Or you can have some symptoms, test positive and still decide, well I’m wearing a mask out and don’t feel too bad. No self reporting requirements to any health authorities if you test positive.
I think the idea of a home test is to give a snapshot of that moment. If you are planning to see other people and everyone takes a test that morning and everyone tests negative, there is a pretty good chance you can all get together and not get each other sick. We did that during the holidays, and it worked out fine.
And if your kid wakes up with the sniffles and you want to determine if you should send the kid to school or not, you can take a test that day as well. Granted, I think that if your kid has a cold you should also not send the kid to school since I oppose spreading any germs, but it's certainly good to know if your kid could share his or her covid germs with classmates and with teachers.
Ideally - and lord knows how this would even be possible - we should all have access to daily rapid tests and decide our day's activities based on that. If everyone who tested negative, sick or not, stayed home for a week, we might be a lot better off. But that would require a lot more than just being able to manufacture billions of test kits. Like sick days, and effective working/school from home, and a commitment to end the plague instead of just "living with it."
I bought two boxes of N95s, and I do plan to use them. And 10 at home test kits, though that might have been more than I will need. I have them for us and for my mom in case we need, though. I don't feel guilty. Yet. (As I noted, I have seen people saying not to buy N95s even now since hospitals need them. So I don't even know if I should feel guilty in the first place.)
I don't think you should. You're not hoarding, you're not planning on selling them, you're planning on using them for their intended purpose. A couple boxes here and there don't make a difference.
And there would be plenty available for everyone if there wasn't a fear of "making too many" and then not being able to profit sufficiently to keep shareholders happy. 😠
NOTE: In the emailed version of today's newsletter I mistakenly wrote "wish" instead of "pretend" re: poseurs' stance toward their ever having been to school in the Common People/smoking item, but that has been remedied in the version on the website. Apologies. I will strive to do better going froward.
I don't get kids wanting to watch people play video games. But my wife doesn't get me wanting to watch baseball. So it's all a matter of taste. More concerning is that kids are playing sports less, if only because that gives the impression that kids aren't exercising enough. The two are not the same thing, of course - I have never played sports very much and not for exercise, and my exercise is distinct from sports - but I really hope the generation of games and e-sports fans are also getting out of their chairs and at least playing Pokemon Go on long walks.
I don't get anyone smoking. I don't get anyone liking the stink of the smoke. I don't get anyone wanting to increase their risk of cancer. And I certainly don't get starting to smoke when we're dealing with a respiratory disease. It's as for everyone one of us who reacted to the pandemic by trying to take every precaution possible, there is someone who just said "screw it." I don't get that, either.
And speaking of Evan Dreilich, this is from him:
"Sports and entertainment agency Endeavor, through its arm WME Sports, beefed up its baseball business over the summer by adding several established names in the industry. A few months later, Endeavor completed the purchase of 10 minor league teams, with eyes on more. That combination isn’t working for the baseball players’ union. The Major League Baseball Players Association warned WME Sports player representatives that they risk losing their certification as agents unless they divest themselves from the company, multiple people with knowledge of the situation told The Athletic."
I’m not sure I buy the ‘kids are playing less sports’ thing, but I only really know about the state of things within a 100 mile radio us of where I live, so 🤷♂️.
Even if the kids are playing sports (my 5 nieces and nephews all do something and are very active) tha doesn't mean they also watch. Between games, practices, strength training, and team activities, they have no time to watch anything because evenings and weekends are already full. Playing sports is something they enjoy doing g with their friends, not necessarily something they enjoy watching grownups doing on TV.
It doesn't help that the local minor league team hasn't been as available for the last couple years, but even then finding a game to have time to go to was hard.
And their parents, grandparents, etc watch less because if the option is watching the Red Wings on TV or either of my nephews skate, the kids win out every time. 🙂
I played sports through high school, but didn't start watching them obsessively on TV until I was in my teens. I think a lot of what makes sports fun is the ancillary stuff around the game - the personalities and the years long storylines and rivalries and all that.
As a kid, you're not going to have the attention span to invest in that because you're busy doing that with Bionicles or whatever, but it becomes much more engaging as you grow out of those avenues for play. You also just haven't been alive long enough to contextualize all the stuff that's happening in sports.
