Tweets on another potential terrible Supreme Court decision

Once again, the right wing extremists look like they will overturn decades of precedent and give more power to the right wing donors that put them there.

The Ravens are rolling into the AFC Championship game – tweets on the Divisional game

The first half of the divisional game was tied but the second half was all Ravens. The defense was great all game – they allowed only three points and the Texans never got in the red zone.

Lamar Jackson showed why he is the MVP. I think they will beat the Chiefs and move on to the Super Bowl.

Tweet on Bill James’s top 100 players

Bill James is one of the pioneers of advanced baseball statistics. He showed us there’s a world out there beyond obvious stats like batting average and RBI.

Here’s his list of the 100 greatest players. He has addressed historical greatness in his excellent book, The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract.

James is also an excellent writer. As I recall, he said in his newsletter that the 1982 Angels lineup which featured old guys was older than prostitution.

I got to meet him in 1984. I was in a very early fantasy league and our commissioner had corresponded with him. James came to our draft.  He was really nice and unpretentious. He knew lots more than we did but didn’t act like it. Pictures of my signed copy of his annual book are below.

Biden can’t win on the Israel-Hamas war

Dimon overlooks Trump’s terrible policies

I assume he just wants more tax cuts for rich people.

Dimon is not alone.

Nikki Haley isn’t Trump but she’s bad too

Haley isn’t moderate. She’s just not a despicable human being like Trump.

Washington Post cowardice

They referred to Trump’s bigoted remarks about Haley as “racially charged”instead of “racist”. That’s pathetic. Trump is a racist. We have seen this over and over. Remember his attacks on Mexicans on the day he announced he was running for president? The Post is helping Trump by not being accurate about how bad his remarks are.

The media had better ratings when Trump was president. I assume that’s why they are not fully exposing how bad he is. The Post has company.

50th Anniversary of Court and Spark

Joni Mitchell’s great album Court and Spark was released 50 years ago. It’s a lot more accessible than her earlier albums and she is backed by a full band.

The Ravens will beat the Houston Texans today

Ravens fans are nervous because of what happened in 2019. The Ravens were the top seed then too and lost in a shocking upset. This year is different. This team is more mature and balanced. I predict the score will be 31-20. The weather here will be terrible – wind chill will be around 10 degrees.

The Ravens are favored by 9.5 points and the over/under is 43.5 points.

The Ravens have had a great season. I have written about most of these before.

  • They won 10 games vs teams that finished over .500, an NFL record.  The prior record was 8.  They tied an NFL record with 14 games vs. teams that finished over .500
  • They are the first team to lead the NFL in all three of these defensive statistics: sacks, lowest points allowed, and takeaways (tied for first)
  • Of the 14 playoff teams, they had the best strength of schedule and second-best strength of wins.  They had the best record in the NFL this year even with a tough schedule.  
  • They led for 11 hours, 32 minutes and 57 seconds of game time.  This is the second-best total since 2000.
  • They were never behind by more than seven points until the meaningless last game. In that game, they were behind by 10 for about three minutes.
  • Second-highest point differential ever against playoff teams

There is an urgency to win this year. Over 20 players are free agents after this season and there is now way the Ravens can keep them all. In addition, they will probably lose coaches and front office guys too. Both offensive and defensive coordinators have been interviewed for head coaching jobs, Three other coaches have been interviewed for coordinator jobs. Two front office members have been interviewed for jobs with other teams.

A couple examples of how special this year has been:

  • Tylan Wallace is a wide receiver who had one reception this year. He had to return punts for the first time in the NFL in the Rams game. He returned one 76 yards for a game-winning touchdown in overtime.
  • Some people think the 49ers could beat the Ravens in a rematch. I don’t see it. Sure, there were some tipped balls but the 49ers could have gotten them too. The Ravens scored on seven consecutive drives. That’s not luck.
  • Lamar Jackson is a better QB than he was in 2019. He is making great decisions. Roquan Smith brings leadership on the defensive side that the Ravens haven’t had since Ray Lewis was here.