I'm sure all teams have their own "Judge, Rodgers, Kyrie" whatevs.
But it takes a special kind of condescending prick to sound as sanctimonious and condescending as A-Aron Judge, who, btw, hails from Linden, CA, home of the serial murdering Speed Freak Killers, does when he avoids answering if he's had a freakin vax. As I have said previously, fuck him.
This Yankees fan hopes the NYY go 0-10 in Toronto and miss the playoffs by 2 games. Let him walk.
And remember, because of the weird way our brains are wired, only left handed people are in their right minds. Even lefties who hit lots of home runs in the Bronx.
I'm quite happy that the usually-hapless Twins got the Yankees to acquire held-together-by-chewing-gum-duct-tape-and-bailing-wire Josh Donaldson and his salary, then turned around and apparently signed Carlos Correa for almost exactly the same amount of money they would have had to pay Donaldson, plus a bag of hamburgers with cheese inside of them (evidently). This swindle couldn't have happened to a more humble team and fanbase.
It’s like that one time the Washington Generals actually beat the Globetrotters, except this time I want the Twins to break their two-decade Yankee hex.
I know that in the grand scheme of things, letting ballplayers play without being vaxxed is tiny. I mean, the Biden administration is begging Congress to fund COVID programs that are desperately needed and should be a no brainer. There is a new surge starting. The panedmic is far from over. Whether Kyrie plays with or without a vax is tiny.
But I am FUMING today. Adams is sending so many awful messages. He's telling New York and the world once again that he isn't taking an ongoing pandemic seriously. (On Tuesday, he announced he was ready to end the mask mandate for 2 to 4 year olds. You know, the one population that is guaranteed not to have been vaccinated!) He's telling New Yorkers that there are different rules for athletes and for the rest of us. (OK, this also includes "performers" but we know who it's really for.) He's telling the world that if you hold your breath long enough, your temper tantrum will get you what you want. And he's telling me that he is, three months in, a terrible mayor. I have agreed with maybe three things he's done, and not a single move he's made on COVID. The positive rate is going up again in NYC, and he seems to be making sure it continues to do so for some time to come. And just think, we've got four full years of this!
I think that I read that the prior NYC policy applied only to home team players. Not fans and not visitors, right? Seeing pictures of Kyrie unmasked sitting behind the bench and in compliance with the rules.
Assuming my reading is accurate, vax mandates that apply to Judge and deGrom but not Bogearts and Acuna in the same game seems performative at best.
The way to fix that, at least in part, is to require all players to be vaxxed. I think requiring all fans at a game to be vaxxed would probably create too much of a bottleneck at the gates, and also start riots since people are being idiots, but it would have been easy to extend the mandate to any business that operates in the city. (As you might be able to tell, I am a mandate fanatic. If it were up to me, it would be the law that everyone over 5 gets vaxxed, no exemptions without proof of health concerns, and no religions exemptions since that is bull. I am, quite frankly, beginning to think freedom is overrated.)
Yes, I could. No political skills at all. No patience for fools. Limited speechmaking ability. The only way I could do a good job would be to be dictator of NYC, and I don't want that job.
In fairness, Giolito is going to arbitration over $50k too. Though $50k is a larger fraction of Giolito's budget to fret over than it is of White Sox budget.
It’s not $50k this year. It’s the base from which Giolito will get paid in ‘23 and ‘24 and future seasons. Plus from Pale Sox POV it also is a comparison point for other players in the future. Looking at the decision to go to arbitration saying it is just $50k ignores all the future effects.
No sarcasm. Just noting that takes saying ‘it is just $50k’ ignore all secondary issues. I have no ability to calculate the PV of the two side’s choices. But to assume a choice is made out of spite rather than following an intentional exploration of the full costs and benefits seems fanciful.
.68% of his salary. More than I make in a year. I agree Reinsdorf is an asshole, but the guy is still going to make well over $7 mil to play ball. Sometimes the players can be the problem as well.
If I got .68% of my current salary less, I would lose less then $7 a week. I can afford that. So can Giolito.
Dickering with players over minuscule amounts of salary is just being an asshole for the sake of being asshole. Yes, it's only 0.68% of Giolito's salary. It's also only 0.0028% of Reinsdorf's net worth. Extrapolating to your salary example, he's dickering over less than 3 cents a week. Most owners aren't that petty.
I wasn't actually responding to you, but good on 'ya for that.
However, at the end of the negotiations, the players won. More money across the board in all the areas they wanted. No losses, just more money. The players won. All the rich people are getting richer.
All you and the other socialists in the world are happy, because the union can raise now their dues and make even more money while the minor leaguers are still sitting on the outside.
But seriously, how much more money do the players need? All of it? You guys won. The players won. Maybe's it time for the players to just shut the hell up and play ball.
If Reinsdorf is greedy, and he is, then so is Giolito.
I have asked for raises when I felt that I've deserved more. And quit and got a better job that paid more when the boss disagreed. Since we're asking rhetorical questions, have you ever not carried water for rent seekers?
Because it's a stupid fucking question. You made the argument that it was a mere $7 dollars, and I responded that it's even less money considering Reinsdorf's net worth. Giolito is arguing that he's worth $50K more, not that ownership can afford to pay more. Which is the same argument that I made back in the day and then fucking proved it by getting a higher paying job.
