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Post by p23w on Apr 15, 2021 10:06:22 GMT -5
Play off potential is yet to be determined. Playoff success is dependent on health/fitness come September. Very few believed the 2013 season would end as it did. A perfect storm is always possible albeit extremely rare.
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Post by p23w on Feb 6, 2021 19:53:40 GMT -5
Also "ratings are down" isn't the metric that should be used. Ratings for literally everything are down as media expands. It's are ratings down as much as they are for everything else, and my understanding is sports generally are decreasing at a much slower pace than other television. We all need to inform ourselves. A vastly different media landscape has evolved over the last 15 years. Nielsen has only this past year even included digital subscriptions into the mix. That brings into serious doubt the idea that this or that venue has declined or increased. We can get a feeling for the difficulty involved from this Forbes article. They examined the RSNs and found a mix of results. The Sox were down by a lot, but that should come as no surprise given the hold-your-nose results we saw last year. If they (re)build it they will come (back). As for the overall picture, here's a key takeaway from the article: Overall, Forbes guesstimated a 4% increase in viewership. Blanket statements about what is going on are going to be a tough call. It really is a new ballgame. Viewership demographics are changing . Yes it is a totally new game out there. Putting glossy lipstick on a pig whilst attempting to project a semblance of return to pre-pandemic advertising rates is more art then science. Selling miracle drugs, mandated insurance and class action lawsuits doesn't bode well. Traditional disposable income advertising seems a long way off. MLB, for all it's vaunted marketing prowess cannot drive this process... technologically or otherwise. It is anybody's guess as to when disposable income will return, how much it will be compared to the halcyon pre-pandemic days, as well as the all important number of cardboard figures between fans that return to the ballpark.
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Post by p23w on Jan 27, 2021 10:42:25 GMT -5
My heart goes out to his family and friends. I know several RJ's age and older who tested positive and battled back. So many variables to the Covid equation and so little established science.
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Post by p23w on Dec 14, 2020 15:35:12 GMT -5
My favorite aspect of this signing is his name.
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Post by p23w on Nov 27, 2020 16:44:05 GMT -5
All this "activity" seems to assume business as usual. I remain skeptical with respect to the virus' impact on the economy and available resources. I just don't see how the front offices can make these changes given the economic forecasts for 2021 with the expectation that they will "revive" MiLB. Beyond 2021 these plans make some sense.
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Post by p23w on Nov 12, 2020 16:13:58 GMT -5
I would hope that no one is seriously surprised at this. Baseball has always mimicked society in the small, no? That society includes people who cut corners, put their finger on the scale, look for every edge, and so on. It's one of the charms of baseball, but it's also a mirror for what needs to be retired now that the tools at our disposal have taken it to another level. Has anyone talked to Tony about this?Sometimes (or so it would seem) baseball "mimics" society, at other times it is out front. Hiring Tony LaRussa to manage the White Sox just doesn't "feel right" to me. I lean towards a mimic move given your narrative.
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Post by p23w on Nov 6, 2020 18:24:07 GMT -5
Managers come and go, but they're not all equal. The Red Sox were at their best the 8 seasons they had Francona. I don't think they would have thrived as well with another manager. I don't think the 1967 Red Sox win the pennant without Dick Williams. I don't think the 1988 Red Sox win with John McNamara leading that bunch. And the 2018 Red Sox don't win 119 games with somebody else. Does that mean I think the Red Sox are instant contenders without Cora and that he's magically going to fix them? No (I know others will disagree on that), I don't. Still, I don't see this as insignificant. I also don't think Cora was hired with the thought of being fired. He'll get a lot of rope here as long as he stays scandal free. Bloom is looking to rebuild, which normally takes some time. And if he is hiring Cora, then he's looking at Cora to grow with the team as it changes over and there will be a lot of changes in player personnel. If 2018 can't happen without Cora, then what is 2019 and 84 wins? It's basically the same team, just everything went right one year, everything wrong the next. Not that I dislike Cora or think he's bad, yet a coach can only do so much. 2018 was 2013 on steroids Magical. The decline in 2019 had many factors. Cora may placate the fan base (and the city), but he is far short with talent to vault back into contention. Rebuilding is a kind term. Detroit is rebuilding with Hinch. The Red Sox are treading water in the ALE. They have few chips on the farm and it is uncertain if revenues will rebound to pre virus levels. Ergo "Meh". Probably a good PR move but does nothing to address the competitiveness of the team that will take the field and compete in our division. What this team really needs is a Mike Trout or even a Mike Piazza draft pick.
