sports – Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall

Day 8 of 2026 baseball book reviews: Word up

April 20, 2026April 21, 2026 fartheroffthewall

“Baseballisms: A Murders’ Row
of Metaphors and Idioms”

The author: Leonard Skonecki
The details: McFarland, 334 pages, $59.95/$49.95
The links: The publisher, Bookshop.org
The slight confusion: The publisher lists it at $49.95 in stock. Amazon (please don’t buy it there) also has it for that price, as of March 19, ’26. Bookshop has it for $59.94, available as of May 22, ’26. Target also offers it at $49.99 starting in May.

A review in 90 feet or less:

Leonard Skonecki, right, poses with former Fostoria mayor Eric Keckler. (Credit: The Review Times)

Bless you, Leonard Skonecki.

While not a renowned linguist but a dedicated and curious reader/researcher finding something meaningful and purposeful in retirement, Skonecki is best described as “well-known in Fostoria.” That’s from our own research in the matter.

Through a parallel search, we find Fostoria is “a city located at the convergence of Hancock, Seneca and Wood counties in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. The population was 13,046 in the 2020 Census, slightly down from 13,441 at the 2010 Census. It is approximately 40 miles south of Toledo and 90 miles north of Columbus.”

It was named after Charles W. Foster, a local businessman. His son, also named Charles, became governor of Ohio and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under Benjamin Harrison.

It is also was once famous for making glass.

Now we have a visual.

Skonecki’s author bio notes he once wrote for the weekly Fostoria Focus newspaper, which had a bold run between 1994 until 2014. He also worked in the reference department of the Kaubisch Memorial Public Library.

“Now retired, he lives in Fostoria, Ohio,” the bio wraps up.

We also learned from another source Skonecki “was born and raised in Fostoria and graduated from St. Wendelin High School in 1968. He then lived in Toledo and Dayton and returned to Fostoria in 1995. He has served as the president of the Fostoria Area Historical Society, and also worked for WFOB where he hosted the Friday edition of the Talk@10 interview show.”

Now, we have context.

His body of work includes an appearance in the 2013 documentary “History of Fostoria (Vol. 1),” and, because you can’t stop the flow of important material but you can only hope to contain it, Skonecki reprized his role in the 2014 update “History of Fostoria (Vol. 2).”

Last January, Skonecki was the guest presenter for “Fostoria First & Originals” at the Fostoria Learning Center as part of its “America 250” celebration. Flyers were distributed as the city noted on its Facebook post that it was a moment in time where “Fostoria history comes to life.”

This follows up from a time in April of 2024 when the Seneca County Museum started a “speaker series” where Skonecki presented a program on the robbery of the First National Bank of Fostoria. On May 3, 1934, John Dillinger and one of his gang, Homer Van Meter, robbed the bank of $17,299. In the course of the robbery, nine persons were shot, including Fostoria Police Chief Franklin Culp. In order to make a safe getaway, Dillinger and Van Meter took two bank employees hostage.

“Leonard will be sharing information about the robbery, related events, and how it affected the persons most directly involved,” the information noted. “He will also allow time for questions.”

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Day 5 of 2026 baseball book reviews: M(ake) E(nshittification) T(errible) S(omewhere) in the N.Y. branding

April 13, 2026April 16, 2026 fartheroffthewall

Embrace the disgraced general concept of enshittification as it pertains specifically to the New York Mets and, by geographic circumstances, also to the New York Yankees.

As pent-up anger and frustration ruins the way we wade through an existing world of A.I. slop, we learn that the Enshittocene — a noun coined by author Cory Doctorow and then fleshed out in his 2025 book about “Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to do About it” — expanding the definition beyond soul-crushing Big Tech stalwarts can be a healthy exercise for those who need a way to explain their grief and lack of relief.

If the Amazin’ Mets are an Amazon-Meta mashup, and the Yankees, way more than Waymo or Yahoo in their Oracle world, continue to reflect as the IBM of baseball, you Reddit right that it all happens under what locals call the Big Apple, but really it’s acting on algorithms engineered by the gigabytes of Tim Cook’s Apple Inc.

No wonder the Mets and Yankees start this new week having each lost on five consecutive days for the first time in history, according to Sportradar.

An AI query about how any of this might Venn diagram itself on the circles of despair looks like this:

Plenty of other sources that explain how Steven Cohen, who in 2020 bought the Mets for $2.4 billion from his hedge-fund stash that wasn’t penalized for insider trading, has granted the team a MLB-top $352 million payroll for the 2026. The Mets have under contract the highest-paid player in outfielder Juan Soto, averaging $61.9 million in salary. He is currently injured.

The Dodgers circumvent much of this by deferring payments that otherwise would boost their ’26 payroll to $395 million. They also are on tap to pay the highest tax rate on the Competitive Balance Tax payroll for exceeding MLB’s $244 million threshold. The Mets and Yankees are second and third on that list.

