Everyone's beefing about the foreign substance crackdown, deGrom is hurt again, two of my criminal friends are in the news, and I have a movie for you to see.
He's a bit exhausting, haha. I spoke to him on the phone for a couple hours total and then had a 3-4 hour sit-down with him in person. Of course I was trying to keep him on one subject, so I had some difficulty built in. If you just let him range, though, yeah, I can imagine it'd be more fun.
Tangets he went on included bear hunting and less everyday things.
My parental generation’s “kindie rocker” was Raffi - who I now realize can’t hold a candle to Laurie Berkner. I did learn about belugas, though.
PS Pups in the Park in Fredericksburg went pretty well… The doodle behaved herself even if she could not sit still. (Don’t think I’ve ever gotten 10,000+ steps at a ball game but there you go.) If you live within driving distance of the new ballpark - and you can handle the mind-boggling back ups that are I-95 - it’s a fun place to see a ball game.
PPS As a Nats fan of a certain age, I’m really into Paolo Espino’s story of waiting 15 years to earn a win. I was convinced they would find a way to blow that one run lead yesterday - so happy to be wrong.
Not to be too hipster, but I just played my records. They were fine. Both children go into singing along to dot dash by wire, and most every rezillos song, especially "no," "destination venus" and the fleetwood mac cover "Somebaody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight."
I have a still sealed copy of some they might be giants "kids" CD that was gifted to us.
That totally worked for my son (he loves The Ramones, Tune-Yards, other good things). For my daughter though....she will accept nothing less than the soundtracks to Frozen/Moana/other stuff like that.
My daughter will not infrequently take a bite of food, hold up the remaining food, and say "this looks like the crab from Moana." We also frequently debate whether the crab is "mean" or "nice." We have settled on "mean, but he has his reasons" (Maui tore one of his legs off and all that).
Nice move with the Mea Culpa Corner on free newsletter Thursday, wonder if you’ll get any new subscribers out of it that “have to see what this guy was wrong about this time”
What he said. You may have triggered your science sub-community - but we jumped in, made our points, and got to review the issue(s) in a fairly reasoned way ... that's how discussion should work, no?
If I didn't say it yesterday, thanks for that NYT link. I'm really glad that the two branches of science are now starting to collaborate on how to avoid harm to ecosystems whenever possible when setting up places to generate renewable energy.
I'm glad you liked the article. Two big rather overwhelming problems - addressing them in isolation is dangerous. It can be hard not to lose sight of the need to be considering all the complex interactions when your research is narrowly focused on one particular scary problem.
All kidding aside, I legitimately saw Laurie Berkner headline at some kind of Summer Arts in the Park thing in Frederick, MD many years ago. As DMCj said, she's definitely better than Raffi.
Weird fact I heard this morning: Jacob deGrom has the most hits for the Mets this season in games started by Jacob deGrom.
While we're on the subject of deGrom, Mets coming to town this weekend to face the Nats, who have won six of eight and managed to climb into a tie for third in the execrable NL East. Four game series that could prolong the fantasy that the Nats have a chance, or pretty much put a lid on the competitive part of the season for them.
They'll probably go 2-2 this weekend and then they'll go all Lloyd Christmas...
In a vacuum, 5 game deficits (Phillies) or even 7 1/2 game deficits (Nats and Braves) aren't insurmountable in June because of all the intra-division games that get played, but because of early season COVID postponements, the Mets have five or more games in hand on everyone in the division, so those deficits could increase by two or three games while the chasing teams sit idle.
Nats' hopes are pinned to Scherzer and Strasburg getting healthy and pitching to their best levels, but Strasburg hasn't been truly healthy since he won MVP in the World Series. It's not in their nature for the Lerner family or Rizzo to truly throw in the towel, but if there was ever a season to punt and begin trying to restock the desolate farm system, this is it.
I saw the lower end of the system last night in Fredericksburg. It needs restocking. After one particularly eventful play (wild throws, bad catches and extra bases taken), an older guy turned to me and said "it's like Little League but they get paid - and we have to pay to watch."
Didn't they start their season going winless for their first 20 games or something like that?
I still feel a little bad for Fredericksburg. In the before times, the Potomac Nationals were the Nats' High A franchise, and I thought that was the level that the FredNats were supposed to be. Then COVID, and the whole minor league reset happened, and they got the Low A franchise to play in a brand new stadium.
They did - and they still have a minus-100 plus run differential!
Hoping to hit the other affiliates this summer (though Rochester may be a road trip too far) ... based on what I've seen from the train/road, Wilmington's stadium seems bigger/nicer but I can't follow the MiLB logic anymore...
