gehringer_2

Funny how context changes perspective. Knowing you don't have to extrapolate out 4 yrs, you watch him at the podium today there's no issue with his ability to do the job for now.

OK - we have an internecine dispute between two international organizations about an issue that I doubt can ever be resolved to universal satisfaction in a sport I'd just as soon see go away permanently. Well, as they say, whatever floats your boat 🤷‍♂️ But as Rhett said to Scarlet at the end of a long day, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." (as always, YMMV, offer not available in all states, void where prohibited.....)

But Detroit's system was miles behind in data, tech, training, coaching, International, everything. Avila wasting all the team's current assets was undoubted huge. But it was not the only thing that left them in a hole for so long. How many more picks might have turned into something and helped the Tigers avoid the length and depth of this collapse we'll never know. Not that Al exactly got much fixed very well, but he at least recognized the problem and has to be giving credit for beginning the move to modernity, and also getting the owner on board with that being the needed direction.

I know this is serious business for the competitors, but I can't help the amusement because these arguments are so futile. There are no right answers. You have gender, as how a person self-identifies, you have biological sex, as in what reproductive organs a person was born with, and then you have genetic sex, as in what chromosomes/genes a person is born with. And guess what? The three can either "align" or "mis-align" in every possible way. In the end, things like who should compete against whom is going to be a judgment call with a high level of arbitrariness involved. No matter what is decided, it will be unjust for someone - because we have to have those boxes that nature refuses to play neatly in.

DD could have been forgiven for trading prospects if he had done the companion work to get the scouting, drafting, and development science deployed to the minor league system so that the Tigers' pipeline would replenish after his trades. It wasn't the trades themselves as much as his lack of attention to the development end. The system didn't have to be barren just because he had traded a few guys.

Thnking about Sparky, I'll tell you what I think his biggest failing was, it was not using his credibility and stature to go to his owner than him that the management he had in place was doing a bush league job and needed to be replaced. It was funny because he took a stand against league management when the strike came, but he wouldn't do it for the sale of baseball in Detroit when he could have earlier.

Trump is not winning MI again.

This is what is so rich. Human beings have to have everything in neat little boxes. The problem is that nature itself doesn't give a damn about the little boxes that Society ties itself to, and is busy doing stuff all over the map all the time and the people with their little boxes have never been able to stand it and have since time immemorial been making life hell for all those perfectly human children of God, who were born exactly the way nature made them.

Israel today also claiming confirmation that they got Deif earlier this month. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/01/israel-hamas-war-iran-haniyeh-hezbollah-news/

he is one sick puppy

Bingo.

Actually the WAPO NABJ story on page one under that header was very strongly critical of Trump. No equivocation, no false balance. NYT headline writer goes with: "Trump Falsely Questions Harris’s Identity as Black" better than usual.

Roger Craig could squeeze performance out of starters and BP arms. Once he left Sparky's pitching management was hum-drum. The worst was that Sparky would leave a guy sitting in the BP for days in a row then call him in at high leverage.

Leyland gave me the impression he had a sort of passive aggressive streak with the way he used BP pitchers - it was like he felt he had to keep signaling to DD "you can keep giving me these guys, but I'm not hiding them, they are going to get used even if we lose"

Toledo entered the top of the 9th down 7 tonight and made a game of it by scoring 5. Torkelson came to the plate as the tying run with one out and the bases loaded but they pitched around him, giving him an RBI and his 3rd walk to go with an 0/2.

No manager is going to look brilliant for long when his GM gives him lousy bullpens to work with.

But that's the thing, the black community is past that, anyone who isn't white white is basically an honorary member because they share the common experience of non-whiteness in America. Beside - there is no particular profit in the US in claiming to be DESI anyway - it's a straw man. Like a wise man once said, "race" is a social construct. It only exists in the mind of the beholder. That doesn't make it less powerful, just more foolish.

Well, I'm glad he has a spokesman on the Forum.

Haha - maybe it was Al that told Mike DD was contacting other teams....

Well, if you want a more nuanced view from a mixed race individual (who is generally counted as unconventionally conservative) here you go: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/25/opinion/kamala-harris-race.html?searchResultPosition=1

Lindsay has always driven me crazy because he is a bright guy and absolutely knows right from wrong, but he is utterly spineless. If Aaron Sorkin had modeled his JAG office on Lindsay, the movie would have ended with Lt Kaffey getting busted to Private and Col Jessup making General.

I would have thought that would have his mind all the more focused on why that was a dumb thing to say.

Realistic odds of any A ball player making the majors? He's too far away for him factor into team roster decisions. Assemble your team based on your A ball players and I guarantee we'll still be waiting for a winner in 2045.

apparently Trump was busy working on developing his bone spurs and missed a minor event in Dallas in Nov 1963.

John McWhorter wrote an interesting piece last week about this. Basically if you are born anything but full White in America, you can expect to be treated as though you were African American anyway, and while Kamila is clearly half south Asian, that made no meaningful difference in her experience growing up in CA. I guess even people's political memories are pretty short, our 1st 'black' president was half-white - that made zero difference to the way he was identified. Remember when Tiger Woods tried to get people to recognize him as Asian? - didn't get far with that either.