gehringer_2

So Harris and Greenberg have been busy making changes in the Tiger org of a type that Ilitch won't let Greenberg make in the Wings org? Not sure what that could be -- other than maybe firing the Wings old boy network in the FO there now. This would actually tie up a lot of questions dangling about why what's happening at LCA looks different from what's happening at the ballpark. If Ilitch is protecting the ex-wings clique, who would want the GM's job? You're setting yourself up for failure by retaining the heart of the org that failed. Well, well see how long before this take is contradicted by the next intercepted leak. Not seeing a good resolution to any of this.

T he split to two levels of play also make the total number of game a linear combination of two variables, so you have that many more options to tune the total number of games, *if* you cared to do that. People may laugh, but I tend to think it was such a big deal when Maris hit 61 in 162 games, they weren't going to go back to any fewer number of games because they wanted someone to have a chance to break that. A lot of diehards didn't like his name in the record book. 😱 And of course ironically Maris' record stood longer than Ruth's.

the companion number to put this into context is that the top 10% of income earners *control* an estimated 68% of all US wealth, so if they are paying 60% of "all" taxes, you can easily argue that is *still* less than their fair share. It's easy to get to a misleading conclusion if you aren't asking the right question. umulative from top Wealth 1989 2026 Top 0.1% 8.6% 15.0% Top 1% 22.8% 32.5% Top 10% 60.8% 68.9% Top 50% 96.5% 97.7% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States

And divisional play a few years later was the end of balanced schedules anyway.

definitely his best line ever, since it was not only amusing but dead on true.

Partly (but only one part) was for a balanced schedule. In a 10 team league 162 got them back to a balanced schedule

this thread has wandered far enough from soccer I guess I throw in a couple cents. Sure, Buddha, there is plenty of latent Anti-Semitism in Europe and other places, that is there as an undercurrent, but it IS more than that. It's guys like Netanyahu admitting in public to a genocidal national aspiration every bit as much as Hamas does. The Israeli government no longer has any vision of a just future in its handbook either. That is what has changed for the average non-anti-semetic observer. This is not Golda Meir's and Abba Eban's Israel any more. Their visions is every bit as bloodthirsty as the Arabs' is. These are horrible people running Israel. They have made it so much easier to normalize the Arab rhetoric that used to be easy to marginalize. You say the people of Palestine have to choose a different future. Well they might if an entrenched militant group like Hamas weren't busy murdering its political opponents. "Well support the IDF and you could be rid of Hamas", except that much like the US, Israel also loses interest in nation building exercises and makes cynical policy decisions to abandon allies, which is largely how Hamas got back into power in Gaza. You are still right, the Irish were inconsistent, but that inconsistency is in part a recognition that in Israel a change for the worse has taken place that didn't have to happen. It may be inconsistent but it's still human nature to be harder on those from whom you expect more.

I can't understand why there isn't a full court press on by Ilitch to get Edvinsson back here. Who are you saving the money to pay? Makes no sense. Are they hung up on some 1950's nonsense like "we can't pay Edvinsson more than Seider" ? Moronic. The PLAYERS DON'T CARE. They all want everyone to make more.

sure - maybe it's as good a reading as anything else - but I still have my doubts Chris was very involved at least until the very end with Yzerman. I listened to a lot of Yzerman's pressers, he almost never mentioned Ilitch. A little hard to believe that he could been being micro-managed and you never even got a casual reference like 'Mr Ilitch and I talked about X' or anything remotely similar through 6 yrs. But who knows?

maybe we have a frying pan -> fire situation. Yzerman was doing badly and now Ilitch is doing worse. That's probably the simplest answer. Nobody in this story is necessarily the good guy.

I think the idea (often pushed by old retired players who have largely re-invented and idealized their own histories) that there would be issues in the locker room were way over blown. Sure it happens sometimes like in Vancouver, but that was an active personality clash between players with groups taking sides in the 1st place. There has never been any hint that players in the Wings locker-room ever had any issues with Larkin. The guys in the room know better than anyone that pro sports are a business and careers are short and there aren't many of them will begrudge a guy doing what he thinks he has to do for his career. And they certainly are not likely to take management's side against one of their own brothers they're been in the trenches with if management is dumping on him. (if that even was true(?).

