It all comes down to this!
Welcome back!
Last week, on the final regular season prompt of PYW24, I asked you to tell me what it would have taken to get Ohtani’s 50/50 home run ball out of your hands (A saga which has taken quite the turn if you hadn’t heard) and y’all had thoughts about it!
As always on the final week, for the sake of length, I just summarize the winning responses. Dano got four recs, gzimmerm got three, and Jack and kilnborn tied for third with two a piece!
Gzimmerm made a race of it, but ultimately kilnborn sealed the top spot in the second half! Congratulations!!
Now to decide a champion.
For those who don’t remember, I will now give you the three top rec’d submissions from our two finalists, Dano and kilnborn, from their respective halves of the season. At the end, there will be a poll (vote in the poll, not the comments!) and YOU will decide who is the PYW24 Champion!
First half – Dano_in_Tucson
Week 2 – 8 recs – What should the fan who caught Ohtani’s first Dodger home run ball have demanded in exchange [ed. note] look it’s been a long year okay lol
Week 9 – 7 recs – In light of the Controversial Infield Fly call to end the Baltimore/Chicago game on Thursday, give me an official baseball rule you would alter/do away with and it’s replacement!
Alt text: With the recent attention to bad umpiring, lotsa folks have been talking about how to fix that. The arguments seem to come in three broad categories: “robot umps now!”, “preserve the human element!”, and “let’s have challenges for balls-and-strikes”.
To make everybody happy, I would propose none of the above. Instead, umpires should be fitted with electrodes that induce electric shocks of escalating voltage in random body parts for each bad call. No review, no removal of the human element, but instead a way of punishing bad umpires in real time and incentivizing them meaningfully to improve. Plus, electric shocks and their effects could be hilarious.
Week 10 – 5 recs – As I write this, my neighbors are terrifying my dog with fireworks. Since those are commonplace in celebrations, let’s create a new celebration families can enjoy after a game instead!
Alt text: I believe that, as it seems like all MLB ballparks are increasingly all about the “fan experience,” what could be better in the service of that than making the fans themselves part of the fireworks show? It would be impractical to involve every fan in the ballpark, of course, but I would propose selecting 100 or 200 fans at random who, at the start of the fireworks, would themselves be launched into the sky (either by giant elastic bands, or catapults, or perhaps rockets attached to the bottoms of their seats), possibly with parachutes or glider wings or something for the inevitable descent, so that they can soar with the bursts and bangs of pyrotechnics, experience a fireworks display as they’ve never experienced it before, and generally be the envy of their friends and coworkers*.
* Assuming they survive.
Second half – kilnborn
Week 13 – 6 recs – the Diamondbacks will be giving away a Ketel Marte Batflip Bobblehead, which has the fairly unique feature of a spinning bat. What other variations to a bobblehead should be next, and what player’s bobble should they go with? Go!
Week 16 – 6 recs – What (non-baseball) Olympic sports you thought the Diamondbacks would be best at?
Week 18 – 5 recs – If you were on the Strength and Conditioning team, what would be one thing you would implement immediately to end all Diamondback injuries?
And now it’s in your hands! Which one of these worthy competitors will take the title of Pit Your Wits champion? Go!