The first game was awesome. The rest wasn't great. Even Gallen's potential no-no still seemed like delaying the inevitable if the D-backs could indeed get a win. The Rangers losing Garcia sucked too, since he was must watch.
My suspicion -- and it's only that because people are complicated -- is that as an assistant coach, even a part-time one, you were part of his in-group, which he respected. But if you were a player, or a member of the media, or a university official or someone not in the club, you were either a young kid who needed to be taught how to show deference and molded by his genius or a piece of shit who stood in his way.
Bullies and jackasses tend not to be equally bullying and assholish to everyone. They pick people and rank them and categorize them into lesser/equal categories and I figure that's what Knight was doing there.
Bullying behavior can also be exacerbated by poor anger management. I've seen it in my neck of the woods where Profs who bully only do it when angry, and are charming and even generous when the (all too short) fuse has not been lit (and sometimes fuse length is tied to seniority and in-group status).
This is exactly right. "A young kid who needed to be taught how to show deference" is precisely what got Knight shitcanned.
"Later in the year, in September 2000, Indiana freshman Kent Harvey (not a basketball player) reportedly said, 'Hey, Knight, what's up?' to Knight. According to Harvey, Knight then grabbed him by the arm and lectured him for not showing him respect, insisting that Harvey address him as either 'Mr. Knight' or 'Coach Knight' instead of simply 'Knight.'"
I was there! My favorite story is the day after being in the Miami airport (on a multi-leg connection out of New Orleans) and Dick Vitale asked me if he could have my seat on the overbooked leg to Tampa. I said no.
(I’m not special. He asked everyone in the commuter terminal)
I was at Purdue while Gene Keady and Bobby Knight were both still head coaches, and Mackey Arena for IU/Purdue during that time is the best atmosphere of any sporting event I've ever
attended.
During that time Knight accidentally shot a friend in a hunting accident, so the student section was filled with day-glo orange and "DON'T SHOOT" signs.
"In October 1999, right before the start of Bob Knight’s final season in Indiana, Knight, along with Thomas Mikunda, and two other men went out on a grouse hunting expedition in Wisconsin. During the hunt, Knight shot Mikunda.
Knight later explained to investigators his finger slipped off the shotgun’s safety as he aimed at the bird and hit the trigger, accidentally discharging the gun. More than 15 shotgun pellets struck Mikunda in the back and upper shoulder. He was not seriously injured but required medical treatment.
Knight didn’t initially report the accident and was cited for failing to report as well as hunting without a license. He pleaded no contest to each count and paid $582.10 in fines. It was later determined that not only did Knight not report the incident, he requested Mikunda stay quiet on the incident as well.
That came out in 2001, when Mikunda filed a lawsuit against Knight alleging the coach lied to investigators and coerced him to falsify details of the shooting accident to avoid potential legal problems. Mikunda was seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and legal costs. Knight and Mikunda reached a settlement."
As usual, Knight comes off as a real class act in the story:
I can't help but think you may not be quite as angry if Steve Alford hadn't been visited upon Iowa City, also. :-)
The 2002 IU run in the NCAA tournament run was truly horrifying as a Purdue fan, but there was one mitigating factor: if IU had won, it would have been with first-year coach Mike Davis.
For Davis* to have won a title working with Knight's players, immediately on the heels of Knight going 2-6 in the NCAA tournament in his final six seasons as head coach, would have been great. "Bobby Knight was the only thing holding these players back!"
* another great part was watching the Knight acolytes in southern Indiana try to avoid using racial slurs when referring to Davis
Next year Craig should have Baer and an Outkick staffer collaborate on the newsletter for a week. And by week I mean I think they’d last together for about as long as deGrom lasts on the mound.
Five Senators titles in less than 100 years. Count the ringzzzzz.
PS I am on the East Coast for work and I managed to wake up even earlier. AMA.
PPS I’m just hoping the gambling companies have a plan for war: “tonight’s parlay is 2+ tactical nukes on Minsk and one 100+ megaton response on Manchester. Use code ARMAGEDDON for $100 in free bets on DraftKings!”
Congrats to the Rangers. A largely forgettable series, although they'll remember it deep in the heart.
Congrats to Travis Jankowski, who was a great short term Met who embraced his underdog status and always worked as hard as he could. Cut by the Mets but found a home in Texas (for now). Unlike DeGrom and to a slightly larger extent Scherzer, a key piece of the Rangers organization this year. Deserving of a ring. The other 2 get participation trophies.
