Pop, Rock, and Populism: Reassessing the Greatest Music of the 1990s
PLUS: An MLB postseason preview
The music website Pitchfork recently published a new list of the best songs and albums of the 1990s. There’s no real reason for doing so, just that they last did this in 2010 and thought it was time to revisit the decade. Overall, the lists seem pretty good, but before I reveal the lists’ top rankings, some relatively minor quibbles and two big ones:
The minor ones:
I’m pretty sure Madonna fans would agree with me on this one, but Erotica (not included) is a way better album than Ray of Light (#55). And “If I Had No Loot” (not included) is a better Tony! Toni! Toné! song than “Feels Good.” (#192).
If Pitchfork is including country music in the form of Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, and the Dixie Chicks, then they should have also found a spot for Dwight Yoakam, particularly the album and songs from This Time.
I’d be curious to know if the following songs were considered for the list: “Around the Way Girl” by LL Cool J; “Under the Bridge” by Red Hot Chili Peppers; “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” by Sophie B. Hawkins; either “Tennessee” or “Mr. Wendal” by Arrested Development; “In the Meantime” by Spacehog; and “I Try” by Macy Gray.
These picks may just come down to preferences, but only one Pearl Jam song (“Corduroy”) and no album(!) but not Ten, “Better Man”, or “Jeremy”? “Loser” but not “Where It’s At” by Beck? Rid of Me but not Dry by PJ Harvey? There’s a Pet Shop Boys album on the list, but not “Go West”. There are three Radiohead songs on the list, all from OK Computer, none from The Bends, and no “Creep”, which isn’t representative of Radiohead but is still a damn good song.
The two big ones:
I know Prince was easing out of his prime in the 90s, but he did have his moments, such as “Diamond and Pearls”, “Cream”, and “Pink Cashmere”. But whatever you think of those songs, I would say it is objectively true that one of the top 250 songs of the 1990s is “7”.
Release “7” in any era and it would stand out from everything else on the radio at the time. The song is sui generis and defies description; maybe the closest approximation would be to say it sounds like Sly and the Family Stone trying to funkify George Harrison’s “Within You Without You” from Sgt. Pepper. I’m not saying it’s a top ten or top fifty song, but it has to be included.
I also know U2 is decidedly uncool at the moment, but “One” should be on the list. (Pitchfork did include Achtung Baby at #118, but no U2 songs like “Mysterious Ways” or “Stay [Faraway, So Close!])”. The case for “One” is simple: It’s a universal standard, and one of only a few songs from the decade future generations will, if not play, sing. It’s the “Yesterday” or “Imagine” of the 1990s.
So those are my minor/major gripes. Like I said, overall, they’re pretty good lists. I was checking off the songs and albums and artists I expected to see/wanted to see as I read through them and ended up satisfied. If they came up short somewhere, it was with “mainstream” artists but ultimately that’s OK (with the exception of “7” and “One”) because those mainstream artists always end up getting all the love anyway.
But that’s not to say there aren’t mainstream artists on these lists. The lists actually do feature a lot of “mainstream” music and artists, just not from the “mainstream” often associated with the critical mainstream of the 1990s. What Pitchfork seems to have done in compiling their rankings this time around is somewhat deemphasize the standard 90s canon and with it the aesthetic assumptions that animated the era. Instead, they’ve tried to salvage the pop music that was critically savaged (or at least written-off) during the 90s.
To begin with, here’s the top twenty albums (out of 150), with where those albums ranked on Pitchfork’s 2003 iteration of the list in parentheses.
20. Brown Sugar by D’Angelo (Unranked)
19. When the Pawn… by Fiona Apple (Unranked)
18. Heaven or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins (90)
17. Baduizm by Erykah Badu (Unranked)
16. Rid of Me by PJ Harvey (52)
15. One in a Million by Aaliyah (Unranked)
14. Ready to Die by the Notorious B.I.G. (32)
13. Homework by Daft Punk (65)
12. Aquemini by OutKast (50)
11. Dummy by Portishead (48)
10. Nevermind by Nirvana (6)
9. The Low End Theory by a Tribe Called Quest (56)
8. Live Through This by Hole (Unranked)
7. The Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson (Unranked)
6. Homogenic by Björk (21)
5. Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by Wu-Tang Clan (36)
4. Exile in Guyville by Liz Phair (30)
3. OK Computer by Radiohead (1)
2. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Lauryn Hill (Unranked)
1. Loveless by My Bloody Valentine (2)
If you peruse that 2003 list, (here’s just the list, here’s the list with the album write-ups) you’ll notice this 2022 list is much more diverse. The 2003 list is very indie/alternative (as Pitchfork was at the time), with a few nods to gangsta rap and electronica. The only women represented in the top twenty were members of three bands (My Bloody Valentine, Belle and Sebastian, and Smashing Pumpkins) and Björk. The only Black artist was Public Enemy. On the 2022 list, over half the artists in the top twenty are either female or bands that feature female members, and nine of the entries are Black groups or artists.
In other words, a lot of the previous top twenty—a whopping sixteen entries—no longer crack the top twenty, and a lot more room has been made in the upper echelons of the canon for albums by Black and female artists, who have historically been associated with oft-derided “pop” music. (It should be noted in most cases, the Black and female artists included in the top twenty didn’t record straight-up pop albums. Additionally, those albums have almost always been critically acclaimed, just not typically regarded as the very best of the decade, an honor usually reserved for bands led by white males.) This change is perhaps best symbolized by the fact Live Through This by Hole, a band fronted by Courtney Love, is two spots ahead of the decade-defining Nevermind by Nirvana, which was fronted by Love’s husband, Kurt Cobain. Or that the highest-rated rap album on the list—The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which was unranked on the last list even though it’s always been regarded as a masterpiece—comes in one shy of the top spot and was recorded by a Black woman. It’s a noticeably more diverse list, both in terms of who is included on the list and the styles of music represented there.
