MY MLB BETTING SYSTEM HOW I BET BASEBALL - Underdog Chance

5 Strategies in Quant Trading Algorithms

Hey everyone, I am a former Wall Street trader and quant researcher. When I was preparing for my own interviews, I have noticed the lack of accurate information and so I will be providing my own perspectives. One common pattern I see is people building their own algorithm by blindly fitting statistical methods such as moving averages onto data.
I have published this elsewhere, but have copy pasted it entirely below for you to read to keep it in the spirit of the sub rules. Edit: Removed link.

What it was like trading on Wall Street

Right out of college, I began my trading career at an electronic hedge fund on Wall Street. Several friends pitched trading to me as being a more disciplined version of wallstreetbets that actually made money. After flopping several initial interviews, I was fortunate to land a job at a top-tier firm of the likes of Jane Street, SIG, Optiver and IMC.
On my first day, I was instantly hooked.
My primary role there was to be a market maker. To explain this, imagine that you are a merchant. Suppose you wanted to purchase a commodity such as an apple. You would need to locate an apple seller and agree on a fair price. Market makers are the middle-men that cuts out this interaction by being always willing to buy or sell at a given price.
In finance lingo, this is called providing liquidity to financial exchanges. At any given moment, you should be confident to liquidate your position for cash. To give a sense of scale, tens of trillions in dollars are processed through these firms every year.
My time trading has been one of the most transformative periods of my life. It not only taught me a lot of technical knowledge, but it also moulded me to be a self-starter, independent thinker, and hard worker. I strongly recommend anyone that loves problem solving to give trading a shot. You do not need a mathematics or finance background to get in.
The trading culture is analogous to professional sports. It is a zero sum game where there is a clear defined winner and loser — you either make or lose money. This means that both your compensation and job security is highly dependent on your performance. For those that are curious, the rough distribution of a trader’s compensation based on performance is a tenth of the annual NBA salary.
There is a mystique about trading in popular media due to the abstraction of complicated quantitative models. I will shed light on some of the fundamental principles rooted in all trading strategies, and how they might apply to you.

Arbitrage

One way traders make money is through an arbitrage or a risk free trade. Suppose you could buy an apple from Sam for $1, and then sell an apple to Megan at $3. A rational person would orchestrate both legs of these trades to gain $2 risk free.
Arbitrages are not only found in financial markets. The popular e-commerce strategy of drop-shipping is a form of arbitrage. Suppose you find a tripod selling on AliExpress at $10. You could list the same tripod on Amazon for $20. If someone buys from you, then you could simply purchase the tripod off AliExpress and take home a neat $10 profit.
The same could be applied to garage sales. If you find a baseball card for $2 that has a last sold price on EBay for $100, you have the potential to make $98. Of course this is not a perfect arbitrage as you face the risk of finding a buyer, but the upside makes this worthwhile.

Positive expected value bets

Another way traders make money is similar to the way a casino stacks the odds in their favour. Imagine you flip a fair coin. If it lands on heads you win $3, and if it lands on tails you lose $1. If you flip the coin only once, you may be unlucky and lose the dollar. However in the long run, you are expected to make a positive profit of $1 per coin flip. This is referred to as a positive expected value bet. Over the span of millions of transactions, you are almost guaranteed to make a profit.
This exact principle is why you should never gamble in casino games such as roulette. These games are all negative expected value bets, which guarantees you to lose money over the long run. Of course there are exceptions to this, such as poker or card counting in black jack.
The next time you walk into a casino, make a mental note to observe the ways it is designed to keep you there for as long as possible. Note the lack of windows and the maze like configurations. Even the free drinks and the cheap accommodation are all a farce to keep you there.

Relative Pricing

Relative pricing is a great strategy to use when there are two products that have clear causal relationships. Let us consider an apple and a carton of apple juice. Suppose there have a causal relationship where the carton is always $9 more expensive than the apple. The apple and the carton is currently trading at $1 and $10 respectively.
If the price of the apple goes up to $2, the price is not immediately reflected on the carton. There will always be a time lag. It is also important to note that there is no way we can determine if the apple is trading at fair value or if its overpriced. So how do we take advantage of this situation?
If we buy the carton for $10 and sell the apple for $2, we have essentially bought the ‘spread’ for $8. The spread is fairly valued at $9 due to the causal relationship, meaning we have made $1. The reason high frequency trading firms focus so much on latency in the nanoseconds is to be the first to scoop up these relative mispricing.
This is the backbone for delta one strategies. Common pairs that are traded against each other includes ETFs and their inverse counterpart, a particular stock against an ETF that contains the stock, or synthetic option structures.

Correlations

Correlations are mutual connections between two things. When they trend in the same direction they are said to have a positive correlation, and the vice versa is true for negative correlations. A popular example of positive correlation is the number of shark attacks with the number of ice-cream sales. It is important to note that shark attacks do not cause ice-cream sales.
Often times there are no intuitive reason for certain correlations, but they still work. The legendary Renaissance Technologies sifted through petabytes of historical data to find profitable signals. For instance, good morning weather in a city tended to predict an upward movement in its stock exchange. One could theoretically buy stock on the opening and sell at noon to make a profit.
One important piece of advice is to disregard any retail trader selling a course to you, claiming that they have a system. These are all scams. At best, these are bottom of the mill signals that are hardly profitable after transaction costs. It is also unlikely that you have the system latency, trading experience or research capabilities to do this on your own. It is possible, but very difficult.

Mean reversions

Another common strategy traders rely on is mean reversion trends. In the options world the primary focus is purchasing volatility when it is cheap compared to historical values, and vice versa. Buying options is essentially synonymous with buying volatility. Of course, it is not as simple as this so don’t go punting your savings on Robinhood using this strategy.
For most people, the most applicable mean reversion trend is interest rates. These tend to fluctuate up and down depending on if the central banks want to stimulate saving or spending. As global interest rates are next to zero or negative, it may be a good idea to lock in this low rate for your mortgages. Again, consult with a financial advisor before you do anything.
submitted by chriswugan to algotrading [link] [comments]

What r/fatFIRE can learn from the book, Psychology of Money

My favorite author, Morgan Housel, released his new book, The Psychology of Money, last week. In the book, Housel discussed many interesting psychological phenomenon, through the lens of finance. As I flipped through the pages, I started to realize so much of what's happening in fatFIRE are examples of what's discussed in the book.
No One's Crazy
The book begins with how your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.000000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.
For example, if you were born in 1970, the S&P 500 increased almost 10-fold, adjusted for inflation, during your teens and 20s. That's an amazing return. If you were born in 1950, the market went literally nowhere in your teens and 20s adjusted for inflation. Two groups of people, separated by chance of their birth year, go through life with a completely different view on how the stock market works.
Takeaways for fatFIRE:
When you read other posts and comments about what stocks to buy, what startups to join, what's the economy going to be like, what's the best asset allocation, etc., remember that is just a single person's point of view. That person may be from a different generation, earns different incomes, upholds different values, keeps different jobs, and has different degrees of luck.
And remember, don't be mean to others. A view about money that one group of people thinks is outrageous can make perfect sense to another.
Luck & Risk
The next chapter discusses the big role luck and risk plays in someone's life. Luck and risk are two sides of the same coin.
Examples from the book: Countless fortunes (and mistakes) owe their outcomes to leverage. The best (and worst) managers drive their employees as hard as they can. "The customers are always right" and "customers don't know what they want" are both accepted business wisdom. The line between "inspiringly bold" and "foolishly reckless" can be a millimeter thick and only visible with hindsight. Risk and luck are doppelgängers.
Takeaways for fatFIRE:
Be careful who you praise and admire. That commenter who joined a unicorn at Series A may look like a genius on the outside, but they may just be lucky and cannot repeat it again.
Be careful who you look down upon and wish to avoid becoming. That poster who joined WeWork may look like a fool, but they made the best decision based on the information they had at a time. They took a risk and got unlucky.
Therefore, focus less on specific individuals and case studies and more on broad patterns.
Furthermore, when things are going extremely well, realize it's not as good as you think -- like the stock market right now.
On the other hand, we should forgive ourselves and leave room for understanding when judging failures -- like the stock market in March.
Never Enough
The hardest financial skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving. It gets dangerous when the taste of having more -- more money, more power, more prestige -- increases ambition faster than satisfaction.
Social comparison is the problem here. A rookie baseball players who earns $500k a year envies Mike Trout who has a 12-year, $430 million contract envies a hedge fund manager who makes $340 million a year envies Warren Buffett who had a $3.5 billion increase in fortune in 2018.
There are many things never worth risking, no matter the potential gain. Reputation is invaluable. Freedom and independence are invaluable. Friends and family are invaluable. Being loved by those who you want to love you is invaluable. Happiness is invaluable. And your best shot at keeping these things is knowing when it's time to stop taking risks that might harm them. Knowing when you have enough.
Takeaways for fatFIRE:
When you make a big gain, it's totally okay to take profit, as long as you keep your ambition down and acknowledge the possibility that it may go higher. If that happens, no need to play the would've should've could've game, because it very well might've gone the other way.
When you see someone who got 20x return on Shopify or bet big into Ethereum in 2016, remember they may envy the pre-IPO employees at Shopify or the genius who held Bitcoin since 2010.
At the end of the day, do not risk more than what's comfortable in your life for the sake of making huge amount of money, because even if you do make it, you may not find it worth it.
Tails, You Win
Skipping a few chapters to talk about the prominence of tail events.
At the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in 2013 Warren Buffet said he's owned 400 to 500 stocks during his life and made most of his money on 10 of them. Charlie Munger followed up: "If you remove just a few of Berkshire's top investments, its long-term track record is pretty average."
In 2018, Amazon drove 6% of the S&P 500's returns. And Amazon's growth is almost entirely due to Prime and Amazon Web Services, which itself are tail events in a company that has experimented with hundreds of products, from the Fire Phone to travel agencies.
Apple was responsible for almost 7% of the index's returns in 2018. And it is driven overwhelmingly by the iPhone, which in the world of tech products is as tail--y as tails get.
And who's working at these companies? Google's hiring acceptance rate if 0.2%. Facebook's is 0.1%. Apple's is about 2%. So the people working on these tail projects that drive tail returns have tail careers.
Takeaways for fatFIRE:
When we pay special attention to a role model's successes we overlook that their gains came from a small percent of their actions. That makes our own failures, losses, and setbacks feel like we're doing something wrong.
When you accept that tails drive everything is business, investing and finance you will realize that it's normal for lots of things to go wrong, break, fail and fall. If you are a good stock picker you'll be right maybe half the time. If you're a good business leader maybe half of your product and strategy ideas will work. If you're a good investor most years will be just OK, and plenty will be bad. If you're a good worker you'll find the right company in the right field after several attempts and trials. And that's if you're good.
Freedom
The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say "I can do whatever I want today." The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays.
Research has shown having a strong sense of controlling one's life is a more dependable predictor of positive feelings of wellbeing than any of the objective conditions of life we have considered.
People like to feel like they're in control -- in the drivers' seat. When we try to get them to do something, they feel disempowered. Rather than feeling like they made the choice, they feel like we made it for them. So they say no or do something else, even when they might have originally been happy to go along.
Takeaways for fatFIRE:
Most of you probably are working thought-based and decision job, your tool is your head, which never leaves you. You might be thinking about your project during your commute, as you're making dinner, while you put your kids to sleep, and when you wake up stressed at three in the morning. You might be on the clock for fewer hours than you would in 1050. But it feels like you're working 24/7.
If this feels like you, and you do not like it, it is totally fine to switch to a job that pays less but gives you more freedom and independence, because freedom and independence are what FatFire is all about.
---
I'm only half way into the book, but I can tell this will be one of the best finance book of 2020. If you guys find this useful, happy to come back next week with more insights once I've gotten to the end. I like talking about these things on Twitter too.
Edit: here's part 2 and here's a Twitter thread of the best snippets
submitted by uDontLifeForBeSad to fatFIRE [link] [comments]

2020 r/baseball Power Rankings -- Week 11 / Special Playoff Edition: Who Is Most Likely to Win the World Series?

