Dusty hangs it up, Counsell and the Mets, the Frick nominees are out, Mad Dog backs down, I'm walking here, Patrick Stewart's memoir, Martin Guerre and the military industrial complex
Not the be-all and end-all accomplishment for managers, but one of my favorites. There are currently 23 managers who are, for their careers, at least 250 games over .500 headed by John McGraw at 815. It takes, generally, a long career with consistent success. Dusty is 15th at 321.
Of those 22 (edit: 23), 18 are in the HoF. The exceptions are Baker (15th), Davey Johnson (17th), Terry Francona (22nd), Vic Harris (23rd) ... and Dave Roberts (16th). Roberts is the only manager on the list with fewer than 10 seasons at the helm. Of managers who have significant time post integration, the closest to Roberts are Earl Weaver, Al Lopez, and Davey Johnson, all of whom managed 17 years.
8:00pm ET first pitch. For those of us with a 4:00am ET alarm clock, that is a bit of an issue. Ouch. Lots of cups of coffee in my future.
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At the other end of the drink spectrum, a couple of our amateur mixologists suggested China-China as an Amer Picon replacement. Thanks! It made for an excellent Brooklyn. But then I needed to find other drinks in which I could use it. Last night, the old English Lit student in me was amused by the name so we tried an Ozymandias. Look on my works and absolutely, positively do not despair, it was excellent.
That assumes that the manager is irrelevant to team wins, a proposition that I reject even in the current set up. A year or two may well be a fluke; a dozen years carries much more signal.
And one that would be laughable for much of the list who predate the modern front office and were responsible for selecting players and, in a very real sense, developing them from very raw materials.
Roberts is the one guy on that list who has only managed in the current era and only with one team. I agree you can't put him in the same tier with the others, who have all won in varying circumstances and/or in eras when the manager had a much bigger say in roster construction and strategy. If he keeps winning for another 10 years or so, or does it with a different team, I'd reconsider, but 10 years managing for a team that's been absolutely loaded with talent for his entire tenure is not a Hall of Fame-type run, though like I said it could become part of one.
I should note that I don't think Roberts has underachieved, as I think many Dodgers fans — a group to which I don't belong — do because he's "only" won three pennants and one (laughable, not real season) World Series with those loaded teams. I'm of the "playoffs are a coin flip" school.
I don’t agree as I think there’s some level of competency required to be able to mange for a decade or two. But your theory is a lot better than the commonly accepted theory that career W and W-L are a great way to rank managers.
Over his career, Mike Trout is 100+ games under 500 and probably near the bottom of the list of all players. But he’s also the best player in baseball by a large margin. If Trout’s W-L doesn’t matter, why does Dusty Baker’s? And I’m certain Trout has more impact on his teams records than any manager. Likewise haven’t heard anyone suggest Mark Kotsay is awful as a manger but his record sure is abysmal.
Agree to an extent. Joe Torre had a very middling record when he took the Yankees job. But, in addition to finally having a great roster, he also had the ideal temperament to both deal with George Steinbrenner’s bullshit and shield his players from the worst of it. Another manager might have maybe won a Series and then quickly burned out, dragging some players down with him. Horses for courses, as it were.
Sean would be excellent, I hope he one day does get in. BBR has become so must read and started as such a passion project. It's used by baseball pros and fans everywhere now. I remember emailing with him many moons ago when it was a new site to give him some info on a relative that had played/coached many years ago.
My commute is from the top floor of the house all the way to my home office two flights of stairs away. If my back is acting wonky, sometimes that takes a full minute.
My wife is an elementary school teacher. Her school is less than 1 1/2 miles away, but she has to leave at 6:30-6:45 to ready the room, make copies, and a bunch of other little time consuming things for her 26 little hellions. Between the 4am alarm and 6:30, we have a leisurely cup of coffee, walk the dog, then hit the home gym before showering and dressing for the day.
Once we move in January I won't even have to navigate stairs, it'll be from owner's bedroom to the spare bedroom/home office on the same floor. Although I guess I'll still need to go downstairs for breakfast and tea.
My sympathies for your long commute. I don't even have stairs. Unless I go outside to unlock the garage. Then it's 6 whole stairs down the deck. Rough life.
Not at all. I share personal info here all the time. Perhaps next I can describe the process of stent removal after kidney transplant and the rotorooter device they shoved into an exit.
We talked about player connections yesterday, and Minnie Minoso in particular. A couple of years ago, using Baseball Reference, I connected Minoso to Cool Papa Bell on one end of Minoso's career via the rosters of the 1946 Negro National League, and to Eliezer Alfonzo via Minoso's one-game appearance for the St. Paul Saints of the 2003 Northern Independent League. Bell's Negro Leagues career began in 1920, and Alfonzo (after his subsequent major league career) was still playing in the Venezuelan winter leagues in 2020 -- 100 years of incredibly varied but, thanks to Sean Forman, single-source documented, professional baseball history in just three players.
