Matt Harvey, a labor update, Juan Soto, tanking, a player who will make you feel REALLY old, Sarah Palin, Peter Thiel, my dumb law school, and . . . just one more thing
Yeah, the Cubs won the WS more because of an organizational overhaul than by truly tanking. Kris Bryant was a #2 pick (and they were damn lucky that the Astros didn’t take him and leave them with Mark Appel), but they never had another pick higher than #4 and arguably the next-best drafted player they took during the rebuild was Baez at #9.
I will say that the organization failed to maximize their championship window by spending appropriately in the 2016-2019 years. I used to argue a lot with Cubs fans who’d say “how can you say they don’t spend enough money when they have a top 5 payroll?” My answer is, when you benefit financially from years of a rebuild in which you are not spending to the top of the league, it’s reasonable to expect that you’ll go into the luxury tax in the years you’re contending for a title.
Agreed. There's a few competing definitions of "tanking" that muddy the waters on this discussion. When it's done as a necessary and strategic plan to actually compete like the Cubs/Astros, I think it works for everyone (except maybe people who already bought season tickets for that year). When it's half-hearted, or a mere figleaf for cost-cutting, or learned incompetence, then yeah, "tanking" sucks and should be disincentivized as much as possible.
I'm wondering if he can convince them that all the moving talk was just faked for content and he actually doesn't want to leave, so they will pay for a "Convince Calcaterra to Relocate Fund." Like a golden parachute where an executive who sucks is paid a lot of money to go away, but for moving to the Carolinas. 😄
Re: tanking. I used to joke I was one of five NJ Nets fans* and one of three left after they traded all their picks to the Celtics. They had one season where they won 12 games and started like 0-18 or 0-17. Teenage me was THRILLED when they’d pull off the rare W. Didn’t matter about draft standing. I just wanted to see my team win.
* There was no way I was going to root for the Knicks after I wisely skipped over the Mets.
I think that part of sports gets lost when teams and media members try making tanking the norm. The rewarding feeling of a shitty Jets team with a flawed roster shocking the Bengals or a rebuilding MLB team winning that 70th game a year after losing 99.
Also, speaking of the NBA…Craig, did you see the new “argument” that the NBA is blacklisting Enes Kanter Freedom because he went on Fox News and ripped the league and its stars for their support of China? It seems like the same people who said “shut up and dribble” are trying to make Kanter the new Colin Kaepernick after years of ripping Kap.
I missed that Kanter was released last week. I don't think he's out of work because of his outspokenness, given his diminishing skills. But he's certainly made very few friends. Though he started out as a critic of Erdogan, who last I checked was a darling of the right. So it's funny that Fox is paying attention to him now. (FWIW, I wholeheartedly agree with him calling out the NBA and its stars for turning a blind eye to China, but it doesn't feel like he's actually accomplishing much.)
I think that’s about where I am in every part of it, Simon. I personally respect how outspoken he is especially considering his full story and the danger he’s in if he ever tried returning home. I think he, at least for me, falls into that boat of I (me) respect his stances and some of his points, but I don’t always agree with the execution or how he gets to the point.
(Although I do find it funny to imagine LeBron letting all the power players know to keep him far away from their teams as possible. You know, when LeBron’s not suggesting a 2019-20 Lakers parade two years later…)
LeBron gives me a headache. In general I respect him and much prefer him in every way to Michael Jordan, but he sometimes likes to remind us he's just as self-centered and greedy as the rest of us.
Y'all are just regurgitating literal anti-China state department propaganda, which itself borders on straight sinophobia.
Have you noticed how our government just oscillates back and forth between Russia and China hate? Amazing how they stopped talking about China altogether for the last two weeks while they were blowing their war horns over Ukraine.
And the purpose of it all is merely to have everyone uncritically accept their insane annual defense budget increases, which i suspect you do. Definite shades of 1984 in all this, please do better.
So Russia doesn't have 150,000 troops on the border of Ukraine? China doesn't have millions of Muslims in re-education camps? You can argue what the right course of action is, but it's not just repeating what the State Department says. Or do you really think Russia and China are fine members of the global community?
While I disagree with Andrew's assessment of what is happening, I can't disagree with this assessment of the Staties. They are - different from you and me. They all have a big sign on their desk that reads "AGENDA!!!!"
Remember, if there weren't issues, they wouldn't exist.
It is better to have a problem and not deal with it than to not have a problem that has been dealt with.
They are like wild animals. Sure, they're cute and cuddly when locked up safely and out of the way, but let them loose and you are talking a crisis room run by at least 3 different undersecretaries, that runs 24-hours a dy from a safe space (sorry, safe room) next to the cafeteria and vending machines, all while the extra allowance for being away from home kicks in.
For the staties, a crisis in the world isn't a problem for them to solve. It's a promotion opportunity.
No they literally don't have that many troops on the border. They all went back to their original posts on Monday. And then the WWIII-hungry media dropped it overnight.
And no, China doesn't have millions of Muslims in re-education camps. They somehow "set them all free" overnight a few months ago, which is something that governments definitely do with concentration camp prisoners... unless maybe it was never actually how the CIA-backed pro-Uygher groups were characterizing it?
There is a LOOOOOOT of ideological space in-between "Don't believe what the U.S. media tells you about the U.S.'s geopolitical enemies" and "The U.S.'s geopolitical enemies are fine members of the global community." Maybe try and find some of that vast terrain to occupy from now on.
So you believe the Russians and not NATO about where the troops are? You believe the Russians and not the Ukrainians? It's fair to be skeptical, but I can't say how you can take anything Putin's regime says at face value. Especially given their track record of starting wars (Crimea, Georgia, Donbass, Chechnya.) But I can see you and I have nothing more to talk about here. We clearly don't see the world the same way.
