I find myself appreciating Amtrak and the MTA just a bit more today.
It seems a bit silly to call winning two games in a two game series a "sweep" but I can't complain. Thanks to the Phils taking two of three from the Barves, the Mets are now three ahead again, which is better than 1 1/2. Happy 38th birthday to Mad Max (who shares his birthday with Norman Lear, who turned 100 and is still producing TV shows and fighting the good fight). Today is an off day but I bet before they play again, there will be trades.
And it looks like deGrom will be back next week. Maybe.
Trout can say what he wants, but even if he finds ways to adjust, a bad back of any sort is a challenge, and seems like to shorten his career. I hope this is not the case, but what NYC baseball fan is not recalling the end of Mattingly and Wright's careers?
Younger fans may recall David Wright, whose career also was cut short by back problems. And the Trout discussion included the phrase "spinal stenosis", which (presumably) thankfully has been ruled out.
I have a friend who worked for the MTA for many years, he lives in the East Village and I'm actually going to be seeing him next week. Anyway, he told me something a few years back which I didn't know: the MTA used to be three different companies: the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (or Brooklyn-Manhattan), the Interborough Rapid Transit, and the original city-owned one called the Independent Subway System. Anyway, they all competed, it was a mess, and so the city took everything over during the Great Depression (I just looked it up: wikipedia says 1940) and voila, now we have the MTA, so fun to complain about yet so obviously superior to every other American city's mass transit system that it's painful to even compare it to Boston or the "El" in Chicago, let alone places like Los Angeles. Anyway, the UK/British Rail could learn from the MTA.
More about British Rail, then. I lived in Worcestershire when I was 11 years old (1992) and I do indeed remember the national train service, and how it worked (and it DID work), and yet the John Major-era debate was already beginning about breaking it up. My mom and dad surely opposed this (they were raised right; my mom's a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat til death and my dad was raised in a household in Milwaukee that remembered and loved the socialist mayors we used to elect there, look 'em up), but they weren't UK voters and we moved back to the States in 1992.
Lear had a nice op-ed in the NYT yesterday. Maybe one day Scherzer will write one, too. He's the MLBPA head (or one of them if there are several) after all.
There is what to complain about with the subways (or so I hear, having set foot on one a total of four times since March 2020). But I always feel like people look for reasons to complain. In either 2018 or 2019, I forget which, there were apparently a lot of days in the summer everything was going wrong. I say "apparently" because I got to and from work as usual that summer, and wonder to this day how much was actually going to blazes and how much was just perception. (Growing up in the 70s and 80s, when the subways really were that bad, a la The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, probably gives me a different perspective.) All that said, since I don't commute these days, I really don't know what things are like.
Also, growing up, we still called the various lines the IND, IRT and BMT, and there was still old signage to that effect. Rule of thumb was: low alphabet is IND, high alphabet is BMT, numbers are IRT. And the IRT's tracks were a different gauge, so the MTA to this day has to buy two different kinds of subways cars.
My NYC years were 2007 - 2010. I loved having the subway available 24/7! But I definitely only know of the "bad old days" of the subway from movies, tv, and the cover of that one Ramones album. They were all cleaned up by the time I lived there.
An awkward flight to New York for Benintendi? If I'm the Royals transport manager, I'm just telling him that the computer can only print boarding passes for Royals players, and without a boarding pass he can't get through security. Sorry! Have a nice day!
And then I'm giving him the phone number for Transpennine Express customer services, and I'm telling him that they will get him to New York.
He's apparently said he will get the shots. Which suggests that maybe management can make the players get vaxxed after all? (I don't love the idea of management having that sort of power in general, but I don't have much sympathy for the anti-vaxxers.)
I think it's more, "Do you want to have a chance to show off in a big market and go to the post-season so you can get paid more next year? Then you're gonna have to get vaccinated or we won't do the deal." And him going, "Now it is worth my time to get vaccinated."