As someone on the West Coast I’m personally happen with 5 PM starts, and I know that 8-11 is Prime Time for TV ratings and that rules every broadcast decision. But I feel like a 7:30 start time wouldn’t impact ratings and would help grow the game as younger audiences could stay up to watch the end, especially in central time.
I have read just enough celebrity memoirs to know that I can't trust any of them. But if I spent time reading Shatner's Star Trek Memories, I should make time for Sir Patrick.
There is always a chance Counsell decides he doesn't want to manage the Mets, or even that he wants to stay where he is. And the Mets could really be conducting a broad search. But yeah, it's probably going to be Counsell.
Counsell might also opt not to manage at all for a year or two. That actually seemed likely couple of months ago although that's just a guess. It does not seem likely he'll return to Milwaukee
I'd think, as managing gigs go, there might be something to be said for the lower pressure, less intense scrutiny job in Milwaukee compared to New York.
I’m trying to think of an amount of money that would cause me to uproot my family and face the absurd scrutiny that the Mets manager will face…it’s a lot.
It’d also take about 20x what I currently make to move to NYC to do my current job and maybe not even then.
Your behavior is totally rational (maybe the 20x is extreme). But I feel like athletes and managers/coaches don’t think that way and are focused on the gross $$$, not even the net or cost of living much less the environment.
I get that and baseball guys don’t usually spend 365 days in whatever city they play for.
I wouldn’t move to Milwaukee either, been there, interesting city. Nothing against NYC either, I’m just a country mouse and I and family would be unhappy in a compact urban area, so I’m likely not a great comp for Counsell. I also don’t see either NY manager job as a top ten managerial position in mlb all things considered.
Exactly nothing, I loved, LOVED County Stadium and have enjoyed my times there. Was at Miller Park 12-13 years ago for a bachelor party, Reds v brewers and I was walking through the parking lot looking for my friends (wearing my cub hat) and had a guy yell at me “take that f*cking thing off!”, I looked his way and after a beat, he said “hey just kidding, want a brat?”.
I hung out with those guys for a half hour.
I simply like the semi-rural life. I’m in Chicago 4-5 times a year for 2-4 days, love Chicago, but damn, literally •everything• is a hassle.
Of course I’m getting older and more set in my ways.
That's fair. I'm not a good comp either since my job is remote as would any similar job. But for a 10x (or even 5x) raise, I'd start packing tomorrow. Or realistically start apartment hunting and plan to fly home most weekends.
Of course, no one is offering me that. And for 2x, which is a realistic cap, not sure I'd move/commute.
I’m also 5-6 years from retiring (early). Everyone I know is here and that’s more important to me than $$. I also think I’d be a cranky bastard in an urban location. What my kids like doing is nearly impossible in an urban setting or at the very least 10x harder to do.
i love that i get CoC and BiM at almost exactly the same time every day now. I love the double dip each day.
Please hold your family tight (once again, unfortunately) as we live in a sick, savage world where even a small place like Lewiston, Maine has to fear for their daily safety doing something simple like bowling or grabbing a beer after work. This is not far from where I've vacationed for the last 50 years or so. Maine is a wonderful place and I hate that this happened anywhere, but most especially there.
Mega MAGA Mike Johnson comes from nowhere and now we have an insurrectionist supporter at one of the highest levels of government again. Hopefully the voters will take notice and self correct, but I won't hold my breath.
Happy trails, Dusty. At least we now have a great Jomboy lip reading video from your final ejection to remember that game by. I love that he refused to leave (initially).
Small signing alert. ATL resigned potential FA Piece Johnson to a two year deal. He was excellent in a middle / set up role after coming over from COL at the deadline. But that was out of his norms and he’s entering his mid 30s.
Vaya con Dios, Dusty. Truly one of the most interesting people in baseball - if not the world. Would love to have dinner with him and listen to his stories.
PS 7YO me is ready to get hurt again. Let’s go Rangers.
PPS I felt the same way about Roger Bennett (Men in Blazers)’s book (Re)Born in the USA ... it has a bunch of cringeworthy personal stuff (including a used condom in a soda can) but Bennett reads it in his enthusiastic Liverpudlian accent and is clearly having a blast. Worth a listen!
I read, didn't listen to (Re)born in the USA, but the thing that stuck me most about that book was how similar his youth was to mine. Teenage boys in the 80s were pretty much the same I guess, no matter where they grew up.
Never found any sex books in my house, but somebody I babysat for when I was 8 or 9 had The Joy of Sex prominently displayed on a shelf in the living room.
My very straight-laced parents had Joy of Sex on their bookshelf. I can only assume it was given to them as a joke (at least that's what I told myself as a child).
The book that ruined me was Dictionary of Symptoms. Think all the worst medical sites on the internet compiled into book form at least a decade before anyone had heard of the internet.