Hey Sportsfans — it's time for Week 11 of baseball's 2020 Power Rankings — In our final ranking of the season we are doing things a little bit differently. You'll notice only the 16 playoff teams are ranked in this week's edition and you should note the different voting rules for the week below.
I would like to take a moment to thank all the readers of this weekly feature that make this project worthwhile. Another year in the books! Cheers to you, and I tip my cap to all the team representatives, past and present, who make this project possible.
Every voter has their own style / system and the only voting instructions are these: (Special Playoff Rules)
"Please rank the playoff teams from most likely to win the World Series to least likely, taking into account match ups, route to the WS, and anything unique about the playoffs."
Full end of season retrospectives will be posted in the comments for all teams
TRANSPARENCY: this link will show you who voted each team where and has added neat statistics!
Please note: Because our dedicated team of voters have trouble breaking their habits, you may notice some people voted for all 30 teams. You can safely ignore those votes. Or argue about them since I can't stop you.
You may notice some other wonkiness because of this.
If something is a little messed up, feel free to pester me let me know.
Total Votes: 28 of 30. Missing votes / blurbs may be on their way.
# Team Δ Comment Record
1 Dodgers With all the uncertainty we have all been faced with this year, the Dodgers have truly been one of the pillars of reliability and stability in an ever turbulant world. Simply put, they have been exactly who we all expected them to be (which uhhhh, is the best team in baseball) and seem fully locked and loaded to make another major push at that long overdue piece of metal. But they have been able to do it with a pretty notable difference in who the reliable contributors have been. A year ago, we'd be looking at this team going into the postseason with Ryu, Hill, and Maeda to flank Buehler and Kershaw (can you imagine still having those guys on this team 😳) and be led by postseason heroes of Muncy and Pederson alongside our MVP Bellinger, and the ever present questionmark that is the Dodger pen. Now, the rookie arms of May, Gonsolin, and the Mango Man alongside a revitalized Jake McGee and a seemingly "back" Blake Treinen shore up the original gang (with Kenley's massive shadow looming over with impending doom) with the bats of AJ Pollock, Corey Seager, and the new savior Mookie Betts looking to bring a ring back to LA. But what would be more 2020, the Dodgers getting knocked off surprisingly early, or the Dodgers finally not getting knocked off at all? 43-17
2 Rays The Rays came into 2020 looking to be a legitimate contender and have 100% delivered on those expectations. They won the AL East for the first time since 2010 and were the only American League team to win 40 games. In addition to that, they also had one of the toughest schedules and had the best record in baseball vs winning teams. The name of the game has been consistency, which has been true of both sides of the ball. Injuries have come and gone, but in classic Rays fashion the guys filling in, especially pitchers, performed fantastically. The only struggles came in fielding, which was atrocious the first couple weeks but has since returned to normal. There was a little bit of drama, a few magic moments, some wacky shenanigans, and a lot of happy flappy boi posting, which filled up this shortened season to the fullest. This is looking like the Rays strongest chance since 2008, now it’s time to get it done in the playoffs. (cont. in comments) 40-20
3 Athletics Someday soon we will all look back at 2020 fondly. One reason for me will be the A's. Yes, the owners robbed us out of June and most of July baseball. D. Mengden caught SARSII, causing a week of hectic isolation. M. Chapman, the energy behind this team, left with a hip injury. Yet this team ended the year with a .600 winning percentage- the 21st time in team history we've reached or surpassed that momentous milestone. And a lot of those teams won pennants- one inspired a movie. This was a season full of amazing snapshots- M. Olson's walk off grand slam on "opening" day under the new dumb rules, the Piscotty walk off grand slam against Texas, the historic comeback off McCovey Cove. Most of all the team seemed to like each other, led by the shrewd Bob Melvin and player leaders M. Semien and C. Pinder. Yes, this could have been M. Semien's last year. It also might have been T. La Stella's only year on the A's and it is special watching that guy rarely strike out. There was R. Laureano's hot headed yet heroic stand against Astro villany. The A. Allen charged 13th inning game against HOU. Fans will be so spoiled with the defensive wizardry of Sean Murphy and J. Heim- they can hit, too! Bet you thought I'd mention M. Olson when I started that sentance- people are still sleeping on the best LH hitter in baseball. (cont. in comments) 36-24
4 Padres Take it with a grain of salt, as I was not fortunate enough to have watched Tony in his prime, but this past season has been my favorite, most exciting, and most interesting brand of Padres Baseball I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. I come away not thinking that the team is the best at anything. The starting pitching can sometimes put us in an early hole, hitters can sometimes all seem off on the same night, the bullpen, once a staple, can sometimes blow a lead all together, if not making the game too close for comfort. Yet...with this group of guys, I’m still on the edge of my seat, waiting for the big moment to happen, because they’ve come through so very often. (cont. in comments)- 37-23
5 Twins After a stomach-twisting final week, the Twins have repeated as AL Central Champions! Heading into the playoffs, Twins fans should be fairly optimistic as we'll have 29 other teams at our back when we face the below-.500 trash-can-banging asterisk-loving boys from Houston in the first round. With a rotation of Maeda-Berrios-Pineda, the Twins have an excellent chance to advance. How much success we have after that will depend on unlucky late injuries to Buxton and Donaldson, and if they can come back quickly to make meaningful contributions. 36-24
6 Braves There's wind boys...blew us to our 3rd straight division title! It wasn't always pretty, we had major injuries along the way including Soroka, Albies and Acuña for significant time. After losing Soroka we knew our offense would have to carry us on their backs...and oh boy did they! As a team, we were second in the MLB in AVG (.268), second in homeruns (103), second in runs scored (348), first in OBP (.349), first OPS (.832), first in hits (.556) and tied for first in slugging percentage (.483). This was highlighted by a 29 run game and huge individual efforts by the most fearsome 1-3 in baseball. Freddie Freeman should win his first MVP and Ozuna will get votes as well. When healthy, Roñald was dominant. Max Fried stepped up huge for us an proved to be an ace. Ian Anderson showed up and was really good, Kyle Wright seemingly turned it around and was very effective in his final starts. With a healthy Soroka next year, these 4 young arms will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come. Hopefully we shake our playoff woes this year and have history repeat itself: win the world series in a shortened season! Let's bring it home. 35-25
7 Yankees Thanks to the Orioles, the Yankees play the Indians in the first round, and then the Rays/Jays. So Cole/Bieber, Tanaka/Carrasco and then whatever Boone cobbles togethePlesac. The Indians have one hitter, and if we can throw around him, the pitching rotation we have to face looks a little less intimidating. This season, for the Yankees, has been the story of being very hot and very cold. It goes without saying that this team can hit when it needs to, and at the very least, you feel like this team has the potential to beat anyone on this 16 team list. It's just a matter of which Yanks show up. 33-27
8 Cubs While this was a frustrating season to watch, the Cubs managed to lock down the NL Central before the final day of the season. Highlights included Darvish's Cy Young campaign, Hendricks' excellent season, Heyward's resurgance, and a relatively cozy late September for once. Some of the most frustrating parts of the season were Bryant/Rizzo/Contreras/Baez collectively hitting worse than the Texas Rangers, the bullpen's woes in the first half, Lester's inconsistency, and Quintana barely getting on the field. The Cubs actually have one of the easier paths to the World Series, especially if the Dodgers and Padres get knocked out by the NLCS. However, anything can happen in a 3-game series and Cubs fans are still traumatized by the 2003 series against the Marlins. I myself am so excited to watch an absurd amount of baseball over the next month-- now let's get weird! 34-26
9 White Sox Is there a fanbase that actively hates their own team as much as the White Sox? There are exactly 5 teams in the MLB with a better record than the Sox. If you extrapolate this season, they gained 22 wins from last year, made the playoffs and 90% of the talk about is how horrible the manager is and how bad we were down the stretch. If you asked most fans at the beginning of the season if 10 games above 500 and a playoff spot would be good, they would all be ecstatic. Perspective is really important, especially after 12 years of not reaching the playoffs. Sure, there are plenty disappointments, and yes, Ricky Renteria's bullpen management and lineup decisions are bad. But this is also a team that went on an absolute tear for a month and finally generated some nationwide buzz that they could actually win it all. We have exciting, young players all over the field. We have a top 3 MVP candidate, our ace threw a fricken no-hitter this year. Even Ricky made improvements from past seasons. He hardly bunted at all this year! And he put Grandal, a high OBP guy in the #2 spot for a good portion of the season. No, we aren't the best team in the league, but before the season, we weren't even seriously considered a playoff team. This year is an absolutely, unqualified success. (And I still hold out the slimmest bit of hope that Ricky stops playing the long game in the playoffs and actively puts his best players in.) 35-25
10 Indians There's no question that Cleveland's 1-2-3 of Bieber-Carrasco-Plesac is about as good as there is in the Silly Series. But can their weak lineup pull their weight? Who will win the battle of right-handed strikeout pitchers vs. right-handed power hitters? Anything can happen in a three-game series, and we'll find out this week. 35-25
11 Reds The Reds go into the playoffs (!!!) as the hottest team in baseball. They've now won 5 series in a row, four of which came against playoff teams. The bullpen regressed nicely and is no longer a Phillies-esque liability. There are definitely some issues with the bat, but they've proven over the past week that they don't need to rely on solo home runs to win. Akiyama has turned into a reliable leadoff hitter, and the catching tandem has become one of the most reliable in the league. But where this team will really give the Braves fits is the starting pitching. With 2020 NL Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer taking the mound on Wednesday, followed by Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray, this team is built for a short series. 31-29
12 Cardinals baseball just began / and now it's the postseason / i still long for march 30-28
13 Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays had one of, if not the most, tumultuous years in baseball. After what was seen as a broadly successful offseason, highlighted by the acquisition of Hyun-Jin Ryu, the Jays were expected to play ~.500 ball, and maybe have an outside chance at a wildcard spot. The front office showed a marked desire to start opening the window of contention. Bringing in innings eater Tanner Roark, reclamation project Travis Shaw, and Japanese League stars Rafael Dolis and Shun Yamaguchi. 2020 was also the final turning point for the Blue Jays. The departure of Anthopoulos/Beeston holdover, Justin Smoak, meant the page had finally, truly turned, and this was now the team built by Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins. We would finally get to see what their team looked like. Then, the unthinkable happened. - 134 days without baseball. Canada’s response to the pandemic was unflinchingly strict. After a Summer Camp in the Skydome, that featured a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. move to 1B, the Blue Jays were sent packing, and headed off to an uncertain future, without a home. Rumours circulated that they would find a home in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, or even at Spring Training HQ in Dunedin, but when all was said and done, the Jays landed in The Queen City, home of the Bisons, Buffalo, New York. (cont. in comments) 32-28
14 Astros Finishing a regular season, as short and weird as it was, under .500 for the first time since 2014 is an uncomfortable feeling. It's unsurprising, given the blows our pitching staff received and the inability of our hitters to stay consistent. Blame it on the shortened season, blame it on being unable to cheat, blame it on whatever you want - the fact remains we have decidedly moved backwards as a franchise this year. For the first time in a few years, I do not feel confident in our pitching staff or our hitters to win a playoff series. If we had Verlander, my optimism would increase, but our bullpen would be a huge question mark no matter what. These next three games may be the last George Springer spends in an Astros uniform, so hopefully we're treated to the Springer Dingers we've become accustomed to over the years. It's difficult to look ahead to 2021 given the uncertainty in the world right now, but with (presumably) a full season and a chance to either find some help in free agency or extend some of our upcoming FA-eligible players, I'm optimistic James Click will steer the ship in the right direction. Let's make sure we give Dusty plenty of popsicles. 29-31
15 Marlins OH BOY. First off i just wanna give the NBC Philadelphia broadcast team a huge shoutout, AY RICKY BO STAY BEAUTIFUL. Anywho, we have had a hell of a season. Despite calling up damn near over a dozen top prospects up this season, some of them way too early, we managed to stay afloat during the dog days of corona quarantine. Yall already know the deal so i dont have to say much, the starters are nasty and the defense is solid. The huge question mark going into the post season is how will the bats fare. That is our current weakest link. I made the prediction that Monte Harrison will heat up (see what i did there?) in the post season and hit october dingers in the marlins discord and im sticking by that. Cubs vs Marlins gives me some real feels going back to when i was still a jit, hopefully lightning strikes twice. Oh, and Ill say it now: we swindled the cardinals, phillies and yankees. Thanks for all the prospects suckers! 31-29
16 Brewers Well MIlwaukee made the playoffs, that's definitely someting. The path forward is simple, get the game to the bullpen with a lead. The Brewers bullpen has shown it to be the best bullpen in all of baseball, however the bats have not seem to woken up from the winter hibernation. Only one qualified batter is hitting over .250 (Orlando Arcia with a whopping .260) Christian Yelich and Keston Hiura spent the entire year trying to race Miguel Sano to 100 Strikeouts. Plain and simple the bats are bad 29-31
submitted by kasutori_Jack to baseball [link] [comments]

I am 53 years old, have a combined $210,000 annual income, live on Long Island, NY, and work as a Project Coordinator

