Not many Middle sized cities have MLB ready stadia, but most of them have passible arenas. Seattle is ready right now. I am sure there are other cities like St. Louis, Indianapolis or Phoenix that have passible arenas and could have a team start up tomorrow
Arguably, Seattle has an MLB team right now, but as a fan, I won’t argue the M part. NBA, though, yes, the Kraken could share their new place if we can get the Sonics back, and I suspect the PNW would support basketball again. But first..hockey!!!
The funny thing to me is that the way baseball is, adding two teams doesn’t seem likely to water down the sport much but adding two NBA teams would probably create two more perpetually bad teams in a superstar driven sport.
Not if they did it the NHL way, where the Golden Knights immediately became the best team in the league because of overly generous expansion draft rules.
I’ve been making lame Dad-jokes every time I see a Dippin Dots for at least 10 years. It’s gotten to the point where the wife & kids see it approaching and jump the gun with a “Yeah, yeah...we know. Ice Cream of the Future. Hilarious.”
Now? I guess I have to take the L on this one?
Not even lame Dad jokes are safe from COVID’s path of destruction...
I few years ago we visited friends on the 23rd and their daughter’s name was Eve, she was 12 at the time, naturally being a card carrying member of Dad, Inc I had to say “Merry Christmas Eve Eve, Eve”. Got the best eye roll from her and my kids.
Your selfie with the WPA hat. Looks like you know you’re some kind of commie spy, and if you were to turn around, those 2 elderly Ranger dudes would jump on you and start kicking your ass, so you just snap the pix and keep your head in the game.
Spring Training, Surprise, Arizona, March 2013. Those guys were chirping about everything, being MAGA-types before we knew what that was. I was Tweeting some of the stuff they were saying and people told me to try to take a covert photo of them. That was the result.
Regardless of whether MLB lost a ton of money this year or not, shouldn't the Rob Manfred we all believe is chasing every last dollar be in favor of profitable expansion? I don't think MLB losing money or not answers the question of why no expansion.
I remember hearing Bill Simmons (No! Wait! Come back! I swear it's OK!) talk about, in relation to NBA expansion after the Sonics move, a major roadblock. Each each owner does get, essentially, 1/30 of the expansion fees for each new team, which is a nice little bonus. But the national media contract gets divided into thinner slices, and over time that will add up to a LOT more than that original fee.
Even though Major League Baseball still relies more on local TV revenue and in-park attendance than other leagues, that would be the kind of thing that might make an owner pause in approving expansion.
Is Antonio Garcia Martinez a respected figure on the tech world or is he just some random guy with an opinion? Because if it's the latter, why care enough about what he says enough to bother rebutting it? Millions of people say dumb stuff on the internet every day, including me.
I've never heard of this specific guy, but this isn't a unique opinion.
A few months ago, there were reports on conversations happening on "Clubhouse," a semi-selective invite-only social media platform that a bunch of tech and VC guys use both because they tend to have the emotional intelligence of your average high schooler, and also, high school never ends.
He's kind of in the middle. Left a quant job at Goldman to create a startup, sold it to Twitter, went to work for Facebook. His autobiography, "Chaos Monkeys," (which, admittedly, I have not read but has been on my list for quite some time) is supposed to be one of those insider, tell-all type books, but he's a finance and tech bro so there's a bit of a vague "unreliable narrator" thread constantly vibrating just below the surface. From what I understand of him, his reputation is generously termed "brash" and less-generously termed words I wouldn't use in polite company.
Have a very Merry Christmas / Happy Holiday, Craig.
I'm glad the newsletter has been the success it has for you and I'm glad to help support it. I think it's awesome that your baseball commentary has ultimately given you not just a platform that supports itself, but also a group with a sense of community - your readers followed you, they keep commenting, and I continue to see names in your comments threads that I've been seeing for years. That's pretty damn cool, and a testament to your writing, your ideas, your candor, and your personality.
After all, where else can I get my baseball news with a side of mincemeat?
I'm so happy you like writing this newsletter and it's able to be your full-time job. I subscribe to a few newsletters that I pay for and this is the best of the lot. I'm thankful for the map, because the map introduced me to you and your writing. It's been the balm that has kept my sanity through this whole pandemic. Have a Merry Christmas and thanks again.
That could also save them money to perform the Heimlich Maneuver if Manfire does indeed dole out the ban this year. The money saved from not signing Guard long term would allow them to replace him in the rotation with Heimlich, if they can sign him away from Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos. Heimlich is a former Beaver, so it's a U.S. Mint and makes cents to go after him when Guard is banned since he has experience building dams to prevent floods of runs.