But if the album list is surprising, consider Pitchfork’s top thirty songs of the 1990s (out of 250):
30. “The Boy is Mine” by Brandy and Monica (Unranked)
29. “Teardrop” by Massive Attack (Unranked)
28. “…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears (Unranked)
27. “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” by Dr. Dre ft. Snoop Doggy Dogg (3)
26. “Pony” by Ginuwine (104)
25. “Can I Kick It?” by A Tribe Called Quest (Unranked)
24. “Paranoid Android” by Radiohead (4)
23. “Believe” by Cher (Unranked)
22. “Cannonball” by the Breeders (22)
21. “Sabotage” by Beastie Boys (39)
20. “Born Slippy (Nuxx)” by Underworld (31)
19. “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad O’Connor (37)
18. “Common People” by Pulp (2)
17. “Sour Times” by Portishead (Unranked)
16. “Freedom! ‘90” by George Michael (79)
15. “Shook Ones, Pt. II” by Mobb Deep (25)
14. “Criminal” by Fiona Apple (Unranked)
13. “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star (19)
12. “Doo Wop (That Thing)” by Lauryn Hill (95)
11. “Around the World” by Daft Punk (Unranked)
10. “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill (67)
9. “Juicy” by the Notorious B.I.G. (14)
8. “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child (Unranked)
7. “Windowlicker” by Aphex Twin (12)
6. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana (13)
5. “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” by Missy Elliott (33)
4. “Fuck and Run” by Liz Phair (87)
3. “Are You That Somebody?” by Aaliyah (8)
2. “Hyperballad” by Björk (11)
1. “Fantasy (Remix)” by Mariah Carey ft. Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Unranked)
(Here are links to Pitchfork’s full 2010 list, the 2010 list with write-ups, and this year’s list.)
You’ll notice right off the bat there’s definitely been a reordering, with most songs that had been previously ranked moving up on the list and ten having been previously unranked. Many songs that previously had been highly ranked dropped (“Common People” from #2 to #18, “Paranoid Android” from #4 to #24, and “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” from #3 to #27; the 2010 list’s #1—“Gold Soundz” by Pavement—fell to #40; “Loser” by Beck dropped from #9 to #97, while “Say It Isn’t So” by Weezer dropped from #10 to #103.) Additionally, whereas the 2010 list’s top thirty included only seven Black artists, the new list features twelve Black artists or bands with Black members. Female artists or bands with female members constituted only nine of the top thirty on the 2010 list. On the new list, that number jumped to seventeen, and each of the songs listed in the top five is credited to a solo female artist.
But what’s really startling about the new list is Pitchfork’s embrace of pop. By 2010, Pitchfork had started developing an appreciation for pop music, and more diverse artists and styles were included on the list. But the 2010 list still leaned heavily on critical darlings, indie/alternative records, and obscurities. The new list, however, is much more diverse, and in many ways seems to rewrite the history of the decade. It’s the pop songs that stand out the most: “The Boy is Mine” by Brandy and Monica, “…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, “Believe” by Cher, “Freedom! ‘90” by George Michael, “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child (all but Michael’s unranked on the previous list) plus lower ranked tracks such as “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston (#59), “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia (#72), “Walking on Broken Glass” by Annie Lennox (#75), “You’re Makin’ Me High” by Toni Braxton (#96), “Together Again” by Janet Jackson (#110), “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” by Shania Twain (#127), “Free Your Mind” by En Vogue (#153), “The Sign” by Ace of Base (#169), “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls (#182), “I Love Your Smile” by Shanice (#217), “It’s All Coming Back to Me” by Celine Dion (#231), “Show Me Love” by Robyn (#241) and “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips (#246). There are also a number of songs that veer pop, such as “If It Makes You Happy” by Sheryl Crow, “Just a Girl” by No Doubt, and “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind. I would wager all those songs weren’t even considered for the 2010 list.
And then there’s the song that was unranked in 2010 but shot all the way up to #1 on this new list: “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey, specifically the remix featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard of Wu-Tang Clan. (Both the single and the remix are embedded below.)
Topping the charts for eight weeks in the fall of 1995, “Fantasy” was only the second song in history to debut at #1 on Billboard’s premier Hot 100 singles list. (“You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson had achieved the feat just a few weeks earlier; debuting at #1 is more common today, with over half of the 60+ songs that started their chart run at #1 having done so since 2018.) Carey built the track around a sample of Tom Tom Club’s 1981 single “Genius of Love”, which rap artists had frequently sampled. Combined with production that recalled the West Coast g-funk style of Dr. Dre, “Fantasy” is a breezy pop song doting on hip-hop, a coupling impossible to miss as soon as Ol’ Dirty Bastard starts rapping on Puff Daddy’s remix. Carey wasn’t the first to blend rap and pop R&B, but she took the fusion mainstream.
There are probably a lot of fans of 90s music who screamed “Sacrilege!” at the sight of Mariah Carey at the top of a list of the best songs of the decade. The selection does indeed feel like a provocation meant to upend everything you assumed about the 90s, an era of alienation and outrage when sludgy guitar rock and hardcore rap ruled, not polished, corporate, bubble-gum pop. Fans of 90s music may even claim Pitchfork has defied the preferences of the people, who rallied not around Carey but Cobain as the voice of the decade. Personally, I do believe a very strong case can be made that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is a greater song than “Fantasy”. The merits of individual songs aside, however, this “populist” defense of alternative rock is riddled with holes in the way it ignores both the “pop”-ulism of “pop”-ular music and the artistic potential of the pop music medium.
Two styles of music dominated the 1990s: Grunge/alternative rock and gangsta rap. Grunge and alternative rock exploded in 1991 with the release of Nevermind by Nirvana, who were followed onto the national stage by bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Smashing Pumpkins, and eventually Hole, Sleater-Kinney, Pavement, Green Day, Beck, Weezer, and Rage Against the Machine. This was America’s punk moment: The time when underground rock went mainstream, when trashy/grungy music was suddenly good, when whatever was cool was now uncool and it became cool to be uncool, and when a band that became popular or added a pop sheen to their music could be deemed sellouts. At the same time, gangsta rap, a hardcore style of rap that depicted the culture of street gangs and street hustlers, had been rising in popularity since the release of Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A. in 1988, but it overtook the rap scene and the Billboard charts following the release of The Chronic by Dr. Dre in December 1992. In short order, albums by 2Pac, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, and the Notorious B.I.G. became massive hits.
Both styles of music positioned themselves (either willingly or unwillingly) against the predominant pop music paradigm of the 1980s. The 80s were a pop decade—think Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, and George Michael—and the sound of 80s pop was shiny, synthy, and huge (insert Phil Collins’ drum break from “In the Air Tonight” here.) By the end of the decade, that big pop sound was everywhere, including in hard rock, where hair metal bands rode the style to the top of the charts. Over the course of the decade, rap also took a turn toward pop. New jack swing artists like Janet Jackson and New Edition (and New Edition’s various off-shoots) recorded polished, upscale pop R&B songs built around hip-hop production techniques and rhythms. Rap superstars like LL Cool J and MC Hammer filled arenas with songs aimed at pleasing the masses.
