gehringer_2

well, it is early. Didn't it take the US 20 days to take Baghdad?

didn't the NL and AL have different divisional schedules in the early days of divisional play? I thought the NL had more intradivisional games than the AL for some period.....(?)

no arg there. I was only taking up the specific supposition Rob noted that some have argued that Truman could not have made a different decision. Of course he could have, he could have directed them to drop it two miles offshore or on a non-urban area, or in the other direction on Tokyo instead of a secondary city - or held off longer on the 2nd bomb. For better or worse the specific history happened as it did because specific people decided to do it the way it was done, and I was expressing skepticism that you can argue the CIC out of that decision matrix. Even if Truman punted and followed along - that was still a choice he had to make as Pres.

Wouldn't you need a constitutional amendment to kill the post office?

I believe 154 was a more or less magic number at the time because the leagues were trying to play a balanced schedule. You had 8 team leagues, so you played each of 7 other teams 22 times. When expansion began, there were a couple of years where the two leagues had a different number of teams, but by 1962 they had 10 each so they when to 162 with a balanced schedule were you played each team 18 times. Subsequent expansions and divisional org have laid waste to any possibility of everyone playing everyone else the same number of times other than within divisions, so today the choice for the length of the season is completely arbitrary other than to quantitative junkies concerned about seasonal counting stats. This history does point out one fact that we lose sight of comparing eras. When you faced a team 22 times in a season, you got to know all the pitchers really well. This had to be a huge advantage for hitters that is lost today and no doubt another influence in the rise of the all or nothing hitting approach.

If Putin hitches his wagon to Xi, he will find out soon enough that Xi's interest is purely transactional. Xi doesn't care about Putin or Russia, only what China can suck out of it on its own way to greater empire.

Hard not to conclude Tony Clark has been worse than a disaster.

I've never been interested enough to pursue the history myself, or verify any of these claims, but at least in the view of my family, the area around Yerevon, which is where the current nation of Armenia is, following from the Russian designation of its Soviet Republic, was not really that much the center of the Armenian culture of the Ottoman empire, which my family would have told you had been in Anatolia and Mediterranean Turkey. As far as my family saw it, those up in the Caucusus were the equivalent of Armenian Hillbillies....

Romad and Buddha are the history mavens, most I can say I know about WW1 is that there was a big deal made about having to defend freedom of navigation after a U-Boat torpedoed the Lusitania. Of course the Germans claimed Cunnard was ferrying war material. Just read a bit on the Zimmerman telegram - appears to have also have been a contributor. Of course it's a fool's errand trying to separate individual bits of motivation out from the totality of a decision like that. BTW -the family story is that Grandfather, who had enlisted because it was a chance to strike a blow against the Ottomans, was on a ship on the way over on 11/11/18, and thus got to step foot back in Europe only to get right back on the boat to the new world.

Not to worry, Cade has already missed three times more shots than Killian.

well, you would think there is no way for that not to happen, just like you'd think there was no way you ever see an inning start with a man on 2nd.....

It's not a technicality in that Ataturk founded Turkey on the the rejection of traditional quasi-religious Ottoman Sultanate/Caliphate and the early forms of Muslim pan nationalism that fed the religious pogroms. A lot has changed in Turkey on that point in recent years, and not for the better, but that is also part of the complexity. Of course the Turks and the Armenians still hate each other and that is as old as Islam itself.

It certainly complicated by what breed of 'state' S. Vietnam was, but we certainly came to their aid in the context of the North trying to conquer them (or France's depending on how you take the history) MB notes Kuwait. We took a long time getting to it, but we did enter WWI without being attacked directly - Lusitania not withstanding. WWII would not count as we sat until we were attacked ourselves. There were a lot of Americans flying in SE Asia before Pearl Harbor, but it wasn't official.

but that is also part of the complexity, because 'Turkey' also didn't exist when the genocide occurred.

Ding DIng!

Yellow shirt guy maybe familiar - almost Burton Cummings but he should have a 'stache, and I don't pics of the Guess Who with 6 guys.

So where was this biodome hidden that held Putin, the US GOP, and who knows who else in isolation from the real world for the last 80 yrs?

right - we'll just get bad teams in the playoffs, which given the large random input factors in a baseball game will ensure that bad teams will end up winning the World Series. But that happens now anyway - it will just be a difference in degree more than kind.

which depend on the Ukrainians maintaining some kind of corridor or protected airfields for resupply. That's what could be hardest. It's not like they'll have the jungle of the Ho Chi Minh trail to hide in. The other criticality is if they stay together long enough to receive Stingers. The Russian helo air superiority goes down the drain if the west can(will) supply man held ground to air in numbers.

yeah - there is a certain threshold where suddenly they can't match up at all despite looking decent against some midlevel teams on occasion.

I'd have guessed Mountain but I don't think they were ever 6.

That story sounds like USDOD all over. Should be true even if it isn’t. ( which I’m not arguing)

The Germans are, as always, the key. It seems like in the last hundred years they can’t find the Goldilocks stance toward the rest of the world between being crazy bellicose and gazing at their navels while their house is being ransacked. Scholz just last week said Germany’s past still precludes it increasing its defense posture. Well maybe its future demands it. and the thing is, it’s not like their position doesn’t echo through the rest of the EU. Nobody wants to put themselves at an economic disadvantage by committing more to defense than Germany will.

It's true. And it is also only barely relevant to his job performance. Americans spend so much time watching actors that they have forgotten that what you do is more important than your elocution. In my book, only Clinton and Obama have been particularly gifted at a podium going all the way back to JFK. Even Reagan really wasn't all that great either when speaking off the cuff. The other thing is that it's time for a President to demand adulthood from the press. No shouting, one question - stated in 15 second or less with no attached essay. Make those the rules and stick to them.

personally, I don't care if Soto's income potential is effectively capped closer to $30M/yr than $40M/yr. If more salary money has to go into the pot, it does at least needs to go the young players like Soto who are producing, not the Cabreras and Pujols