Sunday, September 14, 2003
The real Randy Johnson just stood up today with a one-hitter against the Rockies in Phoenix. Nice to see. The AP story mentioned that it was Johnson's first career one-hitter since '98 against Minnesota, but didn't mention his career total. In theory he's behind Steve Trachsel for career one-hitters. Still no list that I've found for career one-hitters, though on a player-by-player search one can determine that pitchers like Vida Blue, Mike Mussina, Hideo Nomo, and Don Sutton have at least three. It'd be nice to have a comprehensive list without doing the research myself.
I had one other last thought about parity. I think there is an elementary logic error called affirming the consequent in play here. Observe:
If parity is in effect, I will not be able to predict which teams will have the best records.
I have not been able to predict which teams have the best records.
Therefore, parity is in effect.
Notice that there may be other reasons why I can't predict which teams are the best, chief among which that I simply don't know everything. In fact, in the vast majority of cases in which parity is invoked, what is really happening is that the pundits are trying to hide their ignorance, at least so it seems to me.
If my explanation to this point has not yet rendered apparent the reasoning error, consider the following example:
If I live in Texas, then I live in the United States.
I live in the United States.
Therefore, I live in Texas.
Which of course is why I've been writing about the Rangers all this time. ;-)
posted by Tom Renbarger 7:06 PM
