EdA

So a couple non-ish covid-related. Supposedly the players have agreed to go to Spring Training 2.0 on July 1st. (Warning: this is a Nightengale report so...one should not hold one's breath.) Massive outbreaks to begin July 2nd? When/If the season commences, a run down on rule changes: MLB plans to implement 30-man rosters, up from 26, to start the season. However, the 30-man total will shrink to 28 on the 15th day of the season. It will go down to 26 on Day 29 and stay there for good. The trade deadline is normally July 31, but expectations are that it will move to Aug. 31 this year. A runner starting on second base in extra innings would only apply in the regular season, not the playoffs. The batter who made the final out in the previous inning would start extras on second. MLB may decide to suspend games that don’t last at least five innings due to weather. In other words, they’ll remain in limbo until the teams are able to finish them at a later date. Both pitchers and position players would likely have a 10-day injured list. For players who are seriously hurt, the 60-day IL would be cut to 45 days. Three days before the resumption of spring training, teams have to submit lists of 60 players who will be eligible to play for them during the season (40-man rosters plus taxi squads). All players would not show up to spring training at the same time. They’d report on a “staggered” basis, and they’d be at the ballpark at different times.

Not that it matters much. But the International Signing Period has been pushed to January.

Y'all sadden me for NO ONE mentioning the Mets drafted Pete Crow-Armstrong in the first round. Who cares about a Mets draft pick other than the team doctors who will bungle his surgeries in years to come, you ask? Pete Crow-Armstrong's mom played the Mom in Little Big League.

Or course. No question. There's no sane reason to EVER side with owners. Their track record alone is...not...good. They are rich, venal assholes who want free money. Your points are of course 100% spot on. And yet...this situation - just like the 94 strike - becomes a perception issue: there's no good way to say that "a scrub" is ONLY making $250K a year to the masses who aren't making remotely close to that. I'm no class warrior. But someone making the league minimum (which was supposed to actually be $563K this year - lessened to whatever the owners want to dick them over to) even ONLY being able to get that for say 2-3 years, is still a FUCKTON better off than a helluva lot of people - ESPECIALLY in this economic environment. Shit, I am not making the league minimum. I'm not gonna lie, I'd take that even for a year. Which is huge problem players have. The INSANELY RICH owners have the advantage to say - OMG! JOE SIXPACK!!! LOOK AT JOHNNY NOHIT MAKING THE LEAGUE MINIMUM AND YOU, JOE SIXPACK, ARE SCRAPING BY! And the rubes buy in. And because the owners control the media's access to the teams, the rubes are hit with - OMG! HOW CAN SOMEONE MAKING A HALF A MILL A YEAR (at least) BITCH ABOUT MONEY? Over and over. If the MLBPA cared about perception, they'd actually take care of the lesser members - like you know, screaming bloody murder that the A's are not going to pay their minor leaguers after June. But - as we see with rumors of Boras dicking around with negotiations and the lesser members taking a more meaningful financial hit - the MLBPA (which is comprised of richer, veteran players as leadership) don't show that they care about the scrubs. Ergo most people not caring about the MLBPA since they've spent the last 25+ years falling into the same trap over and over and ALLOWING themselves to be played up as greedy assholes. Mind you...I'd still take the MLBPA over the NFLPA. But that's obvious.

Yeah. Forgot to mention the A's refusing the pay rent bit too. Thanks. MLB is not going to allow a team to go to bankruptcy this close to the CBA being up again. There's no chance they want to MLBPA to see the books at this point. MLB will infuse money into Oakland - or worst case, buy them like they did Montreal prior to their move to DC. Yeah, the Owners made the PR move on the players: they struck first. Anyone haggling about money at this juncture looks like greedy bastards. Which...ALL of the them are, of course. It's just that the players have a shorter window of opportunity to get theirs. Meanwhile the Owners are still getting MLB.tv money. They're still getting their money from the RSN's. Oh and you probably/maybe are still paying for it. Shrug. Billionaires v. Millionaires? What are ya gonna do?

Sigh. First off, the Dodgers and Rangers went through bankruptcy in the past - and MLB is not gonna want that since teams have to open the books and it makes it tough for teams to lie about their profits. So tinfoil helmet conspiracy about Manfred and owners and bankruptcy is sportstalk nonsense. Plus, given that the the A's (and potentially at least one more team) have said they are not going to be playing their minor leaguers after June 1st ALONG with MLB potentially forgoing revenue sharing this year, it's going to be the small market teams that go belly up first. Obviously, the A's would be the prime suspect.

That totally wasted Rippa and my mornings. Thanks!

As things stand now, wanna guess who would be the highest paid player in baseball?? If you guessed anyone but Prince Fielder, you could be very wrong. Caveat: everything depends on how the owners try to screw the players and how public shaming goes, of course.

Damnit! Florian Schneider, co-founder of Kraftwerk dead at 73.

Boy. I only read Hornbaker's Cobb book, not his Joe Jackson book. And I thought it was brutally written. The NWA book was worse, no question. But boy, was that Cobb book torture for me to get through. It really was as if he had never read a book before. I'd also say in both Leershan AND Hornbaker's cases, one huge drawback was their need to attack Al Stump's fiction repeatedly. We get it - Stump made the Cobb stuff up. I didn't need them both going at it over and over. I think there probably is a good Cobb book for someone to write. I don't know if anyone has got to it yet. The Koufax book suffered from Koufax not being very interesting. He's just not a colorful person. All Lou Gerhrig bio's have the same problem. I thought Leavey did fine with what she could do with Koufax. The Mantle book was certainly livelier at least.

