casimir

Is the talent pool watered down, or is the current system of load management and/tanking creating an inferior product? Because with basketball becoming more of an international sport with more international players, shouldn’t we be seeing more talent?

Those after school neighborhood 3 on 3s must have been nuts.

Some talking head mentioned baseball should somewhat copy the NHL’s Four Nations tournament. I’m not so sure that works quite as well for baseball. Honestly I don’t know how you handle an international baseball tournament. Maybe I’m just too used to a daily MLB schedule. But what works for basketball and hockey in the Olympics (or Fpur Nations) is the actual scheduling of the tournament. Neither of those sports is everyday, players are used to game day and then a day off or two. It’s not out of the realm that pro leagues have back to backs, but it certainly isn’ the norm like baseball. Olympic basketball occurs outside of the pro season, so it’s not necessary to stop the NBA. Olympic hockey has so many NHL players playing for home nations that the NHL taking a break is necessary. I suppose that might actually line up with baseball, I don’t know. But then does MLB shorten the regular season by a couple of weeks in years that this occurs? Would MLB owners be willing to forfeit scaled back gates and TV money because of this?

Ha! That was exactly my thought, too.

Come on, what are you doing?

What’s interesting is how the schedule plays out. This early in the year, I would think a day off in between games would be an advantage. Italy won the pool, but it places them into the semifinal with the final played the very next day. USA loses the pool, but it placed them into the semifinal with a day off between that game and the final game.

That old POS is still there. And it still gets stuck in the up position from time to time.

This is on the newer 280 bridge that extends high into air. The inside lanes re sometimes shut down if ice is falling from the support cables. I don’t think there was a ban on certain vehicles on the Ohio turnpike Friday. That’s when you know the winds be fierce. That might be in place for tonight.

Yes, I saw that very same clip yesterday. I was traveling north on 475/23 Friday afternoon and could feel my vehicle being pushed into on the driver’s side. Tonight sounds like a real treat, too. We were around Port Clinton yesterday morning. Streams and rivers around there that had access to the lake were all noticeably low as the water had pushed out to the north and west of Lake Erie. Inland waterways that are not a part of that water chain didn’t have that obvious exposed shoreline. The Maumee River was still high and engulfed with all of the additional runoff. The walleye run fishers that were wading around Side Cut were right next to shore.

72 degrees for a high today. Followed by 38, 26, and then 34 for highs. Because March in the Great Lakes region.

Fail.

Well, ….

Restricting delays between pitches/batters/innings has been wonderful.

Japan?

As subtle as a sledgehammer.

On a lighter note, the weather last weekend worked out well enough I got some bicycle rides in. 10 miles a day on Friday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. And then the cold reality of March snapped back into the picture.

Alzheimer’s and dementia is tough to see. My grandfather had it onset quickly. My grandmother, mother, and myself were with him in the hospital one day, and he was ina good mood, but still confused. You probably know mood swings can occur easily, and can be night and day. Anyway, he briefly gained awareness for several minutes. He realized who we were and talked to us by name. Then he also realized he was in a hospital bed, somewhat restrained, and knew it wasn’t a good situation. Started weeping and was apologetic that we were there, and then drifted back into that other dimension. I don’t know why the timing limed up for me to be fortunate enough to be there for my elders, but I guess it’s one of those things you don’t ask too many questions about. He didn’t talk about his past too much. He grew up in Hamtramck and moved down to Toledo. He spoke English and Polish. His family bootlegged, but we didn’t know too much about that. I knew nothing of it until then. It was explained to me (probably reluctantly) because he was reliving some of those days and events in his alternate reality. We think he relived the time that he saw his uncle drown. We know he relived some of the plan making for overnight transfers of booze across the line. He’d sometimes go from English to Polish and Polish to English in his conversations. He looked at me once and told me in a matter of fact tone that he’d seen better looking heads on turkey vultures. And throughout all of that, the one thing that he always remembered was he wasn’t going to take any pills. So, yeah, these diseases that take over your mind are awful. There can be moments of good or tolerable or whatever, but it’s tough to go through for those involved.

Jones’ .373 BABIP vs LHP last season will not repeat. Once his offense vs LHP is gone, what other tools does he have?

Oh, please don't misunderstand, I only look at this as entertainment. I don't consider this an end all be all as far as which country has the best baseball player.

It’s baseball. I’m used to MLB teams generally finish with records such that every team basically wins 2 out of 5 games or 3 out of 5 games or somewhere in between. The margins on any daily game over a long period are thin. So, look, all credit to Italy, they won the game. But this tournament is such a small sample of what we’re used to as MLB fans. I sometimes don’t know how to take an upset like this. And then the other angle is how each game is played. We don’t need to go any further than the pitching. It’s handled completely differently and we al understand why that is. I’ll admit my interest in this has grown with each tournament. Sure, why not, it’s early March and I’m on withdrawal from baseball. And the crowds, my goodness, the crowds for some of these games. That’s really fun to see. Sure, that buzz is tough to generate for lots of any random MLB game. It’s apples and shoelaces. But that’s one benefit to this shorter season tourney.

I think you have to have some sort of lineage to that country to play for it.

I know there’s quite a desire for 4 team divisions if/when MLB expands to 32 teams. Then the playoffs become something like all division winners (8 teams) plus a smaller number of wildcards (4 or 6). The problem with that is the increased likelihood of a team with a losing record falling into the playoffs as a division winner. The NFL allows its losing record division winners into the playoffs. In my mind, that’s appalling for a professional sports league. @chasfh has always called out that MLB owners are unlikely to want 8 team divisions as nobody wants to be owner of a team in 8th place. I don’t disagree with his interpretation of the owners desires might be. I just don’t like the math behind possibly keeping a better team out of the playoffs because a losing team wins a cruddy division. It’ll happen at some point. Along those lines, the NHL has 8 team divisions. I honestly don’t know if a team with a losing record has made the playoffs as a wildcard under the current setup, but I highly doubt a losing record team has won a division. I know they’ve had some wacky top 3 teams in the division and then there’s some variable with the final 2 teams in each conference. Maybe the last 2 are based purely on record regardless of division? Now I wouldn’t completely adhere to that, I’d just take the top whatever number of records regardless of division. So, congratulations to the NFC South Carolina Panthers, but the Detroit Lions or Minnesota Vikings are taking your playoff spot as they had a better overall record. Honestly I think a lot of this fervor for 4 team divisions is just blindly following what the NFL does.

They played 15 NL teams. All teams play against each other for at least one 3 game series.

The solution is to give every team its own division.

Epstein. Padding his Nobel Peace Prize resume. Epstein.