The books you hated!

[SimonDoom]

I didn't mean to imply for a whole season. I was speaking of individual games, but it isn't unheard of in a single series in postseason play to get there. Carlos Beltrán hit .435 in the 2004 postseason with eight home runs. Proving my point about swinging for the fence, Nelson Cruz scored eight home runs in a 2011 postseason series. In the 2020 postseason, Seager also hit eight home runs, tying with Carlos Beltrán, Nelson Cruz, Barry Bonds, and Adolis García. Randy Arozarena holds the record for most home runs in a single postseason series, with a remarkable 10 in the 2020 postseason. In the current season, at the moment, Aaron Judge has the highest batting average since 2000, with an average of .395.

And yes, no one has maintained a 400 for an entire season in forever. But hope springs eternal, right?

Aaron Judge, as of today, is up to .398 at the beginning of June. That's remarkable. It's possible.

I recall watching an interview with the late biology professor --and die-hard Yankees fan-- Stephen Jay Gould, who explained the disappearance of the .400 hitter. It's because baseball players have, overall, gotten better, not worse. As the overall quality rises, it becomes more difficult to be an outlier. The distribution curve changes, so it's harder than ever to be a .400 hitter. Average pitching it much better than it used to be (not "use to be" ).

Another factor working against batting average is that with the rise of sabermetrics players focus more on on-base percentage and on-base percentage + slugging percentage (OPS) more. Barry Bonds was the master of this. He didn't always have the highest batting average but his on base percentage was astronomical because he walked so often. People figured out that getting on base, by whatever method, was more important than getting a hit, in terms of value to the team.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Did I write use to be? My bad!

Aaron Judge, as of today, is up to .398 at the beginning of June. That's remarkable. It's possible.

I recall watching an interview with the late biology professor --and die-hard Yankees fan-- Stephen Jay Gould, who explained the disappearance of the .400 hitter. It's because baseball players have, overall, gotten better, not worse. As the overall quality rises, it becomes more difficult to be an outlier. The distribution curve changes, so it's harder than ever to be a .400 hitter. Average pitching it much better than it used to be (not "use to be" ).

Another factor working against batting average is that with the rise of sabermetrics players focus more on on-base percentage and on-base percentage + slugging percentage (OPS) more. Barry Bonds was the master of this. He didn't always have the highest batting average but his on base percentage was astronomical because he walked so often. People figured out that getting on base, by whatever method, was more important than getting a hit, in terms of value to the team.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Game of Thrones. I stopped after book 2, bored out of my mind with all the padding and a plot that was all over the map.

Russian novels in general. I did a university course in 19th century Russian Lit, and I read them all. Tolstoy. Dostoevsky. Pushkin. Turgenev, Oblomov, by Goncharov (or was it the other way round), Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time, Gogol's Dead Souls. I tried a few later ones too - Doctor Zhivago (loved the movie), and Mikhail Sholokhov's "And Quiet flows the Don." And of course Solzhenitsyn.

"The only thing more boring than Russian novels in English is Russian novels in Russian," as my lecturer said. He was right. Russian novels are an infallible cure for insomnia. Try one right after breakfast. You'll be back asleep before you know it. You may even deleop a deep seated dislike of Russians just from the novels.

Anything by Neil Gaiman. (yawns and falls asleep at the mere mention of the name)

Twilight. (Gags)

There's lots more but those are the ones I react to without thought. LOL

 

[MillieDynamite]

Fifty Shades of Grey poor writing worse grammar and romanticized bondage, WTF‽ I put it down after the second chapter and never fouled my mind with any of E. L. James's works again.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Fifty Shades of Grey poor writing worse grammar and romanticized bondage, WTF‽ I put it down after the second chapter and never fouled my mind with any of E. L. James's works again.

I read all three but honestly I couldn't see the appeal altho it was readable and it didn're bore me. I managed to read all three. The sex wasn't great, the bdsm was pretty vanilla, and they weren't that well written

That said, she made a bundle and I can't fault that. Good for her LOL.

 

[MillieDynamite]

@ChloeTzang No, I don't either. I have it Mum and she also tried to read it. She was born in England, moved Malaysia when she was 10ish, and then spent her life in Austria until coming here. She said for Brit, James was terrible with the Queens English. I guess nowadays it would be the Kings English. I think Mum made it through third chapter, she donated it a used bookstore. She's friends with the owner. Actually, she traded it for a better book, at least it was to Mum.