Juneteenth only got approved (so easily) as a federal holiday because it takes place in late June, after the school year is over in most states….so it can easily be left out of any curricula and barely discussed in schools.
If this was Marchteenth or Octoberteenth they never would’ve let it pass.
It's pretty slick. The legal community/washington press totally buys it. The most naive possible people with the most impeccable meritocratic credentials. Sigh.
An update on Ross Stripling's little tantrum: Craig showed us Ben Verlander's tweet, and Ross Stripling replied to Verlander's tweet with the words:
"Agreed. Completely embarrassed about it. Apologised to Joe individually and the team. Will never happen again. Young ballplayers, be better than this."
I agree with you 100%. He realized that he was clearly in the wrong, he owned it unequivocally, and he apologized to his teammate both individually and in front of the team as a whole.
None of that "I'm sorry if people were offended..." b.s.
Good stuff as always, Craig -- I just read this fairly balanced article from the Baltimore Sun on the recent report some Orioles AA minor leaguers were considering sleeping in their cars:
There were slaves legally held in bondage in Delaware and Kentucky until December 1865, when the 13th Amendment finally took force. A holiday for the end of slavery is a very good thing, but shouldn't it be the REAL final end of slavery?
And yes, that is nitpicky, but why not be accurate?
Agreed 100%. There are two things working in favor of "Juneteenth", though. First, the real day we should celebrate is December 6. That's right in the middle of the holiday season, so the occasion will be overwhelmed. Second, June 19th started being celebrated almost from the very beginning by freed Blacks themselves in Texas. It pretty much snowballed from there. You'll have a heck of a time trying to get them to change it.
Curious use of Sweet's "Fox on the Run" in that Heist trailer (love the song, I guess it's the "on the run" part not the fact it's a song about a groupie that grabbed whoever put it together), but wow, that looks like I need to watch it.
Other than Bowie, they were the only British glam rock band to have multiple hits in the U.S., but they never got enough momentum to really make it in the States. They had many more hits in the UK, but they got their start doing bubblegum songs penned by Mike Chapman, and then spent the rest of their career trying to earn respect for their own abilities. "Fox on the Run" was the first single written by the band (which was a re-recording of an album track to make it more commercial, which obviously worked out quite well).
Beauchamp’s Vox piece is equal parts terrifying and unsurprising. It puts a lot of meat on the bones of those uncomfortable Thanksgiving conversations with the drunk uncle who doesn’t really understand that his “patriotism” is in fact “nationalism,” and his idea about how “votes should be weighted by a citizen’s contribution to the society (like let’s just say he, as a small biz owner, should have two votes),” is not really democracy at all. But goddam it he stands for the anthem, and he has been blessed with glorious purpose of “sticking it to the libs.”
If I were Steve Cohen, I'd send an ORDER to Luis Rojas and the Mets coaching/medical staff to put deGrom on the 10 day IL IMMEDIATELY. Then use that time to run him through every conceivable test. Anyone here remember J.R. Richard? A hot young star pitcher for the Astros in the late 70s. Complained a lot about general soreness, and everyone accused him of malingering. Then, on July 30, 1980, he suffered a life-threatening stroke during a warm-up. Turned out he was having a number of blood clots and arterial constriction that were causing all the soreness in the various parts of his body....
Did you read Joe Sheehan's newsletter on the link between extreme velo and pitchers getting hurt? As much as DeGrom makes it look easy to throw that hard, well...it just doesn't seem sustainable, for any pitcher, in the long run.
I despise the GOP, and where the party has wound up. I just wish the Democrats were better at actually....combatting the GOP, politically. The loudest Democrat response to the GOP (largely coming from Progressives) has not been particularly exciting, and they do not even have solutions to solve the problems they claim they want to solve.
sorry, I deleted it due to formatting.
here it is
https://twitter.com/Prime_VC/status/1405548220755886080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1405548220755886080%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FPrime_VC2Fstatus2F1405548220755886080widget%3DTweet
I don't understand why that is not reviewable. We all know sanchez sucks and whiffed it. Make the yankees pay
He's a bit exhausting, haha. I spoke to him on the phone for a couple hours total and then had a 3-4 hour sit-down with him in person. Of course I was trying to keep him on one subject, so I had some difficulty built in. If you just let him range, though, yeah, I can imagine it'd be more fun.
Tangets he went on included bear hunting and less everyday things.
My parental generation’s “kindie rocker” was Raffi - who I now realize can’t hold a candle to Laurie Berkner. I did learn about belugas, though.
PS Pups in the Park in Fredericksburg went pretty well… The doodle behaved herself even if she could not sit still. (Don’t think I’ve ever gotten 10,000+ steps at a ball game but there you go.) If you live within driving distance of the new ballpark - and you can handle the mind-boggling back ups that are I-95 - it’s a fun place to see a ball game.
