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A little something I'm working on... I'm calling it PAWS, not sure what P stands for, but it is a Tigers-specific version of JAWS. I'm hoping to have a live tracker ready for opening day, but as a teaser, the top 10 (and ties) catchers* in Tigers history. Catcher First Year Last Year PAWS Bill Freehan 1961 1976 67.5 Lance Parrish 1977 1986 49.4 Mickey Tettleton 1991 1994 29.3 Johnny Bassler 1921 1927 27.9 Ivan Rodriguez 2004 2008 26.4 Alex Avila 2009 2017 24.2 Mickey Cochrane 1934 1937 22.9 Brad Ausmus 1996 2000 15.4 Matt Nokes 1986 1990 13.3 Red Wilson 1954 1960 12.2 John Wockenfuss 1974 1983 12.2 *Position defined by plurality of games played as a Tiger. Jake Rogers is at 8.6, Dillon Dingler at 7.1.

I communicated with him twice. Once e about his fence depth crusade. I disagreed with him and gave him my reasoning. He responded in kind, point by point. He kind of agreed with what I had said, or maybe he simply understood my perspective, I cannot recall which. But he simply agreed to disagree in conclusion. The other time was after Brian Bluhm’s death. He had mentioned estrepe and his connection with the Tigers via MTS. I sent him a thank you and replied his full regrets and felt he just wanted to pay some sort of respect to Brian.

67.5 watts per channel, baby cakes.

This is incredible. 3 or 4 years ago I had totally given up that this team would ever be able to do anything and I really didn't care if they moved to Cincinnati, Virginia Beach or Seattle or wherever. And this has been done without acquiring a superstar outside of Cade in the draft (and drafts are crapshoots). Just a bunch of perfect small moves with a coach that knows how to cook with the ingredients he's given. This is fun again After a decade of Sports Suckitude that may have even outdone the 70s, All four of our teams are legit title contenders right now. They've gotten through one of Duren's suspended games unscathed (Paul Reed, how are ya), If they can manage to go 5-2 or 6-1 without Beef Stew, wow, that's saying something. Langdon for Exec of The Year. JB for Coach Of The Year.

Wasn't sure where else to put this, I think our hockey fan friends would enjoy this heated exchange (hopefully it doesn't get copyright struck)

IE%. Cmon man.

Update. Game is in extra innings, 3-3. No runner at 2nd to start the extras, at least the 10th. The game was moved up a few hours due to weather concerns, so of course, extra innings. The aluminum bat “PING!” isn’t too annoying today. I guess I’m just glad to see any kind of baseball.

My very [political thing] brother once was a big Star Trek fan and had a flag of the Federation which is basically the same UN blue flag. He sported this in his front window in Taylor. Well, the Taylor locals saw this as an affront to [political thing] and shot his window out. OH wait this is the political forum. He's a MAGA now so its ironic that the locals saw it as an affront to 'merica. Guess he learned his lesson or something.

Mama mia, that's a cutti petutti!

I think this group plays even more against the grain than that one. Ben was really the only outlier on that team. Other than giving up O for D to the extreme at center (and you did have Okur/Rasheed as PF/C) I thought that group played a pretty conventional game. The book says this team is way too offensively challenged, doesn't have the height to protect the rim, and doesn't even have that many good on-ball defenders to be a great defensive team. But they do it anyway. IIRC, years ago Denver ( I think it was Denver anyway) thought they could change the game by running their opposition off the floor, but the league ended up going in the opposite direction. I feel this Piston team is more in that position, but with a better chance of making it work because they run and defend, Denver just ran.

Citizen’s United is a huge problem.

Back in the day (late 90s) I knew of a couple that bought somewhere near Lake Forest. The apartments/condos at State and Superior seemed like a popular first temporary spot for recently traded players or guys brought up from the minors. We lived there a couple of years when we were transitioning out of the suburbs. Just happened by the mail room one day and saw an envelope from the Players Association addressed to Paul Konerko. Chatting with the concierge he said a few Cubs and Sox players stayed there until they found something. The guy was excited because Michael Jordon had just left after visiting someone.