First, I'm sorry this is so long. Second - please be nice. We have debt, bad habits, and are Catholic. So if any of those things are going to get you spun up, just skip this one.
Section One: Assets and Debt Use this section to explain your current financial picture at large.
Everything here is joint – “M” and I have been married 22 years and we’ve had “smashed money” that whole time (and really for about a year before that).
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): Approximately $500,000 in a variety of IRAs and current 401(k)s.
Equity if you're a homeowner (and how much you put down and how you accumulated that payment). Bought our house in 2001 for $239,000 with 20% down (some aggressive saving and a gift from each of our parents). We refinanced, took some cash out for some home repairs, and reduced it to a 15-year loan in 2009 – our current equity would be about $195,000, but similar homes in the neighborhood are listed at $475,000-$525,000, so if we ever sell, we’re probably coming out ahead.
Savings account balance: $6,000
Checking account balance: $6,500
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it): I hope you’re sitting down. Approximately $40,000. Yes, you read that right. How we accumulated it? The house is 90 years old and constantly falling apart, so we’ve had to charge things that needed to be done (some we wanted to have done, but some – like the time our oil burner stopped working in December – were needs). We had two dogs with numerous medical issues – I don’t want to calculate what they cost me, but they each had surgeries that were about $5,000 (each), plus other chronic and acute medical issues. And yes…for a while, we were doing and buying things we probably shouldn’t have (not bad things, just vacations, clothes, and non-essential home improvements) So…when I’m 100 and greeting people at Wal-Mart, I’ll at least have some good memories. That said, I can’t tell you the last time I used credit – if we can’t afford to pay cash, we don’t do it (and I say that fully realizing most people would feel that I shouldn’t do anything).
Student loan debt (for what degree): None – my husband went to the military and then to work after high school and I went back to community college later in life and paid as I went.
Anything else that's applicable to you: If my ex-husband dies before me, I’ll have about $6,000 in a money market that he must have forgotten about. When we divorced, he was supposed to liquidate all those accounts and give me half. He was an accountant and a SOB, so I never knew exactly what we had, but what I got seemed accurate (it paid for furniture, my wedding to M and part of this house, so I was OK with it). Lo and behold, a couple years ago, I found out we still have this money market account in both names. I tried to find him so we could liquidate/split it, but he’s missing. I get the statements here now, and the good part is he’s older than me, so I’m holding out hope he predeceases me and it will be mine.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I've been working in my field for a year and a half, my starting salary was $100,000. I did a salary story with the entire progression – long story short, I’ve made more, and I’ve made less, but this is probably about the average of the last five years.
My husband has been at his job for 14 years – he started there making around $75,000 and now makes $110,000. They usually give him a $10,000 bonus at the end of the year, but are always crying poverty if people ask for a raise. Prior to that, he worked for a company that paid very well and he had a 15-minute commute, but he got out one step ahead of their bankruptcy.
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
Me: $5,152
J: $6,230
Side Gig Monthly Take Home:
M is paid $1,300/month by our parish for serving as Youth Minister.
Any Other Monthly Income: $16.00
I get quarterly dividends on stock I was given when I was born (I may not have been born into money, but apparently my grandparents had friends who thought this was a good baby gift). The last few were around $50, so I divided by 3.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent / Mortgage / HOA fees (please specify how you split it if living with a partner): $3,043, which includes the property taxes and homeowner's insurance
Savings contribution: $500/month without fail (my bank transfers $100 if we get over $500 in, so once each paycheck and once when we put the church check in). More if I feel the savings needs a boost.
Debt payments:
Donations: OK – anyone who isn’t screaming because I owe $40K is going to start now.
Electric: $110
Gas (stove/hot water): $50
Oil: $250/month in the winter
Wifi/Cable: $179
Cellphone: $252 for both of us (I get mine expensed except $26 for my phone payment)
Subscriptions:
Car payment / insurance: $295/month for my car (leased). My husband is driving a 10-year old car that is paid off. $128/month for auto insurance
Lawn care: $50/month
Commuting: Now that we’re in COVID times, I’ve been buying a 10-trip off peak railroad ticket every five days for $78.75. Pre-COVID, M and I each bought a monthly ticket for $270, and I took the subway most days for an additional $100/month. I fill up the car about once a month (~$36) and M fills his about every other week (~$70/month)
Saturday, September 26, 2020
7:45 am: Up and at ‘em! I get up, get coffee, check emails and social media and start the day.
8:00 am: M leaves the house for a long list of errands, the payment for which will be shown below. I put in a load of laundry and discover…a leak! There is a large pipe between our powder room sink (which I used when I woke up) and the outside world that runs through the basement and is apparently leaking. Yay whee. If you get one thing from this diary, let it be these words of wisdom – don’t buy an old house! No beautiful feature is worth the aggravation! I get the water (I hope it’s water) cleaned up, a load of laundry in, take a shower, do some picking up around the house, get dressed in a Rangers t-shirt and cut off distressed jeans, do my makeup (Olay microsculpting serum and Miracle Blur over the bottom of my face, pink, gray, and violet eyeshadows, a swipe of foundation under my eyes, black eyeliner, black mascara, and dark brown eye pencil. This is standard everyday makeup for me and will be repeated each day. I put volumizing mousse in my hair and blow dry it (also routine).
In the meantime, M gets a haircut ($30 including tip), sets up the video equipment at church, goes to CVS for passport photos that he needs for an application ($18.87), and goes to the religious goods store for a book of the Liturgy of the Hours ($42.31). He is starting formation for the diaconate (the process of becoming a Deacon in the Catholic Church) today, and they said he’ll need that book. He also needs the photos for his application, and he stops at the bank for two money orders – one to send with the background check request and one for his high school transcript ($26). On the way home, he picks up breakfast (brunch?) for us – classic New York BEC, SPK (bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll with salt, pepper and ketchup) for him and egg whites, turkey and swiss cheese on a whole wheat wrap for me ($10.78), as well as cigs for him and vape cartridges for me ($36).
The washing machine isn’t causing any additional leakage, so I move the wash to the dryer and start moving the winter clothes from the portable closet in front of the leaking pipe upstairs (they’re not wet, but we’re going to have to move the closet when the plumber comes).
After eating the egg sandwiches, we get changed for deacon class – I look like a good church lady in black slacks, a black and white flowered shirt with a black tank underneath, and black sandals with a chunky 2.5” heel. M goes with the classic golf shirt and dockers. While we’re getting changed, he mentions he needs new underwear, so I whip out the phone and order him some ($18.64).
6:30 pm: Home from deacon class and Mass and the groceries show up! I ordered them yesterday, but I don’t think the charge went through till today, so here goes. Asparagus, broccoli, celery, bananas, cucumber, lime, grape tomatoes, peaches, carrots, potatoes, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, frozen burgers, ground turkey, chicken breasts, whole chicken, fried chicken and a pot pie for J’s lunches, yogurt, sugar free pumpkin spice creamer (YES! I’ve been looking for it for weeks!), milk, heavy cream, OJ, k-cups, frozen green beans, cauliflower rice, stuffing mix, microwave rice, cake mix (the good ones were on sale), chicken broth, potato chips, and trash bags. Spent $154.95 including delivery, saved $14.50 (very low for me), tipped the delivery guy $10.
7:00 pm: After putting away all that food, what do we do? If you guessed order dinner, you’d be right! I don’t cook on Saturday unless we’re having company. We order from a new taco place – three each and “Mexican wings”. The wings were meh, but the tacos ranged from good to outstanding. $53.78 including tip. After dinner, M starts post-production of the Mass video and I do some laundry, watch the NASCAR race and the hockey game, and play games on my iPad. Remember, you’ll be old someday too!
11:00 pm: I go to the basement to pick up laundry and remember I wanted to order a new garden flag (this isn’t as random as it sounds – all my seasonal decorations are stored in the basement). I have had a cart set up for days with two garden flags ($6.99 each) and four magnetic mailbox covers for my parents for Christmas ($11.99 each) – they’ve talked about having a different one for each season, and I saw them when I was looking for a garden flag. Total with tax and free shipping: $61.94. I love Christmas and generally spend way too much on gifts so I’m trying to start shopping before December and at least spread out the pain. We went to a crafts fair a few weeks ago and I picked up a few things and now I’ve got this done – go me!!
12:30 pm: The hockey game is over (2 OT!) and I go to bed. M is napping waiting for his video production to finish.
Daily Total: $463.27
Sunday, September 27
7:00 am: The alarm goes off – ugh. It’s the first day of Religious Ed (virtual, but I have to do a 9:45 zoom with my 4th graders). Coffee, social media, shower, dress, makeup. Put on a black eyelet dress because we’re going back to church today so M can videotape First Communion. Do the usual makeup/hair thing.
10:30 am: My 4th graders are great and we’re ready to roll (M has on a shirt and tie in honor of the First Communion), and we’re off to Mass. Drop off the food I bought for our food pantry last week and help him video. Of course, the kids are adorable!
12:00 noon: We’re starving after church, so we stop at our favorite local pizza place on the way home. Get a variety of slices for $22.62, including a tip (we’re getting it to go, but I’m tipping everywhere, because I know restaurants have been hurt badly by the pandemic. These folks are in NYC and still haven’t opened inside dining.)
1:30 pm: Ate, ran more laundry, changed into the jeans I wore yesterday and a Yankees t-shirt and call the nail place. Of all my expenses, nails are probably the most non-negotiable – I’ve been getting my nails done for 40 years, and when I couldn’t do so during the lockdown, I was miserable. They can take me right away, which makes me happy.
3:00 pm: All 20 nails done – gel on the fingers and a regular pedicure with callus removal ($75 plus $15 tip = $90). I went with an autumn theme and got copper on the fingers and bronze toes – the nail polish looked in the jar like it would match the toes, but it doesn’t. Stop at CVS for eye cream (Olay for tired eyes) and mascara (L’Oreal Voluminous) - $27 with coupons. M asked me to pick up cigs on the way home, so I do, as well as vape cartridges, which I don’t technically need yet, but it will save a trip later in the week ($36).
3:30 pm: While at the nail place, I saw that one of our favorite local restaurants had a fire, which consumed an entire block of restaurants and small businesses. The Chamber of Commerce is doing a GoFundMe, and I donate $25 to the cause - $28.75 including the charge. I also notice that the weekly charge for my church donation went through ($75).
11:30 pm: Took a quick nap (the highlight of my week every week), put some fall decorations out, had our family Zoom call, laundry, got the end of the winter clothes moved upstairs, had dinner (roast chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus), made an apple crisp (I’m not a huge dessert person but M is and I like making desserts, so it works), watched baseball, football, the NASCAR race, and basketball, and took a quick shower. Bring a Light & Fit Toasted Coconut Vanilla yogurt (the best!) to bed, finish my book (“Next Stop, Chancey”) and find the next in the series on my iPad – I’ve read them all before, but I’m in the mood for something cozy, especially after reading about the Current Occupant’s taxes – ugh!) , and turn off the lights around midnight.
Daily Total: $279.37
Monday, September 28
6:45 am: I work from home M/W/F and so I can sleep in. Relatively speaking, anyway. Get dressed in a sleeveless top and shorts (despite the fall decorations, fall nails, and roast chicken/apple crisp, it feels rather summery out there), do makeup, have some coffee and scroll through emails/socials, move yet another load of laundry (I’m trying to get it all done before the plumber comes), find the number for the plumber and give it to M to call, get the trash out, and boil some eggs for breakfast this week. I’m sitting in front of the computer by 8:15, which is ok (technically, my hours are 8:30-5:30 – it’s usually more like 8:30-6:00, and on WFH days, starting at 7:30 is not unheard of). M drops off the car at the shop – I think I forgot to mention this, but he mentioned yesterday that when he was driving around Saturday, there was a grinding noise when he backed up. More joy to come, I’m sure.
9:45 am: I hear M on the phone with the garage – apparently, they can get a used part and do the job for $450. Not great, but it’s better than it might have been! He works from home basically every day except when he has to see customers, but thankfully we’re separated enough that we can hear each other but it’s not intrusive.
10:30 am: Between cursing at people on the phone, M calls the plumber and I grab some cheese and more coffee! I’d tell you about my job, but honestly, it’s not worth talking about. Basically, I go to meetings, take notes on meetings, and send follow-ups (I do other things, but that’s most of it). When I get off my 11:00 am meeting, I’ll find out when the plumber is coming. You guys are getting a much more exciting week than I expected!
12:30 pm: What a miserable day – it seems like everyone is annoyed! Take a break to eat a slice of leftover pizza and a Diet Coke (M finishes some rotisserie chicken from last week). He says the plumber may come today to look at the situation but can’t do the work till tomorrow.
6:00 pm: Keep my head down and get some work done in the afternoon and knock off for the day. Run downstairs and make dinner – “tacos” with strips of beef grilled with Korean barbecue sauce, shredded cabbage, cheddar cheese, pineapple salsa, cucumber slices, and lime inside warmed tortillas. Delicious, if I say so myself!
7:30 pm: I get on a Zoom faith sharing meeting and M gets on a Zoom religious ed class.
11:59 pm: Contemplated Sunday’s Gospel with my small group, watched Tampa Bay win the Stanley Cup, took a shower and set clothes out for tomorrow, and off to bed. M picked up the car after Religious Ed.
Daily Total: $450.00
Tuesday, September 29
5:45 am: Ugh. Up and out – I’m wearing a green dress with a black jacket and have black slingbacks in my bag. I have to walk 30 short blocks and five long blocks once I get off the train, so I’m traveling light. I used to take the subway to my office, but since COVID, I try to limit that as much as possible.
7:45 am: Off the railroad and walk uptown. I actually don’t mind the walk, because when I WFH, I walk very little – at the beginning of the lockdown, I had a nice walking routine, but lately the work seems to start the minute I wake up, so walking to work takes care of getting in those STEPS! I forgot my boiled eggs and I’m starving, so I end up buying an egg sandwich. $5.43
12:30 pm: Because I only go to the city twice a week and I have to walk uptown with all my work stuff, I don’t bring lunch often (pre-pandemic, I used to bring breakfast and lunch every day, but I also took the subway). Decide to run to Pret and my boss and co-worker both ask me to pick something up. Of course, no one (including me) has anything but a $20, so they both say they’ll get me next time. I get my favorite chicken parm wrap and a Diet Coke. $32
12:45 pm: I look at my personal email and discover that J’s car registration needs to be renewed. Hop on the DMV website and take care of that. $158.50. I also realize I never took out the sausages for tonight’s dinner and call M to ask him to do so. He mentions the plumber has still not shown up.
5:45 pm: Leave a little early to get to the Fed Ex office and make my train home. I’m a little later than I’d like to be and it’s raining, so I get the subway, which is thankfully empty, reasonably clean, and quick. $2.75
7:15 pm: M picks me up at the train station and mentions that he was so busy working that he didn’t take the sausages out. He asks me what I want to eat and we end up at Wendy’s. Cheeseburger, fries, and (surprise, surprise) a Diet Coke. He gets the same thing, but bigger. $19.75
11:30 pm: Avoid the debate by watching the Yankees pound the Indians. Usual routine (plus ironing a shirt for J, because he has to go to a customer tomorrow) and off to sleep. I’m up to Book 3 in the Chancey series, for those keeping score.
Daily Total: $218.43
Wednesday, September 29
5:30 am: Double ugh. Woke up to use the bathroom and couldn’t get back to sleep, so here we are. Get dressed (long-sleeved Yankees t-shirt, straight leg jeans), do the face, have some coffee, and try to avoid the fact that my boss sent me an email at 11:00 pm last night looking for changes to a document, which I said I would do today. Get the trash out, pick up a little around the house, and get to work by 7:00. OH, and despite the lack of plumber and his lack of general motivation, M moved the plastic closet…in front of the washing machine! Glad I bought him underwear, because I won’t be doing laundry any time soon. Now I’m wondering if he looked at the menu (I am an obsessive meal planner and post it on the fridge weekly) and that’s why he didn’t take the sausages out – he’s avoiding zoodles! He can run but he can’t hide – I have zucchini and I’m going to spiralize it sooner or later!
8:00 am: The document my boss needed is out, the agenda for our 9:00 am meeting is done, the morning emails are sorted (for now), and I got a link to our parish survey up on the Facebook page, so I make an egg and cheese on a tortilla and eat at my desk.
12:50 pm: Wednesday is conference call hell – I have recurring calls every Wednesday at 9:00, 10:30, and 11:30, and the added fun today of a 10:00. There’s also a webinar every Wednesday that I try to tune into. Grab some chips and a Diet Coke and go check it out.
2:15 pm: Still no damn plumber, but I’ll let M worry about that when he’s home tomorrow. My garden flags arrived, so that’s good. Hoping to get out and put the pumpkin one out before it gets dark, but the way today is going, that might not actually happen. However, I realize I never put dinner in the crockpot. Luckily, it only takes 3-4 hours on high, so I take care of that. It’s Tuscan Chicken with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. By 2:30, I’m back at my desk with another Diet Coke and hard at it. Nightmares of rescheduling meetings, missing documents, etc.
6:45 pm: Still at my desk! OK, I took some time to send an email to the parish webmaster about the survey, update this, and read the R29 money diary of the day. But overall, I’ve been working with no apparent end in sight – I could easily be here all night, but I won’t be because (a) I’m falling asleep at my desk and (b) I have a 7:30 Religious Ed teachers meeting. Hopefully I won’t fall asleep during that. Make a list of things for my boss and I to review tomorrow and finish prepping dinner.
7:15 pm: Dinner was delicious – we had the chicken with rice for M and cauliflower rice for me, sautéed broccoli, and a basic salad (bagged spring mix, cherry tomatoes, cucumber). Now off to Zoom!
11:45 pm: The Yankees game is still on, but I’m showered, my clothes are set out for tomorrow, and I’m fading. Turn off the light and hope for a win.
Daily Total: $0.00 (bet you didn’t see that coming!)
Thursday, October 1
5:45 am: You know it…ugh. Get up, coffee, very quick scroll through the Yankees score/e-mail/social media. Get dressed in a black v-neck sweater, black and gray plaid skirt, and black jacket (not the same one I wore the other day). Am grateful the skirt fits – I gained some weight and am trying to resist buying clothes. Make sure I have the right shoes in my bag – I’m wearing high-heeled gray suede Mary Janes today.
8:15 am: At my desk and ready to go – I remembered to bring 2 hard-boiled eggs today, which I eat with coffee while looking through emails.
12:30 pm: Call after call after call, but I have a half-hour to eat. Run to the fancy buffet place that just re-opened for 2 meatballs, brussels sprouts, broccoli, salad, and the inevitable Diet Coke ($15.75). Manage to eat before my 1:00 pm call – go me!
3:30 pm: Leave to go to a job site and pick something up that has to be shipped to Italy. Something that's almost as tall as me, but thankfully not heavy. Taxi down there because I’m in a hurry and I can get reimbursed ($14.04, including tip), expensed.
4:00 pm: I get a cab to the Fed Ex office – thankfully the first one I see is a minivan, so I fit in just fine ($12.74, including tip), expensed.
5:30 pm: Well, that was harder than it needed to be – the Fed Ex office I went to didn’t have a box that would fit the item, so they suggested another Fed Ex office about 6 blocks away, so I had to walk through midtown Manhattan carrying an object almost as tall as me (it's 5' long and I'm 5'3" tall) while dodging oblivious people. Thankfully, the other office had my box, and they were super-sweet and helpful, but it took them forever to get it done. Bought the box and bubble wrap, which will be expensed (I brought the Fed Ex label, but I don’t remember the account number) ($43.54). Get a nice early train home, though!
6:45 pm: Wow, we’re eating when I’m usually getting the train! Cheeseburgers, tots (tater for J, cauliflower for me), green beans, and vinegar coleslaw with the end of the shredded cabbage. Get the kitchen cleaned and the dishwasher run and settle in to watch the Jets – I’m not holding out much hope, but you never know!
11:30 pm: I’ve showered, set out clothes for me and M (he’s seeing customers tomorrow), I prepped for Youth Group, which I’m leading because he’ll be working, and the Jets are winning, so I decide it’s time to sleep. Up to Book 5 of the Chancey series. I find series usually go downhill after about the third or fourth book, but I’m not sure what I feel like reading, so here we are. OH, at some point M must have gone to the convenience store, because there are vape cartridges on the table ($36).
Daily Total: $122.07; $70.32 expensed
Friday, October 02, 2020
6:00 am: Wake up, grab coffee, find out the Jets lost after all, do the morning e-mail/social media scroll. Leaving early to deal with that work errand has left me with a ton of stuff to do, so I get dressed (long-sleeved v-neck gray t-shirt, white tank because the v-neck is halfway to my belly button, dark wash skinny jeans), put out the trash, peel two hard-boiled eggs, and head to my desk.
12:30 pm: As always, call after call after call. Plus a bit of aggravation when my boss asks me at 10:30 for an agenda for the 11:00 call, which I sent him at about 7:30, and which he returns at 10:59 with the formatting looking like nothing on earth. Yay whee! And a project was mentioned that he forgot to tell me I’d do. So in case I thought I’d have nothing to do (that never happens on Fridays), that’s not happening. Anyway, between calls, I run downstairs for the lunch of champions – a Hot Pocket and a Diet Coke. Just that kind of day.
6:15 pm: Realize I have to run Youth Group at 7 and I haven’t even done my haimakeup. Get that done, heat up some frozen cauliflower rice/broccoli/cheese combination and add some leftover chicken. With a green salad on the side, surprisingly yummy.
8:15 pm: I am not a good youth leader…couldn’t get anyone talking about the subject of the day, which I thought would be a good one. I did make them laugh a few times, so that’s something.
M is going to have some expenses because he went to see customers today, but I don’t know what they are and his company will reimburse him, so I’m just leaving them out.
Daily Total: $0.00
This is the Week That Was:
Food + Drink: $326.06
Fun / Entertainment: $108 (if people can put drugs in as entertainment, I’m putting our nicotine in)
Home + Health: $61.94
Clothes + Beauty: $165.64
Transport: $638.03 (some of it will be expensed)
Other: $234.47
Lastly, reflect on your diary! How do you feel about your spending? Was this a normal week for you? Has this inspired you to make changes or has it given you a “wow I’m doing pretty good” confidence boost? Is there anything you’re actively working on? No need to answer any or all these questions but just use this space to write any thoughts you have!
This was a fairly normal week except for the car breaking and needing to be registered – we're saving some now that we WFH more because M will not bring food from home, but I used to bring breakfast and lunch at least four days a week. I know we should make changes, but I also know we don’t want to – honestly, if you looked at the way I lived 15 years ago, I’ve made a lot of changes already. We’re working on the credit cards – I’ve gotten rid of several already (paid off, not just moved balances around) and we don’t use them at all anymore (I can honestly say I don’t remember the last thing I charged). The bad news is that M’s car is on its last legs, and so I see car payments in our future. Hopefully, he’ll get something used – we have my car when we want to look good going somewhere (mine isn’t super-fancy, it just wasn’t hit by a bus and full of stuff for his job).
OH, and the plumber still hasn’t shown up! But that will be for next week’s expenses.
submitted by allybear29 to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]