PPS As a Nats fan of a certain age, I’m really into Paolo Espino’s story of waiting 15 years to earn a win. I was convinced they would find a way to blow that one run lead yesterday - so happy to be wrong.
Not to be too hipster, but I just played my records. They were fine. Both children go into singing along to dot dash by wire, and most every rezillos song, especially "no," "destination venus" and the fleetwood mac cover "Somebaody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight."
I have a still sealed copy of some they might be giants "kids" CD that was gifted to us.
That totally worked for my son (he loves The Ramones, Tune-Yards, other good things). For my daughter though....she will accept nothing less than the soundtracks to Frozen/Moana/other stuff like that.
Those songs are a marvel, I’m not even sick of them despite her constant insistence. By far my favorite Lin-Manuel Miranda project.
My daughter will not infrequently take a bite of food, hold up the remaining food, and say "this looks like the crab from Moana." We also frequently debate whether the crab is "mean" or "nice." We have settled on "mean, but he has his reasons" (Maui tore one of his legs off and all that).
Not to her face, anyway.
Nice move with the Mea Culpa Corner on free newsletter Thursday, wonder if you’ll get any new subscribers out of it that “have to see what this guy was wrong about this time”
What he said. You may have triggered your science sub-community - but we jumped in, made our points, and got to review the issue(s) in a fairly reasoned way ... that's how discussion should work, no?
If I didn't say it yesterday, thanks for that NYT link. I'm really glad that the two branches of science are now starting to collaborate on how to avoid harm to ecosystems whenever possible when setting up places to generate renewable energy.
I'm glad you liked the article. Two big rather overwhelming problems - addressing them in isolation is dangerous. It can be hard not to lose sight of the need to be considering all the complex interactions when your research is narrowly focused on one particular scary problem.
Another link - a small Bay Area magazine looking at the issue:
https://baynature.org/2021/05/06/controversial-solar-development-east-bay/?utm_source=Bay+Nature&utm_campaign=211c8f0bc2-BN+Newsletter+June+17+2021&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_092a5caaa2-211c8f0bc2-369418096&mc_cid=211c8f0bc2&mc_eid=86c3f18dda
Also it was put in generally the same area and the same length. Not there is a lot of room to "bury" something here...
Using the Streisand Effect to sell subscriptions - CLEVER!
Maybe the hint about a cleaned up act will attract some Friday folks?
Craig was not born yesterday...
All kidding aside, I legitimately saw Laurie Berkner headline at some kind of Summer Arts in the Park thing in Frederick, MD many years ago. As DMCj said, she's definitely better than Raffi.
Weird fact I heard this morning: Jacob deGrom has the most hits for the Mets this season in games started by Jacob deGrom.
While we're on the subject of deGrom, Mets coming to town this weekend to face the Nats, who have won six of eight and managed to climb into a tie for third in the execrable NL East. Four game series that could prolong the fantasy that the Nats have a chance, or pretty much put a lid on the competitive part of the season for them.
Huge Nats fan here, as you know. Bet the under ;)
If they can manage not to break DeGrom (despite their best efforts and his refusal to dial it back) I like their chances.
They'll probably go 2-2 this weekend and then they'll go all Lloyd Christmas...
In a vacuum, 5 game deficits (Phillies) or even 7 1/2 game deficits (Nats and Braves) aren't insurmountable in June because of all the intra-division games that get played, but because of early season COVID postponements, the Mets have five or more games in hand on everyone in the division, so those deficits could increase by two or three games while the chasing teams sit idle.
Nats' hopes are pinned to Scherzer and Strasburg getting healthy and pitching to their best levels, but Strasburg hasn't been truly healthy since he won MVP in the World Series. It's not in their nature for the Lerner family or Rizzo to truly throw in the towel, but if there was ever a season to punt and begin trying to restock the desolate farm system, this is it.
I saw the lower end of the system last night in Fredericksburg. It needs restocking. After one particularly eventful play (wild throws, bad catches and extra bases taken), an older guy turned to me and said "it's like Little League but they get paid - and we have to pay to watch."
Didn't they start their season going winless for their first 20 games or something like that?
I still feel a little bad for Fredericksburg. In the before times, the Potomac Nationals were the Nats' High A franchise, and I thought that was the level that the FredNats were supposed to be. Then COVID, and the whole minor league reset happened, and they got the Low A franchise to play in a brand new stadium.
They did - and they still have a minus-100 plus run differential!
Hoping to hit the other affiliates this summer (though Rochester may be a road trip too far) ... based on what I've seen from the train/road, Wilmington's stadium seems bigger/nicer but I can't follow the MiLB logic anymore...
