The Rays tie it up at one after the Dodgers' bullpen game strategy fizzles. That, the Cubs, skepticism, empathy, and a couple of jackass billionaire families playing to form.
Ha! Me, too. I was at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant in NJ and it was on the tv. I have never been back to that place but I think of it at every random mention of Caminiti. I think it stands out because I was so shocked by it. A big, strong, young man who was an MVP only about 8 years earlier.
The lead in made me think of “slaps roof” meme, glad to see you tied it all together at the end.
For readers today that don’t subscribe, he does stuff like this all the time. It’s almost like he knows what he’s doing. The coffee’s hot, why not drop a few bucks on the counter and enjoy it everyday.
My late father-in-law was a car dealer. I never met him, but my wife's family tells the story of how he, as a young salesman, used to give people a free gallon of ice cream when they came in to look at cars; when they left (realizing that they now had to go home and put the ice cream in the freezer) he would follow them in the car they'd been looking at, park in the driveway and say "see how good it looks in front of your house?"
James Randi had a big impact on me as a thinker. I discovered him when I saw a copy of his book Flim Flam at a local library, and it sure seemed intriguing. I think it's no coincidence that around the time I was reading that book, I was also discovering Bill James, another guy who was skeptical about things and took the time to do some research and do something about it.
I discovered him through Penn and Teller. Was obsessed with his website for awhile, back when he had the forums, and he wrote that weekly newsletter. There was a brief period where the skeptic community was exciting and interesting, and then it got infested with the alt-right.
Finally broke down and paid for the subscription. Should have done it earlier.
I'm not nearly as sanguine about the national television ratings. I hesitate to opine on the causation direction arrow, but the increase in importance of the single market to drive revenue has happened at the same time that teams are becoming increasingly reliant on off-field revenue, like commercial development around the park, as well as the decrease in support to the minor leagues. I doubt that is purely a coincidence.
Welcome! I haven't regretted paying for my subscription yet. Hope you'll feel the same.
There's another trend at play too: the MLB. owners of today aren't the owners of yesterday. Like other sports, they're people who have made massive amounts of money elsewhere (larger than the traditional massive amounts of money you used to need to buy a team), and recognize sports as an underdeveloped market. The Ricketts family is a prime example of that.
It's smart, really. If you have a revenue stream apart from the product on the field, you're inured against weird variances, and you don't have to worry about the whims of fans nearly as much.
Or, for an interesting change, this year, with no actual baseball, owners like the Steinbrenners, who have nothing other than their baseball team, are hurt a lot more than future new Mets owner Steve Cohen. We'll have to see if that ends up leading to something interesting.
I'm actually with you though. I'm not particularly thrown off by a low World Series rating, but I'd want to see how the RSNs are doing before I make any comments on the state of fandom.
Thanks Patrick. I've been following Craig since he talked about cats and his first wife back on the old Baseball Primer. Throwing him a couple of my hard(ly) earned bucks seems worth while.
I'm not sure that I'm following your comments about changing nature of ownership groups. There used to be a small number whose entire fortune was from baseball, but the days of a Connie Mack, Frank Navin, Walter O'Malley or Clark Griffith are long gone. And even then, most of the owners came into the game as part of the financial elite whether from gambling, chewing gum, or shipbuilding.
Those comments were more to address your question as to whether real estate developments around the ballparks were symptoms of vastly diminished revenue coming from the teams themselves. I'm saying that, while regular people were never buying teams, today's financial elite are on a whole other level from most of the previous financial elite, and many of them have a lot more money to spend to develop the experience around the parks, which also works as a hedge for when the team itself isn't interesting.
Fwiw though, the Steinbrenners haven't been part of a shipbuilding company since 1995. If anything were to ever happen that stopped people coming to the ballpark for a year (...), they'd be hurting.
Someone who has a significant revenue stream outside of baseball (like the Ricketts, or Steve Cohen), to the point where baseball isn't even their primary source of income, they'd be doing much better.
1. In terms of percentage of the season, one football game is the equivalent of seven or eight baseball games. Even in the playoffs, the Super Bowl is one game on one day. The World Series is four to seven games spread out over a week or so.... You can miss Game 1 of the WS, and it's not that big a deal. Miss the first quarter of the Super Bowl.... You have to adjust your viewer ratings accordingly.