My son was initially embarrassed with his interest in eSports and watching tournaments on YouTube and Twitch. And he actively plays and uses some of the techniques he sees in his play. My wife and I had to explain to him that, how is his watching eSports tournaments any different from people getting obsessed over watching baseball / football / or any other "real" sport. And on top of that, he's actually also participating in the eSports he is watching. Which is a heck of a lot more than most people who delve into sports fandom. We pay attention to being active, but an interest in watching eSports is not really any different from an interest in watching sports.
We're also getting a lot of people watching shows where semi-famous people are playing Dungeons and Dragons. My wife is a superfan of something called Critical Role, where a group of actors (most of whom are best known for video game work) play D&D every week for three hours. She has been trying to get me to watch for years now, and it sounds really dull. But the show is massively popular and about to spawn a cartoon based on their game. I like playing D&D but the idea of watching anyone else play doesn't nothing for me. But tell that to Critical Role fans and to the players, who are getting rich from the ad deals, merchandise, and exposure.
A friend of mine went to California to DM a weeklong game for Jason Momoa. Dude had a giant gamin room complete with weapons on the wall and a giant hanging Beholder from the ceiling….I have a picture somewhere.
I have no issue with D&D being everywhere. I enjoy playing it greatly. I have been vibrating about today's session for two weeks. I just laugh at how something that was too nerdy for even me in 1983 is the hottest thing out there now, how it's even almost cool. Almost.
I haven't played in a billion years but had a lot of fun when I was living elsewhere and had a great group to play with. To think of it as almost cool is hilarious.
I'm literally wearing my old Warhammer Battle Magic t shirt today. I regret none of the hours and moneys which I spent on that stuff back when I was a tween and in my early teenage years. It's not technically D&D affiliated but extremely adjacent. This is a great thread!
Speaking of the 1980s and its smack you in the face brashness … my introduction to Ronnie Spector was via Eddie Money’s mid decade Take Me Home Tonight which turned the Ronnettes BMB into an explicit let’s screw.
Eddie Money got Ronnie Spector out of retirement with that one, and gave her a fantastic second career. She was literally washing baby clothes (I think she had 2 young children at the time) and was a single stay-at-home mom when he called.
Mental math problems. Be My Baby came out four years before I was born while Two Tickets to Paradise, Money's first hit, came out when I was ten. Something happening before I was born is ancient history; something happening when I was aware of it in real time happened just yesterday no matter how far back it was. So I always figured that there was a massive difference in age. But Money and Spector were only a handful of years apart.
I’ve gotten my 17 yr old daughter into baseball, well at least the Red Sox anyways. She follows players on social media and will sit and watch games during the season. She also watches clip videos on YouTube, like great plays, weird plays, etc. One of the colleges that’s interested in her playing volleyball for them has a pretty good D3 baseball team. It’s one of the selling points for her leaning toward going to that school since she likes baseball. Of course, I’ve seen Bull Durham so I’m not sure how I feel about that…
bbref suggests that Rusty Kuntz's nickname was "Player." I don't remember that being the case, but if the Brewers are just honoring my generation's Johnny Dickshot then so be it.
I went from 10 to 20 years old in the decade of the 80s, and smoked for half that time and hung out with lots of smokers at and outside of high school. There was nothing sexy about it, believe me.
I’m about 3 years older. The young and dumber version of me assumed that a girl with a cig could be convinced to replace it with something more personal. By the end of the decade, the less young and slightly less dumb version of me found a lack of correlation.
I went from 12 to 22 in the 80s. My first college girlfriend smoked, and that was the last time I dated a girl that smoked. My dad smoked two packs a day and I'll never forget walking into my parents house when I came home for Christmas my freshmen year, and about gagged on the smell of the house. I had no idea until I was living in a smoke free environment for the first time.
I grew up in a smoke-free house, but my parents were in a bowling league throughout the 80s. Our house STUNK for a solid 2-3 days after bowling night. I have no idea how people lived (willingly) in a smoking house.
My parents (smoked in college and shortly after, quit when I was very young thank goodness) said smoking killed your sense of taste and smell. One of the reasons my mom put on weight after she stopped was food actually tasted GOOD again so she ate more. That combined with the lack of the stimulant.
Same age, never smoked, and same awareness of nothing sexy. They weren't allowed to smoke on school grounds which extended to the parking lot, I think, so there were a few trees on the outlawn in front of the high school they'd cluster around and leave their butts.
