caulfield12

Nigeria with a LeBron acting job to sell that penalty kick. Time ticking down on Messi’s World Cup career.

If they named Omar (who coached in another organization last year), Rowand or even AJ, most Sox fans would be okay with it. Thome, maybe? Konerko would be more like the Ventura move. McDowell probably would never happen. Frank Thomas would seem to have more thecpersonality of a hitting coach/mentor, similar to Thome.

1) Perfect combination of FA moves getting AJ after SF soured on him, Dye coming off a major injury, Iguchi off KW parsing JPL videos, Hermanson for 2/3rd’s of that year, Politte the previous year, El Duque for leadership...Jenks as a waiver claim. The Contreras will be fine away from the pressure cooker of NY/Loiaza’s cutter is fading trade as well as creating a baserunning threat with the Pods/Lee trade. 2) The farm system produced Garland (through Karchner), Buehrle, Crede, Rowand and the pieces to trade for Garcia and Everett. Important, but the secondary factor to a run of blind luck with #1.

The trade for Contreras was the most important of all to winning that year, and merely cost a waiver claim guy. Jenks was another waiver claim. No title without both of those guys.

Did you take the time to read the full article, though? Part of it?

Well something is definitely. being broken, speaking of breakin’.

And Contreras/Loiaza with McCarthy coming on strong...Uribe for Miles, etc.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/25/pat-toomey-challenge-donald-trump-tariffs-665265 Here’s ONE Republican senator actually staying in office directly confronting Trump on trades/treaties/tariffs...and who has the power to enact, Congress or the executive branch.

Just a saying....held together by duct tape and baling wire.

The immigration crackdown even has some Trump supporters in deeply red states worried. Pete Wiersma, a dairy farmer from Buhl, Idaho, worries about an upcoming labor shortage. “Most dairies have more cows than what the family can take care of themselves," he said in an interview for this week’s edition of the POLITICO Money podcast. "Most of our dairies in Idaho, we are very dependent on foreign-born workers. It's the engine that makes the machine run. We've really noticed a drop-off in applicants.” ..... Other surveys suggest that while Trump’s base may be strongly with him on both issues, the broader electorate is not, leading to GOP concerns about voters in swing states and swing districts. A recent Gallup poll found that 75 percent of voters across both parties view more immigration as a good thing. And a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll last month found that 70 percent of Americans want the president to focus on making trade deals while just 14 percent prefer imposing tariffs. That’s left many Republicans wishing Trump would ditch the harsh immigration and trade policies and focus on the economy and tax cuts. ..... POLITICO recently reported that top White House advisers led by Stephen Miller are devising new immigration crackdowns before the election including tightening rules on student visas and exchange programs; limiting visas for temporary agricultural workers; and making it harder for legal immigrants who have applied for welfare programs to obtain residency. Many economists argue that any efforts to reduce legal immigration will slow the U.S. economy’s growth potential given current demographics showing lower birth rates among the native born and an aging workforce as members of the baby boom generation retire. The U.S. is currently at 3.8 percent unemployment and government data recently showed more job openings than prospective employees, the first time that’s happened since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started collecting the data two decades ago. “I always thought the core of Making America Great Again was making the economy great,” said analyst James Pethokoukis of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “One of the reasons the growth outlook for the future is so low is because of the slowing in labor force growth. That is just a huge headwind.” “One way to offset that is to make workers more productive and we haven’t figured out how to do that,” he said. “The other is to bring in more people and that is something we know how to do. If they have skills and are entrepreneurial, all the better.” https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/26/trump-trade-war-recession-fears-650899

Still only going to get a Top 75-100 MILB prospect...Otoh, a 900ish OPS would get you that and wouldn’t have to even consider sending any money the other way. I highly doubt that money goes the other direction unless it’s to move a Shields or Soria for a better prospect.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/ Five facts about illegal immigration to the US The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in 2015 fell below the total at the end of the Great Recession for the first time, with Mexicans continuing to represent a declining share of this population, according to new Pew Research Center estimates based on government data. There were 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2015, a small but statistically significant decline from the Center’s estimate of 11.3 million for 2009, the last year of the Great Recession. The Center’s preliminary estimate of the unauthorized immigrant population in 2016 is 11.3 million, which is statistically no different from the 2009 or 2015 estimates and comes from a different data source with a smaller sample size and a larger margin of error. This more recent preliminary data for 2016 are inconclusive as to whether the total unauthorized immigrant population continued to decrease...

The slider and forkball, by far. #3 would be a harder breaking curveball, what would becreferred to as a slurve. Sandy Koufax was one of those guys who you read about and marvel how he persevered with duct tape and icy hot when modern medical technology would have prolonged his career another decade.

