KY, asks: What are the best board games of all time?
(A) answers: As the staffer with over 140 tabletop games, it seems this is mine to answer. Here are my top five, each with one or more honorable mentions of games with similar elements:
- The Forbidden series (Island, Desert, Sky, Jungle): All players must cooperate to achieve the ultimate goal, which involves building some final contraption (which varies, depending on the game) to aid the group's escape. If one person dies, we all (are going to) die, so you must strategize the use of each player's skills and resources to best benefit the group. These generally got harder as each successive version was released, so I'd recommend starting with Forbidden Island. Forbidden Sky is notoriously difficult to play AND to find (it was out of print at one point, but seems to be available now—perhaps not everyone interested in playing it will need to meet someone in their East Los Angeles driveway in the middle of the night to exchange cash for a still-sealed copy—just me, then). Even though I've never won Forbidden Sky, it's my favorite. Its final contraption is a rocket, which is already assembled, but the goal of the game is to complete an electric circuit to power the rocket and evacuate your team. Players place transistors and "cables," and if you win (or assemble a circuit to see what will happen because you suspect you'll never win fair and square), you're rewarded with the rocket lighting up and playing a rocket-launch sound. Honorable mention: Tiny Laser Heist.
- Ticket to Ride (my preferred version/map: Europe): I love path games, and Ticket to Ride is a little more complex than a simple path game (check out Cable Car for that). I prefer the Europe map over the U.S. map because it has a better balance of long and short trips. However, these are the only two maps I've played, so I can't speak on any of the others. Honorable mention: Globetrotting.
- Cards Against Humanity: I still think this is one of the best ice-breaker/warm-up games available, for anyone with a raunchy sense of humor. I have friends who have decided it isn't worth playing because it's too formulaic. I still have a blast with it. Plus, the company's Black Friday stunts are legendary. During COVID lockdowns, I played online with friends. Honorable mention: Charty Party.
- Cranium: An oldie, at this point, but a goodie. I dread pulling a "Charades" card, but the beauty of Cranium is that there's something for everyone to love (and maybe something for everyone to hate as well). I only recommend the "deluxe" or "tin" editions; any version with "fast" and "slow" tracks on the board. The simpler versions of the game are less fun. Honorable mention: Hoopla.
- Dixit: Everyone seems to find different elements to focus on in the beautiful, trippy artwork on Dixit cards. Can you find the card your friend just described? It's not as easy as it sounds! Some of the card artwork is available as a jigsaw puzzle. Honorable mentions: Blank Slate, Mysterium.
Additional honorable mentions because I can't help myself: Things in Rings, Colt Express, Decrypto, Wavelength.
F.S. in Cologne, Germany, asks: After reading your item "Americans are Stupid," I ask: Why are the results so bad? Have the intellectual abilities of (Z)'s students deteriorated over the last decade or so? And what are the most needed changes in the American education system?
(Z) answers: To start, those assessment tests are always designed to produce a noteworthy result. So, I don't pay them all that much attention.
Broadly speaking, the dominant teaching style at any given time is optimized for... the previous generation of students. So, it's up to teachers, from Kindergarten through college, to adapt. I suspect the things that are particularly affecting the current generation are: (1) they have always had cell phones and other devices, as well as Google, at their fingertips, and (2) they effectively lost 2 critical years of schooling to COVID.
I refuse to accept the premise that students have "deteriorated." They are just different than they were 10 years ago, and those students were different from the ones 10 years before them, etc.
M.A.H. in Warren, MI, asks: In the item We Are in the Burner Phone Era, you wrote: "(Z) has read hundreds of pieces like this, about how to pick locks, or how to cheat at slot machines, or how to evade red-light cameras because they're interesting and are sort of like reading a real-world spy novel."
So, (Z) knows how to pick locks, huh? Cool!(Z) answers: Yes, but I am out of practice, so I would be pretty slow at it right now. Plus, it largely doesn't work for deadbolts.
T.B. in Leon County, FL, asks: Ok, so you have The Anarchist's Cookbook. But do you have Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book, which was published the previous year? (I gave my copy away before I moved overseas—probably a smart move at the time!)
(Z) answers: Yes. I had, and have, a large collection of such books. My favorite (if you include this in the same genre) is actually Big Secrets, by William Poundstone, which digs into hundreds of things like the recipe for KFC, and mysterious shortwave radio signals that one can tune into, and whether Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen.
As this somewhat implies, I am less interested in doing [THING X] than I am in just knowing how it's done. That said, I did acquire a shortwave radio and build an antenna from copper wire so I could listen to the strange signals that Poundstone talks about.
J.E. in San Jose, CA, who was 10 miles from the Loma Prieta quake in 1989, asks: Speaking of earthquakes dissuading someone from visiting Southern California, (Z) wrote: "A non-issue. There has been one really bad earthquake in Southern California in the last half-century or so, and that one was nearly 40 years ago. Plus, earthquakes destroy property, not people."
So, I must ask: Are you referring to the Northridge quake, and if so, where were you when it hit?(Z) answers: Yes. It hit at something like 4:00 a.m., because I was asleep in my dorm room at UCLA, and it was still dark outside. The dorm developed visible cracks in its foundation, which apparently was by design as a safety measure. For reasons never explained, my landline remained operational when every other phone on the floor seemed to be out of order (this was before cell phones were commonplace). So, there was a parade of people using my1 phone to call relatives to confirm they were OK.
D.S. in Layton, UT, asks: These are deeply frightening times. Just making sure that your absence from my morning this past Saturday does not mean that you were Kimmeled.
(Z) answers: We didn't mean to be mysterious. As I have mentioned in the past, I do a rather substantial puzzle-hunt-type game for my birthday each year. The event (not the birthday) was last Saturday. I put together the framework of the Saturday posting on Thursday morning, and then got to work on puzzle-hunt prep. The puzzle-hunt prep, and writing the regular Friday posting, took so much time, I just did not have the 3 hours it takes to actually answer the questions. So, I pushed the already-70%-complete Saturday posting to Sunday.
B.B. in Dothan, AL, asks: You wrote, at the end of your letter on accepting trans people: "Any reader who is offended by this, well, the door's on the right. We're not the right site for you, anyhow."
Are they hate-reading? What a waste of one's life.(Z) answers: We do have a few hate-readers, though they tend to fade away until the presidential election cycle heats up. Most of the anti-trans e-mail we get comes from folks who, like Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, are basically liberal on most subjects, but have decided this particular issue is a bridge too far.
Q.M. in Manville, NJ, asks: Is "Legal News, Part I: A Legal System Under Suspicion?" the first time one of the team has directly contradicted an earlier post from a different author?
(Z) answers: No. It's not usually quite as direct, but there have been numerous occasions where it was clear that (V) and (Z), in particular, did not see eye-to-eye on some subject. For example, (V) thought Joe Biden had to go immediately after the debate performance, whereas (Z) took the position that he would not go until the numbers said he had to, and the numbers didn't (immediately) say that. Similarly, (Z) thought Tim Walz was a stronger choice for VP than (V) did.
B.J. in Arlington, MA, asks: Question for (V): Emacs or vi? Why?
(V) answers: Aquamacs (Emacs for Mac): (1) Because it is modeless (if you want to add material, just type it); (2) You can rebind all the functions to any keystrokes you want. Seems to me CTRL-A should be go to start of line and CTRL-Z should be go to end of line, etc., etc.. Maybe that is possible now in vi, but it wasn't 50 years ago when I started. I have rebound everything I use a lot to 26 commands, from CTRL-A to CTRL-Z. On an M2 or M4, performance is irrelevant. Even the M2 is blindingly fast.