A hard day of surfing the 'Net can yield up some interesting morsels. I knew, for example, that Tony Oliva, who will be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame later this summer, had a fabulous rookie season in 1964, and that one of the categories in which he led the American League that year was total bases. Yesterday I saw that he had 374 total bases in 1964—his 217 hits included 32 homers, 9 triples, and 43 doubles. Brooks Robinson, the American Leaguer with the second most total bases in 1964, had only 319. To catch Tony, Robinson would have had to hit, for example, 28 additional doubles. The guy in third place, Harmon Killebrew, had just three fewer total bases (316) than Robinson, and that's pretty much how it goes down the line. Tony-O lapped the field. Not sure anyone ever had a better rookie year.
In an unrelated field, the spring of 1969 was the last time a majority of justices on the Supreme Court had been appointed by a Democratic president. That's 53 years now. In that time, 17 justices have been appointed, 13 of them by Republican presidents. Over the same period, Republicans won 7 out of 13 presidential elections (and got more votes in only 5 out of the 13). On the current court, 6 of the 9 justices were appointed by Republicans even though, over the time period they were appointed, Democratic candidates won more presidential elections. Seems obvious to me that the justices should serve for a set period of time with terms expiring at regular intervals—probably one every other year, so that two new justices are appointed during each presidential term. Take it out of the hand of God (who decides when justices croak) and Mitch McConnell (who, when a justice croaks, decides whether the sitting president gets to appoint the replacement).
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