Stroman and the Yankees, Shota's money, the Sunday Night Baseball schedule, dangerous driving, Ohio once again chooses evil, kids are leaving red states for a reason, and dystopian ice
There was a recent Doctor Who episode where the big bad caused chaos by making everyone in the world think that everyone else was wrong and they were right. There was a bit where someone was driving on the sidewalk because, well, he was a taxpayer and paid for that sidewalk and it was his right, darnit! I thought that screenwriter Russell T. Davies was being a bit on the nose in that episode, but seeing that stuff about being a driver in 2024, I might have to say he was more right than I realized. Even if he was not referring to the US (since Doctor Who almost always takes place in the UK).
I had forgotten about Stroman and his dog whistle. I really did like him as a Met, in part because he spoke his mind in a sport that discourages it. But while it might be fun to see the conformity factory in the Bronx struggle with him, those tweets make me think a return to NYC would just be a bad idea. Though the bigger question is why the Yankees aren't chasing Snell or Montgomery. The money they budgeted for Yamamoto is still there.
Wow, ESPN still wants Yankees-Red Sox. Notably absent from prime time: the NL champs, and also the Phillies. But games with the Cubs and Cards. Weird.
There was a post yesterday, allegedly from Trevor Bauer’s Instagram account but I was unwilling to check, showing him in a Braves uniform with four other starters surrounding him. Scared the bejebers out of me. I’m not claiming that “my” team has any particular moral compass, but they’ve never sought out controversy.
Fake info can be so easily accepted. More so when it confirms our priors but even like this when it doesn’t.
Beltre is in, I’m not sure about the rest. Mauer I think barely misses out, we’ll call it 72%. I can see voters who don’t publicly post theirs leaving him off for the reason I did a couple months back. (I have since been swayed on Mauer and Utley!)
Helton should get in, we’ll guess he gets around 77%. Wagner and Sheffield? Wagner being +5 helps him right now. I don’t think Sheffield gets in. I’ll guess 75.4% for Wagner and about 67% for Sheffield. That’s a 12% jump from last year but still not enough.
Andruw Jones is the interesting one. He’s at 69.9% as of this morning. He’s got three years left on the ballot after this. Unless something drastic happens, he’s in, it just comes down to WHEN? If it’s next year, you may be looking at a class of three 2012 Yankees: Andruw, Ichiro, and CC*.
*The CC HOF argument is for another day, I think he’s gonna get in but he’s by no means a first-year lock. But I do expect him to at least clear 70% in year one.
Your "idiots and maniacs" link is especially poignant today, given the arrival of A.I. George Carlin upon the comedy scene. Talk about signs of the apocalypse, I can't even....
I've also seen covid itself (specifically, the neurological effects and brain fog that often linger) implicated in the bad driving, which also makes sense. If I'm tired I'm not as sharp and I realize that, but if it was a constant fogginess that was my everyday background to normal functioning I'd likely not even notice, and I certainly wouldn't notice if it made me less likely to notice road signs, less likely to pay attention to cues, and more short-tempered behind the wheel.
Does that imply there is a need to have a tease on the days when it's not Free Thursday? I'm guessing non-subscribers can see the tease those days. I always thought the tease was unnecessary, but that must be the reason for it.
Sometimes when I’m doing odd sorts via bb-ref (all hail Sean Forman!), Silver King will pop up. Over a three-year period, he had 14.7, 8.3 and 13.2 bWAR. The game sure was different for a boy born on this day in 1868.
Born on the same day, but just a couple years later is Elly De La Cruz. What a tremendous, and tremendously odd set of skills. I really hope that he can put it all together. EDLC turns 22 today.
Max Patkin is mostly known to people my age for his appearance in Bull Durham. He had a real baseball life, first as a pitcher in the minors and then as a coach for the Bill Veeck era Cleveland squads before becoming an attraction at minor league parks for decades. He was born on this day in 1920.
It is the birthday of both a General and Napoleon. For many, many decades, our politicians were largely former members of the military so General Crowder was a Senator, of course. He lead the AL in wins twice in the 1930s. Danny Napoleon was a really bad outfielder for some really bad mid 1960s Mets squads.
Bonus baseball related content: baseball wouldn’t be baseball without peanuts. And peanuts wouldn’t be peanuts without George Washington Carver, born on this day in 1864.
