Maggie's Farm

Since we're speaking of global warming today, check out this chart. 

The red line shows the average annual temperature in the northeast United States, while the blue line shows the average number of home runs hit per game in Major League baseball each year (the graphs have been overlaid for convenience of comparison). 

Graphs are science, and the two lines clearly track together: the gradual warming of the first half of the century moving along with the end of the dead-ball era; a slow cooling as home runs declined from the 1950s to the 1970s; then a spike in the late 80's and 90's, with the warmest year all time (1998) the same year that McGwire and Sosa were chasing the home run record.

My conclusion is that while Al Gore is definitely right on about the warming caused by CO2, we also need to do something to cut down on the number of home runs hit if we are going to get this runaway warming under control. Maybe controlling steroid abuse can help.

Regrettably, we heard nothing about this critical subject from the soccer-oriented and baseball-deprived attendees at the UN Bali conference this week. (Related: see our piece on monomania)