In the early 90s, however, alternative rock (which evolved from the underground 80s alternative rock scene) and gangsta rap rebelled against pop’s dominance with gritty, transgressive, and “authentic” styles music (although I would argue gangsta rap was equal parts documentary and fantasy). The name says it all, right? These were alternatives to the mainstream, genuine acts of artistic expressions that reflected what was really going on in the world, warts and all, rather than the prerogatives of a music industry chasing the all-mighty dollar or the image-makers over at MTV.
It turned out there were huge audiences for both alternative rock and gangsta rap, big enough to discredit pop music and rob it of much of the momentum it had coming out of the 80s. Equally important, rock music critics latched on to both alternative rock and gangsta rap, regarding them as revolutionary rock and roll movements that upended the musical status quo just as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the punks had in the past. Works by Nirvana, Dr. Dre, Pearl Jam, the Notorious B.I.G., and Beck instantly became part of the rock canon. Artists working in their shadows were regarded as important; everyone else was looked upon skeptically as too soft, too pop, or outmoded.
Yet alternative rock didn’t make it to the end of the decade. Its leading light, Kurt Cobain, took his own life in 1994. Grunge peaked that year before largely running out of steam in 1996, but not before the sound of alternative rock went mainstream. By the end of the 90s, post-grunge bands like Matchbox 20 had married the textures and look of alternative rock to radio-friendly melodies. Meanwhile, gangsta rap began softening its edge and drifting toward a more pop R&B sound following the murders of 2Pac and the Notorious B.I.G. mid-decade. Puff Daddy’s 1997 album No Way Out is emblematic of this shift. While the tropes of gangsta rap could still be heard in the work of Jay-Z and 50 Cent, by the early 2000s the style had gone fully mainstream. Amazingly, by the end of the 1990s—a decade that had been defined in the minds of so many by its opposition to popular tastes—the artists generating the biggest buzz were pop acts like Britney Spears, TLC, the Backstreet Boys, Destiny’s Child, and Christina Aguilera, alternative adjacent bands like Sugar Ray and Smash Mouth, and Eminem.
It had only been ten years, but Britney Spears felt ages removed from Nirvana. (The contrasts between the videos for “…Baby One More Time” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit”—both set in high schools—are stark.) The early 90s quickly became a kind a golden age to rock purists. In fact, tune in to a classic rock station today—what you’d listen to if you wanted to hear the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Tom Petty, etc.—and you’ll find its playlist has expanded to include Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, and other alternative bands from the 90s.
In other words, alternative rock became a central chapter in the “rockist” history of rock and roll. According to the rockist school of thought, “rock music” was born in the 1960s when artists like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones transformed the raw materials of 50s rock and roll, soul music, and R&B into serious “rock” music. Their defiance of popular conventions, embrace of rock’s roots, artistic integrity, and supposed authenticity set them apart from the mainstream yet still enabled them to win over huge audiences said to be craving something meaningful and true. Bands descended in style and approach from these groups gained instant aesthetic credibility, and movements like punk and alternative that stayed true to its ethos were viewed as their inheritors.
Someone who approaches rock and roll through the lens of rockism is probably appalled by Pitchfork’s newest list. What they see is a website thumbing their nose at the classic rock music of the 1990s, music that is authentic, real, cutting edge, and objectively good/important. This is music that defined the decade and spoke to a generation. To diminish it by awarding the top spot to someone like Mariah Carey—the artist who represented everything alternative rock openly rebelled against in the 90s—is an insult to rock’s populist masses. (By the way, the #1 song on Pitchfork’s 2010 list—“Gold Soundz” by Pavement—was also something of a slight to the rockist alternative rock crowd. Pavement was also an alternative rock band, but they had more of a cult following and were always more favored by critics than the masses. Putting them first was a way for Pitchfork to establish their alternative/indie rock bona fides while signaling their more refined taste and ideological purity.)
But those from the “poptimist” school of thought would push back against the rockist frame. Poptimism asserts that artists working in the commercial pop medium or who use the trademarks of pop music also make meaningful, innovative records and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. In their view, the rockist paradigm is too prescriptive: All the good artists tend to be straight white guys who play guitars, which ends up marginalizing the work of women, people of color, and LGBTQ. Without dismissing them out of hand, they would also claim the work and reputations of classic rock artists—often treated as transcendent musical geniuses—are critically overrated. A poptimist would see no problem with ranking Mariah Carey first while regarding the idolization of so much bloated 90s grunge rock as sanctimonious.
Over the past 10-20 years, poptimism has supplanted rockism (typically associated with the tastes of Rolling Stone magazine) as the main critical musical paradigm. That’s a good thing for a number of reasons. In the first place, it obviously leads us to reconsider music and artists earlier generations had dismissed as too pop. Also, by insisting the work of white straight male guitar acts is but one part of the rock and roll historical narrative rather than the central rock and roll narrative, pop as well as other styles of rock and roll music come to be regarded as equally valid forms of expression rather than deviations from an artistic standard whose worth as deviations is measured by their proximity to the rockist paradigm. Under a rockist paradigm, alternative rock is the pinnacle of 90s rock music, with Britpop and indie rock as its running mates. Gangsta rap is accorded respect for channeling rock’s rebellious and aggressive spirit, but rap is always a notch below alternative because it isn’t guitar-based. Electronica is given its due as a forward-looking genre, but like rap, it’s also accorded second-class status since it is made with beat boxes, synthesizers, and turntables. Alternative rap and neo-soul are deemed too soft and cerebral, R&B too pop, and pop too commercial. A poptimist paradigm wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the merits of alternative rock but instead regard the genre on an equal footing with the other genres that defined the decade.
Defenders of alternative rock might still insist that elevating Mariah Carey to #1 honors an artist who was critically respected neither in the 90s nor today and privileges the preferences of established music industry elites over the tastes of legions of everyday alternative rock fans. It’s a populist argument, but from a particular populist perspective. Carey may not have been respected by critics in the 1990s, but the passage of time allows us to revisit that assessment to see if the era’s prejudices (in this case, a prejudice against pop) may have blinded us to its merits. The editors of Pitchfork clearly believe Carey (along with a lot of 90s pop music) deserves reassessment. Carey certainly was a music industry powerhouse in the 1990s, but so was alternative rock even as it sneered at the industry: Alternative bands sold millions of albums, labels pursued any group that could be marketed as a grunge band and produced artists to make them sound grungier, MTV put alternative rock videos into heavy rotation, and alt-rock bands frequently landed on the cover of Rolling Stone. It’s also hard to claim Carey is somehow not a “populist” pick when she’s one of the highest-selling artists of the 90s. She’s also beloved by legions of fans, just not the legions buying alternative rock records. (It probably goes without saying, but Carey’s fanbase by comparison was almost certainly more female and more racially diverse.)
