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Data from Trump era will have asterisks [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-18
To my recollection, 61* is the only movie title that includes an asterisk.
Certainly, other movies without any alphabetic characters have been released — examples include “10” (starring Bo Derek about a perfect woman), “54” (starring Salma Hayak and Neve Campbell about a NY nightclub in the 1970s) and “1984” (based on George Orwell’s book about a totalitarian future society). But I don’t know of any others with asterisks.
The 2001 movie, directed by Billy Crystal, was about the parallel quests of Yankee outfielders Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle to break Babe Ruth’s home run record of 60, in the same season — 1961. Maris ended the year with 61 homers and Mantle ended it with 54. The reason why Maris’s record was given an asterisk is because he achieved it in a 162 game season, whereas Ruth hit his 60 in a 154 game season.
Later, in 1998, another pair of sluggers (Sammy Sosa, Cubs and Mark McGwire, Cardinals) obliterated the records of both Maris and Ruth, by hitting 66 and 70 homers, respectively. McGwire’s record still holds today — without any asterisk (other than a journalistic black cloud that he likely used performance enhancing drugs).
On a more serious note, I have been doing some research on local temperatures and heat losses from residences in the winter months and it struck me that if Trump’s hatchet men are successful in their attempt to fire thousands of federal employees (especially those who are responsible for documenting historical statistics like weather conditions) is successful, we will have lousy records that will be flagged with an asterisk and be the subject of wide derision.
Only a foolish attention grabber would want his name to be associated with untrustworthy records in the history books. What a loser!
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