The only sex books I found as a young lad in the early 80's were the stacks of playboy's packed in multiple boxes in the garage. I can still hear my dad's voice if he felt like I was in the garage too long. "Wesley...it's been long enough. Get your ass back in the house!"
Won a charity auction "Lunch with Dusty and the coaches" when Dusty was managing the Nationals. Met our escort at the clubhouse door--it suddenly dawned on him that oops, it was 2 women who had won the auction, which included a tour of the clubhouse (yes, it was a gameday). So he ran ahead to make sure that the players at least had their pants on.
Sat in on the game strategy session over lunch--got advice on vacation spots, good eats in West Palm Beach, and of course the game stuff. As we were wrapping up, a coach popped in and gave a medical report on Bryce Harper's neck (apparently not noticing us--hey I'm short, but not that short). No one stopped him, and I agreed not to publicly mention the details.
I'd brought my copy of Dusty's bio to get signed--which he gladly did. After lunch, he took us to his office for a chat (which was not part of the tour). Signed one of his custom bats for us--he said he wanted to make sure we got our money's worth!
At the time, I thought Dusty had reached his "sell-by" date, so I was in accord with not offering him another year. I was an estate planner, and I saw some of the issues with Dusty that I'd seen with some of my older clients. But taking that hiatus worked wonders for him (maybe a change in drug regimen? Maybe just the time away recharged his batteries?) and I didn't see that during his time with the Astros.
I remember the Nats game 5 losses in 2016 and 2017 (and even 2012) leaving me a with a sense of "Well, that was the most fucked up weirdest way to lose a baseball game that I do believe I've ever seen"
I know some Nats fans like to blame Dusty for their loss in one or both of those series, but I never felt like he got out-managed. Weird shit happened those nights, just like it always does during the playoffs.
A truly wild thing I learned a little while ago was that we actually banned the foreign sale of arms for a bit starting in 1935, in large part because there was popular (and correct) understanding that WWI was a boondoggle. But then WWII happened and we said hey, this is a great thing to base an economy on, and we haven't been able to stop since. Oh well.
Are Krukow and Kuiper being nominated individually or as some sort of coupled entry? It seems historically there's only been a single Ford Frick Award winner per year.
While I'm admittedly fairly ignorant of Krukow and Kuiper's work other than by reputation, us Mets fans of course think we are the ones with the best booth in baseball. Don't take away the one thing we have.
From what I understand, the A's added Krukow to Kuiper's nomination and submitted them as a tandem to have a better chance of overcoming Kuiper's live n-word gaffe earlier this season.
No you're probably thinking of the Kuiper on ESPN who does NFL draft analysis. The baseball announcer Kuiper for the A's is indeed the one who had the gaffe.
Yeah but the Giants announcer is Bob Papa. Kuiper occasionally talks about the Giants when he's discussing draft prospects, but he does that for all NFL teams, not the Giants specifically.
Still off. You are thinking about Glen Kuiper who used the wrong word for the Negro League Museum. He was an announcer for the Oakland A’s. And he is not the same person as Duane Kuiper who announces for the SF Giants!
Damn it, Craig, I will now be incorporating “a tad raggedy” into my vernacular at least once a day for the foreseeable future. Beyond excited to slip it into one of the intern performance reviews I’ll have to write up next summer.
He pretends it's some big secret and coyly says that he cannot reveal the science behind it but, basically, he just stares the person hiccuping dead in the eyes and says, seriously and suddenly "your hiccups are gone." And it usually works.
This, BTW, is a thing that a family friend of mine did when I was growing up and it often worked. There's something to it that makes the hiccuping person breathe different for a moment or something. Or it's simply a matter of all hiccups going away at some point and some good timing.
Wow! That’s a new one. My grandma used to just jump scare me during hiccups when I wasn’t suspecting. Because of the sudden fright, it was supposed to go away. Can’t remember the success ratio though...
Anyway, I also offer this solution to my kids, but they usually politely decline :)
The movie actually came before the book, and Davis, who had long been researching it, was a consultant on it. After the movie came out she was somewhat disappointed by the treatment of the subject matter and it inspired her to finish her book in the way that she did.
Well, that explains the timeline I remember. For much of the time I taught at the University of Florida, my office was in the same building as the French department, so I often ate lunch with my colleagues from that department. I remember Davis and Martin Guerre being a topic of conversation in the 1985-86 time frame; she may even have given a talk on campus. So it was disconcerting to read in the obits yesterday that the book came out several years after I left Florida.
Mine doesn’t either. The library app doesn’t have an ILL request section for some reason, so I’ll be interested to see if I remember to ask about it when I go there on Saturday. Not holding out much hope with my frazzled mind.
Or you could request an inter-library loan. The Arlington VA library has a copy (of course it's checked out now and has a wait-list since it's been in the news).
He’s the Prince Charlie of baseball announcers (I guess king chuckie now): born into a business he doesn’t particularly like, but wasn’t keen to do anything else, so 🤷♂️.
