caulfield12

One name you don't hear a lot about is DiPodesta with the Browns...where he's the "chief strategy officer." So much of that franchise has been about a meddling owner, power struggles in the front office and with Hue Jackson/Stefanski...and then things really blew up with OBJ and Mayfield playing hurt for most of the season. It's a huge risk to give up now on Mayfield, but it's also so hard to go out and find a franchise QB. Can he still be that guy?

Then you would clearly prefer your wife worked in Asia, where as soon as she turned 35 or 40 working (anywhere) in the airline industry...she would have been out of a job. And without unions, who is protecting those over age 50 or especially 55+ workers in the United States who are making up the biggest percentage of workers (mostly involuntarily, some due to Covid and preexisting co-morbidities? Now you can quote Ayn Rand back to me, supply and demand forces, equilibrium, survival of the fittest, but the fact of the matter is that America would only work well for the Top 10-15% of society and the rest would totally be screwed over in the labor relations picture you're painting. Now this might even work from a capitalistic perspective, but eventually you're going to run out of emerging markets to sell to if we continue to gut the middle class...not to mention we're now bordering on becoming a "failed democracy" because so many members of that middle class don't believe they have any where left to turn. As a former member of a teacher's union, I would have been more than happy to give up tenure (after 2-3 years of teaching) if they would have made it possible for teachers to somehow be compensated based on year to year performance, but how are they going to measure or quantify that...the worst teacher in the school could get the biggest raise if it was simply dependent on working with the top classes in any given school. So then if you look at percentage of improvement or whatever, well, that's even more complicated because the students already performing well will have a ceiling there. Beyond that, effectiveness of teaching based on a state standardized test score is increasingly challenged as a measure of teaching effectiveness. Just continuing to raise salaries based on years of service ends up with many older teachers simply clocking in and out until they max out their pensions (let's say at 60% of last five salaries), but then if you're going to take away union protections, are you going to be willing to raise salaries by 25-50%? Most Americans believe teachers are already fairly compensated, and get "too much" vacation time, for example...or don't believe the media narrative of teachers spending 5-10% of their salaries on student needs being unmet by their building budgets.

What was it, 2-3 weeks ago when the Chargers had the Chiefs on the ropes for most of that game and would have tied (and had tie-breaker advantage) for the division lead with two games remaining? Must be pretty heartbreaking for fans of both the Bolts and the Colts. And, man, that Carson Wentz is frustrating, isn't he? Chiefs must be elated to see LAC out of it already...really have no earthly clue who to pick to make it to the Super Bowl, seems 4-5 teams in each conference, if not more, have legit arguments.

On the plus side, potential promotional tie-ins with Viagra, Just for Men/Hair Club for Men and Depends.

Here I thought it was "employee-owned," like Hy-Vee grocery stores. I think the "average" male (according to most of the information available on-line) should be right around 38 to 39 years of age. That's also showing up in the late 30's demographic in this survey.

See Eastwood, Clint. Well, maybe until the last five years or so. Speaking of old/er, kind of sad news (perhaps exciting for Millennials) today for those who grew up collecting baseball cards in the 50’s through 90’s. https://theathletic.com/news/fanatics-to-acquire-famed-trading-card-company-topps-sources/CDjLZvg6E8uC/?source=pulsenewsletter&campaign={{campaignId}}&source=email&campaign=3474973&email_login=jewisler%40yahoo.com And the roughly 1/3rd being 50+ here reflects partially the nationwide average of 57 for those who list baseball still as their favorite sport. Another scary number for the sport is 80% over 30.

We MIGHT hear for a day or two some talking points in Congress about removing the anti-trust exemption, but that never amounts to anything in the end.

Always nice to knee-cap one of the five most important columnists in the sport. And surely he will go somewhere else and write only glowing remarks. It seems the US is turning into China. You're either with the ownership class/government, or you're an enemy of the state, so to speak.

The Royals were bad for thirty years but finally hired the right talent evaluators....but Ewing Kauffman ran huge payrolls in the 1980s considering that market size. Then David Glass of Wal-Mart fame tried to apply the same philosophies to a pro sports team and it took them decades to fix it. So not tanking, just a small are the team with worst first round draft picks than the White Sox from the 90's until around 2010-11.

Incredible depth at Ohio State…when their 3rd and 4th receivers are putting up those numbers with CJ Stroud the Heisman favorite if he returns. Strangely becoming the Oklahoma of the Big 10.

Probably can add USC and maybe Notre Dame....at least until Riley goes to the NFL.

Something like 13/18 semifinal games have now ended up with double digit losses...pretty deflating ending for Michigan. Just shows the gap between UGA, Bama and the rest of college football.

Just listed as one of the biggest surprises due to his age and walking away from so much money…he did have 3.7 and 4.2 fWARs two and three years previously, but hard to say he was retiring at his peak. And 2005-2007 was when Ortiz was arguably the most dangerous hitter in baseball…and the Red Sox did lose to the Indians 3-0 before CLE went on to face the Cubs. That said, Ortiz fell off but never quite to the same degree as Posey, of course largely due to injuries/positional risk (Posey) and probably/possibly Ortiz had PED’s in his favor and the increasing likelihood of getting caught.

Initially thought it was KYyLe23 retiring from his moderating fortunes to take a job with Marvel or DC Comics... Adding to the list above Gil Meche, Sandy Koufax and Lou Gehrig (one of those just doesn't fit, haha)

How? Not played Moncada?...and it's not like any of the complementary or transition roster fillers that season (2018) turned out to be any good. I suppose they could have forced more young pitching to the big leagues...but none of them were really ready or even close other than those already acquired via trade.