Funny because I thought exactly that -- does he fly with the Royals to NY even though he's now a Yankee? Does KC make the Yankees get him a flight? Do they let him fly and charge the Yankees for the air fare? Does he get a premium seat and get to check a bag?
I never wanted him in NY, personally. Looked to me like he was having an unusually productive year in Texas in 2021 (138 OPS+) and that the Rangers were selling high. Little did we know how high. His walk and K rates in NY are nearly identical to those in Texas He's hit .160 in almost 500 ABs since he came to NY, far worse than he had ever done in a single season in Texas. I understand that the league has adjusted to him, constantly playing him in a shift and taking away what used to be doubles in the gap.
What I can't fathom is his apparent refusal to adjust back. Anthony Rizzo is also a lefty pull hitter with power, but the dude CHOKES UP WITH TWO STRIKES. Something they teach you in Little League! And sure, he's only hitting .223 himself, but that's a world of difference from .160.
I was gonna say that this game needed to be called something stronger than a shart…and sure enough this account has higher levels! This game rates as both an Explosive Diarrhea AND a Rectum Rocket!
Most vacations have a Day Of Hell. Fortunately in your case there were no injuries, fires, floods, or crashes, and you'll have nice memories at the end as a palate cleanser.
Sounds like your kids are having a great time, too. Enjoy the last of your vacation and have a safe trip back home.
Too bad you couldn't have gone back to London and boarded a Eurorail train to Brussels or Amsterdam. Of course, that would have wrecked the Anglophilian joys of your vacation, but I will always remember the comfort and convenience of going to Brussels on Eurorail, including a meal, for less than the cost of Amtrak from Baltimore to NYC. Have a great flight(s) home.
You should be fine now you’ve claimed with TPE - in this ridiculous system they remain responsible for the overall delay to your journey as a result of them cancelling your original train, this is regardless of what happened after / any other trains you happened to get on or not.
This nonsense has been going on in various forms for 25 years so you unwittingly become an expert at navigating the nonsense.
If you want another look at info on the Wainwright Walks, watch the BBC program hosted by Julia Bradbury. It’s like a bit dated (maybe 2007 or 2009) and is on Netflix or Britbox or Acorn…I forget. (Can you tell we share your Anglophilic tendency?) but is well done and enjoyable enough to convince my wife and I that we need to do that walk.
"...fart around before the vasectomy part of the day begins." Wait what, what does that even mean? *reads again* Oh, ok. I dont even know where my head is at this morning.
Things like this is why I never mention typos. I'm not entirely sure if it's an actual typo or a short circuit in the reading part of my brain, and I don't want to spend a bunch of time checking every single one.
"[The Yankees acquired] Andrew Benintendi from the Royals for pitchers Beck Way, Chandler Champlain, and T.J. Sikkema, all of whom I presume to be fictional."
When was the last time a Yankees trade of this sort gave the other team anything of note?
Those names are entirely in line with others in the minors and college ranks. The Mets drafted Zebulon Vermillion, no doubt to serve as a sidekick to Tylor Megill in a new series of galactic fantasy novels.
OF Kevin Alcantara is not hitting for average like he was last year but is showing power, speed and patience as a 19-year old in A-ball this year. 12 homers, 14 doubles, 6 triples, 11 steals (in 13 tries) and 41 walks in just 82 games, so he could turn into something.
The other prospect, Alexander Vizcaino, was placed on the restricted list by the Cubs in March for an undisclosed reason, so I presume he and Eduardo Rodriguez have been holed up in someone's basement, getting baked and playing X-Box.
Yeah those are some names. Beck Way is AI-generated, Chandler Champlain is the polo-shirt wearing rich snob kid from an 80s movie, and T.J. Sikkema is the lead male role as a Yukon and Alaskan ice road trucker and badass in a 1970s tv show.
I've always found complaining on Twitter - even with my significantly smaller following - has led to better customer service results. I don't think it's just because you have a large following that you get better responses there.