Juneteenth only got approved (so easily) as a federal holiday because it takes place in late June, after the school year is over in most states….so it can easily be left out of any curricula and barely discussed in schools.
If this was Marchteenth or Octoberteenth they never would’ve let it pass.
Plus it's an easy way for conservatives to add to their cultural armor: "I can't be racist, I voted FOR the Juneteenth holiday!"
And yet a dozen-ish still couldn't resist that very low bar.
it is such a self own. John Roberts has mastered that, when he knows his side is losing, he joins the majority to bolster his legacy.
It's pretty slick. The legal community/washington press totally buys it. The most naive possible people with the most impeccable meritocratic credentials. Sigh.
An update on Ross Stripling's little tantrum: Craig showed us Ben Verlander's tweet, and Ross Stripling replied to Verlander's tweet with the words:
"Agreed. Completely embarrassed about it. Apologised to Joe individually and the team. Will never happen again. Young ballplayers, be better than this."
Yeah, that was the very rare “good internet apology”. Great to see it from Stripling.
I agree with you 100%. He realized that he was clearly in the wrong, he owned it unequivocally, and he apologized to his teammate both individually and in front of the team as a whole.
None of that "I'm sorry if people were offended..." b.s.
https://twitter.com/kaitlyncmcgrath/status/1405357282548977666?s=20
Good stuff as always, Craig -- I just read this fairly balanced article from the Baltimore Sun on the recent report some Orioles AA minor leaguers were considering sleeping in their cars:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-orioles-minor-league-housing-20210617-d6lxf4mdtzag7juoqc5mjeexei-story.html
They can afford cars?? Huh.
There were slaves legally held in bondage in Delaware and Kentucky until December 1865, when the 13th Amendment finally took force. A holiday for the end of slavery is a very good thing, but shouldn't it be the REAL final end of slavery?
And yes, that is nitpicky, but why not be accurate?
Agreed 100%. There are two things working in favor of "Juneteenth", though. First, the real day we should celebrate is December 6. That's right in the middle of the holiday season, so the occasion will be overwhelmed. Second, June 19th started being celebrated almost from the very beginning by freed Blacks themselves in Texas. It pretty much snowballed from there. You'll have a heck of a time trying to get them to change it.
Curious use of Sweet's "Fox on the Run" in that Heist trailer (love the song, I guess it's the "on the run" part not the fact it's a song about a groupie that grabbed whoever put it together), but wow, that looks like I need to watch it.
Other than Bowie, they were the only British glam rock band to have multiple hits in the U.S., but they never got enough momentum to really make it in the States. They had many more hits in the UK, but they got their start doing bubblegum songs penned by Mike Chapman, and then spent the rest of their career trying to earn respect for their own abilities. "Fox on the Run" was the first single written by the band (which was a re-recording of an album track to make it more commercial, which obviously worked out quite well).
Totally agree. Desolation Boulevard is just an amazing album.
As someone reared on Wayne's World and the like, I strongly endorse this comment.
The regrets version is better
Beauchamp’s Vox piece is equal parts terrifying and unsurprising. It puts a lot of meat on the bones of those uncomfortable Thanksgiving conversations with the drunk uncle who doesn’t really understand that his “patriotism” is in fact “nationalism,” and his idea about how “votes should be weighted by a citizen’s contribution to the society (like let’s just say he, as a small biz owner, should have two votes),” is not really democracy at all. But goddam it he stands for the anthem, and he has been blessed with glorious purpose of “sticking it to the libs.”
YO GABBA GABBA !!!!
I love devo
If I were Steve Cohen, I'd send an ORDER to Luis Rojas and the Mets coaching/medical staff to put deGrom on the 10 day IL IMMEDIATELY. Then use that time to run him through every conceivable test. Anyone here remember J.R. Richard? A hot young star pitcher for the Astros in the late 70s. Complained a lot about general soreness, and everyone accused him of malingering. Then, on July 30, 1980, he suffered a life-threatening stroke during a warm-up. Turned out he was having a number of blood clots and arterial constriction that were causing all the soreness in the various parts of his body....
Did you read Joe Sheehan's newsletter on the link between extreme velo and pitchers getting hurt? As much as DeGrom makes it look easy to throw that hard, well...it just doesn't seem sustainable, for any pitcher, in the long run.
Laurie Berkner played a huge role in helping me keep my depleting sanity during those early childhood years. Gotta love Nanny G tho
I despise the GOP, and where the party has wound up. I just wish the Democrats were better at actually....combatting the GOP, politically. The loudest Democrat response to the GOP (largely coming from Progressives) has not been particularly exciting, and they do not even have solutions to solve the problems they claim they want to solve.