And poor Don Mossi, a fine pitcher winning over 100 games across a dozen years. But known these days solely for his truly misbegotten appearance. His SABR biography: “By this time Mossi had appeared on enough bubble-gum cards to have caught the attention of millions of young fans, who marveled at his unusual visage. He did not have the classic country-boy good looks of a Mickey Mantle or the dark, handsome face of a Sandy Koufax. Don was, well, different. He had a long, slightly crooked nose, his eyes were close together, and his ears stuck out to the edges of the cardboard. Indeed, some of his teammates called him Ears. Others nicknamed him The Sphinx. Later, when these young fans grew up, they were less diplomatic. One said he looked like ‘Mount Rushmore on a rainy day.’ Bill James wrote that Don was the ‘complete ugly player. He could run ugly, hit ugly, throw ugly, field ugly, and ugly for power. He was ugly to all fields.’” Mossi would have turned 95 today.
Worth noting that the Times article on driving is kind of bullshit. Really surface level exploration of stuff that other reporters have been working on for years. See Aaron Gordon, who has been on the transportation beat for years (and once had a really great substack on the NYC Subway)
“Voting with glee” for something (or someone) obviously motivated by evil and hate could be the tag line for MAGAism. Yet we keep being told by the chattering pundits that we need to try to understand better people who vote this way.
When I was 23, I told the 5 year old kindergarten I was babysitting for that I would never use my phone in my car. I have kept my word since then. Teaching kids things works and I believe that kids can have a great moral influence on the adults in their lives.
This is probably why states ban learning about queer people and Black history and queer, Black people’s history. (Stonewall was a riot.)
Who knows what a) the youth will grow up to think but b) who knows how much they can influence their circle of adults.
My Orioles win 101 games and no Sunday Night Baseball. Sigh ... no, wait, that's a good thing! I don't want to stay up that late on a work night, anyway.
I am generally vice-free but having a lead foot is definitely a problem for me. I'm super careful on suburban/city streets but I'll admit I tend to go 15-20% over the limit on highways. Not an excuse but "beating the GPS" is 100% a factor in my case. I would say I'll do better but I likely won't.
PS Not sure punching down politically hasn't always been with us in America - but seeing it on such unrepentant display with regard to trans kids is thoroughly discouraging.
PPS I feel the same way about my team on Sunday Night Baseball as I do being shot at - nothing quite like the feeling of having been missed. And yes, ESPN's devotion to Red Sox-Yankees and Cubs-Cards is amusing.
There was a recent Doctor Who episode where the big bad caused chaos by making everyone in the world think that everyone else was wrong and they were right. There was a bit where someone was driving on the sidewalk because, well, he was a taxpayer and paid for that sidewalk and it was his right, darnit! I thought that screenwriter Russell T. Davies was being a bit on the nose in that episode, but seeing that stuff about being a driver in 2024, I might have to say he was more right than I realized. Even if he was not referring to the US (since Doctor Who almost always takes place in the UK).
I had forgotten about Stroman and his dog whistle. I really did like him as a Met, in part because he spoke his mind in a sport that discourages it. But while it might be fun to see the conformity factory in the Bronx struggle with him, those tweets make me think a return to NYC would just be a bad idea. Though the bigger question is why the Yankees aren't chasing Snell or Montgomery. The money they budgeted for Yamamoto is still there.
Wow, ESPN still wants Yankees-Red Sox. Notably absent from prime time: the NL champs, and also the Phillies. But games with the Cubs and Cards. Weird.
There was a post yesterday, allegedly from Trevor Bauer’s Instagram account but I was unwilling to check, showing him in a Braves uniform with four other starters surrounding him. Scared the bejebers out of me. I’m not claiming that “my” team has any particular moral compass, but they’ve never sought out controversy.
Fake info can be so easily accepted. More so when it confirms our priors but even like this when it doesn’t.
Only a couple weeks left until the Hall announcement, and here’s where we stand: https://onedrive.live.com/edit?id=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!54244&resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!54244&ithint=file%2cxlsx&authkey=!AGrU1OUsbz4WHyU&wdo=2&cid=f2e5d8fc5199dfaf
Beltre is in, I’m not sure about the rest. Mauer I think barely misses out, we’ll call it 72%. I can see voters who don’t publicly post theirs leaving him off for the reason I did a couple months back. (I have since been swayed on Mauer and Utley!)
Helton should get in, we’ll guess he gets around 77%. Wagner and Sheffield? Wagner being +5 helps him right now. I don’t think Sheffield gets in. I’ll guess 75.4% for Wagner and about 67% for Sheffield. That’s a 12% jump from last year but still not enough.
Andruw Jones is the interesting one. He’s at 69.9% as of this morning. He’s got three years left on the ballot after this. Unless something drastic happens, he’s in, it just comes down to WHEN? If it’s next year, you may be looking at a class of three 2012 Yankees: Andruw, Ichiro, and CC*.
*The CC HOF argument is for another day, I think he’s gonna get in but he’s by no means a first-year lock. But I do expect him to at least clear 70% in year one.
Your "idiots and maniacs" link is especially poignant today, given the arrival of A.I. George Carlin upon the comedy scene. Talk about signs of the apocalypse, I can't even....
