Baseball.........Anybody still interested?
- Thread starter tanks1
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I've been playing the game since I was 9 years old. I played in High School & College. As I have gotten older my interest has faded over the years but I was definitely happy when my hometown Nationals won that Chip! I would love to see them get a chance to defend their title this season. But like most sports this year, if it happens then cool, if not its still cool with me. I'm more worried about getting the spread of this Virus under control than anything.
Just my thoughts. Peace Brothaz!
Just my thoughts. Peace Brothaz!
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Both sides are bullshit
How shortsighted greed is tearing baseball apart
Jun 14, 2020
Buster OlneyESPN Senior Writer
It's as if Major League Baseball's leadership has embraced the Luhnow mindset in these tortuous labor negotiations, because the owners keep making these absurdly incremental offers at a time when the broader international context calls for decisive and bold action. With a resolution now at least three weeks too late, and counting, the industry is becoming a punchline for sports dysfunction, following antecedents like "the Knicks," "Tonya Harding" and "butt fumble." Every bit of news on America's pastime these days seems to begin with the phrase: "And then there's baseball ..."
It's the Luhnow mindset as applied to labor relations.
Under Luhnow, the Houston Astros were the sport's supreme practitioners of tanking, becoming the first team since the 1962-65 Mets to lose at least 106 games in three consecutive seasons. In Luhnow's first three seasons as Houston GM, the Astros spent a total of $137.4 million in payroll -- $53 million less than the next-lowest team, the Pirates ($190.7 million). The Astros drew a 0.0 in local television ratings for consecutive seasons. They manipulated the service time of some of their best young players, as did other teams. Luhnow's team engaged in ultra, next-level sign-stealing, and traded for Roberto Osuna fresh off his 75-game suspension under the sport's domestic violence policy.
But so long as the math made sense, Luhnow pushed the envelope and the Astros won a World Series in 2017. Of course, in the big picture, Luhnow's management turned out to be a disaster for many reasons besides wins and losses. Under his watch, the Astros helped to drag the sport under a low bar of credibility as other teams tried to replicate his formula, with fans left to wonder if what they paid to see was farcical.
Throughout those years, which included Luhnow giving the OK for a club employee to monitor the opposing dugout from an adjacent camera well, you kept waiting for someone to step up and lead. You kept waiting for someone to acknowledge the astounding accumulation of damage to good-faith competition and operation, just as you keep on waiting for someone on the owners' side to end this embarrassing negotiation with the players' association, rather than engaging in this battle of reconstituted Spam offers.
The house of baseball is burning and somebody needs to put out the fire immediately, by making a deal that moves the sport forward beyond this absurd fight over increments.
The opportunity to own the sporting stage in early July is gone. The potential goodwill (and ratings) all but certain for the first big sport out of the gate may be all but squandered.
Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts talking about a cash-flow problem when tens of millions of people have lost their jobs? Not good. Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt, who has seen the value of his franchise multiply by at least a factor of 10, talking about how you can't make money in baseball? Not good.
MLB is staring down a disaster
It's not just the 2020 season at stake, but the future of MLB. Buster Olney »
At a time when some people are struggling to apply for unemployment benefits, nobody wants to hear about the quandaries of billionaires. Nobody should ever hear about minor leaguers having their salaries slashed, in the way that the Washington Nationals and Oakland Athletics intended to do.
But here we are, and the longer this impasse lasts, the more resentful that fans get, as the owners haggle over amounts of money which, when measured against their collective wealth, are pathetically small -- certainly not worth rendering long-term damage to the sport.
The owners don't have a monopoly on shortsightedness, by the way. The union leadership has pushed dominoes that helped lead to this moment through its lack of engagement over the past five years, with the two sides fueling the deterioration of their working relationship into a death spiral. Long before this current situation, MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark has almost uniformly responded to proposals about everything from pace-of-play initiatives to labor overtures with a hard no. Not, "let's talk about that," or "let's get in a room and kick this around" -- but a flat rejection.
In lieu of dialogue, MLB has seemingly become more frustrated, more draconian in its actions, and the two sides are building nothing together. The two sides are growing nothing. The golden goose they own together is seemingly absorbing significant damage that will inevitably be reflected in the diminished revenues of owners and players.
Many agents fear that while it's very possible that the players might think they will win this moment, because of how they've been unified, there will be virtually no long-term gain for the standoff. The conditions for the pool of what could turn out to be 300-plus free agents in the fall haven't been addressed or improved through agreement. The leverage of this time might've been parlayed to attack larger issues that have hurt the players -- tanking, service-time manipulation, etc. -- but that hasn't happened, and given that the two sides aren't really on speaking terms, hasn't even been explored. In the same way that agents were immediately livid about what they saw as disastrous CBA terms in 2016, they view this chapter as a missed opportunity that will ultimately bear long-term costs because of the lack of productive collaboration and the destruction to baseball.