I'm kinda excited by today's release of the "last" Beatles song (until they find another one). It falls into my generational wheelhouse so I'm allowed to be excited, right? I know many will justifiably poo-poo it, but I also like Rush and Zeppelin so I'm the old white guy middle class, middle-aged dude from the stereotype.
Star Wars and Marvel (and to a lesser degree, Star Trek) all oversaturated their own marketplace and you know, that's what happens when there's too much of a good thing. In baseball analogy, expansion begets more teams, which begets more lower quality players playing in the majors (usually). There are too many shows, there are too many streamers, we are at a reckoning/tipping point. I understand Disney buying Hulu to chase Comcast out, but now they (like Amazon, who have Prime Video and MGM+) own 2 streamers that compete against each other, kinda. Dumb, and due for a consolidation industry wide.
Consolidation is coming, though what form it takes, we can't say. But Disney is still wedded to the idea of a family service and a non-family service, plus ESPN. That can't last, but the cost for a combined service will be steep.
They don't 100% compete against each other. When I was in England I found that Hulu doesn't exist there and that all of the Hulu offerings we have here are on Disney+. That was kind of jarring. And also suggestive of the notion that they may consolidate here too, though I have no idea how the economics would work.
i'm just wondering if Disney, now in full control of Hulu, stripmines it and flips it. not sure why they'd do that, but aside from overseas concerns about different content available on both platforms (they also have Disney Star in India, etc) - what a mess - to have so many brands, and tangled web content... it's all gonna implode
Jankowski also did time on the Padres, so he was part of the reason why I ended up pulling for the Rangers. I have to say, knowing that Jankowski and Hedges now have WS rings while my team still doesn't is kind of... funny? I don't know!
For me, Travis Jankowksi will always be the guy on the Phillies who got caught between 2nd and 3rd, froze and just stood there while the Nats catcher (Kurt Suzuki?) ran out to tag him.
A lesson I'm learning is that it's only oversaturation for me personally if I consent. I did with Star Wars but declined with Star Trek.
Of course thats because Star Trek didnt lure me in as effectively as Star Wars did with phenomenal seasons of The Mandalorian and Andor. Instead they offered Discovery (great cast, excellent character development, plot that veered between incoherent and laughable) which i gave up on after two seasons, and animated series that were fairly obviously not going to give me the Star Trek i was looking for and which i skipped entirely. I was rewarded with Strange New Worlds, which I suspect I would have loved regardless, but which was made all the better by the fact that I didn't go into it with the sort of franchise fatigue that made the moderately disappointing Ahsoka series all the more of a slog.
I think that if Paramount had its act together sooner, there would have been oversaturation of Trek. (There have been plans for another movie for about a decade now, with nothing in sight.) It would be nice to think that someone there is paying attention to what Disney is doing and not getting carried away, but more likely they don't see Trek as being that lucrative now, and are going all in on Yellowstone properties instead.
Yes. It took too long and to much money for paramount to acquire all the Star Trek shows/movies together. Then they realized the market was not big enough to support all the money they threw at it. Plus, both Discovery and Strange New Worlds start off strong but peter out quickly with plot/perfomance or lack there off.
Trek fans are deeply devoted and loyal and can be counted on to buy Trek stuff - books, toys, games, comics, etc. But there aren't as many of us as it seems, and we are more willing to be critical than many fans. So not necessarily the ideal audience to build on.
Star Trek is also less kid-friendly which I'm sure hurts the merchandising.
I was over the moon when "Picard" was announced, but after watching the show it didn't make me want to watch more original Trek content; it made me want to re-watch ST:TNG or ST:DS9.
I mentioned this a few weeks ago after Ahsoka wrapped up. I think it would do Star Wars some good, and probably Marvel as well, to take a break for a couple years. At least on the live-action. Look, I am a complete Star Wars mark. I write a substack about it FFS. But too much of a good thing makes it, well, less good. That's some Yoda level wisdom there.
While I'm only a casual Marvel fan, I think it suffers from the same problem. There's just too much. It's tough for the casual fan to keep up with and from what I've read, the quality of the recent Marvel stuff, like Star Wars, is pretty hit or miss.
Congrats to the Rangers and their fans. Not a great World Series, but at least we got a classic game to start with. Now onto the offseason, free agency, and so forth.
