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This is, in part, what made Mariano Riviera, and really any other modern closer who could throw one devastating pitch even for a little while, so effective. Riviera was famous for throwing one and only pitch, basically, but no one could hit it because no one could ever dig in and get comfortable against it. No one ever faced Riviera more than six times in a single season, not even David Ortiz, and never twice in the same game. No wonder no one could hit him. Contrast that to Joe DiMaggio, who faced Bob Feller as many as 34 times in a single season, sometimes four or more times in a single game, and you can understand how he could figure out how to slash .342/.415/.643 against even Rapid Robert.

Well, I did say “let’s pretend”! 😝

I'm sympathetic to the potential problem of dramatically reducing offense if they deaden the ball. I do think it would have that immediate effect as long as players do not going to change their approach in response to the ball right away afterwards, which they wouldn't. That's basically 2014. If Baseball were going to seriously undertake deadening the ball to reduce homers/strikeouts and get more batted balls into the field of play—I don't think they would ever, but let's pretend—I was wondering about the idea of announcing a year in advance that this was going to happen. For example, announce on Opening Day 2023 that the new ball is going into effect for 2024. Give players an entire season to talk about it and get used to the idea. Then, after the season, send batches of the new ball to every player on every team's 40-man roster and encourage them to work with it during the winter. (Maybe even pay them a stipend for doing work in the offseason.) A lot of these guys have hitting and pitching cages in their neighborhoods or even at their McMansions. They can work with the new ball there. Then, during Spring Training, everyone would have six weeks of working and playing with the new ball exclusively, working out approaches to succeed with the it such as pitching to contact more, hitters spraying the ball more around the field, etc., so that by the time Opening Day comes around, they will be far more comfortable working with the new ball than if it were just sprung on them unannounced, as Baseball typically has done with changes to the ball. They could also put the ball in play in the minors immediately (and adjust the MLEs for analysis), so all the rookies coming in would have experience with it. Not everyone would come through such a change OK. Some players would lose their careers over it. But, then they would be replaced by players who do work well with the ball, some of whom would never make the majors under today's conditions. IOW, the game would adjust. It always does. I don't think there's any way to introduce a deadened ball without creating any friction at all, but this might be a way to do so with as little friction as possible.

Personally, I wouldn't enforce it at all. The shift was an organic solution to a particular opportunity, so I think there should be a similar opportunity created that would basically eliminate the need for the shift. That opportunity is deadening the ball.

Sometimes between pitches, too. On lots of shifts, players go into a dramatically different configuration for two-strike counts.

I just reviewed an article for the Fall BRJ about the effect of increased foul balls on additional time of game, and the author's conclusion was, basically none.

This is a great gesture and kudos to Players for coming up with it, but also, a tacit admission that this is going to go on for a long while.

Hey, Bunker! Glad you made it back here! Last we left things you had posted that the time to stop Putin was before the invasion even started, that the US was way too weak to do that, and that Putin took advantage of that. And then I asked you, twice actually, what could have been done prior to the invasion to stop Putin from invading. You avoided the question both times by whining about Biden and fluffing Putin. So once more, I'm a give you one more chance: What specific actions do you think any American President, no matter who that might be, could have taken to effectively prevent Putin from invading Ukraine and avoiding war? Since you're convinced that what we did before the invasion was wrong, you clearly have ideas about what we could have done right. So, tell us. What?

How could this possibly be, you might ask? Apparently because, since it was Kamala the administration sent to Europe in a diplomatic mission prior to the invasion, Tucker (and by extension the rest of us, I presume) thought the situation could not possibly have been serious because, after all, Kamala. Therefore, Biden's fault. Makes sense to a weak mind.

While I think some points mts made were fairly cogent (Georgia/Crimea may have been considered within each as more liberation than invasion; Ukraine is larger and thus that much more strategically important), I think what you say here may be a smidge closer to some of the true underlying causes. As you basically say, Ukraine is considered a white country, fitting comfortably into what the ethnographers of antiquity considered the Aryan world. People respond especially viscerally when they see other people who look like they could be family getting invaded, and that includes America, which still run by Western-European-descended white people despite its multiethnicity. Ukraine borders a NATO country, which sets up a potential domino effect that you don't get with Georgia. Because of its location and ethnic makeup, Ukraine is considered to be within the European orbit. Georgia is in Asia, and is considered more like the Middle East. Ukrainians have also emigrated well as a people. There are over a million Ukrainian ethnics or descendants in America, plus probably another million and a half diaspora in Europe. This, versus only about 15,000 to 20,000 Georgian ethnics or descendants in America, and probably not many more anywhere else outside of Russia. Also, not for nothing, Trump publicly tried to strong-arm Ukraine on behalf of Russia, and most of the world hate Trump. I think it all adds up.

