Avoid These Common Errors!

• "I lead the pigeons"


• "to the fag"


• "divided states of embarassment"


• "the New Republic"


• "for Richard Stans"


• "I am an atheist; I don't believe in God"

• On Jesus (review by Mark McFall--the case for Jesus as philosopher)
• Some Godless comments on McFall's Review of On Jesus (rebuttal by Richard Carrier)
• A Look at Carrier's Godless Comments (surrebuttal by McFall)
and
• Reply to McFall on Jesus as a Philosopher (final--to the extent anything is final in this business--rebuttal by Carrier)

HITS                          YEAR      H     
1    George Sisler            1920      257   
T2   Bill Terry               1930      254   
T2   Lefty O'Doul             1929      254   
4    Al Simmons               1925      253   
T5   Rogers Hornsby           1922      250   
T5   Chuck Klein              1930      250   
7    Ty Cobb                  1911      248   
8    George Sisler            1922      246   
9    Ichiro Suzuki            2001      242   
T10  Babe Herman              1930      241   
T10  Heinie Manush            1928      241   
T12  Darin Erstad             2000      240   
T12  Jesse Burkett            1896      240   
T12  Wade Boggs               1985      240   
T15  Willie Keeler            1897      239   
T15  Rod Carew                1977      239   
T17  Don Mattingly            1986      238   
T17  Ed Delahanty             1899      238   
T19  Paul Waner               1927      237   
T19  Harry Heilmann           1921      237   
T19  Joe Medwick              1937      237   
T19  Hugh Duffy               1894      237   
23   Jack Tobin               1921      236   
24   Rogers Hornsby           1921      235   
T25  Lloyd Waner              1929      234   
T25  Kirby Puckett            1988      234   

The occupation of Iraq has been poorly managed.... If there isn't a change and the United Nations doesn't take charge of the situation and the occupying forces don't cede political control, the Spanish troops will return and the deadline for their presence there will be June 30. [Italics added.]

• DocB


• No quarters


• knock/snooze

Famous Last Words...
According to baseballlibrary.com, today is the 74th anniversary of Babe Ruth's signing a two year, $160,000 contract. Ruth's $80,000 per year under the deal made him the highest paid major league player of all time (up to that date), and when a reporter noted that Ruth would be making more than the President of the United States, Ruth noted "I had a better year than he did."

But the Famous Last Words were those of Yankees General Manager Ed Barrow, who solemnly assured reporters that "No one will ever be paid more than Ruth."

And now Major League minimum salary is in the six figures....

I believe that Babe Ruth's salary level in the late 1920's (around $100,000 annually) stood for some time as the highest in the history of sport when one took inflation and the tax rates into account. Judging by the astronomical wages being paid these days in baseball, it would seem that someone must have passed the Sultan of Swat by now. What was Ruth's highest salary and what would its current equivalent be?--Gary B., Chicago

In his top year salarywise (actually it was two years, 1930 and 1931) Ruth pulled down $80,000 per. However, salary accounted for only a fraction of his earnings. In 1927, for instance, the year he hit 60 homers, he took in $70,000 in salary and at least $110,500 in other income, including his World Series share, cash from a movie and a barnstorming tour, and so on. Add in payments for personal appearances, endorsements, investments, and other lucrative sidelines, and some estimate that Ruth cleared nigh unto $300,000. During the 15 years he spent with the Yankees, Ruth earned approximately $850,000 in salary, with maybe another $5-600,000 for exhibition and barnstorming fees, World Series shares, and other baseball income. Nonbaseball earnings are estimated at between one and two million bucks, giving us, conservatively speaking, a total of $3 million for Ruth's prime earning years. To figure out what this would be worth today, we note that $1 in 1930 would buy $5.91 worth of stuff at today's prices (as of April, 1983, actually), and that the top federal income tax rate in the late 20s and early 30s was 5 percent, whereas today it is 50 percent. This means that Ruth's $80,000 salary would be the current equivalent of $898,400--which happens to be almost exactly what Reggie Jackson gets today from the California Angels, excluding bonuses (Jackson's got a four year, $3.6 million contract). As for career earnings, Ruth's chief rival nowadays would have to be Muhammad Ali, who earned $69 million between 1960 and 1981. Figuring an average top income tax rate of 70 percent during the Ali years, and using the 1972 Consumer Price Index as our benchmark, Ruth's salary works out to the equivalent of $23.8 million. Clearly, when it comes to Ali, Ruth is pale by comparison.