The only reason I would have to root for the Yankees: there is no way in hell that di Blasio or Cuomo would let there be any public celebration at all for a Yankees World Series win. (I think, in fact, that by the time the Series is over, NYC will be under more of a lockdown anyway.) If the Rays win, we see the same dangerous bullcrap again.
And my god, those games yesterday were a slog. If baseball wants casual fans back, it cannot have every last playoff game be longer than The Irishman.
Thank you for that section on Arod. He has been absolutely driving me crazy too for all the reasons you mentioned. I looked it up, the guy bunted 33 times in his entire career and 17 of those were bunting for a hit. Honestly, why would a guy with his skills ever bunt anyway? The willful ignorance of the research that has been done on the game by Arod and so many other announcers (Joe Simpson and the whole Braves crew are definitely good examples) is infuriating.
- maybe the Joe Morgans and A-Rods of the analyst world are worried about their playing time being diminished. It seems Morgan started to get like he was when power hitting middle infielders started taking off. A-Rod is probably a mix of that and maybe wanting to impress MLB leadership.
- Henry Cavill’s fame came from his role as Superman before the Witcher, but as Sherlock, I’d have major reservations about that.
- umm, never mind the risen commode in the bathroom, it’s the carpet in there that gets me. Is that a thing in Ohio?
This Trump having Covid story, once you get past the momentary glib "That'll teach him to discount it as the flu", is really bad news. The best case scenario is he gets mild symptoms, but that will just reinforce his and his supporter's contention that it's all overblown and isn't that serious. The bad case is he gets sick and, like Boris Johnson, has his approval ratings increase from sympathy thus helping his reelection chances. The worst case scenario of course would be him dying from it, but that's a pretty remote chance. Particularly with the top medical care that he'll get.
I understand the difficulty of being wired different. It was in high school I realized I would never “fit in” and be like everyone else but still craved being accepted. I was the kid who always was a problem because I questioned everything and couldn’t go with the flow. People saw me as a rebel while I saw myself as normal and was confused why everyone accepted everything without question.
It took a very long time to come to terms with being on the outside of the majority on almost everything. That would lead to anger and then depression. In adulthood the social shunning stopped but was replaced with eye rolls and being labeled as difficult.
I’m in my 50s now and mentally I’m in a better place but the anger still rises up occasionally. I’m not as frustrated as before, but I do feel tired, because in this social media driven connected world I’m now constantly stuck between what has become two conformities based on our two party political system. While I lean much more towards one, it is still laden with expected compliance.
ARod's "small ball" evangelizing is, I think, mostly just lazy conventional-wisdom pandering. A huge chunk of baseball's TV audience consists of aging white men. That demographic, generally, not only doesn't subscribe to Moneyball or "chicks dig the long ball" or what have you, they're actively against it. They at least claim to want bunting, hit and run, and base-stealing. They think walks are boring and that the defensive shift is unfair. They claim to dismiss anything analytics-based as coming from nerds who want to overthink the game.
It doesn't help that a huge percentage of the non-TV media covering the game thinks this way. Some more than others, sure. But the loudest voices in the press box probably do.
It also doesn't help that not bunting, etc., is easier to second-guess. If the inning doesn't work out, the critic can latch onto a singular failure - you should have moved the runner over!
My guess is ARod knows that lots of what he's shoveling is bunk. But he's an entertainer and he knows how to ID and play to his audience.
There have been rumors that David Cone might go to national games. Right now he's really analytical but I wonder if that would change if he was on, say, ESPN? I don't know about ESPN baseball demographics but I suspect Old, white, probably suffering from ED with a desire to see the game played "the way it should be" would be pretty close. I wonder if production is the problem encouraging announcers to talk up small ball.
Bouton's 'Ball Four' gave me two pieces of advice I have carried with me ever since. The first is the one about how if you want to be relaxed, start behaving the way a relaxed person would. As someone who tends towards anxiety in certain situations, I can say that it doesn't always always always work, but sometime it really does.
The other is the one (which I believe came from his wife at the time) about how sometimes you apologize, not because you think you were actually in the wrong, but because you're trying to preserve a relationship, which is more important than your 'but I was right!!!' pride. Obviously you can take that point of view to harmful extremes, but again, in a lot of cases, it turns out to be the best thing to do.
The 17 pitchers was the most pitcher used in a 9 inning non rain delay playoff game since [checks notes] the A's and White sox game 3 of the 2020 ALWC that ended during the first inning of the SD STL game.
The only reason I would have to root for the Yankees: there is no way in hell that di Blasio or Cuomo would let there be any public celebration at all for a Yankees World Series win. (I think, in fact, that by the time the Series is over, NYC will be under more of a lockdown anyway.) If the Rays win, we see the same dangerous bullcrap again.