Darkly amusing to see them huddled together in January in Michigan taking their smoke breaks while most of the students were inside where it was warm.
Pitch clocks & limits on defensive infield shifts to speed-up and shorten games for a younger, faster generation? If clocks worked in the minors to shave an hour off, wouldn’t we already see them in the Bigs? No shifts would lead to more offense (excitement?), but wouldn’t that make games longer?
Softball rules would do it. Fouls on the final strike are an out. It would be too extreme of a change to the game, but it'd shave off an hour easily.
Limiting pickoff throws would help. Eliminating warmup tosses on pitching changes would too. You've warmed up in the bullpen. If you want to get a feel for the mound, you have hours of pregame time. Pitch clock would help, but it can't be the only change.
I'd say no stepping out unless it was a foul ball or if you had to get out of the way of a pitch. A 20 second pitch clock is reasonable. If you can't get the pitch you want from the catcher, either make a bad pitch or eat a ball. You either get more balls in play or more runners on base, and that makes the game better to watch.
Right! Stepping out after each swing, or even a pitch taken, to rip off the Velcro, and tighten the Velcro. YOU DIDN’T EVEN SWING. Tony Pena did it, walked toward the batting circle, and Bob Prince would announce “another walk down Pena Lane”.
I’ve been wondering if the removal of players from the website and promotional stuff tells us something about negotiating strategies rather than just a ham fisted FU. Could MLB think that if they give the union a larger slice of merchandising they won’t push so hard on the luxury tax / salary cap?
How much of the “Gen Z’ers don’t want to play sports” narrative is really that simple? Let’s take COVID’s current impact on schools out of the equation. We’ve known for years that money keeps some kids away from playing, especially in baseball and basketball where travel is so heavily involved. We’ve seen more parents say they don’t want their kids playing football until middle or high school because of concussions and safety.
I agree that the leagues themselves (including college) are getting harder to reach for Gen Z’ers and millennials (I was born in 1997 so I’m technically a Gen Z’er) for a myriad of reasons. I just don’t know how much of that is 9-year-old Johnny not wanting to play little league or 14-year-old Sally not wanting to join her friends on a basketball team.
Also, re: people thinking smoking is cool. I can understand people binging The Sopranos during lockdown and wanting to eat Artie’s cooking or binging Always Sunny and wanting to wear Mac’s cut-off tees. I cannot understand why anyone would to embrace smoking now given all that we know. There’s no inherent harm in wearing a cut-off tee aside from possibly looking like an idiot. You eat too much italian food, you might have diarrhea, food poisoning, and an urge to kill one of your friends.
Smoking? I’m all for people having the right to smoke tobacco but I’ll pass.
Smoking: I can’t think of anything that is more of a signal that someone is a poseur than using the phrase “if you will” in a sentence. You might as well rent a billboard (LED, of course).
That BBC quote is a strange one, not least because they illustrate it with a non-controversy (flat earth). Presumably to avoid upsetting anyone by referring to an actual controversy that people might be personally invested in.
Also strange because it doesn't seem to reflect the reality of the BBC. Their page on the antivax movement
It won't be of interest to everyone, but it began with the question "Is a lesbian transphobic if she does not want to have sex with trans women?" Some junior BBC staff claimed that the article was itself transphobic and should be removed from their website [it hasn't been].
I wouldn't be surprised if this recent quote from David Jordan is driven entirely by the transgender issue. The BBC employs a lot of older feminist women. They also employ a lot of younger LGBT+ people, whose journalism is maybe more focussed on the T than on the other letters. The BBC values both groups and is trying to keep both happy. They could issue a statement referring only to their transgender coverage, but that would annoy one side. So they've formulated a general policy instead, designed purely for this one issue. And then, in every other area, they will carry on as before.
That's actually the first thing I thought of, as well. Because I see no reason to give any air time to flat earthers unless the intent is to try to figure out how people can end up with beliefs that silly. (Bring on the "Birds Aren't Real" guy, too.)
Arthur Chu (the Jeopardy champion) has on Twitter been really hammering the BBC for their editorial decisionmaking with regard to trans issues, I think he seems very reasonable.
The BBC is more than happy to give a mouthpiece to TERFs like JK Rowling, who really should just shut the fuck up and be happy with her mountain of wealth. (Seriously, every time she speaks it just makes her look worse. Stop talking, already.)
