• Home
  • Escapes and Pleasures
  • Family and Friends
  • Go Sox
  • The Outer Loop
  • Articles of Interest

MillersTime

MillersTime

Monthly Archives: February 2021

MillersTime Baseball Questions Are Back !

28 Sunday Feb 2021

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures, Go Sox

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

2021 MillersTime Baseball Contests, 2021 MLB, Baseball Contests, Baseball in 2021, Baseball Predictions, MillersTime Baseball Contests

Yes.

And the first Spring Training games are today, Feb. 28, 2021.

Opening Day is scheduled for April 1. (Hopefully that will not turn into an April Fools’ Day hoax.)

Despite some concerns about less interest in baseball this year, there seemed to be good support for continuing the MillersTime Baseball Contests.

So here we go with the four contests for this year:

2021 MillersTime Baseball Contests

Contest #1:

How will the COVID-19 virus affect the 2021 MLB season? Include some Overall Predictions as well as some Specific Ones. Creativity is encouraged. I’ll choose the five best submissions and have MillersTime baseball contestants vote on the winner.

Prize: Your choice of one of these books: The 25 Best Baseball Books of All Times.

Contest #2:

Pick your favorite MLB team (or the team you know the best) and outline how they will do in the 2021 season compared to last year. Again, include both general predictions and specific ones in your submission and your reasons for those predictions.

Prize: Join me for a Nats’ game next year, or I’ll get tickets and try to join you for a regular season game of a team of your choice anywhere you choose.

Contest #3:

Fill in the Blank:

In 2021:

  1. Which teams will have the most wins in the AL & NL__________________ ___________________
  2. Which team will be the King of New York _______________________(Tim M.)
  3. Number of hitters who will strike out more than 200 times (three did in 2018, none did that in 2019)_________________(Zach H.)
  4. Who will be the Manager of the Year in either the AL or NL (name one) _________________
  5. Which Al & NL teams will have the most improved record from 2020­­­­­­­­­­___________________ ___________________

True /False:

In 2021:

6.______Every team below the league average in payroll (currently $118,485,369) will miss the playoffs. (These teams currently are the Twins, Reds, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Royals, A’s, Rangers, Brewers, Tigers, Mariners, Rays, Marlins, Orioles, Pirates & Indians). (Zach H.)

7.______Dodgers & Padres will combine to win 200 or more games. (Dawn W.)

8.______There will be more HRs in 2021 on per game basis than in 2019 or 2018. (In 2019–6,776 home runs, all-time high for MLB. Broke previous record (2017) by 671 homers for an average of 1.39 homers per team game. (In 2018–5,585 home runs for an average of 1.15 homers per team game (Steve K.)

9.______No MLB Team will play all 162 games.

10.______No MLB pitcher will have an ERA below 2.00.

Prize: Join me for a Nats’ game next year, or if you’re not able to make it to DC, perhaps I can make it to where you live, and we’ll see a regular season game together.

Contest #4:

Assuming there is a World Series in 2021,

  1. Name the two teams who will make it into the WS
  2. Which one will win?
  3. In How many games?
  4. Explain in some detail what will be the biggest specific factor determining the winner?
  5. Tie-Breaker: AL & NL Division winners?

Prize: One ticket to the 2022 World Series or two tickets to the 2022 All Star Game in Los Angeles.

Additional Details:

  1. All winners and those whose questions were chosen for this contest get the ‘one-of-a kind,’ specially designed and updated MillersTime Baseball Winner T-Shirt.
  2. Enter as many or as few of the contests as you want.
  3. If you get a friend (or foe) to participate in these contests, and he or she wins and mentions your name in the submission, you’ll get a choice of receiving one the 25 best baseball books as your prize.
  4. Any two-generation submission that wins will get a special prize.
  5. GET YOUR PREDICTIONS IN EARLY. In case of a tie, the individual who submitted his/her prediction first will be the winner. In previous years, this has been a factor in declaring a winner.
  6. Submissions should be sent to me by email: Samesty84@gmail.com

Deadline for Submissions: Opening Day, noon (EST) April 1

Share

Should the MillersTime Baseball Contests Continue?

16 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures, Go Sox

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

2021 MLB, baseball, Baseball Contests, MillersTime Baseball Contests

Photo by Ellen Miller

Well now that that Super Bowl thing is over, and those of us who wanted the Chiefs to win have recovered, it’s time to focus on baseball.

Pitchers and catchers are gathering this week and full Spring Training, though with restrictions, will be underway shortly.

It’s hard to imagine what the 2021 MLB season will be with the continuation of the COVID virus – how many games will actually be played; will fans be able to attend games; and if so, will they; how much enthusiasm has faded for baseball, which was already in decline in some ways; and if there is a credible season, what teams will do well; and what players will shine; and which will falter?

Let me know if you are interested in the continuation the MillersTime Baseball Contests.

If you are interested, please help on the questions. Are there totally different types of questions to ask this year and which, if any, questions from the past continue to be part of the contests (e.g., How will your favorite team do in 2021; T/F questions; WS contestants and winners)?

Please send me any thoughts you have. Use either the Comments section of this post or send them to me at Samesty84@gmail.com.

Share

At Last: A Movie We Enjoyed

07 Sunday Feb 2021

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Archeology, Carey Mulligan, England, Film Reviews, John Preston, Movies, Netflix, Ralph Fiennes, Simon Stone, Suffolk, Sutton Hoo, The Dig

by Richard Miller

The last two times Ellen and I posted reviews about films was in April and May of 2020, and all of those were films we had seen at home. (If you didn’t read or don’t remember either of those posts, you might find some films of interest in this link. (See: Our Movie Reviews Are Back, 4/7/2020 and Eight Films & One Guest Review, 5/9/2020). As you may recall, Ellen in particular, is not a great fan of watching movies at home.