Interesting list of Frick award nominees. At least three or four that would be worthy winners, as opposed to some years when the award seemed more like a gold watch ceremony for a guy who'd been around for a long time. I don't think he'll win, but I like hearing Schulman call Toronto games. Knowledgeable, concise when necessary, keeps the focus on the game rather than who's wearing yellow in the stands on a random Wednesday.
Congrats on a great career, Dusty. Enjoyed watching you as a player and manager.
I agree that Schulman stands out in that list. He always has a great call with a focus on the game rather than all these non-game related side stories that other broadcast teams fill their air time with. Buck Martinez works great with him in the Jays booth too.
The Mets have been blessed with amazing announcers throughout their existence and Gary Cohen is such a gem to listen to. Between him and Howie Rose on the radio I'm covered no matter the medium.
It did give me a chuckle to meld this newsletter together and imagine Sir Patrick calling a baseball game, however. Star Trek does not occupy space in my cluttered brain but man, he'd be a hoot in the booth. I doubt he even understands baseball. But to listen to that voice call an outfield assist at home, I'd pay a nice Sacajawea dollar to hear that.
I was musing the other day on how baseball hasn't changed significantly over the many, MANY, decades..... For example, the situation described in "Casey at the Bat" (written in 1888(!!)) is instantly recognizable to any fan. So, imagine your current favorite announcer calling that inning....
Mark Twain said that politicians, old buildings and prostitutes become respectable with age. My corollary to that has long been: Even the worst sports announcers become beloved if they hang around long enough. The Frick Award is often a celebration of that truism, though this year's nominees are pretty legit. I'd say only Buck fits my witticism.
Yeah there's a whole category for ex-players too, especially if they were good. I lived in St. Louis for a while, and boy did they love Mike Shannon, who was an objectively bad baseball announcer. I got it, though. He'd been a good player during a championship era, and then he was an announcer forever, mainly as the number 2 guy next to the appropriately beloved Jack Buck, and CBC, baby. He was more St. Louis than toasted rav.
I listened to many, many cardinal games as a member of the loyal opposition and my goodness Shannon was beyond awful. He was everything that Harry Caray detractors thought he was.
Mike was the best, R.I.P. He knew the game, he loved the Cards, and he told it like it was. You wouldn't want him reading the news or narrating an audiobook, but I loved him and miss him on my radio. People who don't listen to baseball on the radio don't always get it, but you need some personality on your local broadcast. On TV, you can ignore the voice if you want to.
Seriously, I’m glad you liked him. I know a few people who met him and thought highly of him. I just didn’t like him as an announcer, maybe my experience with him (1985 on) missed his high points….I loved Harry, but man, he was rough at the end.
I’ll amend my statement by saying that “I” didn’t enjoy his work, but obviously many, many, many others did and that means a lot more.
Not the be-all and end-all accomplishment for managers, but one of my favorites. There are currently 23 managers who are, for their careers, at least 250 games over .500 headed by John McGraw at 815. It takes, generally, a long career with consistent success. Dusty is 15th at 321.
Of those 22 (edit: 23), 18 are in the HoF. The exceptions are Baker (15th), Davey Johnson (17th), Terry Francona (22nd), Vic Harris (23rd) ... and Dave Roberts (16th). Roberts is the only manager on the list with fewer than 10 seasons at the helm. Of managers who have significant time post integration, the closest to Roberts are Earl Weaver, Al Lopez, and Davey Johnson, all of whom managed 17 years.
And next up on the Pioneers ballot for the HOF, I would like to nominate Sean Forman. Thanks for the data and presentation bb-ref! https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/
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8:00pm ET first pitch. For those of us with a 4:00am ET alarm clock, that is a bit of an issue. Ouch. Lots of cups of coffee in my future.
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At the other end of the drink spectrum, a couple of our amateur mixologists suggested China-China as an Amer Picon replacement. Thanks! It made for an excellent Brooklyn. But then I needed to find other drinks in which I could use it. Last night, the old English Lit student in me was amused by the name so we tried an Ozymandias. Look on my works and absolutely, positively do not despair, it was excellent.
That assumes that the manager is irrelevant to team wins, a proposition that I reject even in the current set up. A year or two may well be a fluke; a dozen years carries much more signal.
And one that would be laughable for much of the list who predate the modern front office and were responsible for selecting players and, in a very real sense, developing them from very raw materials.
Roberts is the one guy on that list who has only managed in the current era and only with one team. I agree you can't put him in the same tier with the others, who have all won in varying circumstances and/or in eras when the manager had a much bigger say in roster construction and strategy. If he keeps winning for another 10 years or so, or does it with a different team, I'd reconsider, but 10 years managing for a team that's been absolutely loaded with talent for his entire tenure is not a Hall of Fame-type run, though like I said it could become part of one.
