June 11, 2013
From now until sometime in September I will be on the road, writing stories. Yes, this series has a catchy name, "Rembert Explains America," but that's only part of the story. Also, I don't enjoy thinking in the third person, so my actual approach to traversing the country takes me back to another great summer of my life.
The Summer of Yes
It's a simple philosophy that two friends and I invented during the summer of 2008. Newly 21, vaguely employed, and anticipating three thrilling months of independence, we established one rule for the summer: Say yes. To everything. While not perfect, and certainly not always carried out, even having the inclination to always be willing to try something was enough.
Five years have passed, but my approach to the summer still remains the same. The catch this time is that I'd like your help. For this series, a schedule and a route exist, certain stops will be made, and there are stories, long and short, fun and serious, weird and extremely weird, that I have wanted to tell for years, that will finally come to light in this three-month journey through the contiguous 48. But I don't know everything.
Slate Gateway Episodes - Gilmore Girls
It’s nearly summer, the perfect time to catch up with a few of those shows everyone is always saying you should watch. But there are so many! How can you decide which to try? You need to find the gateway episode, one you can watch without any background knowledge and which will give you a real sense of the show—and whether you’ll like it.
Whether or not you’re a sophomore in high school, I’d recommend starting with Episode 7 from Season 3, “They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?” It has a bit of nearly every essential aspect of the series. There’s an important scene showing Rory working on the school newspaper at that fancy private school; her friendship with domineering classmate Paris Geller (Liza Weil) comes into play; a Friday night dinner scene with Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop), Lorelai’s mother—who hosts the weekly meals in an effort to gain some influence with her daughter and granddaughter—gives you a feel for the show’s family dynamics. Many of the key characters from the quirky, vibrant town Lorelai and Rory live in play a part in the episode. Most importantly, the episode showcases, as most episodes of Gilmore Girls do, fast-talking wit, clever cultural references, and general fun-loving ridiculousness.
It’s nearly summer, the perfect time to catch up with a few of those shows everyone is always saying you should watch. But there are so many! How can you decide which to try? You need to find the gateway episode, one you can watch without any background knowledge and which will give you a real sense of the show—and whether you’ll like it.
Whether or not you’re a sophomore in high school, I’d recommend starting with Episode 7 from Season 3, “They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?” It has a bit of nearly every essential aspect of the series. There’s an important scene showing Rory working on the school newspaper at that fancy private school; her friendship with domineering classmate Paris Geller (Liza Weil) comes into play; a Friday night dinner scene with Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop), Lorelai’s mother—who hosts the weekly meals in an effort to gain some influence with her daughter and granddaughter—gives you a feel for the show’s family dynamics. Many of the key characters from the quirky, vibrant town Lorelai and Rory live in play a part in the episode. Most importantly, the episode showcases, as most episodes of Gilmore Girls do, fast-talking wit, clever cultural references, and general fun-loving ridiculousness.
Welcome to this new series, in which we anticipate one excellent matchup per week and diarize it to learn something about the art of pitching. In the process, we also discover meaningful things about ourselves and our lives through the lens of baseball. There is always a lesson at the end. Each pitchers' duel receives an official 1-10 rating on the Marichal-Spahn Scale, named after the greatest pitchers' duel ever.
Last year, Jeff Sullivan at FanGraphs wrote about Iwakuma's splitter, noting that it produced ground balls at an extremely high rate. That has remained true in 2013; the pitch yields a grounder on 79 percent of balls in play, the best of any splitter in the game. It's no surprise when you consider the excellent movement; the pitch tails in on righties at the fourth-best rate among all splitters and sinks at the second-best rate. Throw in a velocity of 86 mph — not far off from his fastball — and you can see why it's so epic. Lefties flail, righties get handcuffed.
Iwakuma goes to the splitter 20 percent of the time and rounds out his repertoire with a fastball (averaging 90.43 mph), curve, slider, and, per FanGraphs, the most valuable sinker in the game. That last pitch is a doozy; it's practically the same velocity as the four-seamer, but ends up five inches lower and three inches to the right.
Fun Fact: He was so good in the 2009 World Baseball Classic that the Japanese manager chose him over Yu Darvish to start the championship game. He made it into the eighth, holding South Korea to two runs, and left with the lead. Japan later won in extra innings.
Adam Scott and Jon Hamm
Greatest Event In TV History
Greatest Event In TV History
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