The flip side of that, though, is the PR nightmare a guy like Heimlich, with his checkered past, could bring the Mets if they perform the maneuver. But the Mets have already held on to Guard despite his staining of the game, so perhaps they figure their reputation can't get any worse. And, in a pandemic year, Heimlich's bad reputation can't affect ticket sales until fans can start showing up at games. If he can win early, he might be able to win people over since Americans tend to look past the egregious transgressions of winners. However, Real Americans™ don't live in places like New York, so most Mets fans might not be Real Americans™ and this could backfire on the Mets.
You have to wonder, though, if the Mets created the Coronavirus in a lab in China to cause a global pandemic so that when Guard is banned, Heimlich will have a chance to prove himself in an empty stadium and win over some fans to soften the blow to ticket sales by his presence when fans are allowed back in the ballpark.
The Heimlich Maneuver theory all assumes, of course, that Manfire doles out his ban to Guard early this season. But we can't forget there is another reason it's entirely plausible the Mets created the Coronavirus in a Chinese lab to cause the global pandemic.
Steve Cohen knows that his brother, Michael, can no longer provide for his family considering his legal woes and jail time. That's why he bought the Mets, so he could put food on the table for Michael's family by offering them discounted tickets to Mets games so they could come eat free hot dogs.
Now that fans aren't allowed into the stadium, there are so many more free hot dogs he can put on the table for Michael's family while Michael deals with his legal issues. Steve must have known that Michael's association with Trump would eventually cause him legal woes, so it is possible he hired someone to create the Coronavirus in China to cause the pandemic, bought the Mets, and eventually those plans converged to free up all those extra hot dogs for his brother's family.
Dippin' Dots inventor Curt Jones was part of my 1986 graduating class at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and is one of the most successful Saluki alums of that era. Which is an excuse to put up this video of another successful alum from that era, Bob Odenkirk, doing a commencement speech for virtual graduation this past spring. It starts at 3:35 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTDoBlUIt4I&t=215s
As a parent who has taken his young kids to baseball games, they are...not good. Not bad, but not good. Vaguely flavored ice with that cream back-end that gets stuck in your throat.
I imagine Barry reading his car insurance policy, coming to an asterisk that refers to the terms and conditions and just crumpling it up and setting fire to it.
As 1/200,000th (estimated) of your managerial conglomerate, I vote "approve" on your vacation time with the caveat that this better not be a habit young man. We don't know what we'd do without you around the office--you are an essential team member. Reflecting that, here is a CUP OF COFFEE lanyard as a deep and very public expression of thanks.
Correct. Per my previous email, Craig has exceeded all word-count expectations by 7%. His Dylan references are up 22% YoY. The mincemeat topic was a huge boon for our tie-in marketing campaign with Doilies Unlimited, LLC. These metrics (and more) point to the lanyard as an appropriate holiday gift. Honestly, I didn't expect this kind of administrative blocker from a low-scope button-pusher like yourself. I'm cc'ing your manager on this email.
Not many Middle sized cities have MLB ready stadia, but most of them have passible arenas. Seattle is ready right now. I am sure there are other cities like St. Louis, Indianapolis or Phoenix that have passible arenas and could have a team start up tomorrow
Kansas City.
Also, I can't decide if I'd rather "Phoenix" be an actual joke or simply a funny mistake (sort of like the Suns HEY-O).
Phoenix was a joke, Indianapolis was a mistake, so both really
I was focused on Phoenix and didn't even catch Indianapolis.
Poor Pacers.
Arguably, Seattle has an MLB team right now, but as a fan, I won’t argue the M part. NBA, though, yes, the Kraken could share their new place if we can get the Sonics back, and I suspect the PNW would support basketball again. But first..hockey!!!
This is the most Ed of comments and I feel like it is a Christmas present (or a Christmas Future if you will).
Needs moar typos
Happy holidays. And if you need any extra ornaments of cardinals, give Chris Archer a call - he owns a bunch of them
The funny thing to me is that the way baseball is, adding two teams doesn’t seem likely to water down the sport much but adding two NBA teams would probably create two more perpetually bad teams in a superstar driven sport.
Not if they did it the NHL way, where the Golden Knights immediately became the best team in the league because of overly generous expansion draft rules.
