Measures, good measures & targets
A lineup featuring a baseball player of all time, a basketball performance of all time (maybe?), and a second-round game of all time.
The most recent Lineup was built to set ideas free before they stagnate, get tucked away into a corner or scurry away. I wasn’t planning a second edition, but here we are.
It’s not a monthly feature. It’s a rhythm. Ideas or observations will show up to the metaphorical sandlot looking for a place to play ball. When nine arrive to form a lineup, they’ll hit the field via the send button.
1. S. Ohtani, best baseball player ⚾🌌
Watching Shohei Ohtani in the 2020s is what I imagine it was like watching Babe Ruth in the 1920s or Willie Mays from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. We’re living in the prime decade of one of the top 0.025% (or so) of Major League Baseball players. Unlike previous GOAT contenders, he gets the World Baseball Classic as a spring stage. The WBC went better in 2023 than in 2026 for Samurai Japan, but Ohtani jumps from meaningful spring games to prepping for a three-peat attempt with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He could win a fourth-straight MVP. Only Barry Bonds has done that. Watching current Ohtani doesn’t feel like watching 2000s Bonds because there’s no sense of incredulity alongside the otherworldly. Ohtani convinces us that he’s breaking the boundaries of baseball performance while remaining within the confines of human capabilities.1
2. R. Phelps, anti-inspiration 🤗📈
For weeks, Nate F. and I planned to meet up for coffee on a Friday morning. When it finally happened, the conversation revolved around Nate’s idea of building a small market professional sports team via an environment of care and development. My epiphany was that this is the opposite of the plot in “Major League,” in which Rachel Phelps inherits and tears down the roster of the Cleveland Indians to tank attendance and relocate to Miami. If an organization doesn’t generate the money to offer competitive salaries to established stars, would investing the money they do have in taking the best care of the players they could afford prove to be competitive? This is not a question about a Dodgers-level financial behemoth deciding to dedicate a portion of its budget to excellent player care. Instead, what if a team like the Cleveland Guardians built up such a healthy ecosystem of care for players and their families that leaving would present a difficult choice? The anti-“Major League” Major League Baseball team? Every video game career mode where you max out prospect development? Which teams have taken steps in this direction, and how did it pay off? I texted Nate later that Friday morning to let him know that I had filled up a page of notes for future development. Researching and reporting on this kind of project would be a dream.
3. Nate E., bracketeer 🏀🟦
March Madness will be a tale of the tape in Nate E.’s living room, complete with colored dots to track family picks.
4. B. Adebayo, prolific scorer 8️⃣3️⃣
I recently finished reading Cory Doctorow’s “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.” There’s plenty worth unpacking from Doctorow’s explanation of the current movement of corporate technofeudalism and how it connects to corporate sports involvement. For now, this quote from economist Charles Goodhart stuck out:
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
Measures, good measures and targets are three distinct things, and I like empowering you to distinguish between them as you will. Consider Bam Adebayo’s recent 83-point game for the Miami Heat. Adebayo surpassed Kobe Bryant’s 81 — labeled “IMMORTAL” by the NBA YouTube channel last month — for the second-most points in an NBA game and made a lot of people mad. Adebayo’s outing evolved from a prolific performance to an exercise in manufacturing scoring opportunities. This is not an opinion. The Miami Heat fouled while up on the Washington Wizards to create more offensive possessions in the fourth quarter because 81 was in range. Only Wilt Chamberlain scored more in a game. Do you care how he got there? Decide for yourself if 83 is a good measure after 81 became a target.
5. T. Etienne, corrector 🏈📛
Travis Etienne played four seasons as a Clemson Tiger and another four with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Now that he’s signed with the New Orleans Saints, he’s clarified that we’ve been pronouncing his name incorrectly. How did you mentally pronounce “Etienne”? “Eht-ee-ehn”? “EE-tee-ehn”? Nope. Try “AY-chan.”2 Etienne explained that he spent four weeks repeatedly correcting his college coaches until giving up and going with what was easiest for others to pronounce. He was a four-star recruit. By the time he became a national champion, a two-time ACC Player of the Year and an All-American, he had already ceded the pronunciation battle. Getting drafted 25th overall didn’t provide a pronunciation reset, but this press conference gave him a fresh start in a city accustomed to the nuances of French.