And I don't know what you mean about carrying water for rent seekers. I know when I was in the Army I had to carry 5 gallon jerry cans full of water to different sites. I didn't mind the jet fuel so much, becuase it's lighter. But I carried a lot of water.
Let's go Ron!! Class 101 on Government Overreach. How do Republicans go for that? Oh, that's right as long as it serves them it is ok. One thing I don't understand, and I am not up with all facts about transgender/transitioning, why don't they have their own competitive category? I think that would be the best fix.
They don't have their own competitive category because there aren't enough of them (at least not at any advanced level) to have their own category.
Utah's legislature recently sent a bill to the Republican governor in that state that was intended to bar transgender girls from competing with girls (and bar transgender boys from competing with boys). The governor vetoed the bill, and released a statement explaining his compassionate reasons for doing so. In that statement, he also noted that there were precisely four transgender athletes competing in Utah high schools, and only one of the four was a transgender girl.
I generally stay out of the political discussions here. But I will note that I appreciate folks like Spencer Cox. Shortly before the 2020 election, he and his Democratic opponent issued a joint television ad pointing out how much they (we!) had in common and both saying the other had the best interest of Utah residents at heart.
None of us cares about college swimming, or swimming as a spectator sport. But a lot of people care about Title IX, which broadly says that college women are entitled to as many college scholarships as men.
Now, it's really difficult to predict what will happen in the trans area, because the world is changing so fast. The number of young trans people is too small to make any meaningful difference to women's sports...but it's small because there were very large barriers that are rapidly being removed. It's unlikely that any boy would take hormones just to get a college scholarship...but some countries are already proposing that a legal transition should be based on self-identification, with no requirement for diagnosis, treatment or surgery.
I know that some people will refuse to take the same line as Ron DeSantis on any subject, but really we know that's not the way to proceed. I don't care what he says about anything.
Title IX was worth fighting for, and anything that makes it harder for a woman to get into college is a bad thing. Even if Ron DeSantis stumbles into opposing it.
Well, one possible outcome in 10 years' time is that a university gives all its men's basketball scholarships to men, and all its women's basketball scholarships to trans women. That leaves an extremely talented player who was born as a woman without a scholarship, just like in the 1960s.
We could then say that it isn't a problem, because her place went to a trans woman who is a woman. In that case we don't even need to consider if it's a likely outcome.
Also, at the moment there is little or no external incentive to transition. All transitions in the USA are made in good faith, as far as I know. But suppose that in the near future there's a strong financial incentive, and no requirement other than self-identification. Then a young man who isn't quite good enough for a scholarship might consider identifying as a female basketball player for four years, knowing that no-one could criticise him if he then detransitioned. Again, we might say that it isn't a problem because he was a trans woman who was a woman.
Like, just admit you're a TERF and stop trying to pretend like you give a shit about Title IX or some dystopian future where the Trans community is so accepted that young athletes are transitioning in droves to play collegiate sports, completely free from the scorn and brow furrowing of internet good guys like yourself.
There are bio differences between AFAB and AMAB that affect athletic performance. Obviously DeSantis is a grandstanding asshole but no one knows what the solution is.
Funny how nobody screamed about how unfair Lia Thomas is in the events where she finished 5th and 8th. It’s almost like being a trans woman doesn’t magically make her this unstoppable force and that cis women can actually compete with and beat her.
Bumping this from yesterday, with only the amount changed which makes it even more appropriate:
Jerry Reinsdorf seems like the kind of guy who would go to the panel over a $50,000 difference just to remind Giolito that he’s not just a piece of meat… He’s his piece of meat.
What team isn't guilty of a lot of this by now? Has any team said "we will not have any domestic abusers?" Is any team with the exception of the Orioles(!) not owned by a Republican?
He is beloved in SF. There wasnt social media in 95 -- it was a different world back then. His domestic abuse allegations are long in the past -- it wasnt in the news during the Me Too era.
This is a lot different from them acquiring an active player with domestic abuse allegations. That would be a PR nightmare for them.
Could be a future topic on a slow news day. 30 teams, 27 cities, what restaurant or food should players mention to pander to the fans? What's good Oakland or Phoenix or Dallas food?
Since this appears to not be as common knowledge as one might think... one of the reasons why opioids are so insidious (not only that Skipper, they're really, really bad) is that they "break" the way your body processes ordinary painkillers, perhaps not unlike how alcoholics require more and more to get the same desired effect. Suffice it to write, if Skaggs were abusing at the time of these injuries -- the aleeve [sic] and Advil would have provided little-to-no relief and if they did, he would have likely had to take them in such large doses that he was damaging his kidneys and/or liver.
Yep - the doctor actually prescribed MrsCj something much stronger (and potentially addictive) so she would stop inhaling Tylenol and Advil for her headaches. I knew they weren’t great but it was definitely a YIKES moment.
Not going to lie however - as a 50++something Aleve is like magic!
Iirc Tylenol (acetaminophen) breaks down in the liver while Advil (ibuprofen) and Aleve (naproxen) does so in the kidney. As a kidney transplant recipient, I can take the former but not the latter two.
The question is, what side effects does cannibis have on the human body? I know its boosters say it's safer than a lot of painkillers, but I am hoping we get a lot of good research on the subject. But it would be great if it doesn't eat your kidneys or liver.