Even Adam Silver pointed out that potential problem with NBA expansion
I’ve been making lame Dad-jokes every time I see a Dippin Dots for at least 10 years. It’s gotten to the point where the wife & kids see it approaching and jump the gun with a “Yeah, yeah...we know. Ice Cream of the Future. Hilarious.”
Now? I guess I have to take the L on this one?
Not even lame Dad jokes are safe from COVID’s path of destruction...
I few years ago we visited friends on the 23rd and their daughter’s name was Eve, she was 12 at the time, naturally being a card carrying member of Dad, Inc I had to say “Merry Christmas Eve Eve, Eve”. Got the best eye roll from her and my kids.
I cannot stop laughing at the (very real) Dippin' Dots subsidiary DD Cryogenics, LLC.
https://www.dippindots.com/cryogenics.html
Soon enough people may be surprised to learn that this world-renowned cryogenics company has an ice cream business on the side
i hope nobody gets injected with ted williams
Fun fact: If you show up at the facility that houses the Head of Ted in an industrial park outside of Phoenix, they'll give you a tour.
Of the facility or Ted's head?
Do they have any heads labeled Abby Normal?
Your selfie with the WPA hat. Looks like you know you’re some kind of commie spy, and if you were to turn around, those 2 elderly Ranger dudes would jump on you and start kicking your ass, so you just snap the pix and keep your head in the game.
Spring Training, Surprise, Arizona, March 2013. Those guys were chirping about everything, being MAGA-types before we knew what that was. I was Tweeting some of the stuff they were saying and people told me to try to take a covert photo of them. That was the result.
Regardless of whether MLB lost a ton of money this year or not, shouldn't the Rob Manfred we all believe is chasing every last dollar be in favor of profitable expansion? I don't think MLB losing money or not answers the question of why no expansion.
Could it just be too much work? Require too much consensus?
I remember hearing Bill Simmons (No! Wait! Come back! I swear it's OK!) talk about, in relation to NBA expansion after the Sonics move, a major roadblock. Each each owner does get, essentially, 1/30 of the expansion fees for each new team, which is a nice little bonus. But the national media contract gets divided into thinner slices, and over time that will add up to a LOT more than that original fee.
Even though Major League Baseball still relies more on local TV revenue and in-park attendance than other leagues, that would be the kind of thing that might make an owner pause in approving expansion.
Is Antonio Garcia Martinez a respected figure on the tech world or is he just some random guy with an opinion? Because if it's the latter, why care enough about what he says enough to bother rebutting it? Millions of people say dumb stuff on the internet every day, including me.
I've never heard of this specific guy, but this isn't a unique opinion.
A few months ago, there were reports on conversations happening on "Clubhouse," a semi-selective invite-only social media platform that a bunch of tech and VC guys use both because they tend to have the emotional intelligence of your average high schooler, and also, high school never ends.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/16/21325678/venture-capitalists-vc-media-silicon-valley-clubhouse-tech-journalists
Anyway, when you criticize people with thin skin, they're going to paint themselves as the victims, no matter how many millions of dollars they have.
He's kind of in the middle. Left a quant job at Goldman to create a startup, sold it to Twitter, went to work for Facebook. His autobiography, "Chaos Monkeys," (which, admittedly, I have not read but has been on my list for quite some time) is supposed to be one of those insider, tell-all type books, but he's a finance and tech bro so there's a bit of a vague "unreliable narrator" thread constantly vibrating just below the surface. From what I understand of him, his reputation is generously termed "brash" and less-generously termed words I wouldn't use in polite company.
Have a very Merry Christmas / Happy Holiday, Craig.
I'm glad the newsletter has been the success it has for you and I'm glad to help support it. I think it's awesome that your baseball commentary has ultimately given you not just a platform that supports itself, but also a group with a sense of community - your readers followed you, they keep commenting, and I continue to see names in your comments threads that I've been seeing for years. That's pretty damn cool, and a testament to your writing, your ideas, your candor, and your personality.
After all, where else can I get my baseball news with a side of mincemeat?
I'm so happy you like writing this newsletter and it's able to be your full-time job. I subscribe to a few newsletters that I pay for and this is the best of the lot. I'm thankful for the map, because the map introduced me to you and your writing. It's been the balm that has kept my sanity through this whole pandemic. Have a Merry Christmas and thanks again.
You have to wonder if the Mets only agreed to a one-year deal with Cinder Guard, and not a longer deal. Perhaps they caught wind that Rod Manfire might soon dole out Guard's lifetime ban from the game for admitting to betting on himself in free agency (https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/02/20/noah-syndergaard-i-feel-like-im-going-to-bet-on-myself-in-free-agency/), and they don't want to risk throwing all that money away.