Stone Ocean Stands, and fights, aren't THAT confusing, bad or bizarre

FOREWORD

Even though a lot of people have read Part 6, after Vento Aureo's successful anime adaptation, and mostly enjoyed it, there is still this weird "concensus" on the quality of Stands and fights in Stone Ocean. They are mostly seen as too convoluted and bizarre, "even for JoJo".
I disagree... a lot. I believe that this is largely due to people skimming, just going with what others say, or refusing to understand things in Part 6 (even though everything is properly explained). It just requires a little bit of thinking. Part 6 is the turning point for Araki's art-style and fights, so it might come off as intimidating, at first.
I have to be honest though, I felt the same way on my first read. However, on the very second one, I started seeing how enjoyable and cool these abilities and fights are. So, I'll go Stand by Stand, giving reasons why they might not be as bad as people think they are. Maybe this will offer a new perspective on the topic and make people appreciate it more. Who knows?

FIRST HALF

Like every beginning in JoJo, it's not THAT entertaining or exciting. It usually takes a bit of time to get us truly invested. Part 6 is no exception to this trend. Although, I'd argue that it's introductory Chapters are perfect in setting up the story and introducing a new JoJo.
Goo Goo Dolls
Right off the bat, it's a better Little Feet (I am shocked to see how many people say it’s the other way around). It's shrinking is instant. There's not even a need for the user, Guess, to be able to shrink herself. Additionally, GGD is long-range and automatic, and will eliminate those that try to escape.
I feel that it reflects Guess pretty well, since "Stands are the manifestations of one's soul". She is intimidated by others, so she has this complex of wanting to be dominant. Her Stand shrinks people, making them into her personal toys/pets that she pushes around. It's also a great parallel to Alessi, from Part 3. He likes bullying the weak (children), and his Stand ability reflects that. Some other enemies are also obvious parallels to Part 3's enemies.
There's not much to be said about the fight, with it being the very first one in the Part. It's similiar to Little Feet's, but has it's differences, which is good.
Manhattan Transfer
Ok... what is with everyone picking on Manhattan Transfer? It seems that people measure how good a Stand is, by how useful it's abilities would be in real life. This is a horrible way of judging them, in my opinion.
As I've mentioned: "Stands are the manifestations of one's soul". Johngalli A is a blind sniper (a parallel to N'Doul. Both are blind, with long-range Stands and kill flies). Manhattan Transfer reads air currents, which helps Johngalli pinpoint his targets. It also serves as a ricochet surface for Johngalli's "trick-shots". It might not seem cool, but it fits it's user and performs it's task excellently. The Stand itself is pretty nimble due to it's, almost precognitive, senses.
What might be giving this Stand a bad rep, is the perplexing, "Inception-esque" arc it's in. The fight consists of three segments: 1) Jolyne’s hallucination; 2) Jotaro’s (brief) hallucination; 3) the real fight. Once you read through it, this structure becomes evident, which doesn’t make it seem as confusing.
The actual fight is rather short, since the majority takes place in Jotaro's and Jolyne's dreams. So, I can agree that the fight’s structure can be intimidating, especially as an early fight. Despite this, MT doesn't deserve the hate it gets. And yes, the Stand DOES exist and isn't part of the hallucination. This is made very clear towards the end of the fight.
Highway to Hell
It's more underwhelming than the other fights, but still has good Hermés moments, and generally serves to show Kiss's ability. Pucci's description of Thunder McQueen is on point, so I don't have to explain why the Stand fits him so well. The fact that the Stand inflicts equal damage onto the target, with A in range, makes it even scarier.
I personally don't outright hate this fight, but I can't blame you if you do. I never believed that SO is perfect (neither is any other Part). They all have their ups and downs.
I think a parallel can be drawn to Part 3, with this Stand, as well. What I’m referring to, is “Lovers”. Both Stands reflect damage onto the targeted individual. It’s just that HtH is indestructible.
Foo Fighters
A great mystery in the beginning. It's thrilling to read, the first time around. But, on consecutive reads is just a bore, since we know what happens. The second half, being an actual fight, is far more entertaining.
The fact that FF is sentient, is one of Araki's greatest ideas ever. Seeing a Stand have, and fight to preserve, it's intelligence, is very refreshing and thought-provoking. And FF is a fan-favourite, so she's rather popular.
As for the ability, she's the healer. A bit of a weird one at that, but she also has decent offensive capabilities.
Debt Collector Marilyn Manson
This is what I deem the first GREAT fight of Part 6. It's a "D'Arby fight", but much more exciting. The characters are actually doing something, running around while having to pass a ball, instead of sitting and playing betting/video games. Mirashon's design and demeanor are cool. She even does the elder D'Arby pose and says: "GOOD", when a deal is made.
The Stand is invincible, like many in Part 6, forcing the characters to chase down the user. The additional disadvantage to the protagonists, the rule to keep on passing the ball to each other, is a good example of these new types of fights. They will utilize the surroundings more (kind of like how Mirashon pays the guard to drop the baseball, so that Jolyne loses).
What is also AMAZING, is how this Stand builds onto what Chariot Requiem established. A shadow is the reflection of a person's soul. The Debt Collector comes out of the shadow, of the one that felt guilt for cheating.
Jumpin' Jack Flash
A pretty long and intense fight. At first, I didn't think much of it, probably due to the user, Lang Wrangler, being uninteresting. However, putting that aside, it's pretty good. What I'd argue makes this fight more intense than many others, is because it has the protagonists at a disadvantage, from the very start. The zero-Gravity environment, caused by J'JF, becomes more dangerous as time goes on, forcing Jolyne and Weather to end the fight as soon as possible.
The use of WR, to form atmospheric suits, has to be one of the greatest ideas Araki has come up with, in this series. Everything about the Stand itself, for that matter. How it causes friction and is able to deflect projectiles with changes in air pressure, was exciting to behold. We also have Jolyne using her string, in the same way as Bruno used Sticky Fingers. She was seen to be able to extend her reach, by unraveling Stone Free's arm, showing just how vast it's capabilities are.
We even see Lang have his moments. Chucking rats, to blind Jolyne, and using that makeshift "Oxygen bomb" were some of the most surprisingly unexpected things in this fight.
It's a cool ability but, with hindsight, we know that C-Moon is a much better Gravity-based Stand. Nevertheless, J'JF is still pretty dangerous. The fight is lengthy, so there's quite a bit of action, which also serves to reveal Weather Report's abilities. The ending, is one of the most satisfying beatdowns in JoJo. How the force of the air, entering the vacuum, kept pushing Lang towards Jolyne, allowing her to give him a long beating, was satisfying and well earned.
[An interesting fact about J'JF: It started out as a humanoid-type, but became a suit-Stand, halfway through the fight]
Limp Bizkit
Another banger of a fight. Everything, from the ability and it's brutality, to the pacing, was masterfully executed. That said, I don't see people complain about this one.
It also served it's purpose of giving Hermés a backstory and some focus. Sadly, as cool and intrigueing as the main cast is, they don't get enough time for any form of character development (apart from Jolyne and Weather).

