The Beast

Just remember that getting the vaccine lowers your risk of getting it and gives you a mechanism to combat the infection. It does not make your risk zero but it does help protect you against the virus. As for the games, we didn’t have the vaccines ready a year ago and many of the games are outdoors, so I can see why people have gone maskless outdoors. Indoors, I would imagine masks will be worn and proof of vaccination or a negative test is required (see the Saints’s stadium and the United Center as an example).

This is an outstanding and important post. Thank you Balta, this helps answer our question. I sent the link and section that talks about it and he appreciates it too. And they would rather get the virus, which we also don’t know what the long term impact of yet is, rather than get the now FDA approved Pfizer vaccine. The spread is who I am more concerned with rather than the hosts, since some of the hosts you simply can’t reason with which is too bad. I would love to know what another conservative friend from work who is from Tennessee thinks and if he actually got the vaccine. I guess we will see if he and others remain with the organization past November 1 and have the vaccine unless he and others got a medical or religious exemption approved from HR (which can’t be the easiest thing to fake).

One offer I thought should have been made from teachers unions is to mandate vaccines for all teachers and in turn, all students mask up until a certain vaccination threshold is reached in schools and the masks get removed. I have no idea how well that would work or how much pushback there would be but it was just an idea. I do wonder how well living with the virus floating around and being vaccinated will go, particularly if the kids are vaccinated and more employer mandates get more people to take the vaccine. Is the goal to make cases more manageable and not overrun hospitals with getting as many people vaccinated as possible, getting boosters each year and wearing masks during the peaks of the virus each year? I’m not sure we have all figured the goal for the future and dealing with this virus yet, but science changes with new evidence so I just think we don’t know yet. You mean, the ones who are 12 and up? I’m wondering what parents are more likely to vaccinate their kids, those with older or younger kids? Are some parents concerned about the long term impacts of the vaccine or that the vaccine isn’t fully FDA approved? It would be good to study further. One of my conservative friends at work (both he and I are vaccinated) and I were trying to figure out the answer to the question, do vaccines help slow the spread of the virus? Regardless of if they do or not, what is the goal? Is it getting most people vaccinated and the rest are at risk of hospitalization or death and the rest of us get a yearly booster shot (so cases rise but we avoid hospitalizations and deaths)? Anyway, it goes along with your point. I hope you and your children don’t get it, my wife and I sent our son to daycare and he got a nice cold which got spread to us. We are both vaccinated but we thought it was possible we got covid from the daycare. Luckily it was a bad cold and my wife tested negative, which HR asked for because she and I had fevers. It’s tough to keep everyone safe…

Not unless the mask mandates are relaxed in schools. Until the vaccination rate goes up, masks will be required for some time, at least in Illinois. We will see what happens in other states. Just like some folks don’t think that the science community can change what they know over time and look at it as flip flopping rather than using new data and evidence to produce new guidance.

Once my son and niece have the vaccine and my wife is in a school with more vaccinated kids, I am perfectly fine moving back towards normal. Then it comes more deadly to the unvaccinated and I have done everything I possibly can to protect the people closest to me from severe illness and death. Cases unfortunately won’t go away but maybe the transmission and severity of the virus will, especially if we get boosters every year. I also really hope the unvaccinated people who are vaccine hesitant are heeding the message from employers and other private businesses or organizations that impact their lives. Things may be quite different for the unvaccinated if enough entities require mandates or for people to get or prove negative tests.

Bye bye. The NFL teams are definitely doing that with players whether they admit it or not too. See Cam “The Truth” Newton as an example.

They have him for another year after this. They need to figure this out going forward, particularly for the postseason. It’s a problem.

So are people more pissed off that they gave up Madrigal to get him or that Hahn felt the need to get Kimbrel and they have gotten a dud in high or low leverage situations? Not sure why he was out there tonight but he should have gotten the outs.

Ask your doctor. My wife and I are getting the flu vaccine because she is a teacher and we both want to protect our son the best that we can.