Why do you doubt the genius of LaRussa, Phil? Why? Do you want to make Harold Baines cry?

Because recommending Pearlman is like recommending Covid?

Yeah. Summer of Beer and Whiskey was excellent. I thought that was a Peter Morris book but I was wrong. Also, ANY books on Satchel Paige are worth it. Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend is wonderful. Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert : the wild saga of interracial baseball before Jackie Robinson is great. And there's some random one about his time spent playing for a white team in the like North Dakota that is fantastic. Also pretty much any bio on Dizzy Dean is worth your time.

Mays was also accused by many (including Yankee ownership) of throwing games in the 21 and 22 World Series. Plus he was a headcase who'd bail on teams pretty quickly - he bitched himself out of Boston and bailed on the Yankees more than once. Killing Chapman is a convenient excuse to keep him out but there were other mitigating factors. Minus the killing and the throwing game accusations, Mays was basically Kevin Brown with David Cone's numbers pitching primarily in the dead ball era. That's not something that gets you into a HOF.

Hmm. Off the top of my head - Crazy 08 is fantastic. Like legit literature fantastic. I'll also second 59 in 84. You cannot get enough Old Hoss Radburn in your life. Leavy's bio's on Mantle and Koufax are fine. I haven't got around to reading her Ruth bio yet. I was a sucker for Up, Up and Away since I was an Expo mark. But the book seemed to kind of fall flat for me in the second half. Jonah ending up being a pud has not made things any better. I know Tabe is friends with Hornbaker but boy...I read the Cobb bio (and his NWA book). Hornbaker suffers from Meltzer syndrome in seemingly have never read a book before in his life. Just brutal prose that needed an editor with the patience of Job to clean up - spoiler, he did not have that. Leershen's Cobb bio is better (by virtue of being readable). The Charles Alexander Cobb bio was fine. The Al Stump ones are worth a look for the pure lunacy - and to know why Leershan and Hornbaker were so adamant his stuff is garbage. ANYTHING by Peter Morris is a must read. Game of Inches (vol. 1 and 2 tho I think it's fairly easy to find them in one volume) is a must have just to see how the rules of play developed. ANYTHING by Ed Linn is a must read. His book with Bill Veeck (Veeck as in Wreck) is a gold standard for baseball memoirs. Linn's book on Steinbrenner is also amazingly fun. The Bob Uecker books are still fun. It's been ages since I read the Luciano books, but those were a joy as a kid. Any sort of Roger Angell smokes anything by any other baseball writer ever.

Vote Ken the Box. Vote often.

Plus, ya know, we needed people for the brackets. I mean, fuck. Ken the Box is right there. Rules-shmules.

Yep. Rippa is banning everyone who didn't mention Blue Panther earlier.

Yep. I have far too many ideas apparently that are inspired by Terry Gordy matches. Rippa was proud of TEAM DICK~~!!! far too much. But my Ken team is motherfucking inspired!

Hey! Remember how the Mets were the tire fire? Well, the Red Sox laugh at the Metsyness and are hiring Ron Reonicke as the INTERIM manager. Clearly the Sox had no choice. Greedy-greedy Mookie, something.

Well, that was quick. One stage of grief down in less than 24 hours. Next comes Pain and Guilt. The bargaining stage gets ugly though.

Fair enough. The list is neat enough since it's not totally centered on the US or UK. So no complaints. I was just curious. Lists are lists and are designed to get people who get in a huff about them into a huff. Again, fine work on this and great idea.

This is a fun thread. Thanks for your work on this. I'm curious about who created the list. Not that I am going to get a rage-on about a rando list. It's just that some of the selections are...weird-ish. I mean, not gonna lie, there's a lot here I am unfamiliar with, so that is good. But for a list of 1001 songs and they're up to only 72 songs through 1956...something tells me there is going to be a HUGE recency bias. I mean - The only Woody Guthrie song as "This Land Is Your Land"? "I'm A Man" as the Bo Diddley version instead of Muddy Waters? Not (so far) picking Diddley's "Who Do You Love?" Only one Carter Family song? No Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf? Picking "Heartbreak Hotel" instead of doing the obvious (and deserved) cheat and taking the first Elvis single? No Bill Monroe at all? They're up to 1956 and have so far skipped Chuck Berry? Just...weird, really.

Probably for guys nearing FA, Lindor would be above Mookie because of his position. But point is - Mookie is a top 10 player, FAR more valuable than Harper. Rippa listed the stupid money of some lesser players (aside from Trout, obviously) are getting. What that points to is the Sox were dumb with money - especially on that Sale extension and the JD Martinez contract - when they KNEW Mookie was going to get paid soon. But hey! They HAD to NOT non-tender JBJ AND they just signed Mitch Moreland. Clearly Mookie is just a greedy bastard!

Rippa and I were chatting about Brown, actually. While everyone of a certain age (us, essentially) was told Jim Brown was the baddest of all motherfuckers, watching the NFL Network sure wouldn't hip you to that. They clearly want Barry Sanders as their RB GOAT. Which...the footage of him is not in black and white, so...sure? And actually, Jim Brown might be one of Rippa's handful of older player examples who would dominate just fine if you placed him in today's game. And as far as Johnny U - when I was a kid, he was always considered the GOAT QB pre-Montana. Not sure how/why/when he dropped to just some old dude.