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Not for nothing, the Supreme Court is also why baseball is being overrun by gambling interests.

Because the Court’s ruling in Heller eliminated that requirement.

Far and away my favorite line from the proceedings so far.

I don't know why you keep pretending I am taking Lynn Henning's word over yours, but you should realize that everyone here can see I am clearly not.

Good call. The sniffly tearing-up while he was reading his statement about his solemn and unshakeable oath based on the tenet of his faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired, of his most basic foundational beliefs. And so, for him to do that, to undermine the election just because somebody associated with Trump just asked him to, is foreign to his very being ... And then we learn he's just going to turn around and vote for the very guy who pressured him to do all this, all over again in 2024.

Am I supposed to take this at face value or something?

Oh, it means something. It most definitely means something.

Just because Lynn Henning is full of shit doesn't mean Al Avila is a gold standard-bearer of the truth. Talk about a false dichotomy ... 😅 Keep yourself open to the idea that they could be both full of shit. That, and not that I must choose between one or the other, is why I don't know what to believe.

Disagree that Avila is out of that loop, but OK.

This suggests that Al Avila's publicly-stated interests are separate and distinct from the interests of the Detroit Tigers. I believe whatever interests Al Avila has that are separate from those the Tigers will remain internal and not be publicly aired in articles such as this. I doubt that Al Avila spoke to the Athletic without clearing it with, or at least informing, the higher-ups in S&E. I don't think he has complete carte blanche in representing the interests of the Detroit Tigers in public. If he does, or if it's never been contemplated, than LCE does not have their shit together as much as their successes would indicate—which I grant is a possibility.

It's not a matter of believing Rosenthal as much as a matter of believing the Avila he quoted, who is an interested party in the story. I am not saying I'm certain Avila is lying! I'm saying in so many words that I don't know what to believe when this organization talks. The only thing I am certain of is that Avila is tailoring his answers to protect the interests of the Detroit Tigers organization, and it is in the interest of the organization to portray themselves as having a clear plan and that they are sticking to it. That's all I'm really certain of.

I can't remember where I got this, but within the past week I saw or heard some opinion that Adam Schiff should not be involved in the Jan 6 hearings because he would be polarizing, or something along those lines. Maybe it was someone saying they thought Schiff would not participate for that reason. I can't remember which. Of course, the only people polarizing Schiff are the right wingers who are trying to marginalize him to shut him down. Right wingers are afraid of Adam Schiff because he is a sober, serious person who knows what he is actually doing, and not a partisan clown. I don't know anyone outside of MAGAland who clutches their pearls over the prospect of Adam Schiff representing the Democrats. I hope Adam Schiff becomes the congressional party leader when Nancy leaves. I could even support the guy for president.

I didn't get any of that from watching Schiff. I thought he managed the questioning rigorously, thoughtfully, and with the proper degree of decorum. If you're going to insist he went off on a five-minute grandstanding rant, I'm going to ask you to produce a clip of it, because I don't remember anything like that.

I don't think it's either media bias or meltdown to write a story about a woman who is emblematic of millions of Americans and to delve into the underlying issues that led her to believe what she does. That's one of the things I like about the Atlantic, especially.

The Athletic is not walled off from all other media. They are part of an environment in which media vehicles feed on each other. It’s not as though only people who subscribe to The Athletic are the only people who will hear about the story. To the degree that the story is available to be referred to and quoted in other media, its reach and impact will move beyond the Athletic, and could spur questions and follow-up stories in other media vehicles. The question now is whether this will get any legs in any other media. Not MLB or beat media, of course. But there is no hard silo preventing other vehicles from picking up on the ideas in the story and following up on it.

I don’t understand what the problem is with this story?

They thought they could starve it of oxygen and it would die in the crib since MAGAnation would never hear about it, except as some kangaroo court like the impeachment trials were. But, also, since January 6 was merely a bunch of tourists, participating in any commission designed to make it look like more than it was would make it look like Republicans were admitting it actually was more than it was. Seriously, they were check-mated on this.

OK, I’ll bite: how did Schiff do some grandstanding the other day?

lol states’ rights Loc up, mf’ers, shit’s about to get real out there.

It’s true that the article will mean nothing to the organization if Ken Rosenthal and the Athletic are an isolated silo in the media world and don’t affect anything around them.

“I like James McCann. He’s a good-looking player who’s got grit. There’s a guy down the street from me named McCann. Good guy.”

It was calculated that it would look worse for the organization for Al to avoid going on record to defend the Tigers as best as he could manage.

Rosenthal may have been protecting Cody Stavenhagen, as someone else here keenly observed, but Rosenthal himself needs to maintain access, too.

Honestly, this organization is so tight-lipped and obfuscatory about everything, I don’t know what to believe when they say stuff.

tl;dr: As long as Al Avila delivers on the business goals set forth for him, Chris Ilitch has no reason to either fire him or kick him upstairs. The problem I have with Baby Doc, based on the aggregate of my observations and readings, is that he has appears to me to have no real interest in the game of baseball. Nothing I have seen of interviews of him, articles about him, or even statements from him, show me any real burning desire to put a consistent winner on the field. If sports are important to him at all, I view him as much more of a hockey guy than anything else. Yes, he threw money around this winter, as businessmen seeking a return on investment occasionally do. But just as he almost certainly wouldn’t get involved in franchisee relations or ingredient procurement or lease negotiations, he almost certainly won’t get involved in the baseball operations of the front office, and definitely not in the decisions regarding the field itself. I believe his interest more or less stops at the bottom line for the business unit, and as long as that line shows sufficient year-over-year growth versus goals, I would guess he’s satisfied. And given how exquisitely Baseball has developed and optimized revenue streams from so many varied sources, sufficient year-over-year growth is relatively easy to achieve. I assume Baby Doc recognizes a constituent-facing role for himself on occasion, which requires him to go through the agony of in-booth interviews one game a year and travel to owner’s meetings, but make no mistake, this guy is not now and never will be Steve Cohen. He will never learn the inner workings of this particular business unit enough to make tactical or even strategic decisions at the operations level. That’s why he has Al Avila, after all. Al has executive responsibility to make sure that baseball operations are helping the Sports & Entertainment business unit deliver on the goals set forth for them at the beginning of the year. And to all appearances that is happening, since Al is still in charge of Baseball Operations, despite the ongoing and highly-visible baseball incompetence that has plagued this unit in full view of all of us for years. I will say that the Rosenthal article might fairly be viewed as a shot across the bough. Tycoons love fat bottom lines, but many of them also appreciate how bad PR can threaten those bottom lines, and the article definitely makes the baseball operations unit and its leader look bad. That can represent a threat to future revenue growth for the unit. But given all the different non-game revenue streams feeding baseball these days, it’s hard to imagine them getting into a situation where they lose real, actual money. The bigger threat is leaving money on the table by not delivering on growth goals, which to a tycoon is the same as a losing money. It’s going to be up to Avila and his front office team to manage the media fallout so that this article doesn’t turn into many articles, which could damage public perception that the Detroit Tigers are single-mindedly focused on putting a winner on the field. As long as they can keep the backlash confined to this single article for a while, the baseball operations unit can continue to focus on its own business without interference from above and fear of media mutiny from below. And as long as the bottom line remains fat, everything will be just fine.