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Didn’t the Tigers have 6:40 game times last year when average games were coming in over three hours? I know the Cubs and a lot of other clubs have had that for a few years. I selfishly love that game-time start and kind of wish they’d extend that throughout the summer. I think it’s as much about getting parents to bring the kids to games on schoolnights as it is getting the parents themselves home early. Even absent that, I would bet that most people are not going to be disappointed to be leaving the ballpark around 9:15 instead of around 9:45.

If it so happens that Baseball decides games are too fast, they can always adjust the timing up from 15-20 to, I don’t know, 15-22? Sixteen-twenty-two? Sixteen-twenty-three? They have options at their disposal if it comes down to it. I can’t imagine Baseball going on record that 2:35 is too fast for an average game time, but I suppose it’s possible. I just keep in mind that baseball became the dominant America sport back when the average game came in under two hours, and it maintained its dominance throughout the short-game-time period into our own childhoods. I can hardly wait to see my first snappy game in ages on April 5.

I don’t think the Tigers spent even one second thinking about trying to trade Baez this past offseason. He had a really good final month of the season, and they may think they have a chance to fix him in a way the prior regime or the Cubs could not. Plus, when things are going right, there are not many better guys to have in the clubhouse than Javy. He may be unfixable—after all, he is 30—but if he can be fixed to any decent degree, he’s a keeper.

I’m with you on this. I don’t think 20 seconds with runners on base close and late will be too short a time to move on to the next pitch. I’m actually looking forward to getting used to that quite nicely. I don’t know whether batters will have a clear view of the clock while in the box and looking toward the pitcher, but if so, one thing that would help him is the certainty that the pitcher must deliver the ball by the deadline when he notices that there are only three, two, whatever, seconds left. That would make it a lot easier for the batter to time the delivery of the pitch, especially coming out of the set. The only real tool the pitcher would have as far as timing anymore would be to deliver the pitch in a hurry, early in the pitch clock count which, if he doesn’t do it exactly right, might end up being an illegal pitch. So to keep things better balanced, I would think only the pitcher will have a clear view of the clock so he can deliver the ball before it runs out, and all the batter will know is that he got into the box before the eight-seconds-left point.

Looks like there's a good chance it all ends up with MLB. I hate watching games on their Network, for a couple old reasons and a new one. The old ones are, they have a constant crawl along the bottom, plus a box in the RH bottom corner than rises above the crawl—I hate detritus on my screen, especially along the bottom where play tends to take place—plus, the crawl now features in-game constantly-updated gambling odds along with URLs and app names where people can go make bets. I absolutely despise that one. Too bad everybody for whom the Black Sox scandal was a living memory is long dead. The new one, I just saw on a spring training game: they cut away from the game to a double screen, mute the game announcers, and show a full 15-second TV spot in the larger of the two screens. The announcer will be cut mid-sentence, this one time in the middle of a replay description I was actively interested in. It all adds up to a substandard viewing experience. I will be very sad when Baseball takes over the local broadcasting and implements these "innovations" to all 162 Tigers games.

That's what I'm hoping for: upside surprise this season. I think there's a good chance we get that, too. I am not at all a gambling man, but I thought I saw in the past few days the over-under for Tigers wins this season is something in the range of 66.5 to 69.5. I would take the over on any of those for something in three figures.

There is ample evidence that industries routinely know about the harm their products do for decades and do nothing about them because it jeopardizes sales, profits, bonuses, stock price, options, all that. Tobacco was one; oil companies re: global warming is another. Granting some situations are shrouded in ignorance, others exist in the bright light of day.

Industries don’t care about externalities until it comes back to bite them, people die, and then they are pressured to change. Then they finally invest in change using government subsidies, the changes are made, and then everyone moves on and forgets.

It’s an aggressive sign of disrespect, and in many cultures, that simply cannot go unanswered.

While It’s hard to feel sympathetic for people who pay the price for egging on and daring others to snap, this is one of the problems with moving about certain segments of society that are highly armed and socially reward tough guy standoff behavior.

The kind of kids who are wired to pursue white-collar and professional higher education at colleges and universities are generally not the kind of kids to walk around campus brandishing weapons.

I thought I was lucky to have seen Pat Venditte pitch, thinking I would never get to see anything like that again. I hope I get to see this kid at some point.

Now that a new development regime is in place, I am definitely not writing off Jackson Jobe yet.

Obviously the media’s fault a nine-year-old girl died.

So Russia is going to send military peacekeepers to Moldova to liberate them from Nazi Ukraine rule? Am I close?

What a shame there’s simply no way to stop it.

Ha ha, I know, right? But that’s how deeply embedded Pete Franklin is in my psyche from hearing him as a kid that I keep trying to repurpose Pete Davidson’s name into Franklin’s.

I accidentally refer to Pete Davidson as "Pete Franklin" an embarrassingly high percentage of the time.

"Pigskin Pete predicts ..."

Jobe hasn't been flashing top 100 stuff. Previous regime probably set him back a couple years. I'll be interested in seeing where he is on the list a year from now, after the new regime has their go at him.

"Welcome to the Detroit Tigers ... this is the clubhouse ... here's your first month's check for $5 million ... just hang your street clothes on the nail on the wall over there by the toilet ... "

Possibly because he lived in a van down by the river or something like that

Same here. I met them and Deran (Yoda) for dinner back in 2007. Roger took some great pics. Robie was lovely. She worked at Publix headquarters, I believe?

Back in the early 80s and probably before, if you went up to the bleachers, which were maybe $1.50 a ticket, there was a fence and gate that separated you from the rest of the stadium that was manned by an usher. For slipping him as little as a dollar, he’d let you and your buddy through.