I've also seen covid itself (specifically, the neurological effects and brain fog that often linger) implicated in the bad driving, which also makes sense. If I'm tired I'm not as sharp and I realize that, but if it was a constant fogginess that was my everyday background to normal functioning I'd likely not even notice, and I certainly wouldn't notice if it made me less likely to notice road signs, less likely to pay attention to cues, and more short-tempered behind the wheel.
Does that imply there is a need to have a tease on the days when it's not Free Thursday? I'm guessing non-subscribers can see the tease those days. I always thought the tease was unnecessary, but that must be the reason for it.
Sometimes when I’m doing odd sorts via bb-ref (all hail Sean Forman!), Silver King will pop up. Over a three-year period, he had 14.7, 8.3 and 13.2 bWAR. The game sure was different for a boy born on this day in 1868.
Born on the same day, but just a couple years later is Elly De La Cruz. What a tremendous, and tremendously odd set of skills. I really hope that he can put it all together. EDLC turns 22 today.
Max Patkin is mostly known to people my age for his appearance in Bull Durham. He had a real baseball life, first as a pitcher in the minors and then as a coach for the Bill Veeck era Cleveland squads before becoming an attraction at minor league parks for decades. He was born on this day in 1920.
It is the birthday of both a General and Napoleon. For many, many decades, our politicians were largely former members of the military so General Crowder was a Senator, of course. He lead the AL in wins twice in the 1930s. Danny Napoleon was a really bad outfielder for some really bad mid 1960s Mets squads.
Lloyd McClendon was, as a player, Just Another Guy. But when he managing, he could do it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhnoCkp2QUo Happy 65th!
Bonus baseball related content: baseball wouldn’t be baseball without peanuts. And peanuts wouldn’t be peanuts without George Washington Carver, born on this day in 1864.
And poor Don Mossi, a fine pitcher winning over 100 games across a dozen years. But known these days solely for his truly misbegotten appearance. His SABR biography: “By this time Mossi had appeared on enough bubble-gum cards to have caught the attention of millions of young fans, who marveled at his unusual visage. He did not have the classic country-boy good looks of a Mickey Mantle or the dark, handsome face of a Sandy Koufax. Don was, well, different. He had a long, slightly crooked nose, his eyes were close together, and his ears stuck out to the edges of the cardboard. Indeed, some of his teammates called him Ears. Others nicknamed him The Sphinx. Later, when these young fans grew up, they were less diplomatic. One said he looked like ‘Mount Rushmore on a rainy day.’ Bill James wrote that Don was the ‘complete ugly player. He could run ugly, hit ugly, throw ugly, field ugly, and ugly for power. He was ugly to all fields.’” Mossi would have turned 95 today.
Could have sworn the asterisk was going to be about the Cybertruck.
And I've watched enough horror movies to know that you should not put ancient ice anywhere near your body.
Worth noting that the Times article on driving is kind of bullshit. Really surface level exploration of stuff that other reporters have been working on for years. See Aaron Gordon, who has been on the transportation beat for years (and once had a really great substack on the NYC Subway)
https://bsky.app/profile/awgordon.bsky.social/post/3kinkfu6ykk2w
“Voting with glee” for something (or someone) obviously motivated by evil and hate could be the tag line for MAGAism. Yet we keep being told by the chattering pundits that we need to try to understand better people who vote this way.
When I was 23, I told the 5 year old kindergarten I was babysitting for that I would never use my phone in my car. I have kept my word since then. Teaching kids things works and I believe that kids can have a great moral influence on the adults in their lives.
This is probably why states ban learning about queer people and Black history and queer, Black people’s history. (Stonewall was a riot.)
Who knows what a) the youth will grow up to think but b) who knows how much they can influence their circle of adults.
If I wasn’t so burnt out I’d create one of those “## Days Since Ohio wasn’t a F*cking Embarrassment to Humankind” memes.
My Orioles win 101 games and no Sunday Night Baseball. Sigh ... no, wait, that's a good thing! I don't want to stay up that late on a work night, anyway.
Oh, if only Terry Francona retiring got one tenth of the coverage that certain coaches of another sport retiring was getting.
I am generally vice-free but having a lead foot is definitely a problem for me. I'm super careful on suburban/city streets but I'll admit I tend to go 15-20% over the limit on highways. Not an excuse but "beating the GPS" is 100% a factor in my case. I would say I'll do better but I likely won't.
PS Not sure punching down politically hasn't always been with us in America - but seeing it on such unrepentant display with regard to trans kids is thoroughly discouraging.
PPS I feel the same way about my team on Sunday Night Baseball as I do being shot at - nothing quite like the feeling of having been missed. And yes, ESPN's devotion to Red Sox-Yankees and Cubs-Cards is amusing.