Twelve years? Damn. I remember John fondly from BP/BBTF (which I still haunt from time to time, but certainly isn't what it used to be; why is that?), and I remember when he passed. He was a delight.
I teased you about your hatred of J.D. Vance yesterday but I do genuinely love I frequently send snippets of your newsletter to my non-baseball person wife with stuff like "The Orson Welles stuff is interesting" as my note.
As an editor of 25+ years: Yes, Craig, you need an editor.
As a reader of eight years: Nah, Craig, you can probably get by without one. I can take the minor errors and inconsistencies. Lends a little 'from the desk of' indie-flavor.
- Just found an explanation of the Milkshake Duck thing on a pop culture site. It's "Darmok" on Star Trek, only replace "legends of our people" with "memes." The shrimp tails thing is weird by itself. I only found a rubber glove in a bag of popcorn, and never got a reasonable explanation for that either, but no one was claiming it was not a rubber glove.
- Speaking as someone who dealt with the media for 30 years and who also proofread material for many at work, I echo the sentiment of the need for a good editor, albeit for reasons less related to content and more to just avoiding mistakes. A shout out to the proofreaders at The New Yorker, who checked every little fact before going to print. It was a hassle to deal with them, but it was the right thing to do. Though I bet that when you are more web-based than in print, such things are now a luxury even for that magazine.
- One news item: after a year's delay, Amazon Prime and the Yankees confirm that several games will stream in the NYC area. Yes, they will be on OTA broadcast as well, but I suspect I am not the only one who doesn't have cable and rarely uses the hit and miss HD signal to watch anything. So even if it's the other team, I plan to watch some of these. But will other, younger cord-cutters who stream everything watch too?
I do like the idea that MLB's Ball Police (TM) could catch Bauer as a first order of business. Also love the fact that he's so widely loathed.
I actually think that Jesnsen Karp isn't lying with the shrimp tails story (at least so far as I can tell). There's a real suggestion that the bag has some tape on it (and other objects in it), so maybe someone did slice into it at some point along the way. Not necessarily a pure production line issue. But now that he made himself into the main character on Twitter, his exes are coming forward accusing him of emotional abuse and we see why it's such a terrible idea to make yourself into the main character on Twitter (and more importantly, why it's terrible to do shitty things in relationships, because it surely will catch up with you in time).
The Orson Welles bit makes me want to re-watch The Third Man. Why can't I just knock off work today to watch The Third Man (and also Shin Godzill and the original King Kong, in prep for the movie which I'll hopefully get vaccinated soon enough to see in theaters).
Substack is really exposing who's so thirsty to get their takes off that they really need an editor (I'm talking: Yglesias, Wilkinson, and to a lesser extent Noah Smith. I'm on the free tier for all three, and yet the takes....the wordy takes just can't stop won't stop. I might have to unsubscribe from the free tier. When Yglesias sticks to transportation/zoning policy he's actually pretty good. But he can't help the contrarian streak and it's just annoying).
I do like the idea of just making sports more objective and getting rid of makeup calls. Two wrongs don't make a right, it's time to excise that stuff.
Promise this is my last comment on pitcher- doctoring grips (for a while). The last few years the ball is described as a cue ball—- throwing it without at least something effects command/ increases walks/ increases slow play but at its worst increases injury to batters. All of these issues run contrary to what MLB is said to be seeking. So by increasing the chances of home runs by altering the ball, they have created this problem of pitchers finding ways to throw it!
Why not get back the orig baseball? Or look at Japanese ball (tacky)? They create the problem, players adapt, then they make rules they don’t enforce, then they threaten to enforce... i agree that they will go after a few “sacrificial cows” to make it appear they are enforcing and then crickets.
I enjoy your take on issues and your wit. That comes without an editor i think. You include a smattering of subjects so there is something for everyone. I primarily read you for your baseball take on life—- there is plenty of drama, sleeze, crazy, corrupt, funny, kind to report on and we fans often only know about our fav clubs so it broadens our horizons.
Need ideas for stories? Ask us too—Sometimes i just need to understand things better like how options work and pay for players who teams treat like yoyos; why minor league and mlb players do not negotiate together; etc etc etc. Just say the word, Craig, and we will forward what we need more of!
“Later John Huston told me that he and Welles were always trying to stick each other with the tab and once faked simultaneous heart attacks at a restaurant in Paris. In many respects, Orson Welles was the successor to the Great Curnonsky, Prince of Gourmands. This thought occurred to me as I braced my boots against the rocker panel to haul the great director from his limousine.” - Excerpt from Jim Harrison’s “The Raw and the Cooked”
The idea that calls must be even against both teams is one of the most pervasive and silliest things I've seen in pro sports. We saw a little bit of that in the Super Bowl, when KC was complaining they were getting all the penalties despite the fact that they were holding the TB receivers on pretty much every play. The idea that the refs in sports should "let the guys play" never seems to go away even though the entire point is to make sure the game is reffed correctly. If KC couldn't beat TB unless they held the crap out of their WRs, that's on them and they don't deserve to win the game.
Makeup calls are stupid and should go away forever.
Twelve years? Damn. I remember John fondly from BP/BBTF (which I still haunt from time to time, but certainly isn't what it used to be; why is that?), and I remember when he passed. He was a delight.
I will serve no fries before their time ! Brad Hamilton.