Yep, at my old job, a big portion of what I did was customer service through social media and people complaining on social were pretty much always able to jump the line/get preferential treatment for two reasons: 1. The social team had more freedom than other customer service agents to resolve things because the process was still new and thus not fully bogged down in bureaucracy yet and 2. middle and upper management still had outdated thoughts on the brand damage that could be done on Twitter by a single person complaining.
The fact that the best way to get a response from customer service these days is via Twitter is strange. Most of us don't use Twitter. Yet good luck getting someone from the cable company to respond to you in a manner you can understand via some other outreach. In the old days in England, all you had to do to get satisfaction was to have a conversation that started with " 'ello guvnah".
That was hell of an awesome audible that Anna called. I would expect that Phoebe Bridgers (who is exceedingly talented) would be your cup of tea as well. I’ve not seen her live. How was the show?
My experience is that attending a live show with friends/loved ones (and hundreds of other people) who are big fans of the artist is as much an experience of vicarious joy as direct enjoyment. I bet it’ll be a blast!
I find myself appreciating Amtrak and the MTA just a bit more today.
It seems a bit silly to call winning two games in a two game series a "sweep" but I can't complain. Thanks to the Phils taking two of three from the Barves, the Mets are now three ahead again, which is better than 1 1/2. Happy 38th birthday to Mad Max (who shares his birthday with Norman Lear, who turned 100 and is still producing TV shows and fighting the good fight). Today is an off day but I bet before they play again, there will be trades.
And it looks like deGrom will be back next week. Maybe.
Trout can say what he wants, but even if he finds ways to adjust, a bad back of any sort is a challenge, and seems like to shorten his career. I hope this is not the case, but what NYC baseball fan is not recalling the end of Mattingly and Wright's careers?
Older fans will recall Ralph Kiner, whose career was also cut short due to back problems.
Younger fans may recall David Wright, whose career also was cut short by back problems. And the Trout discussion included the phrase "spinal stenosis", which (presumably) thankfully has been ruled out.
Will Carroll's newsletter addressed this, and it is apparently not that.
And yet another newsletter to subscribe to, at least for free.
Here is hoping that the ultimate outcome is positive. There is certainly room to hope for one, more so at least than there was for Wright.
I have a friend who worked for the MTA for many years, he lives in the East Village and I'm actually going to be seeing him next week. Anyway, he told me something a few years back which I didn't know: the MTA used to be three different companies: the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (or Brooklyn-Manhattan), the Interborough Rapid Transit, and the original city-owned one called the Independent Subway System. Anyway, they all competed, it was a mess, and so the city took everything over during the Great Depression (I just looked it up: wikipedia says 1940) and voila, now we have the MTA, so fun to complain about yet so obviously superior to every other American city's mass transit system that it's painful to even compare it to Boston or the "El" in Chicago, let alone places like Los Angeles. Anyway, the UK/British Rail could learn from the MTA.
More about British Rail, then. I lived in Worcestershire when I was 11 years old (1992) and I do indeed remember the national train service, and how it worked (and it DID work), and yet the John Major-era debate was already beginning about breaking it up. My mom and dad surely opposed this (they were raised right; my mom's a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat til death and my dad was raised in a household in Milwaukee that remembered and loved the socialist mayors we used to elect there, look 'em up), but they weren't UK voters and we moved back to the States in 1992.
Lear had a nice op-ed in the NYT yesterday. Maybe one day Scherzer will write one, too. He's the MLBPA head (or one of them if there are several) after all.
There is what to complain about with the subways (or so I hear, having set foot on one a total of four times since March 2020). But I always feel like people look for reasons to complain. In either 2018 or 2019, I forget which, there were apparently a lot of days in the summer everything was going wrong. I say "apparently" because I got to and from work as usual that summer, and wonder to this day how much was actually going to blazes and how much was just perception. (Growing up in the 70s and 80s, when the subways really were that bad, a la The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, probably gives me a different perspective.) All that said, since I don't commute these days, I really don't know what things are like.
