Rangers/Senators season-by-season

I graphed the season-by-season record of the Washington Senators / Texas Rangers. The results are...not pretty...

Images after the break.

Randy Johnson's 300th Win - 11th Anniversary

Well, I wasn't originally going to do anything for Randy Johnson's 300th Win Day today other than watching the game, especially after the grueling failure that was my 10th Anniversary Special a year ago. However, I am constantly on the lookout for stuff related to this game, so might as well list some of my findings, plus update the progress of the 300-win hopefuls, which I'm afraid is not looking good.

First of all, I'm sure y'all heard that I met the man himself at long last. I wrote an entire post about it, so there's no need to rehash.

Walter Johnson's 300th Win - 100th Anniversary

As you probably could have guessed, I'm a huge fan of the 300-win milestone. There is nothing quite like celebrating the select group of 24 pitchers with the talent, the longevity, and the luck to average 15 wins a year for 20 seasons. It was enough for me to dedicate almost 500,000 words on celebrating the 10th anniversary of the last time the milestone was reached, almost a year ago.

Yes, I hear the criticisms about the pitcher's win. I hear the complaints how the men in the 300-win-club are mere compilers and not actually the best pitchers in baseball history. To that I say "Bah." The pitching win is an antiquated stat and reliant more on the team than individual performances, and win-loss record is often very deceiving. Yet it takes a certain type of pitcher to put in the innings required to achieve strong win totals. And with the complaint that the 300-win pitchers are not the best? I'd like to direct people to the JAWS statistic. JAWS is a creation of sportswriter Jay Jaffe, and stands for JAffe Wins above replacement Score. It makes use of the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) stat, which attempts to quantify the contributions of a baseball player in all aspects of the game. JAWS is basically the average between the career WAR and the sum of the total WAR from the player's seven best seasons. It's remarkably simple, yet gives equal consideration towards a player's career as a whole and their peak.

Each player has a JAWS score, and their scores can be compared to the scores of Hall of Famers at their respective positions to give a general estimation at their Hall of Fame worthiness. The list of the 500 best JAWS score among starting pitchers is available over at Baseball Reference, and it's worth noting that the 13 pitchers with the highest JAWS scores are all 300 game winner. One would have to get to the 14th spot before you get to the first pitcher without 300 wins (Bob Gibson with 251). The average JAWS scores among Hall of Fame starters is 61.6. Of the 32 pitchers that eclipse that mark, 21 of them are 300-game winners, with only Mickey Welch, Don Sutton and Early Wynn falling short. To see how much 300-game winners tower over their Hall of Fame counterparts without 300 wins, consider the fact that the 300-game-winning Hall of Famers have an average JAWS score of 78.3*, compare to the 52.5 put up by the Hall of Famers without 300 wins**.

*The average JAWS of all 300-game-winners becomes an even more impressive 79.3 if you throw in Roger Clemens, who has his 354 wins but isn't in the Hall of Fame. There are only 10 pitchers with a JAWS score above 79.3.

**The average JAWS of all pitchers with at least 150 wins outside the Hall of Fame is 38.1, and that's if you include all of the players still active and Roger Clemens. If you remove Clemens the average falls to 37.7. If you remove the active players the average falls to 37.6. If you remove Clemens and the active players, the average becomes 37.2. 

And yet among all of the pitchers that have ever played in the Majors, there is one man that stands atop the JAWS mountain, the player with a strong case for being the best pitcher of all time. That man is Walter Johnson. And today is the 100th anniversary of his 300th win.

Major League Baseball Game Summaries - Games I've Attended

Today would have been the Rangers home opener and their first official game in Globe Life Field. However, with the coronavirus delaying the start of the baseball season for months, the opening of the brand new ballpark, I am faced with the awful truth that the calendar may turn to June or July and there will be no box scores to follow, no Excel spreadsheets to update, and most critically no games to attend. What is there to do fill the void that should be occupied by baseball? Then it hit me.

A little more than a year ago I was writing 300-word summaries for each of Randy Johnson’s Major League victories - 303 in the regular season and seven in the post-season - as part of the festivities for the tenth anniversary of his 300th win. It was mind-numbingly dull and extremely repetitive, and I didn’t want to ever do anything like that again. However, with the games delayed, I might as well write 300-word summaries of each of the 136 Major League Baseball games I’ve attended (minus the one exhibition game from before the 2010 season.) I’ve written about some of the games before in celebration of the 100-game milestone, but those sure as heck weren’t 300 words long, and then I’ve got another 36 to write about.