That could also save them money to perform the Heimlich Maneuver if Manfire does indeed dole out the ban this year. The money saved from not signing Guard long term would allow them to replace him in the rotation with Heimlich, if they can sign him away from Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos. Heimlich is a former Beaver, so it's a U.S. Mint and makes cents to go after him when Guard is banned since he has experience building dams to prevent floods of runs.
The flip side of that, though, is the PR nightmare a guy like Heimlich, with his checkered past, could bring the Mets if they perform the maneuver. But the Mets have already held on to Guard despite his staining of the game, so perhaps they figure their reputation can't get any worse. And, in a pandemic year, Heimlich's bad reputation can't affect ticket sales until fans can start showing up at games. If he can win early, he might be able to win people over since Americans tend to look past the egregious transgressions of winners. However, Real Americans™ don't live in places like New York, so most Mets fans might not be Real Americans™ and this could backfire on the Mets.
You have to wonder, though, if the Mets created the Coronavirus in a lab in China to cause a global pandemic so that when Guard is banned, Heimlich will have a chance to prove himself in an empty stadium and win over some fans to soften the blow to ticket sales by his presence when fans are allowed back in the ballpark.
The Heimlich Maneuver theory all assumes, of course, that Manfire doles out his ban to Guard early this season. But we can't forget there is another reason it's entirely plausible the Mets created the Coronavirus in a Chinese lab to cause the global pandemic.
Steve Cohen knows that his brother, Michael, can no longer provide for his family considering his legal woes and jail time. That's why he bought the Mets, so he could put food on the table for Michael's family by offering them discounted tickets to Mets games so they could come eat free hot dogs.
Now that fans aren't allowed into the stadium, there are so many more free hot dogs he can put on the table for Michael's family while Michael deals with his legal issues. Steve must have known that Michael's association with Trump would eventually cause him legal woes, so it is possible he hired someone to create the Coronavirus in China to cause the pandemic, bought the Mets, and eventually those plans converged to free up all those extra hot dogs for his brother's family.
Happy Holidays, all!
Dippin' Dots inventor Curt Jones was part of my 1986 graduating class at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and is one of the most successful Saluki alums of that era. Which is an excuse to put up this video of another successful alum from that era, Bob Odenkirk, doing a commencement speech for virtual graduation this past spring. It starts at 3:35 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTDoBlUIt4I&t=215s
As a parent who has taken his young kids to baseball games, they are...not good. Not bad, but not good. Vaguely flavored ice with that cream back-end that gets stuck in your throat.
Enough about the Indians, how are the Dippin Dots?
Speaking of malls, noted Cinnabon manager Bob Odenkirk.
I saw Take a gander at this goose* open for Industrial Shithouse at Wembley.
Why yes, I really did just insert the headline I suggested into my own long running joke. It's a Christmas Eve Eve miracle.
I'm not sure why I audibly laughed at this. The asterisk really carries a lot of weight there.
Imagine what it means around the Bonds household ...
I imagine Barry reading his car insurance policy, coming to an asterisk that refers to the terms and conditions and just crumpling it up and setting fire to it.
The Ministry of Culture of Long Chile wishes everyone the very best this holiday season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4pWW13Pa0w
As 1/200,000th (estimated) of your managerial conglomerate, I vote "approve" on your vacation time with the caveat that this better not be a habit young man. We don't know what we'd do without you around the office--you are an essential team member. Reflecting that, here is a CUP OF COFFEE lanyard as a deep and very public expression of thanks.
Isn't the lanyard the gift for 20 years of service?
Correct. Per my previous email, Craig has exceeded all word-count expectations by 7%. His Dylan references are up 22% YoY. The mincemeat topic was a huge boon for our tie-in marketing campaign with Doilies Unlimited, LLC. These metrics (and more) point to the lanyard as an appropriate holiday gift. Honestly, I didn't expect this kind of administrative blocker from a low-scope button-pusher like yourself. I'm cc'ing your manager on this email.
Wait. Not to nitpick the metrics, but...does “welp ” count as a word? Or two? This wordslinger might require a new set of rules. Pioneers do that.
Merry Christmas to you and your’n, Craig. Thanks for all the gifts.
Have a great holiday, post mincemeat pix and thanks for creating and sending out a really enjoyable newletter!