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Greetings from beautiful Milwaukee, Wisconsin!

And he has the salary because he has a track record, and because he has a track record, he gets more chances to make good than Joe Blow on the minimum. So it’s all connected I guess.

What is the deal with Edge of Seventeen? It's gotta be only because of the guitar riff, right? Or maybe it's their mothers' favorite song?

That's what I assume as well.

I am there today, and lucky me, it’s a getaway game with a Keider Montero start! That probably means Nido at catcher, Kreidler in center, and Riley, Carpenter, and Keith sitting against the hook. Should be seeing Tork at first, though. We might have a Javy-at-short sighting, too, with Ibanez at third. With any luck, the game will be close enough to see some high-leverage pinch-hitting late.

That might have been what it was. I seem to remember a running treadmill in the show? I may be misremembering that. Something about it seemed too high concept, too “out there”, to me. If there’s another episode you can recommend that you think will hook me, I’m game. I’m hoping it’s closer in spirit to Twilight Zone than to Outer Limits.

Ah, OK, thanks. Not in my wheelhouse.

That will be the White House press release, yes.

The stupid leading the ignorant.

It will be reduced to a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue with him wearing a general’s uniform and fireworks going off in the daytime, since by that time there will be a national curfew of when the streets lights come on.

This is an anthology, right? I haven’t seen Black Mirror—i tried and crapped out on it—but I could go right to the Nick Offerman episode and not be lost because I haven’t seen prior episodes?

I’m a baaaad boy

Many of my peers and I—and those older than I—remember when some of the biggest boxing matches would air on ABC-TV in prime time, especially if Muhammad Ali was fighting and Costello was calling the action.

I’m thinking Lange will always walk batters. That’s just who he is, and he would have to become a completely different pitcher to not do that anymore. As for Foley: he’s always been a guy whose results have punched above his weight. He has trouble striking out big leaguers and his walk rate spiked last year. I’ll look forward to seeing him come back to the team at some point, although I’m doubtful whether he’s going to be the cavalry that saves our bullpen.

Do you think Harris and Ilitch would accept blown games and losses from Maeda just to save face by not eating a sunk cost?

Good question! Four of the Big Six teams are there, and top players want to play for them because winning and/or personal brands, so that might be part of it. Also, Arizona is an attractive location because so many players live there—Corbin Burnes famously just took a hometown discount to go there. San Diego, too, very sexy place for players to want to play. Phillies have been killing it the last few years, and the Braves are always a contender even despite the slow start. And Baseball finally got rid of the barrier to parity with the AL that was pitchers hitting. Probably a bit of all of that.

I saw Catch-22 the movie the other day and Martin Sheen looks like nothing more than a young Emilio in it. Charlie must take after mom.

We started feeding one feral cat on our backyard deck maybe about three years ago, then a second one showed up just a few weeks later, and it was the two of them for a while, for a couple years, actually. We would wake up in the morning, go to the back door, lift the shade, and there would be the one cat sitting, waiting, then propping itself on the ledge to peer inside while we fixed their breakfast. It was hella cute. Anyhow, probably a couple months in, they left a big rat at the bottom of the stairs leading from the deck to the rest of the backyard. Then, maybe a month or so later, another one. This time they were sitting off to the side to watch us pick up the rat and, and I guess, start eating it. I think when they saw me take the rat into the garage and emerge ten seconds later without it, they figured out we were ungrateful philistines who just don’t appreciate a good rat, and so we never got another gift again. Sadly, we found one of them dead on the property, and a few months later, the other one went away and never came back. We miss them. It was a neat little routine for a short while.

Two fun facts: Per Fangraphs, released yesterday, Tigers are #8 in their MLB Power Rankings. The Tigers are actually the top American League team ranked, as the top seven are all National League teams.

The only team we would get to taste beer when we were kids was when dad would have a Stroh’s in a bottle for dinner, and then at the end of dinner he would allow one of us sons to finish the last sip. It was warm and awful. It might have been part of a strategy of his. If it was, it didn’t work. 🍺

Probably, but in the meantime, Maeda serves a real purpose as the garbage time guy who can save the bullpen, particularly in the 5-7-run difference range late in the game when we can’t use a position player to pitch.

I’ve never rooted so hard for Harvard in my life.

It’s the control, too. It’s some of all of that.

Too bad we don’t get the shutout but this is exactly when you let Maeda stretch.

Yes, it's about starving low-cost areas of government that generate trust and knowledge fore the America people to pay for tax cuts none of us make enough income to get. But it is also about the cruelty and the revenge and the public performance of both. It's about all of it.