I guess what I’m saying is this populist rockist argument made on behalf of alternative rock doesn’t work. It’s populism from a particular point of view and one that doesn’t necessarily check its own privilege. That’s not to say there isn’t a strong case to be made on behalf of alternative rock. I would just suggest alternative rock’s populist defenders be careful not to reflexively dismiss entire genres of music without first learning more about those genres in order to develop a better appreciation for them and without also reflecting on how the arguments they use to defend their genre and tear other genres down might be flipped back onto themselves.
Now, do I think “Fantasy” is the best song of the 1990s? No, and I bet very few people do, too, simply because there’s a lot of people out there and a lot of songs to choose from. So let me rephrase the question: Do I think “Fantasy” is a plausible number one, the way “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Paranoid Android” or “Common People” are plausible number ones? Honestly, no. It is probably the great Mariah Carey song (even after “All I Want For Christmas is You”, which, now that I think about it, is also a 90s standard like “One”) and one of the greatest and most important pop songs of the 1990s. I’m perfectly fine with including it on the list. I just think “Fantasy” is a little too fluffy to land at number one.
That’s not to dismiss Mariah Carey, however. It is indisputable Carey was the biggest pop star of the 1990s. I’d guess her only rivals in terms of record sales during the decade are Celine Dion and Garth Brooks. Nearly every single she released in the 90s went to #1, as did nearly every album. She’s the diva that gets us from Whitney Houston to, if not Britney Spears, then Beyoncé. She has an amazing voice, a five-octave vocal range, and can sing in the whistle register, which you can hear briefly in “Fantasy” at around 0:24 for a few seconds. Carey’s melismatic singing style has been imitated by pop artists and American Idol contestants for decades. She should have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when she first became eligible in 2016. The only catch with Carey is that her best material doesn’t pack the same punch as the best work of the other towering female solo pop stars of the rock and roll era: Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor Swift.
But that’s also generally true of pop music in the 1990s: Compared especially to the 1980s or 1960s, the 90s just isn’t a pop decade, and while it did produce its fair share of good pop music, its record in that area is pretty thin. There was definitely an audience for pop music in the 90s and a lot of good pop was made that decade, but it just wasn’t as creatively fertile a time for pop, as the creative energy was focused elsewhere and often channeled into pushing against the pop paradigm. That’s not to disqualify pop from a list like Pitchfork’s—in fact, I’d argue if you’re going to put a pop song at the top of a list ranking the best songs from the 1990s, it would have to be either “Vogue” by Madonna (see below) or “You Get What You Give” by one-hit wonder the New Radicals (see Exit Music)—just that the pickings may be slimmer in the 90s than in other decades. The virtue of Pitchfork’s list is that it doesn’t leave pop music off the 90s canon, prompting us to revisit those artists, develop a new-found appreciation for their work, broaden our musical horizons to pop-adjacent genres, and question the assumptions we hold about the musical history of the 1990s.
Signals and Noise
The Supreme Court is back in session, and Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post has a run-down of the cases the Court’s conservative majority will use this term to tug the country further to the right. In their sights: The Clean Water Act, affirmative action, the Voting Rights Act, and the balance between religious liberty and gay rights.
If you haven’t already, familiarize yourself with the “independent state legislature” theory Trump’s election saboteurs have been throwing around (and that three current justices have voiced support for.) The theory holds the Constitution grants exclusive power to state legislatures to both draw the boundaries of congressional districts and appoint electors to the Electoral College. Proponents of the theory not only argue this means state legislatures—and not state supreme courts or independent redistricting commissions—have the final say over the redistricting process. They also argue state legislatures could disregard the results of a state’s presidential election and appoint an electoral slate of their own choosing. In other words, a majority Republican state legislature (and, in most cases, a lame duck one) could approve a slate of Republican electors even if the Democratic candidate for president won the popular vote in the state. Definitely not small-d democratic. Definitely capital-D Dangerous.
Anyway, here’s an article by former judge J. Michael Luttig (and “feeder judge” for Scalia and Thomas) titled “There is Absolutely Nothing to Support the ‘Independent State Legislature’ Theory” for The Atlantic. It’s argument relies on originalism, which is right in conservatives’ wheelhouse. (“That as many as six justices on the Supreme Court have flirted with the independent-state-legislature theory over the past 20 years is baffling. There is literally no support in the Constitution, the pre-ratification debates, or the history from the time of our nation’s founding or the Constitution’s framing for a theory of an independent state legislature that would foreclose state judicial review of state legislatures’ redistricting decisions. Indeed, there is overwhelming evidence that the Constitution contemplates and provides for such judicial review.”) The Court will hear a case concerning this issue this term.
A week ago, Don Trump used a social media post to both invite physical harm upon Mitch McConnell and smear McConnell’s wife with a racist slur. (“He has a DEATH WISH. Must immediately seek help and advise [sic] from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!”) McConnell’s wife is Trump’s former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who immigrated to the United States as a child from the definitely not “China-loving” country of Taiwan. Writing for New York magazine, Jonathan Chait uses the episode to note two very obvious facts that are just taken for granted these days: 1.) Don Trump “blurts out wildly racist comments on the regular,” which makes him a racist; and 2.) Members of the Republican Party support Donald Trump regardless.
A new book explores the failed impeachments of Don Trump and finds Republican senators working behind the scenes to aid his defense despite the feeling Trump had crossed the line.
Tim Miller has a theory about why Republican politicians end up supporting Trump even though they know Trump is dangerous: Careerism. And Republican voters who can’t break with Trump even though they can’t stand him? It would shatter the identity they’ve built for themselves over years and decades. (“For these other folks, to your point — the bars they go to. The poker night. The church. Their friend group. Their dog’s name is Reagan. Changing all that is very challenging.”)
There are a lot of juicy tidbits in Maggie Haberman’s new book about Trump Confidence Man, but it looks like she makes one very important contribution to the literature about the man: How his roots in the politics of 1970s/1980s New York City “equipped Mr. Trump with the low expectations and cynical convictions that would carry him so far: that racial politics is a zero-sum contest among tribes; that allies as well as enemies must be dominated; that everything in life can be treated as a transaction; that rapidly topping one lie or controversy with the next will tie the media in knots; that celebrity confers power; that not only politicians but even prosecutors are malleable.”
