Wishing your dad the best from the many CoC readers!
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Getting the time between pitches down is good. Getting the time between balls in play down would be better. Rules changes addressing the latter are harder than a pitch clock.
...
The CBA talk dragged on so long with so many versions going around that I could be mistaken but I think the 45 day unilateral implementation thing doesn’t kick in during this season.
I wonder if the pilot of that plane is in the military, and if so, is that a court martial offense.
I for one WILL die on the "everyone needs masks" hill, in part because I don't want to die for real. But next time someone asks why you are wearing one, take a page from my friend's book (but not literally since my friend is an author and you should leave her books intact) and tell people "oh, I have a mutated airborne form of syphilis."
On the field...
- Last night was sure deflating for the Mets after a great twinbill sweep on Tuesday. But the Giants are pretty good, too.
- Severino wasn't spectacular but managed to hold the Tigers to one run despite allowing seven hits. He seems to be quite on his way to recovering, even as Cole has been pretty iffy so far.
- Watched part of the Blue Jays-Red Sox game, and watched Pivetta left on the mound longer than he should have been since they are playing a day game today. To his credit, he stabilized himself, but the damage was done.
- And now, the Sho Show...six innings pitched, twelve strikeouts, no hits or walks allowed till the sixth; two for four at the plate with a walk and two RBIs. As the Astros didn't manage a hit or walk off the relievers, Sho had a better night at the plate than the entire Houston lineup. Just another night for Ohtani.
The best response to the "why are you still wearing a mask?" question I've seen is "It disrupts the government's ability to track me through facial recognition software."
I've used the reason that I'm a carrier of a rare mutant of airborne testicular leprosy. They don't quite know what that means, but some of those words sound bad so the confusion keeps them quiet.
I'm flying coast to coast tomorrow night, and I've been thinking about how I will respond if somebody hassles me. Right now the leading contender is, "If I wanted to hear from an asshole I would fart" but I'm open to suggestions. The conference I'm attending next week has decided to keep its mask mandate so I'll be in a mask all day next week anyway.
If I were to be in an airplane for the next 4.5 hours with said inquisitor, I'd most likely be polite ("I'm immunocompromised") and avoid a confrontation. In other circumstances, I've tended towards: "is your manhood so week that my personal choices damages it?" with applicable modification for questions from women.
Honestly, I think masking on an airplane is a good idea overall. I am sure I caught the worst cold I ever had on a flight from LA to NYC. There was something off about the air on that flight, and five days later I was laid up with something that was akin to a mild case of COVID in what it did to my lung capacity and energy. I have read about the overall safety of aircraft HVAC systems, and there is research that says air travel is really not healthy (contradicted by research that says it's healthier than most recirculated air).
Never mind that anything you can do to fight back the smell of the person in the next aisle with too much aftershave or perfume on is a good thing.
This article I read yesterday was very interesting. Once moving, the air in the plane is fine. However, the boarding and deplaning process will kill you.
Her bottom line is pretty much the one I have been advocated for months. But it's good to see the science behind things. (Not subscribing to THAT blog, though. I already have enough trouble sleeping.)
Read that myself. Makes sense as to why my nose would get dry enough to bleed when I sneezed after a flight, with that many air changes my sinuses were probably dried out.
My totally anecdotal experience is that pre-Covid, I had about a 50/50 chance of coming down with a cold after flying for vacation. Of course I couldn’t blame it conclusively on the flight, but still.
I’m 100% going to continue wearing a KN95 on planes no matter what, especially at the start of a vacation, because I’m not scared of catching a cold but would really like to avoid it on my vacation.
I'm always puzzled by the people who use "it's just like the cold" as reason for not worrying about catching, well, anything. What kind of weirdo ENJOYS having their sinuses filled with mucus for three days and their nose red and raw after going through four boxes of tissues and waiting a few more days before they stop being tired and can breathe properly?
Heck forget long covid etc, I don't like being sick for even a day! Why not avoid all that nonsense entirely?
You are certainly at higher risk for those minutes the mask is off to eat and drink, but as long as the guy sitting next to you isn't infected it's not that big a risk. If they guy next to you is spewing COVID you are probably screwed no matter what.
You’re assuming that the keynote speaker doesn’t have a slide halfway through their presentation telling everyone it’s okay to remove their masks and toss them in the air, like graduation caps
I'm full on the Swalwell wagon about my mask, which is "You don't f*cking tell me what to do" for anyone that asks, because it's literally no one's business but my own.
What's most frustrating is we know who is likely to wear them, and that's those that are already taking precautions in their lives that mean they are less likely to transmit the virus, while the people who are less careful and more likely to carry are the ones who won't wear them now. We are literally giving the infected an opportunity to hurt others willfully. Just wow.
More than anything in my lifetime except attitudes about climate change, the pandemic has demonstrated how little regard a huge percentage of our nation and maybe of our species doesn't care about anyone else. Certainly a lot of Americans really don't believe in communal responsibility, despite us being told all our lives that it matters. It's horrifying, but not entirely surprising now that the truth is revealed.
I have spent a lot of my adult life thinking about how American media is really obsessed with blue collar schmucks proving more capable and intelligent than highly educated people, who are portrayed as lacking principles and the ability to function in normal society. And a large percentage of our population, as you've put it, really sees themselves as smarter about EVERYTHING than any number of experts who agree.
We teach our people they matter more than others, that they're special and unique, and they take that into the world with that "Main Character Syndrome".
It is fair to say that a lot of Eastern elite types aren't as smart as we think we are. And that we don't know what it's like to be blue collar, to live paycheck to paycheck, to do physical labor that also requires knowledge we don't have in the least. (I couldn't change a tire if the fate of the world depended on it.)
But that is a long way from the maddening resentment of the educated and the conviction that experts know nothing. And the conviction that not having an education somehow makes you "untainted." (Though given the endlessly mixed messaging about the pandemic from experts, I can't blame people for being confused sometimes. I do blame them, however, for deciding this means the experts are all fakes.)
The most frustrating part of it to me is that each loud mouthpiece for casting doubt isn't legitimately doubting a danged thing; they're just grifters trying to get paid. Like how a shocking amount of math textbooks are bad, actually, but one possibly tied to another (R) Governor is good, actually!
