caulfield12

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/01/the-astros-scandal-rewrites-a-decade-of-mlb-history/605185/?utm_medium=offsite&utm_source=yahoo&utm_campaign=yahoo-non-hosted&yptr=yahoo

Sure, but that was a different Mahomes and different Chiefs’ defense in late October. The Seahawks were going to give the 49ers a better game. The Packers, at this point, basically have two offensive weapons. They get a lot of credit for improving the defense, but their offense was not unlike the Pats after you took out AB and Gordon.

They had so many close wins...just a few really impressive ones, and there just seemed to be no way they were going to win outside of Lambeau’s frozen tundra-like conditions.

That’s like the death penalty for SMU football in the late 80’s. Never going to happen...the owners care more about maintaining escalating franchise valuations. https://www.yahoo.com/news/should-the-astros-lose-their-world-series-title-174048506.html Vacate Allowing them to keep the title vindicates cheating “Do you know what wasn’t suspended? The Astros’ World Series banner. Do you know what wasn’t fired? Their World Series rings. ...Is it worth it? Unless MLB decides to vacate their title, it’s hard to say it wasn’t.” — Mike Oz, Yahoo Sports The Dodgers deserve to be remembered fairly in record books “The Astros should be forced to hand the Commissioner’s Trophy back to Commissioner Rob Manfred right now, vacate the title and forever leave that space in the record books as empty as the organization’s integrity. The Dodgers didn’t win it on the field, but history should forever note that nobody beat them.” — Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times Vacating the title would be a lasting punishment worthy of the offense “Make them take down the banner at Minute Maid Park and vacate all records of their title. If you don’t think that hurts, ask the players from the 2004 USC football team how they feel about the Trojans being forced to return the national championship trophy because of NCAA rules violations.” — Bob Brookover, Philadelphia Inquirer There’s no question that cheating directly contributed to their victory “Let’s keep it real, they have a championship that there's a good chance they don’t deserve. We can say with confidence that the Astros cheated on the playing field and therefore didn’t deserve that World Series ring.” — Chris Broussard, Fox Sports

A better example might be Baker Mayfield having a real coach in 2020...talking about regression in his second season. So much of the game is psychological, and momentum going against you is hard to turn around. There are so many variables at play beyond pure talent level.

https://sports.yahoo.com/astros-stars-let-others-take-blame-for-a-player-driven-sign-stealing-scheme-235902497.html

Put Whitaker and Trammell on the Yanks, Red Sox, Cubs or Dodgers and they have had Jeter-like reputations.

50 years is a long time to wait for a Super Bowl...but well worth it for Chiefs’ fans after so many playoff heartbreaks dating back to the 1980’s. 6-17 in the post-season since the 1970 Super Bowl.

Mahomes doing his best Lamar Jackson impression.

Except Owens was one of the top wide receivers of his generation...Schilling was VERY VERY good, and certainly had great post-seasons, but he also has some pf that halo from playing for the Red Sox and the Bloody Sock game. Had he played for the White Sox instead, not sure he gets in until the veterans committee later on down the line.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/curt-schilling-doesnt-deserve-to-be-in-the-baseball-hall-of-fame-021838902.html

According to an ESPN poll, 53% of respondents wanted Astros’ WS title stripped, 50% the Red Sox the following year.

And Alonso had a really nice rookie season...speaking of from Bellinger to Vaughn.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28505136/yu-darvish-left-more-questions-aftermath-astros-scandal

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mlb-cheating-scandal-is-huge-black-eye-for-the-sport-says-reds-pitcher-trevor-bauer-190620760.html Bauer actually sounding quite reasonable here, especially on this point: “If you hammer the Houston Astros organization, that makes their organization worth less, it makes everybody’s organization worth less, it’s not good for the business side for all the owners,” Bauer tells Yahoo Finance. “On the player side, it’s really hard to prove who used what, and when, and to what extent. If I’m a [Astros] hitter and I go up there and I don’t want anything to do with this, but someone is banging on the trash can anyway, am I now involved in it? It’s a really slippery slope.” Based on the difficulty of parsing through which players were guilty of the cheating and which weren’t, Bauer says Manfred has “done a pretty good job of walking a middle ground. There’s going to be people on both sides who say it’s too harsh or it’s not enough, but he’s done a decent job balancing everything.”

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/congressman-bobby-rush-calls-for-congressional-oversight-hearing-mlb-cheating-scandal-houston-astros-boston-red-sox-224137364.html Knew it wouldn’t take long for politicians to get involved...

MLB coming out with announcement denying on Trout having an exception...I read Brosious, Jr., apologized on Insta as well. https://www.latimes.com/sports/angels/story/2020-01-17/allegation-angels-mike-trout-exemption-hgh-shot-down-mlb-mlbpa

Bad Boys 4 Life is actually pretty good...Martin Lawrence steals the show, and even Will Smith was tolerable reprising his career-defining role from 25 long years ago. Michael Bay cameos for 30 seconds, thankfully he didn’t direct or the #metoo movement would have boycotted. Need a Bay fix, just watch 6 Underground instead.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/consumers-are-starting-to-feel-streaming-fatigue-analyst-says-204234560.html This is interesting. The projected ideal range that families are expected to be willing to pay for streaming packages is around $55. The cable and satellite companies really need to figure out a path towards being more competitive. Yes, the streaming options have become too numerous and hard to keep up with. Every one of them has exclusive or proprietary content of some sort. We now have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Apple+, Disney+, ESPN+, CBS All Access, Peacock, YouTube Red, any more that I'm missing? I cut the cord to save money, and it worked for a while. But, now I'm spending just as much on all the various streaming services. It was good while it lasted. ... All a typical family needs is a Netflix (must have) + Disney (if they have children). Other than that, from HBO, Amazon to Hulu, are only an occasional add-on but unnecessarily.

Except Bellinger is 2x as athletic and versatile...

He throws at about 85-89 mph, but sure. His control has to be perfect to succeed. He did get pushed up super quickly. Started out really well, then the scouts adjusted on how to approach him offensively.

How are we obtaining Cody Bellinger, or Betts?

Ventura is bringing more attention/focus to the program than hurting the coaching profession by taking someone’s so-called opportunity. Undoubtedly, it wasn’t even his idea, probably the AD’s. And maybe he ends up helping a player to the big leagues that a less experienced student coach would not impact similarly. That could mean millions of future earnings to a family or two.

Is your name Rodney McCray?

“We’ve got a lot of good momentum,” Ricketts said. “We’ve got good carriage (for Marquee) so far. It’s not 100 percent done, but we’re going to keep pushing forward. It really hasn’t had any impact on baseball spending. We just know that we still got some work to do there, but it’s going to be a great thing for the fans. And it’s the right long-term answer.” While Marquee announced a carriage agreement for all AT&T platforms, including DirecTV, in October, Cubs fans are still wondering about a deal with Comcast, which remains a dominant cable provider in Chicago and a direct competitor in the form of NBC Sports Chicago. “We’ve got a couple of very good carriage deals set up,” Ricketts said. “We’ve got more that we’re going to announce over the next few days. With regards to Comcast, we’ll see how it plays out. I think everybody wants to do the right thing for their customers. And I think that’s going to be the driving force.” https://theathletic.com/1540450/2020/01/16/theres-no-magic-free-agent-out-there-tom-ricketts-on-a-slow-winter-and-the-cubs-future/?source=dailyemail