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Post by p23w on Nov 6, 2020 17:32:29 GMT -5
Good. As Forest Gump would say "one less thing to worry (or care) about". Just hope they don't sign Realmuto.
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Post by p23w on Nov 6, 2020 17:24:25 GMT -5
Fuld coming in as bench coach? The FO has already "dictated" a fair bit of the coaching staff, and I feel like Roenicki was from on high to begin with as an "experienced manager" consigliere. I don't think Fuld will be bench coach, but I do hope that Bloom can get him in the organization, even if it's for a limited time. There are no more job openings right now. Maybe Fuld prefers to sit around and wait for a manager to get fired or see if the Mets job comes open with the change in ownership, but if he doesn't see a managerial job to get, maybe he can work in the Red Sox organization? Or does he simply return to the Phillies organization? It sounds like he can definitely be an asset and maybe he can get some big visibility to aid him in eventually becoming a manager sooner than later. Meanwhile, he could be a help to the 2021 Red Sox. I don't know much about Fuld, but it sounds like he has the makings of a good manager down the road. I really wanted Cora back but would have been ok with Fuld. I am glad Cora is back, though. I was worried he wouldn't be. Just hope Bloom is comfortable with this decision. Meh. We shall see. Managers come and go. Looking at the Rays pitching and the Yankees interest in Lindor somehow makes this change seem somewhat insignificant. (Don't forget the Jays either)
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Post by p23w on Oct 21, 2020 20:02:03 GMT -5
Touché.
I guess I imagine they would like the Yankees, Sox, Cubs... the national teams. But these days, you are right, it might not matter.
I think it is weird that sports ratings are tanking across the board. What else is there to do? I’d expect ratings would be up!
I think the major professional leagues brought much of the low ratings on by caving to political pressure. They gambled and lost. Then again quarantining has shown the viewing public the vapidity of both social media and cable programming. I'm not the least bit surprised.
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Post by p23w on Oct 19, 2020 14:04:42 GMT -5
The Rays have plenty of fans.... they also have a very nondescript "park". Their ST facility in Port Charlotte is a gem. Not an aficionado of hockey but their are gazillions of Canucks on the FLA west coast and I have been told Lightening tics are scarce.
Don't much care who wins.... just want good games. Wonder if Price regrets his decision to opt out now?
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Post by p23w on Jul 5, 2020 14:39:40 GMT -5
So, this is the battle of the century, a WWE special: individual freedom vs. community transmission. Place your bets. It's a Rorschach test and it's all about team-building. Reminds me of a Rod Sterling episode of the Twilight Zone. Those with better immune systems flourish, those with compromised immune systems don't (flourish). Nature is conducting this team building exercise.
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Post by p23w on Jun 29, 2020 21:04:53 GMT -5
Well that just plain sucks. Wishing the best for Nick and Amanda. Hang in there. I was once told to say goodbye to a sibling with a brain aneurism. She lived another 20 years.
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Post by p23w on Jun 29, 2020 7:37:22 GMT -5
One of the "problems" as I see it, is the "rush" to judgement by damn near "everyone" The rush to publish, to report, to forecast. Pick your experts and your sources with care. Good research is being done, but the correlation is not there yet. Prognosticating the virus effects on a myriad of factors within the population is documented but not very well understood. I cannot fault Governments, business's, or science for being conservative with respect to quarantines. The conundrum is can life before the Wuhan virus return to "norma"? Will governments experience regime change? Will business expand or contract? Will science deliver an understanding and a cure in a timely manner?
MLB is a business. It has contracted. It will continue to contract. it will be slow to make up for the losses created by the pandemic. The business has too much infrastructure to "go away". The game (and the business) will persevere.