For all the lamentations that the Dodgers are ruining baseball with their ownership spending … why is it every July 1 that we’re all reminded that it is the Mets who continue to give 1999 retiree Bobby Bonilla a $1.193,240.20 paycheck and will do so through 2035 for its example of how defer payments continue to haunt a fanbase looking for excuses to be even more disheveled?

ESPN already has already crunched the numbers to deduct that this Mets-Dodgers matchup is on the hook for more than $1 billion in salary liability. Last year’s meeting between the Mets and Dodgers was the previous most expensive series at $764 million in combined payroll — $36 million in total payroll behind this year’s matchup. When you add in their tax bills, the total jumps to over $1.07 billion, surpassing last year’s record of $1.025 billion. The Dodgers and Mets have ranked first and second (in some order) in total payroll four times since 2022. 2023, when the Mets ranked first and the Dodgers fourth, is the only exception during that stretch.

Aside from cash flow, there’s the Zeitgeist/ethos comparison that can also provide more entertainment.

When the New York Times ran an essay in its opinion pages recently with the headline — “Help! My Favorite Athlete is an Idiot” — it was no coincidence that the author was Devin Gordon, who in 2021 produced the most intriguing and pointed book “So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin’ True Story of the New York Mets — the Best Worst Team in Sports” (our review here).

His riff was about how the franchise that continues to provide him with comedic fodder had to be somewhat dismantled over the last offseason because of political ideology that was contaminating the clubhouse vibe. Note: That was Brandon Nimmo batting leadoff for the Texas Rangers during last Dodgers’ homestand instead of what we’ve been used to seeing the Mets as they come into town this week.

As with most NYT stories, some of the best material is buried in the reader responses. Such as:

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Day 1 of 2026 baseball book reviews: Sho-ing off for the kids

April 1, 2026April 21, 2026 fartheroffthewall

“Decoy Saves Opening Day”

The author: Shohei Ohtani and Michael Blank
The illustrator: Fanny Liem
The details: HarperCollins, 32 pages, $21.99, released Feb. 3, ’26
The links: The publisher and Bookshop.org

“Shohei Ohtani: A Little Golden Book Biography”

The author: Nicole de las Heras
The illustrator: Toshiki Nakamura
The details: Little Golden Book Biographies/Penguin/Random House, 24 pages, $5.99; released March 3, ’26
The links: The publisher and at Bookstore.org

A review in 90 feet or less:

An AI overview collection of words and symbols generated from a search engine ask specifically about “Shohei Ohtani insane endorsement income” quickly will engineer this kind of answer-nugget:

“Shohei Ohtani is projected to earn an estimated $125 million in endorsement income for 2026, with nearly 20 global brand partners, making him the highest-paid athlete in the world from endorsements alone, according to Sportico data via Boardroom. This follows an estimated $100 million in marketing revenue earned during 2025, on top of a $2 million salary with the Dodgers — a threshold only previously reached by legends like Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, and Stephen Curry”

We believe this to be true, because the AI primary source for that information seems to spitting out an Instragram post made by MLB on Fox and Fox Sports. Those numbers had been regurgitated many times over by other media platforms, including the Los Angeles Times, when, in the headline “Why $100 million in endorsements says Shohei Ohtani is the global face of sport,” the writer went on to deduce: “In Ohtani, whose face appears on everything from airplanes to skin care products, baseball at long last has its Michael Jordan: the superstar that has transcended sports and ascended to the status of global pop culture icon.”

He can hit. He can pitch.

He can write a book. Not one of those “as told to” mass-market, ghost-written, give-us-the-gossip type of sordid tale.

No new dirt here on Ippei here. It’s about a different dog.

Ohtani’s handlers must be painfully aware there is no money to be made in the book publishing business.

Just ask writers such as Bill Plunkett, who did the 2025 “L.A. Story: Shohei Ohtani, The Los Angeles Dodges and a Season for the Ages” or Jeff Fletcher, who fashioned an update of his 2022 “Sho-Time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played.” All their deadline work dancing around their regular job of covering the Dodgers and Angels didn’t generate royalties that will allow them to lead a more regal suburban existence.

Ohtani’s co-author, Michael Blank, could even clue him in. Blanks is a venture capitalist who has been with Creative Artists Agency for 15 years.

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No. 23: Ryan Elmquist

February 22, 2026March 2, 2026 fartheroffthewall

This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.

