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I don't think we can know that he never spoke up at all, unless someone says something about it. We do know he never spoke up publicly before it got exposed. He might have spoken up internally about it and gotten ignored or shut down, but we don't know either way.

Maybe they knew upfront they would not get cooperation from Hinch, so they went directly to Beltran and the others. I doubt they would have tried that with either Leyland or Anderson. But then, the tech-oriented Astros front office would never have hired a Leyland or Anderson in the first place.

It's true, Hinch could have sacrificed his baseball career on the altar of spotless integrity and quit.

I was just responding to your point that Hinch is not a strong manager who can control front offices. I think Hinch did show some real strength by objecting the best way he could. He knew he couldn’t stop it, because the front office was undercutting his authority by working directly with the players on it, but he could and did make his displeasure with it crystal clear. I think that’s probably the most we could have expected from a guy in his unique situation.

I think you might be ascribing too much organizational power to the field manager, especially in this era of analytical front offices hiring warm-body managers for cheap who agreeably serve as a game strategy tool just so they can keep one of only 30 such jobs in the world. To your point, as the manager, it’s reasonable to expect Hinch to take responsibility for the cheating scandal, and he did, losing his job and serving a one-year suspension from baseball for it. Hinch was punished harder than any of the players who actually participated in the scheme on the field! I’m not sure what else people want.

For reasons they feel are important, the Tigers didn’t want Hinch to feel as though living he’s on the edge of a cliff. They wanted him to feel secure for the number of years they believe it will take to turn this completely around, so he will feel fully committed to its success, instead of being potentially a Rick Renteria-type doing the grunt work of managing the transition and then handing the team over to someone else perhaps more famous. And besides, if Hinch were to inexplicably fall apart in the next two years and go rouge with cheating or something and screw the whole thing up, the Tigers could simply fire him with years left on his contract, the way they did with Avila, although the chances of that happening are too small to see with the naked eye. I approve of the move.

I don’t blame Hinch for the thing in Houston, since the cheating was crooked up by his bosses in the front office who went around him to the players. What was he gonna do, call a cop? The front office wanted to win by any means possible and they weren’t going to let A.J. Hinch **** that up. That’s pretty much where the Frontline doc ended up on it and it makes sense.

If A.J. has the horses, then he should be winning the race, amirite?

Most will be happy for this. Some will not.

If that's really what Leyland said, then I gotta believe it'll be no logo.

I am not suggesting we actually do that.

We could do worse—much worse—than LeBron James.

No puppet. No puppet. You're the puppet.

I think you may have identified the crux of the biscuit regardless of side.

I didn’t know he was running for Congress?

I’d be surprised to see us moving Manning this offseason. He seems so tantalizing close to finally putting it all together. He’s only 26 coming into the season, and he has fewer than 300 innings on his arm during the past four seasons due to all his time on the shelf. Plus, the Tigers have committed a lot of resources to him over the years so I don’t think they’ll let him go for cheap. The one glaring hole in his game is the inability to miss bats. If he can plug that hole, he’ll be very good.

I think Leyland got a boost from the fame factor. Chewing out Barry Bonds was the highlight of his Oscar reel. And what other manager could look so cool smoking heaters in the dugout during games?

Bottom line, I loved how this season started in the first two episodes, and now in episode three the potential of supernatural is rearing its ugly head. I don't think they would do a callback to 1522 or whenever it was to not link to it directly in the storyline. Probably the most logical way they could extricate themselves from the idea that he is that guy would be to suggest that he is the latest descendant in a 20-ish-deep line of weirdos that emanated from the 1522 guy. And really, could the 1522 guy even get himself a wife he can propagate with? And could this guy himself a wife so he could propagate the line? Unless he is actual Satan in which case ... that would make this season just too ****ing stupid. I'm open to them making this logical somehow.

Wait a minute, though: I have not propagated my DNA, and my window s now closed. Is my life without purpose?

This raises a bunch of rhetorical questions about what's the point of a planned creation. It is accepted that God has no beginning and no end. Why did God pick a particular point in whatever the construct of time was to crate the universe? What did he did for all those eons before that? Hang around in nothingness? They also say God knows all and sees all, past, present and future. If God knows what's going to happen already, why bother with any of it? If he knows the outcome, what is free will, and not only why did he give it to us, but do we even have it? If he already knows I'm going to heaven or to hell, why am I trying to live a life that strives for heaven? Why do I think I can change my ways to steer me away from hell and into heaven? Why do I have to change anything? Why accept Jesus Christ as my PLS if he already knows where I'm ending up already? Isn't it all part of the divine plan? And if there is a divine plan, why are we bothering to pray? After all, doesn't the divine plan have everything already worked out? If the outcome is worked out already, what are we praying for? And if God will respond to our prayers and change his divine plan for us, why have a divine plan in the first place? Why allow me to pray for something and **** up that whole plan? What's the plan of a planned creation? There are bunches more rhetorical question that could be asked, these are just a few. Does religion have an answer for all this? I went to Catholic school for nine years and none of this was contemplated that i remember. But aren't these are the kinds of questions that critical thinkers need answered before they give themselves over to the idea of Christian God?

The strong implication was that Munch is that same guy, but to your point, that doesn't mean the implication is true.

Now, come on, wasn't Al the blind squirrel who found Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson?

Have you seen ep3?