Perhaps at our next breakfast my friend, Nick the attorney (who has way more book smarts than me), can explain these random thoughts I keep having, because I sure as hell can’t figure them out…
Why does the US keep making pennies and nickels?
Did you know it costs 2.72 cents to make a penny? According to an April 2023 article in MONEY magazine it is even more expensive to make nickels. Would you believe 10.4 cents per 5 cent coin? Again, almost double its value. This adds to up $12 million dollars a year of wasted taxpayers’ money. Let’s do away with these obsolete coins. When a penny was worth a penny or you could purchase a newspaper or a pack of baseball cards for a nickel I get it, but with inflation, the dime should be our lowest denomination. At least the Fed still makes a profit on the dime. So, why make pennies or nickels? I don’t get it.
Here’s another thing I don’t get.
Why does Congress let ONE person clog the wheels of government?
To get confirmed as Speaker of The House of Representatives, Florida rep Matt Gaetz made Kevin McCarthy concede that any one member of the House could summon a recall vote. Only seven months later it was Gaetz who called for the recall vote that led to McCarthy’s exit and complete chaos in Congress.
That pales however to what Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville’s shenanigans.
This Alabama Senator has waged a reckless, unprecedented campaign to change the Pentagon’s abortion policy. One man, Tuberville, is holding up hundreds of vital military nominations and promotions forcing our less experienced leaders to top jobs. This is raising concerns among our top Generals about military readiness.
Tuberville, once a moderately successful Auburn head football coach has encountered opposition from the entire Senate, including Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky – but Tuberville has dug in – thus the stalemate.
I don’t get it.
The author Mark Twain famously said that “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.
The race to the World Series is down to four teams: the Rangers, Astros, Phillies, and Diamondbacks. Each team is led by throwback, experienced managers: Dusty Baker who is 74 years old, sixty-year-old Rob Thompson of the Phillies, Arizona’s 58-year-old Torey Lovullo, and 68-year-old Bruce Bochy of Texas.
These managers are a dying breed. They value a starting pitcher who can throw 7 plus innings. They don’t fear if those pitchers must face the other team’s power hitters a 3rd and 4th time in the line-up, and they will play “small ball” when the situation calls for it.
These skippers don’t depend solely on analytics. They played the game and knew its results aren’t totally dependent on what the computer spits out.
Bochy won three World Series titles in San Francisco with the Giants between 2010 and 2014. He was run out of town by MIT graduate and analytics maven, President of Baseball Operations Farhad Ziadi. Zaidi, who was hired in 2018, replaced Bochy with recently fired Phillies manager Gabe Kapler. Zaidi knew Kapler from their days together in a support capacity with the Dodgers. Zaidi also knew Kapler would follow orders.
When no team in baseball called, Bochy sat on the sidelines for three years until last winter when the underperforming Rangers came a knocking. In his first season as skipper of the Rangers, Bochy’s Texas team won 90 games.
Imagine that?
Coming off a combined 128-196 record in 2021 and ‘22, Bochy, in only one season at the Ranger’s helm, is one step away from a World Series appearance.
Meanwhile, in San Franciso, Zaidi & Kapler had one winning season out of four and Kapler was fired by Zaidi, with three games left in the 2023 season.
Analytics: I get that it’s important, but running a team exclusively based on statistics? That I don’t get.
Finally, one last random thought… Mankind’s continued inhumanity to mankind? To my dying day, I will never get that.
###