I look back fondly to the years of the late 1930’s and the 1940’s when America ‘suffered’ from Fascist-phobia instead of the warm cuddly embrace it’s getting here in 2022.
Phobia also implies irrational fear. If the USA isn’t fearful or at least •wary• of Russia’s and China’s intentions, were fools.
The Defense budget has three purposes:
1. Safeguard trade routes globally.
2. Enrich donor corporations
3. Keep supporting one of the most massive jobs programs the world has ever seen.
You seem to be operating from the premise that the U.S. has the right to control the global economy, while Russia or China don't.
I implore you to really examine why you think that's the case, I mean apart from you having internalized the idea of U.S. exceptionalism.
Why should the U.S. be able to control Russia/China, and not vice versa? Or even if you're not going to go to the extreme of Russia/China controlling us (which is a pretty fantastical idea), Why shouldn't Russia/China at least be able to have autonomy over their own economic destiny?
This is a similar question to why should the U.S. be allowed to have as many nukes as they want, but not every other country? The U.S. is the only country with a track record of horribly misusing their nukes, yet they are also the country that gets to dictate who else is allowed to use nukes. Make it make sense.
American exceptionalism only exists in its most favorable geographic situation, no more no less.
That you think that the USA ‘horribly’ misused its nukes shows that you are uninformed of the 75 year-long internal conversation within the defense culture about their use. The Doves have prevailed over and over again.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not close to the worst bombings of the war and yet the results were deemed so horrific that no nuke has been detonated in anger since. 🤔
Russia in recent history has already invaded the Crimea and Georgia and yet you doubt that maybe they might have designs on Ukraine?
The USA and China have every interest in keeping the global trade system going and that will curtail somewhat China’s attempts to sabotage the system. Russia has gone from world power to 🤷♂️ and they chafe under that.
I don't think NBA brass really care about Freedom's outspokenness--he doesn't seem too "out there" on those issues (and yes, it pains me to use his new surname). His main problem is that he's a very limited player. He's largely an offensive specialist at center, but he's not a great outside shooter, so he doesn't spread the floor. He's a poor rim defender, and probably the worst center in the league for perimeter defense. So if his offense slips a bit, which it appears to be, he's a net liability.
That last link goes to the MSN homepage. Useful if I want to know who the Giants are drafting, but not for reading about Columbo. Clearly a ploy by Jack Cassidy.
Add to the list of "people who clearly didn't do anything wrong but are paying large settlements:" the Dallas Cowboys. They apparently paid four former cheerleaders $2.4 million after the women were surreptitiously filmed in their locker room by a team PR man. The suit was entirely confidential till Don Van Natta managed to get the facts. The 'Boys claim that the man in question did no such thing, but strangely the man in question quietly retired last year, and boy that is a lot of money to pay out for nothing.
Interestingly, Jayson Stark wrote an article called "five things MLB can learn from the NFL." Aside from advocating that playoff games start and end earlier, it was nonsensical apples-to-oranges stuff with a tinge of anti-unionism. But seeing it right after reading about the Cowboys, my only reaction was "the NFL has nothing to teach anyone." Yes, the people running MLB are manifestly terrible. But the NFL seems to teach a master class in such things with even more frequency. And gets away with it. The last thing baseball should emulate is the NFL.
Except for one thing: The NFL does a HELL OF A LOT MORE in terms of turning kids into fans of its product. Disagree? Tell me about the shows that MLB has on Nickelodeon. (Hint: You can find the full list on Jimmie Dimmick's front lawn sign)
That whole Nickelodeon thing seems most likely to appeal to kids who are already interested. But what do I know? I got into sports without any bells and whistles added and don't get why the bells and whistles are needed.
But be that as it may, I know if I had kids, I would bend over backwards not to let watch football for a thousand reasons.
So did I but things like "The Baseball Bunch" and "This Week in Baseball" certainly didn't hurt. However, I will freely admit that a good deal of my preference for minor-league baseball *is* the lack of bells of whistles, though that's going the way of free air at gas stations...
P.S. The NCAA is on line 1, asking who can hold its beer.
Free air at gas stations, man. There's a local gas station chain here in the Minnesota and in the Twin Cities at least one of their calling cards is "always" having free air available.
The machines are broken more often than the ones McDonalds uses to make shamrock shakes.
Stark's primary point was that MLB needs to put a more entertaining product on the field. The NFL, with its play clock, makes sure that there's very little lull in the action (in general). A starting QB can be expected to go the entire game, even in the playoffs. When was the last time a star starting pitcher threw a complete game - or even went into the 8th inning - in the playoffs? Why watch a game when no one worth watching is on the field? It's not about the *business* of the league, but treating it as ENTERTAINMENT and ENTERTAINING the fans.
I see his point. I just also understand why baseball is less entertaining now. We all loathe this, but the objective is to win and not to entertain. I would love to turn the clock back to the days of complete games for all, but it won't happen. Do we change the rules to make sure starters go seven? Is that even safe for pitchers' arms? Football has it lucky in that all the rules changes to improve offense dovetail nicely with rules to protect players' health.
The only rule change I can think of that would help the game beside a pitch clock is banning the shift, and I really don't like taking away a tool from the defense just to make the game more fun.
I think there are things that MLB can do to make their product more entertaining (IMO, that means incentivizing speed and athleticism over TTO), but complete games are not coming back unless you somehow penalize high velocity pitches. Tom Brady led the NFL in passing attempts, which works out to just over 42/game. I'm guessing very few per game are max effort. Not remotely comparable to modern max-effort MLB pitchers.
