I’m fairly confident all Major League Baseball players have gotten bigger over time, but I specifically decided to use the newest version of the Lahman Baseball Database to look at the average weight of catchers by the decade in which they debuted. Their listed weights are static so we can’t be certain what their debut weights were, but we’re looking at large trends. I also required any catcher in the list to have caught at least 200 career games. ...

I just updated my post answering a question from a coworker. It feels good to put that to rest.

This delightful contest celebrating the command of language by constructing concise opening sentences to hypothetical novels bursts into my awareness each year as internet denizens share the best (worst?) entries. Nominees display subtlety and nuance by brazenly breaking as many written and unwritten literary rules as possible with fewer than 200 characters. This contest appears built for social media, despite starting in 2001. It drives to the core of good and bad writing by isolating a single sentence, perhaps two, given only the context that it begins a book you’ve just plucked off the shelf. The analysis of each worthy submission is deep and, most importantly, funny. ...

There are better sources for exploring exactly how the current political regime’s actions rhyme with other populist and fascist movements. Instead, let’s consider a story that is tamer while also being emblematic of current policies. In 1897, a state representative in Indiana attempted to legislate that a disproven mathematical statement was true and, in the process, implied that π is equal to 3.2.1 ...

Tapestry by Iconfactory has significantly improved my internet experience. Similar in some ways to feeeed, which I wrote about last fall, Tapestry combines my social media accounts and RSS feeds into a single timeline. While feeeed separates itself by a larger number of built-in source connections and its “magazine” approach of curating recent items, Tapestry is focused on a linear display that holds place. You don’t scroll back to find older items you may have missed; instead, your position is held, and you scroll forward in time to see what has happened since you last opened the app. It’s the only sensible way to interact with news and media, and matches what I and many others love about the Mastodon client Ivory. ...

I don’t recall what I was listening to when this popped into my head, but I was curious about the origin of fan used to mean a “supporter” or “devotee.” I recently installed Terminology across my devices and set the Online Etymology Dictionary as a preferred resource. According to them: 1889, American English, originally of baseball enthusiasts, probably a shortening of fanatic, but it may be influenced by the fancy, a collective term for followers of a certain hobby or sport (especially boxing)… Fan mail attested from 1920, in a Hollywood context; Fan club attested by 1930. ...

The San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres split their four-game series last week, with each team winning two games by one run. In our #social-baseball slack channel, my coworker asked: any data whizzes wanna figure out how many MLB 4 game series have ended 2-2 with all one-run games? I put myself on the case. UPDATE JULY 6, 2025 I finally took the time to do this properly. I exported game-by-game data from Retrosheet since 1900 and (with the help of Claude) used pandas to analyze the data for these split series decided by one run each game.1 ...

I don’t know Isaiah’s age or last name. He’s a stocky, tanned, thickset Sooner with a thick mess of curly brown hair and the same twang as all his teammates. His acned baby face and constant smile endear him to everyone around, which wouldn’t matter without that naturally generous and hospitable attitude, a tremendous work ethic, and an easygoing manner that brings everyone together. Most importantly, for the weekend I spent in Tulsa, Isaiah fully understands what Sandlot Baseball means and embodies it in a time when polarization emphasizes the importance of everything he, the Tulsa Breeze, and every other Sandlot Baseball team works for. ...

Last week, the Twins’ 13-game winning streak came to an end at the hand of the Brewers. I don’t professionally write about baseball, so I’ll leave the detailed breakdown to Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs. I’ll instead focus on how this streak felt as a fan. It was magnificent. ...

Our recent trip to New Mexico was excellent for two reasons: it was a distinct kind of trip from what we’ve typically had over the last few years, and the landscape was unique and gorgeous. You can look back at the pictures to understand that second part—mountainous terrain scarred by terrible fires that continues to fight back paired with high-altitude meadows, all of which abut scrubby desert; amazing cultural artifacts dating back centuries that speak to both a proud indigenous history and an impactful, conflict-ridden European influence; plus a smattering of my hobbies like baseball and disc golf to round it out. These wonderful elements established how we would spend our days, but we didn’t solely plan this trip to see a place we’d never visited. That will come in the future. This was a trip to spend time with two people. ...