Every Republican running for office should be asked this question: “Are voters who believe the United States is run by a ring of child sex traffickers, satanic pedophiles, and cannibals correct?” Follow-up question: “It’s a simple yes or no question, sir/ma’am: Are voters who believe the United States is run by a ring of child sex traffickers, satanic pedophiles, and cannibals correct?”
Republican Georgia Senate nominee Herschel Walker favors banning abortion in all cases with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother. He has equated abortion to murder. Yet The Daily Beast reported this week that Walker not only urged an ex-girlfriend he conceived a child with in 2009 to get an abortion but also paid for the procedure. The woman making the claim—who asked not to be identified—was able to produce a receipt from the abortion clinic, a bank deposit receipt from Walker, and a “get well” card from Walker. (The New York Times reports Walker wanted the woman to get another abortion in 2011; she gave birth to his child instead.)
Walker denied the claim and said the woman making the allegations was lying, but there’s no good reason to believe him since he’s already had to fess up during the campaign to having not one nor two but three more children than he publicly claimed. And then the mother of one of those women stepped forward to state she is actually the ex-girlfriend Walker paid to get the abortion and that a few years later she gave birth to one of his four children, so it’s really hard to believe Walker has no clue about what’s going on here. His denials are pretty implausible, too.
Will Republicans care? No. Evangelical voters don’t. As former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch said, she really doesn’t care if Walker paid some “skank” for an abortion. I assume she’d feel the same way if Walker shot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue. As Loesch admits, what matters is power. But if that’s the case, why waste time trying to persuade people Hunter Biden’s laptop or Hillary Clinton’s emails matter? Why should I care? Kind of begs the question: Is there anything that matters more than power? (Given what I’ve heard Republicans say a lot lately, probably not free and fair elections.) What’s the constraint? Scary to think this is what a major figure in the nation’s biggest gun lobby thinks.
This is vile: “Interestingly, I’ve heard many horrible things about [Walker’s] opponent, Raphael Warnock, things that nobody should be talking about, so we don’t.”—Don Trump (At this point, why leave it at insinuation? Why the discretion? Just lie, dude, it’s what you do! Your supporters don’t care!)
Expect to see Republican candidates running head-first into walls over and over again to sustain the necessary brain damage to win Newt Gingrich’s backing.
The personal lives of politicians can be messy, and I’ve often argued voters ought to draw a distinction between the private behavior of politicians and their public records. That’s not an airtight rule, however, and Walker represents one of those times when a candidate’s private/personal life should disqualify him from office. The issue for me isn’t the immediate issue at hand (abortion and undisclosed children) but rather that Walker has a very hard time keeping his personal life in order, has a poor grasp on reality, and is not very smart. Simply put, he doesn’t have it together. Someone like that has no business being in the Senate.
Here’s the dumbest United States Senator at it again:
As a fan of The Simpsons, this one is too good to pass up:
Former Republican Governor and current candidate for governor Paul LePage of Maine sure squirmed when a moderator in a debate asked him about abortion.
“Why do we have litter boxes in some of the school districts so kids can pee in them, because they identify as a furry? We’ve lost our minds. We’ve lost our minds.”—Minnesota Republican nominee for governor Scott Jensen, repeating debunked conservative catnip. He’s lost his mind. He’s lost his mind.
Also losing her mind over students in public schools supposedly identifying as cats: Heidi Ganahl, who is somehow both the Republican Colorado gubernatorial candidate and a member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents.
538 has a good overview of competitive House seats. And Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has a good overview of how crazy a lot of the Republican candidates running for the House are.
Republican Tyler Kistner, who is running against Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in Minnesota’s second congressional district, claims to have served in combat in North Africa. But not only was the United States never involved in combat in North Africa when Kistner was in the service, but Kistner served primarily in Japan and South Korea, never saw combat, and doesn’t have a combat service ribbon. (Why do Republican candidates even embellish their records this way? Their records don’t even matter to their supporters. Kistner could say he doesn’t have a record but Republicans would still vote for him so long as he said he was a Republican, loved Trump, and got angry about immigration/crime/rigged elections/cancel culture/vaccines/the libs.
Democrat Katie Darling is running for House Republican Whip Steve Scalise’s seat, so there’s no chance she wins, but Darling’s latest ad goes someplace no other political ad has ever gone before:
By Amanda Carpenter of The Bulwark: “Kevin McCarthy’s Plan to Benghazi the Bidens” (“McCarthy’s plan to Benghazi the Bidens isn’t subtle. In July, he cowrote a New York Post op-ed with Reps. Jim Jordan and James Comer, the top Republicans on the Judiciary and Oversight committees, titled ‘We’ll investigate Bidens’ shady business dealings when Republicans take the House in November.’”)
The Washington Post found a majority of Republicans running for House, Senate, and major state-wide offices are election deniers.
By Tim Alberta, for The Atlantic: “Bad Losers” (“I’ve met men and women like [elections supervisor Chris Thomas] in small towns and big counties, public servants who have devoted their career to safeguarding the infrastructure of our democracy. Over the past two years, they have been harassed, intimidated, and in many cases driven out of office, some replaced by right-wing activists who are more loyal to the Republican Party than to the rule of law. The old guard—the people who, like Thomas, committed their career to free and fair elections—are witnessing their life’s work being undone. They are watching the rise of Trump-mimicking candidates in this year’s midterm elections and wondering if anything can stop the collapse of our most essential institution. ‘This election,’ Thomas said, ‘feels like a last stand.’”)
Alabama law requires voters to present government-issued ID to vote. Here’s a picture of the fake ID the chair of the Alabama Republican Party used to vote.
ReAwaken America, a one part tent revival/one part political rally led by retired general and former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, is touring the country and recruiting a Christian Nationalist “army of God.”
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, fifteen other Florida lawmakers, and Florida Senator Rick Scott voted against a continuing resolution last week that kept the government open and included disaster aid for his state following Hurricane Ian. (Marco Rubio didn’t vote.) Now Gaetz wants Congress to authorize more disaster aid. Gaetz (who crashed your local high school’s Halloween party last year as either Beevis or Butt-head, you weren’t sure) objected to the CR on procedural grounds because he didn’t have the opportunity to tie stricter work requirements to federal entitlement programs. So principled, especially considering the CR expires in two-and-a-half months.
A lot of Republicans (Rep. Tom Emmer (MN), Sen. Rand Paul (KY), Rep. Ashley Hinson (IA), Paul Gosar (AZ), etc.) who called Biden’s infrastructure bill a “socialist program” or “wasteful spending” have asked the Dept. of Transportation to send some of that wasteful socialist spending to their districts.
