gusguyman

I hadn't heard about this yet, it is terrifying. Also though, a quote from the article I read: Rodriguez, 27, told reporters he was "still scared" about the condition after learning more about it in recent days, but that he doesn't intend to opt out of playing at some point this season. "I want to be pitching yesterday, the day before, or today," he said Like how Geico can save you 15% or more on car insurance, players want to play. Its what they do. I respect them for that dedication, and it is exactly why the decision should have been taken out of their hands.

My problem with this - it implies that Manfred is the leader of Baseball. The players want to play, the owners want to play, so Manfred's job as the man at the top is to stop that from happening. While that works in theory, the truth is that Manfred is not there to lead baseball - he is there to represent the owner's interests and be the fall guy if shit hits the fan. As long as the owners wanted to play, Manfred was going to greenlight it. He had to, he is a glorified puppet. So yeah, fire Manfred because fuck him. But things aren't going to change much because the same 30 owners will be pulling the next guy's strings too, and I am worried that the "fire Manfred" takes are just going to make it easier for them to avoid blame.

The part of this situation that makes me really mad is the poor day workers just trying to put food on the table getting fucked by this. Is the MLB testing the locker room attendants? Hotel staff? The people staffing the chartered flights? Whatever poor soul that has to try and sanitize the stadium now (who certainly definitely is properly trained and outfitted for THAT task)? Normal people are going to get infected from this, and their options (compared to the millionaires and billionaires in baseball) are much worse. They also don't have MLBPA health insurance if things go wrong, which they could especially considering they are probably much older than MLB players are. There is a real chance that people die, or have life-long complications, or lose everything after getting buried in medical debt because of this. I'm just so livid right now, fuck Manfred, fuck the MLB, and fuck greed.

Honestly proud of this forum that it took until page 5 to get a "Who cares, keep playing" take

My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. Time to go do something else with my Sunday.

Y'all think there is a poster on a twins board somewhere about to post a rant about how they are definitely not a playoff team this year, period?

Littell making Dobnak and Keuchel look even more impressive

Second time today I've said "uh oh" off the bat only for Robert to make it look like a can of corn. His speed is legit but his reads and jumps are way ahead of what was advertised

Dallas mixing in some quick flyouts with his quick ground outs, just for a little variety.

The last 3-10 years have been the awful shit. We thought we were done, we have one more bit of shit to get through, and then happiness. Honestly man, not sure how much clearer I could make it. ?‍♂️

You know how after a long night of drinking and partying and eating junk you wake up and take one of those awful schorcher shits and then you sit there wallowing in your own stink for like 20 minutes waiting for your asshole to stop burning and you still don't feel great yet and then right when the fire subsides you end up having the second movement and the fire starts again but then its over and you feel fucking fantastic (well, until the hangover hits 20 min later but hopefully the metaphor doesn't extend that far) -- this is the second movement right now, but the fucking fantastic is coming!

This is a per-inning thing right? ?

I'm fine with this for this year, crazy times call for crazy ideas. Going forward though, wile I am not really in favor in expanding the playoffs, I wouldn't hate it either.... as long as there are byes or 5 game series at minimum! Baseball is just way too random to rely on short series in the playoffs, especially after playing at least twice as many regular season games as any other major US sport. But to do that, you almost certainly have to shorten the regular season. Weather is already a major issue in the early season, and the World Series is touching November as is.

Yeah, I'm concerned it will make it harder to pick up the ball as it goes towards or leaves home plate, I don't think the ball stands out as much against the virtual background as the natural fans.

I'm willing to give it a try, and I could see liking it once I got used to it. Plus it will be hilarious to watch the tech gore highlights of broadcasts where things bug and the fans are all suddenly upside down or flickering 20 times a second or whatever.

On field it may not be bad, but traveling to a new city/hotel every 3-4 days for 2.5 months straight without any time at home (or even just 7-10 days in a row at a semi-permanent residence in Buffalo/etc) would be a major grind.

Well folks, I think we can all see where this is heading. It's been fun. Or something.

Hate and bigotry are not opinions.

I think it depends on how closely the season matches preseason expectations. The playoff format is the same, so if the Dodgers beat the Yankees in a playoffs full of division favorites, I think most people will shrug and say it was legit. But if many of the favorites miss the playoffs because of bad luck and injuries and the White Sox beat the Reds while the league leader in BA has over .500, I think people are going to view the year with an asterisk unfortunately. The problem, of course, is that even in a full season we have teams that do surprisingly well or poorly, but people will be more prepared to chalk up these surprises to COVID small sample size strangeness than to being wrong.

I don't know if this is more uncomfortably feminine than creepy or more creepy than uncomfortably feminine behavior, but it's a lot of both

In Jerry's defense, Bob is world renowned as a hard-hitting journalist with a reputation for extracting quotes and doing great investigative reporting to show the Sox in a bad light.

hoooo boy is there a lot to unpack there.

I think you should reread the twitter thread shared by JA. This was a Bob Nightengale article. This was not a media member cornering Jerry and coaxing him into a snafu, this is a de facto organizational mouthpiece putting out a story that Jerry very much so wanted out there, because that is what Nightengale does.

34-26

Does Keuchel have a minimum pitch count tonight? He's going to end up going 7 on accident.