Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

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ORIGINAL: Panjack

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

...Also worth noting post #242 (concerning removals of statues of Confederate generals) has gone unremarked.

A rule for thee, but not for me

I'm concerned only with "political" postings I otherwise would respond to. It's better I address comments (I think provoking) in this way, instead of either not coming here or engaging in a back-and-forth in ways that doesn't benefit the forum.

In my imperfect way, I'm just trying to keep things here civil...for my own benefit, of course!

Confederate generals are US veterans. Enough said.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The baseball economic model is probably too complex to solve right now, given the interplay between stadium occupancy, travel, television revenue, and lingering and increasing uncertainties about the virus. Even if baseball could figure out a way to balance decreases in revenue against payroll and related expenses, the possibility of a renewed outbreak shutting everything down again is a back-breaker. They'd restart if there was a way to figure things out, but they probably can't. Too many uncertainties in too complex a situation.

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ORIGINAL: fcooke

I think the player's union and the owners are causing most of the grief. I think most of today's players (not all) would get out there and play, just like most of the legacy players would have.

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

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ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

This is shameful. We can do better than this.

Worth pointing out that despite the concerning numbers of new cases, the rolling 7-day deaths average has still been declining. We can do and could have done better, but...

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A day after MLB closed spring facilities for all 30 clubs due to coronavirus spikes in Florida and Arizona, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday that permission has been granted for the Yankees to train at Yankee Stadium and the Mets to go through their workouts at Citi Field.

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All of Florida, except for Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, is in the second phase of reopening. Bars and restaurants can operate at 50% capacity, and gyms, retail stores, museums, libraries and professional sports venues can operate at full capacity.

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ORIGINAL: fcooke

I believe most fans (and all the ones I have spoken to) are tired of the petulant children antics. The owners want fewer regular season games and more playoff games. The players want more games for the pro-rated salary. They need some grown-ups in the room. I used to run a large contracts negotiations team. Just split the difference already. The alienation of fans will cost both sides far more in the long run if they don't sort it out.

Rant off.

edited to clarify owners wanting fewer 'regular season' games and some other silly typos.

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ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

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ORIGINAL: fcooke

I believe most fans (and all the ones I have spoken to) are tired of the petulant children antics. The owners want fewer regular season games and more playoff games. The players want more games for the pro-rated salary. They need some grown-ups in the room. I used to run a large contracts negotiations team. Just split the difference already. The alienation of fans will cost both sides far more in the long run if they don't sort it out.

Rant off.

edited to clarify owners wanting fewer 'regular season' games and some other silly typos.

If there is one thing I found out about myself in the last 4 months is sports are nice to have, but I can certainly live without them. I miss baseball, but not really. I know there are rabid fans everywhere than live and die by their team. Nothing wrong with that, but with whats going on in the world it seems silly to care too much if sports come back or not. I'm sure this is just me.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I love the Atlanta Braves but I don't miss baseball or anything else. The plan if baseball returns is to add all kinds of oddities that will render it unappealing to me, so I doubt I'll tune in even if they do come back. The only downside to this is it means I'm stuck with last October's 7th game between the Cardinals and Braves as my final hurrah. That was the ugliest Braves game I've ever seen. The Cards scored 10 runs in the 1st inning - with nothing longer than a double. Drip, drip, drip.

The Covid situation hasn't affected my main pursuits, one of which is outdoors activities like hiking. I've done far more this spring than ever. And it's been the most beautiful spring I've seen here, to boot.

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ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

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ORIGINAL: fcooke

I believe most fans (and all the ones I have spoken to) are tired of the petulant children antics. The owners want fewer regular season games and more playoff games. The players want more games for the pro-rated salary. They need some grown-ups in the room. I used to run a large contracts negotiations team. Just split the difference already. The alienation of fans will cost both sides far more in the long run if they don't sort it out.

Rant off.

edited to clarify owners wanting fewer 'regular season' games and some other silly typos.

If there is one thing I found out about myself in the last 4 months is sports are nice to have, but I can certainly live without them. I miss baseball, but not really. I know there are rabid fans everywhere than live and die by their team. Nothing wrong with that, but with whats going on in the world it seems silly to care too much if sports come back or not. I'm sure this is just me.

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

...If you really want to watch some good games, see if you can find the 1991 World Series. Especially game 7 which had a GREAT ending.

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ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth
I'm sure this is just me.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I'm not familiar with the "masks as a political statement" referred to in here by several folks (bear in mind, no television here). We went to dinner tonight, eating on a covered porch with fans providing the air. Not a single employee or patron wore a mask during the 2.5 hours we were there. To my knowledge, none of them were making a political statement. They were saying, "We live in a place where fortunately the risk is small, we're outdoors, and we're acting accordingly."