Incredible playlist, much of it (you could guess the exceptions, I'm quite sure) also serving as the soundtrack of many a Mormon church dance I attended in those years. Amusingly little overlap with the self-serious dinosaur rock we were listening to in our cars. MTV was a valuable bridge in those days.
my newest conspiracy theory is that craig didn't post as many invite codes yesterday so he could save up some for the free thursday crowd in hopes they become subscribers in attempts to get their own code
Another fun season in the books. Do we have a countdown to the next new installment of ATH yet?
I’m glad we got 8 innings of excitement yesterday. It needs to last me though a long, dark tea time.
...
Individual contracts could be fun. The first modern free agent wasn’t Messersmith or McNally, as commonly remembered. Or even the mistaken belief in Curt Flood. But Catfish Hunter. He became a FA only because Charlie Finley included a unique clause about a retirement annuity and then breached it. The subsequent bidding for Jim’s services showed the locked up value that was soon to be released by Peter Seitz.
...
Using loans to pay common expenses rather than increasing shareholder investment to smooth out cash flow is bog standard in a low six figure business. Doing so in a nine figure one is as shocking as finding gambling at Rick’s Cafe.
The real issue is cash flow vs asset appreciation and whether fans can reasonably expect ownership to dip into the latter to deal with issues of the former. I think how we answer that says more about our individual priors on wealth and capital than any actual analysis.
...
Last night’s beverage of choice: Poison Arrow. It is somewhere between a Black Manhattan and a Boulevardier combining Bourbon, China-China, and Campari. Quite good. But to do it right, I need to improve my skills at flaming orange oil expressed from the peel.
In both good and bad ways. His feuds with Bowie Kuhn - driven in large part by Kuhn's desire to treat ownership like a genteel club and Finley's crass opposition - caused lasting harm to baseball. As Bill James pointed out ~40 years ago, Kuhn's veto of the trades of Joe Rudi & Rollie Fingers to Boston and Vida Blue to New York hamstrung smaller market owners and acted to remove a mechanism used by teams for decades and limit supply thus driving up costs.
Yup. And on the field too. I never saw him "play," but the Herb Washington signing as a pinch runner backfired rather badly. Who knew there was more to base running than just being fast?
I'm not quite old enough to have seen him get picked off 1B in the '74 ALCS. But it would be difficult to say it backfired "badly" since the A's won the World Series that year.
More broadly though, one of my regrets about the expanded bullpens is the death of specialty players. Herb was an extreme example, but a bench with a Raffy Belliard who can come in to play amazing defense or Manny Mota who will always put the bat on the ball adds to the tactical choices and - for me at least - improves the fun of following along. I miss Lenny Harris!
Agreed on bullpen expansions at the expense of position players. I was hoping that the anti-LOOGY rule would have helped, but it doesn't seem to have made much of a dent.
It would take negotiation with the Union, but I would like to see rules that limits the size of bullpens as well as tighter controls on the AAA shuttle. It is better today than the deeeeep LaRussaization of very narrowly crafted roles where pitchers were called on for one or two batters and we'd get a constant drumbeat of slow walks by the manager with his hand extended for the ball. But not enough better.
They were brilliant managers and would adapt if somehow brought back, but I wonder what Casey Stengel and Earl Weaver would have to say about 13-14 man pitching staffs and a useless bench with no platoon options.
I was old enough to be aware of it when it first ran. I honestly don't remember if I saw it live, but I may well have. I have certainly seen it much more recently on YouTube.
For context, that was the era of the "War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things" posters that I (and all my friends) had. (https://www.loc.gov/item/2016649866/)
I watched 4 out of the 5 games this series, and I had fun watching. That's fine by me! Now I need to get caught up on my shows that haven gotten my attention this postseason.
Just so I'm understanding, you're equating Roger Waters with actual reactionaries because he is anti-Israel? Cause that'd be some big ol' liberal bullshit.
Or maybe there's been something else more recently? Saying you don't think Israel (or any theocracy) should exist doesn't automatically make you anti-semitic (or bigoted).
I haven't even seen what Waters has said about the Israel-Gaza thing, though I can imagine it. I -- and the Rolling Stone article -- are more on about his statements that Ukraine started the war with Russia, and his copious antisemitic track record prior to this current war.
Don't have a subscription to LA Times...what is the "antisemitic track record" they cite? I ask because from experience I assume it's just opposition to Israel that right-wing groups weaponize as "antisemitism" to silence/marginalize critics. And if that's the case, it's extra gross of the LA Times to do this considering our institutions' McCarthy-like treatment of Palestinian advocacy at the moment.