Because the player's union tends to have reps that have more experience...and they are the ones the press most frequently goes to for quotes. In the same way, a first or second year teacher isn't going to the media and bypass their own union reps with 15-30 years of prior experience in dealing with administration/negotiations. And Giolito's still not really making big money...yet, fwiw.

The most obvious point is to have your 10-15% that you play around with in individual stocks, but the majority of investors under $10 million should be in just a few diversified index funds or ETFs, even though they're far less exciting. The last year or two, all the media coverage was Cathie Wood and ARK, but she might have the worst returns of anyone in that space. I really took a temporary hit on my Chinese stocks...which demonstrates no matter how much you know about a country, you can never underestimate Black Swan events like a government attempting a once every 30-40 years takeover of an entire economy that was previously humming along like none in modern history. I've had to learn about delisting and try to forecast that Alibaba, Ten Cent, and JD will be worth ten years from now. I committed a slightly different mistake 20 years ago, going after all the hot tech names after being disappointed with a relatively conservative fund that was getting trounced. While the individual stocks back then tanked (bought JDSU at $110, didn't get out at $140) and rode it all the way to the bottom as a write off. Recently, sold TSM way too early...at $90, still tripled money, and got out of Berkshire Hathaway (still a very solid return over 15 years) and plugged it into China. So not trusting my intuition to do anything but leave it in Vanguard, Fidelity, Oakmark, Legg Mason and Bill Miller Funds. And the one thing I did right was never selling low on any of those funds that got killed in 1998-2002 or even in 2007-08 or March 2020. And not being that interested in bonds or precious metals...missed out on Bitcoin but that's the case for most I imagine. If anything, should have added last year (John Deere from my hometown or Boeing) but at least we sold our family house for a tidy profit. Downside is no house or car if I can ever get back to the US to visit...sigh.

Now if only he could help sort out that current mess at Memphis...

Watch Garfield in Tick, Tick...Boom!!!

Going to have to report this to mods for malicious libel and slander...especially the Parkman one. Not sure you will receive the desired reaction from Ray Ray, however.

My goal is to defeat Ron and take over the world by trading laugh emoji's with Tray, who's actually a really good guy! Everyone would be satisfied with THAT Rodon, if we could get at least 150+ innings out of him, is the answer to the question. And I'd actually put pretty even odds between Scherzer, Verlander, Kershaw (whatever the eventual deal turns out being) and Rodon who gets the biggest bang for their contract dollars in terms of fWAR/$$$.

Depends on whether or not it's an elastic good or not. A good example is the cost borne by producers vs. consumers in the current trade war with China, not to mention the inflationary impacts on prices. Abstract A recurrent finding in estimates of the gate demand for sports events is pricing in the inelastic portion of demand. With few exceptions, this finding has either been ignored or (rather poorly) explained away. In this paper, the recurrent outcome is detailed and the explanations given by past authors are... https://www.jstor.org/stable/25151279 OAKLAND — A’s fans are not happy. Not only have their team’s dwindling postseason hopes taken a hit this week, season-ticket holders on Wednesday received an email from the team announcing ticket prices for the 2022 season would go up — way up — and that a fan-favorite A’s Access program would not be reinstated. On top of the uncertainty surrounding the team’s future home, the news did not sit well with fans. Fans vented at the ballpark and on social media, but haven’t heard from A’s president Dave Kaval, who did not respond to requests for comment about the hiked season ticket prices on Thursday and Friday. “Just crazy to see raised prices that much with no investment in the team, fan experience or commitment to stay,” said Bryan Johansen, a longtime season ticket holder who sits in left field bleachers, who said his season ticket prices jumped from $456 in 2019 to $840 in 2022. Will MacNeil, a longtime season ticket holder who sits in the right field bleachers, added, “I guess A’s ownership lost a lot of money during the pandemic. I don’t really believe it. But we have a billionaire owner. It really kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth going why is this happening.” ..... Others wonder if ownership is gouging fans to make up for financial losses during the pandemic. Frequent Coliseum attendees have grown accustomed to higher prices around the ballpark for the 2021 season — higher individual ticket prices, $30 parking and pricey food and beverage options. ..... “The price hike to me says this about ownership,” Guo said. “They’ve calculated that there are die hard fans that will come no matter what…What possible reason would anyone have to buy season tickets in advance when there is the flexibility of just doing single game tickets next year? Zero benefits. Unless we sign up by October, in which case we get a replica (Matt) Olson jersey. Does that mean he’ll still be on this team next year? We laugh.” ..... MacNeil saw his prices jump from around $1,100 in 2019 to $2,050 for the entire 2022 season. MacNeil plans to renew his season tickets, but fears the already tiny Coliseum crowds will shrink even more next season as more fans are priced out. “I know this is going to hurt our fanbase quite a bit as I know it will probably price some people out,” MacNeil said. “Which is a shame. I mean I’m almost priced out with the new prices they’re implementing.” “A’s Access is very much missed, as $14 beer hurts,” MacNeil said . (for Greg775) https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/09/24/as-fans-balk-at-season-ticket-price-increases-for-2022/

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/32918902/report-mlb-payrolls-drop-4-percent-2015-levels

If a tree falls during a lockout, will anyone hear it? Btw Ron, you would have been a lot of fun as a debate judge. Not!