Endless mixed messaging isn’t necessarily bad. It reflects the science as we get new data and learn more. It’s doing things right. It’s what real science looks like. Science isn’t done guy in a lab coat saying eureka and the problem is solved forever. It’s not getting the answer at the back of the book.
What is missing is a concerted effort by the medical/scientific community to make it clear that no one really has all the answers. The only expert who has taken this tack is Dr. Osterholm, who repeatedly says "we need a sense of modesty about COVID."
I think that will depend in large part on where in the U.S. you are going. My part of California is still pretty good on an individual level for mask wearing, but I was in Texas in Feb and although it was Austin, it was still night-and-day compared to where I am. (I'm heading to Montreal in August - I'm interested to experience the mask-or-not dynamic in Canada vs the U.S., though it may have changed a lot by then, I suppose.)
It's hard to know, honestly. I'm in Iowa, which has trended very conservative the last few election cycles, and no one gives me grief. But I'm also a white male, and people usually leave people like me alone.
Nats had a couple of potential trade chits make injury news yesterday. Sean Doolittle, who's given up only one hit so far, went on the IL with a sprained elbow ligament, while Josh Bell left the game early for unspecified reasons. Bell doesn't seem too worried about his situation, while Doolittle is going to try to rehab his way back to the bullpen, but at 35 you wonder how long he might try before giving up.
As for the pitch clock, I'm not opposed, but I do wonder about something...
If there's a pitch clock while runners are on base, doesn't that make it really easy for a guy to time the pitcher's delivery and attempt to steal second? I get that the pitcher could pitch before the clock expires, and that pitchers like to vary their time to home with a runner on, but doesn't the clock make that strategy less effective for pitchers as it caps just how long they can hold the runner?
Craig mentioned the sky divers causing alarm at the Capitol. I first heard of it from Eireann's twitter feed. Apparently, she was walking their dog near one of the Senate office buildings when hundreds of people came streaming out and telling her to get away.
As to the pitch clock with runners on base: in MiLB the timer ends if there is a pick off. That is, as the clock winds down, the pitcher has to either throw home or to a base so if the runner is trying to get an early jump by watching the clock, they can be picked off.
Correct. And missing from Stark's story is a key point: MLB is having a guy who runs the pitch clock and only the pitch clock. He's also connected to the umpires via an earbuds to signal them when time's up. They are serious about this, unlike the previous 20 second clock that often expired without penalty.
For the score keeping needs, the official scorer at the game I covered last Saturday was counting the automatic strikes and balls as pitches thrown.
I believe, by rule, they are not. But I'll ask anyway. FWIW, the "Manfred Man" is placed on second as a team error that's not charged to any fielder but renders that run as unearned 🤷♂️
Not that this really matters in the grand scheme of things unless someone is trying to improve the old Baseball Prospectus Pitcher Abuse Points garbage. But counting an automatic ball / strike because of a pitch clock violation without counting an automatic ball for an IBB seems inconsistent. And as my posting history shows, I'm all for arguments about things that don't really matter. :)
I can’t say baseball was better in the 1970s and 1980s when I was younger. But I can say that there was more variety in styles. Herzog vs Weaver was a thing of beauty. Mauch vs Anderson almost as good.
Full disclosure: I was going to come here this morning and give you grief for not giving us an open comment thread yesterday… Needless to say, never mind.
Best wishes to your dad and everyone else in your family… You all have had one hell of a rough ride lately and I’m hoping it smooths out in a good way very soon.
Even with the warnings, I admit to still being sprinter van-curious… Not because of social media but because of the allure of traveling with almost no stuff. That’s all probably years away for me, though, so I’m sure it will pass 😎
I've watched the ads for these vans thoughtfully. I'm getting to an age where sleeping on the ground is less comfortable than it once was, and the idea of being able to "camp", but sleep on a kind of bed and not have to set up a tent and all is tempting. That being said - last spring I replaced my old Thermarest sleeping pad with a very different kind of pad that has separate little egg-carton like sections - it was cheaper to boot, you have to inflate it manually but it goes quickly - and I slept marvelously on two separate trips w very different conditions, so maybe I've got a few more years of tent-camping in me and I can ignore the RV vans for now :).
Also - through 5 innings last night, Shohei Otani had a double, a walk, 2 RBI, and watch tossing a perfect game with 11 strikeouts. He ended up with 2 hits and 12 Ks over 6, and the win.
Even though Otani is not exactly unnoticed, we probably don't talk enough about how amazing he is.
Some random observations as I pursue bb-ref this morning:
-- Does anyone else look at the random players whose thumbnail picture are in the top left every time you refresh to see how many faces you remember? This time, I was just 2 for 12.
-- That 2 for 12 has me batting under the Mendoza line. No big deal anymore I guess. The entire league is batting .230. In the Year of the Pitcher, 1968, the league hit .237. Then the OBA / SLG were 299 / 340 while now it is 309 / 369 so a couple more walks and a little more power, but not much.
-- And individual players are there too. By my count, there are currently fifty-four (!) players who have qualified for the batting title and are under .200 BA. There are thirty-nine players over .300
-- Those under .200 include several MVPs: Christian Yelich (.195), Mookie Betts (.178), Josh Donaldson (.174), Jose Altuve (.167), Paul Goldschmidt (.162), and Joey Votto (.121). Ooft.
-- Carlos Correa will need to start hitting if he wants to opt out of his unusual deal with Minnesota. His current slash line is 190 / 277 / 310.
-- Two of the pre-season picks for AL ROY aren't off to great starts either. Bobby Witt (128/150/231) and Julio Rodriguez (154/233/179) aren't doing anything. A third is looking good only in comparison: Spencer Torkelson (194/359/419)
-- At the other end of the spectrum, Jose Ramirez, with two grand slams already, is off to one heck of a start. Yeah, I know it is stupid, but he is on pace for 295 ribbies while at .429 batting a smidge better than Rodgers Hornsby's "modern" record.
-- Seiva Suzuki is giving Cubs fans a reason to tune in plus it makes me long for Harry Caray and wonder just how, after too many Buds in the Bleachers, he would have pronounced the name. His OBA is .565 and his slugging is .839, or roughly what Barry Bonds averaged during the silly seasons from '01 to '04.
