Screwball

Maybe he could do another Operation Warp Speed? Ironic, that was launched on May 15, 2020. Ain't that wild?

The way this season is going, we might need Ty Cobb. Did he pitch?

This wouldn't be complete without the following. Remember this well. Live about 2 hours away. Knew people on both sides. Sad day for America. **** war!

Spirit Airlines reminds me of my stock market mentor I met back around the dot-com bubble. Canadian who graduated from Queen's U, came to the states with a wife, two kids, a car, and 400 bucks. He got a great job for Pfizer (PFE ticker) in their minerals division. Traveled all over the world. Ended up a multi-millionaire. Job, stocks, real estate, you name it. He was also the biggest cheap ass on planet earth. He had a home in NW Ohio, and one in Key Largo FL. He had a deal with Spirit. Went back and forth all the time. Tickets would be less than a 100 bucks. Him and his girlfriend would load up with the little ounce bottles of liquor and hide them on their body and pour them in their drinks so they didn't have pay on the plane. This was of course, quite a few years ago. We took a trip to the Amish country in Ohio and lunch was the samples at the cheese factory. While driving his motor home. Cost money to eat at a restaurant. Too funny.

If you are old enough to remember nights like this when it's cold, and using a wooden bat, you almost don't want to hit a ball. If you get it on the screws, you are fine, but if you don't your hands get punished. It really hurts. I said almost. 🙂

I read last week somewhere that for next year if you wanted to watch ALL of the NFL games you would need 10 streaming services to do so. That's nuts. That's the NFL, not MLB, I understand. I gave up a long time ago and spent 25 bucks on a Firestick and hacked it. I don't get them all, but most of them. Not without issues, but I'm not paying squat. Screw them all.

Gas prices were this high in 2022 due to the Russia/Ukraine conflict (the chart porn proves it) and the BlueMAGA cult members just put Ukrainian flags in their yard and cheered. How's that for politics? The country is a ****ing mess, has been a ****ing mess, and will continue to be a ****ing mess, and well over half the population has their heads stuffed up their ass and think electing ANY of these worthless pukes will fix the ****ing mess. How's that for politics since we have to go there?

Somebody's delusional, or reading too much green BS.

Yea, that was impressive. Wonder if that guy was trying to bust him a bit - he answered.

Or maybe they quit taking it.

Maybe. I had good enough seats at Comerica to sit with the guys who had radar guns. They know who's throwing what and how good all the time. Matchups. Who knows better than the guys on the field at that time. Some is pretty simple though. If I'm a left handed batter and Skub is pitching I'm telling Skip I'll guard the bat rack that day.

Do the stat guys have a position on how lineups should be constructed? I know us old school guys like Jimmy did. I would love to play for that guy. If I remember right, the Tigers got beat and were out of the playoffs that year so I was really bummed out. The next day Jimmy retired. That was even worse. Spit, and double spit.

News at 11.

I think Lee said above putting the third hitter as the best batter is a fishermans tale, or something like that. I would guess, honest question, according to the stats, the best should be first?

It was originally reported by a guy named Larry Johnson. Ex-CIA. Nobody believes CIA people.

Quoted a bunch here. I get a kick out of this stuff. I know Lee and Chuck are the leading stat guys here, many others are all over it too. It seems to be used much more today. That's good. I love stats, numbers, and get a kick out of this. I'm also old school. Jimmy Leyland is my hero. I don't have a problem with a speedy centerfielder with a bunch of stolen bases. 🙂 And you don't need the second batter to be a good bunter - they should all be able to bunt. No money in bunting. Giggle. So different today.

Agree. We don't have enough kids playing ball anymore IMO. Shallow pond.

And they know this, and have since Moby **** was a minnow. I guess you can't find them, don't know how to find them, or develop them. I always thought Roger Craig was a good teacher. YMMV.

You can never have too much pitching. <ducks>

Yes. It's about pitching to the batters weakness, and how well you execute that. It also helps when you had the kind of stuff Koufax offered up there. 🙂 They know what guys can hit and can't hit. When they put it in the right location, they don't get enough of the ball to bang down the walls. Weak grounders and easy pop-ups is the best they can do. Or you can just make them look silly like he could. Besides, good hitters fail 7 of 10 times. Sometimes it's all about how ugly it was the last time you got out. 🙂 We have one of those here. Mr. Skubal. This guy is a treat to watch and has some fantastic stuff. Some guys are just that dominate. He is one of them.

I don't remember, but I'm guessing the little stamping is cheaper than chrome plating. Whatever is cheaper is always the answer.

Yea, that would be on the engineering drawing with a bunch of what they call GD&T (geometric dimensioning and tolerancing) to spec that part. They are all suppose to match withing a particular tolerance. These things are a bad design to start. You will never crimp a pretty looking thin gauge chromed part (which is why they do this - pretty - marketing) around a lugnut. The thin metal can't go smaller because of the size of the nut, but will eventuality try to revert to the mean, and expand. But we must satisfy marketing; chrome wheels, chrome nuts, look pretty, sell cars. Their entire function is to keep the wheels from falling off the car.

This is really nothing new as far as problems with the designs, but the one lugnut theory is probably sound. Another way to rip you off, especially those who don't know what the car parts do. Sounds scary - I have bad wheel nuts - fix them. Not really, just how they look. Not as pretty, but they do what they are suppose to do - keep the wheels on. Kind of important. $322 dollars later... That's just nuts. The dealer (maybe a local decision) is just ripping this guy off.

Wall Street banks start trading derivatives to bet on pain in private credit - FT What could possibly go wrong?

This fits here. A buddy of mine told me today he took his car to the dealer for routine maintenance. Oil change, tire rotation, inspection, the normal X you pay for the checkup. They couldn't get his tires off without ruining the lugnuts so they had to replace them. $322 for those fine little puppies - all 20 of them I think - if it has 5 nuts per wheel. That's a quick $16 buck a nut. That's ****ing NUTS! Pun intended. 🙂 An automotive lugnut is made by cold forming a round piece of steel by force and spit them out by the hundreds or thousands per hour. Probably cost the car companies pennies each. They ship in bins by truck from satellite suppliers to the automakers. And sometimes they do a secondary operation. What is happening here; marketing decided they need really nice chrome lugnuts to look pretty, so they stamped a chrome plated cover over the cold formed nut since it's grey and ugly. Over time, the cover expands, and the guy in the dealership can't get a socket and air wrench on the lugnuts to get them off. Really dumb idea, but they did it anyway. Another case where marketing overruled sound design and engineering and the customer eats the cost of their greed, stupidity, or both.