And yes, I’ve only been to 136 games. That’s still less than the number of games a team plays in a typical season. As much as I think about baseball and talk about baseball I don’t go to very many games. Furthermore, my memories involving the actual plays are limited, so I’ve mostly reconstructed the games through Baseball Reference’s Play by Plays, which I’ll link to.

Meeting Randy Johnson

So, if you haven't followed me and my writing in the past 10 years, I've been somewhat obsessed over the 300-win milestone, specifically the 300th win of one Randall David Johnson. I've done everything from write-ups about the game to collecting stories of other people at the game to transcripts of the broadcast. And then on June 4, 2019 - the 10th anniversary of the milestone game, I rolled out a massive retrospective totaling nearly 500,000 words detailing everything from all of the 300-game winners and their milestone wins, all 303 of Randy Johnson's wins, and all of the other games played on June 4, 2009. So yes, I have spent a lot of my time thinking about and writing about the Big Unit.

Which makes it somewhat strange that over all this time I have yet to actually meet the fellow. I've spent the last decade either going around and meeting the other 300-game winners or going to their graves, but our paths had never crossed, just like it had never crossed with Tom Seaver. I am usually too busy to travel the great distances required to go to his public appearances, which are often out of state. The only time I saw that he was in Texas came ten years ago, on January 25, 2010. He was appearing in the Tristar show in Houston, but this was when I was celebrating a birthday with some med school friends, and there was a quiz coming up on the past week. There was no way I'd be able to drive eight hours to get a chance to meet the latest 300-game winner. I was able to get my ticket sent it for a signature complete with a "Win 300" inscription.

Since then I had been checking the Houston lineup every year. There have been plenty of 300-game winners that made appearances there, including Steve Carlton, Don Sutton, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and Tom Glavine. But Randy Johnson was always missing from the list. That is, until I checked in 2020. There he was, the Big Unit himself, making a scheduled appearance in the Houston Tristar show on February 9, 2020.

The Heart-Melters Gallery Induction #13 & 14

So a week ago (September 4, 2019) was the 20th anniversary of the day that I fell madly in love for Misty. It was a significant date because not only did I have a strong attraction towards Misty for almost 14 years, but because it marked the date that I began to become attracted to fictional female characters. It's not necessary a sexual attraction, and in fact more often than not it was a strong sense of admiration for that particular character. It was in 2005 that I coined the term "Heart-Melters" to describe the warm feeling that I get when thinking about the character, but really the era began on September 4, 1999. Since then I had written about these characters multiple times, starting with a post on Nintendo NSider titled "The Heart-Melters Gallery." Over the subsequent 14 years I've had six more characters join the ranks of Heart-Melters. I wrote about ten of them in 2010 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the original NSider post and later in 2013 I wrote about two other characters that became Heart-Melters during the turbulent 2012 year. Since then I haven't done very much writing about the Heart-Melters, but that doesn't mean the Heart-Melters have been dormant. In fact, two more characters have joined the ranks. I've just been too lazy to write actual induction posts, but with the 20th anniversary of my crush on Misty coming and going, I figured I should stop procrastinating and write the two, especially since one of them have become one of my favorites.

These induction entries would be very much like the previous ones I had written back in 2005. I would present a short biography of the character, and then write about my experiences with said character leading up to the moment where they become a Heart-Melter. Once they become a Heart-Melter, the period of time where they are an active Heart-Melter would become known as the "age." And finally, I would present a rudimentary ranking of the Heart-Melter compared to the others in three domains: Intensity, or the strength of my attraction towards that character; Duration, or the length of time the character spent as a Heart-Melter; and Recurrence, or the level of attraction that I maintain towards the character once their active age had ended. After that I tally up the ranks to get a score. Like I said, it's very rudimentary

Anyways without further adieu, I give you the 13th and 14th members of the Heart-Melters Gallery.