-- Nolan Arenado is getting paid how much by Colorado to slug .895 for St. Louis?
-- Any game with Wander Franco (1024 OPS), Vlad the Junior Impailer (1062) and Juan Soto (962) can't have too bleak of a future. 21, 23 and 23 years old. Just wait for the health of Acuna and Tatis!
Soto’s 962 OPS sits alongside one of those early season oddities, in that he’s so far hitless with RISP, and his only 3 RBI have come on three solo HRs.
Vaguely related: Atlanta leads the NL with 16 home runs. Atlanta is also last in the league with 1 home run with runners on base - a two run home run on opening day.
The percentage of balls that are put into play which are turned into outs is up a tick or so with 1-2 more outs per 100 balls in play than in recent years. But that is merely bringing it back to the DEF that prevailed between the first strike of 1972 and the last of 1994. Talk of the shift as a cause for the decline in batting average seems greatly overstated.
I’ve had a few times I wanted to tell someone to F off when they made a comment about masks, although each time it’s been more directed at my child wearing one than me. I’m a tall, bigger, athletic looking dude so I imagine that has factored in to why no one has said anything to me directly even though I live in a conservative, majority maskless area.
My 3 year old was running ahead of me at Target last year, mask on, as I tried to corral him. He almost ran into a couple who looked like they were in their 50s, maskless. I apologized to them and we all chuckled at a 3 year old doing things a 3 year old does.
Then as we started to continue on our way past them, the lady said to her husband, “The boy probably couldn’t see where he was going with that mask on.” I really wanted to turn around and ask them what part of his mask was covering his eyes, but alas, I’m not confrontational enough to push it any further.
What a year for you Craig. I hope it gets better. No worries from me about missing a day or not doing full recaps; it will be a while before your words-per-dollar ratio falls below replacement level.
Me neither so that clearly means Substack owes Craig a raise. He's off for ONE DAY for travel and family emergencies, and the whole production goes to hell in a handbasket.
Phillies 9, Rockies 6: Some people might be tempted to say "the Phillies broke out of their 1-7 skid with a win against the Rockies yesterday", ignoring that a 2-7 mark over the last nine games is still pretty bad. Nevertheless, it counts as a win all the same. Kyle Schwarber homered for the second consecutive day, while Johan Camargo had four wins and knocked in three.
Brewers 4, Pirates 2: The key to Milwaukee's success is dominant pitching from Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff. One day after a tremendous start from Burnes, Woodruff followed his lead with six innings of one-hit, nine-strikeout ball. Rowdy Tellez and Keston Hiura both went deep for the Brewers. Milwaukee completed the sweep against the Pirates.
Guardians 11, White Sox 1; Guardians 2, White Sox 1: Let's play two! Game one was over very early on, as Cleveland scored nine runs in the second inning to make it 10-0. At one point, eleven consecutive Guardians reached base. Jose Ramirez's grand slam was the biggest blow. I'm sure they're glad they locked him up. Game two featured much less offense but the same result, as five Guardian pitchers teamed up to allow one run and three hits.
Dodgers 5, Atlanta 1: One day after seeing their win streak get snapped, the Dodgers bounce right back with a win. Tony Gonsolin filled in for Andrew Heaney, who recently hit the IL, and was great, with six innings of one-hit ball. His ERA through thirteen innings is 0.69. Nice. Freddie Freeman and Edwin Rios both homered for the Dodgers.
Padres 6, Reds 0: A sad season gets worse for the Reds, who have lost nine in a row and were outscored by the Dads 16-3 in a three-game sweep. Jurickson Profar broke a scoreless tie with a two-run shot in the fourth. Ha-Seong Kim also went deep for the home team. MacKenzie Gore got his first MLB win with five shutout innings. Despite Tatis being on the sidelines, San Diego has started off a very solid 9-5 and are in prime form entering a series with the Dodgers this weekend.
Orioles 1, Athletics 0: Round three of the Battle of the Vowels goes to Baltimore, as the O's beat the A's. Baltimore got their lone run in the fifth inning, following a double by Ryan McKenna and an error by Oakland shortstop Elvis Andrus. The real story in this one was the attendance, as only 2,703 people paid for a ticket for that game. The Las Vegas Aviators, the triple-A affiliate of Oakland, drew almost twice that last night. I know some will say that the start time was moved up and that threw everyone off, but that's *paid* attendance, meaning that the likely number of fans in the ballpark was probably much smaller. Shades of the 2001 Expos here. Those are bad shades.
Rays 8, Cubs 2: This one was called off halfway through the sixth inning due to rain, but no one probably minded too much. Seven out of Tampa's nine hits were for extra bases. They took two of three from the Cubs and now go home to face the Red Sox.
Yankees 5, Tigers 3: Luis Severino was a bit shaky, but he got through five innings while allowing just one run despite giving up seven hits. Anthony Rizzo went deep for his team-leading fourth home run of the year. Miguel Cabrera got three hits on the night, giving him 2,999 in his career. He's in prime position to break the record at home sometime this weekend.
Angels 6, Astros 0: What a day for Shohei Ohtani! He retired the first sixteen Astros batters, and struck out twelve of them in six innings. Jason Castro broke up the perfect game bid with a single on a 3-2 pitch. The pitch before could've been called ball four, but instead Castro got another chance. If it was called a ball, Ohtani still would've lost the perfecto, but he (with possibly some help from his friends) probably would've gotten the no-hitter. So it goes.
Cardinals 2, Marlins 0: It was scoreless until the top of the ninth inning, until Nolan Arenado hit a two-run blast that put the Cards ahead for good. Four pitchers, led by Miles Mikolas and his mustache, held the Fish to five hits. Paid attendance in Miami was 8,655. Not a great crowd, but a downright madhouse compared to Oakland.
D-Backs 11, Nationals 2: Going into this game, Arizona had scored 22 runs in the first eleven games of the season. Here, they scored eleven runs in one game. Baseball! Seth Beer had three hits and three RBI, while Daulton Varsho also knocked in three.
Giants 5, Mets 2: San Francisco avenged the doubleheader sweep to start the series with a win here. The Mets brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth inning, but Mets folk hero Wilmer Flores made a great leaping catch to save two runs and end the threat. Live by the Wilmer, die by the Wilmer.
Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 1: Boston struck first on a JD Martinez single in the first inning, but Toronto quickly answered with a five-run second inning that could not be topped. The rubber game in this series will be played this afternoon.
Royals 2, Twins 0: After a much ballyhooed off-season, the Twins are stuck in the mud. After splitting the opening series, they've lost six of eight. Still time to turn it around, of course. Bobby Witt Jr, who is also off to a slow start, knocked in a run by hitting into a double play. He doesn't get credit for an RBI, because reasons. Adalberto Mondesi drove in the other run on a bunt single. Small ball FTW.
Mariners 4, Rangers 2: The Mariners hit into the season's first triple play, as Jesse Winker hit a liner to Nathaniel Lowe in the first inning which turned into a three-out play. Didn't matter much for the M's, though, as they put four on the board, one of them through an error, and withstood a ninth-inning threat from the Rangers to score. Logan Gilbert threw 6 2/3 innings of shutout ball while striking out only four hitters. More old-time baseball!
This is Ernie Shore coming out of the bullpen to hurl an asterisked perfect game when Babe Ruth was ejected following a leadoff walk for the Red Sox hurler. Well done Ca$h!
I've gotten into following several families on You Tube that RV full-time. In looking at their Patreon subscriber count and making some guesses about YouTube revenue these families are pulling in at least $150K a year, and one of them may be closer to $250K, by posting videos of their travels.
But it all looks like an awful lot of work. I'm sure the act of hiking would be completely ruined for me if I spent the entire hike thinking about camera angles and re-walking a section of trail 3 times so I could film myself doing it with just the right light. I suspect these folks put in close to 40 hours a week editing video, messing with cameras, re-shooting scenes, etc. If you love doing it, it might not feel like work, but I'm fairly certain I'd hate it quickly. My Instagram and Twitter followers will have live with getting the occasional selfie from the summit of the hike, and a campfire photo in the evening.
I've been thinking about getting a small pop-up A-frame or teardrop to tow and camp without the tent involved, but I'm not sure I'd use it enough to make it worth the cost. I've looked at some of the larger RVs and those can cost more than my house (so I see why someone lives in one) and although I like the idea of living in a quiet wild place and moving around as I choose, I think that not having a toilet connected to a sewer system would get to me after a while. So living in an RV is not something I could do.
Making money by posting videos and such sounds like more work than I would ever want to do. I HAVE a full-time job, why would I want to take on another one when I'd rather just relax and listen to the birds?
We have a stand up teardrop camper, made by A-Liner, the A-frame folks. I frequently dream of trading it for something a little larger and working from the road for a year. My job is portable enough that we could do it.
There was a couple I was talking to when I visited their house to investigate an issue, and they said their retirement plan was to buy a big RV to live in and visit all the national parks in the US.
That I would love but I'd need to hit the lotto jackpot to afford it. I can dream at least. 🙂
I always knew people were publicly pretty filthy, but the last few years have confirmed just how gross they are. I like the idea of not breathing in everyone else's unfiltered aerial backwash quite a bit actually. And my allergies have been a bit better without inhaling so much pollen, so that's a definite plus.
Also no one can see when I'm silently mouthing "fuck you" if I have a mask on. Haha.
And even before Jordan, the Hornets/Bobcats were owned by Robert Johnson (the founder of BET). That part of their press release really confused me. Maybe they meant this was the first time there was a group of owners, with minorities in control of that group? If so, is that really that notable to highlight?
I suspect they meant the first time there will be a baseball team with Black people in control. Which is important, of course. But people either get careless or lazy with their fact checking, or figure no one will actually care if they overstate things. I used to encounter that often when people provided bios to me for press releases. I couldn't get them to admit that the facts were wrong, and found that no one I sent the releases to, internally or externally, cared. (The actress who insisted she was the first to play a gay character in a sitcom did not want to hear about Billy Crystal on Soap.)
Wishing your dad the best from the many CoC readers!
...
Getting the time between pitches down is good. Getting the time between balls in play down would be better. Rules changes addressing the latter are harder than a pitch clock.
...
The CBA talk dragged on so long with so many versions going around that I could be mistaken but I think the 45 day unilateral implementation thing doesn’t kick in during this season.
I think it might have an effect. Less time between pitches = throwing less hard= less TTO, which players should try to do and mlb should make hard.
Or, throwing less hard, will result in batters being able to tee off even more and drive Two True up and One True down.
Pure speculation on our part. And data from MiLB isn’t directly comparable to support either position.
Or ... hell if I know.
All the best to your dad and your family.
I wonder if the pilot of that plane is in the military, and if so, is that a court martial offense.
I for one WILL die on the "everyone needs masks" hill, in part because I don't want to die for real. But next time someone asks why you are wearing one, take a page from my friend's book (but not literally since my friend is an author and you should leave her books intact) and tell people "oh, I have a mutated airborne form of syphilis."
On the field...
- Last night was sure deflating for the Mets after a great twinbill sweep on Tuesday. But the Giants are pretty good, too.
- Severino wasn't spectacular but managed to hold the Tigers to one run despite allowing seven hits. He seems to be quite on his way to recovering, even as Cole has been pretty iffy so far.
- Watched part of the Blue Jays-Red Sox game, and watched Pivetta left on the mound longer than he should have been since they are playing a day game today. To his credit, he stabilized himself, but the damage was done.
- And now, the Sho Show...six innings pitched, twelve strikeouts, no hits or walks allowed till the sixth; two for four at the plate with a walk and two RBIs. As the Astros didn't manage a hit or walk off the relievers, Sho had a better night at the plate than the entire Houston lineup. Just another night for Ohtani.
The best response to the "why are you still wearing a mask?" question I've seen is "It disrupts the government's ability to track me through facial recognition software."
She mentioned that one too. She saves the other response for when she is feeling really churlish.
I've used the reason that I'm a carrier of a rare mutant of airborne testicular leprosy. They don't quite know what that means, but some of those words sound bad so the confusion keeps them quiet.
I'm flying coast to coast tomorrow night, and I've been thinking about how I will respond if somebody hassles me. Right now the leading contender is, "If I wanted to hear from an asshole I would fart" but I'm open to suggestions. The conference I'm attending next week has decided to keep its mask mandate so I'll be in a mask all day next week anyway.
