Saturday night open thread, 2/4/2023

Feb 4, 2023 - 10:00 PM

Apparently today was the coldest morning in Boston since 1957 — like -10 F (which is -23 C for most of the world). I spent part of it napping with a cat on me. Good times.

In baseball news, the Dodgers signed (among others), old friend Robbie Erlin. He will always stick out in my memory as a baseball example of the gods laughing at the best-laid plans of mice and men. At least he made it back to the majors last year, but it’s been a really rough go for him since 2020.

Trivia, kinda tough: name the two Braves, since 1970, that were the first to cross the 40-homer barrier (not in the NL, in MLB) in a given season. I find one of these to be really obscure.

Second trivia, same topic: since 1970, the first 40-homer-barrier breaker in a given season has never belonged to the same team for three consecutive seasons.... except one span, where a single team had four of them in a row across four seasons. Name the team and the three players who achieved that streak (one of the players necessarily repeats, though even he wasn’t the first-to-40 in consecutive years).