chasfh

They’ll quit taking money when you quit taking money.

The rule governing batted balls lodging inside a player’s uniform is not explicitly covered in the Major League Rules document, but in the Major League Baseball Umpire Manual, which offers further interpretation of rules deemed not explicit enough to cover a given situation such as this. That was the case here. This play was covered in the umpire manual under Rules Interpretation #6, Ball Going Into Player’s Uniform: If a batted or thrown ball inadvertently goes inside a player or coach’s uni- form, lodges in the catcher’s face mask or paraphernalia, or is intentionally placed inside a player’s uniform (e.g., in a pants pocket), the umpire shall call “Time.” The umpire will, using common sense and fair play, place all runners in such a manner that, in the umpire’s judgment, will nullify the action of the ball going out of play. That being said, if the umpire determines that the player placed the ball in his uniform intentionally for the purpose of deceiving a base runner, the umpire will place all runners at least one base (or more if warranted, in the umpire’s judgment in order to nullify the action of the ball being put out of play) from the base they originally occupied. In no case may any outs be recorded on such play. For the purposes of stopping play and ruling the ball dead, it doesn’t matter whether the lodging of the ball within the uniform is intentional. The only way intention factors into this interpretation is the decision to move the runners up a base (lodging is intentional: yes; lodging is unintentional: umpire discretion).

Ending a Yordan Alvarez segment, Brian Kenny/MLB Now did a twitter poll on their show yesterday asking viewers who they thought the most underrated players in baseball today are, and the first two responses were Dingler.

By winning close games and losing blowouts?

Imagine what he’s going to be like when he gets his home run stroke.

That’’s the crux of the old hits vs walks thing.

Where’s the pitcher in this old lineup construction?

This is the kind of thing a terrorist state does.

I think they are capable of parsing out a ruling that allows Texas and overturns Virginia through their shadow docket, and willing to do it, too, if they calculate the political consequences to their benefactor to be minimal enough.

So, the closest analog I could find throughout history was Dexter Fowler 2014 with a 29-20-30-20 split: Fowler is the only other qualified hitter in history with at least 20% of their starting lineup plate appearances in each of the top four batting slots. Going back into history, Freddie Lindstrom came really close in 1926 with a 19-24-32-25 split: As did Max Carey in 1917 with his 34-17-21-29: I'm actually surprised there were any this close back in the old days, since I would think that managers were more plug and play about slotting good hitters into particular batting slots.

I wonder how common it is that a player has had so many PAs in a season split as evenly among the top four spots of the batting order as this (24-24-23-30)? That's got to be super rare, maybe even unique in history. I'm going to try to find out just to scratch my own itch on it.

Oh, right, I wouldn’t want this particular Court to weigh in on it, either. I’m talking about SCOTUS’s role in this on a theoretical basis.

Glad I got my money back out of them.

States do have to conduct elections in accordance with the Constitution, so in that sense SCOTUS does have some jurisdiction over interpreting what that means. If the State Supreme Court overturns the election without a strong enough constitutional basis, SCOTUS can overturn their decision. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway.

Hate to quibble with Ron on this one, but Trump never said he was going to hire the “most qualified” people. He said he was going to hire “only the best” people. I think we now fully understand what he meant by that.

Just checking in this morning to see whether the Islamic Republic of Iran has fallen yet. Can someone please text me when it happens? Thanks.

Your dad did. So did mine.

Feels nice to say this unironically, isn’t it?

Among other times … 😉

Looks as though Jason got a note.

This is a big reason for all the stupid distractions—it is so the abject destruction of government as a tool of the people can be replaced by government as a tool of the Trumpian oligarchy.

Either way, hubba hubba.

Again, out of thanks but THANK YOU.

I am out of thanks for the day but THANK YOU.