Insane idea that will never happen: Robot strike zone, but create a rule saying that the strike zone expands by 0.5cm in both width and height after each batter retired by a pitcher. When a new pitcher enters the game, the strike zone resets to normal.
A key feature of that Remington settlement is that plaintiffs can share the internal documents they obtained regarding the AR15’s manufacture and marketing. Don’t be surprised if there are more settlements down the line.
Also worth noting: Remington went out of business in 2020 and its assets were sold off but insurers are on the hook for the $$$. To me that says insurers recognized an even bigger liability exposure and cashed out on the cheap - since the docs were worth so much to plaintiffs.
In other news (for the Free Thursday crowd), MLB.TV delenda est.
Re: Cancel MLB.tv -- Same goes for MLB Audio and email subscriptions. And make sure to delete your CC info as a fail-safe. Might not be as much money, but same principle applies.
The Lerner family has a long history of making an offer to a player in an effort to keep him from signing elsewhere but never budging from their original offer when other teams outbid them. So, we Nats fans are obviously worried already that three years from now, when Soto hits free agency (if they haven't traded him already) they'll point to the offer they made this winter and say, "Well, we tried."
Maybe this time will be different. There are two reports that the contract offer did not include deferred money, which is new for the Lerners, but it already feels like we'll have to turn our attention to Brady House or someone as the next superstar to build around till he hits free agency.
I can't help feeling feeling like the Soto news is part of the lockout negotiations. Greedy damn players won't even take $27 million a year for 13 years guaranteed...
And I have to admit, it seems likes a risk on his part. So what if he actually makes $35 million 5 years from now...how is that going to change his life? Once you have FU money adding more has no impact on your happiness. If you believe various articles online, once you have about $70K a year adding more does little for your happiness.
I have a feeling MLB accounts receivable is gonna have a concerning dip to report at their February review. I wonder if they'll be curious enough to trace it back to you (shouldn't be too hard). Either way I'd definitely feel proud if I were you.
On Soto - I think that's a solid opening offer by the Nats, who have never before made an offer of that magnitude before, especially without any of the money deferred. If they come back with something that starts with a "4" they might be in business.
On GW - I have an MBA from there (2010) and was basically sold a bill of goods with regard to that program. I have found GW to be a place that charges private school freight while treating its students like anonymous numbers. When I called their career office a couple years after graduating because I had been struggling to find any kind of meaningful job and needed some assistance, they farmed me out to a woman at a call center in Iowa (who had no expertise or connection to the fields I wanted to be in, by the way) because I was "too far removed from being a student for them to help me." Great use of $80,000! Fuck GW.
As a lifetime Reds fan and Orioles fan for the past 20-plus years I've lived here, I can tell you I haven't bought a ticket to a game in six years. Prior to that, I'd bought tickets to anywhere from five to thirty games every season since the late seventies.
When I moved to Baltimore in the mid-nineties it was hard to get a ticket to any game. Today, the only times there are more than 3,000 in the stands are when the Yankees, Red Sox, or Phillies come to town.
Tank if you want to... just don't expect me to pay for it.
I was thinking that Soto may be where we see the Yankees and the new-money-Mets go insanely hard after the same player, which itself could reset at least the high end of MLB's salary structure. And that doesn't consider someone like the Dodgers also being involved.
If Soto keeps going like this and improving there is no way Cohen loses the bidding war. By all appearances, he’s a lifelong passionate fan, who hates the Yankees, with the dough to get what he wants.
It's bad enough, albeit understandable, that educational institutions solicit donations from graduates.
What I don't understand is what I'm seeing from my older daughter's school, which has solicited donations from *me* for nearly her entire four year enrollment there. It's not a school that I attended, and I think the tuition, room and board, and other fees I've paid over the years are quite enough, thank you very much.
I was super annoyed (25+ years ago, damn I’m old) when my university was asking seniors for donations. WE WEREN’T EVEN DONE PAYING YOU YET, AND YOU’RE ASKING FOR MORE?!?!?!
I know a number of years ago the Commonwealth of Virginia drastically cut state funding to public universities, resulting in near-exponential tuition increases, and maybe the constant fundraising is part of that.
But yeah, I'm right there with you on the whole "I'm still paying you directly" bits.
It sounds to me that my favorite professor was not wrong: To be successful, a university president needs only to make sure there is (1) beer for the students (2) football for the alumni (3) parking for the faculty
Pandemic-induced faculty disengagement has made this worse in my neck of the woods. Those of us trying to run our labs and teach have stopped participating as much in governance, leading to much less pushback on that encroachment. We're finally starting to re-engage, but it's now even more uphill.
I threw in some money to help the fraternity build a spectacular new house, so now when Purdue comes calling I'm like - I'm helping house 55 guys that you don't have to provide housing for. We're good.
To be fair, Purdue was probably just gonna stick them in a basement somewhere anyway. I see some pretty grim stuff at the start of every year with what Purdue Residences ends up doing to some of the incoming freshman for housing.
Same thing in Massachusetts in the late 80s and early 90s -- I actually got a survey from an Econ grad student who was studying the effects of in-state tuition doubling in the course of four years about five years after I got my undergraduate degree.
My parents have gotten the same things from the college I went to, and I graduated decades ago.
I don't give them money because although I did get a good education, and I certainly can't complain about the scholarships I got, I don't have a lot of extra cash now and giving them a small annual donation will only encourage them to waste more paper on constant begging.