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I'm not familiar with the "masks as a political statement" referred to in here by several folks (bear in mind, no television here). We went to dinner tonight, eating on a covered porch with fans providing the air. Not a single employee or patron wore a mask during the 2.5 hours we were there. To my knowledge, none of them were making a political statement. They were saying, "We live in a place where fortunately the risk is small, we're outdoors, and we're acting accordingly."

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ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I'm not familiar with the "masks as a political statement" referred to in here by several folks (bear in mind, no television here). We went to dinner tonight, eating on a covered porch with fans providing the air. Not a single employee or patron wore a mask during the 2.5 hours we were there. To my knowledge, none of them were making a political statement. They were saying, "We live in a place where fortunately the risk is small, we're outdoors, and we're acting accordingly."

My town and county is about 50/50 (my village is mostly blue and is derisively know locally as "the Peoples Republic of Northport"). It is also one of the prettiest little villages in the State of New York and is also sometimes referred to as "Mayberry". Point is we get lots of visitors from the surrounding area in the summer. Masks are ABSOLUTISTLY a politician thing. The law is you can stroll the streets without a mask but business are allowed to require them. Most do and we have had many confrontations because store owners want people to were masks. NYC is much better and most people were masks when in a crowd of any size but there are plenty of confrontations when people don't. If the hats and t-shirts worn, and the declarations of "my Constitutional Rights", are any indication, masks are a political thing. Don't watch much TV but it's not great secret that masks are absolutely political statement. Poke around on-line for a bit if we want to irate yourself a bit more on a nice Sunday morning.
I'm about to make an observation, not a political statement. When I grew up political parties were not really know for a particular color. How can one politicize color? It's actually fairly new phenomena that derived from how network news showed who had won a State in an election. Affiliations by color are nothing new. Bloods vs Crips, Orange vs. Green in Ireland, Scarlet vs. Black in France and my favorite. Blue vs. Green in Byzantine Chariot racing. This is fascinating stuff and the colors the chariots teams wore were just the manifestation of class differences in the Byzantine empire. I'd have to agree, right now Americans could politicize anything. In this case they might reconsider. At least in my neck of the woods masks do seem to have stopped the virus spread

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ORIGINAL: fcooke

Far too nice a day to poke around and get irate. Rather pull out the chainsaw and chop up some trees that have down since December. And certainly don't want to watch TV news - that will send me to drinks before noon.

And sadly it does seem like everything is politicized in the US these days. I hope that starts to swing back the other way in my lifetime.

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ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

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ORIGINAL: fcooke

Far too nice a day to poke around and get irate. Rather pull out the chainsaw and chop up some trees that have down since December. And certainly don't want to watch TV news - that will send me to drinks before noon.

And sadly it does seem like everything is politicized in the US these days. I hope that starts to swing back the other way in my lifetime.

My wife and I were apartment dwellers in Queens, NYC when we bought our house. Best thing we ever did but much like becoming a parent home ownership provides some entertaining lessons that you learn on the job. Anyway, being a city kid I was not well versed in power tools. First year a tree comes down and crushes my fence. I went and bought my first chainsaw. I bring it home, start to read the directions and the first thing it said was "Do not use a chainsaw when you are upset or angry". Well of course I'm upset and angry! A giant tree just crushed my fence! I'm fairly well versed in power tools and small engines these days but one defiantly learns by doing. When I hear someone say "pull out the chainsaw and chop up some trees" my first thought is "DO NOT THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME! Sounds like fun. enjoy

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005,a group of us went to Pass Christian, Mississippi, to help with clean-up efforts. The devastation was utterly remarkable, as most of you know.

I took my chainsaw and did good work for most of a day. When the chain needed sharpening, I took a break and used a file for the sharpening. Took awhile. When the cutting resumed, the saw was even slower than before. Had I filed in the wrong direction?

Nope, I'd put the chain on backwards.

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ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

I was recently in a discussion about what people did during lock-down. I did made my self better at 2 things. I'm a photographer and I took the time to learn how to retouch portraits in Photoshop. I have raised my game considerably. I also learned to sharpen things. Really did a great job on all the tools in the shed, Axes, mauls, branch trimmers, garden shears, mower blades, hedge clippers ect, ect. But I also got a good whetstone and learned how to sharpen knives. Hour after hour of YouTube videos of Master Sushi Chefs sharpening knives. The kitchen knives are now extraordinarily, dangerous sharp. I have a boning knife I could take your spleen out with and it would take you a day to notice ��. sharpening things is a good life skill to have. As Lincoln said, "If I had 8 hours to cut down a tree I'd spend 7 hours sharpening my ax".