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Post by p23w on Jun 15, 2020 21:52:33 GMT -5
I can't get too upset. Watching professional baseball on an electronic device is 2 parts annoying and one part enjoyable. Since I am 1 1/2 hours from a mlb park (20-40 minutes to 4 mild parks) attendance for me is problematic. Fortunately there is legion ball, Babe Ruth ball and numerous venues of amateur softball in a 30 mile radius. The Boys (and Girls) of Summer are already at play. Yes it is sad not to have MLB ongoing. But I won't pretend to comprehend the "issues" or be judgmental of motivations. It's their business and livelihood, not mine. I'm just a fan.... of the game. Bottom line take that pent up covid isolation angst and go find yourself a game to watch. Pack your fried chicken, potato salad and ice tea. Relax and enjoy. No two games are ever alike, and it you pay close attention you will observe something new/different in every game... sans the media cameraman and commentators. MLB will be back, at some point, fall in love again with the essence, not the hype.
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Post by p23w on Jun 12, 2020 12:48:12 GMT -5
Keith Law holding back no punches when it comes to his analysis of the Sox draft: theathletic.com/1868430/2020/06/12/law-team-by-team-mlb-draft-analysis-american-league/"Boston Red Sox Boston went way off the highway with Nick Yorke (1), the only player taken in round one who wasn’t ranked on my Top 100. Yorke has a good swing, geared more for average than power, but he doesn’t have the range or arm for shortstop after a shoulder injury and is probably limited to second base in the long term. Even if the Red Sox really believe in his bat, he would almost certainly have been available at their next pick; I spoke to multiple teams who said they either didn’t have him in the top three rounds or deemed him unsignable for worth due to his commitment to Arizona. The Red Sox didn’t have a second-round pick, and in the third round they took one of the most famous players in the draft in Blaze Jordan (3), a 17-year-old high school first baseman from Mississippi who puts on a great BP but has little game power because of a swing that is all hands, making no use of his lower half. He’s limited to first base, so he has to get to that power to be a prospect. The history of high school position players from Mississippi is also pretty dismal, so I think Jordan is a prospect, but a longshot. They followed it up with Hawai’i reliever Jeremy Wu-Yelland (4), who has walked 55 guys in 88 career innings, almost all in relief; and Florida State lefty Shane Drohan (5), a fastball/changeup guy who went backward after going to Tallahassee and has walked 69 in 73.2 career innings." Ouch!
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Post by p23w on Jun 6, 2020 21:20:34 GMT -5
Baseball/Softball has resumed on the Delmarva peninsula.... amateur and free. Hurrah!
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Post by p23w on Jun 6, 2020 21:16:16 GMT -5
"Baseball must be a great game. Because the owners haven't been able to kill it." -Bill Veeck As they say, if at first you don't succeed... Veeck was around to see owners reject foreign ownership (1946) and integration from Black owned teams from the Negro leagues (1952?). Baseball IS a great game. "Baseball is the greatest game in the world" Babe Ruth circa 1933 while on tour in Japan. FTR the Japanese picked of the game from Hawaii in the 19th century. MLB is just an offshoot of American big business. Veeck knew that even the machinations of "Big Business" could not "kill it".
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Post by p23w on Jun 5, 2020 12:46:27 GMT -5
There is a wealth of information with respect to "Blue Laws" and early baseball. The application of these laws seemed (to me) right of the alley for Burns' racial narrative of baseball. There's that and the fascinating story of pre-civil war baseball (mostly involving New York "clubs") and baseball during the civil war, particularly in Union POW camps, with anecdotal stories of how both Southerners and Blacks got interested in the game. Then there is the fabulous story of immigrants and baseball. Burns leaves a lot out to craft his feel good narrative. For me, he missed a lot, but I suppose in his line of work he got he wanted out of it.
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Post by p23w on May 28, 2020 21:38:26 GMT -5
Don't exactly know why but I love the music choices of Ina-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly when they show the astrodome and I love the choice of Summer in the City by John Sebastian (also sang the catchy Welcome Back Kotter theme song) and the Love Spoonful when filming Yaz's clutch hit in the final game of the 1967 regular season
ITA. Music accompaniment was top shelf. I still tear up when I hear the letter home from Sullivan Ballou on the eve of his death in Burns' Civil War. Never knew the violin could exude such emotion.
