oblong

Having just been to the HOF last week I can say that the "controversy" over the plaque logo is overblown. That doesn't signify "going in as...". Many of the plaques, the earlier ones, had the player looking sideways or with no logo. Not that I will be back anytime soon since it's like a 9 hour drive, but if I were to be back there in a year or so I could see myself not even going into the gallery room. There's 3 floors to the HOF. We got there at 9:15, watched a movie from 9:40 to 10, finished floors 2 and 3 in about 3 hours, and the plaque hall is on the first floor and it litereally took me about 10 minutes to see all the plaques, and that's with having to wait for people to move. I looked at every single plaque too.

It's like a pro wrestling journalist who covered it from 1960 onwards and having to deal with the attitude era in the mid 2000s.

yeah that's a good point. I view it as stories about 100 of the most prominent players, not necessarily the best. I almost didn't buy it because I figured "I am not interested in an encyclopedia version" but it's not that at all. I've always enjoyed reading him and for some reason he fell off my radar over time. His section on Schillling was very very good. Another tidbit that stood out was on Neikro. When the scout finally came to sign Phil he said something like "We'd like to sign your son for a $500 signing bonus". HIs dad says "I'm sorry sir but I'm a coal miner, we don't have that kind of money".

I'm reading Joe Posnanski's book, The Baseball 100, and it's been a lot better than I expected. Great stories about these players and most of them are ones I never heard before. He often expands beyond the subject player, for example, on Cool Papa Bell he goes into a thing on Jesse Owens and shows how it relates to Bell. Highly recomend this

that’s a damn shame.

And yet he remains in office.

Just a guess but I think of the IDGAF voters who did support Trump beause "they're all crooked" could vote for RJK Jr, if they even bother voting. But there has to be a draw to him like Trump had. The rallies, the slogans, etc. He could get a few % votes in a poll but how does that translate to people actually voting.

So what's the solution? It's sports. Lower seeded teams beat higher seeded teams all the time. It's why they play rather than just hand out post season awards. I don't see a problem here to be solved. LA got to rest their team and start their stud for game 1, just like Houston did with Verlander. Kershaw got bombed. Verlander didn't. That's how sports works. Underdogs used to be a good story. Now people are whining.

I wonder if that's how everyone felt when the Tigers were beating the Yankees in the playoffs...

The Braves take the lead so I guess the format is ok now. Baseball twitter can calm down now.

That’s it?

Every format change to the playoffs has been done to address alleged problems. Should we give higher seeds an extra runner on base like we do in extras? They are losing games to teams that are also pretty good.

I like the idea of first and second halves. Teams that are in first at the ASB get in. Details can be worked out but the overall concept would be fun

I wonder if the responsibilities are different? Maybe as the PBP guy Mario does other things like narration or PR visits or hosting events. Could even be things like reading promotions during the game. While Rod can take a breather or use the restroom Mario has to read copy. The PBP person drives the events while color guy reacts. Just spitballing.

I guess I would add that when it comes to days off and rewarding clubs for better records I will defer to the players and owners. if that's how they want it then so be it. What do I care? I shed no tears for Baltimore, I have no animosity but it's not my team and as a viewer I want enjoyable games to watch and I especially like it when there's 3-4 games a day to watch. When it's an afternoon game even better.

but on the flip side Verlander shut them down pretty good in game 1 and if he stayed in the game it could have been a shutout.

wow.

Locally for me and in Hamtramck you have large Muslim/Arab populations that formed a kinship with MAGA and the right wingers over banning books and anti gay stuff. They will learn soon how friendly they really are when it comes to Israel and middle east policies. The local commentary is very different from the national commentary.

that goes back to the AL and NL being different entities moreso than now. You had AL offices, NL offices, AL Umpires, NL umpires. The teams didn't play each other during the season. Player movement wasn't like it was today. In that sense it was unique. Now the leagues are just words rather than units with any meaning. They could be called conferences for all we care. It would be an interesting study to see how that evolved over time, at what point did they join up and what made up each connection? Could the American League add a team without the National League's approval for example? Or make their own rules? Outside of the NFL though no other league goes through this effort to reward teams for regular season sucess other than seeding. Everyone just got split up a certain way and that's how it was. The NHL did away with the Wales/Campbell conference designations. The NFL just took on the AFL and made it "American Conference" to pretend there was a difference.

How much would a guy who does just national games thorughout the year make annually? Is it worth the daily grind of doing the same work for a team? Do they make mid six figures? 10K a game? I wonder how that works.

I just dont see it as a problem that needs fixing. If we need to protect the higher seed teams then just cancel the playoffs and award championships by record, which will never happen obviously. Byes make sense in football because it's a physical game and there's also lots of studying and planning that goes on. The body can heal during that time. I guess if there is a problem to be solved it's baseball's own doing by expanding the rounds, being beholden to TV considerations, and trying to squeeze the added playoffs between a 4 week window when you have to allow for time to settle tiebreakers and days off for travel. All of that has nothing to do with the teams or the players and their abilities, it's financial. "Let's make it exciting by having sudden death" gets cancelled by "Well it's not fair to have an all or nothing game and we want to introduce another team into the playoffs anyway" "Let's give the top two division winners a bye" gets cancelled by "well they are rusty now" "Let's make every round best of 7" gets cancelled by "there's not enough time to fit it all in before Thanksgiving" "Let's give the higher seed all the home games early on" gets cancelled by "The owners wants games in the other team's ballpark"

It's baseball and is there really a difference in teams that win 90 games and those that win 99? They are all good teams and it's a cliche but anybody can beat anybody 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 5. The road teams are 9-5 this postseason.

This org wants former players involved. It’s part of the marketing strategy. They keep hoping for the next Mickey Redmond.

My son was born on November 4 in 2003 and it was 74 degrees. I also remember having his family birthday party outside in 2020 because of COVID because it was in the 70s.

how do you define success? I bet with 30 clubs there's 8 answers.