He just dusted off Pocahontas yet again this week to attack Warren, fwiw.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/26/us/woman-berates-man-viral-rant-don-lemon-cnntv/index.html White woman berates Mexican-American man using Trump’s exact words...as much as I (have) heard that Obama turned white and black against each other and further divided the country, somehow I don’t ever recall a black person attacking a white person with words from Obama’s supposedly inflammatory Trayvon Martin (“he could be my son”) speech

AT&T is also the owner of DirecTV...fwiw, that was a big sticking point in the LA Dodgers broadcast rights fiasco, where most local fans couldn’t even see the games despite the billions spent on that particular deal. http://adage.com/article/media/doj-accuses-t-directv-collusion-l-a-dodgers-rights/306601/ Under an accord valued at $7 billion to $8 billion, Time Warner Cable became the primary distributor of the Dodgers' SportsNet LA channel and set about pressing other pay-TV providers to charge all of their regional subscribers more than $4 a month apiece for games. That's more than the New York Yankees charge for the YES Network, according to researcher SNL Kagan. DirecTV, Charter, Dish, Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T's U-verse cable service and Cox all refused.

Toni Collette simply has to get an Oscar nomination for Hereditary.

Not just a problem for baseball, but all of society. Teachers have to deal with this short attention span/instant gratification society issue as well. All the kids (especially boys for games and girls for pictures/Instagram-equivalent) are addicted to their iPads and mobile phones. Think about Harrelson’s stories of yore. Kids don’t want to listen to that, it’s how we are ending up with “entertainers” in broadcasting like Benetti. Trying too hard to be “hip/cool” and make all the various audiences happy, which is of course impossible to do without alienating certain subsegments of viewers/consumers. The big question is does baseball shift the sport itself, or adjust to the technology-driven society? The latter is probably more promising with all the advances in AI, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. If kids could “feel” what it’s like to stand in there and face a Kopech fastball or hit a homer 475 feet like Eloy Jimenez, appreciation for the sport would (hopefully) increase.

Okay Captain Marvel, in the interest of board harmony, you can delete this thread. Do whatever you wish.

Wouldn’t it be easier to start following the team again in 2020 or 2021? If you’re going to continue to obsess over the status of the rebuild or draft picks that you usually don’t care to follow on a daily basis in the minor leagues, why bother to get upset at all? Isn’t it better to simply wait for a competitive team, Hahn/KW to get fired or the team to be sold? I mean...if it bothers you this much, is it healthy for you or beneficial to be a Sox fan at this exact moment in time? It’s not like there are any guarantees in life, other than Mike Trout. For example, look at the stat lines of Harper and Machado the last 6 weeks, these are players that are both going to receive at least $250-300 million, if not more. If the Sox ended up with one of them and they busted, then what?

https://www.royalsreview.com/2018/6/23/17497958/royals-reportedly-considering-signing-convicted-child-molestor-luke-heimlich If you remember the (whether or not to sign) Heimlich debates earlier in the year, there’s a fascinating dscussion thread about it after this article with lots of insightful posts...

https://www.royalsreview.com/2018/6/25/17471258/2019-draft-first-reds-royals-orioles Analysis of the odds for each team to get #1 pick in draft, seems both predictive models have the Sox finishing with low 60’s win counts and the #3 spot.

Greg, think of the little boy washed up on the beach in the Mediterranean or the boy with the bloody face in the ambulance after another bombing in Syria. Nobody remembers the exact circumstances, just the reactions/emotions those mages provoke. What kind of country are we, exactly...when we’re more concerned with playing gotcha over a picture than being a shining light on a hill for other nations to emulate? Whatever the truth, perception is always 90% of the reality, whether we like it or not. Do you think Jesus would join the border patrol or look to minister to the needs of those who are sick/suffering/seeking refuge/alone in the world? Remember “Mission Accomplished!” And You’re Doing a Great Job, Brownie! for GW Bush? Now the early 2017 immigration-Muslim visa ban and current child separation scandal will end up as defining moments of the Trump presidency. At any rate, we’ve surrendered our moral high ground. Can we honestly claim to be leading the world in any area (other than technology/innovation)?

She’s an easy target, or sometimes makes herself one. That said, Kelly and Trump don’t get called out (like ever) for insulting her IQ, but if she took a shot at the intelligence of one of the Trump clan, there would be holy hell to pay on Fox for the next 72 hours.

They also need to market to women more effectively...not just the handsome guys/chicks love the long ball approach, but really making women feel more welcome instead of an ‘ol boys club. Think about it...how many women post at SoxTalk, 2? Out of how many regular posters? There’s obviously a huge discrepancy. Another thing. Not saying we should go like South Korea with the cute cheerleaders and sexy K-Pop idols throwing out first pitches in skin tight uniforms, but they should look at some of the trends from other countries (Japan with the thunder sticks) and figure out why the Latin American ad Asian fans are so much more involved in the “in game” experience.