HALFWAY POINT

And now we get to the Ultra Security Punishment Ward arc, revered as: "JoJo, at it's worst". Hopefully I provide some arguments as to why you shouldn't automatically treat it like complete garbage.
Survivor
Yes, I'm praising this Stand. As DIO said, it's rather usless/weak. Pucci, however, saw the potential in it and, sure enough, used the ability to it's fullest.
Survivor is great because of it's influence in the first half of this arc. It's sort of a... "passive" ability, affecting everyone the same way. It makes both sides go berserk, which leads to manic behaviour and gory beatdowns. It’s an unconventional Stand, so it makes encounters feel fresh.
It was mostly focused on during the fight against Viviano Westeood, but was shown to be active during the clash with Kenzo, as well. Also, don't forget that Survivor is the reason why the breakout started.
Planet Waves
It's a great ability. I just want to get something out of the way first.
When I see people criticize this fight, it's usually accompanied by the complaint that "Pucci's lackeys are all brainwashed and thus boring". May I remind you, that all of Part 3's enemies, were exclusively DIO fanatics. Nobody seems to complain about that, as much as they do here. Part 6 at least has Lang Wrangler, Kenzo, Foo Fighters, Mirashon, Ungalo, Rykiel and Versace who have goals of their own (some that benefit Pucci, some that don't). So, I think that people should just stop treating Part 6 as the only flawed Part. Hell, Part 5 has the most underwhelming final battle. The Chariot Requiem fight was more intense than the one against Diavolo (yet, they both aren't even deserving of being called fights).
With my complaint out of the way, we can go onto the ability. It doesn't get the love it deserves (the fight, too). It's the perfect ability for close-quarters combat. The fact that it attracts meteors, makes it even more devastating (I know Stand stats are busted, but I implore you to look at Planet Waves' stats. They're pretty good and, I feel, are mostly accurate).
Even though Viviano isn't immediately aware of having a Stand, the fight is still probably one of the most brutal ones, due to the influence of Survivor. It also is an actual fight, as opposed to what a "JoJo fight" entails. There's actual choreography, as we see Jolyne and Viviano duking it out in a bloody brawl, instead of each side making a move, besting each other until the protagonist wins. I'm not saying that 'that' aspect is completely absent, though.
And then you have the meteors hurdling towards Viviano. The Stand doesn't have to have a direct offensive ability, in order to be deadly. With the right circumstances, like in this situation, even a Stand like Planet Waves can be useful and deadly. They even disintegrate before coming in contact with the user, giving him greater freedom of movement. There's also that random, yet badass, Jolyne pose at the end, where she shouts: "Game set!"
I suggest going over the fight, with this in mind. It might become more enjoyable. If not, then the anime will certainly make it so.
Dragon's Dream
Alright, this is a big one. The Stand, everyone agrees, is the worst thing ever. "Why?" - I ask. It's simply Feng Shui, incorporated into a fight. I feel that, knowing what Feng Shui is, falls under general knowledge. The idea is even explained, in detail, so I don't see why people are so confused by this. Simply put: In nature, there are lucky and unlucky spots. D'sD points to the lucky spots. Easy peasy! The thing with the severing of limbs, is just a random side-ability.
Another sentient Stand, with a unique feature of being neutral which, in part, allowed FF to win. Annassui calls it ”almost invincible", but in reality, it actually IS invincible. It seems that one of the biggest issues, the Part 6 fights have, is the fact that Araki included a lot of overpowered Stands, which required bullshit methods to defeating them (well... Dragon's Dream), or the Stand is just unbeatable (eg. Marilyn Manson, Highway to Hell, Green Green Grass of Home, Bohemian Rhapsody and Yo-Yo-Ma).
FF, using a water reflection, is one such example. The thing is: how would Kenzo not notice this immediately, but is then able to see the water once he's realized that D'sD is in another location? This is my only gripe with this fight, along with the fact that Annasui did NOTHING to help FF. Otherwise, it has great pacing, hateable enemy and a satisfying end. Also, I really like the design and color of Dragon's Dream.
What's also a joy to behold, are the hilarious arguments, Kenzo and D'sD have, during the fight. It really emphasises the Stands' autonomus nature and sense of "balance". Somehow, Part 6 manages to be both the goryest and most humor-filled JoJo Part.
Yo-Yo-Ma
I can't stress enough how much of a necessity it is, that you watch Meti's video on Yo-Yo-Ma. He explains it masterfully, giving evidence as to why it is such a deadly ability. Personally, I skip it on re-reads since I do feel that, despite the scary ability, the pacing is rather slow. It leaves much to be desired.
Green Green Grass of Home
I'm really confused when I see people discussing what the most invincible Stands are and nobody's mentioning GGGoH.
It's user is untouchable, since anything that comes closer will be shrinked by half... infinitely! It's also seen to be selective, in the sense that a shoe or a rock will be affected (and not just humans). So, if you shot a bullet at the user, the bullet will never actually reach them... ever. That's an insane power to have. The Stand itself has an amazing design and I really hope DavidProductions keeps it’s color the same for the anime.
Out of all the shrink-Stand fights, this one takes the cake. There's even that one moment, where Jolyne and Annasui have shrunk so much, that the ground looks like a canyon. Another reason I like it the most, is because of how tiny the Stand actually is. It doesn't need to be big, since whoever approaches the Green Baby, will eventually shrink to being smaller than the Stand itself. The ability keeps the user safe, while the Stand is there to eliminate the assailant/s.
If you haven't noticed, the Green Baby is yet another parallel to Part 3. That being the baby Stand-user.
Pucci vs. FF/Jolyne
The high-point of this arc, and a great finale to it. We first have the long, fast-paced chase between FF and Whitesnake.
What follows is one of the best fights in JoJo, that literally no one talks about. It's the face-off between Jolyne and Pucci. The fact that they're chained together makes the fight even more tense, than the usual close-up fight. Like with Viviano, it's a straight up fight, incorporating the users' stamina, power and wits. The panels are also stunning and dynamic.
This fight also reinforced something about Pucci. He's encountered, and fought, the protagonists on MANY occasions during Part 6. As opposed to the rest of the villains, who have one or two skirmishes (Kira and Diavolo), or don't fight until the very end (DIO, Kars and Valentine). The fight also serves to "wake Jolyne up" and has her determined to put a stop to Pucci, even after she got what she was after (Jotaro's memory disc).

SECOND HALF

Contrary to the first halves, the second halves are always more intense and entertaining, containing the best fights in the Part. And, ho boy, does Part 6 deliver in that department.
Jailhouse Rock
One of the most unique abilities, for sure. The fact that there's a Stand user, serving as the guard of the prison's exit is a cool concept. MiuMiu's, and her Stand's, design is sooo unique and trippy. Araki stated that the emphasised "brain", is supposed to be symbolic of the ability.
What's shocking, is just how scary Jailhouse Rock is. It only works inside buildings (it seems), but that doesn't matter. It can put a person in the state of remembering only 3 things, as long as MiuMiu likes, and can affect multiple individuals at once. Now, if that isn't scary, then I don't know what is.
The fight mostly consists of Jolyne running around, and being goofy, yet it still manages to be entertaining. But, towards the end of the fight, things get crazy. Especially with how Jolyne used MiuMiu's ability, in order to escape. Kind of ironic, don't you think?
Bohemian Rhapsody
As grand, and legendary, as the musical reference and ability are, the fight is mostly a drag. First time around, it was a blast. The overwhelming power, and effect of BR, is truly terrifying. Seeing how it affects the whole world (much like Made in Heaven) makes the encounter seem apocalyptic. To be honest, BR could end the world.
The downside, in this fight, is the fact that nothing can be done about it. Weather and Annasui are running around until Weather finally comes up with a way to end the threat. This fight "structure", is the reason I don't enjoy Part 8 all that much. Despite this, it still had great twists and that hilarious ending. Ungalo giving up, just because he failed on his first try, has to be the most unique thing in JoJo. It’s interesting, because he has an invincible Stand, but lacks self-confidence and loses the will to live. It’s kind of ironic.
Sky High
This is the best sons of DIO fight (and the son himself, but that is covered in my other essay). I'd go as far as to say, that it's also one of the best fights in JoJo.
Even though Sky High possesses no defense, it's offensive capabilities are staggering. To simplify the ability: it's about heat; or rather: the removal of heat from one's body. Why I like this so much, is because of how Araki researched what happens when heat is absent from certain parts of the body, and incorporated it into the fight in various creative ways. Additionally, the Rods are a genius "invention", taking a myth and making in-depth lore on it.
First of all, Rykiel makes the helicopter crash. An explosive intro to the fight. That alone makes it stand out. Another reason I like it so much, is that the fight is chock-full of badass moments from Jolyne, but also Rykiel. The stand-out one being when they set themselves on fire. What's also enjoyable, is seeing how experienced Jolyne and Hermés are, figuring out aspects of Rykiel's Stand, from his behaviour. And also, how Rykiel's confidence rises and falls as the fight progresses.
For some reason, Araki never drew the Stand on Rykiel’s wrist. Hopefully DavidProductions corrects this.
Underworld
Moody Blues, but deadly. I feel like something more could've been done with it, apart from the two plane crashes. I'm not saying that it wasn't great, but that it simply felt repetitive.
It's definitely an interesting case, having the plane "crash" underground and whatnot. It's a bizarre one. We even get that hilarious scene, where Jolyne explains the situation to Emporio, over the phone, leaving him profoundly confused.
Overall, it's not to be taken lightly. It's other uses were creative, as well, being able to find out what was said or done (similiarly to Moody Blues).
Heavy Weather
What I immediately like about this fight is that it has stages. Being a 13-Chapter encounter, it's separated into different segments: 1) the ability is initiated; 2) history of Enrico and Domenico; 3) chasing down Versace; 4) WeatheAnnasui vs. Pucci; 5) the death of Weather. It gives it a good sense of progression, rather than having it all be intertwined, or whatever.
Like with a number of other Stands in this Part, there is a terror aspect to HW's ability. It's affecting you, and there's no way of stopping it. It uses your brain, technically yourself, against you. Who knew that one of the most dangerous abilities, in a series like JoJo, was going to be subliminal messages? It's gradual effect reminds me of Chariot Requiem, a bit. It starts to transform people into something else, as well. It's reminiscent of Survivor, in how it's omnipresent ability is affecting people's minds.
The fight is also extremely tragic, seeing Weather suffer because of his brother and his delusions. It also serves as a rematch of the encounter, the two brothers had, long ago.

THE FINALE

Stone Ocean's finale has to be the grandest, both visually and emotionally. Both fights are arduous and have a LOT of movement in them. The pacing and abilities are also superb, along with the cliffhangers at the end of each Chapter, making this one of the greatest experiences I've had with fiction.
C-Moon
What I want to immediately clear up, is that Whitesnake, C-Moon and Made in Heaven are all the SAME Stand. It's just an evolution. So, people that say that Pucci has three Stands, are wrong.
I believe it is important to point out just how good C-Moon is, since it’s a main villain Stand, and is criminally under-appreciated. It’s a semi-sentient Stand, with a Range of 20m. It forms a 3km area (dome) of effect where Gravity is pushed away from Pucci. He is able to freely move in this area, which moves with him as the center, and is seen to be able to walk on walls and roofs. C-Moon’s touch inverts gravity of whatever it touches. A very deadly ability, which Jolyne survived only because of her string.
I mean, think about it. Even if Pucci hadn't attained Heaven, C-Moon is already an invincible ability, with which he could exact revenge on Jolyne and co. He was even seen to be able to move in stopped time, due to Gravity. I’m sure it’s a parallel of how Jotaro once did the same thing, in Part 3, which makes his shock even more impactful. If the fight lasted longer, I'm sure Pucci would've been able to move even more. As for Jolyne's Möbius Strips, Pucci could find another way of dealing with her (like the gun).
I'll use this opportunity to adress one of my biggest issues. The Part 6 Stand stats. Now, I know that the stats are bogus, most of the time, but they are what the anime-onlies will see. I don't want to sound judgemental or condescending, but most anime-onlies tend to accept whatever they see without any thought put into it. They expect to be spoon-fed.
The issue is the None stat for Power. It really bums me, since it makes me wonder what these Stands are capable of. Araki probably didn't have enough time to come up with them, leaving a lot of the Stands' capabilities unknown. As examples, I'll use Jailhouse Rock, Underworld and C-Moon. All of them, with None in Power, shouldn't be able to do any damage (either physicaly or via their ability), yet they do. JR socks Jolyne, Underworld also damages a bunch of things, and C-Moon attacks with it's fists. If Araki wanted to convey that their physical attacks are weak, then he should've just put E. None should exclusively be for Stands like: Survivor, Thoth, Superfly and Achtung Baby. Stands that can't do any damage, at all. I'm also put off by the fact that GGGoH and Heavy Weather have ? for every stat.
Back to C-Moon. It's reveal, is the best Stand reveal, ever. The way that it exits the ticket booth and eerily floats towards Jolyne, until we get to see it completely, hypes it up exponentially. The way it uses the surroundng area to it's advantage, tiles on the ticket booth, instead of only using it's fists, gives the fight a bit of an original flavor. What is also one of the coolest things, that Pucci does, is set that one room on fire. It was such an unexpected move, that it left me shocked and amazed. In a good way.
Jolyne's determination and will, to take down Pucci, is also commendable. She's evolved so much and is finaly able to truly shine. Nothing will hold her back. She'll just patch herself up, and keep going. When her group surrounds Pucci, it's very reminiscent of when Kira is cornered at the end of Part 4.
To conclude, it's a great fight, with a plethora of insane moments. I love C-Moon's musical reference and design, like with the greater majority of Stands in Part 6.
Made in Heaven
I'm sure you expected me to write a wall of text about it. But, do I even need to say anything? The fight speaks for itself. Everything in it shows you that Araki truly meant to end JoJo with it. There's this huge sense of "finality" I get from it.
What I do want to tackle, is how MiH's design might've served as a big inspiration for Part 7, Steel Ball Run. Primarily, it's a >!horse and it's rider. Moving on, we have it's crown of thorns, hinting at Jesus. The feathers, coming out of it's neck, look like the ones Johnny has on his winter outfit. Lastly, the "horse's" mane, is braided the same way as Valkyrie's (Gyro's horse).!<
Like with C-Moon, I discuss MiH more, in my other essay. So, I will only say that DavidProductions is going to make it the greatest experience we'll have in anime, for a while.

AFTERWORD

So, it doesn’t seem as bad as many deem it to be, right? I hope so. What’s certain, is that it is heavily misunderstood, as a whole.
You might notice that I struggled when writing this. I have, because a video format fits this type of analysis the best. It can be hard, going into details about fights, because writing all that down would take me even longer to do. This is one of the reasons why there is SOOO much repetition. If this were a YouTube video, I could articulate myself much better. It's also my frustration, or rather fear, of wasting so much time because the post might not be registered by the sub.
The goal of this "essay" wasn't to force ideas on you. The purpose was, for me, to give a different perspective, as best as I could, in order to (HOPEFULLY) break the endless cycle of people jumping to conclusions, in regards to Part 6-related things. The great majority never even has an argument, for why they detest something in it. Or, they are like The Shuckmeister, and find something to be a large problem (other sons of DIO existing, which "diminishes" Giorno's existence), when it really isn't. I sure can't wait to see his video where he makes Part 6 "better"!
If you still don't like the Stands, or fights, then don't. You're free not to. Maybe it's just not your thing, or you just don't like how Araki handled the ability, or pacing of the fight. I just hate seeing such a good Part get ripped to shreds this much for no apparent reason, other than a "bandwagon" or people not thinking for themselves. Because, by that logic, we should be tearing into the other Parts, in the same way, as well.
Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed this post! I'm curious as to what you think and what your favorite Stand/s, in SO, are. Thank you for reading!
submitted by Angelopolagej to StoneOcean [link] [comments]