If I were to be in an airplane for the next 4.5 hours with said inquisitor, I'd most likely be polite ("I'm immunocompromised") and avoid a confrontation. In other circumstances, I've tended towards: "is your manhood so week that my personal choices damages it?" with applicable modification for questions from women.
Honestly, I think masking on an airplane is a good idea overall. I am sure I caught the worst cold I ever had on a flight from LA to NYC. There was something off about the air on that flight, and five days later I was laid up with something that was akin to a mild case of COVID in what it did to my lung capacity and energy. I have read about the overall safety of aircraft HVAC systems, and there is research that says air travel is really not healthy (contradicted by research that says it's healthier than most recirculated air).
Never mind that anything you can do to fight back the smell of the person in the next aisle with too much aftershave or perfume on is a good thing.
This article I read yesterday was very interesting. Once moving, the air in the plane is fine. However, the boarding and deplaning process will kill you.
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/sars-cov-2-transmission-on-planes?s=r
Her bottom line is pretty much the one I have been advocated for months. But it's good to see the science behind things. (Not subscribing to THAT blog, though. I already have enough trouble sleeping.)
Good to know.
Read that myself. Makes sense as to why my nose would get dry enough to bleed when I sneezed after a flight, with that many air changes my sinuses were probably dried out.
Airports are far more gross than the planes.
My totally anecdotal experience is that pre-Covid, I had about a 50/50 chance of coming down with a cold after flying for vacation. Of course I couldn’t blame it conclusively on the flight, but still.
I’m 100% going to continue wearing a KN95 on planes no matter what, especially at the start of a vacation, because I’m not scared of catching a cold but would really like to avoid it on my vacation.
I'm always puzzled by the people who use "it's just like the cold" as reason for not worrying about catching, well, anything. What kind of weirdo ENJOYS having their sinuses filled with mucus for three days and their nose red and raw after going through four boxes of tissues and waiting a few more days before they stop being tired and can breathe properly?
Heck forget long covid etc, I don't like being sick for even a day! Why not avoid all that nonsense entirely?
Depends. On a long flight where you’ll be eating or drinking, isn’t a mask just theatre at that point? Plus I’ve never tried sleeping in a mask.
My wife had to sleep in a mask when she was in hospital in October 2020. She hated it, but she can't sleep in a hospital bed anyway.
And you are right, and that is one reason I am not rushing to take any long flights any time soon.
You are certainly at higher risk for those minutes the mask is off to eat and drink, but as long as the guy sitting next to you isn't infected it's not that big a risk. If they guy next to you is spewing COVID you are probably screwed no matter what.
I'm flying today and I plan to respond with a blank stare if asked and a shrug if pressed. Silence tends to extinguish most curiosity.
You’re assuming that the keynote speaker doesn’t have a slide halfway through their presentation telling everyone it’s okay to remove their masks and toss them in the air, like graduation caps
I'm full on the Swalwell wagon about my mask, which is "You don't f*cking tell me what to do" for anyone that asks, because it's literally no one's business but my own.
What's most frustrating is we know who is likely to wear them, and that's those that are already taking precautions in their lives that mean they are less likely to transmit the virus, while the people who are less careful and more likely to carry are the ones who won't wear them now. We are literally giving the infected an opportunity to hurt others willfully. Just wow.
More than anything in my lifetime except attitudes about climate change, the pandemic has demonstrated how little regard a huge percentage of our nation and maybe of our species doesn't care about anyone else. Certainly a lot of Americans really don't believe in communal responsibility, despite us being told all our lives that it matters. It's horrifying, but not entirely surprising now that the truth is revealed.
I have spent a lot of my adult life thinking about how American media is really obsessed with blue collar schmucks proving more capable and intelligent than highly educated people, who are portrayed as lacking principles and the ability to function in normal society. And a large percentage of our population, as you've put it, really sees themselves as smarter about EVERYTHING than any number of experts who agree.
We teach our people they matter more than others, that they're special and unique, and they take that into the world with that "Main Character Syndrome".
It is fair to say that a lot of Eastern elite types aren't as smart as we think we are. And that we don't know what it's like to be blue collar, to live paycheck to paycheck, to do physical labor that also requires knowledge we don't have in the least. (I couldn't change a tire if the fate of the world depended on it.)
But that is a long way from the maddening resentment of the educated and the conviction that experts know nothing. And the conviction that not having an education somehow makes you "untainted." (Though given the endlessly mixed messaging about the pandemic from experts, I can't blame people for being confused sometimes. I do blame them, however, for deciding this means the experts are all fakes.)
The most frustrating part of it to me is that each loud mouthpiece for casting doubt isn't legitimately doubting a danged thing; they're just grifters trying to get paid. Like how a shocking amount of math textbooks are bad, actually, but one possibly tied to another (R) Governor is good, actually!
Endless mixed messaging isn’t necessarily bad. It reflects the science as we get new data and learn more. It’s doing things right. It’s what real science looks like. Science isn’t done guy in a lab coat saying eureka and the problem is solved forever. It’s not getting the answer at the back of the book.
What is missing is a concerted effort by the medical/scientific community to make it clear that no one really has all the answers. The only expert who has taken this tack is Dr. Osterholm, who repeatedly says "we need a sense of modesty about COVID."
Makes me wonder how we’d have behaved in WWII.
Zero chance people would ration. Zero.
We're out here hoarding PlayStations and toilet paper, Karens and Kens would lose their mind at being limited to two(2) chocolate bars per day.
"Fuck you, I got mine" should replace "In God we trust" as the national motto.
I’m travelling to the US in a few weeks. I’m wondering if I’m going to get weird shit for wearing a mask.
I think that will depend in large part on where in the U.S. you are going. My part of California is still pretty good on an individual level for mask wearing, but I was in Texas in Feb and although it was Austin, it was still night-and-day compared to where I am. (I'm heading to Montreal in August - I'm interested to experience the mask-or-not dynamic in Canada vs the U.S., though it may have changed a lot by then, I suppose.)
It's hard to know, honestly. I'm in Iowa, which has trended very conservative the last few election cycles, and no one gives me grief. But I'm also a white male, and people usually leave people like me alone.