I gave a few hundred to the University of Texas (my grad school) when they were absorbing displaced students after Hurricane Katrina. So, now they have my current email address, and hoo boy. And from the alumni cruise brochures I get, they clearly think I have far more disposable income than I do.
Random breakfast-related question: is there a word for the plug of cream cheese that goes through the hole in a bagel and then must be retrieved and re-spread before eating? I feel like it’s a prime candidate for Yiddish or, failing that, a good old fashioned Sniglet?
The problem with the argument about the Orioles “tanking” is that they were NOT tanking in 2018.
At all.
They went into that season with hopes of a playoff run after a late season collapse in 2017. As recently as August of 2017 they were in contention for a wildcard slot, and management stayed the course even though many of us believed they had little shot in 2018, even after they signed Alex Cobb.
Essentially, the 2018 Orioles—in this fan’s opinion, the worst team of the last five seasons—did exactly what people say teams should do *instead* of tanking.
They relied on veteran players, had a farm system that couldn’t help because it was drained during the five year run from 2012 to 2016 when they won more games than any other team in the AL. They spent well over $200M on free agents over the prior years, and added more just prior to the 2018 season. They tried to be “fan friendly” and avoid the rebuild by holding on to core players like Machado, Jones, Britton, Gausman, et al, instead of trading them sooner.
They literally did what every anti-tanker would have a team do and still lost 115 games.
Repeating that process in subsequent years would have only delayed the inevitable rebuild. The team has been putrid since then, but you’re missing the broader point. They needed a *complete* infrastructure retooling due to the neglect of ownership. When the new front office took over they found that the team had exactly ONE person in the analysis department. There was nothing coming from the International market, which requires years of relationship building and infrastructure too. The minors were a dumpster fire.
Now they have what is widely considered a forward thinking player development system, a top minor league system on the precipice of putting talent back on the field, a new academy in Latin America, probably the best center fielder in the game, a decent outfield overall, and are about to bring up a prospect who will likely become the best catcher in the league in short order. They made an offer to bring on a veteran pitcher in Lyles to eat some innings while they bring along their younger talent, which includes one of the best pitching prospects in the game. There’s more free agent action to come now and in the seasons ahead. And they just gave out the largest amount of money in the international market they’ve ever given, instead of trading that to other teams for lottery ticket down-level prospects.
Yeah, the 2018 Oriole team, the worst team I’ve ever had to watch for more than a couple games is somehow held up as a tanking example. Yet they weren’t tanking.
The putrid “tanking teams” of the past three seasons actually won MORE games than that last-gasp team.
Dead serious. They even went out and "upgraded" the rotation with Cobb, at that point the richest pitching contract they had given out.
Many of us in the cheap seats wondered what they were doing. I was certainly not worried about keeping my October calendar open for playoff games. But yes, that was a team that though they had another playoff run in them.
And that kinda raises the broader point about tanking that just makes me *shrug*. There will always be bad baseball teams. The 2018 Orioles were not trying to be bad, yet managed to be the worst team of maybe the past--what?--20 years? If not purely in losses, then certainly in dollars per win. They began that season (if my old man memory serves) with a payroll well above $150M, which probably put them in or near the top 10.
What possible enticement could have been offered to keep them from tearing down? This is the question that those who lose their minds over tanking never answer. There are few, if any, viable solutions offered.
Rearranging the draft order wouldn't have stopped that team from being terrible. And then penalizing them by giving them a lower draft position the following year would have only drawn out the rebuild process.
The term "tanking" is just the other side of the coin of the term "rebuild". Because our modern culture requires everyone to be super snarky, all the time, it's now called tanking.
A rebuild is just starting anew with young talent to see what a team has on hand, and what can be a part of a new future. And rebuilds happen in every sport, and have in baseball for well over 100 years. How anyone thinks you can legislate a bad team from rebuilding is beyond me, and most of the anti-tanking measures I've seen proposed do nothing to stop teams from rebuilding. Most of those measures either penalize bad teams by moving them away from high draft picks, which is counterproductive, or legislating they must spend more money, which would have little bearing on the fortunes of those bad teams. The tanking 2019 Orioles could have spent $75M more on salaries and still finished last. What's the point in that? That money instead went into infrastructure and development and drafting and prospects, all things they needed to do to become competitive again.
The only way to get rid of the egregious tanking (as opposed to the normal rebuilds that are commonplace) would to have a system that financially rewards on-field success, and makes it a losing proposition financially to run out a terrible team for decades on end.
Bob Nutting does not give a single goddamn about what anyone in Pittsburgh thinks, nor does he give a shit about winning games. Why? Because the checks still clear, baby.
Yeah, the Cubs won the WS more because of an organizational overhaul than by truly tanking. Kris Bryant was a #2 pick (and they were damn lucky that the Astros didn’t take him and leave them with Mark Appel), but they never had another pick higher than #4 and arguably the next-best drafted player they took during the rebuild was Baez at #9.
I will say that the organization failed to maximize their championship window by spending appropriately in the 2016-2019 years. I used to argue a lot with Cubs fans who’d say “how can you say they don’t spend enough money when they have a top 5 payroll?” My answer is, when you benefit financially from years of a rebuild in which you are not spending to the top of the league, it’s reasonable to expect that you’ll go into the luxury tax in the years you’re contending for a title.
Agreed. There's a few competing definitions of "tanking" that muddy the waters on this discussion. When it's done as a necessary and strategic plan to actually compete like the Cubs/Astros, I think it works for everyone (except maybe people who already bought season tickets for that year). When it's half-hearted, or a mere figleaf for cost-cutting, or learned incompetence, then yeah, "tanking" sucks and should be disincentivized as much as possible.
