Javy Baez's nickname is "El Mago" (The Magician) for doing odd things magnificently and just naturally that no one else does. Yesterday I was watching the Cubs game when he did his latest -- he was fooled by a pitch, it bounced in the dirt, he threw his bat...and not only hit the ball, but got a single!  And even he couldn't figure out how. (Watch to the end...)

It was so bizarre that Major League Baseball sent it out in a tweet.  Even ESPN made it one of their Top 10 Plays of the Day.

For those interested, this is a slightly longer, fun look at the play which includes all three announcers -- the Cubs TV play-by-play, their radio broadcasters, and also even the Pittsburgh Pirate announcers in awe at the play.  You can watch it here.

​To start the baseball season, this morning we had Maestro Riccardo Muti of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra throwing out the first pitch before a Cubs game in 2012.  But to bookend the day and make it all official, this is one of my favorite first-pitch videos.  Unlike most first-pitch videos, though, it's a favorite not so much for the pitch itself (though thumbs-up for that), but for what comes before.

This is actress Elle Fanning on the David Letterman Show back in 2014, being perhaps the definition of adorable as she tells the story of her throwing out the first pitch before a Dodgers game earlier in the year.  And if her giddy, teenage excitement -- even months later -- doesn't make you a fan, you aren't trying.

And by the way, given that another way of describing a strikeout is "fanning the batter," that makes this all the more appropriate...

Though the first official game of the 2019 season was played the other day in Japan (an odd decision by Major League Baseball), today the first full day when all the other teams in the National and American Leagues on their home turf. 

And to help celebrate the day, we'll start the year as we did last season -- with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and their music director Riccardo Muti (in a Cubs jersey) playing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”  I think it was done in honor of the Cubs 2016 World Series, their first in 108 years, since the video was posted on November 6, 2016.  And the musicians are in street clothes, but many are wearing Cubs paraphernalia or blue.
 
It's a wonderful and fun arrangement, too, not trying to overwhelm such a small, charming song with orchestral bombast, but arranged with an almost old-timey feel.  And Muti seems to be having a good time with it all.

​In honor of it being the NBA All-Star Weekend, the guest contestant on the 'Not My Job' segment of this week's NPR quiz show, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!, is Mike D'Antoni, head coach of the Houston Rockets of the NBA.  The talk is largely about basketball -- but don't go rushing off, since he's a pretty open, amusing guy.  And the quiz is a lot of fun.

This is a great story that I heard about briefly yesterday on ESPN'S Pardon the Interruption.  It's about Laurent Duvernay-Tardif who plays offensive guard for the Kansas City Chiefs in the NFL -- and this past year became the first player in league history to not only graduate medical school, but be a practicing physician.

The Canadian-born Duvernay-Tardif (who speaks fluent French -- or perhaps it should be better put, also speaks fluent English) graduated from McGill University, which gave him an extended program allowing him to complete his training.  What oddly leaped out to me in the short report is perhaps the one idiotically-gnawing part of the whole, great story.  After he graduated, Duvernay-Tardif petitioned the NFL to allow him to put "M.D." after his name on his jersey.  For reasons inexplicable to Man, the petty, small-minded league said "No."

That pathetic foolishness aside, here's a very good video on him --

James Corden sent his parents down to Atlanta to cover the Super Bowl there and its surrounding activities before the game.  Similar to when David Letterman sent him mom to events, I thought the segments with Dorothy Letterman were funnier because she was more endearing (and I suspect the writers had better set-ups), but the Cordens are more game to taking part, especially his dad.

We have an inside baseball article today.   I'll give some of you a moment to gather your hats and go rushing off before it begins...

Mariano Rivera yesterday became the first player in the history of Major League Baseball to be voted into the Hall of Fame unanimously.  The argument of some voters over the decade was always something along the lines of "If Babe Ruth wasn't elected unanimously, then so-and-so shouldn't be."  And by the way, why on earth wasn't Babe Ruth voted in unanimously???