As of Wednesday, abortion is now almost entirely unavailable in 14 states (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin) and Georgia, where the law prohibits abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat.
A fourteen-year-old girl in Arizona was denied life-saving prescription medication she has used for years to treat rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis because the pharmacy feared the drug, which can be used to end an ectopic pregnancy, would run afoul of Arizona’s new anti-abortion law.
A new poll by NBC/Telemundo indicates Democrats’ advantage with Latino voters is narrowing. What accounts for the Democrats’ slide? They’ve lost a lot of ground with conservative Latino voters.
In The Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein looks at the decisive role young voters could play in the 2022 midterms.
Mortgage rates have crossed 6%, jumping to a sixteen year high.
Gas prices are rising again.
The U.S. debt has exceeded $31 trillion.
Some Missouri school districts are removing books from their libraries in accordance with a new law banning sexually explicit material from school libraries. The list of books that have been removed include classics like Slaughterhouse-Five, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Watchmen. I take this personally because I used to teach Watchmen not only in my college courses but to high school students I taught during Luther College’s Upward Bound summer program. Was Watchmen “sexually explicit”? Only if “sexually explicit” means something that will lead readers to question the way modern society objectifies women and sweeps sexual violence under the rug. It’s often hard to engage high school students with works of literature, but Watchmen can connect with students who don’t usually get into books and prompt them to think deeply about some pretty serious issues. And now some dumb law in Missouri and the threat of fines has led librarians to take the book off their schools’ shelves. Ridiculous. This is not the country the teenaged version of me thought he’d be living in thirty years down the road.
Note the time Becerra retweeted this:
Looking forward to working with Attorney General Garland to answer @POTUS’ call to action to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.Third: We classify marijuana at the same level as heroin – and more serious than fentanyl. It makes no sense. I’m asking @SecBecerra and the Attorney General to initiate the process of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.President Biden @POTUSWith Ukraine reclaiming territory in provinces recently “annexed” by Russia, the Kremlin has admitted it doesn’t know where its new western border is. Government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated Russia would “consult with the people who live in those regions” to find out. Maybe as Russia retreats? Putin’s special
consultationoperation sure isn’t going as planned.Meanwhile, the first signs have emerged that Russia is moving equipment linked to their nuclear weapons program. So far, it is reported the West has not yet seen signs the weapons themselves are on the move.
From Eurointelligence: “Our own assessment is that the likelihood of a nuclear war rises in proportion to the likelihood of a Russian defeat. We are no military experts, but we are trained in logical inference. If we consider the likelihood of a Russian defeat in Ukraine as high, as so many experts now seem to believe, than surely, the likelihood of a nuclear attack cannot be simultaneously low….The risk, we conclude from the knowledge we have, is not small and rising, as the noted expert claims, but large and stable.”
But an insightful article by David E. Sanger and William J. Brood in the New York Times explains the challenges Putin would face if he resorted to a nuclear weapon.
Eliot A. Cohen argues in “Russia’s Nuclear Bluster is a Sign of Panic” for The Atlantic that the West shouldn’t yield to Putin’s nuclear blackmail.
OPEC has moved to cut oil production, raising the specter of higher gas prices and causing great frustration in Washington after President Biden tried to convince Saudi Arabia this summer to provide the oil market with some relief. Saudi Arabia and Russia appear to be collaborating with one another. Yet it also feels like petrostates are trying to squeeze as much money out of the oil market before green energy renders their product largely obsolete.
Brazilian autocrat Jair Bolsonaro defied expectations and has forced a runoff against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Many expected Silva to trounce Bolsonaro and crack the 50% threshold to win the presidency outright; instead, Silva won 48% of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 43.7%. Right-wing parties also overperformed expectations in legislative elections. Bolsonaro had spent much of the campaign claiming the election would be rigged.
The center-right candidate who came in third in Brazil’s presidential election has encouraged her supporters to vote for Lula in the run-off.
How does the U.S. plan on defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion? By turning the island into a giant weapons depot.
In the wake of an economic panic and criticism from her own party, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has scrapped her tax cut plan, which would have heavily favored Britain’s wealthiest citizens.
More from Tim Miller, this time for the New York Times: “As it turned out, grass-roots fund-raising is also what ending democracy looks like. As with any other mass movement, people-powered campaigns followed the standard Hofferian trajectory: beginning as a cause, turning into a business and becoming a racket. Our online fund-raising system is not only enriching scam artists, clogging our inboxes and inflaming the electorate; it is also empowering our politics’ most nefarious actors. It is how Donald Trump and his cast of clueless coupsters raised nine figures to ‘stop the steal’ that they had fabricated to try to stay in power. It is one way our most extreme candidates dominate the conversation and gain power in our political system. It has redirected money from politicians who work to find compromises that might just help people, diverting it instead to those who either have no chance to win or, worse yet, can win and want to undermine that work for their own ends. And it’s hard to imagine how we can stop it.”)
You’re probably inundated by political ads on TV right now. But do they work? Walter Shapiro writes for The New Republic that nobody seems to know.
By Anand Giridharadas for The Atlantic: “No One Wants a Pizzaburger” (“The error of this way, by Shenker-Osorio’s lights, is a misconception of what a ‘moderate’ actually is. People associate ‘moderate’ with the middle of the road, the center, but Shenker-Osorio thinks that’s a mistake. When it comes to big issues and policies, moderates are confused, torn, not sure which pole is their pole. Which is different from saying they prefer the mean between the two poles. One way to think of this is, if I offer you a choice between a pizza and a burger, and you can’t pick—you’re an undecided voter!—it doesn’t follow that you want a pizzaburger. Maybe you want a pizzaburger, the mathematical midpoint between a pizza and a burger. More likely, you will ultimately resolve the dilemma and go with a pizza or a burger. Your ‘moderate’ stance was a temporary state—a situation, not an identity. A better term for moderates, then, might be ‘persuadables.’ Moderate implies a taste for the tempered version of a thing. Persuadable implies malleability….The best political appeals, [Shenker-Osorio] says, are structured like this: shared value, problem, solution.” BUT…How potent is this in a era of identity politics?)
From a year ago: Will Wilkinson on his Substack writes about how the cultural differences that used to exist in the rural space between Scandinavian Minnesota and Ozark Missouri (a swath of land including Iowa) have evaporated, replaced by a homogenous rural “Southern” culture. A very interesting idea to ponder.