Randy Johnson 300th Win 10th Anniversary Special Part V: The Future

The day is coming to a close, and unfortunately this means our celebration of Randy Johnson's 300th win must come to a close too. With this last part we will focus on a question that many people probably have: what exactly is the future of the 300 Win Club? 

Part I: The 300 Win Club 

Part II: The Player

Part III: The Game

Part IV: The Other Games

Part V: The Future (of the 300 Win Club) (you are here)

Randy Johnson 300th Win 10th Anniversary Special Part IV: The Other Games

Welcome to Part IV of my celebration of Randy Johnson's 300th win. Back in 2009 I used Part III and Part IV to tell my personal story about getting interested in the 300 Win Club and the events that led to my being at Nationals Park on that historic day. I don't see a need to revisit all of that. You can go back to the posts in December 2009. Instead, I am going to do something a little bit different (and ultimately probably very boring, but bear with me here.) The Nationals-Giants game that started ten years ago the moment this posts went up wasn't the only sports game that happened on June 4, 2009. Heck, it wasn't even the only game at Nationals Park on June 4, 2009. Every sports game tells a story, and what I am trying to do here (who knows how successful I will be) is to tell the story of each sports game that also happened on June 4, 2009. I suppose this was largely inspired by the 30 for 30 documentary June 17th, 1994 about the sports landscape on the day of the O.J. Simpson chase. There is nothing quite as dramatic on June 4, 2009, but it was still a very strong sports day. Most of them will be in baseball, but there were also games in soccer, hockey, and basketball. I'll talk about the play-by-play but will go down certain rabbit holes. Some of them will probably be fascinating, others will end up being boring. Anyways I hope to show that June 4, 2009 was a pretty big day in sports history.

Part I: The 300 Win Club

Part II: The Player

Part III: The Game

Part IV: The Other Games (you are here)

Part V: The Future (of the 300 Win Club)

Randy Johnson 300th Win 10th Anniversary Special Part III: The Game

Well here we are. At this point right now ten years ago Brian Wilson just struck out Wil Nieves to put the finishing touches on Randy Johnson's 300th win, and we have moved on to Part IV of the celebration of this milestone win. What else can I say about this 300th win? Back in December 2009 I did a narrative play by play of the game, and you can easily find the play by play on the boxscore on Baseball Reference or Retrosheet. Five years ago I posted the transcript of the CSN Bay Area broadcast featuring Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow. I've been working on the same for the MASN broadcast between Bob Carpenter and Rob Dibble, but I decided that maybe I should save it for the 10th anniversary. I admit I prefer the Kuip and Kruk broadcast, but since I got that out of the way five years ago there isn't any point to posting it again. So here is the broadcast between Bob and Rob, with special guests Johnny Holliday, Ray Knight, Debbi Taylor, and Chartese Burnett. 

Part I: The 300 Win Club

Part II: The Player

Part III: The Game (you are here)

Part IV: The Other Games

Part V: The Future (of the 300 Win Club)

Randy Johnson 300th Win 10th Anniversary Special Part II: The Player

Our celebration of Randy Johnson's 300th win continues with Part II. If you remember Part I that went up just a few hours ago, we had some quick biographies of the 24 members of the 300 win club. However, Randy Johnson is the central figure of the festivities and he will get a full biography in this post. I wrote a short biography back in 2009 (if you can call 7,000 words short), but there were a lot of elements of his life that I glossed over. I'm going to try to get into more depth in this one. And to add more excitement I'm planning on writing 300 words about each of his wins! I'll probably come to regret it by the time I'm done, but this is a big celebration!

Part I: The 300 Win Club
Part II: The Player (you are here)
Part III: The Game
Part IV: The Other Games
Part V: The Future (of the 300 Win Club)

Randy Johnson 300th Win 10th Anniversary Special Part I: The 300 Win Club

It's June 4, 2019. (Well, not really. I'm writing this on October 21 but let's just pretend that it's June 4, 2019 because that's when this post is scheduled to be posted.) For most people it's just going to be another Tuesday, and it's probably going to be just another workday for me. However, this day carries a bit of historical significance, not because of anything that would happen today, but of what happened on this date ten years ago, on June 4, 2009. That's right, ten years has passed since the most historical moment that I had witnessed in a baseball field. Ten years has passed since Randall David Johnson joined 23 other members in the illustrious 300 win club. And I can't let this day go by without commemorating it in some way. Nine years ago I wrote up a set of six posts to celebrate the six-month and the one-year anniversary. Since the 10-year anniversary is a fairly significant anniversary, I've decided to come up with another series of posts to put this milestone in a historical perspective.