There was a very good BBC piece on flat earthers a few years ago that did exactly that, interviewed one, listened to her politely, asked her why she thought what she did and then got a polite geophysicist to explain why what the Flattie thought was completely wrong. I’ve not heard or seen much stuff on trans people on mainstream Beeb TV or radio, I assume because as Pete says they don’t want to offend either side. There’s been some coverage of JK Rowling’s views, but I’ve never heard that without trans people being asked their view of hers. By and large the BBC has got a lot better in recent years in not slavishly following (say) every piece on climate crisis with a know nothing denier for ‘balance’.
That's more or less what the makers of "Behind the Curve" on Netflix did - give the flat earthers time to speak, then bring on actual experts to explain why they're wrong.
At one point an astrophysicist at UCLA was told about a proposed experiment by the flat earthers, and his response was, "Actually, this is a very well constructed experiment. I wonder how they'll react when they end up proving the Earth isn't flat." Sure enough, that's more or less exactly what happened. The flat earthers did a scientifically valid experiment, proved that the Earth isn't flat, but their response wasn't, "Oh, maybe we're wrong," it was, "We need to modify our experiment."
Maybe some things aren’t meant to last forever. Sure. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back. Is obviously what you were gonna say, I mean, you're a white male sportswriter, them's the rules.
"Personally, I’m for liberal number retirement policies and think the “Hall of Famers only” rules are stupid"
Craig then you must have, like me, thought through the implications... so are you a "let 'em eventually wear 3 digit numbers", a "they'll eventually unretire some", or a "baseball's gonna stop being a major league sport before we have to worry about it " guy? On the evidence of today's newsletter, perhaps the latter.
There’s currently 101 possibilities for uniform numbers (allowing for both 0 and 00). The Yankees currently have the most retired numbers with 22, and the Cards are second with 12. We have a LONG way to go before we need to worry about 3 digit numbers, even with a very liberal number retiring policy.
That said, I’d opt for decimals or fractions (a la Eddie Gaedel) before going to 3 digits. Maybe even hexadecimal!
The Yankees do in fact have some trouble at the beginning of spring training, where there might be like 60 players and 20 coaches in camp, all with uniform numbers.
Rather than retire jersey numbers, I'd like to see a scenario where teams held numbers in reserve for special achievements. Like it you played for the Yankees and won the MVP, you get to wear Mantle's number the next season. Win a Cy Young with the Dodgers? Here's Koufax's 32. Could apply to All Star games, or just players who've demonstrated greatness. You see that happen in soccer a lot, where if a new signing is given the number 10 or 7, it frequently means big things are expected, and you better deliver.
Chiming in as an NPB fan/nerd/weeb, players signed to developmental contracts who aren't on the organizational 70-man roster get assigned triple-digit jersey numbers. Most use numbers in the 100s, but a few guys opt for a starting zero instead.
Or you can have some symptoms, test positive and still decide, well I’m wearing a mask out and don’t feel too bad. No self reporting requirements to any health authorities if you test positive.
I think the idea of a home test is to give a snapshot of that moment. If you are planning to see other people and everyone takes a test that morning and everyone tests negative, there is a pretty good chance you can all get together and not get each other sick. We did that during the holidays, and it worked out fine.
And if your kid wakes up with the sniffles and you want to determine if you should send the kid to school or not, you can take a test that day as well. Granted, I think that if your kid has a cold you should also not send the kid to school since I oppose spreading any germs, but it's certainly good to know if your kid could share his or her covid germs with classmates and with teachers.
Ideally - and lord knows how this would even be possible - we should all have access to daily rapid tests and decide our day's activities based on that. If everyone who tested negative, sick or not, stayed home for a week, we might be a lot better off. But that would require a lot more than just being able to manufacture billions of test kits. Like sick days, and effective working/school from home, and a commitment to end the plague instead of just "living with it."
Once again, the messaging is muddled beyond all usefulness.
I bought two boxes of N95s, and I do plan to use them. And 10 at home test kits, though that might have been more than I will need. I have them for us and for my mom in case we need, though. I don't feel guilty. Yet. (As I noted, I have seen people saying not to buy N95s even now since hospitals need them. So I don't even know if I should feel guilty in the first place.)