2. There are far more entertainment options available today than there were back in the days of the Three TV Networks. The national viewing audience is much more fragmented.
The former has been true since the World Series was first televised many years ago. The latter is true for football and basketball as well. Neither address the decline in WS viewership vis a vis other traditional sports.
You just can't behave like a Sackler and expect Karma not to notice. At least that's what I keep saying to myself. Here in central Vermont, like other places I imagine, opioid addiction is an ignored pandemic showing no signs of abatement.
Funny how society is terrified of this virus to the point of restricting basic freedoms---yet does nothing to *one family* whose pharmaceutical company has peddled death and destruction on equal scale.
I admit I didn't know who James Randi was until yesterday, a fault of mine. A friend of mine told me he died. I looked him up and realized my loss. I am a Christian, however, I appreciate critical thinkers. James Randi was a brilliant man and the world was better for having had him it. Thank you for the beautiful write-up about what he meant to you, Craig.
Baseball seems insignificant next to that. As a Rays fan, yes, I was happy with last night's outcome. Seeing Brandon Lowe break out of his wicked slump: yes! Am I the only one who sings "Mr. Wendal" when Wendle comes to the plate? As for the Dodgers, Dustin May may have been flat, but his hair was anything but. I was mesmerized by his Merida from Brave locks. I just want to know what he uses in that hair.
I want Manfred livid. I wish it was the Marlins vs. the Rays in the World Series so the TV ratings would be 0.00001. I'm the 0.00001 watching.
:-) I'm afraid we can't do that. It's too much fun to sing this song: "Go ahead, Mr. Wendal, heeyyyyyy...." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfxvsHpTZWk (You're a Dodgers fan? What does Dustin use in his hair? That is one glorious head of hair. From one curly to another, nothing but respect.)
"Discovered" Tom Lehrer on the old Dr. Demento Show on radio back in the 70s. (Yeah, I'm MUCH older than you, Craig.) The Element Song was a goody. Loved that it appeared, however briefly, on Breaking Bad back in the day. My favorite, though, was always The Masochism Tango, which is probably a great song to describe much of what's happened in 2020. Thanks for the Lehrer bit. Always great to see that kind of stuff here. Oh, and baseball too. Yuh!
I am from SoCal. Dr. Demento was at a charity event at a track. He wore a coat with "Dr. Demento" printed on the back. A friend's mom went to get him after a boy fell and seemingly sprained his ankle. My friend had to chase her down to stop her and explain that he wasn't a real doctor.
I wonder how DeBlasio would be able to stop Cohen from buying the Mets anyway. The guy can't get subscribe to a newsletter without getting approval from Cuomo.
Why does he care? Why does Reinsdorf hate Cohen? Why does Reinsdorf hate Manfred? Why does it seem like Reinsdorf controls everything, even Selig and why can't he do something about his own terrible team?
Counterpoint to the ratings talk: I haven't watched a single game, not out of lack of interest, but because I (like millions of others) have decided it's not worth paying $75 a month for basic cable just so I can watch a few sporting events. I do subscribe to mlb.tv, but due to MLB's asinine blackout restrictions that punishes the very local fan bases that you discussed in the newsletter, I can't watch playoff baseball on my own couch. So instead, I listen to the Dodgers AM 570 radio calls with a smile on my face. (Yeah, I know it's on network TV, but I live too far out in the boonies to get the signal.)
I'm hoping that if the ratings keep tanking, maybe the networks or MLB will figure out a way to make the games more accessible. Not showing them on MLB's own streaming platform is inexcusable.
I didn’t subscribe to MLB.TV this year because as a Red Sox fan I looked at the schedule and saw about 20% of the schedule was against Baltimore or Washington so I wouldn’t get to watch those games due to the blackout restrictions. I could have used that time to watch other teams’ games but with the uncertainty of when/if the season would start I passed on this year.
I am just lucky that I only miss out on the games where the Cardinals play the blacked-out Reds. I know multiple people who would love mlb.tv, but because they live within a couple hundred miles of their home team, have no interest in the package. Can we all agree that "blacking out broadcasts so people go to games" is the stupidest concept ever-- doubly so in a season without fans?
