Randy Johnson's 300th Win Day - 2026

 It's June 4! (At least it was when I started writing this post.) Which means it's the anniversary of Randy Johnson achieving his milestone 300th career win, a day that I've been celebrating as Randy Johnson's 300th Win Day! For the past few years I've used this day to take stock of the changes in my life, the life of the man behind the milestone, and in baseball as a whole, particularly in the realm of the obsolete statistic of the pitcher win.

This year there's a pretty massive change in the game of baseball, with the introduction of the Automated Balls and Strikes challenge. This year pitchers, catchers, and hitters gained the ability to challenge balls and strikes calls based on a well defined strike zone. Each team has two incorrect challenges that they can use for a nine inning game, with additional incorrect challenges becoming available with every extra inning. This system has been put in place in minor league ball for a few years, and it's allowed home plate umpires to keep some of their autonomy while rectifying some of the more egregious calls. I do like the system, even if it could have completely changed the outcome of Randy Johnson's 300th win had it been available in 2009.

AMPS 2025 Best Picture Nominees (and Winners)

Oh, gadzooks! It's mid-March!

Back in December, you might remember me pestering you to vote in my AMPS Best Picture Nominee vote. It's an annual tradition I have where I pick out three fictional movies that I came up with in the past year, and have people vote on which they feel should join four other fictional movies to form a lineup of five fictional movies that will serve as the Best Picture nominees for the Awards for Motion Picture Services (AMPS), one of three fake film awards I reward to my fictional movies. The poll was supposed to last for a week and then theoretically I would announce the winner along with the other four nominees. However, life got in the way and I missed the New Year's deadline. Then the time when I would pick out the winners for the AMPS awards came and went, and I still didn't write anything. Then the second of the fake film awards the Movie Magazine Awards came and went, and I still didn't write anything. And now it's almost time for the ultimate fake film awards, the L Awards. 

It's not the first time I've held a vote for the final Best Picture nominee and then neglect to present the winner. Back in 2014 I held a nominating vote which Kids Court won, but I ended up not presenting the other nominees. That year I didn't feel like I had a solid grasp of what the other films were about. However, this year it's a completely different story. I had a basic plot for these films. I just dropped the ball and got lazy. Nevertheless, I figured I owe y'all the winner of this year's poll along with the other four nominees.