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Chinny chin chin. Wordle 249 6/6 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟨🟨🟨⬜🟨 ⬜🟩🟩🟨🟩 🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Speaking of transcendent hitters, let's talk about Ray Oyler. Most of us know how just incredibly awful he was at the plate in 1968. Some of us were alive then to remember it. He was a glove-first shortstop; it was the Year of the Pitcher. The poor guy didn't stand much of a chance. But I had no idea that that his last hit of the season came on July 13: Thirty-three games, nine as a starter. Forty trips to the plate, 36 of them at bats. Zero hits. An .000/.053/.000 slash line for basically the entire second half of the season. No wonder Mickey Stanley started at shortstop in the World Series. Here's another fun Oyler fact: In 1967—the only season Ray finished above the Mendoza line—his slash line was a relatively lofty .207/.281/.264. He was still a two-win player that season. That's how good that glove of his was.

If Varitek is generous enough to pick up a tab like that once a week for a whole year, that's at least 100 bills in a year just for drinks. He made $67 million during his big league career. Hot and ready, indeed.

That's why he doesn't have to take the money now.

Of course he does.

The money wasn’t enough for Soto.

Well, this is a new one. There's been a trend wherein, when you call a phone number for live customer service, they tell you "rather than waiting, we can call you back when a customer service rep is available." I've used this system before and it has worked just fine. Until today, at least. We chose that option, waited about 20 minutes for the callback, and then they had us wait on the phone yet another 10 minutes for a CSR to get on the phone. I did get 20 minutes of my life back to do what I wanted to waiting for the call, but then having to wait another ten minutes after they called me back? It doesn't completely defeat the purpose, but it does run up somewhat of a lead on the purpose.

Interesting thing about that: I have the tab open in my browser on the iPad and and wife and I switch to it each morning and play the word. I day when I opened it I noticed it was at an nytimes.com domain, and not at whatever domain it was at before, and I didn't have to change a thing. Perfect transition on their side.

Perhaps if they'd remembered that Nixon had signed the EPA bill and played kissy-face with China, they would have disregarded his picture and used a second picture of Trump instead.

That sounds good on its face, but the shift has been happening for going on a decade now, and players haven't done this yet. I think it's worth asking why, or offering up hypotheses for it. I think it's because the ball is so juiced that players won't change their pulling ways. Hitting home runs is where the money is. It's the single most highlighted play on all the recap shows during the season. And who doesn't want the money? So players are going to try to jack bombs so they can get paid. And as long as just about any major league hitter can lift a juiced ball into the outfield stands, why not keep trying? Tommy La Stella is a good example of this. He was a banjo-hitting utility man who hit ten homers in his first 828 at bats across five seasons. All of a sudden he goes to Anaheim in 2019 and cranks 16 bombs in 292 at bats before getting hurt. Then he jacks five more in 196 at bats during the COVID season. His pay went from $1,350,000 in 2019, to a pro-ration of $3,250,000 in 2020, and then to a 3 year/$18.75MM deal from the Giants for his age 32-34 seasons. No way he gets that last deal at that advanced age until he hit all those homers in Anaheim. He'd probably be slinking into Arizona or Florida with a minor-league invite going into this, his age 33 season, especially since he turned back into a La Stella last year with a .250/.308/.405 slash line and a 92 OPS+. If even banjo-hitting down-the-order Tommy La Stella can jack bombs with this baseball, and then get good and paid for doing so, then what's the incentive for him, or any other player, to spray the ball all around the field instead of trying to hit the ball over the shift and out of the park?

There's kind of a chicken-egg thing here: is the shift used because everyone is pulling for the fences so they're playing where the ball is going anyway, or is everyone pulling for the fences because hitters feel they have to in order to hit it over the shift? I think the shift started in response to the once-new pull-happy way of hitting, but I also think it has evolved to feeding off each other in that chicken-egg way.

This is where I was coming down in my post here: sure, I would like to see the players get a good deal because the money in baseball has increased dramatically and overall player comp has actually decreased, and I think that is wholly unfair to the guys who are the real reason so many of us shovel so much money into the game's pockets. But I also want to see baseball being played, and I'm not wired in to the money in any way, so really, how much does it matter in the end which side wins as long as the games get played? I would feel better about it if the players got a fair deal with the new CBA, but really, bottom line, just give me the baseball already.

and even when he is around.

George Bush Jr. up to #29 with a bullet!

My word was not "found". I thought everyone got the same word every day? Have they changed that recently?

It’s gonna be a good day today. Wordle 247 3/6 ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

There is definitely pressure on the players to simply cave. I don't think they do that, at least this week. But who knows.

Maybe they will. Scot Boras seems to be agitating for that.

Or maybe Soto and his agent want to give the Nationals the next three years to demonstrate that they are going to put a long-term winning organization together that can rival the Dodgers and the Yankees. That’s a real possibility, too. Soto is already going to make a record first-year arbitration amount whenever baseball gets back on the track. There’s no pressure to take all the money he’s ever going to make right now, or else.

Maybe Soto would rather wait to get 350 million from the Dodgers or the Yankees later than take 350 million from the Nationals now. There’s no reason to believe he won’t get at least that same amount in three years.

Right. As a kid.

What are the chances that Fox is strategically allowing these kinds of commentaries on an occasional basis as a defense in potential future court cases brought against them? You know, so they can claim fair and balance because they air both sides.

Maybe someone should check the IP address of Lyin’ Ted’s tweet.