In baseball, there's no such thing as running up the score.

The offensive players come up to the plate and must pursue the end of scoring runs. It is for the defensive team to record outs, and it is only through the achievement of outs that the game can ever end. There is no mercy, nothing that can be done about the humiliation.

MLB HISTORY 🤯

The Brewers' 22-0 win tied the largest shutout victory since the start of 1888! pic.twitter.com/frLpYbI4h0

— MLB (@MLB) August 19, 2026

Sit back, relax and enjoy all 22 runs 🍿#ThisIsMyCrew x @MillerLite pic.twitter.com/fYjvllh1iZ

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) August 19, 2026

But then there is the utter humiliation that a player brings upon himself:

The Mariners were losing 19-0. Somehow the worst play of the game came after that with Julio Rodriguez simply not paying attention.

Unreal. https://t.co/jVNfJOlGLJ #Mariners #TridentsUp pic.twitter.com/Vjg6QZuUrQ

— Dusty Baker (@DustyBakerTV) August 19, 2026

"By the time your grandmother starts using the wilting rose emoji, it’s done, you’ve got to move on."

I'm reading "😭 or 😂: Do Your Emojis Make You Look Old? When it comes to emoji usage, we’re all just following teen girls" (NYT gift link).

Interesting, but I am old. I'm permanently freed from worrying over looking old. I am not the "your" in this "by the time your grandmother starts using it" test. I am the grandmother. I mean, I'm not a grandmother. I have no grandchildren. But I'm 75. I'm so far within the age group that there's nothing even to quibble about. It is therefore impossible for me to work on my emojis as a way to look young. My use of any emoji make not only makes me look old. It makes the emoji look old. Apparently, I have the power to make emojis look old.

Just as I'm drafting this post, I'm getting an emoji from Meade, answering a text I sent at 4:30 a.m.:

Being up at 4:30 a.m. makes me look old, as does the inability to watch a baseball game that begins at 9:10 p.m. But if you don't look, you can have a "live" experience in the morning if you're careful where you click, but...

Not being able to see the teeny tiny emojis is also making me look old. But this is my new freedom. Not to care about emojis. They're not for me. They are for teenaged girls.

"That's as strange as it gets."

I’ll take “things I’ve never seen before” for 500 please. pic.twitter.com/gWVQkBDV2b

— Michaela Bennett (@MichaelaB_22) August 11, 2026

A Little League home run... for the Mets.

I promise no amount of explaining will prepare you for how bad this play is pic.twitter.com/45XcHCMvyL

— Ben Verlander (@BenVerlander) July 8, 2026

How to eat like Babe Ruth.

"The reason why it took so long was because I was trying to bite through it. My teeth were not letting me get through it. It was like a brand new lollipop."

"So, I was trying to bite, bite, bite. By the time I got to bite it off, it was too late. It was already on TV. I normally cut off the stem. I need something to distract me a bit. I'm playing a kids game and having fun. So, I don’t think it’s a bad look."

Said Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr., quoted in "[Yankees manager Aaron] Boone's message to Jazz about lollipops: 'Keep having fun, but be safe" (MLB.com).

Jazz Chisholm Jr. is playing second base with a blow pop in his mouth pic.twitter.com/sJo7B2ZAzq

— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) June 22, 2026

ADDED: I'm so pleased to have had a "lollipop" tag already up and going. There are lots of lollipop posts in the archive, e.g....

AND: I think Chisholm's wordy explanation is quite funny and I'm trying to imagine him going on about running with scissors....

"Amazing young man, he really is. Forrest Gump-like, you know what I mean? He’s amazingly real, naive to a lot of things, and it’s beautiful. "

Said Brewers manager Pat Murphy, quoted in "A record 15 K's in a Maddux, one at 104.5 mph: Miz pitches the game of the year" (MLB).

I had to ask what's a "Maddux"? Answer: "A Maddux describes a start in which a pitcher tosses a complete-game shutout on fewer than 100 pitches. Named after Hall of Famer Greg Maddux, the term was coined by baseball writer Jason Lukehart."

Great catch, by U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt.

Left it all on the field.

Republicans win 11-2

Honored to be named MVP. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/5vZtOifN2n

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) June 11, 2026

Here's his Wikipedia page. I see he's 50 years old.

"The teams totaled 34 hits, and 14 pitchers combined to throw 444 pitches. It was the fourth game in major league history with at least 29 runs and 11 homers."

I'm reading "Brewers outlast A's 15-14 in 12 innings as teams combine for 11 homers and 34 hits in Las Vegas/Andrew Vaughn had four hits and four RBIs, including a two-run double that tied the score in the ninth inning, and the Milwaukee Brewers outlasted the Athletics 15-14 in 12 innings at Las Vegas Ballpark in a wild game that featured 11 homers" (WaPo).

No, I wasn't watching. That game started at my bedtime — 9 p.m.

I just noticed that there's a team now that's just named the Athletics — no city/state in the name. Just the mascot... and it's the most generic mascot. The Athletics. And they played in Las Vegas last night — "at the site of their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators." They seem homeless. They're not in Oakland anymore, and their normal home these days is West Sacramento, but not enough of a home to become part of its name. Playing a few games in Las Vegas this week has something to do with Las Vegas being its future home. A new stadium will open in 2028.

