It's Hall of Fame Time Again

Last year we shamed Jayson Stark of ESPN for admitting that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are two of the greatest players of all time, but leaving them off his 2014 Hall of Fame ballot.  He cited the broken voting system with many critiques that we share, but our point was that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

So this year, it's only fair that we commend Stark for his full throated support for the games best players, full stop.  We only hope that more members of the BBWAA take the same approach and start to clear out the backlog of historically great players that, to date, have not been enshrined into the games Hall of Fame. 

With that, we present our 2015 ballot and predictions.  Remember, due to the asinine rules imposed by the Hall of Fame (which Stark does a great job criticizing), a ballot can only have 10 players, regardless of how many are worthy of induction.   

1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Randy Johnson*
4. Pedro Martinez*
5. John Smoltz* 
6. Jeff Bagwell
7. Mike Piazza 
8. Curt Schilling
9. Mark McGwire
10. Craig Biggio*

* Who we think will get inducted - Smoltz and Biggio will be very close to 75%, but we think/hope they both get there. 

Our ballot has changed from last year - we gain three spots given the induction of Maddux, Glavine and Thomas, which are taken by first timers Big Unit, Pedro and Smoltz.  Our only other change was selecting Biggio instead of Sammy Sosa.  This change is partly due to our realization that we were under-appreciating the breadth of Biggio accomplishments and partly due to finally taking off our Cubbie Blue tinted glasses and realizing that Sosa's role in bringing the game back from it's devastating strike year was important, but not a reason for Hall induction under the current rules.  It's also clear that a vote for Sosa would be wasted as he only received 7% last year and is likely to fall below the 5% threshold in 2015, forever removing him from the ballot.   

Concussions Help USA Win First World Cup Trophy

July 24, 2026 – NEW YORK

Over one million people packed the Canyon of Heroes on Friday for a ticker tape parade in honor of the United States Men’s National Soccer team and their hard fought 2026 FIFA World Cup Championship. 

After failing to reach the knock-out stage of the world’s most popular tournament in 2014 and back-to-back heartbreaking losses in the quarterfinals to Germany in 2018 and Argentina in 2022, Jurgen Klinsmann’s squad notched a 3-2 victory over a heavily favored Brazil squad to secure the first World Cup Championship for the United States, and a ticker tape parade down Broadway.   

When asked what changed in the 12 years since the US was unceremoniously ousted from the 2014 tournament after three straight losses, Klinsmann took a few seconds to think and responded with one simple word - “concussions.” 

Klinsmann followed up, “obviously our guys worked incredibly hard, played as a cohesive unit, peaked at the right time, and performed beautifully when it mattered most.  But without the concern about concussions in the 2010’s, I’m confident you would instead be watching many of our best players in pads and a helmet on Sunday’s in the NFL instead of on my squad in the FIFA World Cup.”

Starting in the early 2010’s parents started steering their kids away from sports with a high risk of head injury, American football in particular.  Parents have always been concerned with injuries in football, but the risk of concussions and their long term impact, was just too high to bear.  By the end of the 2010’s a large majority of parents and even some local governments banned full contact football until high school. 

Soccer was the primary beneficiary of this movement away from football.  As Klinsmann explains, “12 years ago, many, if not most, of the elite American soccer talents would have never even known they were elite soccer talents.  At a young age, these boys would have been gobbled up by the sexier and better funded fall sport of football and never again touched a soccer ball.”

The 2010’s was the height of the NFL’s popularity, but with that popularity came an increased scrutiny of head injuries, particularly the cumulative effect of multiple head injuries long after a players career was over.  Multiple ex-NFL players had committed suicide due to the lingering effects of years of football related head injuries, and many more were diagnosed with various brain afflictions that drastically reduced their quality of life.  Studies even came out showing the negative developmental effects of hits to the head as early as pee-wee football.    

As a result of the increased focus on concussions in football, parents started to ban their children from football.  The decline in football participation, coupled with the surge in popularity of a vastly improved and better funded professional soccer league in the US (Major League Soccer), created the perfect environment for US Soccer to thrive.    