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Post by p23w on May 25, 2020 20:00:58 GMT -5
I grew up on Long Island in the 50-60's. Could care nothing about the Polo grounds. Ebbets field was a dump. Yankee stadium was chock full of obnoxious low lifes ( I had my car smeared with feces in the early 70's... had Mass tags at the time.) The Giants moved to another very forgettable stadium in SF. O'Malley forcibly removed hispanic squatters living in tin shacks in Pasadena. Romanticize all you want. I never missed either National League team.. then they built Shea stadium over a garbage Landfill. And in all this no mention of the Yankee "extended" roster in Kansas City. Burns cherry picks for his audience. That's his m.o. That seems a bit unfair. Not really. it was a real time POV from someone who lived during the period and location of this episode. I agree, and said so in my post. I have other issues with this documentary which I disagree with based on my own knowledge and study of the game. I was in touch with Burns and his researcher (Norwick?) in 1994. Following several correspondences, I pulled back from sharing. I had the acute sense that Burns had his agenda fairly well set and was in no mood to change. His prerogative. The finished product was well received. I think you are way off target with your "Liar, Liar" observation. There is a subtle difference between a "Feel good" and an "expose" Burns crafted a "Feel Good" product which had a wide audience and acceptance.
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Post by p23w on May 23, 2020 17:51:06 GMT -5
I grew up on Long Island in the 50-60's. Could care nothing about the Polo grounds. Ebbets field was a dump. Yankee stadium was chock full of obnoxious low lifes ( I had my car smeared with feces in the early 70's... had Mass tags at the time.) The Giants moved to another very forgettable stadium in SF. O'Malley forcibly removed hispanic squatters living in tin shacks in Pasadena. Romanticize all you want. I never missed either National League team.. then they built Shea stadium over a garbage Landfill. And in all this no mention of the Yankee "extended" roster in Kansas City. Burns cherry picks for his audience. That's his m.o.
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Post by p23w on May 12, 2020 16:02:49 GMT -5
Smacks of Desperation to me. In keeping with the entertainment industry... the show must go on. From that perspective, the guidelines seem reasonable Gentlemen.... man your remotes.
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Post by p23w on Apr 27, 2020 12:51:44 GMT -5
Very cool. My bucket list includes seeing a game at every MLB park. I’m only about a third of the way there, but retirement isn’t too far away and I’m certain to check off quite a few more parks after that, A couple years ago I was watching the Sox play in Cincinnati (a gem by ERod). After the game my son and I were walking back to our hotel and met up with a woman and her husband who’d been featured on the local news the night before. She wears a crazy hat that has some representation of most, if not all of the MLB teams. She’s been to every park and it was great to hear her story as we walked along. One of my favorite things about going to games in general is that you meet total strangers that you can immediately connect with because you have baseball fandom in common. That Cincinnati trip was a great example. We met and had fun conversations with Uber drivers, hotel employees, waiters, and lots of regular baseball fans just because we had on hats with a fancy “B” on them. Baseball brings the country together, which is a big part of why Ken Burns made this wonderful film. Absolutely positively don't miss PNC park (Pittsburgh). Get there early and have lunch (and watch BP) at the steakhouse in deep LCF. Great setting, great sight lines real baseball people. Tip., for complimentary beverage of your choice, start a conversation about the 1960 World Series.
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Post by p23w on Apr 25, 2020 8:19:37 GMT -5
Totally agree about Buck O'Neil. Very well said. He definitely shined through as the star of the first two episodes for me. His love of the game is so sincere and the way he describes it is poetic. I also found myself thinking I would have loved to have grabbed a beer at a ballgame with this dude. Buck was all that and more. I spent an afternoon with Buck in 1971. Learned more about life and baseball in that afternoon than I had in my 20 years of life up to that point. Buck even bought me lunch when I stumped him on who got the last (professional) hit off Satchel Paige. It was Yaz (a single) in 1965. Best damn BBQ ever. One block from the Negroe HOF in Kansas. PS. Buck thought the world of Ted. The ballplayer and the man.
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