But maybe you watched basketball last night. I'd rather watch a random baseball game than an important basketball game, but I did pause the movie I was watching and go downstairs to hear the National Anthem and catch a glimpse of Trump. The NYT says "Mr. Trump smiled and saluted in the face of deafening boos when he briefly appeared on the arena’s video board...." I went back to my movie — "A Complete Unknown," now, finally, on HBO — but I did look up the result this morning. I see Trump ruined everything:

Ooh, that Trump. The Knicks lost. Meanwhile, Bob Dylan won. That's what Joan Baez says to him at the end of the biopic: "You won." He's all "What did I win?" and then he rides off into the sunset on his motorcycle. 

Thrusting.

Giants were asked not to do the thrusting celebration anymore so instead they were as polite as possible https://t.co/lesg7G6iVl pic.twitter.com/NKjHORMPVo

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 13, 2026

"O."

Love how he stopped for the "OH"...if you're from Baltimore, you understand.

— Sҽαɳ 🇺🇸⚓️ (@doc_1029) April 12, 2026

" I Made a Network of Every Home Run in MLB History."

Insect baseball.

A praying mantis landed on his hat, and instead of freaking out, he gave the little guy an update on the game 😂pic.twitter.com/4tvP4z3huj

— Interesting things (@awkwardgoogle) April 2, 2026

This made be reminisce about "Campus Mantis: Non Compos Mentis."

"I’ve never been able to trace a Wagner that has stayed in only one family since the day the card came out."

"The (Shieldses’) care and respect for their grandfather’s collection — carefully looked after behind closed doors for 116 years — has preserved one of the hobby’s true grails, and the importance of this cannot be overstated."

From "T206 Honus Wagner card sells for $5.1 million after 116 years with same family" (NYT).

I don't accept the expression "one of the.... true grails." Don't pluralize "grail." There's one holy grail...

.... and if "grail" applies to baseball card trading, everyone seems to have agreed that it's the Honus Wagner card. But it's not as though there's only one. There are 50 or 60s of these slips of cardboard floating about.

Things I found when I created a new tag — "Trump and Venezuela" — and went back into the archive to add it to old posts.

From the Althouse archive:

August 2017: Trump said: "I’m not going to rule out a military option.... Venezuela is a mess. We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option if necessary."

March 2018: When anti-Trumpers were interpreting Trump's handshake with baseball hero Jose Altuve, I wrote: "I don't know if Altuve talks about politics, but I don't think he's even an American citizen. He's Venezuelan. If I were Venzuelan, I'd be most worried about Venezuela, and looking at Trump, I'd be thinking, is there some way he can help Venezuela?, or, if I was inclined to the hostility anti-Trumpers are seeing in his face — Why hasn't President Trump done something yet about Venezuela?"

February 2019: When Trump was pleading with the Venezuelan military to support Juan Guaido, I wrote: "I was surprised that on the channel I was watching — Fox News — the analysis after the speech was about the 2020 presidential campaign.... People in Venezuela are suffering. They're starving. We need to help. I thought Trump was trying to get something done, but the news folk rush to talk about the damned campaign, as if that's what sophisticated, savvy people do. I found it offensive."

April 2019: Quoting a Swedish journalist in Venezuela: "Two months have passed since I got here and in that time, the possibility of an American intervention in Venezuela has been on everyone’s mind.

"I used to get real high."

Braves banned Freddie from doing the worm one year after they drafted him 💀 pic.twitter.com/gN4tiEiGPK https://t.co/q4HsBbv73R

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) November 6, 2025

"Why does it sound so much better to me when I know it's Rufus Wainwright?"

Said I, just now, seeing this:

This is getting ridiculous.

"True patriot love, that only US command"

Rufus Wainwright just a few minutes ago.pic.twitter.com/nrzvutKQcu

— Martyupnorth®- Unacceptable Fact Checker (@Martyupnorth_2) October 30, 2025

I love Rufus Wainwright, but I wasn't paying attention to the introduction. Last night, to me, he was just some guy singing the Canadian national anthem. 

The Paisley Curse.

Brad Paisley has officially sung the national anthem for:

World Series Game 2 in 2017 (11 innings)
World Series Game 3 in 2018 (18 innings)
World Series Game 1 in 2024 (10 innings)
World Series Game 3 in 2025 (18 innings)

h/t @SarahWexler32 pic.twitter.com/cgaSEVcdSq

— MLB (@MLB) October 28, 2025

"Many of them say they can eat nothing but GariGarikun"/"If they can enjoy the last mouthful, it will be a special moment shared by them and their families."

I'm quoting a Japanese nurse and doctor who work in palliative care, quoted in "GariGarikun ice pop, a surprise hit among the terminally ill."

That's published in Asahi Shimbun, one of the largest newspapers in Japan, which I went to read this morning because I wanted to see how much Japanese people were enjoying the excellence of Shohei Ohtani in our World Series. But nothing about Ohtani is in the top 10 most-read stories over there. I had to scroll down the front page to find his name, and it was tucked away in the sports section, just the AP report, here.

Nearly dead people eating popsicles got more attention. It was the second-most-read article. Meanwhile, the top of the front page is dominated by Trump:

Which one of those things is not like the others? Abe, yes. But also "Bear roams central Morioka, fatal attacks elsewhere."

"3D tracking of Max Muncy's 404-foot 'grounded into double play.'"

3D tracking of Max Muncy's 404-foot "grounded into double play" pic.twitter.com/xWSIvyWb7S

— David Adler (@_dadler) October 14, 2025

Live action — and don't miss the look on Frelick's face at 0:21:

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!?!?! #NLCS pic.twitter.com/x7BbmJ6hzX

— MLB (@MLB) October 14, 2025