I should note that I don't think Roberts has underachieved, as I think many Dodgers fans — a group to which I don't belong — do because he's "only" won three pennants and one (laughable, not real season) World Series with those loaded teams. I'm of the "playoffs are a coin flip" school.
Roberts exemplifies the problem with these lists. I think he’s a solid manager, but he looks like an all time great on these lists.
I don’t agree as I think there’s some level of competency required to be able to mange for a decade or two. But your theory is a lot better than the commonly accepted theory that career W and W-L are a great way to rank managers.
Over his career, Mike Trout is 100+ games under 500 and probably near the bottom of the list of all players. But he’s also the best player in baseball by a large margin. If Trout’s W-L doesn’t matter, why does Dusty Baker’s? And I’m certain Trout has more impact on his teams records than any manager. Likewise haven’t heard anyone suggest Mark Kotsay is awful as a manger but his record sure is abysmal.
Agree to an extent. Joe Torre had a very middling record when he took the Yankees job. But, in addition to finally having a great roster, he also had the ideal temperament to both deal with George Steinbrenner’s bullshit and shield his players from the worst of it. Another manager might have maybe won a Series and then quickly burned out, dragging some players down with him. Horses for courses, as it were.
Sean would be excellent, I hope he one day does get in. BBR has become so must read and started as such a passion project. It's used by baseball pros and fans everywhere now. I remember emailing with him many moons ago when it was a new site to give him some info on a relative that had played/coached many years ago.
He took $$ from venture capital and has done nothing but good stuff with it. I’m there daily.
Aren't you an attorney? Attorneys need to get up a 4 am? You must have a very long commute.
My commute is from the top floor of the house all the way to my home office two flights of stairs away. If my back is acting wonky, sometimes that takes a full minute.
My wife is an elementary school teacher. Her school is less than 1 1/2 miles away, but she has to leave at 6:30-6:45 to ready the room, make copies, and a bunch of other little time consuming things for her 26 little hellions. Between the 4am alarm and 6:30, we have a leisurely cup of coffee, walk the dog, then hit the home gym before showering and dressing for the day.
Downside to the new commute: my podcast listening has dropped to near zero.
Once we move in January I won't even have to navigate stairs, it'll be from owner's bedroom to the spare bedroom/home office on the same floor. Although I guess I'll still need to go downstairs for breakfast and tea.
My sympathies for your long commute. I don't even have stairs. Unless I go outside to unlock the garage. Then it's 6 whole stairs down the deck. Rough life.
*Listening* to an audio book? Not *reading* an audio book!?!? ;)
Commutes? We don’t need no steeeenkin commutes! (Not anymore, anyway.)
Alarm. Either the mechanical one or occasionally the 65# furry version that sleeps on the floor next to us.
The 'just wake up' is needing to pee somewhere around 1 or 2 in the morning.
I apologize if my question was overly intrusive.
Not at all. I share personal info here all the time. Perhaps next I can describe the process of stent removal after kidney transplant and the rotorooter device they shoved into an exit.
Ugh. I had stents in both ureters a year+ ago. Zero fun having them removed.
We need the anti-like button for this comment.
I'll second the Sean Forman nomination. Baseball Reference is a titanic achievement and an unvarnished good.
We talked about player connections yesterday, and Minnie Minoso in particular. A couple of years ago, using Baseball Reference, I connected Minoso to Cool Papa Bell on one end of Minoso's career via the rosters of the 1946 Negro National League, and to Eliezer Alfonzo via Minoso's one-game appearance for the St. Paul Saints of the 2003 Northern Independent League. Bell's Negro Leagues career began in 1920, and Alfonzo (after his subsequent major league career) was still playing in the Venezuelan winter leagues in 2020 -- 100 years of incredibly varied but, thanks to Sean Forman, single-source documented, professional baseball history in just three players.
As someone on the West Coast I’m personally happen with 5 PM starts, and I know that 8-11 is Prime Time for TV ratings and that rules every broadcast decision. But I feel like a 7:30 start time wouldn’t impact ratings and would help grow the game as younger audiences could stay up to watch the end, especially in central time.
I have read just enough celebrity memoirs to know that I can't trust any of them. But if I spent time reading Shatner's Star Trek Memories, I should make time for Sir Patrick.
There is always a chance Counsell decides he doesn't want to manage the Mets, or even that he wants to stay where he is. And the Mets could really be conducting a broad search. But yeah, it's probably going to be Counsell.
Counsell might also opt not to manage at all for a year or two. That actually seemed likely couple of months ago although that's just a guess. It does not seem likely he'll return to Milwaukee
I am sure someone from Houston will call his people.
Sure. Probably others too. But I'll be surprised if he manages next year anywhere other than NY or MKE. We'll see
I'd think, as managing gigs go, there might be something to be said for the lower pressure, less intense scrutiny job in Milwaukee compared to New York.