I suggested that kids should be masked in schools and the teachers should be mandated to be vaccinated and my former state representative, a Republican, said Pritzker wouldn’t do it. Well he just did. It’s better news for my wife since she’s vaccinated and her coworkers will have to get vaccinated too. Now if only my son, a 9 month old, could only get the vaccine, then we wouldn’t have to worry about covid at daycare even if he’s already battling his first cold and another common condition from daycare. My employer mandated vaccines the other day, making it so that if you aren’t vaccinated, you can’t travel, go on appointments or meet with the general public unless you have a medical or religious exemption (I’m no theologian, but I would love for someone to explain that to me) approved through HR. And masks need to be worn if people go back to an office. (Until I find a new job, I won’t be going to the office since there’s no point.) Anyway, I am curious if people who I know are more conservative or live in rural states will actually get the vaccine or will leave. I wonder if we see a mass exodus or if people will stay and comply, since it is likely other employers may follow suit. Lastly, I wonder if vaccine mandates will make it to the Supreme Court and if they will be upheld because of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. We will see…

I’m trying to remember when they really started to cool off from the good start they had. Maybe the Brewers series?

Weak first place team. Gonna get smoked in the playoffs at this rate.

Goodbye

I can think of other games I’ve been more disgusted in. Blowing like a 6 or 7 run lead to the Royals in the ninth a few years ago sucked worse in my opinion.

Anyone get a Foulke or Koch vibe with Hendriks? Would love to know what the team stats are since the Brewers series. They must suck. This team is too streaky to compete for it all. I don’t even know what they need to win it all, the super bullpen they had looks like trash and the offense is inconsistent. Can’t sync up.

How do parents set up a 529 savings plan? What about an IRA for my wife who is a teacher in Illinois? We would use her 403b but I thought an IRA through Fidelity might be good. Not sure what I’d need to do though.

Please be Lamb.

No, but what I would do is price shop the lower corners. They are cheaper than the other lower deck seats (except for maybe the outfield). Check their website for deals too.

I blame the fact that they couldn’t stop the bleeding with the five runs given up in the middle of the game, nobody warmed up and replaced Kopech during that inning, until Kimbrel they couldn’t get a scoreless inning and they couldn’t execute with the amount of men left on base. I’m more upset with the way they lost after being up 6-1 more than anything else. I don’t pin this on La Russa but it was evident early on that Kopech didn’t have it tonight.

So, did anyone go to the game this evening? I wondered if people had any feedback from getting to the ballpark, parking and inside the park. I heard Brooks Boyer on 670 on Friday and he said to get there early, follow the parking rules (lots north of the park prepaid, south of the park paying the day of), consider parking at the overflow lot at IIT and that some of the kinks of getting into the stadium and food service have been fixed. Overall, the game was a positive experience. The outcome was bad as the pitching couldn’t have a scoreless frame after the first few innings until Kimbrel came in, so the way they lost sucked after being up 6-1. I was able to get food relatively quickly and got to the bathroom and back to my seats quickly as well. However, they need the city to commit more people to direct traffic. I don’t know if it was Lollapalooza or what, but we left Woodridge at 3:30, got off the Ryan at 4:10 and stalled on 31st street trying to pass the first intersection and make our way past the housing (where cars are parked on game days) while we waited for two lights to let a bus in, cross traffic go through, people push through lanes and cut others off and see nobody directing traffic. When we finally turned to go to lot A, we couldn’t make a hard left and went to lot B, but it was closed and had to go to lot C to park, only to realize we couldn’t tailgate (I did remember hearing about that but by the time we got there my mind was fried and I just wanted to get out of the car). We unfortunately got out of the car around 5:20 and got to our seats by 5:48 pm. After the game it did take a long time to get through the neighborhoods as opposed to pushing people towards the highways. I suppose we could have gotten off on Damen but I have not been very impressed with the amount of time it takes to get to and from the park lately. But I doubt they can do anything and the city needs to be the one to supply the people directing traffic.

That’s sort of where I’m at too. Over the years they have had so many second basemen, Durham, Graffanino, Iguchi, Harris, etc. it seems like such an easy position to replace. My concern is mostly the team control they gave up and that he becomes a star with the Cubs, but in the small sample size I’ve seen, I don’t see that yet. I’m also not a fan of Kimbrel’s age, but it’s no cause for concern. Hopefully he pitches well and doesn’t get lit up in the first outing like Tepera (or as Guillen says Tempura).

Exactly. More overreaction.

Abreu got hit in the head on the helmet.

Konerko got it worse but I hope Abreu is ok.

Exactly. Too much bitching on this board thinking they can give up AAA pitchers for Kimbrel.