mtutiger

Agreed completely. There's a view of the college experience that is advanced or pushed in media more generally that tends to overrate the Ivies or even the higher prestige private or state schools (ie. UMich, Cal, Northwestern, etc.) that is not emblematic of the median college student. At even at *those* institutions, 95%+ percent of students are not out on lawns protesting right now. I'm pretty sure the two institutions that I have attended (Michigan Tech and UT-Arlington) have not had protests, and I suspect both of these institutions are closer to the median in terms of the average college in America than the Ivies are. As far as the politicians stunting off of these, it's a really huge pet peeve considering many of these politicians (ie. Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, among others) hold degrees from these same institutions and undoubtedly will be tripping all over themselves to send their kids to their alma mater over sending them to a simple state school.

Five years on, it looks like Labour is rebuilding the Red Wall

This is what makes it hard... you try to take nuanced views on this conflict and even just the underlying passion that exists among the protestors; whether I agree with them or not, or think they are naive, I understand that some (or maybe even most) of these protestors are coming from a good place. But then you read stuff like this and it becomes clear that protests are aimless, pointless and are being undermined by people that are not even students at these institutions. And it becomes clear that they are doing more damage than they are doing any actual good. Not just in contemporary politics, but to the cause that they are ultimately trying to advance in a pluralistic society.

This shouldn't go unnoticed... that's ridiculous. Like, people are presented with all sorts of hardships while in school that do not allow professors to give this level of deference on exams. How on earth is this defensible?

To quote Slim Pickens in Blazing Saddles... "What in the wide wide world of sports is 'a goin' on here???"

Even going beyond that issue, he's also shown himself to be pretty right wing on I/P and some other issues as well.... My guess is that Bannon thought he'd be a pretty good avatar for discontent, especially with the last name, but even that assumption is flawed (especially when you consider the demographic changes of the GOP/Dem parties over time, the fact that JFK Jr. is a holy figure in Q, etc.)

Right, in terms of public opinion, things change when there is a direct connection between Americans and the issue. Something that, for better or worse, largely doesn't exist here; any number of issues, including the economy, immigration, abortion rights, etc., impact the average person far more acutely than this issue does. I don't think that it's all about Trump, at least for the vast majority of these protestors, but I do think in the macro it's a primal scream for attention from a public that doesn't care as much about this cause as much as they do. But the rub is that by doing things like blocking interstates and vandalizing university buildings, while they may raise the salience somewhat, they are also likely to generate negative feelings toward the cause. It's just incredibly counterproductive.... not just with these protests but with previous less, publicized ones, I don't know that these folks know or care how negative the perceptions are.

I also think that journalists are likely overstating how much this stuff is ultimately going to break through to the GP. The obvious comparison point is the BLM stuff in 2020 and other activist moments that happened during that year, but that was also during a worldwide pandemic that saw, among other things, entire sports leagues shuttered and a population stuck at home far more often than normal. Not saying that people aren't noticing this stuff, but it's a lot more in the background than it was four years ago for those reasons. Even the stuff happening locally, at least where I live, isn't getting a ton of news coverage relative to other events going on in the area. Having said all of that, I do think the protests are counterproductive and do more harm than good... but I think the perspective of the professor is well taken.

I've been hesitant to weigh in on this topic just because of how heated it's has been / has gotten, but really this is correct. Whether it's these latest campus protests or whether it's protesters blocking Interstate 190 going into O'Hare of the Golden Gate Bridge or whatever, ultimately if the goal is to change hearts and minds on this issue, are these actions effective in doing so? And what, exactly, is the goal? Setting aside my personal beliefs about the cause, I don't see any actual goal. Most Americans are likely not seeing any actual goal. All they are seeing is chaos and disorder. If the goal is to generate sympathy for the cause, I couldn't think of worse imagery than what is being produced by taking over college buildings.

His anti-vaxx stance was always the biggest red-flag.... there was a poll result (I'd have to find it) that found that once once voters who were unaware of his anti-vax views were made aware of them, Republican support increased and Dem support decreased. It's one of the defining things about his political persona, and will only be further fleshed out as this campaign goes on.

I wish every ex-Tiger the best. But I mostly don't care about their outcomes.... and would expect that people paid to cover the Detroit Tigers spend their time covering the actual Detroit Tigers.

The two biggest offenders link up here lol

Or even results.... like, I don't think it's an accident that when he actually swung at a first pitch fastball against Mikolas in yesterday's game, he ended up getting a sharp single out of it. It's easy for me to say as an observer of this, and obviously it's situation dependent, but if you identify a pitch as hittable, you should swing at it more often than not. Whether it's Pitch #1 or Pitch #6 of the AB.

DD also mentioned AJ discussing the need for Tork to (paraphrasing) "sell out for the approach on any given day" during that conversation yesterday. I take that as a sign that the Tigers are fully aware and are probably working on it with him. Although it remains to be seen if it goes anywhere.

Possible it's been mentioned already in the thread, but Dirks made the point that players can go an entire game without seeing a good pitch to hit... and while organizational strategy may be playing a factor (the Tigers are swinging at far fewer first pitches than in years past in 2024), with Torkelson, he absolutely needs to swing at a few of them, if for nothing else, to keep pitchers honest. Or else he may not get much of anything worth hitting It's a big reason he ends up down in counts so often.... pitchers don't have any fear and just know he'll take the "get me over" fastball early in the count. And by the time he shows interest in taking the bat off of his shoulders, he's at a point where he's unlikely to get much to hit. That's at least my amateur observation.... I still think he's a talented hitter, hitting 30 homers last year established that in my mind. But something needs to change with approach if he wants to stay there for sure.

I did the Ohio Turnpike for the first time in years back in January.... most of it is as boring as I remember, but while I struggle to compliment anything in Ohio *too* much, the trip through the Cuyahoga valley is actually fairly pretty, better than I remember it being.

Really, any of us would have been happy with a DH split and that's what happened. The lackluster offense in Game 1 cost them though.... we can split hairs about how AJ used Miller and Foley all we want, but you cannot stake your pitching staff to 1-0 leads and expect them to win all the time.

And you cannot ignore the context that the Tigers have turned into a really good organization at developing pitching.... even if Soto were performing better than his numbers show this year, the overall results of the pen this year have been stellar. There's not a single person, Joey Wentz included, that would be easy to switch out for Soto at this point. Vierling is a really useful player who has a lot of potential, particularly when you look at Statcast metrics.... he may or may not put it all together or be an everyday player material, but he adds a lot of value to this roster with his versatility and his speed. And his ability to make hard contact at the plate. Overall, the trade tends to get put down upon because people overvalued Gregory Soto IMO....

They are 5-0 when he starts! Consistently gives the team the chance to win. You'd like to see a little more in the K department (along with swing and miss), but on balance he's pitched well. And yeah, he deserves better than the kind of defense he got while he was in the game. Just not acceptable, and AJ said as much in his press conference tonight.

Vierling gets a lot of flack (particularly from certain podcast hosts), but even with Maton and Sands out of the organization, I'd rather have Vierling than Gregory Soto. And it's not even close

4 errors...

That Vierling homer was wild... such a low launch angle!

Wow

Agreed... almost the polar opposite of their pitching group, everything they touch turns to ****