[Insert obligatory reference to end scene of "Fight Club" here]
I'm wondering if he can convince them that all the moving talk was just faked for content and he actually doesn't want to leave, so they will pay for a "Convince Calcaterra to Relocate Fund." Like a golden parachute where an executive who sucks is paid a lot of money to go away, but for moving to the Carolinas. 😄
Re: tanking. I used to joke I was one of five NJ Nets fans* and one of three left after they traded all their picks to the Celtics. They had one season where they won 12 games and started like 0-18 or 0-17. Teenage me was THRILLED when they’d pull off the rare W. Didn’t matter about draft standing. I just wanted to see my team win.
* There was no way I was going to root for the Knicks after I wisely skipped over the Mets.
I think that part of sports gets lost when teams and media members try making tanking the norm. The rewarding feeling of a shitty Jets team with a flawed roster shocking the Bengals or a rebuilding MLB team winning that 70th game a year after losing 99.
Also, speaking of the NBA…Craig, did you see the new “argument” that the NBA is blacklisting Enes Kanter Freedom because he went on Fox News and ripped the league and its stars for their support of China? It seems like the same people who said “shut up and dribble” are trying to make Kanter the new Colin Kaepernick after years of ripping Kap.
I missed that Kanter was released last week. I don't think he's out of work because of his outspokenness, given his diminishing skills. But he's certainly made very few friends. Though he started out as a critic of Erdogan, who last I checked was a darling of the right. So it's funny that Fox is paying attention to him now. (FWIW, I wholeheartedly agree with him calling out the NBA and its stars for turning a blind eye to China, but it doesn't feel like he's actually accomplishing much.)
I think that’s about where I am in every part of it, Simon. I personally respect how outspoken he is especially considering his full story and the danger he’s in if he ever tried returning home. I think he, at least for me, falls into that boat of I (me) respect his stances and some of his points, but I don’t always agree with the execution or how he gets to the point.
(Although I do find it funny to imagine LeBron letting all the power players know to keep him far away from their teams as possible. You know, when LeBron’s not suggesting a 2019-20 Lakers parade two years later…)
LeBron gives me a headache. In general I respect him and much prefer him in every way to Michael Jordan, but he sometimes likes to remind us he's just as self-centered and greedy as the rest of us.
Y'all are just regurgitating literal anti-China state department propaganda, which itself borders on straight sinophobia.
Have you noticed how our government just oscillates back and forth between Russia and China hate? Amazing how they stopped talking about China altogether for the last two weeks while they were blowing their war horns over Ukraine.
And the purpose of it all is merely to have everyone uncritically accept their insane annual defense budget increases, which i suspect you do. Definite shades of 1984 in all this, please do better.
So Russia doesn't have 150,000 troops on the border of Ukraine? China doesn't have millions of Muslims in re-education camps? You can argue what the right course of action is, but it's not just repeating what the State Department says. Or do you really think Russia and China are fine members of the global community?
While I disagree with Andrew's assessment of what is happening, I can't disagree with this assessment of the Staties. They are - different from you and me. They all have a big sign on their desk that reads "AGENDA!!!!"
Remember, if there weren't issues, they wouldn't exist.
It is better to have a problem and not deal with it than to not have a problem that has been dealt with.
They are like wild animals. Sure, they're cute and cuddly when locked up safely and out of the way, but let them loose and you are talking a crisis room run by at least 3 different undersecretaries, that runs 24-hours a dy from a safe space (sorry, safe room) next to the cafeteria and vending machines, all while the extra allowance for being away from home kicks in.
For the staties, a crisis in the world isn't a problem for them to solve. It's a promotion opportunity.
No they literally don't have that many troops on the border. They all went back to their original posts on Monday. And then the WWIII-hungry media dropped it overnight.
And no, China doesn't have millions of Muslims in re-education camps. They somehow "set them all free" overnight a few months ago, which is something that governments definitely do with concentration camp prisoners... unless maybe it was never actually how the CIA-backed pro-Uygher groups were characterizing it?
There is a LOOOOOOT of ideological space in-between "Don't believe what the U.S. media tells you about the U.S.'s geopolitical enemies" and "The U.S.'s geopolitical enemies are fine members of the global community." Maybe try and find some of that vast terrain to occupy from now on.
As I said, do better.
So you believe the Russians and not NATO about where the troops are? You believe the Russians and not the Ukrainians? It's fair to be skeptical, but I can't say how you can take anything Putin's regime says at face value. Especially given their track record of starting wars (Crimea, Georgia, Donbass, Chechnya.) But I can see you and I have nothing more to talk about here. We clearly don't see the world the same way.
Really.
"Do better", the man says.
On a free Thursday no less..
I look back fondly to the years of the late 1930’s and the 1940’s when America ‘suffered’ from Fascist-phobia instead of the warm cuddly embrace it’s getting here in 2022.
Phobia also implies irrational fear. If the USA isn’t fearful or at least •wary• of Russia’s and China’s intentions, were fools.
The Defense budget has three purposes:
1. Safeguard trade routes globally.
2. Enrich donor corporations
3. Keep supporting one of the most massive jobs programs the world has ever seen.
You seem to be operating from the premise that the U.S. has the right to control the global economy, while Russia or China don't.
I implore you to really examine why you think that's the case, I mean apart from you having internalized the idea of U.S. exceptionalism.
Why should the U.S. be able to control Russia/China, and not vice versa? Or even if you're not going to go to the extreme of Russia/China controlling us (which is a pretty fantastical idea), Why shouldn't Russia/China at least be able to have autonomy over their own economic destiny?