Best wishes to you dad, Craig.
Nats had a couple of potential trade chits make injury news yesterday. Sean Doolittle, who's given up only one hit so far, went on the IL with a sprained elbow ligament, while Josh Bell left the game early for unspecified reasons. Bell doesn't seem too worried about his situation, while Doolittle is going to try to rehab his way back to the bullpen, but at 35 you wonder how long he might try before giving up.
As for the pitch clock, I'm not opposed, but I do wonder about something...
If there's a pitch clock while runners are on base, doesn't that make it really easy for a guy to time the pitcher's delivery and attempt to steal second? I get that the pitcher could pitch before the clock expires, and that pitchers like to vary their time to home with a runner on, but doesn't the clock make that strategy less effective for pitchers as it caps just how long they can hold the runner?
I suspect DooDoo is DoneDone. But I hope not.
Craig mentioned the sky divers causing alarm at the Capitol. I first heard of it from Eireann's twitter feed. Apparently, she was walking their dog near one of the Senate office buildings when hundreds of people came streaming out and telling her to get away.
Even worse, we cannot blame Doolittle’s elbow on overuse - at least not CURRENT overuse. Are we having fun yet?
As to the pitch clock with runners on base: in MiLB the timer ends if there is a pick off. That is, as the clock winds down, the pitcher has to either throw home or to a base so if the runner is trying to get an early jump by watching the clock, they can be picked off.
Correct. And missing from Stark's story is a key point: MLB is having a guy who runs the pitch clock and only the pitch clock. He's also connected to the umpires via an earbuds to signal them when time's up. They are serious about this, unlike the previous 20 second clock that often expired without penalty.
For the score keeping needs, the official scorer at the game I covered last Saturday was counting the automatic strikes and balls as pitches thrown.
Does the official scorer add four balls to the pitchers total for the IBB now happening without a pitch being thrown?
I believe, by rule, they are not. But I'll ask anyway. FWIW, the "Manfred Man" is placed on second as a team error that's not charged to any fielder but renders that run as unearned 🤷♂️
Not that this really matters in the grand scheme of things unless someone is trying to improve the old Baseball Prospectus Pitcher Abuse Points garbage. But counting an automatic ball / strike because of a pitch clock violation without counting an automatic ball for an IBB seems inconsistent. And as my posting history shows, I'm all for arguments about things that don't really matter. :)
It might be good to have more steal attempts. Where optimal strategy isn’t get in base and hit bombs.
I can’t say baseball was better in the 1970s and 1980s when I was younger. But I can say that there was more variety in styles. Herzog vs Weaver was a thing of beauty. Mauch vs Anderson almost as good.
Full disclosure: I was going to come here this morning and give you grief for not giving us an open comment thread yesterday… Needless to say, never mind.
Best wishes to your dad and everyone else in your family… You all have had one hell of a rough ride lately and I’m hoping it smooths out in a good way very soon.
Even with the warnings, I admit to still being sprinter van-curious… Not because of social media but because of the allure of traveling with almost no stuff. That’s all probably years away for me, though, so I’m sure it will pass 😎
I've watched the ads for these vans thoughtfully. I'm getting to an age where sleeping on the ground is less comfortable than it once was, and the idea of being able to "camp", but sleep on a kind of bed and not have to set up a tent and all is tempting. That being said - last spring I replaced my old Thermarest sleeping pad with a very different kind of pad that has separate little egg-carton like sections - it was cheaper to boot, you have to inflate it manually but it goes quickly - and I slept marvelously on two separate trips w very different conditions, so maybe I've got a few more years of tent-camping in me and I can ignore the RV vans for now :).
I think it’s hilarious that RV camping has been rebranded to be cool. Also, how bad are these for the planet.
There was a Law and Order recently where the #VanLife influencer was killed by an incel stalker.
Good thoughts to you and your family.
Also - through 5 innings last night, Shohei Otani had a double, a walk, 2 RBI, and watch tossing a perfect game with 11 strikeouts. He ended up with 2 hits and 12 Ks over 6, and the win.
Even though Otani is not exactly unnoticed, we probably don't talk enough about how amazing he is.
Kinda fun to look at his SO/W ratios. As a pitcher, he is 26/4. As a hitter, he is 17/4.
He's not off to such a good start at the plate, but who is?
Of course he gets shelled last week when I tried to sit down and enjoy a dominating pitching performance.
Some random observations as I pursue bb-ref this morning:
-- Does anyone else look at the random players whose thumbnail picture are in the top left every time you refresh to see how many faces you remember? This time, I was just 2 for 12.
-- That 2 for 12 has me batting under the Mendoza line. No big deal anymore I guess. The entire league is batting .230. In the Year of the Pitcher, 1968, the league hit .237. Then the OBA / SLG were 299 / 340 while now it is 309 / 369 so a couple more walks and a little more power, but not much.
-- And individual players are there too. By my count, there are currently fifty-four (!) players who have qualified for the batting title and are under .200 BA. There are thirty-nine players over .300
-- Those under .200 include several MVPs: Christian Yelich (.195), Mookie Betts (.178), Josh Donaldson (.174), Jose Altuve (.167), Paul Goldschmidt (.162), and Joey Votto (.121). Ooft.
-- Carlos Correa will need to start hitting if he wants to opt out of his unusual deal with Minnesota. His current slash line is 190 / 277 / 310.
-- Two of the pre-season picks for AL ROY aren't off to great starts either. Bobby Witt (128/150/231) and Julio Rodriguez (154/233/179) aren't doing anything. A third is looking good only in comparison: Spencer Torkelson (194/359/419)
-- At the other end of the spectrum, Jose Ramirez, with two grand slams already, is off to one heck of a start. Yeah, I know it is stupid, but he is on pace for 295 ribbies while at .429 batting a smidge better than Rodgers Hornsby's "modern" record.
-- Seiva Suzuki is giving Cubs fans a reason to tune in plus it makes me long for Harry Caray and wonder just how, after too many Buds in the Bleachers, he would have pronounced the name. His OBA is .565 and his slugging is .839, or roughly what Barry Bonds averaged during the silly seasons from '01 to '04.
-- Nolan Arenado is getting paid how much by Colorado to slug .895 for St. Louis?