I hate lotteries so much that: 1) I either want to kill the lottery altogether. I hate them so much (wait, did I already mention that?) OR: 2) Do the tournament. I find that an interesting/ compelling idea... OR: 3) Wow, especially based on what Betrayer posted here: Why not seed the top-6 straight up based on record, and the remaining 8 teams do a seeding tournament? I think that kills two problem-birds with one stone. Fixes the "just miss" tankers from doing stupid tank things, and puts the worst 6 teams back on a "your record says what you are" basis that does NOT penalize a team for being truly ****ty and needing a non-bastardized (read: lottery) draft pick that reflects their record. Just my 2 cents, but I think that's the optimum outcome.

I think like most writers he gets satisfaction knowing people are reading and enjoying what he's written.

Eighty-five percent of the time is almost exactly six days out of seven. That means you get one cheat day a week. Works for me. 👍🏼

I think you just described the Going to Work Pistons.

It’s funny whenever you hear that someone everybody dislikes or disdains or whatever turns out to be the nicest guy. I interviewed John Sterling, erstwhile radio PxP for the Yankees, for a blog once and even though people would say how they despised him and the way he said “thuhhhh … Yankeeeeeeees … win!”, he could not have been a nicer fella to me during the interview. Very engaged in the whole thing, even though it was a crap blog. I was very impressed by what a mensch he was with me.

Lucas Raymond with an Olympic goal. 5-3 Sweden with 39 seconds. A last minute goal by Slovakia looks to be huge due to goal differential.

sam presti should win executive of the year every year. the only alternative is to give it to the guy who helped build the spurs but i'm sure adam silver would be too embarassed to accept.

There are a few equal weight S&P 500 funds if that is more your style.

This has been the Dems biggest problem IMO, as the middle class was becoming more an d more stressed, instead of going for the opening and moving into new economic thinking, they if anything hewed even closer to GOP trickle down, don't rock the boat, keep the corps happy, economic conservatism, and that included Obama. Biden was the first Dem to finally start taking on middle class economic issues but his efforts in that direction were lost in a lot of other noise. Part of this is the structure of campaign finance under Citizen's United - neither party is willing to risk alienating their corporate funders, but a big piece of this is just loss of intellectual creativity. They haven't had any new ideas/approaches to offer that they could make resonate as campaign assets. The only dems out there there that are willing to at least try to move the debate on structural economics (as opposed to just talking about more entitlements-though they do talk about that a lot too!) are the young progressives like AOC who are basically self-funding themselves through the internet. And of course Elizabeth Warren, because MA politics has always been a little different.

Winning parties and significant third party vote are the two significant portions of your question which makes me feel the answer is close to no or no itself. Winning parties don't change until they start losing. In 2012 and every year before since I had turned 18 I voted republican because on a large majority of issues the country faced, I felt their policies were better. In 2016, I refused to vote for the GOP candidate. But I still agreed with him on the majority of the issues, so I didn't vote Dem either. IMO Johnson was the best option for the country and I took it. My vote, my choice. Fast forward to 2024 and I was severely underwhelmed that Harris was the best candidate. If you look at the last published party policies for both, I probably am still a republican as I would agree mostly with them most in regards to party platform. But I feel I can make an argument that Trump doesn't follow many of those policies, but even more importantly to me, I don't think he follows our laws. Which party (in terms of POTUS) is losing right now? Which party all of a sudden likes a lot of Libertarian policies which promote individual freedoms? If you answered Dems to both, you'd be correct. And because of that they currently have my vote because my freedoms "Trump" any other issue our nation is facing today, in my opinion. All that said, those are my own priorities and they affect my vote. Who says my priorities are better than yours? Or who you are to say your priorities are better than mine? In short, the 2 party system has plenty of issues, but 1 thing its really good at, is when the country sees solutions or other good ideas that can help our country but aren't being addressed, the losers have time to understand those issues and communicate them out. And good ideas tend to win elections. Even if you agree with me, I guess the next question is does this still ring true today or has society outpassed those norms.