I don't think you should. You're not hoarding, you're not planning on selling them, you're planning on using them for their intended purpose. A couple boxes here and there don't make a difference.
And there would be plenty available for everyone if there wasn't a fear of "making too many" and then not being able to profit sufficiently to keep shareholders happy. 😠
NOTE: In the emailed version of today's newsletter I mistakenly wrote "wish" instead of "pretend" re: poseurs' stance toward their ever having been to school in the Common People/smoking item, but that has been remedied in the version on the website. Apologies. I will strive to do better going froward.
I don't get kids wanting to watch people play video games. But my wife doesn't get me wanting to watch baseball. So it's all a matter of taste. More concerning is that kids are playing sports less, if only because that gives the impression that kids aren't exercising enough. The two are not the same thing, of course - I have never played sports very much and not for exercise, and my exercise is distinct from sports - but I really hope the generation of games and e-sports fans are also getting out of their chairs and at least playing Pokemon Go on long walks.
I don't get anyone smoking. I don't get anyone liking the stink of the smoke. I don't get anyone wanting to increase their risk of cancer. And I certainly don't get starting to smoke when we're dealing with a respiratory disease. It's as for everyone one of us who reacted to the pandemic by trying to take every precaution possible, there is someone who just said "screw it." I don't get that, either.
And speaking of Evan Dreilich, this is from him:
"Sports and entertainment agency Endeavor, through its arm WME Sports, beefed up its baseball business over the summer by adding several established names in the industry. A few months later, Endeavor completed the purchase of 10 minor league teams, with eyes on more. That combination isn’t working for the baseball players’ union. The Major League Baseball Players Association warned WME Sports player representatives that they risk losing their certification as agents unless they divest themselves from the company, multiple people with knowledge of the situation told The Athletic."
I’m not sure I buy the ‘kids are playing less sports’ thing, but I only really know about the state of things within a 100 mile radio us of where I live, so 🤷♂️.
Even if the kids are playing sports (my 5 nieces and nephews all do something and are very active) tha doesn't mean they also watch. Between games, practices, strength training, and team activities, they have no time to watch anything because evenings and weekends are already full. Playing sports is something they enjoy doing g with their friends, not necessarily something they enjoy watching grownups doing on TV.
Agree. My girls watch the Cubs from time to time, World Cup soccer every few years and fastpitch on TV.
They watch less than I did in the 80’s, but have an almost infinite amount of •other• things to do.
As my kids have gotten busier, I’ve watched far less baseball than ever.
Last two years are probably the least I’ve ever watched baseball in the last 40 years.
It doesn't help that the local minor league team hasn't been as available for the last couple years, but even then finding a game to have time to go to was hard.
And their parents, grandparents, etc watch less because if the option is watching the Red Wings on TV or either of my nephews skate, the kids win out every time. 🙂
I played sports through high school, but didn't start watching them obsessively on TV until I was in my teens. I think a lot of what makes sports fun is the ancillary stuff around the game - the personalities and the years long storylines and rivalries and all that.
As a kid, you're not going to have the attention span to invest in that because you're busy doing that with Bionicles or whatever, but it becomes much more engaging as you grow out of those avenues for play. You also just haven't been alive long enough to contextualize all the stuff that's happening in sports.
My son was initially embarrassed with his interest in eSports and watching tournaments on YouTube and Twitch. And he actively plays and uses some of the techniques he sees in his play. My wife and I had to explain to him that, how is his watching eSports tournaments any different from people getting obsessed over watching baseball / football / or any other "real" sport. And on top of that, he's actually also participating in the eSports he is watching. Which is a heck of a lot more than most people who delve into sports fandom. We pay attention to being active, but an interest in watching eSports is not really any different from an interest in watching sports.
No, I get that completely. My three girls who play a ton of softball also watch a ton of videos of dudes playing Minecraft.
Kids need something to be interested and do, esports is a cool outlet for that.
We're also getting a lot of people watching shows where semi-famous people are playing Dungeons and Dragons. My wife is a superfan of something called Critical Role, where a group of actors (most of whom are best known for video game work) play D&D every week for three hours. She has been trying to get me to watch for years now, and it sounds really dull. But the show is massively popular and about to spawn a cartoon based on their game. I like playing D&D but the idea of watching anyone else play doesn't nothing for me. But tell that to Critical Role fans and to the players, who are getting rich from the ad deals, merchandise, and exposure.