This is a similar question to why should the U.S. be allowed to have as many nukes as they want, but not every other country? The U.S. is the only country with a track record of horribly misusing their nukes, yet they are also the country that gets to dictate who else is allowed to use nukes. Make it make sense.
American exceptionalism only exists in its most favorable geographic situation, no more no less.
That you think that the USA ‘horribly’ misused its nukes shows that you are uninformed of the 75 year-long internal conversation within the defense culture about their use. The Doves have prevailed over and over again.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not close to the worst bombings of the war and yet the results were deemed so horrific that no nuke has been detonated in anger since. 🤔
Russia in recent history has already invaded the Crimea and Georgia and yet you doubt that maybe they might have designs on Ukraine?
The USA and China have every interest in keeping the global trade system going and that will curtail somewhat China’s attempts to sabotage the system. Russia has gone from world power to 🤷♂️ and they chafe under that.
I don't think NBA brass really care about Freedom's outspokenness--he doesn't seem too "out there" on those issues (and yes, it pains me to use his new surname). His main problem is that he's a very limited player. He's largely an offensive specialist at center, but he's not a great outside shooter, so he doesn't spread the floor. He's a poor rim defender, and probably the worst center in the league for perimeter defense. So if his offense slips a bit, which it appears to be, he's a net liability.
That last link goes to the MSN homepage. Useful if I want to know who the Giants are drafting, but not for reading about Columbo. Clearly a ploy by Jack Cassidy.
Add to the list of "people who clearly didn't do anything wrong but are paying large settlements:" the Dallas Cowboys. They apparently paid four former cheerleaders $2.4 million after the women were surreptitiously filmed in their locker room by a team PR man. The suit was entirely confidential till Don Van Natta managed to get the facts. The 'Boys claim that the man in question did no such thing, but strangely the man in question quietly retired last year, and boy that is a lot of money to pay out for nothing.
Interestingly, Jayson Stark wrote an article called "five things MLB can learn from the NFL." Aside from advocating that playoff games start and end earlier, it was nonsensical apples-to-oranges stuff with a tinge of anti-unionism. But seeing it right after reading about the Cowboys, my only reaction was "the NFL has nothing to teach anyone." Yes, the people running MLB are manifestly terrible. But the NFL seems to teach a master class in such things with even more frequency. And gets away with it. The last thing baseball should emulate is the NFL.
Except for one thing: The NFL does a HELL OF A LOT MORE in terms of turning kids into fans of its product. Disagree? Tell me about the shows that MLB has on Nickelodeon. (Hint: You can find the full list on Jimmie Dimmick's front lawn sign)
That whole Nickelodeon thing seems most likely to appeal to kids who are already interested. But what do I know? I got into sports without any bells and whistles added and don't get why the bells and whistles are needed.
But be that as it may, I know if I had kids, I would bend over backwards not to let watch football for a thousand reasons.
So did I but things like "The Baseball Bunch" and "This Week in Baseball" certainly didn't hurt. However, I will freely admit that a good deal of my preference for minor-league baseball *is* the lack of bells of whistles, though that's going the way of free air at gas stations...
P.S. The NCAA is on line 1, asking who can hold its beer.
Ick. I bet the NCAA drinks the cheap stuff they serve at their games.
Wouldn't know -- closest I can tolerate is Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, and that's only because it tastes more like bourbon than beer.
When I was about 7 years old I thought that "The Baseball Bunch" was the coolest damn thing in the universe.
Free air at gas stations, man. There's a local gas station chain here in the Minnesota and in the Twin Cities at least one of their calling cards is "always" having free air available.
The machines are broken more often than the ones McDonalds uses to make shamrock shakes.
Well, the shake machines are working as intended:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
It would be funny if there's an air compressor company that has a similarly predatory service contract with the gas stations.
Stark's primary point was that MLB needs to put a more entertaining product on the field. The NFL, with its play clock, makes sure that there's very little lull in the action (in general). A starting QB can be expected to go the entire game, even in the playoffs. When was the last time a star starting pitcher threw a complete game - or even went into the 8th inning - in the playoffs? Why watch a game when no one worth watching is on the field? It's not about the *business* of the league, but treating it as ENTERTAINMENT and ENTERTAINING the fans.
I see his point. I just also understand why baseball is less entertaining now. We all loathe this, but the objective is to win and not to entertain. I would love to turn the clock back to the days of complete games for all, but it won't happen. Do we change the rules to make sure starters go seven? Is that even safe for pitchers' arms? Football has it lucky in that all the rules changes to improve offense dovetail nicely with rules to protect players' health.
The only rule change I can think of that would help the game beside a pitch clock is banning the shift, and I really don't like taking away a tool from the defense just to make the game more fun.
I think there are things that MLB can do to make their product more entertaining (IMO, that means incentivizing speed and athleticism over TTO), but complete games are not coming back unless you somehow penalize high velocity pitches. Tom Brady led the NFL in passing attempts, which works out to just over 42/game. I'm guessing very few per game are max effort. Not remotely comparable to modern max-effort MLB pitchers.
Insane idea that will never happen: Robot strike zone, but create a rule saying that the strike zone expands by 0.5cm in both width and height after each batter retired by a pitcher. When a new pitcher enters the game, the strike zone resets to normal.
Correct, that is an insane idea.
A key feature of that Remington settlement is that plaintiffs can share the internal documents they obtained regarding the AR15’s manufacture and marketing. Don’t be surprised if there are more settlements down the line.
Also worth noting: Remington went out of business in 2020 and its assets were sold off but insurers are on the hook for the $$$. To me that says insurers recognized an even bigger liability exposure and cashed out on the cheap - since the docs were worth so much to plaintiffs.
