Randy Johnson's 300th Win Day - 2025

Welp, it's that time of year again. It is June 4, which is the 36th anniversary of the attack in Tiananmen Square on student protesters by the Chinese Communist Party government and the 26th anniversary of the day my family began our move to Virginia. Of course, I choose to focus instead on the anniversary of one of the most electrifying moments in my life: watching Randy Johnson win his 300th game back on June 4, 2009.

To be honest, I haven't really written about the game itself since I wrote up the 10th anniversary celebration post all those years ago. And while I did do my customary viewing of this game for the anniversary, I don't think I saw it since I watched it last year. I did go and watch the Texas Stars play in the conference finals for the Calder Cup, which is about the only hockey that I can watch since the Dallas Stars were eliminated in humiliating fashion. 

Anyways, this is the time when I stop and take stock at how things are going on with the Big Unit himself and the world of baseball as a whole, especially with tracking the ten winningest active pitchers to see if anybody has any sort of chance of getting to 300? How is the news this year? Well you'll have to read on to find out.

The Art of the Walk-Off 2: 2022-2024

It was ten years ago today, on May 31, 2015, that I went to a Rangers game and saw the home team beat the Boston Red Sox on Josh Hamilton's two-run double in the bottom of the ninth, turning a 2-3 deficit into a 4-3 victory. This play that ends a game in a victory for the home team is known colloquially as a "walk-off" as it allows the home team to walk off the field in triumph (and the opposing team to walk off the field in agonizing defeat). While a walk-off happens dozens of times a season, the exhilaration it provides makes it one of the most exciting plays in all of baseball, even if it was something as mundane or a bases loaded error on a throw to the catcher or a bases loaded hit by pitch.

Anyways, after the Hamilton walk-off I began wondering about the games I attended that ended in walk-offs. Looking back through the Excel spreadsheet tracking every game I went to, I identified five that ended in walk-off fashion, and wrote a lengthy post detailing each game, while also taking note of how much win probability each walk-off added. The concept of win probability derives from research from baseball analyst Tom Tango who broke down the win expectancy of every team based on inning, runners on base, and number of outs. The win expectancy for each team rises and falls with every play until it ends with the winning team at 100% and the loser at 0%. The win probability added (WPA) statistic basically tracks the win expectancy right before the play that ultimately ends with the team at 100%. The WPA of the five that I saw ranged from a measly 7% (on a bases loaded error with no outs in a tie game on April 14, 2012) to a whopping 80% (on Hamilton's two-out double with runners on the corner and his team down by one). 

In the ensuing six years I wrote additional posts on the seven other walk-offs I had seen in person, from Tommy Joseph's single on May 27, 2017 to send the Philadelphia Phillies over the Cincinnati Reds to Adolis Garcia's single on May 23, 2021 to help the Rangers defeat their rival Houston Astros. After that last walk-off I rewrote and expanded upon each of the walk-off games, posting it onto this blog. I then thought about what to do with any additional walk-offs I see. I decided I could edit the post and add any additional walk-off games. However, that post included 12 walk-offs and the next game to end in a walk-off would be my 13th. I have a bit of triskaidekaphobia in me and wanted to wait until there were two more walk-off games before editing the post. Then it turned out of the 17 games I saw in 2022, only one was a walk-off. So I decided to wait for the 14th. Then the first walk-off of 2023 - the 14th walk-off game - was a major bummer and I didn't feel like writing about it. And that followed up with one of the most unbelievable experiences that I ever had at a Major League Baseball game and didn't know where to start writing about it, so I put it off. 2024 came and went and two more walk-off games were added to the list. I finally decided that I should just stop procrastinating and write about the five additional walk-offs in a separate post. And what better way to do so on the 10th anniversary of the game that started my fascination with walk-offs?

AMPS 2024 - Winners!

 

If you've been following this blog for the past few weeks (although I don't see why you would considering I rarely post anything) you should know that I've been holding votes for my fictional Awards for Motion Picture Services awards, the earliest of three sets of film awards in my fake country and the one that has the most outsider participation. Back in December I continued the tradition of having people vote on the final Best Picture nominee, and then when the New Year's came on I introduced the final Best Picture lineup and held a vote for the Best Picture winner. 

The actual AMPS award winners are generally announced on January 15. However, yesterday I was busy watching real-life Oscar contenders Flow and The Brutalist so I didn't really feel like doing all that writing (because the latter movie was so brutal). So now I'm here to present the winners, including which film that you courageous voters picked to be the AMPS choice of Best Picture for 2024.

AMPS Best Picture Nominees and Vote

 

It's the New Year! Well, it's actually a couple days into the New Year, but it's good to know everything's already going to shit! Of course New Year's is also when I closed the voting for the final Best Picture nominee in the Academy of Motion Picture Services (AMPS), a fake award to honor fake movies that I make up for my fake country. And while voting was very close, one film did end up coming out to take the title. Which one was it? Well we'll find out after the break, along with the other four films with pre-ordained slot.