“I’m very much open to being Travis Etienne again. Being myself. I don’t have to correct people here on how to say my name each and every day, and I kind of love that. Just get back to me.”
6. Curtis M., court observer 🚥👀
My friend Curtis flew from Tucson to Kansas City for the University of Arizona’s successful completion of the Big 12 double: regular season title and tournament champs. He sent me a courtside view of the Big 12’s fancy yet slippery glass court. Here’s what the LED-powered screen/surface looked like in arena light.
And here’s what it added to the modern ambience of starter intros before officials decided to revert to a wood court before the semifinals. Curtis was correct with this onsite reporting when I asked if it was cool in person: “Yeah it is. Lots of slipping though.”
7. K. Antonelli, hat trick winner 1️⃣🏁⏱
Kimi Antonelli, whom I immediately referred to as Peter Parker when he first appeared in Drive to Survive, became the youngest driver to claim pole position at the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix. He won the race and claimed the fastest lap to complete the Formula 1 hat trick — which is more like a mini-treble (winning three overlapping yet distinct competitions) than a hat trick (repeating a feat three times). We love trebles at Thrill Shot. Spring is treble season because of March Madness and the European Champions League. I don’t think F1 drivers can win a seasonal treble with only the constructor and Driver championships available. But each race weekend offers the chance for a driver to pull off the rare feat. Despite so many chances, only four drivers have double-digit trebles in their careers. Antonelli was the youngest pole sitter in F1 in Shanghai, so that would mean he’s the youngest hat trick winner, too.
8. T. Tanner, losing legend 💔🤩
Right now3, Vanderbilt is playing Nebraska in a March Madness second-round that I described in a Substack note as a shaken up soda can of a basketball game. The Cornhusker crowd descended on Oklahoma City and filled the stands with a sea of red. Nebrasketball won its first tournament game two days ago.4 Tyler Tanner is at the tail end of an All-American honorable mention season that has already broken the Vanderbilt record for wins (27). He’s e v e r y w h e r e against the Huskers. The Commodores just took their first lead with 8:22 remaining in the second half. Tanner has 22 points, two rebounds, three assists and four steals. He’s the main character in a game that has had nonstop buzzer-beater energy. GAME GOES FINAL UPDATE: Tanner’s three-quarter court heave hit the square on the backboard, banked down, went halfway in, and bounced out. Nebraska is in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time. Tanner’s shot will go down with Gordon Hayward’s long shot against Duke as one of the near-misses of all time. The High Point-Arkansas game is close, and I can’t quite bring myself to switch over from the ecstatic Cornhusker crowd.
9. J. Lawrence, double dribbler 🏀🏀
GAME HAS BEEN OVER A WHILE UPDATE: Nebraska won by two, which is the number of points awarded to Jamarques Lawrence for a dunk that followed a double dribble on a fast break. He was so open. He gathered the ball with both hands, bounced it once more and slammed it home. The announcers caught it. The officials did not. Games of all time are not classics because they’re perfect. They have wrinkles and blemishes to talk about later. (Let’s see if the double dribble makes the official highlight package, though.5)
Okay, this was fun. I already know who will lead off the next lineup. Enjoy this inbox adrenaline. The next one will arrive when it fills up to nine (possibly on another Sunday afternoon because it’s a nice time to publish.)
Next up: A dispatch from the World Baseball Classic Qualifiers here in Tucson, from a year before the Main Tournament, from a minor league park with faraway outfield fences and no Statcast capabilities.
This is NOT a dig at Bonds. I could explain more in depth sometime, but I’ll leave it at “league context matters” for now. I was alive for the Bonds era, and it felt different than Ohtani. Ruth played pre-integration, so perhaps watching Ohtani feels different than watching The Great Bambino play against a portion of the greatest opponents available.
Etienne spelled it out A-C-H-A-N-E, but I left off the E to avoid you thinking the pronunciation rhymes with train.
Well, not right now. But it was right now then.
Style note: don’t expect “of all time” or “ever” around here when those phrases
It did! The play, plus a quick commentary observation of the infringement, but not the slo-mo replay.