It's such a good number the even the Federal Reserve doesn't use it. I think in general BLS is probably as good or better than the stat group anywhere in the world. I think the bigger problem is that we are willfully ignorant about paying attention to what the numbers do and don't mean. No greater example than the near total uncoupling of GDP and the economic health of an average American family. As long as we keep believing in the myths about certain numbers instead of paying attention better numbers that actually tell you something useful, we'll keep getting bad results for ordinary people. The old saw is that you get what you measure. We measure GDP so we keep getting GDP, even as the real socio-ecomomic health of the country goes down the tubes. The numbers may not be corrupt, but how we use them is getting to be.

You might get a kick out of this, or maybe not. I always loved your handle and wanted to burn one with you. 'ear.

I communicated by email with Lynn several times and he was a great guy to talk to.

And that probably doesn't count BINGO.

Socialism bails you out yet again.

I'm eating a Frosty right now. Sorry. Haven't had one in a long time. Poor planning. I almost ALWAYS bring my lunch to work and it's usually some sort of salad, but today I only left with a yogurt and a granola. I had no plan for lunch. I got fast food. I do this maybe once every six weeks. Just ate it at 3:20 (Fridays are insanely busy). By 4:00 I am going to feel like crap But the Frosty tastes good. I'll do better tomorrow. It'll be back to oranges, grapes and strawberries.

Playoff berth? Like the 2-time recent ALDS participants?

And let's not forget the lottery. Example. I live in a small town. We have a Moose, Eagles, VFW, American Legion, Amvets, Elks, and probably another I can't remember. In 2019 alone, and I know this because I saw the numbers; around 600 members between the men and women and they spent $493,000 on the lottery alone in one single club. That's a drop in the bucket to the state operated gambling machines and ez-pull tickets they call them. Huge money.

18-1 as a reliever in 1959. Relief pitcher w/l record is one the most meaningless stats, but I still get a big kick out of that.

I've always looked older than I was but on the whole I'm told I'm healthier than most women in their late 50s. I would say the key thing is keep moving. That's easy for me since I have an active job and live in a place where I can walk everywhere-and since I don't own a car, that's how I mostly get around. It also doesn't hurt that I love vegetables and can no longer tolerate most sweet things. I've also done weight training since I was in my teens. Things I would tell my younger self: don't overdo it with the heavy lifting, don't starve yourself to lose weight, and for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster don't stress yourself by trying to please people that you don't like anyway.

So you’ve got nothing and pride is preventing you from admitting that you stated a falsehood as truth. The person asserting that something was said has the onus to prove their assertion and saying “go back and read” is lazy. If you are really correct, you’ll show your proof.

"This week, there was yet another warning that many homeowners might be headed for trouble. The mortgage delinquency rates for lower-income households are surging, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data, which recently released its Household Debt and Credit report for the fourth quarter of 2025. According to New York Fed data, the 90-plus-day mortgage delinquency rate for families in the lowest-income bracket jumped from 0.5 percent in 2021 to nearly 3 percent by the end of 2025. Meanwhile, folks in the highest-income areas are doing just fine, maintaining “historically lower delinquency rates.” It’s another reminder that the U.S. economy is largely benefiting people with means, while financial storm clouds are gathering over those who can least afford a rainy day. As the New York Fed points out, “financial distress appears to be deepening for households in lower-income areas.” When the Fed examined what might account for the disparities in mortgage performance, it concluded the job market could be a major contributor. Although the latest jobs report from the Labor Department shows some gains in January, the rebound was limited to just a few sectors, such as health care. Nationwide, unemployment is relatively low, but “worsening” regional labor markets are making it hard for people to keep up with their mortgage payments. “Two-thirds of counties have seen their local unemployment rates rise, and 5 percent of the population lives in counties where unemployment rates have risen by more than 1.6 percentage points,” according to the New York Fed." this is from WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/02/14/mortgage-problems-delinquencies/

Jason Mackey @JMackeyPG · 1h Some sad Pirates news to report: ElRoy Face passed away. He was 97. RIP Baron of the Bullpen.