It is not really to protect the home teams. It is being done to protect the television deals that the home teams have cut. So, Sports Time Ohio means that I cannot watch the Indians, and so on and so forth.
I do the same, usually, and complained about the same issues. Last year MLB.tv had a playoff package you could get, but you still needed local cable. I got a VPN and pretended to be overseas with it, which worked on my laptop but not on the TV itself, and this year it didn't work at all. So instead I ponied up for Hulu with Live TV, which got me all the channels needed to watch the playoffs, and was only about $30 more than the Hulu package I already had. At the end of the WS I'll cancel it and not be to worse off for it. But yeah, it still sucks that we hafta do that.
I wish the Ricketts cared about the Cubs as much as they pretended to before the World Series win. Now they only care about buying more property in Wrigleyville and supporting politicians that give them the ability to make more money. The problem is that they know there are people like me who can't quit the Cubs no matter how awful the ownership group is. If I had a shred of self respect I would stop cheering for that laundry.
The issue with the Cubs and the Red Sox and the Braves and every owner who wants to be real estate developers is that they can. For a lot of businesses, not just baseball, making money has nothing to do with being good at their ostensible job. People will do what makes them money.
The other problem is no one's figured out how to handle that baseball, as an industry, is sort of socialist. In most industries, if you're the best you put your competitors out of business. But the Yankees can't ever put the Mariners out of business. You need terrible teams or the Yankees and Red Sox go under, too. So if under normal capitalist circumstances all the balls roll to the winner, what happens here? You need some socialism to make the system work, but if you divorce winning from money too much, you end up with real estate developers who own baseball teams.
The Amazing Randi sounds, well, amazing. I have never heard of him but as someone who is a follower of Christ AND whose worldview was strongly influenced by Vonnegut, I wish I had heard of him before now.
No single American family (not even the Tangerines) cause me the same level of rage as the Sacklers do. They should lose all their money (diverted to expand treatment programs) and face criminal charges. As someone with chronic pain, I can empathize with those who started with Oxy and ended up dead. They took advantage of some of the most vulnerable people-because I am here to tell you that chronic pain is a hell that I can’t explain except to say that the desire for relief is so strong I have taken myself OFF pain pills and would rather scream from the pain instead and I have a doctor who very closely monitors me and I am enrolled in a pain management program. I don’t say this about many people but I look forward to that family facing God’s judgment someday.
I don't understand why you would take yourself off pain pills completely and suffer. The pills work, so why can't you take them in safe doses as needed without becoming addicted and taking too much, especially with a doctor who very closely monitors you?
Individuals will have their own reasons to go off completely/never start, but some include: not wanting to be seen as a junkie by doctor/nurse/pharmacist/anyone, past addiction issues, fear of never being able to come off, sheer stubbornness.
I have gout, and so does my father. It can be controlled with diet and lifestyle changes, and it only flares up occasionally, but when it does it can be debilitating and excruciating. I have had times when it is very difficult to walk at all, and there was one night when I wanted someone to amputate my leg, but that's because I didn't have colchicine.
Now I know when it starts to hurt I start taking colchicine, but last time my father was down he had a flare up and I offered him colchicine and he said no, he would drink tart cherry juice and it would go away. He was afraid colchicine would damage his kidney or liver. He's 94. Really, you'd rather suffer in pain than take a couple of pills?
I have no problem taking a couple of pills. I have a problem taking pills daily. Currently the lining of my left tibia is inflamed. It hurts like hell. Doc says it will be over in six weeks with PT. I took pain pills for the trip to see him yesterday and need to take some now (which I will do) but I will not take daily pills for the myriad orthopedic pains I deal with. I look for other solutions first.
I’m not trying to evaluate or judge someone else’s approach to pain/prescription management, cause it’s a very personal choice. Except for the person I’m a caretaker of, then I feel I can argue the point.
Colchinie is not addictive and, while it will address the buildup of uric acid and thus indirectly reduce pain, not really a pain medication. The biggest side effect is that it can cause stomach distress. It really is something categorically different than an opioid.