I’m trying to think of an amount of money that would cause me to uproot my family and face the absurd scrutiny that the Mets manager will face…it’s a lot.
It’d also take about 20x what I currently make to move to NYC to do my current job and maybe not even then.
Your behavior is totally rational (maybe the 20x is extreme). But I feel like athletes and managers/coaches don’t think that way and are focused on the gross $$$, not even the net or cost of living much less the environment.
I get that and baseball guys don’t usually spend 365 days in whatever city they play for.
I wouldn’t move to Milwaukee either, been there, interesting city. Nothing against NYC either, I’m just a country mouse and I and family would be unhappy in a compact urban area, so I’m likely not a great comp for Counsell. I also don’t see either NY manager job as a top ten managerial position in mlb all things considered.
what do ya got against cheese and sausages?
Exactly nothing, I loved, LOVED County Stadium and have enjoyed my times there. Was at Miller Park 12-13 years ago for a bachelor party, Reds v brewers and I was walking through the parking lot looking for my friends (wearing my cub hat) and had a guy yell at me “take that f*cking thing off!”, I looked his way and after a beat, he said “hey just kidding, want a brat?”.
I hung out with those guys for a half hour.
I simply like the semi-rural life. I’m in Chicago 4-5 times a year for 2-4 days, love Chicago, but damn, literally •everything• is a hassle.
Of course I’m getting older and more set in my ways.
That's fair. I'm not a good comp either since my job is remote as would any similar job. But for a 10x (or even 5x) raise, I'd start packing tomorrow. Or realistically start apartment hunting and plan to fly home most weekends.
Of course, no one is offering me that. And for 2x, which is a realistic cap, not sure I'd move/commute.
I’m also 5-6 years from retiring (early). Everyone I know is here and that’s more important to me than $$. I also think I’d be a cranky bastard in an urban location. What my kids like doing is nearly impossible in an urban setting or at the very least 10x harder to do.
i love that i get CoC and BiM at almost exactly the same time every day now. I love the double dip each day.
Please hold your family tight (once again, unfortunately) as we live in a sick, savage world where even a small place like Lewiston, Maine has to fear for their daily safety doing something simple like bowling or grabbing a beer after work. This is not far from where I've vacationed for the last 50 years or so. Maine is a wonderful place and I hate that this happened anywhere, but most especially there.
Mega MAGA Mike Johnson comes from nowhere and now we have an insurrectionist supporter at one of the highest levels of government again. Hopefully the voters will take notice and self correct, but I won't hold my breath.
Happy trails, Dusty. At least we now have a great Jomboy lip reading video from your final ejection to remember that game by. I love that he refused to leave (initially).
I’ll bite. What’s BiM?
It's been a pretty tense 16 hours or so up here in Maine last night and today.
Small signing alert. ATL resigned potential FA Piece Johnson to a two year deal. He was excellent in a middle / set up role after coming over from COL at the deadline. But that was out of his norms and he’s entering his mid 30s.
4 hours have passed on no one has made a "missing Piece" or similar comment at you. Is everyone busy today?
I leave my typos just so I can be the commentariat's straight man waiting for puns like yours. What, no "thank you dlf?"
What's great is that usually the Pierce Johnson jokes are MUCH more blue.
Vaya con Dios, Dusty. Truly one of the most interesting people in baseball - if not the world. Would love to have dinner with him and listen to his stories.
PS 7YO me is ready to get hurt again. Let’s go Rangers.
PPS I felt the same way about Roger Bennett (Men in Blazers)’s book (Re)Born in the USA ... it has a bunch of cringeworthy personal stuff (including a used condom in a soda can) but Bennett reads it in his enthusiastic Liverpudlian accent and is clearly having a blast. Worth a listen!
I read, didn't listen to (Re)born in the USA, but the thing that stuck me most about that book was how similar his youth was to mine. Teenage boys in the 80s were pretty much the same I guess, no matter where they grew up.
I sent him a message but he never responded - did it never occur to him how those sex books in his parents' library GOT there?!
Never found any sex books in my house, but somebody I babysat for when I was 8 or 9 had The Joy of Sex prominently displayed on a shelf in the living room.
Neither did I, although those Robert Ludlum books contained some eye-opening passages....
My very straight-laced parents had Joy of Sex on their bookshelf. I can only assume it was given to them as a joke (at least that's what I told myself as a child).
The book that ruined me was Dictionary of Symptoms. Think all the worst medical sites on the internet compiled into book form at least a decade before anyone had heard of the internet.
The only sex books I found as a young lad in the early 80's were the stacks of playboy's packed in multiple boxes in the garage. I can still hear my dad's voice if he felt like I was in the garage too long. "Wesley...it's been long enough. Get your ass back in the house!"
I concur with respect to teenage boys in the 80's.
Dusty story:
Won a charity auction "Lunch with Dusty and the coaches" when Dusty was managing the Nationals. Met our escort at the clubhouse door--it suddenly dawned on him that oops, it was 2 women who had won the auction, which included a tour of the clubhouse (yes, it was a gameday). So he ran ahead to make sure that the players at least had their pants on.
