Shohei Ohtani just played the greatest game in baseball history.  To quote MSNBC: This is Beethoven at a piano. This is Shakespeare with a quill. This is Michael Jordan in the Finals. This is Tiger Woods in Sunday red.   This is too good to be true with no reason to doubt it. This is the beginning of every baseball conversation and the end of the debate: Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player who has ever played the game, the most talented hitter and pitcher of an era in which data and nutrition have made an everyman’s sport a game for superhumans. And Friday night, when he helped his Los Angeles Dodgers win the pennant with a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, was his Mona Lisa. How was this for a beginning?  In the top of the first inning, he struck out the side, then led off the bottom with a home run. When he hit his second homer, where the ball traveled 469 feet in the fourth inning, he had more hits ...

I wrote about Shohei Ohtani five years ago . Shohei came to America from the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters ( also produced Yu Darvish, 6'5", to the left, and both wore #11 ), and recorded the fastest pitch in Japan:  102.5 MPH.  He reached 99 MPH in high school.  He began his professional career in 2013 as both a left-handed hitter and right-handed pitcher.  He   signed a contract with the Angels last year   for only $545,000/year, plus a one time bonus of $2.3 million.  If he had waited until the age of 25, he would have gotten more than $200 million in a 6-8 year contract.    However, he will get his share of endorsements.  The Ham Fighters will receive $20 million for allowing him play in the USA.   Oh, he is single, humble, and with movie-star good looks.   There are many Ohtani books .  If you are into cards, here is a source of  five of them with a wristband gift bundle . There is thus nothing much I can add to w...

The census figures were released, and for the first time ever ( happens every 10 years ) California lost a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.  If New York had only counted 89 more people, they would not have lost one.  Instead, it would have been Minnesota: Both liberals and conservatives seem concerned that the 7.4% growth, the smallest since those Depression years in the 1930's, should be a national concern.  Hawaii grew by 7%.  Many others feel that population growth is the biggest problem today facing humanity , right up there with global warming. Paul Ehrlich released Population Bomb 53 years ago. This all started with Thomas Malthus in 1798. However, last year, like the attitude of some noteworthy Americans today, there was a sense that a world population which did grow fast enough would actually cause problems .  You can still purchase a hardcover  of the original PB from Amazon.com for $124.50. Four years later in 1972 came Limits to Growt...