And my god, those games yesterday were a slog. If baseball wants casual fans back, it cannot have every last playoff game be longer than The Irishman.
Thank you for that section on Arod. He has been absolutely driving me crazy too for all the reasons you mentioned. I looked it up, the guy bunted 33 times in his entire career and 17 of those were bunting for a hit. Honestly, why would a guy with his skills ever bunt anyway? The willful ignorance of the research that has been done on the game by Arod and so many other announcers (Joe Simpson and the whole Braves crew are definitely good examples) is infuriating.
Couple of things
- maybe the Joe Morgans and A-Rods of the analyst world are worried about their playing time being diminished. It seems Morgan started to get like he was when power hitting middle infielders started taking off. A-Rod is probably a mix of that and maybe wanting to impress MLB leadership.
- Henry Cavill’s fame came from his role as Superman before the Witcher, but as Sherlock, I’d have major reservations about that.
- umm, never mind the risen commode in the bathroom, it’s the carpet in there that gets me. Is that a thing in Ohio?
This Trump having Covid story, once you get past the momentary glib "That'll teach him to discount it as the flu", is really bad news. The best case scenario is he gets mild symptoms, but that will just reinforce his and his supporter's contention that it's all overblown and isn't that serious. The bad case is he gets sick and, like Boris Johnson, has his approval ratings increase from sympathy thus helping his reelection chances. The worst case scenario of course would be him dying from it, but that's a pretty remote chance. Particularly with the top medical care that he'll get.
Rogers Hornsby. He of the 1.010 CAREER OPS.
I understand the difficulty of being wired different. It was in high school I realized I would never “fit in” and be like everyone else but still craved being accepted. I was the kid who always was a problem because I questioned everything and couldn’t go with the flow. People saw me as a rebel while I saw myself as normal and was confused why everyone accepted everything without question.
It took a very long time to come to terms with being on the outside of the majority on almost everything. That would lead to anger and then depression. In adulthood the social shunning stopped but was replaced with eye rolls and being labeled as difficult.
I’m in my 50s now and mentally I’m in a better place but the anger still rises up occasionally. I’m not as frustrated as before, but I do feel tired, because in this social media driven connected world I’m now constantly stuck between what has become two conformities based on our two party political system. While I lean much more towards one, it is still laden with expected compliance.
Who in their right mind puts carpet in a bathroom? Are they collecting for a science experiment?
So good. So glad I subscribed.
Would the Cardinals making it to the world series be some sort of monkey's paw twist on your desire for a plague team to make it?
ARod's "small ball" evangelizing is, I think, mostly just lazy conventional-wisdom pandering. A huge chunk of baseball's TV audience consists of aging white men. That demographic, generally, not only doesn't subscribe to Moneyball or "chicks dig the long ball" or what have you, they're actively against it. They at least claim to want bunting, hit and run, and base-stealing. They think walks are boring and that the defensive shift is unfair. They claim to dismiss anything analytics-based as coming from nerds who want to overthink the game.
It doesn't help that a huge percentage of the non-TV media covering the game thinks this way. Some more than others, sure. But the loudest voices in the press box probably do.
It also doesn't help that not bunting, etc., is easier to second-guess. If the inning doesn't work out, the critic can latch onto a singular failure - you should have moved the runner over!
My guess is ARod knows that lots of what he's shoveling is bunk. But he's an entertainer and he knows how to ID and play to his audience.
There have been rumors that David Cone might go to national games. Right now he's really analytical but I wonder if that would change if he was on, say, ESPN? I don't know about ESPN baseball demographics but I suspect Old, white, probably suffering from ED with a desire to see the game played "the way it should be" would be pretty close. I wonder if production is the problem encouraging announcers to talk up small ball.
Bouton's 'Ball Four' gave me two pieces of advice I have carried with me ever since. The first is the one about how if you want to be relaxed, start behaving the way a relaxed person would. As someone who tends towards anxiety in certain situations, I can say that it doesn't always always always work, but sometime it really does.
The other is the one (which I believe came from his wife at the time) about how sometimes you apologize, not because you think you were actually in the wrong, but because you're trying to preserve a relationship, which is more important than your 'but I was right!!!' pride. Obviously you can take that point of view to harmful extremes, but again, in a lot of cases, it turns out to be the best thing to do.
The 17 pitchers was the most pitcher used in a 9 inning non rain delay playoff game since [checks notes] the A's and White sox game 3 of the 2020 ALWC that ended during the first inning of the SD STL game.