In five of his major league seasons Babe Ruth hit more home runs than any player did this year (48) or last (47) even though the current pitching mound is five inches lower, the bats better and the physical conditioning superior (far, far superior to Ruth’s conditioning).
22 franchises have won at least one World Series (which means 8 teams have not won any):
Appeared in a Series, but haven’t won:
Never been (and year began play):
This is the 100th World Series. It began in 1903, but there was no Series in 1904 or 1994
In 1904 the National League Champion New York Giants refused to play the American League Champion Boston team (they didn’t take the name Red Sox until the 1908 season).
A strike eliminated the Series in 1994.
Players who’ve hit three home runs in one Series game:
Only walk-off home runs to end Series:
Malcolm Gladwell writes about the cost of prescription drugs in The New Yorker.
The perception that the drug industry is profiteering at the expense of the American consumer has given pharmaceutical firms a reputation on a par with that of cigarette manufacturers.
In fact, the complaint is only half true. The “intolerable” prices that Angell writes about are confined to the brand-name sector of the American drug marketplace. As the economists Patricia Danzon and Michael Furukawa recently pointed out in the journal Health Affairs, drugs still under patent protection are anywhere from twenty-five to forty per cent more expensive in the United States than in places like England, France, and Canada. Generic drugs are another story. Because there are so many companies in the United States that step in to make drugs once their patents expire, and because the price competition among those firms is so fierce, generic drugs here are among the cheapest in the world. And, according to Danzon and Furukawa’s analysis, when prescription drugs are converted to over-the-counter status no other country even comes close to having prices as low as the United States.
…In fact, drug expenditures are rising rapidly in the United States not so much because we’re being charged more for prescription drugs but because more people are taking more medications in more expensive combinations. It’s not price that matters; it’s volume.
An important and informative article.
… of Johnny Carson. He’s 79 today.
… of Pele. He’s 64 today.
Two men who were absolutely the best on the planet at what they did. Happy Birthday!
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