To engage in this -- especially now -- is crazily myopic, and reminds me of a situation from years ago.
Tony Gwynn was in the midst of his Hall of Fame career when I covered the Padres, and for any writer, he was a gift from the baseball gods. He excelled at his craft, winning eight batting titles and finishing his 20-year career with a .338 average and five Gold Glove Awards, but he was also among the smartest and most eloquent of players, someone who consistently spoke anecdotally. There were cool San Diego evenings when he seemingly wrote your stories for you, first with his actions and then with his observations and words.
Tony really loved what he did and loved to talk about the game of baseball. And underneath all of that, Tony was a really good person, fair-minded, so that he would treat a young writer he didn't know with the same respect as Peter Gammons at the top of the reporter food chain.
In one of those years that I covered Tony, he finished a spring game and held court in front of his locker, answering questions about what happened that day. As the session wound down, the notebooks and pens dipped to the sides of the reporters who were there, and Tony began what he assumed was the off-the-record portion of the conversation. I can't remember exactly what he said, but I think it was about some Padres decision he strongly disagreed with, and his opinion -- which he clearly did not want to express publicly, yet.
Biggest 2021 decisions for all 30 MLB teams
Well, one of the reporters in the group -- a recent journalism school graduate -- wrote down Tony's criticisms, and for a day, that was the biggest story in Padres camp. Tony had to address the brushfire and he was furious at the reporter, whose explanation was based on a technical point: Tony had never actually uttered the words "this is off the record" before each of his statements.
Tony was livid, feeling as if he had been taken advantage of, and he never again trusted that reporter -- who, yes, won that moment with his scoop, while forever losing access to one of the best and most insightful minds in the sport.
A dumb smart person. Shortsighted, utterly devoid of rationality in that matter.
There's a lot of that going on with baseball right now.
• Given the current context in this country, with so much of its history under reexamination, it will be interesting to see if the owners of the Texas Rangers will be pressured to consider a change.
Yrah Baseball done. NFL fooling themselves thinking they can just ignore shit and have a season.
I was watching a White Sox game the other day that was from 1993. I took it for granted then but with so few Black players in the league now it was really surprising how many Black players were in the Sox starting lineup.
Ellis Burke leading off
Big Frank batting third
George Bell clean up
Bo Jackson fifth
Lance Johnson seventh
Tim Raines sitting one out
Good game, Sox won. Big Frank two doubles Bo Jackson three run homer.
Ellis Burke leading off
Big Frank batting third
George Bell clean up
Bo Jackson fifth
Lance Johnson seventh
Tim Raines sitting one out
Good game, Sox won. Big Frank two doubles Bo Jackson three run homer.
250 workers at MCO Orlando Airport tested positive for Corona but they not talking about that on ESPN
Btw 20 players from Clemson tested positive so it's not just the Houston players
This shit not going away and its frustrating but we can't ignore that shit
Btw 20 players from Clemson tested positive so it's not just the Houston players
This shit not going away and its frustrating but we can't ignore that shit
i remember that team.
Barry Bonds - 2004 season
In 2004, Bonds had perhaps his best season.
He hit .362 en route to his second National League batting title,
and broke his own record by walking 232 times.
He slugged .812, which was fourth-highest of all time,
broke his on-base percentage record with a .609 average. ...They walked him 232 times....
In 2004, Bonds had perhaps his best season.
He hit .362 en route to his second National League batting title,
and broke his own record by walking 232 times.
He slugged .812, which was fourth-highest of all time,
broke his on-base percentage record with a .609 average. ...They walked him 232 times....
I have never seen anything like this. A foul ball from another game comes over the fence at the exact same time as the pitch...and the batter hits them BOTH!!
A fuckin drone flying over Target Field delays the Pirates-Twins game for 9 minutes. If that don't say 2020 for ya.
www.espn.com
Twins 7-3 Pirates (Aug 4, 2020) Game Recap - ESPN
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Used to love playing as a kid but eh? Tried to watch a game years ago. Started at like 6 in the evening and I fell asleep. Woke up at like 9 Pm and they were in the 9th inning? 
I said fuck this!
I said fuck this!
Used to love playing as a kid but eh? Tried to watch a game years ago. Started at like 6 in the evening and I fell asleep. Woke up at like 9 Pm and they were in the 9th inning?
THIS is why nobody really cares about baseball: Fernando Tatis Jr.'s 3-0 swing sparks another conversation about baseball's unwritten rules
https://twitter.com/i/events/1295697662000300038
www.bgol.us
Pujols passes Mays for fifth all time with 661st HR
Los Angeles Angels slugger Albert Pujols hit his 661st home run Friday, passing Willie Mays for fifth place on Major League Baseball's career list.
www.espn.com