Mariano Rivera was a remarkable relief pitcher.  Likely the best of his era.  Possibly the best of any era (though the era of relief pitchers being so prominent only goes back about 40 years at most).  And he obviously deserved to be in the Hall of Fame.  And voted in on the first ballot.  And probably even unanimous.  But the fact that he was unanimous and the first-ever is – to me – SOOOO  New  York.
 
I can absolutely justify him being a unanimous choice.  It’s just notable to me that Hank Aaron wasn’t, Willie Mays wasn’t, Ted Williams wasn’t. Sandy Koufax wasn't.  Warren Spahn wasn't.  Roberto Clemente wasn't.  Stan Musial wasn't.  Ernie Banks wasn't.  Frank Robinson wasn't.  Bob Gibson wasn't.  Rod Carew wasn't.  But  a New York relief pitcher was.

Before the vote, there was a lot of wondering in the baseball world if this was finally going to be the year and that Mariano Rivera would be the first to get voted into the Hall of Fame unanimously.  Most I heard thought "No."  I thought he would be.  Because...baseball writers were finally ready, and -- he played in New York.
 
Someone had to be first.  Rivera is utterly deserving.  And we live in a different time when I guess enough voters said “Enough is enough.’  But the Hall of Fame is littered with players who were as deserving if not more so to have been unanimous before this.  (Not just in terms of credentials, but they were everyday players and played nine innings every day.  Not one inning three times a week.  To be clear, I know full well that the way the game is played today, relief pitching is extremely critical, no matter how many innings one pitches.)  What all these other full-time, deserving players weren't, though, is former players in New York.
 
And yes, I know some New York greats weren’t unanimous, too.  But those greats were from another era, when it was almost a given that no one got a unanimous vote.  In fact, the last, fully-New York position player (one who spent most of his career in New York) voted into the Hall of Fame was Mickey Mantle in 1974, 45 years ago.  (And no, even Mickey Mantle wasn’t elected unanimously.  Nor was Tom Seaver in 1992, the only other fully-New York player elected in half a century.)
 
I’m not saying Mariano Rivera shouldn’t have been unanimous.  He should have been.  And someone had to be first.  Just that it’s SO New York to me that a New York relief pitcher was the first.  In this era, indeed in  these very recent years Ken Griffey Jr. should have been just as unanimous three years ago.  Greg Maddux should have been equally unanimous five years ago.  Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn should have been 12 years ago.  And as for relief pitchers,  Bruce Sutter should have been unanimous 13 years ago.  And Dennis Eckersley 15 years ago.  Or Nolan Ryan and George Brett.  And on and on.  But none of them played in New York.
 
Was Rivera “the greatest relief pitcher ever”?  Arguably,  yes.  But at the time he was voted in, Sutter probably was, too.  And then Eckersley succeeded him and was, as well.  They just didn’t play in New York.
 
Again, as clearly as possible, I think Mariano Rivera is deserving of being a unanimous choice.  And someone finally was going to be first.  It’s just that it is SOOOOO New York to me that a New York relief pitcher was.  And not Ken Griffey Jr, Greg Maddux, Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn, Bruce Sutter, Dennis Eckersley…

But congratulations to him.  It's no aspersion on him what the baseball writers did.  And what they did was proper.  They just should have done it years earlier.

You may have read about or even seen the video of UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi who put up a perfect 10.0 score on her floor routine this past Saturday in a competition at Anaheim.  That makes sense, since it's the home of Disneyland, so you get to see what it's like for Peter Pan fly in real life.  As a grad school graduate of UCLA, I was admittedly proud of it, but whatever planet you're from it's a joy to watch.

It's even better with perspective, and this article by Allyson Chiu from today's Washington Post does that impeccably.  You can read it here, and I heartily recommend that before watching the video.

If you don't want to take the time (but do, it's not long, it's a sports article for goodness sake...), two passages give the most perspective.

The first is -- "But for many, Ohashi's performance stood out simply because she appeared to be having fun, a rare sight in an often stressful and grueling sport that demands perfection from its athletes.

"'I don't think I've ever seen someone visibly having this much fun while competing,' one person tweeted.

