gehringer_2

US pro sports are set up for roughly uniform geographic distribution. You identify the centers for marketing a sport and you put a team there. That is the fundamental imperative to the way that US sports are set up that means no team will ever be 'relegated' out of the 'majors' because it immediately removes the overall sport's access to that market. Everything regarding playoffs, parity, or an any other team competitive consideration sits on an importance tier that is a full step lower.

Weekly unemployment claims refuse to go up (216K), GDP refuses to go down (Q3 revised up to +3.2%). Market sees more interest rate hikes in its future. S&P bumping against 3800.

Between the Lux tax and the fact that there is some media money in a national pot now, the bottom teams do get more support than they used to, but I'm curious if the revenue side even explains some of what we are seeing this season. Do the Mets, as the weak sister in the NYC market, or the Rangers, really generate the income to cover what they are spending? Or is it just that the general concentration of wealth trend over the last 30 yrs is making some ownerships so loaded that it doesn't bother them to subsidize their teams with non-baseball revenue? I would think the league would frown on that but books are easy to cook. Any way, don't know if that's what's happening but some of the money being thrown around makes me wonder.

I think at the core, that is why it could never be done in a US league. An owner doesn't just buy a team, he buys the membership in the league. Given the structure of us pro team ownershiop, would be an obvious tort to try to remove a team from the league the owner bought the rights to be in. Slam dunk court win. You'd have to start from scratch with a league that had a different, more limited set of ownership right plainly established. What you might be able to do in US leagues is force an owner that won't try to win to sell their team. There is precedence for MLB forcing 'bad' owners to sell, but not purely over their team's performace. And of course a sold team might be a moved team and that's a whole 'nother headache for the league. The problem there is that most teams aren't going to care that much if there is some team out there not trying very hard to win, because that just makes it easier for them!

Dodged that bullet.

we'll volunteer SB to go live in Russia for few months and see how far his freedom to screed gets him there. Here is a guy who as much as anyone here is always standing on his American refusal to duck and be quiet, telling 40 million it makes no difference to have to live every second of their lives with their heads down. SB wouldn't last 10 minutes in Moscow before someone would be coming to get him. I don't even disagree with SB when it comes to most of the recent *US* military adventures, but the Ukrainians are fighting for themselves, and that is all the difference in the world. These are not American boots trying to proxy our objectives onto anyone else.

Not completely by choice. The beatles got to where they despaired over not being able to acutally play as a live band because everyone screamed the whole time they played and the stadium shows were pretty useless for actual music anyway given the state of outdoor PA systems in the 60's.

I suppose by virtue of separation of powers, the House majority can put her on the committee without a clearance, which then sets up refusal by the Executive to tell the committee anything and off we go to the Supreme Court....

I have over 50 tax returns in my history. There isn't a thing in any of them from which I need protection from disclosure. How did my life go so wrong? The only reason I would have any concern is that the information in a tax return may be useful to people attemping cyber identity theft, not over any of the facts themselves.

He accidentally said one of those quiet parts out loud. The kids weren't supposed to be listening. "Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil."

👍 LOL - Pretty much anything he did at any time last year didn't do anything to save his job!

But that was not Avila so it doesn't bear on whether *his* impatience contributed to him being or was a reflection of him being a poor dealer.

so they gave him the 'goodbye' game. Almost seems to be some kind of Wings' tradition to give a bencher the game before they send him out.

Correct. And the history drives the point that moving fast hasn't necessarily yielded positive results.

Yup. Low class move. If the Lions weren't a classy org themselves (which they pretty much are, despite the losing and Calvin Johnson's opinion), they would get down and dirty with NE and force them into court to defend themselves against the fraud charge. But I'm sure Goodell doesn't want to see that.

there is plenty of time left to climb back into if they are going to start playing better with Elmer, Vrana and Fabbri all available. That's the tough call to guess at now though.

His attachment to a yahoo like Patricia certainly should ding his credibility with anyone who's been following the Lions and seen Patricia up close.

shopping Czarnik?

For me it doesn't have anything to do with it being the Lions. The fans may have long memories of bad experiences, the players don't. I don't care who you are in the NFL, winning 6 straight at any time isn't a cinch, less so with 2 of last 3 on the road and less than that with one in the cold in GB. Sure they may do it, but they may not. I'd put it at about 50/50 - like it would be for almost any mid-level or even upper tier NFL team asked to do the same. If they get to 9-8 and end up at home, I'll still call it great season coming after 3 wins, and be excited to see what Holmes can do with another set of picks. If they get further, I'll still be rooting.

yeah - the over exubernce is to be expected, but the over/under on the next three is probably really more like about 1.5. Still, who's complaining that the the conversation is even possible?

Was Solderbom a healthy scratch or is he not 100% again after Saturday's game?

28 1/2 min for Seider?!?!

interesting speculation, but if you beat an IF shift it's going to be worth one base. If you beat an OF shift it's probably going to be two. That is a lot more incentive and on first take I would guess would probably change batters' approach in a way the IF shift didn't.

IDK. There seems to be some opinion forming that he is already old news to a short attention span US public. But who knows?

Don't they normally negotiate a 'surrender' at the courthouse for a hearing, at which point the high profile prep posts bond and goes back home? Might be hard to get Trump to do even that though. I suppose they could conveniently not watch the FLA airports and just let him flee the country. Once under indictment I'm pretty sure he would never come back.