Am I the only one who giggled at “small army of ball-inspectors”?
" You’ll also see an increasing amount of responsibilities and judgment calls taken from officials in their entirety,..."
I read that as more replay timeouts, and I don't see how that will be good for any sport.
I teased you about your hatred of J.D. Vance yesterday but I do genuinely love I frequently send snippets of your newsletter to my non-baseball person wife with stuff like "The Orson Welles stuff is interesting" as my note.
In today's newsletter, I was twice reminded that the word 'oblique' is a homonym.
As an editor of 25+ years: Yes, Craig, you need an editor.
As a reader of eight years: Nah, Craig, you can probably get by without one. I can take the minor errors and inconsistencies. Lends a little 'from the desk of' indie-flavor.
- Just found an explanation of the Milkshake Duck thing on a pop culture site. It's "Darmok" on Star Trek, only replace "legends of our people" with "memes." The shrimp tails thing is weird by itself. I only found a rubber glove in a bag of popcorn, and never got a reasonable explanation for that either, but no one was claiming it was not a rubber glove.
- Speaking as someone who dealt with the media for 30 years and who also proofread material for many at work, I echo the sentiment of the need for a good editor, albeit for reasons less related to content and more to just avoiding mistakes. A shout out to the proofreaders at The New Yorker, who checked every little fact before going to print. It was a hassle to deal with them, but it was the right thing to do. Though I bet that when you are more web-based than in print, such things are now a luxury even for that magazine.
- One news item: after a year's delay, Amazon Prime and the Yankees confirm that several games will stream in the NYC area. Yes, they will be on OTA broadcast as well, but I suspect I am not the only one who doesn't have cable and rarely uses the hit and miss HD signal to watch anything. So even if it's the other team, I plan to watch some of these. But will other, younger cord-cutters who stream everything watch too?
Jackson Browne's first draft was "Doctor My Balls" but his editor talked him out of it.
Doctor My Balls My Ass (I Won't Doctor My Balls).
I do like the idea that MLB's Ball Police (TM) could catch Bauer as a first order of business. Also love the fact that he's so widely loathed.
I actually think that Jesnsen Karp isn't lying with the shrimp tails story (at least so far as I can tell). There's a real suggestion that the bag has some tape on it (and other objects in it), so maybe someone did slice into it at some point along the way. Not necessarily a pure production line issue. But now that he made himself into the main character on Twitter, his exes are coming forward accusing him of emotional abuse and we see why it's such a terrible idea to make yourself into the main character on Twitter (and more importantly, why it's terrible to do shitty things in relationships, because it surely will catch up with you in time).
The Orson Welles bit makes me want to re-watch The Third Man. Why can't I just knock off work today to watch The Third Man (and also Shin Godzill and the original King Kong, in prep for the movie which I'll hopefully get vaccinated soon enough to see in theaters).
Substack is really exposing who's so thirsty to get their takes off that they really need an editor (I'm talking: Yglesias, Wilkinson, and to a lesser extent Noah Smith. I'm on the free tier for all three, and yet the takes....the wordy takes just can't stop won't stop. I might have to unsubscribe from the free tier. When Yglesias sticks to transportation/zoning policy he's actually pretty good. But he can't help the contrarian streak and it's just annoying).
I do like the idea of just making sports more objective and getting rid of makeup calls. Two wrongs don't make a right, it's time to excise that stuff.
Promise this is my last comment on pitcher- doctoring grips (for a while). The last few years the ball is described as a cue ball—- throwing it without at least something effects command/ increases walks/ increases slow play but at its worst increases injury to batters. All of these issues run contrary to what MLB is said to be seeking. So by increasing the chances of home runs by altering the ball, they have created this problem of pitchers finding ways to throw it!
Why not get back the orig baseball? Or look at Japanese ball (tacky)? They create the problem, players adapt, then they make rules they don’t enforce, then they threaten to enforce... i agree that they will go after a few “sacrificial cows” to make it appear they are enforcing and then crickets.
I enjoy your take on issues and your wit. That comes without an editor i think. You include a smattering of subjects so there is something for everyone. I primarily read you for your baseball take on life—- there is plenty of drama, sleeze, crazy, corrupt, funny, kind to report on and we fans often only know about our fav clubs so it broadens our horizons.
Need ideas for stories? Ask us too—Sometimes i just need to understand things better like how options work and pay for players who teams treat like yoyos; why minor league and mlb players do not negotiate together; etc etc etc. Just say the word, Craig, and we will forward what we need more of!
“Later John Huston told me that he and Welles were always trying to stick each other with the tab and once faked simultaneous heart attacks at a restaurant in Paris. In many respects, Orson Welles was the successor to the Great Curnonsky, Prince of Gourmands. This thought occurred to me as I braced my boots against the rocker panel to haul the great director from his limousine.” - Excerpt from Jim Harrison’s “The Raw and the Cooked”
The idea that calls must be even against both teams is one of the most pervasive and silliest things I've seen in pro sports. We saw a little bit of that in the Super Bowl, when KC was complaining they were getting all the penalties despite the fact that they were holding the TB receivers on pretty much every play. The idea that the refs in sports should "let the guys play" never seems to go away even though the entire point is to make sure the game is reffed correctly. If KC couldn't beat TB unless they held the crap out of their WRs, that's on them and they don't deserve to win the game.
Makeup calls are stupid and should go away forever.