I don't believe in astrology, but the first Mrs. Oaktown did. She used to say, "you're such a Virgo." What she meant by this was OCD. Apparently this is a Virgo trait. On occasion she'd find some anecodtal evidence to support this Virgo thing. I scoffed but I noticed.

This one time, I was at the grocery store and this guy behind me in line started straightening up the checkstand while he was waiting: he stacked the hand carts, put the People Magazine back in the rack with People and the Us Magazine back in with the Us. He put the Trident gum back in it's spot. He just kind of did it all unconsciously. Seemed like a thing I would do.

So I turned to the guy and I said, "Hey, this is going to sound like a weird question, but when's your birthday?" I shit you not the guy says, "August 24th." I said, "Huh...mine too."

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," wrote Shakespeare.

Just like I don't believe in astrology, I don't believe in hunches. I think that SABR is the way to go. And yet...and yet, it's hard to shake that feeling that we might know something we cannot logically know. And yes, this is subject to confirmation bias. We remember the times hunches were right and forget when we were wrong. But it feels like if you're paying good attention, sometimes somehow you can know. It's still a game played by men, not number generating machines.

It was the Bossman conversation that got me thinking of this, especially with the idea of Justin going to the Braves. It's a great storyline for fake baseball because it taps into this feeling of maybe we can guess at something beyond the numbers. What will it mean to the numbers when brothers play together?

Just on a whim, I looked up the Upton brothers birthdays: BJ August 21st, Justin August 25th. Bookends to my birthday, though BJ is a Leo. But then, so was the first Mrs. Oaktown. Her birthday was August 21st.

I always wondered why psychics have their store open when no one is in them... Wouldn't they just open when they knew someone would be arriving?

I think it’s in Ocean’s 12, Elliot Gould is having a psychic reading and either the cops or Andy Garcia’s thugs burst in on him and he goes, “THIS? This you couldn’t see?”

I've played a few hunches in my life, which is why I don't gamble.

Hunches. one of the top bands of the 2000's, easilly--though criminally overlooked/underrated.

Ever notice how much the Upton brothers resemble the WIlliams sisters. BJ and Venus: the older children, mercurial, never quite there but accomplished, capable of hitting great heights but always the sense that there's something not quite all out there, something private.

Little brother/sister: both brutes, without finesse, without subtlety, hearts on sleeves, nicked up, ruled by emotion.

Like Serena, needs her sister, Justin needs his brother to sacrifice. Be there. Of course he wants BJ there to do whatever, hit lead off, hit 5th, BJ hits a lead homer off Marmol, Justin hits the game winner and gets the headline, deservedly so.

Older siblings sacrifice something, it's not tangible. Running a kind of interference.

Bossman Sr. is like Richard Williams. A big man behind the success saying, "you will not fail." The older brother is a bridge, a buffer.

Facinating dynamic.

Uptons and Williams are good comparisons. You can find examples going the other way I'm sure. Henry and Tommie Aaron first came to mind.

I looked up the DiMaggios and saw that Vince once led the league in games played with 157 in 1943. My hunch is that the Pirates played in three games that were suspended but the player stats counted.

I don't believe in astrology. And yet, and yet... when I got married, my mom told me that my bride-to-be was not a good match for my sign (she an Aquarius, I a Scorpio). Of course I pooh-poohed her. I believe in logic and free will.

Now no longer married, the second woman I wanted to make my wife (which didn't pan out in the end) was a Leo. Apparently that's a bad match too (and believe me, it would've been if we would've got hitched!).

So Astrology: 2, Joe's logical reasoning: 0.

I comfort myself that it's just a small sample size.