Yes, I understand that. I was using it as an analogy because I would not deprive myself of the medicinal benefits of a pill and continue to suffer unnecessarily, be it out of fear of damaging my liver or fear of becoming addicted.
Things can be addictive and can also be used appropriately. It is not an automatic thing that if you use opiods you will become addicted to them. They can and should be used in moderation.
Cocaine is supposedly very addictive, too, and many people have ruined their lives with it. Many people have also used it recreationally without harm.
Yes, the lists and red flags at any doctor, the terrible fear of losing a particular doctor and having to go through the gauntlet at the new doctor that "wants to see if this thing that you have tried many times before will work. It hasn't worked each time it was tried in the past 10 years, but this time...MAYBE! The pharmacy 3 step, no, it was released by the doctor on the 5th, but CVS won't until the 9th and the insurance wont pay for it until the 11th, so maybe just sit in a dark room without moving for a couple days, okay?
It can work for some people and won't for others. I have family that it helps and is not abused. And I have clients as a public defender who are addicts and got that way because of shady practices. It's a very complex issue and the sacklers need to fuck right off
Have you ever been on pain pills for a long period of time? They are incredibly addictive. My sister was a 25 year heroin addict and I vowed that I would never go down that road. I am given small prescriptions when I am doing things with a high pain factor (such as traveling) but I do not like who I am on opioids and have no desire to spend my life in a drugged state.
No, I haven't been on them for a long period of time. When the orthopedist saw my hip x-ray he said "that must hurt" and scheduled me for a hip replacement surgery but gave me percocets in the meantime because I had to wait about six weeks for the surgery. Then he gave me 60 more after the surgery, and I took about four a day for a couple weeks.
I didn't crave them or abuse them, and never felt addicted. I used to ask my doctor for vicodin about once a year, and 30 pills would last me a year, but they sure come in handy if I'm going to be doing a lot of walking or standing.
I'm not trying to be critical or saying anyone should take them, I just don't understand the fear of addiction or the need to buy them off the street or to use heroin or whatever. Drugs are useful in the right circumstances, and I've never had a problem with them. (Says the alcoholic who smokes weed.)
I watched my stepsister’s addiction tear my stepmother apart and vowed I would never do that to the people who loved me. I have half a glass of riesling on my birthday but otherwise I do not smoke or drink or touch anything possibly addictive. My grandfather was an alcoholic. My earliest memories are of going to the bar with him. I am motivated by fear and I have no problem admitting that?
Am terrified pf pain pills. I was given some after surgery years ago. I'm lucky that I didn't really need them. I was given morphine once. My god that stuff is amazing. I can see how addiction happens and it's scary.
I have been given morphine and even stronger drugs many many times(9 major orthopedic surgeries!). They are necessary for me post-op and to visit my sister but I try to avoid them otherwise.
I had a friend whose daughter needed pain meds. Docs didn’t pay enough attention to her and cut her off abruptly with no support when they finally did notice. So she turned to the street. It can be a slope made of sand or butter but I know I am not getting on that slope. Ever.
The Sacklers will never face punishment but neither will anyone else. Not the doctors. Not the pharmaceutical reps. It's such a strange disconnect between drugs which are legal (respectable! science!) and drugs which aren't. We have a hard time between, something is good bus can be abused and should be monitored, and something is bad.
Given the date, it's worth mentioning that the Sacklers and Perdue were desperate to make a deal with this administration rather than take the chance that there would be a new one in January. And this administration was desperate to make a deal before 11/3 so it could...whatever, try to sell the rubes on the idea that it cares about them, I guess? A match made in heaven.
On the game: even I could tell that Dustin May had nothing. It was fun watching Snell.
Ha! Me, too. I was at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant in NJ and it was on the tv. I have never been back to that place but I think of it at every random mention of Caminiti. I think it stands out because I was so shocked by it. A big, strong, young man who was an MVP only about 8 years earlier.
James Randi was one of the greatest people this world has ever known. Excellent tribute and personal story about his impact, Craig.
For anyone who hasn’t watched “An Honest Liar”, I highly recommend.
Thanks, I'll look that up.
I think the first extended piece I saw on Randi was an episode of NOVA: "Secrets of the Psychics." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_of_the_Psychics "Honest Liar" is also well done.