A friend of mine went to California to DM a weeklong game for Jason Momoa. Dude had a giant gamin room complete with weapons on the wall and a giant hanging Beholder from the ceiling….I have a picture somewhere.
I have no issue with D&D being everywhere. I enjoy playing it greatly. I have been vibrating about today's session for two weeks. I just laugh at how something that was too nerdy for even me in 1983 is the hottest thing out there now, how it's even almost cool. Almost.
I haven't played in a billion years but had a lot of fun when I was living elsewhere and had a great group to play with. To think of it as almost cool is hilarious.
I'm literally wearing my old Warhammer Battle Magic t shirt today. I regret none of the hours and moneys which I spent on that stuff back when I was a tween and in my early teenage years. It's not technically D&D affiliated but extremely adjacent. This is a great thread!
Speaking of the 1980s and its smack you in the face brashness … my introduction to Ronnie Spector was via Eddie Money’s mid decade Take Me Home Tonight which turned the Ronnettes BMB into an explicit let’s screw.
Eddie Money got Ronnie Spector out of retirement with that one, and gave her a fantastic second career. She was literally washing baby clothes (I think she had 2 young children at the time) and was a single stay-at-home mom when he called.
Mental math problems. Be My Baby came out four years before I was born while Two Tickets to Paradise, Money's first hit, came out when I was ten. Something happening before I was born is ancient history; something happening when I was aware of it in real time happened just yesterday no matter how far back it was. So I always figured that there was a massive difference in age. But Money and Spector were only a handful of years apart.
I’ve gotten my 17 yr old daughter into baseball, well at least the Red Sox anyways. She follows players on social media and will sit and watch games during the season. She also watches clip videos on YouTube, like great plays, weird plays, etc. One of the colleges that’s interested in her playing volleyball for them has a pretty good D3 baseball team. It’s one of the selling points for her leaning toward going to that school since she likes baseball. Of course, I’ve seen Bull Durham so I’m not sure how I feel about that…
Are we sure the Brewers aren’t just honoring golfer Gary Player and punter Scott Player?
Now I wished I lived in Milwaukee, I’d get tickets to those games and complain why I didn’t get my Gary Player bobble head at the gate.
bbref suggests that Rusty Kuntz's nickname was "Player." I don't remember that being the case, but if the Brewers are just honoring my generation's Johnny Dickshot then so be it.
I'm embarrassed to have hearted this comment but I did.
At least I was old enough not to snicker at Randy Johnson.
I went from 10 to 20 years old in the decade of the 80s, and smoked for half that time and hung out with lots of smokers at and outside of high school. There was nothing sexy about it, believe me.
I’m about 3 years older. The young and dumber version of me assumed that a girl with a cig could be convinced to replace it with something more personal. By the end of the decade, the less young and slightly less dumb version of me found a lack of correlation.
I went from 12 to 22 in the 80s. My first college girlfriend smoked, and that was the last time I dated a girl that smoked. My dad smoked two packs a day and I'll never forget walking into my parents house when I came home for Christmas my freshmen year, and about gagged on the smell of the house. I had no idea until I was living in a smoke free environment for the first time.
Both my parents smoked well into the 90s. I quit in 91 and I remember after moving out and coming back after a few months and noticing that as well.
I grew up in a smoke-free house, but my parents were in a bowling league throughout the 80s. Our house STUNK for a solid 2-3 days after bowling night. I have no idea how people lived (willingly) in a smoking house.
My parents (smoked in college and shortly after, quit when I was very young thank goodness) said smoking killed your sense of taste and smell. One of the reasons my mom put on weight after she stopped was food actually tasted GOOD again so she ate more. That combined with the lack of the stimulant.
Same age, never smoked, and same awareness of nothing sexy. They weren't allowed to smoke on school grounds which extended to the parking lot, I think, so there were a few trees on the outlawn in front of the high school they'd cluster around and leave their butts.
Darkly amusing to see them huddled together in January in Michigan taking their smoke breaks while most of the students were inside where it was warm.
Pitch clocks & limits on defensive infield shifts to speed-up and shorten games for a younger, faster generation? If clocks worked in the minors to shave an hour off, wouldn’t we already see them in the Bigs? No shifts would lead to more offense (excitement?), but wouldn’t that make games longer?