"Another person wrote,'Not only was it perfect looking, her joy is absolutely contagious.'"

And the second, longer passage puts even this above in perspective.  That's because only a couple years ago Ms. Ohashi had pulled back from gymnastics.  She was considered a top gymnast, and had been on what's considered an "elite" Olympic track, spending four years on USA Gymnastics' junior national team. Just five years ago, she won the American Cup, beating her teammate Simone Biles, who soon after won four Olympic gold medals.  But Ohashi pulled back from the sport, burned out and hurt.  She still competed, but not that elite level.  For the publication Players Tribune, she recently put out a video, "I Was Broken," delving into her story that took her out of that level of competition.

The article continues -- 

"'There was a time where I was on top of the world, an Olympic hopeful,' Ohashi narrates. 'I was unbeatable, until I wasn't.'

"Ohashi went on to describe the intense pressure she faced competing at the elite level - fans telling her "she wasn't good enough," constantly stressing about what she ate and being compared to "a bird that couldn't fly." In video clips of her at meets during that time, Ohashi rarely had a smile on her face. When she finally made the decision to retire from elite gymnastics with the hopes of becoming a college athlete, she had been competing with a fractured back and two torn shoulders.

"'It took me finding Ms. Val [Kondos Field] and UCLA and having a different goal and path to follow, to finally find joy and love within the sport again,' Ohashi said in the video, adding, 'I haven't been able to feel this type of happiness in a long time.'

She continued: 'It's not the outcome. It's not me standing on the podium with medals. It's me being able to walk out with a smile on my face and truly being happy with myself.'"

And this is the result.

By the way, I recommend watching the video again.  But not with your eyes on Katelyn Ohashi -- watch her teammates, and their utter joy watching her on the floor.  You can see some of them in the picture above.  There's one young woman -- you can't see her above -- blond and with a bun, who at the end seems almost out of her mind with happiness, bouncing her way enthusiastically.  That's how good this floor exercise is -- it's great without even watching the gymnast.

As I wrote yesterday, I left home early so that I could drive to Las Vegas for CES in time to get checked into my hotel to watch the Chicago Bears playoff game.  I could have spared myself that, given what an absolutely dismal end to the game it was. 

(I won't go into a long analysis, so don't worry.  I'll just say that they lost because a last-second very-makeable field goal attempt doinked off the goal post.  There's more I could say, but won't -- other than the team only had itself to blame because two years ago their excellent field goal kicker, Robbie Gould, was due for a contract raise, and they didn't want to pay it, so they let him go.  This year, he set a team record for the San Francisco 49ers for most consecutive field goals. And the guy the Bears signed in his placed tied for the most missed field goals in the NFL year.)

But I digress.  The point here is to honor a terrific season.  So, here is a fun version of the Chicago Bears fight song, with thanks again to Eric Boardman who sent me the link.  By the way, the Bears fight song is actually a really fun one, I think, one of the better in sports.  And it has a little-known, notable history.  The song is written by Al Hoffman who's in the Songwriters Hall of Fame and wrote -- among his many credits -- "Mairzy Doats," "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" (and other songs from Cinderella, including "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Make"), and Perry Como's big hit, "Hot Diggity," as well as "Fit as a Fiddle," which was used in Singin' in the Rain.

I've posed another version of the song -- when Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony and Chorus performed an enthralling rendition as a surprise encore to a classical concert to honor the team getting into the 1985 Super Bowl, which they won.  (You can hear that recording live, with the stunned and thrilled symphony audience clapping and cheering along at this link.)  This version below is a montage that cuts between Chicagoans singing different passages.  Most are residents, but a few local personalities are mixed in, a Chicago Bull and even a national celebrity who they caught on the street.  I was going to keep it a surprise, but since that's the graphic image on the video, the surprise is gone.  Making George Wendt's appearance all the more appropriate than just him being from Chicago is that he's part of the famous, "Da Bears/Ditka" sketch on Saturday Night Live.

So Bear down.  And best of luck next year.  
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