Waters has frequently accused Jewish political and media figures he does not like -- people from the UK and the United States and who are not from Israel -- of being "controlled by Jewish puppet masters" and the like. It's just textbook antisemitism. Like, V1.0.
I think a lot of that gets lost in the fact that Waters also engages in what I think most people would agree is basic and fair criticism of the Israeli government. And the fact that a lot of people who don't know anything about his work or history stupidly equate some of his "The Wall" imagery and ideas with antisemitism when it is not that, or was at least not originally. But again, Waters has brought that on himself by willingly changing some of his other artistic imagery by, say, putting a Statr of David on the pig from "Animals." Which, Jesus fuck, dude, buy a clue.
In short: one can be anti-zionist/anti-Israeli government without being antisemtic. Roger Waters, however, does not even attempt to walk that line.
And I am now reading your comment more closely and realizing that you're asking what the LAT said. They do not go into any of that really. Here's what they say:
"Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, 80, has been accused of making antisemitic remarks and has been criticized for saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “was not unprovoked.”
and
"One seasoned music-industry insider who spoke on condition of anonymity said that if 2016’s boomer-centric Desert Trip festival were held today, they doubted that Waters — an unapologetic critic of Israel known for wearing Nazi-style costumes that he says are “quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms” — would be booked as he was seven years ago."
This, actually, falls into the misunderstanding of Rogers art stuff I mention above, as his "Pink" character has a long and well-known history that, at least in my view, is not problematic. If the Times wanted to, however, they could've gone much deeper by citing his other stuff.
Thanks for confirming my thoughts on the LAT article. To be clear, I think your original point in the newsletter is correct, and that in general, trying to analyze and/or make anything out of the stances of people who as a class have no inherent moral superiority is at best a pointless misdirection. But what I think is notable here is that legacy institutions keep doing this particular misdirection over and over where left-wing advocacy (especially on Palestine) is conflated with something more sinister. So I think it's important to interrogate that phenomenon, while still agreeing that the views and behavior of any aging rocker (good bad or in between) is largely irrelevant.
I’m not very media savvy these days so I can’t speak towards media’s actions regarding Palestinian advocacy. I’m well aware of the raw deal Palestinians have and I’m glad I’m not in their shoes, that being said, it’s hard to be sympathetic to a cause that uses violence against innocent people as a primary tool. I know the comeback will be, “Israelis kill innocents too” and yes, Israel has killed innocent people, but that’s not the goal.
Put another way, Hamas, if it could, would kill every last Israeli today. It can’t, so it doesn’t. Israel •could• kill every Palestinian today if it wanted, but doesn’t.
I am happy that you are amenable to the Palestinian struggle, but I'll be honest that this comment on the whole reads as pretty naive and uninformed. I don't think there is a point in litigating everything here, so I'll limit myself to two areas that I think you should earnestly engage with:
1. Examine why you think Palestine "uses violence against innocent people as a primary tool." To help counter this notion, learn what western governments have done to outlaw the BDS movement, and learn what the Israeli government did to those participating in the 2018 Great March of Return.
2. Examine recent statements from Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and other Israeli leaders, and then ask yourself if you are convinced that their goal is not to kill innocent people.
The first game was awesome. The rest wasn't great. Even Gallen's potential no-no still seemed like delaying the inevitable if the D-backs could indeed get a win. The Rangers losing Garcia sucked too, since he was must watch.
For every 2016, there's a 2006.....
My suspicion -- and it's only that because people are complicated -- is that as an assistant coach, even a part-time one, you were part of his in-group, which he respected. But if you were a player, or a member of the media, or a university official or someone not in the club, you were either a young kid who needed to be taught how to show deference and molded by his genius or a piece of shit who stood in his way.
Bullies and jackasses tend not to be equally bullying and assholish to everyone. They pick people and rank them and categorize them into lesser/equal categories and I figure that's what Knight was doing there.
Bullying behavior can also be exacerbated by poor anger management. I've seen it in my neck of the woods where Profs who bully only do it when angry, and are charming and even generous when the (all too short) fuse has not been lit (and sometimes fuse length is tied to seniority and in-group status).
This is exactly right. "A young kid who needed to be taught how to show deference" is precisely what got Knight shitcanned.
"Later in the year, in September 2000, Indiana freshman Kent Harvey (not a basketball player) reportedly said, 'Hey, Knight, what's up?' to Knight. According to Harvey, Knight then grabbed him by the arm and lectured him for not showing him respect, insisting that Harvey address him as either 'Mr. Knight' or 'Coach Knight' instead of simply 'Knight.'"