My posts nine years ago were done on a somewhat last-minute basis. It opened with a brief introduction of the 300-win club, then it delved into a simple biography of Randy Johnson. Following that, I told my personal story regarding watching the milestone, starting from my introduction to baseball in the mid-1990s to my growing fascination with the 300-win milestone in the mid-2000s. It included the days leading up to the game, as well as the day we went to the ballpark expecting a game but getting a rainout instead. And finally it included a play by play of the game itself. Since I wrote those five posts in five days, I didn't get into the amount of detail that I really wanted to, and I was so worn out that I decided to wait six months before writing about what had transpired on the first anniversary. After that I came back every June 4 and wrote some more about the milestone, from posting pictures from that day to posting pictures of the other 300 win members (including their graves) to posting the whole transcript of the MASN broadcast (including pre-game and post-game) to posting the perspectives of other people that were present.

Having dedicated so much of my time and effort over the past ten years I'm kind of running out of things to post. I've thought about just taking my original posts and adding to them, but that would seem kind of cheap. However, because this is mid-October I realized I could get more detail that I couldn't nine years ago. I could write more in-depth about the other members of the 300 win club. I could write more about the turbulent life and times of Randy Johnson. Heck, I can even write about the other games that happened on that date. And they can all be made ready to go online today. So here it is: the schedule of the 10th Anniversary Special of Randy Johnson's 300th Win

Part I: The 300 Win Club (you are here)

Part II: The Player

Part III: The Game

Part IV: The Other Games

Part V: The Future of the 300 Win Club

Or a More in-depth look of the other members of the 300 Win Club and their 300th Wins

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part VI: The Aftermath

The passage of time is an unrelenting thing. It has been almost 10 years since I sat in Nationals Park on a rainy day in Washington DC to watch Randy Johnson win his 300th game. And of course it has been a year since I sat in the brutally hot Texas sun in Arlington, Texas to watch Adrian Beltre get his 3,000th hit. And like what I did with the Randy Johnson milestone, I will take this opportunity to take a look back at what had happened in the past year, new perspectives of the events of July 30, 2017 now that a year has passed, and the future of the 3,000 hit milestone.



Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Letdown
Part V: The Moment
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Randy Johnson's 300th Win - 9th Anniversary

It's that time of year again. It's the day that I get together and celebrate a pitching milestone that I'm perhaps the only person to care about. It is the ninth anniversary of Randy Johnson's 300th win. Last year I didn't prepare anything because I didn't want to rehash what I had posted in the past, and I was traveling to New York anyways. However, after the anniversary last year I had stumbled upon a fascinating relic. Somebody on YouTube had posted the full Comcast SportsNet Bay Area broadcast of the 300th win game, and that includes both the pre-game and the post-game show that was truncated when the broadcast made it onto the iTunes Store. I quickly saved the videos (and thankfully I did, because the account was shut down due to copyright violations) and I decided to transcribe the pre-game and the post-game, very much what I did four years ago for the fifth anniversary. And it will be presented to you after the break.

And frankly it's kind of scary that we are at the 9th anniversary of the amazing milestone. It means that next year will be the 10th anniversary. And I do have something special for the 10th anniversary, but that will come next year. Meanwhile, have the pre-game and post-game, with Duane "Kuip" Kuiper, Mike "Kruk" Krukow, Scott Reiss, Bip Roberts, and the man himself: Randy Johnson.

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part V: The Moment

Well here it is...July 30, 2017. The date of the biggest milestone of Adrian Beltre's career, and the moment we have been working up to over the past few days. Of course, unlike with Randy Johnson's 300th win which had to encompass the entire game, the hit is only a small moment of a much longer game. Would this include a play by play of the game up to and maybe after that point? You betcha. Would it have the stuff I did up to the start of the game? Of course. But clearly the 3,000th Hit will be the highlight.

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Letdown
Part V: The Moment (you are here)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part IV: The Letdown

We've gone through almost 28,000 words in the past three days and has gone through three different types of history. When we left off, Adrian Beltre is at 2,998 hits, and I had just gotten the day off for Saturday and was preparing to go watch him make a chance at history on July 29, 2017. Can he do it? Find out next, on...