What a life.
Yeah but if Uncle Billy had been furloughed George Bailey would never have learned to appreciate that removable finial knob...
And the Sacklers are probably the direct descendants of Mr. Potter
The lead in made me think of “slaps roof” meme, glad to see you tied it all together at the end.
For readers today that don’t subscribe, he does stuff like this all the time. It’s almost like he knows what he’s doing. The coffee’s hot, why not drop a few bucks on the counter and enjoy it everyday.
My late father-in-law was a car dealer. I never met him, but my wife's family tells the story of how he, as a young salesman, used to give people a free gallon of ice cream when they came in to look at cars; when they left (realizing that they now had to go home and put the ice cream in the freezer) he would follow them in the car they'd been looking at, park in the driveway and say "see how good it looks in front of your house?"
Nice tactic, but that'd probably get him a visit from the cops on suspicion of stalking today.
Yeah. It would have been the 1950s - when nothing was illegal.
James Randi had a big impact on me as a thinker. I discovered him when I saw a copy of his book Flim Flam at a local library, and it sure seemed intriguing. I think it's no coincidence that around the time I was reading that book, I was also discovering Bill James, another guy who was skeptical about things and took the time to do some research and do something about it.
I discovered him through Penn and Teller. Was obsessed with his website for awhile, back when he had the forums, and he wrote that weekly newsletter. There was a brief period where the skeptic community was exciting and interesting, and then it got infested with the alt-right.
Finally broke down and paid for the subscription. Should have done it earlier.
I'm not nearly as sanguine about the national television ratings. I hesitate to opine on the causation direction arrow, but the increase in importance of the single market to drive revenue has happened at the same time that teams are becoming increasingly reliant on off-field revenue, like commercial development around the park, as well as the decrease in support to the minor leagues. I doubt that is purely a coincidence.
Welcome! I haven't regretted paying for my subscription yet. Hope you'll feel the same.
There's another trend at play too: the MLB. owners of today aren't the owners of yesterday. Like other sports, they're people who have made massive amounts of money elsewhere (larger than the traditional massive amounts of money you used to need to buy a team), and recognize sports as an underdeveloped market. The Ricketts family is a prime example of that.
It's smart, really. If you have a revenue stream apart from the product on the field, you're inured against weird variances, and you don't have to worry about the whims of fans nearly as much.
Or, for an interesting change, this year, with no actual baseball, owners like the Steinbrenners, who have nothing other than their baseball team, are hurt a lot more than future new Mets owner Steve Cohen. We'll have to see if that ends up leading to something interesting.
I'm actually with you though. I'm not particularly thrown off by a low World Series rating, but I'd want to see how the RSNs are doing before I make any comments on the state of fandom.
Thanks Patrick. I've been following Craig since he talked about cats and his first wife back on the old Baseball Primer. Throwing him a couple of my hard(ly) earned bucks seems worth while.
I'm not sure that I'm following your comments about changing nature of ownership groups. There used to be a small number whose entire fortune was from baseball, but the days of a Connie Mack, Frank Navin, Walter O'Malley or Clark Griffith are long gone. And even then, most of the owners came into the game as part of the financial elite whether from gambling, chewing gum, or shipbuilding.
Those comments were more to address your question as to whether real estate developments around the ballparks were symptoms of vastly diminished revenue coming from the teams themselves. I'm saying that, while regular people were never buying teams, today's financial elite are on a whole other level from most of the previous financial elite, and many of them have a lot more money to spend to develop the experience around the parks, which also works as a hedge for when the team itself isn't interesting.
Fwiw though, the Steinbrenners haven't been part of a shipbuilding company since 1995. If anything were to ever happen that stopped people coming to the ballpark for a year (...), they'd be hurting.
Someone who has a significant revenue stream outside of baseball (like the Ricketts, or Steve Cohen), to the point where baseball isn't even their primary source of income, they'd be doing much better.
One should also consider two things:
1. In terms of percentage of the season, one football game is the equivalent of seven or eight baseball games. Even in the playoffs, the Super Bowl is one game on one day. The World Series is four to seven games spread out over a week or so.... You can miss Game 1 of the WS, and it's not that big a deal. Miss the first quarter of the Super Bowl.... You have to adjust your viewer ratings accordingly.