The most obvious choices for No. 23:

= Kirk Gibson: Los Angeles Dodgers
= LeBron James: Los Angeles Lakers
= David Beckham: Los Angeles Galaxy
= Eric Karros: Los Angeles Dodgers
= Dustin Brown: Los Angeles Kings

The not-so obvious choices for No. 23:

= Harold Minor: USC basketball
= Diana Taurasi: Don Lugo High School girls basketball
= Jackie Joyner: UCLA women’s basketball
= Jonathan Franklin: UCLA football
= Kenny Washington: UCLA basketball

The most interesting story for No. 23:
Ryan Elmquist, Caltech basketball guard (2007-08 to 2010-11)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Pasadena, Whittier, Pomona, LaVerne

Caltech senior Ryan Elmquist looks for a shot during his team’s 87-53 win over Eastern Nazerene, its second in a row during the 2010-11 season (later forfeited). Danny Moloshok/New York Times.

Ryan Elmquist scored 36 on his ACT college entrance exam. That surely impressed his classmates at Woodbury High in Minnesota, just East of the Twin Cities. Especially those who came to understand how that was a perfect score.

It gave Elmquist a ticket to dig out of the Midwest snow, head to Pasadena and enroll in California Institute of Technology — better known as Caltech in “The Big Bang Theory” fandom.

His major was to study computer science. His guilty pleasure was to keep playing basketball.

In Caltech lore, Elmquist, a 6-foot-5 forward, is far better remembered for the time when he scored one not-so-lousy free throw on February 22, 2011. The last of his 23 points, with 3.3 seconds left, accounted for the final margin in a 46-45 victory for the Beavers over visiting Occidental College on their home Braun Athletic Center.

His smarter-than-smart peers were as impressed as the school’s Nobel Laureate-rich professorial staff and researchers. For Elmquist not only had the perfect ending to his senior season in the final game he ever played for the school, it also ended Caltech’s streak of 310 consecutive losses in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) competition. That was a streak that began before Elmquist and his teammates were born, in January of 1985.

But who’s counting. Unless you are a campus full of math nerds.

Bazinga.

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No. 59: Barbie

February 12, 2026February 15, 2026 fartheroffthewall

The not-so- obvious choices for No. 59:

= Collin Ashton, USC football
= Lou Ferrigno Jr., USC football
= Mario Celotto, USC football
= George Kase, UCLA football
= Evan Phillips, Los Angeles Dodgers
= Ismail Valdez, Los Angeles Dodgers
= Loek Van Mil, Los Angeles Angels

The most interesting story for No. 59:
=Barbie, pop culture icon (1959 to present)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Hawthorne, El Segundo, Los Angeles

Of all the pretty people, impenetrable places and pretend things to chose from, Barbie pushed herself onto the cover of Sports Illustrated in early 2014.

It figures that the iconic figurine and model citizen created by the then-Hawthorne based Mattel toy company wasn’t depicted as an athlete. This wasn’t the SI Sportsperson of the Year issue.

Yet, jockified Barbie could play the part, and this could have passed as fashionable forward thinking here.

Through the years, Barbie has gone beyond a fancy-dressed glamor symbol. She’s been a volleyball player. And a soccer player. And a softball player. Name the sport — we’re even thinking pickleball — and in many display cases, she’s sporting a No. 59 jersey.

That’s a call back to the year she was created, 1959.

Some of those “59” Barbies also tout off her active lifestyle as part of the “Malibu Collection,” along with genital challenged boyfriend, Ken.

But for this purpose, for this SI cover, this Barbie, a certified Southern California 11 ½-inch titan, was on the Swimsuit issue. Wearing her a classic black-and-white one-piece retro swimsuit.

Legendary photographer Water Ioos, Jr., was also in on the photo shoot.

“She’s like the best model I’ve ever worked with,” he said. “She takes directions almost silently.”

Officially, it was an #unapologetic synergistic “cover wrap” to coincide with the American International Toy Fair, as well as celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the magazine. Indeed, Mattel paid SI for the privilege of its platform exposure. And a limited edition SI Barbie doll went on sale to cash in on it all.

All in all, this Barbie/SI co-oped exposure became uncomfortable pearl clutching for some concerned about the image-consciousness messaging to young women.

“Mattel has long contended with complaints that Barbie, with her lithesome figure and focus on fashion, is not a positive role model for girls,” a New York Times story noted. “At the same time, Sports Illustrated is no favorite of some critics who believe that the swimsuit issue objectifies women.”

A Mattel spokesman responded in a story for NBC News: “Barbie has always been a lightning rod for controversy and opinions. Posing in SI gives Barbie and her fellow legends an opportunity to own who they are, celebrate what they have accomplished and show the world it is OK to be capable and captivating.”

That story noted Sports Illustrated claims to have more than 17 million women read its Swimsuit issue, more than most major fashion magazines combined, and sales for items the models wear get a significant boost.

“Barbie sort of has been taken hostage,” said a university marketing professor, “(but) despite her haters and naysayers, she’s comfortable with who she is.”

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