What r/investing can learn from the book, Psychology of Money

My favorite author, Morgan Housel, released his new book, The Psychology of Money, last week. In the book, Housel discussed many interesting psychological phenomenon, through the lens of finance. As I flipped through the pages, I started to realize so much of what's happening in investing are examples of what's discussed in the book.
No One's Crazy
The book begins with how your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.000000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.
For example, if you were born in 1970, the S&P 500 increased almost 10-fold, adjusted for inflation, during your teens and 20s. That's an amazing return. If you were born in 1950, the market went literally nowhere in your teens and 20s adjusted for inflation. Two groups of people, separated by chance of their birth year, go through life with a completely different view on how the stock market works.
Takeaways for investing:
When you read other posts and comments about what stocks to buy, when to sell, what's likely to happen next, what's the best asset allocation, etc., remember that is just a single person's point of view. That person may be from a different generation, earns different incomes, upholds different values, keeps different jobs, and has different degrees of luck.
And remember, don't be mean to others. A view about money that one group of people thinks is outrageous can make perfect sense to another.
Luck & Risk
The next chapter discusses the big role luck and risk plays in someone's life. Luck and risk are two sides of the same coin.
Examples from the book: Countless fortunes (and mistakes) owe their outcomes to leverage. The best (and worst) managers drive their employees as hard as they can. "The customers are always right" and "customers don't know what they want" are both accepted business wisdom. The line between "inspiringly bold" and "foolishly reckless" can be a millimeter thick and only visible with hindsight. Risk and luck are doppelgängers.
Takeaways for investing:
Be careful who you praise and admire. That commenter who bought $SHOP at $30 may look like a genius on the outside, but they may just be lucky and cannot repeat it again.
Be careful who you look down upon and wish to avoid becoming. That poster who put a bull argument for Luckin Coffee may look like a fool, but they made the best decision based on the information they had at a time. They took a risk and got unlucky.
Therefore, focus less on specific individuals and case studies and more on broad patterns.
Furthermore, when things are going extremely well, realize it's not as good as you think -- like the stock market right now.
On the other hand, we should forgive ourselves and leave room for understanding when judging failures -- like the stock market in March.
Never Enough
The hardest financial skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving. It gets dangerous when the taste of having more -- more money, more power, more prestige -- increases ambition faster than satisfaction.
Social comparison is the problem here. A rookie baseball players who earns $500k a year envies Mike Trout who has a 12-year, $430 million contract envies a hedge fund manager who makes $340 million a year envies Warren Buffett who had a $3.5 billion increase in fortune in 2018.
There are many things never worth risking, no matter the potential gain. Reputation is invaluable. Freedom and independence are invaluable. Friends and family are invaluable. Being loved by those who you want to love you is invaluable. Happiness is invaluable. And your best shot at keeping these things is knowing when it's time to stop taking risks that might harm them. Knowing when you have enough.
Takeaways for investing:
When you make a big gain, it's totally okay to take profit, as long as you keep your ambition down and acknowledge the possibility that it may go higher. If that happens, no need to play the would've should've could've game, because it very well might've gone the other way.
When you see someone who got 20x return on Amazon or bet big into Ethereum in 2016, remember they may envy the pre-IPO employees at Amazon or the genius who held Bitcoin since 2010.
At the end of the day, do not risk more than what's comfortable in your life for the sake of making huge amount of money, because even if you do make it, you may not find it worth it.
Tails, You Win
Skipping a few chapters to talk about the prominence of tail events.
At the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in 2013 Warren Buffet said he's owned 400 to 500 stocks during his life and made most of his money on 10 of them. Charlie Munger followed up: "If you remove just a few of Berkshire's top investments, its long-term track record is pretty average."
In 2018, Amazon drove 6% of the S&P 500's returns. And Amazon's growth is almost entirely due to Prime and Amazon Web Services, which itself are tail events in a company that has experimented with hundreds of products, from the Fire Phone to travel agencies.
Apple was responsible for almost 7% of the index's returns in 2018. And it is driven overwhelmingly by the iPhone, which in the world of tech products is as tail--y as tails get.
And who's working at these companies? Google's hiring acceptance rate if 0.2%. Facebook's is 0.1%. Apple's is about 2%. So the people working on these tail projects that drive tail returns have tail careers.
Takeaways for investing:
When we pay special attention to a role model's successes we overlook that their gains came from a small percent of their actions. That makes our own failures, losses, and setbacks feel like we're doing something wrong.
When you accept that tails drive everything is business, investing and finance you will realize that it's normal for lots of things to go wrong, break, fail and fall. If you are a good stock picker you'll be right maybe half the time. If you're a good business leader maybe half of your product and strategy ideas will work. If you're a good investor most years will be just OK, and plenty will be bad. If you're a good worker you'll find the right company in the right field after several attempts and trials. And that's if you're good.
Freedom
The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say "I can do whatever I want today." The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays.
Research has shown having a strong sense of controlling one's life is a more dependable predictor of positive feelings of wellbeing than any of the objective conditions of life we have considered.
People like to feel like they're in control -- in the drivers' seat. When we try to get them to do something, they feel disempowered. Rather than feeling like they made the choice, they feel like we made it for them. So they say no or do something else, even when they might have originally been happy to go along.
Takeaways for investing:
If your job is a thought-based and decision job, your tool is your head, which never leaves you. You might be thinking about your project during your commute, as you're making dinner, while you put your kids to sleep, and when you wake up stressed at three in the morning. You might be on the clock for fewer hours than you would in 1050. But it feels like you're working 24/7.
If this feels like you, and you do not like it, it is totally fine to switch to a job that pays less but gives you more freedom and independence, because freedom and independence are ultimate form of wealth.
---
I'm only half way into the book, but I can tell this will be one of the best finance book of 2020. If you guys find this useful, happy to come back next week with more insights once I've gotten to the end.
submitted by uDontLifeForBeSad to investing [link] [comments]

Using Change% to Quantify Batter Clutchness

Using Change% to Quantify Batter Clutchness
(I wrote this about a week ago so check the inline updates for some players)
How many times have we heard or thought during a game that X player is a clutch batter? Or, on the contrary, that he tends to choke when needed the most? These comments are most of the time based on narratives we, as observers, create from specific situations that get fixed in our memories and bias our judgment; as our brain needs to organize the information we get through our senses in patterns, we easily label single events as part of a bigger sequence, whether that is true or not, and that’s why, for example, if we saw said batter hitting a walk-off single or got stricken out to end a rally recently, we immediately generalize these high impact situations as trends, when they are not, and these trends fog our perspective.
Clutch is a hell of a hard thing to objectively describe or measure and even harder to predict, if possible at all, not that huge and great efforts have not been made to address that. Clutch, LI, WPA/LI, and other stats are part of the toolset that brilliant analysts have devised for it, and they usually do a good job. But, sometimes, those stats might feel hard to grasp, not because they are too abstract or hard to understand but because they typically involve a lot of smaller calculations to obtain a result.
In my perennial journey for simplification, I wanted to try a simpler approach to this concept and I decided to focus on one question: What is the ultimate goal for a baseball team? There could be very long answers to this but the short and simple one is “to win”. That’s it.

So, when does a team achieve this?

A team can’t lose when it is tied or ahead of the opponent. Then, one of the most important things a batter can do for his team is, effectively, to tie or to put his team ahead whenever the chance presents itself, in other words, whenever he can change the possible outcome of the game for his team’s benefit. These players are, on those occasions, true Game Changers.
Under this premise, I decided to look for those batters that, with any part of their offense game, produced RBIs to tie the game or to put his team ahead this season. I went to Stathead, pulled the data for every player that meet those criteria, and summarize it. In total, 424 batters on any instances of their teams’ games were Game Changers and this is the list, sorted by the most changes:
​
https://preview.redd.it/khxt6dgs85q51.png?width=717&format=png&auto=webp&s=104c04e4d28cf864df19dfd9ffd06add8577b7b7
(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1id1z5EJ8fNEs_Jeu35iUv9FiGeiklLdOXrRioU4SyYU/edit?usp=sharing)
Not the guy we were expecting at the top, right? With a .240/.355/.421 line, a .335 wOBA and wRC+ of 115, well, that’s just not a profile of a batter we would want to take the at-bat for our team when we need the necessary turn of events that would change the score on our favor. But in fact, that’s what he has done more than any other player so far.
José Abreu, Mike Yastrzemski, Brandon Lowe, and Starling Marte share the second place with 14 game changes each; the first three of them are having a great season offensively while Marte is more in line with Seager but still better overall.
Names like Mike Trout, Fernando Tatis Jr., Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Manny Machado and/or Francisco Lindor are lower in the chart that what the consensus might guess. Could it be that as we are looking at the absolute values we are not taking into account that some batters might have more opportunities to tie or put their team ahead than others, so we are getting a skewed result?
I had to swim in the data and pull more than 23,600 Plate Appearance records where the batters had the opportunity to tie or put his team ahead. After sorting and refining, this is the list I got:
​
https://preview.redd.it/qezaoxow95q51.png?width=714&format=png&auto=webp&s=b62df9af59ccd145012ec1e13b3e53df9a3b120f
(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1id1z5EJ8fNEs_Jeu35iUv9FiGeiklLdOXrRioU4SyYU/edit?usp=sharing)
Batters with more than 35 chances made the cut for the list (average this season is approximately 68 for this data set).
There are a few things that are pretty interesting and probably surprising about these figures:
  • Batters have only been able to change the outcome under these conditions around 1 in 5 chances they’ve had, at best, and 8% of the time on average. That means that this type of game changes are rarer than one could expect.
  • We have to add “opportunism” as another attribute in the resurgence of Byron Buxton, as he is the batter that has taken more advantage of the opportunities he’s had to change the game.
  • This is another aspect in which Kris Bryant’s season is truly hideous: in 57 chances he hasn’t been able to make a single change. Not once. Zero.
  • José Altuve, JD Martínez, Pete Alonso, Eugenio Suárez, Anthony Rizzo, Anthony Rendón and Paul Goldschmidt are all big name players that are under performing here as their Change% is below the league average.
  • Kyle Seager, Dominic Smith, José Abreu, Mike Yastrzemski, and Cory Seager are still as good, relatively to the rest of the players, when measured by their Change% as by the total Changes they’ve done.
These snippets are fun facts and interesting ideas that will for sure add value to the discussions when analyzing this season, as a deeper dive in the data will always reveal things that we might take for granted, or we might not be acknowledging. But today I want to challenge it in a more empirical manner: I want to try to use this information to predict some type of value.
I am in no way saying that this data has prediction capabilities, don’t get me wrong. There are too many variables that I am not taking into account and I’m not controlling for so it would be disingenuous to say otherwise. I just want to make an exercise with what is available and find out practically if there is a bigger opportunity beyond what it looks like.
So, as we are approaching the Playoffs, I would like to boldly predict which player(s) will earn any of the MVP awards for the Playoffs. The spots for that stage are not completely filled yet but at the moment of writing this, the AL participants are:
Standings updated after games on Sept. 17:
  1. Rays (E1), 36-19, .655
  2. White Sox (C1), 34-20, .630
  3. A’s (W1), 33-20, .623
  4. Twins (C2), 33-22, .600
  5. Yankees (E2), 31-23, .574
  6. Astros (W2), 27-27, .500
  7. Indians (WC1), 30-24, .556
  8. Blue Jays (WC2), 28-26, .519
And for the NL:
  1. Dodgers (W1), 38-16, .704
  2. Cubs (C1), 32-22, .593
  3. Braves (E1), 32-22, .593
  4. Padres (W2), 34-20, .630
  5. Marlins (E2), 28-26, .519
  6. Cardinals (C2), 26-25, .510
  7. Reds (WC1), 28-27, .509
  8. Phillies (WC2), 27-27, .500
I will pick a player from most of these teams (and some ‘outside-looking-in’ contenders), according to their Change%, and those will be the candidates to win the awards.

The nominees.

These charts, one per league, summarize the candidates:
​
(add Ryan Braun for Milwaukee (15%) and Brad Miller for St Louis 14% instead of the PHI and SFG picks).
Logically, Buxton and Moreland are the top candidates to win it all, in terms of playoffs awards.
Why do I think that Change% could potentially shed some light on this topic?

It’s all about narratives.

If Change% let us discover batters that maximize, in some way or other, their approach to chances then said batters will “appear” in the moments that fans and analysts tend to remember the most: those special circumstances when things turned around for better for the player’s team because of him, and that narrative will be important when people cast their vote for the awards; this is especially important for short term scenarios like the playoffs are.
That’s what we are betting on here.
I hope this is useful for some of you.
https://twitter.com/camarcano
All other data was taken from https://www.fangraphs.com/, https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/, and/or https://www.baseball-reference.com/ unless otherwise stated.
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Basic Quant Trading Strategies

I am a former Wall Street quantitative trader and researcher in NYC. I have often seen people aspiring to be quants build projects themselves, but fall into the trap of blindly fitting statistical models to the data. I have written an article to give people a better insight into strategies deployed on the Street.

Arbitrage

One way traders make money is through an arbitrage or a risk free trade. Suppose you could buy an apple from Sam for $1, and then sell an apple to Megan at $3. A rational person would orchestrate both legs of these trades to gain $2 risk free.
Arbitrages are not only found in financial markets. The popular e-commerce strategy of drop-shipping is a form of arbitrage. Suppose you find a tripod selling on AliExpress at $10. You could list the same tripod on Amazon for $20. If someone buys from you, then you could simply purchase the tripod off AliExpress and take home a neat $10 profit.
The same could be applied to garage sales. If you find a baseball card for $2 that has a last sold price on EBay for $100, you have the potential to make $98. Of course this is not a perfect arbitrage as you face the risk of finding a buyer, but the upside makes this worthwhile.

Positive expected value bets

Another way traders make money is similar to the way a casino stacks the odds in their favour. Imagine you flip a fair coin. If it lands on heads you win $3, and if it lands on tails you lose $1. If you flip the coin only once, you may be unlucky and lose the dollar. However in the long run, you are expected to make a positive profit of $1 per coin flip. This is referred to as a positive expected value bet. Over the span of millions of transactions, you are almost guaranteed to make a profit.
This exact principle is why you should never gamble in casino games such as roulette. These games are all negative expected value bets, which guarantees you to lose money over the long run. Of course there are exceptions to this, such as poker or card counting in black jack.
The next time you walk into a casino, make a mental note to observe the ways it is designed to keep you there for as long as possible. Note the lack of windows and the maze like configurations. Even the free drinks and the cheap accommodation are all a farce to keep you there.

Relative Pricing

Relative pricing is a great strategy to use when there are two products that have clear causal relationships. Let us consider an apple and a carton of apple juice. Suppose there have a causal relationship where the carton is always $9 more expensive than the apple. The apple and the carton is currently trading at $1 and $10 respectively.
If the price of the apple goes up to $2, the price is not immediately reflected on the carton. There will always be a time lag. It is also important to note that there is no way we can determine if the apple is trading at fair value or if its overpriced. So how do we take advantage of this situation?
If we buy the carton for $10 and sell the apple for $2, we have essentially bought the ‘spread’ for $8. The spread is fairly valued at $9 due to the causal relationship, meaning we have made $1. The reason high frequency trading firms focus so much on latency in the nanoseconds is to be the first to scoop up these relative mispricing.
This is the backbone for delta one strategies. Common pairs that are traded against each other includes ETFs and their inverse counterpart, a particular stock against an ETF that contains the stock, or synthetic option structures.

Correlations

Correlations are mutual connections between two things. When they trend in the same direction they are said to have a positive correlation, and the vice versa is true for negative correlations. A popular example of positive correlation is the number of shark attacks with the number of ice-cream sales. It is important to note that shark attacks do not cause ice-cream sales.
Often times there are no intuitive reason for certain correlations, but they still work. The legendary Renaissance Technologies sifted through petabytes of historical data to find profitable signals. For instance, good morning weather in a city tended to predict an upward movement in its stock exchange. One could theoretically buy stock on the opening and sell at noon to make a profit.
One important piece of advice is to disregard any retail trader selling a course to you, claiming that they have a system. These are all scams. At best, these are bottom of the mill signals that are hardly profitable after transaction costs. It is also unlikely that you have the system latency, trading experience or research capabilities to do this on your own. It is possible, but very difficult.