Nevertheless, we kept trying to find films, generally ones recommended by other MillerTime readers. (See: Favorite Movies & TV Progams in These Times, 6/18/2020 and Second Rounds of Contributors Favorite Films & TV Programs, 8/25/2020). The few we did like were already well-heralded, and our recommendations would lend little to drawing your attention to them.

Last night, however, we hit on one that we both thought worthy of mentioning to others:

The Dig (Directed by Simon Stone, on Netflix)

Ellen rated it ***** and said, “it was the best thing she’d seen since the coronavirus quarantine began, and we stopped writing about films.”

I rated it **** 1/2 and agree it was the most satisfying film we’d seen in many months.

The story is adapted from a novel by John Preston and is fictional account about the 1939 excavation in Suffolk, England of an archeological site on the property of Edith Pretty, just as World War II was about to begin. (This excavation did in fact take place and has been called “one of the biggest archeological finds of the 20th Century.”) Neither Ellen nor I had read the novel nor knew about this ‘expedition’.

For us, The Dig hit on many of the factors that we like in a film: a good story that does more than entertain; one that educates and provokes; one with fine acting (particularly by the two leads Carey Milligan as Edith Pretty and Ralph Fiennes as Basil Brown, the excavator); and a film that has wonderful cinematography with images that remain in one’s mind well after seeing the film. It is visually beautiful.

Perhaps the film may be more suited to a slightly older audience, one not looking for fast moving scenes and exciting action. The director chooses to move away from the main story of this coastal England countryside dig to include some secondary characters. Fortunately, he returns to his main themes of the discovery and outcome of this dig and questions of who owns history, issues of class inequality, and portrayal of British life, all done in an understated way.

You don’t need to know any more than that, but if you’re interested in some of the background information, you can check out:

The True History Behind Netflix’s ‘The Dig’ and Sutton Hoo, Smithsonian Magazine.

Sutton Hoo – Recreating an Archeological Discovery from the Ground Down, NYTimes.

.

Share

The Best $50 I’ve Spent All Year…Even Though It’s Free

03 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures, The Outer Loop

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

American Constitution, Free Newsletter, Heather Cox Richardson, Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from America, Letters from an American Farmer, Newsletter, Professor of American History

Thanks to Hugh Riddleberger’s recommendation in December, I signed up for and began to read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American which arrives in a daily email (actually it usually seems to arrive well after I’ve gone to sleep).

Richardson is a history professor at Boston College has also taught at MIT & U of Mass, and is the author of a number of books, her most recent being How the South Won the Civil War.

It is the most informative single piece of reporting on the daily political news that I have found. She is able to put together day after day not just what is happening in our country but is able to put it in context.

During the final month and a half of the Trump administration, it was without a doubt the most comprehensive and important account of what occurred each day that I read.

It will no doubt not appeal to all readers of the MillersTime website, but for me, it is the first thing I read each morning, after having read a variety of news sources before going to sleep each night. And I always find insights that I had not discovered elsewhere.

In her own words, Heather Cox Richardson writes about her Newsletter:

About Letters from an American

Historians are fond of saying that the past doesn’t repeat itself; it rhymes.

To understand the present, we have to understand how we got here.

That’s where this newsletter comes in.

I’m a professor of American history. This is a chronicle of today’s political landscape, but because you can’t get a grip on today’s politics without an outline of America’s Constitution, and laws, and the economy, and social customs, this newsletter explores what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American.

These were the same questions a famous observer asked in a book of letters he published in 1782, the year before the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War.

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur called his book “Letters from an American Farmer.”

Like I say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure rhymes.

If you want to check out a few of her daily writings, you can get access to her recent and past daily emails here.

But what about the headline of this blog post?

Letters from an American is free for simply adding your email address to her site. But I believe it is worth paying for, contributing to her for the hard work she does each day. As the sources for news and daily information are both shrinking (fewer local newspapers for example) and exploding (particularly through social media), I am pleased to support her work even though I am not at present using any of the added features the $50 a year subscription offers me.

I believe you can start receiving her daily emails by going here, where you have several options, including free access, $5 a month, or $50 year. The latter two options have added features to the daily emails.

Richardson has promised: Letters from an American will always be free, but we also have a community behind a paywall to expand on the ideas in the Letters without the help of trolls. If you’d like to join us for discussion and more thoughts from me, you’re most welcome. It’s $5 a month.

Share

♣ Search



♣ Featured Posts

  • The List: “MillersTime” Readers’ 2024 Favorite Books
  • Returning to Sedona, AZ
  • Looking for Good Films to See?
  • And the Winners Are…
  • The Book List: 2023
  • The Lake Country: Thru Ellen’s Lens
  • I Did It Again
  • Readers’ 2023 Mid-Year Favorite Books
  • By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea…
  • Yes, It’s True…I Biked from Bruges to Amsterdam!
  • Carrie Trauth Made the World a Better Place
  • “I Used to Be a Human Being” – Andrew Sullivan
  • Sam Miller: “There Is Never Enough.”
  • When I Was 22…
  • The Best $50 I’ve Spent All Year…Even Though It’s Free

♣ Recent Comments

  • David Price on 2025 MillersTime Baseball Contests
  • Andrew Cate on 2025 MillersTime Baseball Contests
  • chris eacho on 2025 MillersTime Baseball Contests
  • Ed Scholl on 2025 MillersTime Baseball Contests
  • Anthony leon on “The Secret History of Tiger Woods”

♣ Archives

  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • March 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • April 2023
  • February 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011

♣ Sections

  • Articles & Books of Interest
  • Escapes and Pleasures
  • Family and Friends
  • Go Sox
  • The Outer Loop

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Chateau by Ignacio Ricci.