In other news (for the Free Thursday crowd), MLB.TV delenda est.
Re: Cancel MLB.tv -- Same goes for MLB Audio and email subscriptions. And make sure to delete your CC info as a fail-safe. Might not be as much money, but same principle applies.
DELENDA. EST.
Thanks for the MLB.TV reminder. I went with "Not using product enough" as my reason because, hey, there's no product.
Always say blackouts, even if they don't directly affect you. Blackouts are the worst feature of any sports streaming platform.
The Lerner family has a long history of making an offer to a player in an effort to keep him from signing elsewhere but never budging from their original offer when other teams outbid them. So, we Nats fans are obviously worried already that three years from now, when Soto hits free agency (if they haven't traded him already) they'll point to the offer they made this winter and say, "Well, we tried."
Maybe this time will be different. There are two reports that the contract offer did not include deferred money, which is new for the Lerners, but it already feels like we'll have to turn our attention to Brady House or someone as the next superstar to build around till he hits free agency.
I can't help feeling feeling like the Soto news is part of the lockout negotiations. Greedy damn players won't even take $27 million a year for 13 years guaranteed...
And I have to admit, it seems likes a risk on his part. So what if he actually makes $35 million 5 years from now...how is that going to change his life? Once you have FU money adding more has no impact on your happiness. If you believe various articles online, once you have about $70K a year adding more does little for your happiness.
I have a feeling MLB accounts receivable is gonna have a concerning dip to report at their February review. I wonder if they'll be curious enough to trace it back to you (shouldn't be too hard). Either way I'd definitely feel proud if I were you.
Most likely result is MLB having layoffs on their MLBTV team, and blaming the players for it
On Soto - I think that's a solid opening offer by the Nats, who have never before made an offer of that magnitude before, especially without any of the money deferred. If they come back with something that starts with a "4" they might be in business.
On GW - I have an MBA from there (2010) and was basically sold a bill of goods with regard to that program. I have found GW to be a place that charges private school freight while treating its students like anonymous numbers. When I called their career office a couple years after graduating because I had been struggling to find any kind of meaningful job and needed some assistance, they farmed me out to a woman at a call center in Iowa (who had no expertise or connection to the fields I wanted to be in, by the way) because I was "too far removed from being a student for them to help me." Great use of $80,000! Fuck GW.
She couldn't help you with your fields because she was in her own fields. In Iowa.
There's a joke in there somewhere. I evidently haven't come up with it.
I’m guessing if you’d given them large donations after graduating, they would’ve been much more likely to help you out. So really that’s on you…
They directed you to that lady because she told them “I-owe-a GW grad some job assistance.”
BOOOOOOOOOO
As a lifetime Reds fan and Orioles fan for the past 20-plus years I've lived here, I can tell you I haven't bought a ticket to a game in six years. Prior to that, I'd bought tickets to anywhere from five to thirty games every season since the late seventies.
When I moved to Baltimore in the mid-nineties it was hard to get a ticket to any game. Today, the only times there are more than 3,000 in the stands are when the Yankees, Red Sox, or Phillies come to town.
Tank if you want to... just don't expect me to pay for it.
Oh, and Andrew and Theil are still scumbags.
Thiel is close to Bond villain levels of scumbaggery. He's even bankrolling Craig's favorite author, J.D. Vance.
Welcome to the Mets Mr. Soto ! Uncle Stevie will take care of you pal, $500 mill, no problem!! See you in Queens in a few years.
I was thinking that Soto may be where we see the Yankees and the new-money-Mets go insanely hard after the same player, which itself could reset at least the high end of MLB's salary structure. And that doesn't consider someone like the Dodgers also being involved.
Is it possible the Yankees are holding back on free agents to go after the Big One?
If Soto keeps going like this and improving there is no way Cohen loses the bidding war. By all appearances, he’s a lifelong passionate fan, who hates the Yankees, with the dough to get what he wants.
It's bad enough, albeit understandable, that educational institutions solicit donations from graduates.
What I don't understand is what I'm seeing from my older daughter's school, which has solicited donations from *me* for nearly her entire four year enrollment there. It's not a school that I attended, and I think the tuition, room and board, and other fees I've paid over the years are quite enough, thank you very much.
I was super annoyed (25+ years ago, damn I’m old) when my university was asking seniors for donations. WE WEREN’T EVEN DONE PAYING YOU YET, AND YOU’RE ASKING FOR MORE?!?!?!
I know a number of years ago the Commonwealth of Virginia drastically cut state funding to public universities, resulting in near-exponential tuition increases, and maybe the constant fundraising is part of that.
But yeah, I'm right there with you on the whole "I'm still paying you directly" bits.
It sounds to me that my favorite professor was not wrong: To be successful, a university president needs only to make sure there is (1) beer for the students (2) football for the alumni (3) parking for the faculty
Pandemic-induced faculty disengagement has made this worse in my neck of the woods. Those of us trying to run our labs and teach have stopped participating as much in governance, leading to much less pushback on that encroachment. We're finally starting to re-engage, but it's now even more uphill.
Beautiful analogy. But there are more of us, so we just need to take turns yelling at the squirrels.
I threw in some money to help the fraternity build a spectacular new house, so now when Purdue comes calling I'm like - I'm helping house 55 guys that you don't have to provide housing for. We're good.
To be fair, Purdue was probably just gonna stick them in a basement somewhere anyway. I see some pretty grim stuff at the start of every year with what Purdue Residences ends up doing to some of the incoming freshman for housing.