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Knight#Coaching_career)
A hilariously ironic firing because Knight spent his career abusing players for poor discipline. Hoist by his own petard.
George Steinbrenner, charitable bully.
I was there! My favorite story is the day after being in the Miami airport (on a multi-leg connection out of New Orleans) and Dick Vitale asked me if he could have my seat on the overbooked leg to Tampa. I said no.
(I’m not special. He asked everyone in the commuter terminal)
Just repeat that statement word-for-word, and you'll have plenty of friends in West Lafayette if you ever need a place to hide out!
I was at Purdue while Gene Keady and Bobby Knight were both still head coaches, and Mackey Arena for IU/Purdue during that time is the best atmosphere of any sporting event I've ever
attended.
During that time Knight accidentally shot a friend in a hunting accident, so the student section was filled with day-glo orange and "DON'T SHOOT" signs.
"In October 1999, right before the start of Bob Knight’s final season in Indiana, Knight, along with Thomas Mikunda, and two other men went out on a grouse hunting expedition in Wisconsin. During the hunt, Knight shot Mikunda.
Knight later explained to investigators his finger slipped off the shotgun’s safety as he aimed at the bird and hit the trigger, accidentally discharging the gun. More than 15 shotgun pellets struck Mikunda in the back and upper shoulder. He was not seriously injured but required medical treatment.
Knight didn’t initially report the accident and was cited for failing to report as well as hunting without a license. He pleaded no contest to each count and paid $582.10 in fines. It was later determined that not only did Knight not report the incident, he requested Mikunda stay quiet on the incident as well.
That came out in 2001, when Mikunda filed a lawsuit against Knight alleging the coach lied to investigators and coerced him to falsify details of the shooting accident to avoid potential legal problems. Mikunda was seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and legal costs. Knight and Mikunda reached a settlement."
As usual, Knight comes off as a real class act in the story:
https://www.sportscasting.com/legendary-coach-bob-knight-involved-in-multiple-gunshot-incidents/
I'm too young to remember Alford the player but I definitely get it.
My only exposure to Alford is as a coach, where he's been consistently an awful person so it definitely tracks.
I can't help but think you may not be quite as angry if Steve Alford hadn't been visited upon Iowa City, also. :-)
The 2002 IU run in the NCAA tournament run was truly horrifying as a Purdue fan, but there was one mitigating factor: if IU had won, it would have been with first-year coach Mike Davis.
For Davis* to have won a title working with Knight's players, immediately on the heels of Knight going 2-6 in the NCAA tournament in his final six seasons as head coach, would have been great. "Bobby Knight was the only thing holding these players back!"
* another great part was watching the Knight acolytes in southern Indiana try to avoid using racial slurs when referring to Davis
Thank God that loser Baer never got his mitts on this newsletter. What a maroon.
Next year Craig should have Baer and an Outkick staffer collaborate on the newsletter for a week. And by week I mean I think they’d last together for about as long as deGrom lasts on the mound.
Too soon?
Counterpoint: nobody should ever interact with any Outkick staffer in any way, shape, or form.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/laughing-dog-gif-laughing-laugh-dog-discover-share-gifs--627689266811131210/
Is this a Will Smith joke? This is the first time I’ve heard that name this post season, which says a lot about how little attention I’ve paid.
Five Senators titles in less than 100 years. Count the ringzzzzz.
PS I am on the East Coast for work and I managed to wake up even earlier. AMA.
PPS I’m just hoping the gambling companies have a plan for war: “tonight’s parlay is 2+ tactical nukes on Minsk and one 100+ megaton response on Manchester. Use code ARMAGEDDON for $100 in free bets on DraftKings!”
Will the Lerners put this WS title in the honor ring at Nats Park?
Congrats to the Rangers. A largely forgettable series, although they'll remember it deep in the heart.
Congrats to Travis Jankowski, who was a great short term Met who embraced his underdog status and always worked as hard as he could. Cut by the Mets but found a home in Texas (for now). Unlike DeGrom and to a slightly larger extent Scherzer, a key piece of the Rangers organization this year. Deserving of a ring. The other 2 get participation trophies.
I'm kinda excited by today's release of the "last" Beatles song (until they find another one). It falls into my generational wheelhouse so I'm allowed to be excited, right? I know many will justifiably poo-poo it, but I also like Rush and Zeppelin so I'm the old white guy middle class, middle-aged dude from the stereotype.