Also, growing up, we still called the various lines the IND, IRT and BMT, and there was still old signage to that effect. Rule of thumb was: low alphabet is IND, high alphabet is BMT, numbers are IRT. And the IRT's tracks were a different gauge, so the MTA to this day has to buy two different kinds of subways cars.
My NYC years were 2007 - 2010. I loved having the subway available 24/7! But I definitely only know of the "bad old days" of the subway from movies, tv, and the cover of that one Ramones album. They were all cleaned up by the time I lived there.
An awkward flight to New York for Benintendi? If I'm the Royals transport manager, I'm just telling him that the computer can only print boarding passes for Royals players, and without a boarding pass he can't get through security. Sorry! Have a nice day!
And then I'm giving him the phone number for Transpennine Express customer services, and I'm telling him that they will get him to New York.
I think this is brilliant! (And also quite funny).
"Sorry. Every person who travels with the club but is not part of the official party must show proof of vaccination."
He's apparently said he will get the shots. Which suggests that maybe management can make the players get vaxxed after all? (I don't love the idea of management having that sort of power in general, but I don't have much sympathy for the anti-vaxxers.)
I think it's more, "Do you want to have a chance to show off in a big market and go to the post-season so you can get paid more next year? Then you're gonna have to get vaccinated or we won't do the deal." And him going, "Now it is worth my time to get vaccinated."
That at once makes sense and horrifies me. But that is life in 2022.
Apparently the Sawx made Trevor Story get vaxxed before they signed him, so there's that.
It's basically what his teammate, Whit Merrifield, said when it came out he wasn't vaxxed a couple weeks ago.
Funny because I thought exactly that -- does he fly with the Royals to NY even though he's now a Yankee? Does KC make the Yankees get him a flight? Do they let him fly and charge the Yankees for the air fare? Does he get a premium seat and get to check a bag?
Gallo had seasons with a. 379 and a. 351 OBP, so at times his game has been getting on base.But his career mark is only 328.
I never wanted him in NY, personally. Looked to me like he was having an unusually productive year in Texas in 2021 (138 OPS+) and that the Rangers were selling high. Little did we know how high. His walk and K rates in NY are nearly identical to those in Texas He's hit .160 in almost 500 ABs since he came to NY, far worse than he had ever done in a single season in Texas. I understand that the league has adjusted to him, constantly playing him in a shift and taking away what used to be doubles in the gap.
What I can't fathom is his apparent refusal to adjust back. Anthony Rizzo is also a lefty pull hitter with power, but the dude CHOKES UP WITH TWO STRIKES. Something they teach you in Little League! And sure, he's only hitting .223 himself, but that's a world of difference from .160.
Who Sharted?! had a big, steaming pile of fun with Patrick Qorbin (0.2 IP, 7H, 6ER, on pace for 20+ losses) yesterday and I was HERE FOR IT:
https://twitter.com/mlbwhosharted/status/1552386559575457792?s=21&t=MSydV6h4-FdlmqSbEv-zO
I was gonna say that this game needed to be called something stronger than a shart…and sure enough this account has higher levels! This game rates as both an Explosive Diarrhea AND a Rectum Rocket!
Sometimes Twitter isn’t so horrible after all…
Most vacations have a Day Of Hell. Fortunately in your case there were no injuries, fires, floods, or crashes, and you'll have nice memories at the end as a palate cleanser.
Sounds like your kids are having a great time, too. Enjoy the last of your vacation and have a safe trip back home.
Does your daughter typically make her requests in a method other than audibly? Perhaps you normally require them in writing?
(I know what you meant. It just read funny so I ran with it.)
He's a lawyer.
In writing and in triplicate.
Too bad you couldn't have gone back to London and boarded a Eurorail train to Brussels or Amsterdam. Of course, that would have wrecked the Anglophilian joys of your vacation, but I will always remember the comfort and convenience of going to Brussels on Eurorail, including a meal, for less than the cost of Amtrak from Baltimore to NYC. Have a great flight(s) home.
