Joey Poz has his usual fun breakdown of the World Series, this one Game 2, the Yoshinobu “Start Me Up” Yamamoto complete game, and it's good, and he mentions the usual stats—first WS CG since 2015, first back-to-back CGs in post since Schilling in 2001—but bypasses my favorite stat that I saw via Sarah Langs. Yamamoto retired the last 20 batters he faced; who was the last pitcher in the World Series to do that? Answer (which my father figured out in a second): Don Larsen, 1956. His perfect game. And before him? Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1926. And before him? Dutch Leonard in 1915. (No, not that Dutch Leonard, the other one.) In other words, it's only been done three previous times, and none during my lifetime, and I'm about to turn 63. Now that's a throwback. 

So that's fun ... but then it gets better. Because Poz slams MLB for its mini Jonas Bros. concert in the 5th inning during the “stand up to cancer” moment. I didn't watch the game so wasn't annoyed the way Poz was; but what I liked was how this rant veered into one about something Tim and I have been wondering over:

What's astonishing to me is not that MLB will sell its soul for money. That's been true since the dawn of time. No, the astonishing part is how CHEAP it is to buy MLB's soul. I mean, every single batting helmet has the word STRAUSS written across it (on both sides!). What is Strauss? It is, get this, a EUROPEAN WORKWEAR company. Yeah. They sell work pants and stuff.

This is what they have on their homepage.

“A celebration of the work that goes into America's pastime — and those who make it happen?” What the heck does that mean? What AI bot wrote that line? I don't have anything against Strauss — I'd never even heard of Strauss (which I guess was the point) — but, seriously, how much money did they spend to get their name on EVERY SINGLE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL HELMET FOR FOUR YEARS?

And, whatever they spent, how was that enough money? ...

It breaks my heart to see MLB constantly rifling through couches in search of nickels. Come on, Rob, baseball is the national pastime. It says so right on the Strauss homepage.

Thus endeth the sermon.

No one will listen, of course, other than those of us in the choir, so might as well have fun with it.