Mean reversions

Another common strategy traders rely on is mean reversion trends. In the options world the primary focus is purchasing volatility when it is cheap compared to historical values, and vice versa. Buying options is essentially synonymous with buying volatility. Of course, it is not as simple as this so don’t go punting your savings on Robinhood using this strategy.
For most people, the most applicable mean reversion trend is interest rates. These tend to fluctuate up and down depending on if the central banks want to stimulate saving or spending. As global interest rates are next to zero or negative, it may be a good idea to lock in this low rate for your mortgages. Again, consult with a financial advisor before you do anything.
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Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Apr. 4, 1988

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
• PREVIOUS •
1987
FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE:
The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82
1-4-1988 1-11-1988 1-18-1988 1-25-1988
2-1-1988 2-8-1988 2-15-1988 2-22-1988
2-29-1988 3-7-1988 3-14-1988 3-21-1988
3-28-1988 * * *
  • ”This is horrible, Gorilla.” These words open the issue this week, because Wrestlemania IV is in the books and, well, it was not pretty. Dave is flabbergasted by how bad a show it was, wondering if this was a dream or a nightmare that he hasn’t woken up from. Wrestlemania III was the best wrestling production of all time. It may not have had the best card, but it was entertaining all around and the fans loved it. It set Vince up as the king of wrestling, all-powerful over the business. He’s still the king, but he’s definitely not all-powerful, and Crockett absolutely kicked Vince’s ass on March 27. Financials will take time to come in, and of course McMahon will win that measure, but we can flash back to January 24 for an analogue: The Royal Rumble won even though the Bunkhouse Finals made more money.
  • Preliminary info Dave has gotten from phoning cable companies and hearing from fans at closed-circuit site is that Wrestlemania interest was down by nearly half of last year’s. The buyrate for ppv could be as low as 6 percent, half of WWF’s expected 12% and still way down from last year’s 10.3%. Even so, the PPV gross would be $10.8 million, of which WWF can expect no more than $3.5 million, plus an estimated $2.3 million from a minimum 175,000 (last year had 375,000) at closed-circuit and a live gate of about $ million and an undisclosed site fee from Donald Trump for putting on the show. The early (and I mean early, don’t get attached to these numbers) overall estimate is a total gross of $14 million, with WWF netting maybe $6.5 million, a far cry from the $18 million they were predicting their take would be. How much was because Crockett ran the Clash? How much was because WWF just has been less interesting? It’s hard to say, but Crockett hurt McMahon way more than anyone could have anticipated.
  • As for the shows themselves, just absolute night and day between them. Crockett’s Clash was a really solid show. It wasn’t as polished a production and only had 30 minutes of wrestling in the first 90 minutes of the show, though this was to allow Sting/Flair to work without commercial breaks so it was an overall benefit. The matches, minus the barbed wire one, were all good. The crowd was into it. Two excellent matches. Probably best to never let Steve Williams talk again, though. The Jim Cornette and Eddie Haskel bit was great and made Bob Uecker and Gene Okerlund look worse than they were. Meanwhile, Wrestlemania made Starrcade 1987 look like Starrcade 1985, and that’s too nice to say even. WWF’s guys, rather than working harder because it was Wrestlemania, opted to phone it in instead because Wrestlemania itself would carry the day. Even Jesse Ventura had no good lines and coasted while Gorilla was like soundbites of his Wrestling Challenge commentary.
  • Anyway, Dave breaks down the major problems for WWF, as he sees them. 1) Hogan - he’s too over, to the point he overshadows everything else and by booking him as just one of the guys in the field, they completely devalued their star attraction. And instead of putting Randy over at the end, which they need to do if they’re going to try and have him be even close to as over as Hulk has been, they put Liz and Hulk over. “It’s like Randy can’t even order a taxi cab unless Liz tells Hulk to flag down the cab.” 2) Hindsight is always 20/20, but Trump Plaza was a terrible venue for a Wrestlemania, and the crowd just wasn’t a wrestling crowd, so they were not invested at all. 3) Steroids. Dave supposes he’s probably the most hated person in the world among the heavy steroid users in the business because of all the nicknames he gives them, but in all seriousness it was embarrassing to watch so many guys get blown up in a minute or two to where they couldn’t even pace out a five minute match. Like, take out the health issues, take out any sense of blame on the guys, Dave says. The tournament was embarrassing. It wasn’t funny to see the guys fail like this. It was just sad. 4) The tournament as a concept flopped. It gave fans no specific issue to focus on because belts in modern wrestling just don’t mean anything to fans - the real draw is the big personalities, and WWF proved it with this show: the only matches anyone cared about were the ones with Hogan and, to a lesser extent, DiBiase and Savage. 5) Spoilers. Too many people knew the outcome, and giving Savage the title is almost a mistake after you’ve given so many spoilers of your own show. ABC News did a report the morning after, saying “Randy Savage was the winner at Wrestlemania, but of course everyone knew it since the WWF magazine had printed the result three weeks ago. The WWF claims the magazine report was simply a typographical error.” Anyway, Dave is sick of people blaming him for their wrestling promotions not being able to draw fans at live shows when they aren’t interesting enough. Newsletter subscribers are maybe 0.002% of the viewing audience - if all Dave’s subscribers quit watching nobody would notice in the viewing numbers. Meanwhile, the fans who read newsletters are probably the most dedicated and put more money into the business than the “marks” do and will be the ones stubbornly holding on to the end if the business somehow were to die. So don’t blame Dave if your show sucks and your creative is bad and you give away your finish weeks ahead of time and don’t even bother changing it.
  • Anyway, Wrestlemania preliminary numbers time. About 540,000 homes on PPV, plus 195,000 through closed-circuit, as far as the U.S. goes. They did just 95 closed-circuit sites in the U.S., 39 of which had less than 2,000 capacity. No word on Crockett’s ratings, but if they hit a 5 on TBS that’s about 2 million homes.
  • So all that said, time to look at the Wrestlemania card. Good production, particularly the opening graphics, but not as far ahead of Crockett as last year now that they’ve upped their game. Battle royal started hot and quickly became your standard boring battle royal. The Hart/Badnews angle at the end saves the match from a dud and gets it half a star. DiBiase vs. Duggan was real slow for a five minute match, and Duggan no longer resembles the worker he was in UWF/Mid-South just a couple years ago. Very little heat. 1.5 stars. Muraco vs. Bravo gets half a star, and both were blown up by the double clothesline like they’d wrestled a hard 20 minutes, but the whole match was under 5. Valentine vs. Steamboat saw Valentine look tired and old, and just not have his famed longevity anymore. Good finish, solid work even with the timing issues. Steamboat coming out with his son and being able to be lost in the moment of just being a proud father was “a tremendous sight” for Dave. 2.25 stars. Savage vs. Reed got a pop for the finish but nothing else, really. 1 star. One Man Gang vs. Bam Bam Bigelow wasn’t good. It was obvious how bad Bigelow’s knee was, and that takes away his agility, which is the thing that sets him apart. Dave says this is a -1.5 star match in a vacuum, but considering Bam Bam’s condition he’s not going to rate it that low and calls it a dud instead. Rick Rude vs. Jake Roberts was a 15 minute draw and Dave hated it. He hated Rude’s tights, the many long rest holds, the fact that there just weren’t any moves in there to pop the crowd, and the fact that the crowd chanted boring. Worst match of the year candidate. -2 stars. Ultimate Warrior blew up before he entered the ring for his match with Hercules and the match was bad. -1.5 stars, and Dave says it was worse than Rude vs. Roberts, but gets a better rating for knowing when to be done quick and not overstaying its welcome like the other match did.
Watch: Cleanse your palate with Hogan’s weird promo from Wrestlemania about faultlines and Donald Trump caring about his family
  • Wrestlemania continued, because holy shit that was a really long paragraph and we needed an intermission. Round two saw Hogan and Andre go to a double disqualification to start off. Andre could barely stand by two and a half minutes in. Lots of shenanigans, Virgil took a nasty suplex on the floor where Hulk didn’t protect him at all, but there’s a glimmer of a future face push for him at least. Maybe his father’s a plumber, Dave quips. Half a star if you ignore the posing at the end (dud if you count the posing). But really, the crowd came to see Hogan pose. DiBiase vs. Muraco had no heat but decent action for its short stay. 1.5 stars. Savage vs. Valentine was good, well-paced with good action. 2.5 stars. Beefer vs. Honkytonk Man amazed Dave since neither was over at all when both usually are decently over. Sherri Martel made more noise than the entire audience. Loads of shenanigans, Beefer’s new haircut makes him look like a Davey Boy Smith with less wrestling ability, dud. Islanders and Heenan vs. Koko and the Bulldogs had some decent comedy and started okay, but got boring quick. 1.25 stars. Savage vs. One Man Gang was watchable but the finish sucked. Half a star. Demolition vs. Santana and Martel was solid throughout, although the crowd seemed on Demolition’s side. If the crowd had been responsive this would have been a really good match rather than just pretty good at 2.5 stars. DiBiase vs. Savage saw the crowd missing “two top-flight guys trying to work a good match” because they were watching the entrance waiting for Hogan. Savage sends Liz to get Hogan, Hogan evens the odds, Savage wins, Hogan must pose. 2.25 stars. Once round two started, the show was pretty decent, Dave thinks, just the first half of the show wasn’t RestholdMania, but Rigor Mortis Mania.
  • Over in Crockett Country, it’s a whole different story. They drew 6,000 fans to the Greensboro Coliseum, and all six thousand were champing at the bit for the show, which created a great energy that the wrestlers fed on for their matches. Rotunda retained the TV Title against Jimmy Garvin in the amateur rules match with a one-count pin, pinning Garvin a minute into the second round. 2.5 stars. The Midnight Express beat the Fantastics by DQ to retain the U.S. Tag Titles in a classic Memphis style brawl that was so action packed the cameras missed a lot of it. Dave gives them 4.25 stars, saying the action earned it 4.5, but the overused finish with the over the top rope throw and the referee reversing the decision lost it half a star, but then the post-match action with Corette lashing Bobby Fulton’s back with a belt got it back a quarter star. Dusty and the Road Warriors (the Rhode Warriors, I almost typed) beat Warlord and Barbarian and Ivan Koloff in a real short barbed wire match, and Dave notes the resemblance between Dudty wearing facepaint and a black t-shirt and Dump Matsumoto (with the notable difference that Dump is prettier). Ivan was bleeding after 20 seconds and Dusty after 90. Dave hates these matches - everyone gets all cautious and careful and stays in the center of the ring, so nothing really happens. 1 star. Luger and Barry Windham beat Arn and Tully for the NWA Tag Titles. Good match all around, 3.5 stars. Flair and Sting had a 45 minute draw for the NWA Title in a match of the year candidate. Slow pace to start, but the heat kept up and they weren’t dull and Flair sold the hell out of every rest hold. Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone did fantastic work on this, particularly Ross who sold the intensity and importance of the match, which was critical for the first half (if only he were still able to do that today). There were supposed to be three judges, but there were five people at the table, only two of them didn’t vote, so no idea what the point there was. Anyway, Patty Mullen (Penthouse Pet of the year and who had been on Ric’s arm the night before on tv) picked Flair. Gary Juster, former NWA promoter, voted for Sting. Sandy Scott then ruled it a draw, and nothing came of the judging gimmick which made it utterly pointless. 4.75 stars
Watch: Clash of the Champions. I’ve set it to start with the Steve Williams promo because it needs to be heard to be believed
  • During Clash of the Champions, after the first match, there was an ad on TBS for the WWF 900 number advertising play-by-play for Wrestlemania. WWF managed to get an ad on TBS during Crockett’s big special, and that’s hilarious. They also ran the first ad for the new Four Horsemen vitamins, which was hilarious but unintentionally so, and Dave thinks they aren’t going to sell a lot of those vitamins.
  • Last week Dave teased a big story, and it’s that Crockett has been negotiating with Ken Mantell of World Class Dave didn’t give any details beyond the tease last week because he was hoping to get more before press time. He promises to never note a major story the way he did again without giving more details up front, because he expected more details to break before he had to print copy but it didn’t. Anyway, negotiations have been ongoing for ten days and there are conflicting reports. Crockett’s goal is taking over World Class the way they did Florida, getting the valuable channel 11 time slot on Saturday nights in Dallas. They’re going to need Fritz on board to complete the deal, though. If it does go through, Kerry and Kevin will have guaranteed work and a push in the NWA, but neither really seems to want the travel, so they’d likely get a deal for local stuff and maybe occasional work in St. Louis. The bottom line everyone needs to consider, though, is that Mantell and Michael Hayes may be the most creative bookers anywhere right now, but they aren’t turning WCCW’s business around and it just may not work out that they can. Dave doesn’t expect a deal done now, but he thinks Mantell and Hayes may give themselves until May to see if their hard work will pay off before considering any offers.
  • An example of that creative booking is the WCCW title change on March 25 in Dallas. Hayes was at ringside with Kerry while Black Bart and Buddy Roberts were for Parsons. Iceman King Parsons is one of the least likely champions in wrestling history, and the match wasn’t particularly good, but the finish saw the lights go out after Terry Gordy came down, at which point Bart and Roberts used flashlights to blind the fans in the front row so nobody could see what happened. When the lights came back on, Kerry was knocked out in the ring, Hayes was bleeding on the floor, nobody knew who hit whom, and Parsons pinned Kerry to win the belt. They even had Kerry carted out on a stretcher. Dave doesn’t think (and actively prays against) Parsons will hold it for long. Hayes looks like the best prospect (nope. It’s going back to Kerry in May at the Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions). Also, I just learned that King Parsons is his real legal name. I always thought combining Iceman and King was a weird combo of gimmicks, so that solves a mystery for me.
Watch: Iceman King Parsons wins the WCWA World Title
  • Eddie Gilbert is leaving Memphis to book for Continental beginning April 10. Continental’s business is bottoming out and it’ll be interesting to see if Gilbert and Missy can get things going there again like they did in Memphis. This also puts Memphis in some dire straits, since the Gilberts were basically all their storylines and they were drawing triple what they had been by giving the Gilberts such big spotlight, so they’re in trouble.
  • Lanny Poffo, brother of WWF Champion Randy Savage, has a book coming out called Wrestling with Rhyme. It’s a book of poetry coming out in late April and will be available at Walden Books. Man, I remember when Walden went out of business. It was a sad day for me.
  • The only news Dave has from Japan right now is that Bruiser Brody beat Jumbo Tsuruta for the International Title at Budokan Hall on March 27. Tenryu also retained his PWF Title against Hansen.
  • Roddy Piper’s latest project is a new film going into production called They Live.