Yep, I can’t recall any, say, 13-8 baseball game final being completed in a crisp 2 hours.
Softball rules would do it. Fouls on the final strike are an out. It would be too extreme of a change to the game, but it'd shave off an hour easily.
Limiting pickoff throws would help. Eliminating warmup tosses on pitching changes would too. You've warmed up in the bullpen. If you want to get a feel for the mound, you have hours of pregame time. Pitch clock would help, but it can't be the only change.
I repeat myself:
Hitter cannot step out of the box until he has either
2 strikes
or
3 balls
in the count.
Call it the JeteRule, as he was the king of the "one arm up, step half out maneuver."
#NOCLOCK
I'd say no stepping out unless it was a foul ball or if you had to get out of the way of a pitch. A 20 second pitch clock is reasonable. If you can't get the pitch you want from the catcher, either make a bad pitch or eat a ball. You either get more balls in play or more runners on base, and that makes the game better to watch.
Right! Stepping out after each swing, or even a pitch taken, to rip off the Velcro, and tighten the Velcro. YOU DIDN’T EVEN SWING. Tony Pena did it, walked toward the batting circle, and Bob Prince would announce “another walk down Pena Lane”.
I’ve been wondering if the removal of players from the website and promotional stuff tells us something about negotiating strategies rather than just a ham fisted FU. Could MLB think that if they give the union a larger slice of merchandising they won’t push so hard on the luxury tax / salary cap?
Woke up, got out of bed, now have a Great Gatsby reference in my head, old sport
Don't do it tomorrow, though. You can't repeat the past.
I said, you can't? Whaddya mean you can't, of course you can.
How much of the “Gen Z’ers don’t want to play sports” narrative is really that simple? Let’s take COVID’s current impact on schools out of the equation. We’ve known for years that money keeps some kids away from playing, especially in baseball and basketball where travel is so heavily involved. We’ve seen more parents say they don’t want their kids playing football until middle or high school because of concussions and safety.
I agree that the leagues themselves (including college) are getting harder to reach for Gen Z’ers and millennials (I was born in 1997 so I’m technically a Gen Z’er) for a myriad of reasons. I just don’t know how much of that is 9-year-old Johnny not wanting to play little league or 14-year-old Sally not wanting to join her friends on a basketball team.
Also, re: people thinking smoking is cool. I can understand people binging The Sopranos during lockdown and wanting to eat Artie’s cooking or binging Always Sunny and wanting to wear Mac’s cut-off tees. I cannot understand why anyone would to embrace smoking now given all that we know. There’s no inherent harm in wearing a cut-off tee aside from possibly looking like an idiot. You eat too much italian food, you might have diarrhea, food poisoning, and an urge to kill one of your friends.
Smoking? I’m all for people having the right to smoke tobacco but I’ll pass.
Nothing sexy about the 80s? Nothing?
Were all Madonna’s videos made in vain?
Susanna Hoffs in Walks Like an Egyptian. Case closed. There was plenty of sexy.
A video so sexy it’s not even on YouTube (last time I checked)
It's there - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tuzHUuuk
Cheers! Last time I looked I got a weird video with Michael Jackson’s remember the time video put to the bangles song
Smoking: I can’t think of anything that is more of a signal that someone is a poseur than using the phrase “if you will” in a sentence. You might as well rent a billboard (LED, of course).
As one does.
"Pretentious?? *Moi??*
That BBC quote is a strange one, not least because they illustrate it with a non-controversy (flat earth). Presumably to avoid upsetting anyone by referring to an actual controversy that people might be personally invested in.
Also strange because it doesn't seem to reflect the reality of the BBC. Their page on the antivax movement
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c8eeyd509zet/anti-vaccination-movement
is pleasingly scientific and not at all even-handed.
So what gives?
Their biggest recent internal controversy may have been the long article...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385
It won't be of interest to everyone, but it began with the question "Is a lesbian transphobic if she does not want to have sex with trans women?" Some junior BBC staff claimed that the article was itself transphobic and should be removed from their website [it hasn't been].
I wouldn't be surprised if this recent quote from David Jordan is driven entirely by the transgender issue. The BBC employs a lot of older feminist women. They also employ a lot of younger LGBT+ people, whose journalism is maybe more focussed on the T than on the other letters. The BBC values both groups and is trying to keep both happy. They could issue a statement referring only to their transgender coverage, but that would annoy one side. So they've formulated a general policy instead, designed purely for this one issue. And then, in every other area, they will carry on as before.