Same thing in Massachusetts in the late 80s and early 90s -- I actually got a survey from an Econ grad student who was studying the effects of in-state tuition doubling in the course of four years about five years after I got my undergraduate degree.
Haha, yes, my school gave the pitch of starting planning for alumni donations and support before we'd officially graduated.
I started using the postage paid envelope to return a copy of my kids’ 1098-T and they must’ve gotten the hint because the mailings stopped.
Clearly, if you can afford to send her to college, you have money. And why shouldn't they have it, too?
My parents have gotten the same things from the college I went to, and I graduated decades ago.
I don't give them money because although I did get a good education, and I certainly can't complain about the scholarships I got, I don't have a lot of extra cash now and giving them a small annual donation will only encourage them to waste more paper on constant begging.
I gave a few hundred to the University of Texas (my grad school) when they were absorbing displaced students after Hurricane Katrina. So, now they have my current email address, and hoo boy. And from the alumni cruise brochures I get, they clearly think I have far more disposable income than I do.
Random breakfast-related question: is there a word for the plug of cream cheese that goes through the hole in a bagel and then must be retrieved and re-spread before eating? I feel like it’s a prime candidate for Yiddish or, failing that, a good old fashioned Sniglet?
“Schmeardrop”?
Schmekelplotz
Bloop?
There is nothing but contempt for Nutting in Pgh. But, what else can be done to disturb his ownership of the once-proud Pirates?
The problem with the argument about the Orioles “tanking” is that they were NOT tanking in 2018.
At all.
They went into that season with hopes of a playoff run after a late season collapse in 2017. As recently as August of 2017 they were in contention for a wildcard slot, and management stayed the course even though many of us believed they had little shot in 2018, even after they signed Alex Cobb.
Essentially, the 2018 Orioles—in this fan’s opinion, the worst team of the last five seasons—did exactly what people say teams should do *instead* of tanking.
They relied on veteran players, had a farm system that couldn’t help because it was drained during the five year run from 2012 to 2016 when they won more games than any other team in the AL. They spent well over $200M on free agents over the prior years, and added more just prior to the 2018 season. They tried to be “fan friendly” and avoid the rebuild by holding on to core players like Machado, Jones, Britton, Gausman, et al, instead of trading them sooner.
They literally did what every anti-tanker would have a team do and still lost 115 games.
Repeating that process in subsequent years would have only delayed the inevitable rebuild. The team has been putrid since then, but you’re missing the broader point. They needed a *complete* infrastructure retooling due to the neglect of ownership. When the new front office took over they found that the team had exactly ONE person in the analysis department. There was nothing coming from the International market, which requires years of relationship building and infrastructure too. The minors were a dumpster fire.
Now they have what is widely considered a forward thinking player development system, a top minor league system on the precipice of putting talent back on the field, a new academy in Latin America, probably the best center fielder in the game, a decent outfield overall, and are about to bring up a prospect who will likely become the best catcher in the league in short order. They made an offer to bring on a veteran pitcher in Lyles to eat some innings while they bring along their younger talent, which includes one of the best pitching prospects in the game. There’s more free agent action to come now and in the seasons ahead. And they just gave out the largest amount of money in the international market they’ve ever given, instead of trading that to other teams for lottery ticket down-level prospects.
Yeah, the 2018 Oriole team, the worst team I’ve ever had to watch for more than a couple games is somehow held up as a tanking example. Yet they weren’t tanking.
The putrid “tanking teams” of the past three seasons actually won MORE games than that last-gasp team.
You’re joking right? They actually thought that team was going to win?
Dead serious. They even went out and "upgraded" the rotation with Cobb, at that point the richest pitching contract they had given out.
Many of us in the cheap seats wondered what they were doing. I was certainly not worried about keeping my October calendar open for playoff games. But yes, that was a team that though they had another playoff run in them.
And that kinda raises the broader point about tanking that just makes me *shrug*. There will always be bad baseball teams. The 2018 Orioles were not trying to be bad, yet managed to be the worst team of maybe the past--what?--20 years? If not purely in losses, then certainly in dollars per win. They began that season (if my old man memory serves) with a payroll well above $150M, which probably put them in or near the top 10.
What possible enticement could have been offered to keep them from tearing down? This is the question that those who lose their minds over tanking never answer. There are few, if any, viable solutions offered.
Rearranging the draft order wouldn't have stopped that team from being terrible. And then penalizing them by giving them a lower draft position the following year would have only drawn out the rebuild process.
The term "tanking" is just the other side of the coin of the term "rebuild". Because our modern culture requires everyone to be super snarky, all the time, it's now called tanking.
A rebuild is just starting anew with young talent to see what a team has on hand, and what can be a part of a new future. And rebuilds happen in every sport, and have in baseball for well over 100 years. How anyone thinks you can legislate a bad team from rebuilding is beyond me, and most of the anti-tanking measures I've seen proposed do nothing to stop teams from rebuilding. Most of those measures either penalize bad teams by moving them away from high draft picks, which is counterproductive, or legislating they must spend more money, which would have little bearing on the fortunes of those bad teams. The tanking 2019 Orioles could have spent $75M more on salaries and still finished last. What's the point in that? That money instead went into infrastructure and development and drafting and prospects, all things they needed to do to become competitive again.
The only way to get rid of the egregious tanking (as opposed to the normal rebuilds that are commonplace) would to have a system that financially rewards on-field success, and makes it a losing proposition financially to run out a terrible team for decades on end.
Bob Nutting does not give a single goddamn about what anyone in Pittsburgh thinks, nor does he give a shit about winning games. Why? Because the checks still clear, baby.