2. There are far more entertainment options available today than there were back in the days of the Three TV Networks. The national viewing audience is much more fragmented.
The former has been true since the World Series was first televised many years ago. The latter is true for football and basketball as well. Neither address the decline in WS viewership vis a vis other traditional sports.
You just can't behave like a Sackler and expect Karma not to notice. At least that's what I keep saying to myself. Here in central Vermont, like other places I imagine, opioid addiction is an ignored pandemic showing no signs of abatement.
Funny how society is terrified of this virus to the point of restricting basic freedoms---yet does nothing to *one family* whose pharmaceutical company has peddled death and destruction on equal scale.
I admit I didn't know who James Randi was until yesterday, a fault of mine. A friend of mine told me he died. I looked him up and realized my loss. I am a Christian, however, I appreciate critical thinkers. James Randi was a brilliant man and the world was better for having had him it. Thank you for the beautiful write-up about what he meant to you, Craig.
Baseball seems insignificant next to that. As a Rays fan, yes, I was happy with last night's outcome. Seeing Brandon Lowe break out of his wicked slump: yes! Am I the only one who sings "Mr. Wendal" when Wendle comes to the plate? As for the Dodgers, Dustin May may have been flat, but his hair was anything but. I was mesmerized by his Merida from Brave locks. I just want to know what he uses in that hair.
I want Manfred livid. I wish it was the Marlins vs. the Rays in the World Series so the TV ratings would be 0.00001. I'm the 0.00001 watching.
Nope, you're not the only one who belts out "Mr. Wendall". My family would greatly appreciate it if Wendle was benched the rest of the series. :)
:-) I'm afraid we can't do that. It's too much fun to sing this song: "Go ahead, Mr. Wendal, heeyyyyyy...." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfxvsHpTZWk (You're a Dodgers fan? What does Dustin use in his hair? That is one glorious head of hair. From one curly to another, nothing but respect.)
I hope May gets a sponsorship deal. Anything would be better than watching pro athletes hocking head and shoulders
I wonder if May uses Mixed Chicks or Shea Moisture like I do. His red curly hair is gorgeous.
Find someone who loves you as much as a billionaire loves a dictator.
Fucking Rickett’s.
Not too often that people have the same name as the disease they should be stricken with.
"Discovered" Tom Lehrer on the old Dr. Demento Show on radio back in the 70s. (Yeah, I'm MUCH older than you, Craig.) The Element Song was a goody. Loved that it appeared, however briefly, on Breaking Bad back in the day. My favorite, though, was always The Masochism Tango, which is probably a great song to describe much of what's happened in 2020. Thanks for the Lehrer bit. Always great to see that kind of stuff here. Oh, and baseball too. Yuh!
under the smogberry trees!
I am from SoCal. Dr. Demento was at a charity event at a track. He wore a coat with "Dr. Demento" printed on the back. A friend's mom went to get him after a boy fell and seemingly sprained his ankle. My friend had to chase her down to stop her and explain that he wasn't a real doctor.
I wonder how DeBlasio would be able to stop Cohen from buying the Mets anyway. The guy can't get subscribe to a newsletter without getting approval from Cuomo.
Why does he care? Why does Reinsdorf hate Cohen? Why does Reinsdorf hate Manfred? Why does it seem like Reinsdorf controls everything, even Selig and why can't he do something about his own terrible team?
Counterpoint to the ratings talk: I haven't watched a single game, not out of lack of interest, but because I (like millions of others) have decided it's not worth paying $75 a month for basic cable just so I can watch a few sporting events. I do subscribe to mlb.tv, but due to MLB's asinine blackout restrictions that punishes the very local fan bases that you discussed in the newsletter, I can't watch playoff baseball on my own couch. So instead, I listen to the Dodgers AM 570 radio calls with a smile on my face. (Yeah, I know it's on network TV, but I live too far out in the boonies to get the signal.)
I'm hoping that if the ratings keep tanking, maybe the networks or MLB will figure out a way to make the games more accessible. Not showing them on MLB's own streaming platform is inexcusable.