That's actually the first thing I thought of, as well. Because I see no reason to give any air time to flat earthers unless the intent is to try to figure out how people can end up with beliefs that silly. (Bring on the "Birds Aren't Real" guy, too.)
Arthur Chu (the Jeopardy champion) has on Twitter been really hammering the BBC for their editorial decisionmaking with regard to trans issues, I think he seems very reasonable.
The BBC is more than happy to give a mouthpiece to TERFs like JK Rowling, who really should just shut the fuck up and be happy with her mountain of wealth. (Seriously, every time she speaks it just makes her look worse. Stop talking, already.)
There was a very good BBC piece on flat earthers a few years ago that did exactly that, interviewed one, listened to her politely, asked her why she thought what she did and then got a polite geophysicist to explain why what the Flattie thought was completely wrong. I’ve not heard or seen much stuff on trans people on mainstream Beeb TV or radio, I assume because as Pete says they don’t want to offend either side. There’s been some coverage of JK Rowling’s views, but I’ve never heard that without trans people being asked their view of hers. By and large the BBC has got a lot better in recent years in not slavishly following (say) every piece on climate crisis with a know nothing denier for ‘balance’.
That's more or less what the makers of "Behind the Curve" on Netflix did - give the flat earthers time to speak, then bring on actual experts to explain why they're wrong.
At one point an astrophysicist at UCLA was told about a proposed experiment by the flat earthers, and his response was, "Actually, this is a very well constructed experiment. I wonder how they'll react when they end up proving the Earth isn't flat." Sure enough, that's more or less exactly what happened. The flat earthers did a scientifically valid experiment, proved that the Earth isn't flat, but their response wasn't, "Oh, maybe we're wrong," it was, "We need to modify our experiment."
Terrifying.
https://www.netflix.com/title/81015076
Maybe some things aren’t meant to last forever. Sure. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back. Is obviously what you were gonna say, I mean, you're a white male sportswriter, them's the rules.
"Personally, I’m for liberal number retirement policies and think the “Hall of Famers only” rules are stupid"
Craig then you must have, like me, thought through the implications... so are you a "let 'em eventually wear 3 digit numbers", a "they'll eventually unretire some", or a "baseball's gonna stop being a major league sport before we have to worry about it " guy? On the evidence of today's newsletter, perhaps the latter.
There’s currently 101 possibilities for uniform numbers (allowing for both 0 and 00). The Yankees currently have the most retired numbers with 22, and the Cards are second with 12. We have a LONG way to go before we need to worry about 3 digit numbers, even with a very liberal number retiring policy.
That said, I’d opt for decimals or fractions (a la Eddie Gaedel) before going to 3 digits. Maybe even hexadecimal!
And pi!
C'mon man, what did Pat do the second time?
“Tweet!!, Blocking on numberrrr, well, that weird looking E thing”
Don’t be so irrational
At least I'm not negative.
Occurs to me that I foolishly left out another possibility, players using hieroglyphics/ QR codes/ NFTs
Web3 for the win, maybe a crypto hash, take up the whole back of the jersey.
Just think, you could figure out every player who ever wore that jersey simply by following the blockchain printed on it.
Sports-Reference.com should be nervous about now.
Now batting: the shortstop, number 0x1F, Derek Jeter. Jeter.
A wild pitch on the square root of negative one? I can't even imagine it.
The Yankees do in fact have some trouble at the beginning of spring training, where there might be like 60 players and 20 coaches in camp, all with uniform numbers.
Rather than retire jersey numbers, I'd like to see a scenario where teams held numbers in reserve for special achievements. Like it you played for the Yankees and won the MVP, you get to wear Mantle's number the next season. Win a Cy Young with the Dodgers? Here's Koufax's 32. Could apply to All Star games, or just players who've demonstrated greatness. You see that happen in soccer a lot, where if a new signing is given the number 10 or 7, it frequently means big things are expected, and you better deliver.
Chiming in as an NPB fan/nerd/weeb, players signed to developmental contracts who aren't on the organizational 70-man roster get assigned triple-digit jersey numbers. Most use numbers in the 100s, but a few guys opt for a starting zero instead.