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My impression is that might be more accurate economically, but that they are closer to Mississippi or Alabama politically and socially. Actual Canadians might consider weighing in to, I would assume, tell me how wrong I am. 😅

With the dawn of mandatory ten-digit dialing, it is no longer necessary to dial a "1" before you call another area code, or your own area code for that matter. So save yourself the pain and agony of pushing eleven buttons to make a phone call and make it easy on yourself by pushing ten buttons instead.

The Mississippi of Canada

That's another way to put it!

I think the main thing to remember about 30-year-old Ibanez is that he was never intended to be a piece for the future. He is a stopgap piece for right now, and that's it, because even while an organization is rebuilding, they still have to run players out onto the field at Comerica Park in the meantime. OK, so, why don't we simply dump Ibanez and any other player the second they start struggling and just find someone to replace them? Because giving in to that urge would lead to chaos. This whole organization is lousy with has-beens and AAAA players and non-prospects, and they are almost all going to have stretches like this at some point. If we dumped players the second they started struggling and then scrambled around the market and waiver wire desperately seeking replacements, we'd be going through that process literally every week, which would make us look like an organization out of control, which would not be attractive to players who might be called upon to make the decision to play here. It's part of a long game, I think, to appear to be an organization working to fix itself and get back on its feet instead of an organization just flinging poo on the wall to find quick solutions to immediate problems every week. This probably isn't the entire reason, but I'd bet it's a pretty big reason.

TORK! is going to be this, and who knows, maybe Greene will be something close. Eventually, though, just not right now. Otherwise, need to get someone like this on the market, and it's probably going to be at least a couple of winters before the Tigers become an attractive landing spot to a slugger like that.

I see, OK. It would be nice if they would have a separate Twitter account for personal stuff, but then, why would they because people are addicted to follower counts.

Example?

If the Russian regime assassinated a US senator, they would set it up circumstantially to create enough doubt about its provenance that we could not really be sure it was actually them and not some weirdly convenient coincidence, and then we would definitely have a real decision to make.

This is the part where the 2As who claim religion pray to God to touch the hearts of men to magically become good and holy and not whip out their gats to shoot up innocents, but we all know that’s a horse**** concept that conveniently relieves 2As of responsibility for the actions and decisions they themselves make to allow freewheeling gun use. Because once we pray to God, Who is totally there and Who totally exists and can make anything He wants to happen happen, or not happen, at His sole discretion, and the slaughter of innocents happens anyway—well, now it’s God’s will, isn’t it?

One of the things I have wondered more than once about Chafin is whether he wanted to get out of Detroit because it was clear right away that the entire culture was going to get stripped down and changed. A lot of players would prefer playing in a traditional jockocratic management culture versus being in a situation that’s driven by data science and gizmos, and based on things I read from and about Chafin the past year, he strikes me as one of those guys. After all, he left the region that he was on record as really wanting to play in for the exact same terms (1/6.5) that he would have had here, and the Diamondbacks are considered to be laggards in analytics. I’m pulling this somewhat out of my ear based on my cloudy memories reading about Chafin last season.

Maybe pitchers should start taking BP to prepare.

Reading this passage from the Sporting News archives put a smile on my face. This is an interview with Bill Clarke, former big-league pitcher being asked about modern-day pitchers: "How do they call themselves pitchers?" he fumed. "They walk for four or five men in a row, pitch two or three innings, get a run behind and when a base hit is made off them, they look around for help. Pitchers in our day started and finished. I think some of them ought to be left in there when the going gets rough. It's the only way to make them get control and toughen them up." This conversation took place in the December 7, 1949 issue of the Sporting News. And if there's one thing we all know about the pitchers of 1949, they were namby-pambies who couldn't last more than three innings. 💀

It struck me yesterday that Succession became such a cultural force on its own terms, I had basically forgotten that it was promoted as a Will Ferrell/Adam McKay joint when it first came out. Those two guys were presumably the main reason to give it a try.

I can see why people wouldn't like that. I have also heard him make a call such as safe or out and then have to reverse it.

Gopher strikes Boyd again. Sigh.

First of all, Dan Dickerson continues to be arguably the best and most honest play-by-play broadcaster in baseball. On reviews, he always take a position on whether the play should be upheld or overturned, which I really appreciate, because I do, too. So many other broadcasters would look at the same play, even when it's totally obvious, and still be like, "ooooh, that's so close, can't really tell", as if they can't bring themselves to come down on the side of the play itself when it looks as though their employer might come out on the short end of the review. Secondly, Andy Dirks is becoming a favorite analyst of mine, not only because he's good at analysis and also good at talking about it, but also because he's got a terrific rapport with Dan. They just went through a comic thing where Dan said he thought Ibanez was out as the play was going on, the replay showed Dan was right, and Andy started joking how Dan is always 100% right on these, and they maybe don't even need a crew in New York to confirm the call, they should just call Dan. It doesn't read very fun when I type it out, but it sounded very fun while they doing going through it on air. I think I would be quite happy if Andy Dirks were to become the new permanent radio analyst for the Detroit Tigers.

Bases loaded no outs—too many innings of late when they do not score when they get here. Let's break that cycle here.

I can imagine a certain ex-president giddy at the prospect of more immigration from Germany and Sweden.

Wow! Not US!

Not a map, per se, but pretty cool graphic.

Pretty much what you would expect.

Fun fact: nine of the ten teams in the AL East and AL West combined are above .500—above .518, to be precise—and not one of the other six teams have records that good.

The only two candidates I can see are Rodriguez and Lorenzen, and they are both rentals with inconsistent history, so we would have to rely on Scott Harris magic to extract sustainable value in trade for either of them.

I believe Harris was never going to spend this season, and that he won't spend next season, either. The first order of business is restructuring the entire organization to build a sustainable winner. The feast-famine cycle of throw big money at free agents to win suddenly-tank for draft picks and/or cost savings appears to be over. Thankfully.