No idea about edibles, but smoking it causes short term vascular restriction reducing blood flow into the kidney. I don’t know if that is more than, less than or equal to the harm from NSAIDs.
There seems to be a relation between cannabis and psychosis. This is something that’s been suspected since the 80’s, but hard to prove. Recent studies seem to indicate higher doses correlate to higher risk of psychotic behaviour, so a positive relationship.
But, it’s not like everyone using cannabis long term becomes psychotic, just the risks are up to 5x higher.
I wonder if it's a causal relationship or if people who are inclined to psychosis attempt to use cannabis to self-medicate and at some point it just stops working?
I do try to go easy on the Aleve, but those mornings when life (and time) feel like they've been hitting me with a sledgehammer it makes me me feel ... fortysomething again!
I hadn’t seen before (or at least don’t remember seeing anyway) the info about Keri threatening to crash the car. But it brings to mind that a decade or so back, he had a pretty horrific rollover car crash. I remember reading his piece about it, but I don’t remember the details, and now I can’t help but wonder…
IIRC, that was when he was going to the hospital (or back and forth from the hospital) around the time of the birth of his twins (with his first wife). He had been up all night or something, fell asleep at the wheel, and went off the road and flipped his car. He was by himself.
Yeah, I wonder too. With Antonio Brown for example, it seems like most of his bad behavior happened after the Burfict hit. The zombie deadspin article doesn't have a lot of details or timelines, but I wonder if the car crash caused any long-term brain damage that triggered and/or escalated his predatory behavior.
I'm curious as hell if there's anyone I know from way back when who submitted letters on his behalf. Is this stuff public? Any old-skool internet peeps I might know of?
You can offer a letter of support and acknowledge the bad behavior. I am not sure what you want for imprisonment. 24 months? 60? 1000?
For those of you that have friends or family that do bad things, please don't abandon them. You can temper your trust in them, you can think they are bad, you can support their victims and help them.
You asked a few days ago to imagine being a Baltimore fan. I side-stepped the temptation to respond with a frustrated fan rant. No one cares. But I will say this regarding the Orioles payroll.
I’m a member of some Oriole discussions threads/boards, and while my participation has fallen off quite a bit over the past five years, I still dip into the conversation every now and then. I’ve been critical of the teams lack of spending recently, especially with regard to their truly horrendous pitching. They could have done a lot to shore up the worst pitching staff of the last ten years, and still had plenty of room to try out the young players and prospects they want to see.
The team could have improved by twenty wins by just acquiring some mid-level pitching. I’m not even talking about large long-term commitments, though clearly they could have afforded one of those as well—they have both the glaring need, and the money.
I’m stunned by the level of push-back I received for daring to say they should spend more. So many fans seem to locked into this mode of thinking that spending would somehow set the rebuild back, and/or that some mid-level contracts will somehow impair them financially for years to come.
It’s like a large chunk of the fan base is under some kind of Baseball Stockholm Syndrome.
So there you go. At least some portion of the fan base is completely worn out by the team’s willful sucking, yet defends the team’s spending choices.
This is the major question with a team like the Orioles: are they simply not spending, are they trying to rebuild an organization using what they believe to be the best method, or some combination of both?
I've seen enough Five-Year Plans over the course of the past quarter-century (ed. note: Jesus) to not be entirely credulous that this one will totally work out OK. But it actually does seem like they are trying to do something. And that the front office views the enormous loss count as a means to an end, in terms of getting high draft picks (and additional money to spend on the draft, which is often overlooked in the discussion, especially in terms of drafting underslot players) and trading away anyone who has any real value.
That doesn't make the "get some pitching just to make things respectable" view wrong. Watching the team since 2017 has, in brief, sucked ass. Anyone who pushes back against that view as objectively wrong is, themselves, objectively wrong. There are many ways to build a team, and tear down a team, and rebuild a team, and most of them are entirely valid even if they make things look bad.
We'll have to see how it manifests in the next couple of years. Do they start looking to add pieces? Do they start trading Mancini and Means and Mullins? Will I renew my MLB.tv, or do so to just start watching the Padres (Manny 4 Lyfe)?
You make another good point there DJ, with regard to those 14 consecutive losing seasons from 1998-2011. I think some Oriole fans, especially those of my approximate age and older who were used to...ahem...a different winning baseball philosophy, were so wounded and put off by the constant half-assed retooling efforts of those years, and the year-after-year-after-year hopelessness of the whole fiasco that they literally have a form of Oriole PTSD. It's so bad, they'll apologize for anything the club does.
I've generally been a supporter of the current rebuild because there was A LOT that needed fixing in what was once a VERY dysfunctional organization. But I'm not a supporter of them remaining so damned cheap, especially with respect to the dreadful pitching.
The PTSD even extends to the various Oriole bloggers like Melewski. He's so overly sensitive and often can't see the forest because all those damned trees are blocking his veiw.
Man, speaking of Manny, I saw some pictures of him floating around last night wearing a "Let's Go Brandon" shirt on a TV interview. That's gonna be a big yikes from me, dawg.
