gehringer_2

looking for a starting 9. I don't see who is likely to be more productive than Ibanez - yet. McKinstry is the #1 bench guy going into next season I would think.

Maybe a little counter intuitive take here - but in June his OBP was nice with walks and singles to right, but he was looking for more ISO. He moved closer to the plate to turn on more pitches, but I think he got a little too close - he was was windmilling on inside pitches, lots of pop-ups and misses, then the last couple of days I'm pretty sure he made an adjustment to his adjustment - backed off a little bit, and bingo - found the the sweet spot and put a few in the seats. The pitchers are going to adjust again - but Torkelson now seems willing to keep responding with his own adjustments maybe in a way he wasn't last year. If he has the talent, then he'll get better at making his adjustments, they'll come faster, the adjustment slumps will be shorter, he'll know how to get in and out of different approaches as part of his toolbox. But the thing that makes me optimisitc is that he is showing a lot of different tools. He can work a walk, last month he was showing a good approach to RF, now he's pulling screamers down the LF line into the seats. If he gets to where he can combine it all together, we might have a pretty nice hitter.

Absolutely this. When a hitter has natural ability, get the hell out of his way and let him use it.

Of course the key to uplifting the under class lies less in any legal remedies than in economic ones that compress income disparity by raising the standard of living for the bottom quartile (or so) of wage earners. When lower quartile families are able to amass social and economic capital, then the economic mobility of their children is enabled. When you look at some of the great destructors of Black family capital in the last century - one was the Wilson purge of Black Americans from the US Government employment, which was certainly intentional government action, but the second and probably larger one was the destruction of Black home ownership equity (and thus destruction of any nascent post WWII Black middle class) in the post 1960's collapse of so many urban residential areas in places like Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Philadelphia, SoCal, etc. Surburban white flight was a total economic catastrophe for Black Urban America, and while it was absolutely contributed to in very large measure by government policies, it was largely policies that were not intended or even undertood at the time to be overtly discriminatory, though there was a lot of discriminatory behavior on the part of non-government actors in real estate and banking. Then the collapse in high wage union employment that began building directly on the heels of that disaster, sawed off one more ladder for who had suffered those loses to climb back. So the interactions between class, race, federal trade and economic policy, private racism, as well as law, *all* drive the economic and social disparites that comprise the litany KB Jackson details in her dissent. The solutions in turn have to comprise more than legal ones as well. As an example I rank Biden's efforts to rebuild high wage employment for non-college educated workers as having far greater potential to reduce racial disparity in American than wherever the law lands on college AA policies.

HR, 2BB for Malloy tonight. He's pushed his June OPS back to 800 after an odd May with lots of walks but not much else. I suppose if he's now an outfielder his eventual call-up is not longer dependent on achieving proficiency as a 3b. Greene, Malloy, P Meadows as the starting OF sometime in '24, then Rogers, Torkelson, Ibanez, Keith, Baez around the IF, if Javy isn't gone. Carpenter at DH. 5 RH, 4 LH. Could work.

A much as we complain - rightfully - that Torkleson needs to hit for more consistent OBP, his 28 XBH still lead the team by a large margin (Javy next 18). And he's tied for the lead in BB.

absolutely.

games ends on a relatively lout out.

tying run still at the plate but 2 out.

well, now the tying run is at the plate.

the irony is that Thomas faced a lot of poor treatment in his life, but a lot of it was from other Blacks, particularly his own family. I guess that has sort of left him hating everybody, white or black.

To expand on this a bit, I think the institutions would rather not do economic based outreach because in general they would have to take on more white students that need remedial help when they could as easily get elite white students and save that effort. I imagine opinions will vary on the desireablility of that outcome.

Well that rally fizzled in a hurry.

I'm still not that worried about his bat. He's got too many good tools. Kid's gotta run the bases better though! Should've gone to 3rd when the throw wasn't cut off and probably could have scored if he hadn't broken back to 2nd on Javy's hit.

true, but an economic or geographic alottment will still allow you to raise your net proportion of minority candidates. A sometime weakness of conventional AA programs is that you get tremendous compeition between elite insitutions for the highest qualified minority candidates, who didn't need the help, when the same resource commitment would be more usefully deployed out in the larger community.

I don't think Alexander got that one quite where he wanted it but no harm done.

SO said last night that Tork has backed off the plate a little. I think I agree. Something helped.

announced bruise on Olson. Have to assume x-ray didn't show any bone chip etc. Going to assume it's going to be short term.

Tactically they need the f-16s on line more for the present tense. The long range stuff is great for making Crimea impossible for them to hold but that's more long term. I think the thing that would really turn this conflict most dramatically is a downed Tu-95

I'm waiting to see what the solution, if any comes, is going to be for the mid-tier schools. At least in MI, MSU and UM are stealing enrollments from EMU/CMU/WMU etc to crisis levels in that second tier. A system with only Community Colleges and mega-Universities doesn't strike me as the best long term outcome.

the other thing about the Wings is that yes - they have some guys like Zadina that seem pathologically unable to finish, but their biggest problem isn't yet needing guys that specialize just in putting the puck in the net, it's generating scoring pressure to begin with. They can't get out of their own end, and when they do get in the O zone, they spend too much time neutralized along on the boards. The need more puck possessers, more strong on their skates guys who can get the puck into scoring areas of the ice (and of course better passing would also help). Hopefully that is what guys like Danielson (and maybe Soderblom) profile to do. Get some of that and see if the puck doesn't go in the net a lot more.

And there are ways around using explicit AA that work to achieve the same ends. UM has big Detroit/Wayne country outreach program. That's not race based per se. Seems like that kind of thing should be unaffected by this ruling.

so I know next to nothing about NHL contract rules so someone help me out here. The last year of his contract paid Bebrincat $9M. If I understand correctly (and probably don't), Ottawa has to make him a qualifiying offer of at least that by 7/1 or he is a UFA? Nice player but $9M? Are teams just waiting to 7/1 to be sure Ottawa actually does retain his rights?

Baddoo, Greene, Carpenter, Keith, P Meadows - lots of LHH out there on the horizon - be nice if a RHH or two other than Cabrera would show some life.

Brown does undercut her case in laying out so many historical injustices that were in fact de jure. To me college affirmative action is a debate that generates the most heat but I don't believe is where the action should be. It comes way too late in the overall social process to change much regardless of how it is or isn't practiced. To me the fundamental racial issue in the US is economic/political resource allotment, and as long as the society is segrated and political districts are geographical, US minorities will continue to be short shrifted. That is the fundamental problem. I don't know what the answer to it is, but it's not in college affirmative action.