And thrive it has, culminating in this year’s World Cup triumph.  The past 12 to 15 years has proven that the concern over concussions has been football’s loss and soccer’s gain, and with it, America’s standing as an international soccer powerhouse. 

US Men’s National Team Captain, and the winner of the 2026 Golden Boot, Joe Smith echoed his managers remarks, “despite my temper tantrums, my mom would not allow me to play football as a kid.  As a 10 year old, I was distraught, but looking back, I’m forever indebted to my mother for not letting me play football as a kid.  The other fall sport of interest was soccer, so I poured my time and effort into soccer and became the world-class player I am today.  To be the captain of the first US Men’s National Team to win the World Cup is an incredible feeling and I owe it all to my mother, and in a weird way, to the concussion controversies.  A Super Bowl victory could never mean this much to me, my family or my country.” 

The Income Inequality Boogeyman: Compound Interest

We can’t seem to make it through a single opinion page or White House press conference without hearing about the terrible and destructive problem of income inequality.   Post after post, tweet after tweet, highlight the income gains achieved by the top 1% versus those gained or lost by other income percentiles. 

Today, Paul Krugman lectures us on “Why We Talk About the One Percent” noting that the top 1% achieved a 182.4% increase in their inflation adjusted income from 1979 to 2012.  A gain he infers as “spectacular.”  He also notes that the top 2-5% gained 51.9% over the same period, a gain he generalizes as “good.” 

For some much needed context, these figures equate to an annual, inflation-adjusted, growth rate of 3.2% for the top 1% and 1.3% for the next 4%.   These figures don’t strike us “spectacular”, nor would it suggest something evil or destructive.  After all, that income isn’t just buried in backyards; it’s spent and invested in the economy, providing new business with capital, creating jobs, etc.. 

These “spectacular” income gains are always provided as evidence of a problem – i.e. the incomes of the top 1% are growing faster than those of the next 4%, or more worrisome, the next 95%.  In a logic and information vacuum, that could seem like a reasonable problem - why do incomes at the top grow faster than those not at the top? 

However, we’d hope that Krugman, et al are not operating in a logic and information vacuum (although sometimes we wonder) and would answer one simple question:  

How much of the “income inequality problem” is a result of the simple compounding of interest? 

Those in the top 1% of incomes not only rely on their labor for income, but a large percentage of their income is likely to have been earned by large piles of cash.  These piles of cash dwarf anything seen in the lower percentile of earners.  Some of this cash is spent (i.e. income for someone else), but for the vast majority of 1%ers, this cash is deployed into the economy in the form of savings, stocks, bonds, property, new businesses, etc.  These investments generate interest, dividends and capital gain income, which in turn generates more cash, which in turn generates even more interest, dividends and capital gain income.  Rinse and repeat.  Over thirty years, compound interest is a very powerful force.  In fact, it’s said that Albert Einstein himself noted that “the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.” 

Therefore, isn’t compound interest the most logical and innocuous explanation for why the top 1% have experienced “spectacular” income gains over the last 30 or so years?  Doesn’t this also explain why incomes of people with piles of money are growing faster than those with smaller or nonexistent piles money?

If so, is this really a problem?  Is there a need for a “solution”?  Do we ban compound interest?  For the last few years, the Feds actions have been trying just that with a Fed Funds rate of roughly zero.  Or should we just back an IRS semi up to the 1%’s houses and just start confiscating those piles of cash?  In many states we’re already half way there with combined federal and state tax rates above 50%. 

The focus should be on why incomes are flat for those outside the top 10%, and what policies and attitudes can be adopted to create income gains across the board.  Hint: denigrating or confiscating success does not create more success.  Bellowing about the “spectacular” income gains of the top 1%, or 5% or 10% over the last 30+ years generates clicks and populist outrage, but does nothing to help the flat (or falling) incomes of everyone else.