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The way it looks to me, the nature of the battlefield really has changed, hasn’t it? For millennia it literally didn’t matter how smart a guy was—you just sent him forward with the line as part of a brute force attack and they were mere chum, so it almost didn’t matter whether he got mowed down or how many went down with him. But by the time Vietnam came around, operations were far more complex and multi-faceted, which required a minimum level of intellectual capacity not needed during the Crusades (which used children!), for instance, and could lead to the failures you describe. Today, of course, there is no real battlefield as in the type imagined during the Charge of the Light Brigade. If there that kind of hand-to-hand engagement anymore, it’s more street to street, building to building, trench to trench, hill to hill, tree to tree, etc, which also requires a higher minimum of intellectual capacity to execute properly than chivalrous open field combat. Am I close?

Hope you’re right!

The shine, to the degree it was there in the first place, has been coming off Parker for me over the last year. He seems to be hurt all the time and he was again last year, and when he came back, he hit like a first-time rookie rushed up to the bigs. I know he’s only 26, but as you imply, most really good players are a finished product by that age, and Parker has a boatload of blue on his Savant card, a bad sign for his future. At this point I think the best case scenario is we’re marking time with him until Max is ready; at worst, we’re going to have to replace him during the season if he’s losing more games with his bat than he wins with his glove, which is solidly within the range of outcomes.

I suspect Hinch, like any other manager, would rather have eight All-Stars who are locked into their positions than a roster of pretty good guys who can play anywhere. He’s dealing with the limitations of the roster given to him, just as Harris is dealing with the realities of the marketplace to assemble that roster. If we had Dodgers money and Dodgers cachet, we would have Dodgers rosters and Dodgers rings.

No one is sure that anyone will. The only practical known is that the 26-man roster we see on the page today is not the 26-man roster we break camp with. Here in December, though, all the possibilities are still on the table.

What leads you to believe Colt has a uniquely high risk of becoming either fat or muscle-bound?

Not necessarily, but quite possibly. McGonigle and/or Hao-Yu Lee could make the team out of camp.

Right around the time they conscript the over-65s, the under-16s, and the intellectually disabled.

Assuming no roster changes, I think we would also see Vierling and McStinky at third. There will be roster changes, though.

I am functioning Asperger’s who jumps a mile high at sharp loud noises made in an unexpected and unpredictable manner, so I would be completely useless in an infantry. Well, that plus I’m 64 with advanced scoliosis. I’ll keep delivering boxes to food-insecure people of modest means for a Latino-based pantry facing down a federal government trying shut it down instead. That’s my war.

He’s going to turn it onto us some day if he can’t be stopped.

“Corner infielder” seems generous. Murakami is probably more like a first baseman by process of elimination until he can’t hack even that anymore, which shouldn’t be long now. But you might be right in that he’s taking the shorter deal to try to fix his swing and miss issues here, and doing so with a team where there’s almost no pressure to make the playoffs—so he can focus on himself versus on the team—and all while making more money than he ever could at home seems like a winning strategy. If he successfully fixes his issue, he might get way, way into nine figures starting 2028. And if he doesn’t? Well, then, worst case, he can always go back home with money-for-life and rake for another ten years in an only-slightly inferior league that speaks his native language. Seems like a smart plan to me.

Maybe a better, more equitable way would be, instead of organizations leveraging their superior resources in an unfair manner to groom top kids for signing, Major League Baseball runs the whole development show throughout the Caribbean with equal contributions from all 30 orgs. Then they post the kids in a draft and order is based on the same criteria as the Rule 4 draft. Another option might be a mixed system in which there is only one or two rounds in the draft where all the kids age 16-18 considered top of the game can get picked, and anyone not picked after being eligible for the international draft after two years could be signed afterwards as an undrafted AFA.

They were simply the SOLs today.

Well that was a ****ing exclamation point to the season.

Well, that’s pretty much it for this team. The touchdown run notwithstanding, this might have been the most stalwart performance for the defense this season—but, also, this can’t not be the worst game of Jared Goff’s professional career.

That FG was the platonic ideal of splitting the uprights. The kick went right over the single supporting pole.

TeSlaa looks not unlike the young male nurse on St Denis Medical.

I bet he simply preferred to stay in Florida.

I guess I was kinda wrong here—he worked himself into becoming good enough for Asia:

And why not? They basically have the day off anyway since the whole rest of the first world does, so, might as well make something special happen on a local basis.

Thanks for reminding me! I need to bake a half a half a dozen dozen cookies for my wife's family's Xmas celebration for Monday.

It's a good time to be a bank.

The safest thing anyone can do with regard to firearms is to stay the hell away from them.

You mean the yellow pencils we use to chew on out of boredom during class?