Star Wars and Marvel (and to a lesser degree, Star Trek) all oversaturated their own marketplace and you know, that's what happens when there's too much of a good thing. In baseball analogy, expansion begets more teams, which begets more lower quality players playing in the majors (usually). There are too many shows, there are too many streamers, we are at a reckoning/tipping point. I understand Disney buying Hulu to chase Comcast out, but now they (like Amazon, who have Prime Video and MGM+) own 2 streamers that compete against each other, kinda. Dumb, and due for a consolidation industry wide.
Consolidation is coming, though what form it takes, we can't say. But Disney is still wedded to the idea of a family service and a non-family service, plus ESPN. That can't last, but the cost for a combined service will be steep.
They don't 100% compete against each other. When I was in England I found that Hulu doesn't exist there and that all of the Hulu offerings we have here are on Disney+. That was kind of jarring. And also suggestive of the notion that they may consolidate here too, though I have no idea how the economics would work.
Comcast offers a bundle of Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu to its subscribers, so someone has figured out the economics to some degree already.
i'm just wondering if Disney, now in full control of Hulu, stripmines it and flips it. not sure why they'd do that, but aside from overseas concerns about different content available on both platforms (they also have Disney Star in India, etc) - what a mess - to have so many brands, and tangled web content... it's all gonna implode
Jankowski also did time on the Padres, so he was part of the reason why I ended up pulling for the Rangers. I have to say, knowing that Jankowski and Hedges now have WS rings while my team still doesn't is kind of... funny? I don't know!
For me, Travis Jankowksi will always be the guy on the Phillies who got caught between 2nd and 3rd, froze and just stood there while the Nats catcher (Kurt Suzuki?) ran out to tag him.
EDIT: Alex Avila - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb2ip9K0yRQ&ab_channel=BaseballNewsClub
"Jankowski and Hedges" - Law firm, accountants, or funeral home?
Big personal injury business.
Landscapers
A lesson I'm learning is that it's only oversaturation for me personally if I consent. I did with Star Wars but declined with Star Trek.
Of course thats because Star Trek didnt lure me in as effectively as Star Wars did with phenomenal seasons of The Mandalorian and Andor. Instead they offered Discovery (great cast, excellent character development, plot that veered between incoherent and laughable) which i gave up on after two seasons, and animated series that were fairly obviously not going to give me the Star Trek i was looking for and which i skipped entirely. I was rewarded with Strange New Worlds, which I suspect I would have loved regardless, but which was made all the better by the fact that I didn't go into it with the sort of franchise fatigue that made the moderately disappointing Ahsoka series all the more of a slog.
I think that if Paramount had its act together sooner, there would have been oversaturation of Trek. (There have been plans for another movie for about a decade now, with nothing in sight.) It would be nice to think that someone there is paying attention to what Disney is doing and not getting carried away, but more likely they don't see Trek as being that lucrative now, and are going all in on Yellowstone properties instead.
Yes. It took too long and to much money for paramount to acquire all the Star Trek shows/movies together. Then they realized the market was not big enough to support all the money they threw at it. Plus, both Discovery and Strange New Worlds start off strong but peter out quickly with plot/perfomance or lack there off.
Trek fans are deeply devoted and loyal and can be counted on to buy Trek stuff - books, toys, games, comics, etc. But there aren't as many of us as it seems, and we are more willing to be critical than many fans. So not necessarily the ideal audience to build on.
Star Trek is also less kid-friendly which I'm sure hurts the merchandising.
I was over the moon when "Picard" was announced, but after watching the show it didn't make me want to watch more original Trek content; it made me want to re-watch ST:TNG or ST:DS9.
I mentioned this a few weeks ago after Ahsoka wrapped up. I think it would do Star Wars some good, and probably Marvel as well, to take a break for a couple years. At least on the live-action. Look, I am a complete Star Wars mark. I write a substack about it FFS. But too much of a good thing makes it, well, less good. That's some Yoda level wisdom there.
While I'm only a casual Marvel fan, I think it suffers from the same problem. There's just too much. It's tough for the casual fan to keep up with and from what I've read, the quality of the recent Marvel stuff, like Star Wars, is pretty hit or miss.
I've been a fan of some of the series, but in general I don't bother with the movies. And even that...too much. I agree.
Basically a nightmare result as an Astros fan, but happy for my many Ranger fan friends.
Congrats to the Rangers and their fans. Not a great World Series, but at least we got a classic game to start with. Now onto the offseason, free agency, and so forth.