Fascinating. I know fans like that too. A good friend is a longtime fan of the Atlanta club. He is a good person, votes liberal, etc. He will also justify to himself literally anything the Atlanta club does, from the nickname to the Chop to the boondoggle public funding of the stadium. On the latter, he told me I could show him any numbers I wanted, but he would maintain that "there is absolutely reason to believe" that the stadium is a economic benefit for the area.
I almost got him the day the club cut ties to Freddie Freeman. He couldn't believe it. Said he thought the club would do everything they could to keep him. But within 48 hours, he had read some club-sources apologia from Buster Onley explaining how the problem was greedy Freeman and his incompetent agents, and had flipped back to being unmovably pro-ownership.
I know I'm too cynical at times. Probably most of us here, and our host, are as well. But the level of self-delusion you're describing on those Orioles board or my buddy's is really, really weird to me.
"In case you wondered if these guys act like asses in the way they do in order to get social media clout and pump up their supporters as opposed to advise and consent on presidential nominees."
Isn't this what the most active and fanatical people on social media want -- for politicians to act like asses on their behalf? To channel their politically obsessive impulses? To behave in the political arena and in government like they behave on social media?
This is what's called nowadays by marketing people as being authentic.
Regarding Correa's reason for choosing the Twins -- I heard a theory proposed and discussed on ESPN's Baseball Tonight podcast, which I listen to on my walks with my dog.
The theory is that Correa chose the Twins because of their relatively lighter travel schedule. Correa reportedly has had back issues and less travel would be better on his back. The Astros have a much more rigorous travel schedule compared to the Twinkies.
Just saw in the news that 2-3 cups of coffee lowers your risk (10-15%) of coronary heart disease, heart failure, heart rhythm problems, and dying in general. Wasn’t it like 2 months ago they said more than 1 cup of coffee could kill you ?
Or finding that SURPRISE mice and humans have different metabolisms! That's my favorite, how far down you need to read to find that something was demonstrated in mice. They just extrapolate to humans right away.
I can't say how that would be the case when I know if I have too much caffeinated coffee, I get palpitations. Maybe all those extra beats are actually good for me? They don't feel like it.
ETA: I want Craig to rename this A Cup of Decaf, just to be safe. (And when he writes about soccer, A Cup of Tea.)
Only regurgitating the story from ‘Today in NY’. I also would question as to what time of day you have to drink them by, because it keeps me up and if I don’t get the 6-8 hours of sleep the same show told me I need, that’s very bad for my health.
Never thought I'd run into Paul Eisenstein in one of these newsletters! Fascinating guy. He's done some really interesting political theory work, too; definitely check out Rupture (with Todd McGowan) if you're into that kind of thing
its not a ghost runner. a ghost runner is when the regular runner has not been put out, but their turn at bat has come. the ghost runner moves forward station to station.
The effectively wild podcast has called it a zombie runner. which is better, but the official term, placed runner is fine
Today, we all hate the Yankees.
As Adams is making his announcement at Citi Field, feel free to hate the Mets, too.
I'm sure all teams have their own "Judge, Rodgers, Kyrie" whatevs.
But it takes a special kind of condescending prick to sound as sanctimonious and condescending as A-Aron Judge, who, btw, hails from Linden, CA, home of the serial murdering Speed Freak Killers, does when he avoids answering if he's had a freakin vax. As I have said previously, fuck him.
This Yankees fan hopes the NYY go 0-10 in Toronto and miss the playoffs by 2 games. Let him walk.
Today, and all days, all right minded people hate the Yankees.
And remember, because of the weird way our brains are wired, only left handed people are in their right minds. Even lefties who hit lots of home runs in the Bronx.
Many people I know and respect are Yankees fans. They are wrong, but I still know and respect them.
Have pity. You're dealing with a regressive gene here, or whatever they call it.
I resent this.
I respect Yankee fans who don’t toss out, ‘well the Yankees won XX amount of championships’ when they are sucking. If they do they can F off.
hi
My younger brother is a Borg fan. I haven't spoken to him in ten years.
People waste entirely too much time hating the Borg. I find it simpler and more economical merely to deny their existence.
Makes sense; resistance IS futile, after all.
I'm quite happy that the usually-hapless Twins got the Yankees to acquire held-together-by-chewing-gum-duct-tape-and-bailing-wire Josh Donaldson and his salary, then turned around and apparently signed Carlos Correa for almost exactly the same amount of money they would have had to pay Donaldson, plus a bag of hamburgers with cheese inside of them (evidently). This swindle couldn't have happened to a more humble team and fanbase.
It’s like that one time the Washington Generals actually beat the Globetrotters, except this time I want the Twins to break their two-decade Yankee hex.
ty
"we can be heroes, but just for one day"
I know that in the grand scheme of things, letting ballplayers play without being vaxxed is tiny. I mean, the Biden administration is begging Congress to fund COVID programs that are desperately needed and should be a no brainer. There is a new surge starting. The panedmic is far from over. Whether Kyrie plays with or without a vax is tiny.
