What? So at last I learn the backstory to why Matt Baron's writing excels that of others? I have long admired his ability to make a story engaging and alive--but now at last, I learn it is because of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED? And that early in his life. Well, I guess dreams can start when we are young, and just keep going
Thanks, Matt. Had an avid interest in this story and your personal story.
I knew the Rams were outstanding in the Chuck Knox era (although apparently Ray Malavasi, who would take them to the Super Bowl the next year, was already their coach), but I would have thought your fictional triumph for the Seahawks over them would have been a bigger upset than it was. I didn't realize that, at least briefly, the Seahawks were on a better trajectory than their fellow expansion team, the Buccaneers (although I guess the Bucs also came fast, playing the Rams in the championship game after the '79 season). Jim Zorn put up a lot of passing yards early, but by the time I became a big NFL fan, Dave Krieg was pushing him out.
Ouch! Frank Deford let his guard down with "beware of what coach's say." And here I am remarking upon it some 40 years later. Shame on me. Not sure whether the error shows that being prone to such spontaneous errors has no bearing on a writer's true powers , or if that was an anomaly for him.
A lot of Yankees on the leaderboard of your post-1950 home run ratio stat, but the Giants crowd struck me as odder for some reason. You can't argue with Mays and McCovey, but the Giants didn't win a lot of pennants. And Dave Kingman was a Giant in other seasons, so it seemed there was one more Giant.
Kingman hit 30 of his 37 home runs in '76 by the all-star break, so it's tempting to think his ratio at that point must have been absolutely outrageous, but actually his AB/HR at that time was 11.5, not that much different than the 12.8 he ended up with. He only had 128 AB post all-star break. It's a hidden strong home run season, hidden in part because it's easy to miss that the implications of 474 AB are very different than 574, say.
Have been puzzled lately about why "Internet" is capitalized. I'll look that up.
What? So at last I learn the backstory to why Matt Baron's writing excels that of others? I have long admired his ability to make a story engaging and alive--but now at last, I learn it is because of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED? And that early in his life. Well, I guess dreams can start when we are young, and just keep going
Thanks, Matt. Had an avid interest in this story and your personal story.
I knew the Rams were outstanding in the Chuck Knox era (although apparently Ray Malavasi, who would take them to the Super Bowl the next year, was already their coach), but I would have thought your fictional triumph for the Seahawks over them would have been a bigger upset than it was. I didn't realize that, at least briefly, the Seahawks were on a better trajectory than their fellow expansion team, the Buccaneers (although I guess the Bucs also came fast, playing the Rams in the championship game after the '79 season). Jim Zorn put up a lot of passing yards early, but by the time I became a big NFL fan, Dave Krieg was pushing him out.
Ouch! Frank Deford let his guard down with "beware of what coach's say." And here I am remarking upon it some 40 years later. Shame on me. Not sure whether the error shows that being prone to such spontaneous errors has no bearing on a writer's true powers , or if that was an anomaly for him.
A lot of Yankees on the leaderboard of your post-1950 home run ratio stat, but the Giants crowd struck me as odder for some reason. You can't argue with Mays and McCovey, but the Giants didn't win a lot of pennants. And Dave Kingman was a Giant in other seasons, so it seemed there was one more Giant.
Kingman hit 30 of his 37 home runs in '76 by the all-star break, so it's tempting to think his ratio at that point must have been absolutely outrageous, but actually his AB/HR at that time was 11.5, not that much different than the 12.8 he ended up with. He only had 128 AB post all-star break. It's a hidden strong home run season, hidden in part because it's easy to miss that the implications of 474 AB are very different than 574, say.
Have been puzzled lately about why "Internet" is capitalized. I'll look that up.
cool.
It will be a sad day when Sports Illustrated goes silent.