Brussels and nearby Ghent are really good places to spend a few days. Especially if you like fruit waffles, dark chocolate, and cuberdons.
Phoebe Bridgers rocks. That’s all.
You should be fine now you’ve claimed with TPE - in this ridiculous system they remain responsible for the overall delay to your journey as a result of them cancelling your original train, this is regardless of what happened after / any other trains you happened to get on or not.
This nonsense has been going on in various forms for 25 years so you unwittingly become an expert at navigating the nonsense.
If you want another look at info on the Wainwright Walks, watch the BBC program hosted by Julia Bradbury. It’s like a bit dated (maybe 2007 or 2009) and is on Netflix or Britbox or Acorn…I forget. (Can you tell we share your Anglophilic tendency?) but is well done and enjoyable enough to convince my wife and I that we need to do that walk.
"...fart around before the vasectomy part of the day begins." Wait what, what does that even mean? *reads again* Oh, ok. I dont even know where my head is at this morning.
He's been in a hotel room with his kids for almost two weeks. I won't begrudge him if he doesn't want to take any chances.
Things like this is why I never mention typos. I'm not entirely sure if it's an actual typo or a short circuit in the reading part of my brain, and I don't want to spend a bunch of time checking every single one.
"[The Yankees acquired] Andrew Benintendi from the Royals for pitchers Beck Way, Chandler Champlain, and T.J. Sikkema, all of whom I presume to be fictional."
Exactly what I thought when I heard the news
When was the last time a Yankees trade of this sort gave the other team anything of note?
Those names are entirely in line with others in the minors and college ranks. The Mets drafted Zebulon Vermillion, no doubt to serve as a sidekick to Tylor Megill in a new series of galactic fantasy novels.
Cubs look like they got a couple good prospects for Rizzo.
Guys I had heard of, at least, since "good prospects" tends to be mostly hype
OF Kevin Alcantara is not hitting for average like he was last year but is showing power, speed and patience as a 19-year old in A-ball this year. 12 homers, 14 doubles, 6 triples, 11 steals (in 13 tries) and 41 walks in just 82 games, so he could turn into something.
The other prospect, Alexander Vizcaino, was placed on the restricted list by the Cubs in March for an undisclosed reason, so I presume he and Eduardo Rodriguez have been holed up in someone's basement, getting baked and playing X-Box.
Zebulon Vermillion. Oh my god, that's a Michael Schur name if I ever read one.
They sound like places I’ve been.
Yeah those are some names. Beck Way is AI-generated, Chandler Champlain is the polo-shirt wearing rich snob kid from an 80s movie, and T.J. Sikkema is the lead male role as a Yukon and Alaskan ice road trucker and badass in a 1970s tv show.
I've always found complaining on Twitter - even with my significantly smaller following - has led to better customer service results. I don't think it's just because you have a large following that you get better responses there.
Yep, at my old job, a big portion of what I did was customer service through social media and people complaining on social were pretty much always able to jump the line/get preferential treatment for two reasons: 1. The social team had more freedom than other customer service agents to resolve things because the process was still new and thus not fully bogged down in bureaucracy yet and 2. middle and upper management still had outdated thoughts on the brand damage that could be done on Twitter by a single person complaining.
At least one of your children has excellent musical opinions.
The fact that the best way to get a response from customer service these days is via Twitter is strange. Most of us don't use Twitter. Yet good luck getting someone from the cable company to respond to you in a manner you can understand via some other outreach. In the old days in England, all you had to do to get satisfaction was to have a conversation that started with " 'ello guvnah".
That was hell of an awesome audible that Anna called. I would expect that Phoebe Bridgers (who is exceedingly talented) would be your cup of tea as well. I’ve not seen her live. How was the show?
Show is tonight. Report tomorrow!
I like her. I don’t know her work too deeply but I have liked what I’ve heard.
My experience is that attending a live show with friends/loved ones (and hundreds of other people) who are big fans of the artist is as much an experience of vicarious joy as direct enjoyment. I bet it’ll be a blast!