But I am FUMING today. Adams is sending so many awful messages. He's telling New York and the world once again that he isn't taking an ongoing pandemic seriously. (On Tuesday, he announced he was ready to end the mask mandate for 2 to 4 year olds. You know, the one population that is guaranteed not to have been vaccinated!) He's telling New Yorkers that there are different rules for athletes and for the rest of us. (OK, this also includes "performers" but we know who it's really for.) He's telling the world that if you hold your breath long enough, your temper tantrum will get you what you want. And he's telling me that he is, three months in, a terrible mayor. I have agreed with maybe three things he's done, and not a single move he's made on COVID. The positive rate is going up again in NYC, and he seems to be making sure it continues to do so for some time to come. And just think, we've got four full years of this!
I think that I read that the prior NYC policy applied only to home team players. Not fans and not visitors, right? Seeing pictures of Kyrie unmasked sitting behind the bench and in compliance with the rules.
Assuming my reading is accurate, vax mandates that apply to Judge and deGrom but not Bogearts and Acuna in the same game seems performative at best.
The way to fix that, at least in part, is to require all players to be vaxxed. I think requiring all fans at a game to be vaxxed would probably create too much of a bottleneck at the gates, and also start riots since people are being idiots, but it would have been easy to extend the mandate to any business that operates in the city. (As you might be able to tell, I am a mandate fanatic. If it were up to me, it would be the law that everyone over 5 gets vaxxed, no exemptions without proof of health concerns, and no religions exemptions since that is bull. I am, quite frankly, beginning to think freedom is overrated.)
Simon for Mayor! Couldn't be much worse than the other recent mayors of NYC, anyway.
Yes, I could. No political skills at all. No patience for fools. Limited speechmaking ability. The only way I could do a good job would be to be dictator of NYC, and I don't want that job.
In fairness, Giolito is going to arbitration over $50k too. Though $50k is a larger fraction of Giolito's budget to fret over than it is of White Sox budget.
It’s not $50k this year. It’s the base from which Giolito will get paid in ‘23 and ‘24 and future seasons. Plus from Pale Sox POV it also is a comparison point for other players in the future. Looking at the decision to go to arbitration saying it is just $50k ignores all the future effects.
So … it’s the present value of $150K? Not sure that makes it much better. (Or were you being sarcastic and my coffee hasn’t kicked in?)
No sarcasm. Just noting that takes saying ‘it is just $50k’ ignore all secondary issues. I have no ability to calculate the PV of the two side’s choices. But to assume a choice is made out of spite rather than following an intentional exploration of the full costs and benefits seems fanciful.
Why do you think they probably will lose? Over the decades teams have been darned near 50-50 in decided salary cases.
I can't easily find Reisdorf's personal win-loss record, but that's the relevant number if he's more assholish than average.
This is Reinsdorf. Jackwagon’s Razor applies. I’m stickin’ with spite.
How does his terrible, non-contender, underperforming ass control everything in baseball?
.68% of his salary. More than I make in a year. I agree Reinsdorf is an asshole, but the guy is still going to make well over $7 mil to play ball. Sometimes the players can be the problem as well.
If I got .68% of my current salary less, I would lose less then $7 a week. I can afford that. So can Giolito.
Dickering with players over minuscule amounts of salary is just being an asshole for the sake of being asshole. Yes, it's only 0.68% of Giolito's salary. It's also only 0.0028% of Reinsdorf's net worth. Extrapolating to your salary example, he's dickering over less than 3 cents a week. Most owners aren't that petty.
Good point. It's a game to him. The money he's spending on this can be chalked up an entertainment cost.
It’s motorsports, but Richard is
Have you ever went to your boss and told him he should pay you $7 more a week because he already makes enough money?
I wasn't actually responding to you, but good on 'ya for that.
However, at the end of the negotiations, the players won. More money across the board in all the areas they wanted. No losses, just more money. The players won. All the rich people are getting richer.
All you and the other socialists in the world are happy, because the union can raise now their dues and make even more money while the minor leaguers are still sitting on the outside.
But seriously, how much more money do the players need? All of it? You guys won. The players won. Maybe's it time for the players to just shut the hell up and play ball.
If Reinsdorf is greedy, and he is, then so is Giolito.
Care to opine about the actual socialism of public funding for stadiums, or do you just call shit you don't like socialism?
I have asked for raises when I felt that I've deserved more. And quit and got a better job that paid more when the boss disagreed. Since we're asking rhetorical questions, have you ever not carried water for rent seekers?
This hero worship of owners is some weird shit.
You still didn't answer the question.
Because it's a stupid fucking question. You made the argument that it was a mere $7 dollars, and I responded that it's even less money considering Reinsdorf's net worth. Giolito is arguing that he's worth $50K more, not that ownership can afford to pay more. Which is the same argument that I made back in the day and then fucking proved it by getting a higher paying job.
And I don't know what you mean about carrying water for rent seekers. I know when I was in the Army I had to carry 5 gallon jerry cans full of water to different sites. I didn't mind the jet fuel so much, becuase it's lighter. But I carried a lot of water.
Let's go Ron!! Class 101 on Government Overreach. How do Republicans go for that? Oh, that's right as long as it serves them it is ok. One thing I don't understand, and I am not up with all facts about transgender/transitioning, why don't they have their own competitive category? I think that would be the best fix.
They don't have their own competitive category because there aren't enough of them (at least not at any advanced level) to have their own category.
