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This article is fairly instructive about the current state of the war for Russia: I find this part the most interesting, and it supports the meat grinder observation because if there’s no sharing of information or learning due to lack of trust, what other way is there for them to win besides attrition through advantage of sheer numbers? Despite the notable changes and improvements over the past year, there are still many areas in which Russia’s military continues to perform poorly or is failing altogether. The Russian armed forces still cannot horizontally integrate their command and control, nor can they communicate commanders’ decisions and share information across different units in real time. As a result, Russian units deployed in proximity cannot effectively communicate with one another if they belong to different formations. Often, they cannot support one another because they have separate chains of command. This is not a technical glitch or a bureaucratic barrier. Rather, it is a deep structural problem that is unlikely to be solved without a systemic overhaul of Russia’s military and perhaps even its political system. Military command-and-control culture boils down to trust, and the militaries of authoritarian regimes such as Russia’s frequently have rigid and fragmented command-and-control structures because the political leadership does not trust the military leadership, and the military brass does not trust the rank and file. Such systems fail to successfully share information, discourage initiative, and prevent battlefield lessons from informing strategy or being incorporated into future military doctrine. These structural deficiencies are part of the Russian military’s DNA. They help explain why some of the hardest lessons Russia learned in other conflicts—in Chechnya, for instance, about the difficulties of urban warfare, and in Syria about the benefits of flexible and responsive command and control—are being learned anew in Ukraine after staggering losses in personnel and equipment. The Russian military is learning and adapting in its own way, but it remains to be seen whether it is capable of real transformational change.

The rare Thursday night getaway game. We see that with nationally-popular teams like the Yankees and Red Sox and Blue Jays, I’m guessing to keep them available to more viewers on TV.

As long as there’s no repeat of the Dizzy Dean All-Star Game debacle, there’s reason to believe he could still come back from this. Hopefully he won’t let all this get into his head.

Speaking of Nick …

He never played so much third base as when he came to the big club. It was a need we had that we hoped he could fill. That’s tough to do at the big league level, and he got raked for it. I’d bet he’ll get some offseason work at third base for one more go at it, but I’d also bet we’ll take a long look at him for second or even short.

Hinch helped hire Harris. They are on the same side on things.

Did Chafin even want to come back? Do we know either way?

I think we’re gonna see Maton on the 26 at some point next year. He is not toast yet.

It’s gotta be Chafin.

And yet, the people of Russia overwhelmingly support the war. There has never been any meaningful anti-war movement in that country, not just because Russia outlaws it, but also because they simply have no history of nor inclination toward anything like that. What Russia does have a history of is throwing millions of men into the meat grinder in an attempt to win their wars by attrition. The Russian people expect that and accept it, and actually romanticize their history of it. It’s fundamentally different from how we Americans, with our own history of and expectation of personal freedom and liberty, view our own wars.

I passed through SWB on the way to the east coast last year and popped in for a game. Clark Schmidt tossed six perfect with 11 strikeouts. Sure, it’s AAA, but he sure didn’t look mediocre to me.

They apparently thought they were going to move him to some team who wouldn’t look so far under the hood of his topline numbers.

I'm not so sure Trout makes it intact all the way to then, but I suppose he could Miggy his way into the Hall of Fame, which he would make anyway even if he walked off the field for good today. I do think he'll perform at All-Star level when he is on the field pretty much all the way to the end. It's just staying on the field that will be the issue.

Michigan voters voted in a constitutional amendment in 1970 prohibiting public financial aid to any nonpublic school. Someone tried to sue the amendment out of existence on First Amendment freedom of religion grounds—the freedom of religion to demand taxpayer money when they don't pay into the coffers themselves, I guess —and the lawsuit was dismissed.

We don't know what Gibson or guys like him were like exactly, and granted your point on making peace. Maybe some guys didn't deal with anything quite to that level or to that degree before reaching certain teams in the majors or spring training, maybe. Who knows if we didn't live through it? Just a thought bubble anyway.

Another part of it might have been that Catholic school was relatively cheaper then than now. I remember specifically that my senior year cost $995/year in tuition, which works out to roughly $4,400/year today. That's pricey, especially when compared to public school, but my same Catholic school today charges $12,300/year.

Apropos of nothing, this makes me wonder how many players who were pretty good as baseball, enough to maybe have a halfway decent career, got basically run out of the game because of run-ins or being bullied in the clubhouse with out-of-control alpha wild men like Gibson and Rozema.

I developed this hypothesis during the last few years in which I wonder whether the reason there were so many working- and lower-middle class kids in my Catholic schools in the 1970s is because of the threat of busing back then. When I went to my 40-year high school reunion a few years ago, I was struck by how many people there graduated and never went to college and instead went directly into a blue collar work life. Even now I remember a lot of kids back then spent half the school day at SEOVEC, which was a vocational center for high school age kids. Vocational careers are super important and a vital lubricant of the industrial-, service-, and care-based economy and to society at large, and people in them are, in many cases, angels on earth for the work they do. That said, I can't imagine many parents paying five figures a year for Catholic school tuition today and being perfectly content with their kids graduating directly into blue or pink collar work.

I’m sorry—they taught you this in school? During class? By state-accredited teachers whose salaries came out of tuition paid by your parents? Yikes. I think I might have seen that in one of those Chick tracts people would leave all over Tech Plaza, and that didn’t cost taxpayers a penny.

Hey, now this is interesting: following this story down the rabbit hole a little but, turns out Michigan has been cited by the Center for Public Integrity as having the worst transparency and accountability of any state in the union: https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/state-integrity-investigation/michigan-gets-f-grade-in-2015-state-integrity-investigation/ See? So Gretchen Whitmer is an obfuscating phony baloney after all! She obviously was in cahoots with former governor Rick Snyder and the Republicans back in 2013 leading the effort to pass all those laws blocking public accountability so she can keep watchdogs at bay while she pursues her agenda of killing people in majority black cities with poisoned water. She’s such a bitch!

I’m not too familiar with the concept of supervised release, but having read what it is, I like it. Kind of like frosting on the cake.

If Mike Trout could stay on the field he might blow by it. Now I’m not sure he even gets to 400. Bryce Harper might do it. He needs 200 and is only 30, and is capable of 40+ or even 50 for a couple good years.

Hey … you … get off of my lawn …

Aka “tragic number”.