Watch: They Live trailer
  • A correction on the Bruno Sammartino stuff. WWF isn’t trying to ban Bruno from using his name. They’re trying to ban him from using the trademarked nickname “The Living Legend” in contexts outside WWF. There’s a lot of talk about his radio interview , and some excerpts in the mail section of this issue.
  • There’s a film in the works about former Olympic and pro wrestler Chris Taylor. Taylor was a 450 lb wrestler from Iowa who won bronze in the 1972 Olympics and died in 1979. A book about him called “The Gentle Giant” is being adapted into a film, currently called “Lean On Me.” That does not wind up being the title, and I can’t find a movie based on him so this might have gotten scrapped. In other biopic news, no word from Hollywood on any upcoming Hulk Hogan movie.
  • WWF went up to the number 4 slot in the syndicated ratings for the week ending Feb. 28. They had a 10.6 rating, an increase on the previous week. Crockett’s network fell to number 9 with a 7.6.
  • Paul E. Dangerously firing Joe Pedicino, Gordon Solie, and Boni Blackstone on Pro Wrestling this Week aired this past weekend. It was fantastic stuff, and Paul has cemented himself as one of the top managers in the business. This is all part of a reformatting of the show to a 30 minute format with Pedicino and Patrick Schaeffer (who was the mastermind behind Global doing an IPO to build up a million dollars of operating capital) at the helm, with Schaeffer as the heel commentator.
  • Crockett had a big angle taped on March 21 that they aired this past Saturday, involving Magnum T.A. Magnum was doing an interview when Tully and J.J. came out, then Barry Windham came out and Tully popped Windham with a hit, then hit Magnum. J.J. was behind Magnum and helped Magnum gently go to ground, then Dusty barged in with a baseball bat and swung for the fences on Tully, then knocks out Jim Crockett without realizing who he’s swinging at when Jim and David Crockett and Rob Garner try to restore order. Jim Cornette did a tearful interview about his “good friend Jim Crockett” and Magnum even bladed, though that last didn’t make it to tv. Later on, Magnum came out and hit Tully with a bat in a match to cause a disqualification. Dave loved the concept here at first because you have to imagine Magnum hates being on the sidelines and wants to be involved to some extent and this gives him something to sink his teeth into. At the same time, “the idea of beating up a cripple, which unfortunately is the reality of the situation” is just kind of pathetic. That said, it’ll draw, and it’ll let Dusty (with Magnum in his corner) push himself as top star once again, and it may even be enough to put heat back on Dusty vs. Tully. Dusty will be suspended for 120 days come Saturday’s tv (taking us into July - will we see the Midnight Rider face Flair at the Bash, Dave wonders), Dusty will return as the Midnight Rider with Magnum at his side, and he’ll likely get the U.S. title in the tournament they’re going to hold in May.
Watch: Tully suckerpunches Magnum
  • The Oregon State Athletic Commission held a public hearing on March 18. Topics mostly stuck to safety concerns such as cleaning the mats, barriers at ringside, security, mats on the floor by ringside, etc. A lot of wrestlers were there, along with Billy Jack Haynes and Don and Barry Owen. Most of the wrestlers were negative about the Owens’ promotion, with only Tony Borne and Art Crews saying anything positive. Borne testified against the idea of using mats outside the ring, saying it’s not going to help as much as it hurts the visual effect of a spill to the floor. He also said the commission’s drug testing proposal went too far by including painkillers and marijuana on top of cocaine. The commission indicated they’ll be looking at action like the use of chairs in the future and potentially issuing fines. They also clarified their stance on blood: hardway is good, blading is bad. It’s pretty absurd to say that the more dangerous way of getting color is good but blading is bad, but this whole blood thing has become a thing for commissions around the country because blading sounds absolutely insane to people outside the industry, and even Dave has mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, blading is a minor safety issue at best, especially compared to rampant steroid and drug use and nasty bumps. On the other, Dave’s not sure fans are really drawn by excessive bleeding either, and probably actually turns off a large number of potential casual viewers. It doesn’t hurt if kept rare, but it doesn’t help if half the matches have it. And more dangerous to the wrestlers in a blood match than AIDS (they’re more likely to get that from outside activities) is scabies, which Owen’s wrestlers had an outbreak of not too far back. Rip Oliver said he’s gotten scabies four times since July and wound up giving it to his wife and kids on top of it. The outbreak led the Commission to pass a ruling against wrestlers working while they have communicable diseases and that they must notify promoters.
  • Eddie Gilbert vs. Jerry Lawler on March 21 drew 6,000 fans for Memphis. Gilbert won in what’s being hailed as a great match (and Dave’s heard their match the week before was even better). On tv on March 26 Gilbert acted like he was going to throw fire at Lance Russell, which got Lawler out from backstage in his first tv appearance in a month. They wound up brawling into the parking lot and Gilbert slammed Lawler on the hood of a car, shattering the windshield.
  • Scott Rechsteiner, using the ring name Scott Steiner, debuted as a babyface in Memphis recently. No mention of peaks or freaks yet.
  • Some random trivia about AWA Tag champ Paul Diamond. His real name is Tom Boric, and he was born in Winnipeg, you idiots, on May 11, 1961. He played soccer for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the old North American Soccer League and was drafted sixth in the 1980 collegiate draft by the Calgary Boomers, before getting traded to Tampa in 1982. He stayed until the NASL folded, which is when he got into wrestling.
  • Anyway, Diamond and Tanaka won the belts because the Midnight Rockers wanted $500 a week guaranteed to stay and Verne doesn’t believe in guaranteed money. They don’t appear to have left yet.
  • [Continental] Looks like Eddie Gilbert is replacing Robert Fuller and going to be sole booker.
  • [USA] The other spinoff from the old Continental promotion ran its first big show in Knoxville, drawing a $10,000 gate. Previous sellouts there hit $27,000, to give an indication of relative value there. Not a lot to report about this. Moondog Spot is there as “The Dog.” He’s not a big dog. He’s not a little dog. He’s The Dog.
  • WCCW drew 1,700 on March 25 for their Dallas show, where Kerry dropped the title to Parsons. The other main event had Michael Hayes vs. Buddy Roberts, and Roberts kept trying to apologize for hitting Hayes, but Hayes wasn’t going to let it slide. Terry Gordy did a run in and broke things up, and told Hayes they sold Angel of Death’s contract so they can all be friends again. Hayes walked out on Gordy, though.
  • [WCCW] Fabulous Lance keeps getting booked for shows but hasn’t returned. His agent still doesn’t want him to be a heel because it’ll cut down his opportunities for tv and modeling work.
  • To illustrate how bad business is for World Class, here’s the biggest gate they drew out of three shows last week in Mississippi: $783.
  • A man named David Peschel of Washington, New Jersey is suing Randy Savage for a million dollars. He alleges that Savage punched and bodyslammed him when he got out of his car at a light to ask Savage for his autograph. He describes Savage as 6’4” and 280 lbs, prompting Dave to ask if this was maybe a different Randy Savage.
  • Rumor has it that Angelo Poffo put a $1 bet on the Wrestlemania tournament. Apparently, his bet was on Ted DiBiase.
  • According to a sumo journal in Japan, Futuhaguro is 99% certain he won’t go into pro wrestling. Koji Kitao will debut near the end of 1989 in the AWA, so I’ll put my dollar bet on the 1% chance.
  • Reader Mike Rodgers attended the Oregon commission hearing on March 18 and writes about his take. The commission is making big improvements to safety that he thinks are great, but thinks they’re overstepping by wanting to legitimately fine wrestlers who use foreign objects or chairs, and says they don’t understand “that promoters do what they can to fill up arenas.” Banning the blade but not blood is just going to increase the chance of legitimate injury, and it’s part of the proof that the commission really isn’t smart to what wrestling really is about.
  • We get a really long letter on Bruno’s radio interview. The writer taped the second hour and is hoping to get tape of the first hour. But before getting to the good stuff, he first wants to note that lying and silly gimmicks didn’t start in 1984 (was Gorilla Monsoon really from Manchuria? Didn’t Bruno employ gimmick wrestlers when he booked Pittsburgh? How about when he’d blade and claim to have spent the night hospitalized receiving transfusions) and that Bruno’s not really got a leg to stand on for “wrestling must be credible and it is an insult to the fans’ intelligence to lie to them.” Fans knew then just as they know now that it’s a work, but that doesn’t matter - you watch the show because it’s entertaining and you want to see the magician do their tricks. Also, the writer weighs in that the real story with the Main Event will be told by the demographic breakdown rather than the overall rating. In other words, is Hulk Hogan the Demo God? Anyway, after all this preamble, we finally get some quotes from the interview:
  • Bruno denies blading happened in his day but says “today, nothing would surprise me.”
  • Says he’ll never work for the NWA. “I wouldn’t touch it with a 50-foot pole.”
  • He breaks kayfabe on George Steele and says he’s been a teacher for years.
  • He thinks Bobby Heenan is a “dud and a disgrace” to wrestling.
  • He compliments Ric Flair as a guy who can give you an exciting 30 or 40 minute match, but the NWA “have an awful lot of bizarre nonsense in there that, to me, is no good.”
  • He says David wanted to be like him and he tried to warn David that these days they aren’t interested in “guys who just want to wrestle” but he’ll be going to Japan where they appreciate that better.
  • He didn’t like doing commentary. He just clocked in, did his job, and left as soon as he was done. He was very uncomfortable and unhappy doing it.
  • Bruno says WWF didn’t really have anything great to generate interest in the tournament for Wrestlemania.
  • A caller asks if his wrestling was all real, and Bruno says “Well, it was in my day, at least I thought it was.
  • We get a letter that feels so much like it could have been a post here on /SquaredCircle when Dave rated Omega/Okada 6 stars that I’m posting it in its entirety. Be warned, it is long, kind of racist, and absolutely bonkers, but that’s not unfamiliar around these parts. It gets the headline “Sick of praise for Japan.”
I get so sick of the way that people talk about Japanese wrestling. There’s no question it should be covered extensively in the Observer because it is a significant part of the wrestling world. However, when you start printing letters that criticize the American society and the jazz scene, then you are going way too far.
Anyone who thinks the Japanese never forsake quality for showmanship is full of it. The rock group KISS has enjoyed phenomenal success there because of their wild appearence [sic] and stage show. In fact, when they stopped wearing their makeup in the United States, they waited almost two years to do the same in Japan because they knew they wouldn’t be accepted there without it. And what about the movie industry? Do you think Godzilla movies are popular because of great acting?
As a student, I find teachers constantly comparing the American intelligence with that of the Japanese. I’m sure that the wrestlers love being compared to Japanese wrestlers as much as I love being compared to Japanese students. The Japanese do well at everything because they become obsessed with it. For them, it’s a matter of pride. If they screw up, it’s not only a mark on themselves but also on their entire family. You may think that’s great, but it puts a lot of pressure on everyone. They spend hours studying and I’m certain spend hours learning wrestling skills and have no time for themselves. Cut the North American wrestlers some slack. They’re just trying to make a living and preserve their bodies in the process. Look at what trying to wrestle like the Japanese did to Tommy Billington. Everyone would love matches filled with nothing but high spots, but working them is a great way to destroy yourself in a hurry. Now there is no excuse for total duds like Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant either, but there are many non-Japanese who can hold their own without going crazy about it. I wonder how many Observer readers can honestly say that they work as hard at their own jobs as the Japanese in the same profession do. If they do, then I think they would quality [sic] as workaholics.
If there is anything wrong with our society, it’s the lack of national pride, which is so evident in the pages of the Observer. You seem to hate everything that wasn’t imported from the other side of the world. I have absolutely nothing against the country of Japan or Japanese wrestling, but I don’t think it’s up to a bunch of wrestling fans to dictate what’s wrong with our country just because they prefer the Oriental style of wrestling. I think the Observer is great, but I’d like to see you stick to writing about wrestling instead of how rotten our way of life is. I’m sure that’s what a Japanese journalist would do.
  • Anyway, Dave responds to that letter, giving the writer only 4 stars because it’s not in the literally-only-opened-a-couple-weeks-ago Tokyo Dome:
DM: Have I ever written about how rotten our quality of life is or done any cultural comparisons between the U.S. and Japan except to where it pertains to the wrestling business? If I lived in Japan and made a comparison of the quality of the football product and wrote the U.S. product was superior, I hope people wouldn’t take it as an indictment against an entire society.
  • Lastly, it’s about that time of year, I guess, because we have letters arguing about whether Dave should include GLOW coverage or not. Two letters this week on that theme, the first noting what the writer calls a progression in the letters calling for more coverage of women’s wrestling. First were the calls for more coverage of “conventional” women’s wrestling. Then the calls for GLOW coverage. Then POWW. Guess the next will be coverage of the apartment house wrestling scene, the writer supposes. The other writer claims to speak for 90% of subscribers and says Dave would offend that much of his readership if he covers GLOW and POWW and says that if you even consider GLOW to be pro wrestling, you’re incapable of understanding what makes a match good or not. This one asks if Dave’s going to be asked to cover mud wrestling next. There’s no misogyny problem in wrestling fandom. Move along. Nothing to see here.
  • Back to news, the Kentucky Athletic Commission has put up some new rules. There are to be guard rails around the ring now. Throwing an opponent over the top rope will result in a fine or suspension. Ditto for any referee who doesn’t immediately stop the match for it. The top rope rule is now state law, as insane as that sounds.
  • Dave should have national numbers next week, but in Atlanta Clash of the Champions drew an 11.7 rating, with the FlaiSting match hitting 14.5 National numbers will not be nearly that high, but hitting that 5 Dave mentioned earlier that would mean 2 million viewers doesn’t seem so far fetched anymore. Clash beat the NCAA tournament on the networks in Atlanta. TBS is reportedly looking to do another in prime time on a Wednesday early in the summer.
  • Stampede set up an angle where Johnny Smith (kayfabe Davey Boy’s cousin or brother or something) argued with Diana Hart Smith, which got Owen out to defend his sister. Davey Boy was supposed to come in after Wrestlemania to work with Johnny, but Vince put the kibosh on that. There were also considerations for some Stampede guys to participate in the Crockett Cup, but politics (Vince) made that a no-go. So it’s probably no coincidence that when Owen did the job for Hercules it was just outside Greensboro. Anyway, the real takeaway is that Owen is probably coming over to WWF by the end of the year.
NEXT WEEK: Clash vs. Wrestlemania poll results, Clash ratings and Wrestlemania buyrate, an assload of mini headlines because news is apparently thin next week, and more
submitted by SaintRidley to SquaredCircle [link] [comments]

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