-- Any game with Wander Franco (1024 OPS), Vlad the Junior Impailer (1062) and Juan Soto (962) can't have too bleak of a future. 21, 23 and 23 years old. Just wait for the health of Acuna and Tatis!
Soto’s 962 OPS sits alongside one of those early season oddities, in that he’s so far hitless with RISP, and his only 3 RBI have come on three solo HRs.
Vaguely related: Atlanta leads the NL with 16 home runs. Atlanta is also last in the league with 1 home run with runners on base - a two run home run on opening day.
Less vaguely related: Matt Olson has a 1156 OPS for Atlanta which includes a .400 BA and two homers. He has two total ribbies both on solo home runs.
League wide data - strikeouts per 1000 plate appearances:
2022 231
2021 232
2020 234
2019 230
2018 223
..
2012 198
..
2002 168
..
1992 147
..
1982 132
..
1972 148
Runs per game:
2022 4.02
2021 4.53
2020 4.65
2019 4.83
2018 4.45
...
2012 4.32
...
2002 4.62
...
1992 4.12
...
1982 4.30
...
1972 3.69
The percentage of balls that are put into play which are turned into outs is up a tick or so with 1-2 more outs per 100 balls in play than in recent years. But that is merely bringing it back to the DEF that prevailed between the first strike of 1972 and the last of 1994. Talk of the shift as a cause for the decline in batting average seems greatly overstated.
League Defensive Efficiency
2022 .706
2021 .695
2020 .693
2019 .688
2018 .691
2017 .688
2016 .688
2015 .689
2014 .690
2013 .692
2012 .691
...
2007 .686
...
2002 .695
...
1997 .686
...
1992 .703
...
1987 .697
...
1982 .702
...
1977 .698
...
1972 .713
I’ve had a few times I wanted to tell someone to F off when they made a comment about masks, although each time it’s been more directed at my child wearing one than me. I’m a tall, bigger, athletic looking dude so I imagine that has factored in to why no one has said anything to me directly even though I live in a conservative, majority maskless area.
My 3 year old was running ahead of me at Target last year, mask on, as I tried to corral him. He almost ran into a couple who looked like they were in their 50s, maskless. I apologized to them and we all chuckled at a 3 year old doing things a 3 year old does.
Then as we started to continue on our way past them, the lady said to her husband, “The boy probably couldn’t see where he was going with that mask on.” I really wanted to turn around and ask them what part of his mask was covering his eyes, but alas, I’m not confrontational enough to push it any further.
With your commenting history, I’m really disappointed this story didn’t lead to a very bad play-on-words. COVID fatigue gets us all, I guess…
What a year for you Craig. I hope it gets better. No worries from me about missing a day or not doing full recaps; it will be a while before your words-per-dollar ratio falls below replacement level.
Sorry to hear about your dad (again). Best wishes for a quick recovery!
Also - I did not get either the original email or the second email you mentioned on twitter.
Me neither so that clearly means Substack owes Craig a raise. He's off for ONE DAY for travel and family emergencies, and the whole production goes to hell in a handbasket.
I’m guessing the whole hullabaloo around the LibsOfTiktok account starting a Substack may have ruined things for everyone
No CoC email here, either. I had to read the fax version.
I'd pay extra if mine came via carrier pigeon.
And That Happened: Wednesday Edition
Phillies 9, Rockies 6: Some people might be tempted to say "the Phillies broke out of their 1-7 skid with a win against the Rockies yesterday", ignoring that a 2-7 mark over the last nine games is still pretty bad. Nevertheless, it counts as a win all the same. Kyle Schwarber homered for the second consecutive day, while Johan Camargo had four wins and knocked in three.
Brewers 4, Pirates 2: The key to Milwaukee's success is dominant pitching from Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff. One day after a tremendous start from Burnes, Woodruff followed his lead with six innings of one-hit, nine-strikeout ball. Rowdy Tellez and Keston Hiura both went deep for the Brewers. Milwaukee completed the sweep against the Pirates.
Guardians 11, White Sox 1; Guardians 2, White Sox 1: Let's play two! Game one was over very early on, as Cleveland scored nine runs in the second inning to make it 10-0. At one point, eleven consecutive Guardians reached base. Jose Ramirez's grand slam was the biggest blow. I'm sure they're glad they locked him up. Game two featured much less offense but the same result, as five Guardian pitchers teamed up to allow one run and three hits.
Dodgers 5, Atlanta 1: One day after seeing their win streak get snapped, the Dodgers bounce right back with a win. Tony Gonsolin filled in for Andrew Heaney, who recently hit the IL, and was great, with six innings of one-hit ball. His ERA through thirteen innings is 0.69. Nice. Freddie Freeman and Edwin Rios both homered for the Dodgers.
Padres 6, Reds 0: A sad season gets worse for the Reds, who have lost nine in a row and were outscored by the Dads 16-3 in a three-game sweep. Jurickson Profar broke a scoreless tie with a two-run shot in the fourth. Ha-Seong Kim also went deep for the home team. MacKenzie Gore got his first MLB win with five shutout innings. Despite Tatis being on the sidelines, San Diego has started off a very solid 9-5 and are in prime form entering a series with the Dodgers this weekend.
Orioles 1, Athletics 0: Round three of the Battle of the Vowels goes to Baltimore, as the O's beat the A's. Baltimore got their lone run in the fifth inning, following a double by Ryan McKenna and an error by Oakland shortstop Elvis Andrus. The real story in this one was the attendance, as only 2,703 people paid for a ticket for that game. The Las Vegas Aviators, the triple-A affiliate of Oakland, drew almost twice that last night. I know some will say that the start time was moved up and that threw everyone off, but that's *paid* attendance, meaning that the likely number of fans in the ballpark was probably much smaller. Shades of the 2001 Expos here. Those are bad shades.
Rays 8, Cubs 2: This one was called off halfway through the sixth inning due to rain, but no one probably minded too much. Seven out of Tampa's nine hits were for extra bases. They took two of three from the Cubs and now go home to face the Red Sox.
Yankees 5, Tigers 3: Luis Severino was a bit shaky, but he got through five innings while allowing just one run despite giving up seven hits. Anthony Rizzo went deep for his team-leading fourth home run of the year. Miguel Cabrera got three hits on the night, giving him 2,999 in his career. He's in prime position to break the record at home sometime this weekend.