That just about sums it up for Bobby Knight.
Incredible playlist, much of it (you could guess the exceptions, I'm quite sure) also serving as the soundtrack of many a Mormon church dance I attended in those years. Amusingly little overlap with the self-serious dinosaur rock we were listening to in our cars. MTV was a valuable bridge in those days.
my newest conspiracy theory is that craig didn't post as many invite codes yesterday so he could save up some for the free thursday crowd in hopes they become subscribers in attempts to get their own code
That would be smart, but nah. I just had more people send me codes yesterday than the day before so I had more to post today.
I appreciated the shoutout to Peter Garrett and Midnight Oil.
Another fun season in the books. Do we have a countdown to the next new installment of ATH yet?
I’m glad we got 8 innings of excitement yesterday. It needs to last me though a long, dark tea time.
...
Individual contracts could be fun. The first modern free agent wasn’t Messersmith or McNally, as commonly remembered. Or even the mistaken belief in Curt Flood. But Catfish Hunter. He became a FA only because Charlie Finley included a unique clause about a retirement annuity and then breached it. The subsequent bidding for Jim’s services showed the locked up value that was soon to be released by Peter Seitz.
...
Using loans to pay common expenses rather than increasing shareholder investment to smooth out cash flow is bog standard in a low six figure business. Doing so in a nine figure one is as shocking as finding gambling at Rick’s Cafe.
The real issue is cash flow vs asset appreciation and whether fans can reasonably expect ownership to dip into the latter to deal with issues of the former. I think how we answer that says more about our individual priors on wealth and capital than any actual analysis.
...
Last night’s beverage of choice: Poison Arrow. It is somewhere between a Black Manhattan and a Boulevardier combining Bourbon, China-China, and Campari. Quite good. But to do it right, I need to improve my skills at flaming orange oil expressed from the peel.
Charlie Finley often was ahead of his time.
In both good and bad ways. His feuds with Bowie Kuhn - driven in large part by Kuhn's desire to treat ownership like a genteel club and Finley's crass opposition - caused lasting harm to baseball. As Bill James pointed out ~40 years ago, Kuhn's veto of the trades of Joe Rudi & Rollie Fingers to Boston and Vida Blue to New York hamstrung smaller market owners and acted to remove a mechanism used by teams for decades and limit supply thus driving up costs.
Yup. And on the field too. I never saw him "play," but the Herb Washington signing as a pinch runner backfired rather badly. Who knew there was more to base running than just being fast?
I'm not quite old enough to have seen him get picked off 1B in the '74 ALCS. But it would be difficult to say it backfired "badly" since the A's won the World Series that year.
More broadly though, one of my regrets about the expanded bullpens is the death of specialty players. Herb was an extreme example, but a bench with a Raffy Belliard who can come in to play amazing defense or Manny Mota who will always put the bat on the ball adds to the tactical choices and - for me at least - improves the fun of following along. I miss Lenny Harris!
Agreed on bullpen expansions at the expense of position players. I was hoping that the anti-LOOGY rule would have helped, but it doesn't seem to have made much of a dent.
It would take negotiation with the Union, but I would like to see rules that limits the size of bullpens as well as tighter controls on the AAA shuttle. It is better today than the deeeeep LaRussaization of very narrowly crafted roles where pitchers were called on for one or two batters and we'd get a constant drumbeat of slow walks by the manager with his hand extended for the ball. But not enough better.
They were brilliant managers and would adapt if somehow brought back, but I wonder what Casey Stengel and Earl Weaver would have to say about 13-14 man pitching staffs and a useless bench with no platoon options.
Wow. The daisy ad goes much harder than I assumed it would.
I'm assuming that in 1964 it hit in much the same way Sour Patch Kids or Monster Energy would hit in the Middle Ages. It may have killed people.
I was old enough to be aware of it when it first ran. I honestly don't remember if I saw it live, but I may well have. I have certainly seen it much more recently on YouTube.
For context, that was the era of the "War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things" posters that I (and all my friends) had. (https://www.loc.gov/item/2016649866/)
It's generally considered the most effective political ad ever... and it was only shown once.
I watched 4 out of the 5 games this series, and I had fun watching. That's fine by me! Now I need to get caught up on my shows that haven gotten my attention this postseason.
Marvel’s succeeded at sending me right back to 2003, in that the only superhero whose movies I’ll definitely see is Spider-Man.
And I ain’t talking about Tom Holland.
