gehringer_2

the one here has been pretty much empty of any stock for several weeks now.

GDP up 2.9%, Jobless claims down to 187K. Mr. Powell isn't going to like any of that.

5 Memphis cops charges with 2nd Degree murder in death of a suspect. The cops and the victim were all black. Goes to the point that the problems in American policing are deeper than just racism, it's a broader policing culture itself which has become toxic in too many departments. The thing is I don't know how you can even begin to change that as long as the number of guns out there makes the job they do dangerous enough to radicalize them the way it does. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/26/us/tyre-nichols-death-memphis

The Sting is one of most perfectly constructed films you'll ever see. Of course It's not any kind of epic - rather a 'small' movie in scope - but the level of the craft at every point is exquisite. Newman's drunk poker game is one of my all time favorite set pieces. Robert Shaw's barely suppressed fury is played beautifully.

what an odd way to report that. Would someone be expecting him to do both jobs?

I sort of figured a couple of years ago when the talk of the Tigers/Wings/Ilitch starting their own network died down that meant they had done the due diligence on Sinclair to believe they were not going to collapse out from under them. I guess not, or it's just been too rapidly moving a target.

This is a logical argument, but the counter to that would be the theory that young players have age driven developmental 'windows' and if they don't develop certain skills before those windows close, most never will be able to. So under that theory a young ball player gets one bite at the development apple and he misses it, it's lost. Now I don't know proportionally how much that factor plays into things overall, but I am sure it is a real factor.

of course just to play Devil's advocate, this is exactly the argument an advertiser should make because it's a Devilishly hard one to verify quantitatively.....

and of course this ties into what should be everyone's worst fear, which we have touched on here before, which is the possibility that it is exactly Fetter's and Tigers' one reasonable point of success , which has been developing pitchers, (and maybe driveline tech in general) that may be one of the things helping to injure them and thus they will need to rework from scratch what has been a fairly successful developmental pitch shaping capability.

I think Graham is closet to the truth, too much of what is classified is for domestic political and bureaucratic protection purposes as opposed to protection of justified matters of clandestine sources or military technology. I have to believe that when people see that stuff they are handling isn't really all that important, it has to drive down the care they are willing to take.

I shouldn't complain because advertising generates a lot of (relatively) free stuff for everyone, but I have to believe that the people who buy many forms of advertising have been totally conned by the people who sell advertising regarding the effectiveness of many types of ads. If in the history of the US there is one purchase that was made based on something someone saw painted on a football field or the ice at the hockey arena, I would be surprised.

Harris has to find a way to make progress on pitching injuries. Whether that's learning to identify pitchers with better physiology, less detructive mechanics, or even modifications of what they are currently teaching them to do to maximize their effectiveness, the constant loss of pitchers to injury as much as anything else, has destroyed any hope the team ever did have under Avila to build roster value. It can't go on. They can hope it was just bad luck and will normalize itself away, but I'm doubting it.

When Field Turf was introduced it was widely acknowledged as the best artificial surface to play on. Now recently you see the stories about stadium owners having moved away from field turf because it's a poor advertising medium - it doesn't take to constant repainting very well, so the fields that have replaced it some places were better to paint but much worse to play on. Ain't that America?

Now TBF, it is probably also true that since the Wings, even as they are, sell out LCA, there is far less pressure on Derek Lalonde to 'market' the Wings team/players as anything they are not. When the Tigers are playing in front of crowds at CoPa that wouldn't even half fill LCA, the sales imperatives, perceived or real, may be quite different.

The other problem is 'coach speak.' Every manager is obligated to do it, and it can make it difficult to separate fact from fiction, and blur the borders between statements of strategic principle and mere clubhouse PR. Certainly you *must* assume much of what Hinch said last season wrt players like Willi Castro was pure coach speak. None the less those statements go out as the truth as delivered by the man in charge which is not good for the perception that the man in charge knows what he is doing. This tension is pretty much unavoidable, but some managers do handle it better than others. I have been thoroughly impressed at how the Wings' Derek Lalonde can discuss his team in such a perfectly straightforward manner without either trying to obfuscate the obvious failures or yet ever appearing to thow his players under the bus either. Of course that skill is nice, but can he/will he win?(!?!?!)

Well, we shouldn't have to go that far.....maybe.

IDK. I'm willing to believe Harris is the real deal, though he has to prove it on the field in some reasonable time. I have to admit I'm less sold on Hinch than I used to be. I not completely sure Hinch may not just be the glib chameleon personality who sucks up to any new boss and thus always begins as the star pupil of the regime. I'm not claiming the argument, but just saying that for any number of vague, indefinable reasons I have more questions about Hinch than I once thought I did.

Chairman of the foreign relations committee?

I don't think it's necessarily a problem if a cornerback disrespects quarterbacks. It's their goal in life to make them look bad!

I just hope we don't see something we have seen in the past with the Tigers, which is where they have so many candidates for some posititions that nobody can play enough in ST to resolve anything.

I think the game gave us an interesting marker in where the Wings are improving and where they are still so weak. SJ is a bad team, but it was still interesting to see how the mismatch played out. The Wings generated possession time sufficient for the game to have been a rout, but couldn't put the puck in the net enough to win in regulation. To me that is an indication of how Yzerman is building from the blue line out. Faster, better passing/puck handling D men have definitely improved their ability to hold the puck in the offensive zone. A wing forward can cycle the puck out to the line with some confidence there is someone there to get it and can beat the pursuit to keep things alive, but the guys deep in the zone still lack skills as finishers.

They had already lost me at 'Chili Spaghetti'.

the counter is if some of that scoring is available - say with Kasper, without giving other things up and it will be here by next season- then that's where SY has to make a call. Especially if we are more or less writing this season off. How much do you care to get better for the rest of this year? In my perfect world Bertuzzi had made a splash - coming back strong before mid-season, they sign him and then trade him for someone more 'reliable'. That one appears to be down the drain!

maybe we'll keep Rasmussen!

who wants to be reasonable? We want Stevie Y to pick someone's pocket!