Utah's legislature recently sent a bill to the Republican governor in that state that was intended to bar transgender girls from competing with girls (and bar transgender boys from competing with boys). The governor vetoed the bill, and released a statement explaining his compassionate reasons for doing so. In that statement, he also noted that there were precisely four transgender athletes competing in Utah high schools, and only one of the four was a transgender girl.
McSweeney's nailed this topic last year - https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/guys-i-swear-im-only-transitioning-so-i-can-cheat-at-girls-sports
I generally stay out of the political discussions here. But I will note that I appreciate folks like Spencer Cox. Shortly before the 2020 election, he and his Democratic opponent issued a joint television ad pointing out how much they (we!) had in common and both saying the other had the best interest of Utah residents at heart.
None of us cares about college swimming, or swimming as a spectator sport. But a lot of people care about Title IX, which broadly says that college women are entitled to as many college scholarships as men.
Now, it's really difficult to predict what will happen in the trans area, because the world is changing so fast. The number of young trans people is too small to make any meaningful difference to women's sports...but it's small because there were very large barriers that are rapidly being removed. It's unlikely that any boy would take hormones just to get a college scholarship...but some countries are already proposing that a legal transition should be based on self-identification, with no requirement for diagnosis, treatment or surgery.
I know that some people will refuse to take the same line as Ron DeSantis on any subject, but really we know that's not the way to proceed. I don't care what he says about anything.
Title IX was worth fighting for, and anything that makes it harder for a woman to get into college is a bad thing. Even if Ron DeSantis stumbles into opposing it.
Transwomen are women so I have no idea what point you are trying to make here.
Well, one possible outcome in 10 years' time is that a university gives all its men's basketball scholarships to men, and all its women's basketball scholarships to trans women. That leaves an extremely talented player who was born as a woman without a scholarship, just like in the 1960s.
We could then say that it isn't a problem, because her place went to a trans woman who is a woman. In that case we don't even need to consider if it's a likely outcome.
Also, at the moment there is little or no external incentive to transition. All transitions in the USA are made in good faith, as far as I know. But suppose that in the near future there's a strong financial incentive, and no requirement other than self-identification. Then a young man who isn't quite good enough for a scholarship might consider identifying as a female basketball player for four years, knowing that no-one could criticise him if he then detransitioned. Again, we might say that it isn't a problem because he was a trans woman who was a woman.
Your sports brain is completely poisoned. Dude watched "Juwana Mann" like 20 years ago and said YUP that's the future of sport right there!
Also, you keep saying that women are going to take women's scholarships.
Like, just admit you're a TERF and stop trying to pretend like you give a shit about Title IX or some dystopian future where the Trans community is so accepted that young athletes are transitioning in droves to play collegiate sports, completely free from the scorn and brow furrowing of internet good guys like yourself.
There are bio differences between AFAB and AMAB that affect athletic performance. Obviously DeSantis is a grandstanding asshole but no one knows what the solution is.
Funny how nobody screamed about how unfair Lia Thomas is in the events where she finished 5th and 8th. It’s almost like being a trans woman doesn’t magically make her this unstoppable force and that cis women can actually compete with and beat her.
Bumping this from yesterday, with only the amount changed which makes it even more appropriate:
Jerry Reinsdorf seems like the kind of guy who would go to the panel over a $50,000 difference just to remind Giolito that he’s not just a piece of meat… He’s his piece of meat.
I know Craig wrote the book on this if course, but the Yankees have made it really tough on this 30+ year fan of theirs. Just off the top of my head:
- Employing not one, but two women beaters
- Use of bribes and favors to get a special exception for a HEALTH mandate that led to over 1k city workers fired (A mandate I support BTW)
- The front office support of pols like Trump and Anti-Vaxxers like Judge, Rizzo, etc..
- The complete lack of smart spending (see Donaldson)
- Using that same lack of smart spending to explain why they can't afford good free agents and instead we get players from the trash bin.
- Don't know yet what will be in the sealed letter, but it won't look good after all the noise about Astro and Red Sox cheating.
I could go on, but it's 4 AM and maybe I should get a little more sleep before work.
What team isn't guilty of a lot of this by now? Has any team said "we will not have any domestic abusers?" Is any team with the exception of the Orioles(!) not owned by a Republican?
Your point is generally valid, but if the Giants were to acquire a domestic abuser, they might as well find another city to play their games.
The Giants retired Barry Bonds’ #25, my guy. They’re still playing in San Francisco.
His domestic abuse allegations publicly surfaced in the mid 90s. He hasn't been publicly accused of abuse since then and is long retired.
My point was that the Giants gave the highest honor a team can give to a dude credibly accused of domestic abuse but go off I guess
He is beloved in SF. There wasnt social media in 95 -- it was a different world back then. His domestic abuse allegations are long in the past -- it wasnt in the news during the Me Too era.
This is a lot different from them acquiring an active player with domestic abuse allegations. That would be a PR nightmare for them.
They employed a Grade-A toolbag in Aubrey Huff and no one said a word about that.
His controversies were after he retired. They banned him from the 2010 championship reunion as a result.
Jim Crane is a Dem and big Obama donor, but famously employed Osuna.
Sitting here in my Twin Cities area home, when I saw that Correa had plugged Jucy Lucys, I thought, "someone got himself local counsel."
Definitely doesn't share counsel with 5-8 Club.