Andrew Van Dam of the Washington Post found that counties with higher percentages of Trump voters have a higher percentage of chain restaurants in them. But that’s not always strictly true. Another factor was more predictive: The number of people who drive to work. The more commuters, the more chain restaurants (and, generally, the more Trump voters.) But long commutes to work is probably indicative of other, more important factors, like a desire to live away from large urban areas.
There’s a major scandal in the world of competitive fishing. (NOTE: There’s a lot of F-bombs in the clip below.)
Garbage Time: The Biggest Question Facing Every MLB Playoff Team
(Garbage Time theme song here)
It’s time for some October baseball, but this year the playoffs are a bit different. Rather than five playoff teams and a wildcard play-in game in each league, we’ve got six playoff teams, three wildcard teams, and two best-of-three wildcard series. I think that’s an improvement over the one-and-done wildcard format, but I’m still not a fan of expanding the number of teams that make the playoffs. I’d rather have the marathoners—the teams that played the best over six months—duke it out against one another than see one of them taken down by a team that got hot late.
This year’s playoffs should be pretty good, particularly in the National League. That doesn’t mean these teams are juggernauts, though; each has some questions they’ll need to address if they hope to win the World Series. This guide will help you focus on the x-factors that will make or break these teams’ playoff runs.
Those wildcard series began Friday, so by the time you read this, a third of these teams could have been eliminated already. In that case, consider this a review of why they got bounced from the playoffs after playing a measly two games.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
(1) Houston Astros (106-56): Can manager Dusty Baker make the right in-game moves? The Astros cruised to the best record in the American League. They feature one of the best young players in the league in Yordan Alvarez (37 HR, 97 RBI, .306 BA), a core of solid position players (Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman, and Jose Altuve) with playoff experience, a Cy Young contender in the apparently ageless Justin Verlander (18 W, 185 K, 1.75 ERA), and a well-stocked rotation. They’re primed to make another run to the World Series. The big question mark is 73-year-old manager Dusty Baker. Baker is one of baseball’s best guys, an old-schooler who’s seen everything and is beloved by everyone. He has a reputation as a player’s manager, someone who can keep a team happy and steady over the course of a 162-game season. He does not, however, have a reputation as an in-game tactician. In close games, the question is if he’ll make the right moves: If he’ll leave a starter in too long, use a pinch-hitter correctly, or miss an opportunity on the base paths. In close post-season games with little room for error, those little moves are often the difference between a title and a winter of regret.
(2) New York Yankees (99-63): How much weight can Aaron Judge’s shoulders’ bear? Don’t let that 99-63 record fool you. Since the All-Star break, the Yankees are 35-35, although 20-11 since the start of September, and 12-5 to finish the season. It seems when New York wins, they tend to win in streaks, which is what teams need to do in October. But despite their more recent success, there isn’t the same level of confidence around this team that existed in the first half. They feel like a leaky ship in constant need of repair. But they also feature one Aaron Judge, who just broke Roger Maris’ Yankees and American League home run record and finished one of the greatest individual seasons in MLB history. Looking back on that first half, some argue Judge alone was responsible for his team’s stellar record. The Yankees’ opponents would be wise to pitch around the guy and let someone else beat you. But who knows: Given his chances, maybe Judge will go all Reggie Jackson on the opposition and create his own October legend. If that happens, we’ll be talking about the 2022 MLB season for ages.
(3) Cleveland Guardians (92-70): Are they too young? At the start of August, the American League Central was still up for grabs. The Twins had led the division most of the season without piling on the wins. Everyone was waiting for the White Sox, the preseason favorite, to get their act together. The Guardians, the league’s youngest team and presumably in the middle of a rebuild, were just hanging around. When they did finally sneak ahead of Minnesota, everyone assumed this was the division no one wanted to win. But then, starting August 6, Cleveland went on 38-18 tear, a record marred only by a 5-game losing streak at the beginning of September. They ended up tied for the third-best record in the American League. They’re the hot team right now, and if the immediate past is prologue, maybe the favorite for the pennant. Terry Francona’s team is playing like they don’t know any better. Such youthful bravado can carry a team a long way. But one can’t help but think their lack of playoff experience will end up costing them, either in crunch time or how they prepare for games. If they fall behind in a series, will they just conclude they were never supposed to be there in the first place? Players to watch: 3B Jose Ramirez (29 HR, 90 R, 126 RBI, .280 BA), closer Emmanuel Clase (42 saves, 1.36 ERA), and reliever James Karinchak (just because; see below).
(4) Toronto Blue Jays (92-70): Will the team everyone thought they were supposed to be this season show up in October? Well, maybe not everyone. Me, definitely. This is the team I picked to win it all back in April. They’ve underwhelmed all season, however, never even able to catch the Yankees despite New York’s second half swoon. They’ve played better since the start of September, though, only dropping eleven of their past thirty-three games. They’ve got a lineup that can make a lot of noise and a respectable rotation that doesn’t necessarily scare the opposition. I’ve got to stick with them, but they’ve got inevitable disappointment written all over them. (UPDATE: Toronto had an 8-1 lead in the fifth inning yesterday. Definitely favored to win that game! Lost it 10-9, season over, and now Canada is sad. So disappointing.)
(5) Seattle Mariners (90-72): Are they just happy to be here? Seattle ended American professional sport’s longest playoff drought when catcher Cal Raleigh hit a walk-off home run a weak ago to send the Mariners into the postseason. And credit where credit is due, their 90-72 record is far better than the 82-80 record some thought could have earned them a playoff spot back in the spring. They even found a genuine future star in centerfielder Julio Rodriguez this season. But realistically, making the playoffs was the team’s big goal this season. Mission accomplished. The playoff runs can wait for future seasons. (Although they may be crazy enough to believe this is Their Year.)
(6) Tampa Bay Rays (86-76): Who’s watching this team? This is just a generic good baseball team. Their best pitcher, Shane McClanahan, finished the season 12-8; their second best pitcher is Corey Kluber, who I didn’t even know was still in the league. They play in an ugly stadium. They always seem to make the playoffs. Some algorithm gets them wins. They’re boring to write about. They could win the World Series. And sometimes cardboard box manufacturers win Business of the Year Awards. One thing I know: If this team does win the World Series, the only Tampa sports figure the nation will be talking about that day is Gisele Bündchen. (UPDATE: These losers held Cleveland to 3 runs across twenty-fours innings of baseball and still got eliminated in two games. In other words, you could have played right field for them in this series and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.)