Sat in on the game strategy session over lunch--got advice on vacation spots, good eats in West Palm Beach, and of course the game stuff. As we were wrapping up, a coach popped in and gave a medical report on Bryce Harper's neck (apparently not noticing us--hey I'm short, but not that short). No one stopped him, and I agreed not to publicly mention the details.
I'd brought my copy of Dusty's bio to get signed--which he gladly did. After lunch, he took us to his office for a chat (which was not part of the tour). Signed one of his custom bats for us--he said he wanted to make sure we got our money's worth!
Heaven.
I know the Nats won a World Series with his successor at the helm, but I still wish the Nats had given Dusty more than two years.
At the time, I thought Dusty had reached his "sell-by" date, so I was in accord with not offering him another year. I was an estate planner, and I saw some of the issues with Dusty that I'd seen with some of my older clients. But taking that hiatus worked wonders for him (maybe a change in drug regimen? Maybe just the time away recharged his batteries?) and I didn't see that during his time with the Astros.
I remember the Nats game 5 losses in 2016 and 2017 (and even 2012) leaving me a with a sense of "Well, that was the most fucked up weirdest way to lose a baseball game that I do believe I've ever seen"
I know some Nats fans like to blame Dusty for their loss in one or both of those series, but I never felt like he got out-managed. Weird shit happened those nights, just like it always does during the playoffs.
The dream
Unbelievable Laura. I'm sooooo jealous. Good for you!
A truly wild thing I learned a little while ago was that we actually banned the foreign sale of arms for a bit starting in 1935, in large part because there was popular (and correct) understanding that WWI was a boondoggle. But then WWII happened and we said hey, this is a great thing to base an economy on, and we haven't been able to stop since. Oh well.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/neutrality-acts
In wild news today, apparently Ron DeSantis is now an arms dealer.... https://apnews.com/article/desantis-drones-weapons-shipment-israel-gaza-3fedd0b434552bad313f9109379df071
Are Krukow and Kuiper being nominated individually or as some sort of coupled entry? It seems historically there's only been a single Ford Frick Award winner per year.
Individually. As I understand it, there is no mechanism for two winners for the Frick. But maybe we can Stargell-Hernandez it anyway.
Give them both the award. They are the best booth in baseball
While I'm admittedly fairly ignorant of Krukow and Kuiper's work other than by reputation, us Mets fans of course think we are the ones with the best booth in baseball. Don't take away the one thing we have.
Fine. Three way tie.
He's not my team's guy, but Tom Hamilton of the Guardians is my pick.
We can agree to disagree.
Just be quick about it, know what I mean?
From what I understand, the A's added Krukow to Kuiper's nomination and submitted them as a tandem to have a better chance of overcoming Kuiper's live n-word gaffe earlier this season.
Wrong Kuiper. Wrong team.
No you're probably thinking of the Kuiper on ESPN who does NFL draft analysis. The baseball announcer Kuiper for the A's is indeed the one who had the gaffe.
But I was talking about the Kuiper who calls for the Giants
Yeah but the Giants announcer is Bob Papa. Kuiper occasionally talks about the Giants when he's discussing draft prospects, but he does that for all NFL teams, not the Giants specifically.
Still off. You are thinking about Glen Kuiper who used the wrong word for the Negro League Museum. He was an announcer for the Oakland A’s. And he is not the same person as Duane Kuiper who announces for the SF Giants!
Hopefully Cohen submitted this for his frick award https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhgk-aPtZjY
He's such a pleasure to listen to and uses his soapbox very well.
Damn it, Craig, I will now be incorporating “a tad raggedy” into my vernacular at least once a day for the foreseeable future. Beyond excited to slip it into one of the intern performance reviews I’ll have to write up next summer.
Can you elaborate on "his secret to curing hiccups"? Only if it doesn't infringe on copyrights, of course. I am curious what's his solution.
He pretends it's some big secret and coyly says that he cannot reveal the science behind it but, basically, he just stares the person hiccuping dead in the eyes and says, seriously and suddenly "your hiccups are gone." And it usually works.
This, BTW, is a thing that a family friend of mine did when I was growing up and it often worked. There's something to it that makes the hiccuping person breathe different for a moment or something. Or it's simply a matter of all hiccups going away at some point and some good timing.
Wow! That’s a new one. My grandma used to just jump scare me during hiccups when I wasn’t suspecting. Because of the sudden fright, it was supposed to go away. Can’t remember the success ratio though...
Anyway, I also offer this solution to my kids, but they usually politely decline :)
Of course it works. Even hiccups don't want to disobey a direct order from Cap'n Picard.
Or Deputy Director Bullock!
I'm familiar with that technique.
Just as successful would be Stewart staring you dead in the eyes, and then breaking the silence by yelling “THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!”