Could be a future topic on a slow news day. 30 teams, 27 cities, what restaurant or food should players mention to pander to the fans? What's good Oakland or Phoenix or Dallas food?
Since this appears to not be as common knowledge as one might think... one of the reasons why opioids are so insidious (not only that Skipper, they're really, really bad) is that they "break" the way your body processes ordinary painkillers, perhaps not unlike how alcoholics require more and more to get the same desired effect. Suffice it to write, if Skaggs were abusing at the time of these injuries -- the aleeve [sic] and Advil would have provided little-to-no relief and if they did, he would have likely had to take them in such large doses that he was damaging his kidneys and/or liver.
Not that this really changes your point but Ibuprofen and other NSAIDs are pretty harmful to kidneys even in normal doses.
Yep - the doctor actually prescribed MrsCj something much stronger (and potentially addictive) so she would stop inhaling Tylenol and Advil for her headaches. I knew they weren’t great but it was definitely a YIKES moment.
Not going to lie however - as a 50++something Aleve is like magic!
Iirc Tylenol (acetaminophen) breaks down in the liver while Advil (ibuprofen) and Aleve (naproxen) does so in the kidney. As a kidney transplant recipient, I can take the former but not the latter two.
The question is, what side effects does cannibis have on the human body? I know its boosters say it's safer than a lot of painkillers, but I am hoping we get a lot of good research on the subject. But it would be great if it doesn't eat your kidneys or liver.
No idea about edibles, but smoking it causes short term vascular restriction reducing blood flow into the kidney. I don’t know if that is more than, less than or equal to the harm from NSAIDs.
There seems to be a relation between cannabis and psychosis. This is something that’s been suspected since the 80’s, but hard to prove. Recent studies seem to indicate higher doses correlate to higher risk of psychotic behaviour, so a positive relationship.
But, it’s not like everyone using cannabis long term becomes psychotic, just the risks are up to 5x higher.
I wonder if it's a causal relationship or if people who are inclined to psychosis attempt to use cannabis to self-medicate and at some point it just stops working?
Physiology is weird af.
I do try to go easy on the Aleve, but those mornings when life (and time) feel like they've been hitting me with a sledgehammer it makes me me feel ... fortysomething again!
I just switch from black to Irish coffee on those mornings. :)
If I drank in the morning I'd just need Aleve later on - or the next day ;)
I think even more than just the kidneys - gastric issues as welll.
I hadn’t seen before (or at least don’t remember seeing anyway) the info about Keri threatening to crash the car. But it brings to mind that a decade or so back, he had a pretty horrific rollover car crash. I remember reading his piece about it, but I don’t remember the details, and now I can’t help but wonder…
IIRC, that was when he was going to the hospital (or back and forth from the hospital) around the time of the birth of his twins (with his first wife). He had been up all night or something, fell asleep at the wheel, and went off the road and flipped his car. He was by himself.
Yeah, I wonder too. With Antonio Brown for example, it seems like most of his bad behavior happened after the Burfict hit. The zombie deadspin article doesn't have a lot of details or timelines, but I wonder if the car crash caused any long-term brain damage that triggered and/or escalated his predatory behavior.
Obviously all the abusive things Keri was alleged to have done to his former wife were terrible, but the spitting in her face is some sick shit.
Even when I spit on the ground, I make a conscious effort to do so away from other people. This sick fucker spat right in his wife's face.
He had no reverence or basic respect for her -- she must have just been an object to possess and control.
I'm curious as hell if there's anyone I know from way back when who submitted letters on his behalf. Is this stuff public? Any old-skool internet peeps I might know of?
You can offer a letter of support and acknowledge the bad behavior. I am not sure what you want for imprisonment. 24 months? 60? 1000?
For those of you that have friends or family that do bad things, please don't abandon them. You can temper your trust in them, you can think they are bad, you can support their victims and help them.
You asked a few days ago to imagine being a Baltimore fan. I side-stepped the temptation to respond with a frustrated fan rant. No one cares. But I will say this regarding the Orioles payroll.
I’m a member of some Oriole discussions threads/boards, and while my participation has fallen off quite a bit over the past five years, I still dip into the conversation every now and then. I’ve been critical of the teams lack of spending recently, especially with regard to their truly horrendous pitching. They could have done a lot to shore up the worst pitching staff of the last ten years, and still had plenty of room to try out the young players and prospects they want to see.
The team could have improved by twenty wins by just acquiring some mid-level pitching. I’m not even talking about large long-term commitments, though clearly they could have afforded one of those as well—they have both the glaring need, and the money.
I’m stunned by the level of push-back I received for daring to say they should spend more. So many fans seem to locked into this mode of thinking that spending would somehow set the rebuild back, and/or that some mid-level contracts will somehow impair them financially for years to come.
It’s like a large chunk of the fan base is under some kind of Baseball Stockholm Syndrome.
So there you go. At least some portion of the fan base is completely worn out by the team’s willful sucking, yet defends the team’s spending choices.
People who thought rich=smart elected President Dipshit in 2016.
This is the major question with a team like the Orioles: are they simply not spending, are they trying to rebuild an organization using what they believe to be the best method, or some combination of both?