NATIONAL LEAGUE
(1) Los Angeles Dodgers (111-51): Is their pitching good enough? How is winning 111 games in one season not an MLB record? (Seattle won 116 in 2001; they only made it back to the playoffs this season.) The Dodgers are so good. They have a runs scored to runs allowed differential of +334, the best in the majors; the second-best team in the majors is *only* +240 (the Yankees.) A team like that has to have airtight pitching and an explosive offense. Yet their pitching seems like its on shaky ground. Is it because their ace, Walker Buehler, went down two months into the season? Or that Clayton Kershaw seems like he’s about ready to blow a tire every time he takes the mound? Or that Tyler Anderson, Julio Arias, and Tony Gonsolin—each with an ERA below 2.28 and at least fifteen wins—had great seasons but don’t strike fear into the hearts of batters? Or that closer Craig Kimbrel has lost his mojo and L.A. is now closing by committee? Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, and Trea Turner aside, the Dodgers’ lineup doesn’t inspire confidence (Max Muncy finished below .200 on the season, former MVP Cody Bellinger got benched, they’re patching things up with freakin’ Joey Gallo) which was worrisome enough. But somehow this team just keeps rolling, picking each other up. Maybe this team is just too deep to take four out of seven games from.
(2) Atlanta Braves (101-61): Have the Braves found a winning post-season formula? The Mets had a 10.5 game lead on the Braves on June 1, yet Atlanta still edged them out for East Division title, finishing the season with a league-leading 63-24 record. Through the first two months of the season they were only one game above .500. What happened? Credit the turnaround to two rookies who joined the team at the end of May and instantly set the league on fire: Michael Harris II (19 HR, 20 SB) and Spencer Strider (11-5, 202 K/13.7 K per 9 innings, 2.67 ERA). (Call-up Vaughn Grissom has also contributed.) Still, the Braves looked like they were toast when the Mets took 3 of 4 from them during the first weekend of August. Then Atlanta won 11 of their next 12 games and 15 of their next 17. Outside of three 3-game losing streaks since then, they’ve only lost three games, going from hot to red hot. Going into October, the defending World Series champions look like the team to beat. Has coach Brian Snitker—who’s managed the Braves for six seasons and could pass former Braves manager and Hall of Famer Bobby Cox for Braves World Series titles if he wins his second this year—found some sort of winning formula in Atlanta? Last year’s team didn’t catch fire until August. It isn’t how you start, it’s how you finish.
(3) St. Louis Cardinals (93-69): Is this just one big farewell tour? Is that all it is? I hate the Cardinals. They’ve spent most of this season on a farewell tour for pitcher Adam Wainwright (41 years old), catcher Yadier Molina (40 years old), and batman Albert Pujols (42 years old) and have been milking it for all it’s worth. Sure, they won a couple World Series together over ten years ago, but c’mon, Pujols hasn’t played with the Cardinals for the past eleven years (during which he was barely good and often not good) and just signed with the team last off-season because his broken-down bat wanted a storybook ending. He apparently almost quit mid-season, too, because he was struggling so much, but then Pujols went on a tear. He started the season needing 21 home runs to pass 700, which seemed impossible for a guy who could barely complete a home run trot without displacing a hip, but he hit 17 in August and September alone to finish the season with 24. It really was a fairy tale ending and admittedly cool. But notice how I haven’t mentioned the postseason at all? Or the Cardinals’ two best players, Nolan Arenado and likely NL MVP Paul Goldschmidt? I think St. Louis is kind of surprised to find themselves in the postseason, which may explain why they lost Game 1 by a score of 6-2 after going into the 9th inning with a two-run lead. I really enjoyed watching that epic collapse. Still, they’ll probably win it all, and it will be insufferable. I hate the Cardinals. (UPDATE: Ha ha, they lost! They’re out of the playoffs! Didn’t even bother scoring. Hope those guys enjoy their retirements.)
(4) New York Mets (101-61): Is there something wrong with Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom? Maybe I watch the Mets too much, but this team really seemed to have something going for itself this summer. And I got that feeling even before Scherzer and deGrom came off the injured list around the All-Star break. But the team lost a little bit of their swagger when outfielder Starling Marte went on the IL at the beginning of September and have been a middling squad since despite having one of the easiest schedules down the stretch. But the recent performances of Scherzer and deGrom, two lock-down pitchers who are unhittable at their best, have been even more disconcerting. Scherzer went back on the IL in September, came back with two solid starts, and then laid an egg in a critical late-season series with Atlanta (5.2 IP, 9 H, 4 ER, 2 HR, only 4 K). As for deGrom, he went 1-3 in September with a 4.50 ERA, including a loss to the Braves the day after Scherzer’s loss that handed Atlanta the divisional lead. deGrom struck out 11 in that game but gave up 3 home runs, a pattern that’s become a trend for the pitcher. And then Scherzer lost the first game of the Mets’ wildcard series with San Diego on Friday, surrendering 4 home runs and 7 runs on 7 hits across 4+ innings. Scherzer has a tendency to get over-amped for his big game starts, but he hasn’t looked comfortable on the mound lately. For his part, deGrom has been dealing with a blister. Here’s the deal: If Scherzer and deGrom are on, the Mets will be very tough to beat in a seven-game series, especially with lights-out reliever Edwin Diaz lurking in the later innings. But if those guys are just going to spot opponents four runs per start, New York Mets fans will finish the season with broken hearts yet again.
(5) San Diego Padres (89-73): Are they really in it to win it this year? San Diego was poised to make a run for it this year. They were hanging with the Dodgers at the trade deadline when they cut deals for phenom Juan Soto and the Brewers’ Josh Hader, who’s been the best reliever in baseball over the past few years. Soto was going to join a lineup that already included Manny Machado and that was on the verge of getting Fernando Tatis, Jr., back after four months on the IL. The future was now. But then Tatis got busted for using performance-enhancing drugs and Hader struggled so much he got demoted from the closer role (he’s since recovered his form). All that, and Soto never caught fire either. All the wind came out of this team’s sails, but they landed in the postseason regardless. They don’t so much seem to be playing with house money as playing the season out. At some point, they’re going to get rolled.
(6) Philadelphia Phillies (87-75): Do they maybe have lockdown pitching? Wow, Aaron Nola is one of the best pitchers in baseball—a 3.25 ERA and 235 K, which was good for 4th in the league—but he still ended up with an 11-13 record?!? And Zach Wheeler (12-7, 2.82 ERA) is a solid starter, too, who has given up only one run since coming off the IL near the end of September. Those two guys have the potential to play as lockdown pitchers. How far could they take this homer happy glorified beer league softball team? Pretty far. But I’m not betting on it. (UPDATE: They knocked the Cardinals out of the playoffs! They’re my new favorite team!)