Angels 6, Astros 0: What a day for Shohei Ohtani! He retired the first sixteen Astros batters, and struck out twelve of them in six innings. Jason Castro broke up the perfect game bid with a single on a 3-2 pitch. The pitch before could've been called ball four, but instead Castro got another chance. If it was called a ball, Ohtani still would've lost the perfecto, but he (with possibly some help from his friends) probably would've gotten the no-hitter. So it goes.
Cardinals 2, Marlins 0: It was scoreless until the top of the ninth inning, until Nolan Arenado hit a two-run blast that put the Cards ahead for good. Four pitchers, led by Miles Mikolas and his mustache, held the Fish to five hits. Paid attendance in Miami was 8,655. Not a great crowd, but a downright madhouse compared to Oakland.
D-Backs 11, Nationals 2: Going into this game, Arizona had scored 22 runs in the first eleven games of the season. Here, they scored eleven runs in one game. Baseball! Seth Beer had three hits and three RBI, while Daulton Varsho also knocked in three.
Giants 5, Mets 2: San Francisco avenged the doubleheader sweep to start the series with a win here. The Mets brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth inning, but Mets folk hero Wilmer Flores made a great leaping catch to save two runs and end the threat. Live by the Wilmer, die by the Wilmer.
Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 1: Boston struck first on a JD Martinez single in the first inning, but Toronto quickly answered with a five-run second inning that could not be topped. The rubber game in this series will be played this afternoon.
Royals 2, Twins 0: After a much ballyhooed off-season, the Twins are stuck in the mud. After splitting the opening series, they've lost six of eight. Still time to turn it around, of course. Bobby Witt Jr, who is also off to a slow start, knocked in a run by hitting into a double play. He doesn't get credit for an RBI, because reasons. Adalberto Mondesi drove in the other run on a bunt single. Small ball FTW.
Mariners 4, Rangers 2: The Mariners hit into the season's first triple play, as Jesse Winker hit a liner to Nathaniel Lowe in the first inning which turned into a three-out play. Didn't matter much for the M's, though, as they put four on the board, one of them through an error, and withstood a ninth-inning threat from the Rangers to score. Logan Gilbert threw 6 2/3 innings of shutout ball while striking out only four hitters. More old-time baseball!
*Camargo had four hits
This is Ernie Shore coming out of the bullpen to hurl an asterisked perfect game when Babe Ruth was ejected following a leadoff walk for the Red Sox hurler. Well done Ca$h!
:Orson Welles as Citizen Kane maniacally clapping dot gif:
Are you auditioning for the position of Craig's editor? If so very well done! 👏
I've gotten into following several families on You Tube that RV full-time. In looking at their Patreon subscriber count and making some guesses about YouTube revenue these families are pulling in at least $150K a year, and one of them may be closer to $250K, by posting videos of their travels.
But it all looks like an awful lot of work. I'm sure the act of hiking would be completely ruined for me if I spent the entire hike thinking about camera angles and re-walking a section of trail 3 times so I could film myself doing it with just the right light. I suspect these folks put in close to 40 hours a week editing video, messing with cameras, re-shooting scenes, etc. If you love doing it, it might not feel like work, but I'm fairly certain I'd hate it quickly. My Instagram and Twitter followers will have live with getting the occasional selfie from the summit of the hike, and a campfire photo in the evening.
I've been thinking about getting a small pop-up A-frame or teardrop to tow and camp without the tent involved, but I'm not sure I'd use it enough to make it worth the cost. I've looked at some of the larger RVs and those can cost more than my house (so I see why someone lives in one) and although I like the idea of living in a quiet wild place and moving around as I choose, I think that not having a toilet connected to a sewer system would get to me after a while. So living in an RV is not something I could do.
Making money by posting videos and such sounds like more work than I would ever want to do. I HAVE a full-time job, why would I want to take on another one when I'd rather just relax and listen to the birds?
We have a stand up teardrop camper, made by A-Liner, the A-frame folks. I frequently dream of trading it for something a little larger and working from the road for a year. My job is portable enough that we could do it.
There was a couple I was talking to when I visited their house to investigate an issue, and they said their retirement plan was to buy a big RV to live in and visit all the national parks in the US.
That I would love but I'd need to hit the lotto jackpot to afford it. I can dream at least. 🙂
Out here, there are folks who rent out theur teardrop campers thru a site that operates just like AirBnB. Try before you buy? I'm. ..considering it.
Best wishes to you and your family.
Just popped by to say the Phillies-Rockies game ended 6-9 on 4/20 which delighted my teenage boys to no end.
Nice.
I’m here for Tommy Pham threatening Muay Thai on Voit… the Reds are in deep deep trouble. Anything to breathe a little life into these guys.
Best wishes to your dad!
I always knew people were publicly pretty filthy, but the last few years have confirmed just how gross they are. I like the idea of not breathing in everyone else's unfiltered aerial backwash quite a bit actually. And my allergies have been a bit better without inhaling so much pollen, so that's a definite plus.
Also no one can see when I'm silently mouthing "fuck you" if I have a mask on. Haha.
[about the Nashville Stars] "That will, in turn, result in the first majority minority-controlled professional sports franchise in North America."
I don't think that's right... Arte Moreno, Michael Jordan, Shahid Khan all own the majority share of their pro teams.
I could make a snarky remark that Moreno and Khan don't exactly control their teams so much as just let them drift along towards ever more rocks.
But yes. And we can add Joe Tsai, who is the governor of the Brooklyn Nets.
And even before Jordan, the Hornets/Bobcats were owned by Robert Johnson (the founder of BET). That part of their press release really confused me. Maybe they meant this was the first time there was a group of owners, with minorities in control of that group? If so, is that really that notable to highlight?
I suspect they meant the first time there will be a baseball team with Black people in control. Which is important, of course. But people either get careless or lazy with their fact checking, or figure no one will actually care if they overstate things. I used to encounter that often when people provided bios to me for press releases. I couldn't get them to admit that the facts were wrong, and found that no one I sent the releases to, internally or externally, cared. (The actress who insisted she was the first to play a gay character in a sitcom did not want to hear about Billy Crystal on Soap.)