Is "slick base" related to base size, or material composition? I'm trying to imagine how a larger base, everything else held equal, reduces base slickness.

I'm not sure I can see it that way at all. There is nothing Putin can say in public that I would dare take at face value, so if we were to hear Putin announcing to international leaders through some public forum that he is looking for a return to some pre-invasion normalcy of "no ill will toward neighbors" and "international cooperation" and "normalized relations", I'm thinking that what he really means is just about anything but.

Theyhad it in AAA last year, I believe. They widened it a couple inches to incentivize more stealing, since second base would now be an three inches closer to first, and thus more excitement. That's the story I thought I heard, anyway.

Great sign how? Are you still taking Putin at his word? Why? Based on what?

Why do we think the world is reacting so firmly against the invasion of Ukraine when, as pointed out, Russia invaded Georgia and Crimea, and there was barely a peep. What are some of the differences this time?

Whoa, wait, I'm sorry ... Russia lost the war? Is that what this guy is saying? What does he know?

Maybe she thinks the only good soldier is a dead soldier. Or at least the only useful one.

Maybe Isaac Paraedes could float Schoop a loan, since he earned more money in 42 days than most american families make in 2 years.

I can’t believe the players are making the Tigers miss their chance to be good again.

Deflection from escalation?

So it looks like more health providers are layering on yet another announcement between the time you call and the moment they even give you the option to press the right numbers to speak to the right CSR. By now I've gotten used to every health provider's automated phone answering system announcing (very slowly, of course), "if you are experiencing a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911". And in the past two years, I have also gotten used to hearing an additional (very slowly read) admonishment regarding COVID-19. Lately, thought, it seems they've layered on yet another additional slowly-read announcement, and this one is a promotional announcement: "Did you know that you can now use the MyChart website to schedule appointments, pay your bills, communicate to doctors, blah blah blah. It's a fast and easy way to manage blah blah blah blah blah. Go to (read very slowly) w-w-w-dot-mychart-dot-hospital name-dot-com-slash-your neck wide open out of the frustration of waiting at least two minutes to get through all these announcements. And, of course, if you press "0" or "1" to shortcut your way past the announcements to get to a person immediately, the announcements start all over from the very beginning, and if you try shortcut past it too many times, e.g., twice, the system hangs up on you, and you have to start over. Bonus peeve: After you finally get through all the announcements and they start giving you the numerous numbers to press for specific issues (after very slowly telling you to listen to all options in their entirety as their menu has recently changed--natch!), the first three always seem to be about how to pay your open balance, set up financing, etc. So, in essence: "Press 1 to give us money; press 2 to give us money, press 3 to give us money ..."

They need to stretch it to 60 seconds or shorten it to 30 seconds and start buying spots on Fox News, and maybe even the other two right-wing blowtorch networks. It's not going to do much good if it remains buried deep within a hard-to-spell website with a .gop TLD.

Interesting thought and analogy. There might be something to this. Maybe there's something second-level diplomats can broach with each other that can lead to the kind of kabuki needed to give Putin his exit with honor, as you say. It depends in part on how much the West is willing to forgive the whole misadventure in the first place, in exchange for regaining the known quantity that was the uneasy stability of pre-invasion detente. On the other hand, looking for an honorable exit seems to be the thinking of a conventionally rational person, and there have been a lot of reports that especially since the onset of the pandemic, Putin has been not been that. And if that's true, and in light of the drastic things we're trying to do to basically cut Russia's very legs out from under it, it's hard to imagine our side being willing to go back to the square one that existed before this, since it tacitly gives Putin a chance to plan for another day. The West is going to want significant concessions to set this whole episode aside. I'm thinking that a stalemated opponent is unlikely to grant those. I think you and I both agree that the one thing that's not gonna happen is Putin allowing Russia to slink home with its tail between its legs, having gotten its ass kicked by "an illegitimate state". If he gets backed into a corner and starts lashing out, with the considerable tools at his disposal, then Katy bar the door.

Yeah, I'm coming around to the idea my prediction is wrong and at whatever point they do start, they'll just go all 1972 on the schedule.