I didn’t subscribe to MLB.TV this year because as a Red Sox fan I looked at the schedule and saw about 20% of the schedule was against Baltimore or Washington so I wouldn’t get to watch those games due to the blackout restrictions. I could have used that time to watch other teams’ games but with the uncertainty of when/if the season would start I passed on this year.
I am just lucky that I only miss out on the games where the Cardinals play the blacked-out Reds. I know multiple people who would love mlb.tv, but because they live within a couple hundred miles of their home team, have no interest in the package. Can we all agree that "blacking out broadcasts so people go to games" is the stupidest concept ever-- doubly so in a season without fans?
It is not really to protect the home teams. It is being done to protect the television deals that the home teams have cut. So, Sports Time Ohio means that I cannot watch the Indians, and so on and so forth.
I do the same, usually, and complained about the same issues. Last year MLB.tv had a playoff package you could get, but you still needed local cable. I got a VPN and pretended to be overseas with it, which worked on my laptop but not on the TV itself, and this year it didn't work at all. So instead I ponied up for Hulu with Live TV, which got me all the channels needed to watch the playoffs, and was only about $30 more than the Hulu package I already had. At the end of the WS I'll cancel it and not be to worse off for it. But yeah, it still sucks that we hafta do that.
I wish the Ricketts cared about the Cubs as much as they pretended to before the World Series win. Now they only care about buying more property in Wrigleyville and supporting politicians that give them the ability to make more money. The problem is that they know there are people like me who can't quit the Cubs no matter how awful the ownership group is. If I had a shred of self respect I would stop cheering for that laundry.
The issue with the Cubs and the Red Sox and the Braves and every owner who wants to be real estate developers is that they can. For a lot of businesses, not just baseball, making money has nothing to do with being good at their ostensible job. People will do what makes them money.
The other problem is no one's figured out how to handle that baseball, as an industry, is sort of socialist. In most industries, if you're the best you put your competitors out of business. But the Yankees can't ever put the Mariners out of business. You need terrible teams or the Yankees and Red Sox go under, too. So if under normal capitalist circumstances all the balls roll to the winner, what happens here? You need some socialism to make the system work, but if you divorce winning from money too much, you end up with real estate developers who own baseball teams.
The Amazing Randi sounds, well, amazing. I have never heard of him but as someone who is a follower of Christ AND whose worldview was strongly influenced by Vonnegut, I wish I had heard of him before now.
No single American family (not even the Tangerines) cause me the same level of rage as the Sacklers do. They should lose all their money (diverted to expand treatment programs) and face criminal charges. As someone with chronic pain, I can empathize with those who started with Oxy and ended up dead. They took advantage of some of the most vulnerable people-because I am here to tell you that chronic pain is a hell that I can’t explain except to say that the desire for relief is so strong I have taken myself OFF pain pills and would rather scream from the pain instead and I have a doctor who very closely monitors me and I am enrolled in a pain management program. I don’t say this about many people but I look forward to that family facing God’s judgment someday.
Because they sure as hell didn’t suffer here.
I don't understand why you would take yourself off pain pills completely and suffer. The pills work, so why can't you take them in safe doses as needed without becoming addicted and taking too much, especially with a doctor who very closely monitors you?
Individuals will have their own reasons to go off completely/never start, but some include: not wanting to be seen as a junkie by doctor/nurse/pharmacist/anyone, past addiction issues, fear of never being able to come off, sheer stubbornness.
I have gout, and so does my father. It can be controlled with diet and lifestyle changes, and it only flares up occasionally, but when it does it can be debilitating and excruciating. I have had times when it is very difficult to walk at all, and there was one night when I wanted someone to amputate my leg, but that's because I didn't have colchicine.
Now I know when it starts to hurt I start taking colchicine, but last time my father was down he had a flare up and I offered him colchicine and he said no, he would drink tart cherry juice and it would go away. He was afraid colchicine would damage his kidney or liver. He's 94. Really, you'd rather suffer in pain than take a couple of pills?
I have no problem taking a couple of pills. I have a problem taking pills daily. Currently the lining of my left tibia is inflamed. It hurts like hell. Doc says it will be over in six weeks with PT. I took pain pills for the trip to see him yesterday and need to take some now (which I will do) but I will not take daily pills for the myriad orthopedic pains I deal with. I look for other solutions first.