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up
Part IV: The Letdown (you are here)
Part V: The Moment (January 30)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part III: The Set-Up

Welcome to Part III of my incredibly insane six-part series on a baseball milestone y'all probably don't care about. I've already submitted you to 20,000 words worth of stuff over the past two days, and we still have four more parts to go. After two days of mostly haphazardly-researched material, I am going to focus this time on my personal experiences. This time it's going to be about my personal history with the 3,000 hit club, my own personal memories on Adrian Beltre as well as his chase for 3,000 hits, up through July 28, 2017. Why specifically that date? Well you'll find out soon.

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player
Part III: The Set-Up (you are here)
Part IV: The Letdown (January 29)
Part V: The Moment (January 30)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part II: The Player

Welcome to Part II of my crazy and insane project to document seeing one of the greatest milestones of my lifetime. Part I had already taken me more than 12 hours and a couple of freak-outs, and several sleepless nights. there are five more parts to go. This one will be about the life and career of Adrian Beltre, and I’m sure it will run on too long and make me miserable. But hey, Adrian Beltre!

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Part I: The Introduction
Part II: The Player (you are here)
Part III: The Set-up (January 28)
Part IV: The Letdown (January 29)
Part V: The Moment (January 30)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Adrian Beltre's 3,000th Hit Part I: The Introduction

Eight and a half years ago, on June 4, 2009, I had witnessed Randy Johnson winning his 300th game. It was a transformative moment for me, and every year on June 4, I celebrate the anniversary milestone as though it was an actual holiday. I also wrote over 25,000 words on the milestone in a six-part series posted on the six month and the one year anniversary of that 300th win. I put all that work in because I thought it would be my only opportunity to witness a key milestone moment, but as it turns out I was wrong. Almost six months ago I got a chance to watch another milestone moment, and it was (almost) as awesome as the Big Unit's 300th win. And just because I want to be fair, I figured I should give this milestone the same treatment. So sit back and enjoy (because I know none of you is going to read this so I'm sure you're sitting back and enjoying whatever you're doing), and prepare to learn more than you ever wanted to know about

Or the Complete Story About How I Got to See Another One of the Greatest Milestones in the History of Baseball

Like for the Randy Johnson's 300th win series, this one is going to be six parts

Part I: The Introduction (you are here)
Part II: The Player (January 27)
Part III: The Set-up (January 28)
Part IV: The Letdown (January 29)
Part V: The Moment (January 30)
Part VI: The Aftermath (July 30)

Randy Johnson's 300th Win - 6th Anniversary

Well, it's that time of year again, the time when I drop everything and dedicate my time and energy to celebrating the anniversary of the biggest moment in baseball history that I had the fortune to witness: the 300th win of Randall David Johnson. Each year I've taken a look back at this significant moment and reflect on where life has taken me since then and the monumental challenge of getting to 300 wins. This year is quite significant because this would be the first anniversary where Randy Johnson will celebrate it as a Hall of Fame elect*. It just goes to show the passage of time. In 2009 Randy was in his final season, and now he had waited out his eligibility period to win his 300th game. And in 2009 I was preparing to start medical school. Now I am in my second year of residency. Yes, time waits for no one.

*Although I'm pretty sure he doesn't celebrate this milestone. Last year he was in Vietnam pursuing his photography career, and this year he is doing concert photography with the band Rush. Oh well. Hope he's having fun.

Anyways, I'm sure you people that follow my blog (the number is probably zero) are probably tired of seeing me write about this milestone, so this year I might as well do something different, to explore the experiences of other people that attended this historic game (or some poor unfortunate souls that couldn't quite make it.) 

Super Smash Bros (N64): A Retrospective

This week will see the release of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, the latest iteration in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, one of the most endearing of Nintendo's spinoff series. The games' frantic, free-for-all type gameplay has made them a popular a staple for both competitive and casual gamers alike. With the series's stunning success, it's shocking to think that once upon a time Super Smash Bros. was just a modest fighter that was not destined for release outside of Japan. With that in mind, I think it would be worthwhile to go back 15 years to take a look at the game that started it all.