And just like last year, when I held a vote to determine what would win Best Picture at the AMPS, I'm doing the same this year, since as I had mentioned I didn't spend all that much time thinking about my fake movies. So after introducing the five competitors I will be embedding another survey form SurveyMonkey where you can vote for what you think should win Best Picture! Voting will go until January 14!

Anyways, in case this is confusing, here are the Best Picture lineup from previous years: 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2017 2016 2015 2013 2012 2011 2008

Also the usual disclaimer

YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THESE MOVIES
NOBODY HAS SEEN THEM BECAUSE THEY DO NOT EXIST
THESE ARE MOVIES THAT I MADE UP
BUT DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU FROM VOTING

AMPS 2024 Best Picture Nominees Vote

 

It seems that 2024 has not been the best of years for a lot of people. It certainly hasn't been one of the best for me. There were some good moments but overall it seemed to pass by in a flash with not much changes in my life. I certainly didn't have much time to think about my fake movies with everything else going on. I was even deciding whether or not to post a vote for the final Best Picture winner in my fictional Awards for Motion Picture Services (AMPS), which I've done most years since 2008. But then I thought about it and I've been simulating the AMPS awards every year since 2000, which makes this the 25th year of the AMPS awards. And I decided that I've come up with enough film ideas that I can come up with a vote. So as in previous Best Picture nominee votes, I've come up with four films that have locked up Best Picture slots, and have picked three other contenders that you the audience can vote on which will get the last slot. So after the break I will present a short summary of the three competitors and then a SurveyMonkey poll where you can vote on what you feel should take the last slot?

In case you find my explanation confusion, here are some previous votes. 

2008 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

And of course here is the annual disclaimer

YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THESE MOVIES
THESE ARE MOVIES THAT I MADE UP
NOBODY HAVE SEEN THEM BECAUSE THEY DON'T EXIST
EXCEPT IN MY OWN IMAGINATION
PLEASE DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU FROM VOTING

Randy Johnson's 300th Win Day - 2024 - 15th Anniversary

Five years ago today, it was the 10th anniversary of Randy Johnson's 300th Win, and throughout the day I was posting my 10th Anniversary celebration posts. It was a project that I was working on for six months, and not surprisingly it opened to a complete thud. Nobody paid any attention to it, and even now Part IV, the longest part of the entire series, had somehow disappeared off the face of the earth. Oh well. 

Of course the fact that five years have gone by means today is the 15th anniversary of Randy Johnson's 300th Win! Today I went to Globe Life Field in Arlington to pick up a giveaway replica 2023 World Series ring. It was a long and arduous process that involved standing in line for over an hour. And instead of the wonderfully overcast day we had in DC in 2009, it was well over 90 degrees with humidity, making it a tough experience. And then I didn't stay for the game, because I still have to do my Randy Johnson's 300th Win Day festivities, which will probably just consist of me rewatching Randy Johnson's 300th Win while playing The Sims 3, which was what I had wanted to do on June 4, 2009 before the rainout the night before delayed my plans for the 4th.

101 NHL Games in Person

Back in April of 2016 I made the fateful decision to go to a Dallas Stars playoff game. The Stars were coming off their best regular season in a decade and I had a friend that I roomed with in pony conventions that wouldn't stop talking about them. I finally decided that I should go to a game just to see what the fuss was all about. I had been to a Kansas City Blades of the defunct International Hockey League back in the mid-90s, but I didn't really know what was going on then, and it had been 20 years since then. So I went to Game 2 of the Stars' first-round series against the Minnesota Wild. It was exciting and I had fun but still didn't really know what was going on. My friend had season tickets with two seats and he would invite me to come along, but I never had time since I lived two hours away. I didn't go to another Stars game until 2018 when I just happened to be in DFW for a Rangers game. I still didn't really have an idea of what was going on, but I became caught up in the atmosphere. So when my friend invited me to games I would accept.

I was still very new to hockey. I tried watching the sport on TV in the past, but it was never able to capture my attention. I realized that I was able to follow the action better in person, especially since our seats were in the upper deck where you can have a view of the entire ice. The more games I went to, the more I gained the ability to follow along with the action. I learned about some of the rules such as offsides and icing. I was better able to appreciate the fluidity of the game. And the more I knew the more I can appreciate watching the game on TV, and the more eager I'd be to watch the game in person. And so when I went to Michigan for a job interview I decided I wanted to go to a Red Wings game in Detroit. 

Pretty soon it got to the point where when my friend was giving up one of his season tickets, I picked it up officially making me a Stars season ticket holder. It led to me flying out to California just so I can watch the Sharks play. When I finally completed my journey to watch a game at every active MLB stadium, I decided that yes, I did want to take on the challenge of going to every NHL arena. I've been keeping track of every NHL game I've been to very much like how I do with MLB games. And on Tuesday February 13 I went to a Nashville Predators game in Bridgestone Arena. When I entered it into my spreadsheet I realized that it was the 100th NHL game I've been to! The milestone just caught me off guard! I had already made a plan to go to a St. Louis Blues game in Enterprise Center just two days later, so I didn't really have time to make this post, where I take a look at some of the statistics from the 101 games I've been to.