I’m not trying to evaluate or judge someone else’s approach to pain/prescription management, cause it’s a very personal choice. Except for the person I’m a caretaker of, then I feel I can argue the point.
Opioids are a special case.
Colchinie is not addictive and, while it will address the buildup of uric acid and thus indirectly reduce pain, not really a pain medication. The biggest side effect is that it can cause stomach distress. It really is something categorically different than an opioid.
Yes, I understand that. I was using it as an analogy because I would not deprive myself of the medicinal benefits of a pill and continue to suffer unnecessarily, be it out of fear of damaging my liver or fear of becoming addicted.
Things can be addictive and can also be used appropriately. It is not an automatic thing that if you use opiods you will become addicted to them. They can and should be used in moderation.
Cocaine is supposedly very addictive, too, and many people have ruined their lives with it. Many people have also used it recreationally without harm.
Yes, the lists and red flags at any doctor, the terrible fear of losing a particular doctor and having to go through the gauntlet at the new doctor that "wants to see if this thing that you have tried many times before will work. It hasn't worked each time it was tried in the past 10 years, but this time...MAYBE! The pharmacy 3 step, no, it was released by the doctor on the 5th, but CVS won't until the 9th and the insurance wont pay for it until the 11th, so maybe just sit in a dark room without moving for a couple days, okay?
It can work for some people and won't for others. I have family that it helps and is not abused. And I have clients as a public defender who are addicts and got that way because of shady practices. It's a very complex issue and the sacklers need to fuck right off
We're weirdly moral about medicine. We worship it, but needing it makes you a bad person.
Have you ever been on pain pills for a long period of time? They are incredibly addictive. My sister was a 25 year heroin addict and I vowed that I would never go down that road. I am given small prescriptions when I am doing things with a high pain factor (such as traveling) but I do not like who I am on opioids and have no desire to spend my life in a drugged state.
No, I haven't been on them for a long period of time. When the orthopedist saw my hip x-ray he said "that must hurt" and scheduled me for a hip replacement surgery but gave me percocets in the meantime because I had to wait about six weeks for the surgery. Then he gave me 60 more after the surgery, and I took about four a day for a couple weeks.
I didn't crave them or abuse them, and never felt addicted. I used to ask my doctor for vicodin about once a year, and 30 pills would last me a year, but they sure come in handy if I'm going to be doing a lot of walking or standing.
I'm not trying to be critical or saying anyone should take them, I just don't understand the fear of addiction or the need to buy them off the street or to use heroin or whatever. Drugs are useful in the right circumstances, and I've never had a problem with them. (Says the alcoholic who smokes weed.)
I watched my stepsister’s addiction tear my stepmother apart and vowed I would never do that to the people who loved me. I have half a glass of riesling on my birthday but otherwise I do not smoke or drink or touch anything possibly addictive. My grandfather was an alcoholic. My earliest memories are of going to the bar with him. I am motivated by fear and I have no problem admitting that?
Am terrified pf pain pills. I was given some after surgery years ago. I'm lucky that I didn't really need them. I was given morphine once. My god that stuff is amazing. I can see how addiction happens and it's scary.
I have been given morphine and even stronger drugs many many times(9 major orthopedic surgeries!). They are necessary for me post-op and to visit my sister but I try to avoid them otherwise.
I had a friend whose daughter needed pain meds. Docs didn’t pay enough attention to her and cut her off abruptly with no support when they finally did notice. So she turned to the street. It can be a slope made of sand or butter but I know I am not getting on that slope. Ever.
The Sacklers will never face punishment but neither will anyone else. Not the doctors. Not the pharmaceutical reps. It's such a strange disconnect between drugs which are legal (respectable! science!) and drugs which aren't. We have a hard time between, something is good bus can be abused and should be monitored, and something is bad.
Given the date, it's worth mentioning that the Sacklers and Perdue were desperate to make a deal with this administration rather than take the chance that there would be a new one in January. And this administration was desperate to make a deal before 11/3 so it could...whatever, try to sell the rubes on the idea that it cares about them, I guess? A match made in heaven.
On the game: even I could tell that Dustin May had nothing. It was fun watching Snell.