What did renowned historian Tom Holland ever do to you?
Maybe he means b-movie director Tom Holland.
Just so I'm understanding, you're equating Roger Waters with actual reactionaries because he is anti-Israel? Cause that'd be some big ol' liberal bullshit.
Or maybe there's been something else more recently? Saying you don't think Israel (or any theocracy) should exist doesn't automatically make you anti-semitic (or bigoted).
I haven't even seen what Waters has said about the Israel-Gaza thing, though I can imagine it. I -- and the Rolling Stone article -- are more on about his statements that Ukraine started the war with Russia, and his copious antisemitic track record prior to this current war.
Don't have a subscription to LA Times...what is the "antisemitic track record" they cite? I ask because from experience I assume it's just opposition to Israel that right-wing groups weaponize as "antisemitism" to silence/marginalize critics. And if that's the case, it's extra gross of the LA Times to do this considering our institutions' McCarthy-like treatment of Palestinian advocacy at the moment.
Waters has frequently accused Jewish political and media figures he does not like -- people from the UK and the United States and who are not from Israel -- of being "controlled by Jewish puppet masters" and the like. It's just textbook antisemitism. Like, V1.0.
I think a lot of that gets lost in the fact that Waters also engages in what I think most people would agree is basic and fair criticism of the Israeli government. And the fact that a lot of people who don't know anything about his work or history stupidly equate some of his "The Wall" imagery and ideas with antisemitism when it is not that, or was at least not originally. But again, Waters has brought that on himself by willingly changing some of his other artistic imagery by, say, putting a Statr of David on the pig from "Animals." Which, Jesus fuck, dude, buy a clue.
In short: one can be anti-zionist/anti-Israeli government without being antisemtic. Roger Waters, however, does not even attempt to walk that line.
And I am now reading your comment more closely and realizing that you're asking what the LAT said. They do not go into any of that really. Here's what they say:
"Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, 80, has been accused of making antisemitic remarks and has been criticized for saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “was not unprovoked.”
and
"One seasoned music-industry insider who spoke on condition of anonymity said that if 2016’s boomer-centric Desert Trip festival were held today, they doubted that Waters — an unapologetic critic of Israel known for wearing Nazi-style costumes that he says are “quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms” — would be booked as he was seven years ago."
This, actually, falls into the misunderstanding of Rogers art stuff I mention above, as his "Pink" character has a long and well-known history that, at least in my view, is not problematic. If the Times wanted to, however, they could've gone much deeper by citing his other stuff.
Thanks for confirming my thoughts on the LAT article. To be clear, I think your original point in the newsletter is correct, and that in general, trying to analyze and/or make anything out of the stances of people who as a class have no inherent moral superiority is at best a pointless misdirection. But what I think is notable here is that legacy institutions keep doing this particular misdirection over and over where left-wing advocacy (especially on Palestine) is conflated with something more sinister. So I think it's important to interrogate that phenomenon, while still agreeing that the views and behavior of any aging rocker (good bad or in between) is largely irrelevant.
I’m not very media savvy these days so I can’t speak towards media’s actions regarding Palestinian advocacy. I’m well aware of the raw deal Palestinians have and I’m glad I’m not in their shoes, that being said, it’s hard to be sympathetic to a cause that uses violence against innocent people as a primary tool. I know the comeback will be, “Israelis kill innocents too” and yes, Israel has killed innocent people, but that’s not the goal.
Put another way, Hamas, if it could, would kill every last Israeli today. It can’t, so it doesn’t. Israel •could• kill every Palestinian today if it wanted, but doesn’t.
This is an issue without a solution.
on a less serious note:
Sounds like Boomer rock stars and current MLB players hang out together.
I am happy that you are amenable to the Palestinian struggle, but I'll be honest that this comment on the whole reads as pretty naive and uninformed. I don't think there is a point in litigating everything here, so I'll limit myself to two areas that I think you should earnestly engage with:
1. Examine why you think Palestine "uses violence against innocent people as a primary tool." To help counter this notion, learn what western governments have done to outlaw the BDS movement, and learn what the Israeli government did to those participating in the 2018 Great March of Return.
2. Examine recent statements from Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and other Israeli leaders, and then ask yourself if you are convinced that their goal is not to kill innocent people.
Craig, I'm a little disappointed you forgot that Mad magazine nailed this ethos of the Boomer rock stars in 1985: https://archive.org/details/mad_magazine_257_sep_1985/page/n15/mode/2up?view=theater
Brilliant! Lol