Box score credited him with some hits last night but in the approximately half (mostly 1st half) of the game I watched last night he was invisible to the play - and I was generally looking for him.

So if we believe this then all the reporting about Yzerman calling Larkin on the carpet was wrong? IDK, that narrative is actually more believable based on Yzerman's public stances after the collapses where he pretty much said in public what he was reported to have said to Larking with a more personal twist. So if I had to judge, I would say the narrative that there was bad blood between Larkin and Yzerman hangs together better based on the cues we can draw from Yzerman himself at the time. I also have a bit of hard time believing that Ilitch was micromanaging Yzerman. I can believe they are micro-managing Horcoff, they'd be dumb not to. Although maybe in the last year or two with the team falling short of expectation Ilitch was getting more on Yzerman's case, still doesn't seem like his long established style but it would at least make a certain amount of sense. But if so you would have thought he'd have been better prepared to act than he has been. Of course that's exactly the critique, isn't it? But any way you take it, it's all speculation based on shadows on the curtains.

and still closed it to 4-3 after trailing 4-1.

This is an interesting point. There are a few really huge raw talent outliers like Baez as a fielder, but in general, anyone good enough to have gotten to the majors has the absolute ability to do all the things he needs to do to be a star and does do them - sometimes. The real difference - esp in hitting, is the ability to do it all the time, and that is a very subtle thing to understand/master/manipulate - both for the player and anyone trying to coach him.

how is this guy not at least a benign tumor if not a latent cancer in the locker room with the way he plays? 6'5" guy plays hockey like it's tea time Canasta.

Liberte, Egalité, Fraternité!

I know it's hard to fathom, but once upon a time having class was something to aspire to.

this is all true. But to play Devil's advocate, we don't know what kind of promises the org made to Larkin to get him to sign that contract regarding their willingness and ability to bring in players and build a team. It's true, Larkin's commitment to play is in black and white, but if the org made promises it manifestly hasn't kept, there was ethical/performance obligation there too even if we don't see it writing from the outside.

probably a bad cycle to run a nepotism/legacy/inheritance type candidate. Of course even tougher when it's one who doesn't know what they are doing. 😂

Multiple things can be true. They may have staff problems and a QB who is not destined to process well enough to excel at the next level.

the thing is, it's not fair to expect every player to be some kind of Solon just because they have skill at some sport. They are just young guys trying to figure it out as they go along and they aren't always going to know exactly what they are doing. It doesn't make him some kind of bad guy because he doesn't know exactly how to negotiate trying to get himself into a better position than one he found himself in that he didn't like (and getting railed at by your GM is hardly a positive working environment) while keeping a bunch of people he is not responsible for happy all while not knowing exactly where his own franchise is going to end up. It does bother me more when the org can't create an environment good players think they have earned the right to deserve. It not just 'playing with his buddies' - it's that obviously, his buddies are telling him the place they play in is a better place to play. After all, the dynamic could be going the other way - buds of Larking could be clamoring to get the Wings, but strangely enough, we don't see that. 🙃 Well maybe depending on what you believe about the Hughes saga anyway.

it's getting harder to hold anything against Larkin as the level of management chaos comes more into focus.

Surgical techniques improve all the time. 11 yrs ago when Brandon Jennings tore his, it was just assumed to effectively be a career killer and it pretty much was. More recently guys are making more successful returns, but yeah, it's still not an injury with the best odds.

Norm is missing the point. It may be hard as a general principle to admit it, but Trump is not being inconsistent here. Trump doesn't oppose voting by mail, he opposes a voting by mail system he doesn't have any ability to control and manipulate. You can rest assured that if were to get *that* vote by mail system, he would make it a requirement that it was the only way to vote. For this round, he's lost in his bid to control the system. That doesn't mean he won't keep trying or that he doesn't want MAGA to vote any way he can get them to.