Or, you could just eat a spoonful of sugar. That was pretty effective when I was growing up.
Thanks Rich. I was going to ask the same question.
My library system doesn't seem to have The Return of Martin Guerre. Only a DVD version. Bummer.
The movie actually came before the book, and Davis, who had long been researching it, was a consultant on it. After the movie came out she was somewhat disappointed by the treatment of the subject matter and it inspired her to finish her book in the way that she did.
Well, that explains the timeline I remember. For much of the time I taught at the University of Florida, my office was in the same building as the French department, so I often ate lunch with my colleagues from that department. I remember Davis and Martin Guerre being a topic of conversation in the 1985-86 time frame; she may even have given a talk on campus. So it was disconcerting to read in the obits yesterday that the book came out several years after I left Florida.
There's also that Oscar-worthy "classic" Sommersby - starring Richard Gere and Jodie Foster.
Talk to a librarian about interlibrary loan.
Mine doesn’t either. The library app doesn’t have an ILL request section for some reason, so I’ll be interested to see if I remember to ask about it when I go there on Saturday. Not holding out much hope with my frazzled mind.
Alibris.com has copies as low as $2.19.
Or you could request an inter-library loan. The Arlington VA library has a copy (of course it's checked out now and has a wait-list since it's been in the news).
Buck: "That is a DISGUSTING group of fellow nominees. And I think it is unfortunate that I have to breathe the same air as them."
He’s the Prince Charlie of baseball announcers (I guess king chuckie now): born into a business he doesn’t particularly like, but wasn’t keen to do anything else, so 🤷♂️.
Fortunately for those who don’t like him I don’t think he does baseball anymore, at least not nationally.
Interesting list of Frick award nominees. At least three or four that would be worthy winners, as opposed to some years when the award seemed more like a gold watch ceremony for a guy who'd been around for a long time. I don't think he'll win, but I like hearing Schulman call Toronto games. Knowledgeable, concise when necessary, keeps the focus on the game rather than who's wearing yellow in the stands on a random Wednesday.
Congrats on a great career, Dusty. Enjoyed watching you as a player and manager.
I agree that Schulman stands out in that list. He always has a great call with a focus on the game rather than all these non-game related side stories that other broadcast teams fill their air time with. Buck Martinez works great with him in the Jays booth too.
The Mets have been blessed with amazing announcers throughout their existence and Gary Cohen is such a gem to listen to. Between him and Howie Rose on the radio I'm covered no matter the medium.
It did give me a chuckle to meld this newsletter together and imagine Sir Patrick calling a baseball game, however. Star Trek does not occupy space in my cluttered brain but man, he'd be a hoot in the booth. I doubt he even understands baseball. But to listen to that voice call an outfield assist at home, I'd pay a nice Sacajawea dollar to hear that.
There is a Deep Space Nine episode with a baseball game. Let's have Sir Patrick do play by play for that and keep it in the family.
Captain Benjamin Sisko can do play by play and Captain Picard can do the color. Lol.
I was musing the other day on how baseball hasn't changed significantly over the many, MANY, decades..... For example, the situation described in "Casey at the Bat" (written in 1888(!!)) is instantly recognizable to any fan. So, imagine your current favorite announcer calling that inning....
Vin Scully first doing play by play, and then reading the poem.
I have that hat at home, FYI.
Mark Twain said that politicians, old buildings and prostitutes become respectable with age. My corollary to that has long been: Even the worst sports announcers become beloved if they hang around long enough. The Frick Award is often a celebration of that truism, though this year's nominees are pretty legit. I'd say only Buck fits my witticism.
I think many Yankees fans still don't love Sterling. But boy, New Yorkers loved the Scooter in one booth and Kiner in the other.
Yeah there's a whole category for ex-players too, especially if they were good. I lived in St. Louis for a while, and boy did they love Mike Shannon, who was an objectively bad baseball announcer. I got it, though. He'd been a good player during a championship era, and then he was an announcer forever, mainly as the number 2 guy next to the appropriately beloved Jack Buck, and CBC, baby. He was more St. Louis than toasted rav.
I listened to many, many cardinal games as a member of the loyal opposition and my goodness Shannon was beyond awful. He was everything that Harry Caray detractors thought he was.
Mike was the best, R.I.P. He knew the game, he loved the Cards, and he told it like it was. You wouldn't want him reading the news or narrating an audiobook, but I loved him and miss him on my radio. People who don't listen to baseball on the radio don't always get it, but you need some personality on your local broadcast. On TV, you can ignore the voice if you want to.
Seriously, I’m glad you liked him. I know a few people who met him and thought highly of him. I just didn’t like him as an announcer, maybe my experience with him (1985 on) missed his high points….I loved Harry, but man, he was rough at the end.
I’ll amend my statement by saying that “I” didn’t enjoy his work, but obviously many, many, many others did and that means a lot more.