I've seen enough Five-Year Plans over the course of the past quarter-century (ed. note: Jesus) to not be entirely credulous that this one will totally work out OK. But it actually does seem like they are trying to do something. And that the front office views the enormous loss count as a means to an end, in terms of getting high draft picks (and additional money to spend on the draft, which is often overlooked in the discussion, especially in terms of drafting underslot players) and trading away anyone who has any real value.
That doesn't make the "get some pitching just to make things respectable" view wrong. Watching the team since 2017 has, in brief, sucked ass. Anyone who pushes back against that view as objectively wrong is, themselves, objectively wrong. There are many ways to build a team, and tear down a team, and rebuild a team, and most of them are entirely valid even if they make things look bad.
We'll have to see how it manifests in the next couple of years. Do they start looking to add pieces? Do they start trading Mancini and Means and Mullins? Will I renew my MLB.tv, or do so to just start watching the Padres (Manny 4 Lyfe)?
You make another good point there DJ, with regard to those 14 consecutive losing seasons from 1998-2011. I think some Oriole fans, especially those of my approximate age and older who were used to...ahem...a different winning baseball philosophy, were so wounded and put off by the constant half-assed retooling efforts of those years, and the year-after-year-after-year hopelessness of the whole fiasco that they literally have a form of Oriole PTSD. It's so bad, they'll apologize for anything the club does.
I've generally been a supporter of the current rebuild because there was A LOT that needed fixing in what was once a VERY dysfunctional organization. But I'm not a supporter of them remaining so damned cheap, especially with respect to the dreadful pitching.
The PTSD even extends to the various Oriole bloggers like Melewski. He's so overly sensitive and often can't see the forest because all those damned trees are blocking his veiw.
Man, speaking of Manny, I saw some pictures of him floating around last night wearing a "Let's Go Brandon" shirt on a TV interview. That's gonna be a big yikes from me, dawg.
Yeah, my comment was, uh, definitely before I saw that :)
He was dead to me after he ruined Pedroia’s knee.
Fascinating. I know fans like that too. A good friend is a longtime fan of the Atlanta club. He is a good person, votes liberal, etc. He will also justify to himself literally anything the Atlanta club does, from the nickname to the Chop to the boondoggle public funding of the stadium. On the latter, he told me I could show him any numbers I wanted, but he would maintain that "there is absolutely reason to believe" that the stadium is a economic benefit for the area.
I almost got him the day the club cut ties to Freddie Freeman. He couldn't believe it. Said he thought the club would do everything they could to keep him. But within 48 hours, he had read some club-sources apologia from Buster Onley explaining how the problem was greedy Freeman and his incompetent agents, and had flipped back to being unmovably pro-ownership.
I know I'm too cynical at times. Probably most of us here, and our host, are as well. But the level of self-delusion you're describing on those Orioles board or my buddy's is really, really weird to me.
"In case you wondered if these guys act like asses in the way they do in order to get social media clout and pump up their supporters as opposed to advise and consent on presidential nominees."
Isn't this what the most active and fanatical people on social media want -- for politicians to act like asses on their behalf? To channel their politically obsessive impulses? To behave in the political arena and in government like they behave on social media?
This is what's called nowadays by marketing people as being authentic.
Regarding Correa's reason for choosing the Twins -- I heard a theory proposed and discussed on ESPN's Baseball Tonight podcast, which I listen to on my walks with my dog.
The theory is that Correa chose the Twins because of their relatively lighter travel schedule. Correa reportedly has had back issues and less travel would be better on his back. The Astros have a much more rigorous travel schedule compared to the Twinkies.
Just saw in the news that 2-3 cups of coffee lowers your risk (10-15%) of coronary heart disease, heart failure, heart rhythm problems, and dying in general. Wasn’t it like 2 months ago they said more than 1 cup of coffee could kill you ?
Or finding that SURPRISE mice and humans have different metabolisms! That's my favorite, how far down you need to read to find that something was demonstrated in mice. They just extrapolate to humans right away.
Oh indeed. Press releases are an entirely different bucket of lampreys.
We've cured cancer in mice many times.
Bacon..is worth it.
And happier people are healthier, lots of studies say. So, full 180°: bacon is good.
As long as it isn't that sad floppy bacon.
I can't say how that would be the case when I know if I have too much caffeinated coffee, I get palpitations. Maybe all those extra beats are actually good for me? They don't feel like it.
ETA: I want Craig to rename this A Cup of Decaf, just to be safe. (And when he writes about soccer, A Cup of Tea.)
Only regurgitating the story from ‘Today in NY’. I also would question as to what time of day you have to drink them by, because it keeps me up and if I don’t get the 6-8 hours of sleep the same show told me I need, that’s very bad for my health.
"A Cup of Decaf" can be the free Thursday post....
My guess is either it is true in mice, or the article was written by a cup of coffee.
Never thought I'd run into Paul Eisenstein in one of these newsletters! Fascinating guy. He's done some really interesting political theory work, too; definitely check out Rupture (with Todd McGowan) if you're into that kind of thing
The Athletic has just announced that it, too, will call the "ghost runner" the Manfred Man. Craig, I hope you copyrighted that.
its not a ghost runner. a ghost runner is when the regular runner has not been put out, but their turn at bat has come. the ghost runner moves forward station to station.
The effectively wild podcast has called it a zombie runner. which is better, but the official term, placed runner is fine
Manfred man is horrifying.