MLB 2019

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Really disappointing to see this. Feel awful for his wife and child. Hope they are okay. 

[Your Mom]

3 hours ago, Trent Buschetta said:

 

That is so cool! I am a little upset at 1982 for not packing that place for the old timers though  Is this something they still do?

 

Plus I know he wasn't the focus of the highlight but seeing Ernie at 3rd was awesome  

[The Buscher]

24 minutes ago, The Chiksrara Special said:

That is so cool! I am a little upset at 1982 for not packing that place for the old timers though  Is this something they still do?

 

Plus I know he wasn't the focus of the highlight but seeing Ernie at 3rd was awesome  

It seems like they only did it in the 80s and early 90s.  The closest thing we have nowadays is the Legends and Celebrities softball game.  I'd be all for bringing something like this back and seeing these guys actually play again.

1 hour ago, Ms. Canadian Destroyer said:

Really disappointing to see this. Feel awful for his wife and child. Hope they are okay. 

The Athletic have already suspended him pending investigation.  Took them less than an hour to take action.

Yes there's a segment of Twitter that want him immediately terminated, and I understand it, but the HR person inside of me knows that won't hold up in court.  Everyone is entitled to due process.  But there's nothing preventing the employer from immediately suspending the employee and taking away their platform while the investigation happens.  The NFL should take notes.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

37 minutes ago, Trent Buschetta said:

Yes there's a segment of Twitter that want him immediately terminated, and I understand it, but the HR person inside of me knows that won't hold up in court.  Everyone is entitled to due process.  But there's nothing preventing the employer from immediately suspending the employee and taking away their platform while the investigation happens.  The NFL should take notes.

I agree with this but I also feel like there needs to be some consideration for the fact that women often drop charges and will return to their abuser. That's not something that The Athletic needs to fix, it's society as a whole.

[The Buscher]

I definitely agree with that.  It's a massive societal issue and victims deserve the support and counseling they need to empower them to not go back to their abusers.  People who commit a horrible crime like that should have to pay the price.

The only way I can see to potentially tackle this from an employment standpoint is the employers themselves having a clearly defined policy about whether or not arrests for certain things can lead to dismissal, usually under the guise of a character clause.  The Athletic probably has one and my last company had one.  However, based on my own experience, very few companies will terminate immediately even with such clauses in effect unless there's clear cut, no doubt evidence immediately available.  We had at least three instances where we suspended people with pay and we knew full well they were getting fired even if charges were dropped in the respective cases due to the potential damage done to the image of the company and its clients.  But we still had to keep them on the books for a few weeks before legal gave us the green light to invoke the character clause.

[The Buscher]

Mike Leake pitched eight perfect innings before some guy named Luis Rengifo ruined it.

[Your Mom]

This is probably the best place to ask this. Has anyone here ever been to Cooperstown? I don't do a lot of trips but that is one I would love to make someday 

[Meacon Keaton]

8 minutes ago, The Chiksrara Special said:

This is probably the best place to ask this. Has anyone here ever been to Cooperstown? I don't do a lot of trips but that is one I would love to make someday 

Yup. It's a little town, and my buddy and I drove right past the Hall of Fame when we went because we were looking for this huge, extravagant building, but it was literally just a brick building on main street of this small town. You could have easily mistaken it for a library. 

It was a blast though. We went during the winter months (I want to say January?) and had the whole place to ourselves. There was literally maybe five other visitors at the time. The town itself was pretty much just a main street, so we had lunch and dinner at a few diners, stayed at a B&B right there and took our sweet ass time going through the exhibits. I'm actually contemplating going next year when Jeter gets inducted. 

I highly recommend it for any baseball fan, at least to go once. 

[The Buscher]

Yeah I’ve heard that winter is the best time to go.  I’m planning on making the trip eventually, it’s only a little north of a three hour drive for me.

[Your Mom]

59 minutes ago, Trent Buschetta said:

Yeah I’ve heard that winter is the best time to go.  I’m planning on making the trip eventually, it’s only a little north of a three hour drive for me.

3 hours? 😮 Damn I would have gone like 100 times by now  

[The Buscher]

Haha, I was trying to get my friend to go with me for ages and he’s now moved to the other side of the country so I might have to go it alone and I can take as long looking through the exhibits as I damn well please. 

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

5 hours ago, The Chiksrara Special said:

This is probably the best place to ask this. Has anyone here ever been to Cooperstown? I don't do a lot of trips but that is one I would love to make someday 

Yeah, I went a few years back in the fall. It was really great. The exhibits are really well put together. The town is small but everything is baseball themed, so that's fun as well. 

[Lowerdeck]

It's like four hours away for me.  Want to do that and Ommegang on a trip, haven't done it yet.

[The Buscher]

One of the things MLB wanted to accomplish by adding a second Wild Card was more teams becoming buyers at the deadline.

Instead you've now got a situation where you have teams like the Giants and Diamondbacks who are both a game over .500 and only two games out of the second Wild Card.  But the Dodgers are 16 games ahead and going to easily cruise to the division.  So both teams seem more likely to sell or just stand pat than buy, because otherwise you're selling the farm for the chance to play in a Game 163 and your prize is a series against a team that has clowned you all season.

[Meacon Keaton]

Go figure. Adding more playoff teams means incredibly average teams get a one game playoff to knock off a team that won twenty more games than them. This is why I was anti-two wildcards from the get go. 

[The Buscher]

I get what you're saying, but in this particular season the two NL Wild Card teams are likely to be close in the standings and no matter who wins it the Dodgers figure to have a 15+ game lead on their NLDS opponent.  My point is more that NL teams on the brink of the Wild Card barely even see the point in going for it this year.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

1 hour ago, Meacon said:

Go figure. Adding more playoff teams means incredibly average teams get a one game playoff to knock off a team that won twenty more games than them. This is why I was anti-two wildcards from the get go. 

I disagree. The wild card games can be so incredibly fun. If we wanted the team with the best record to be named champion, we would just eliminate the playoffs altogether.

[Meacon Keaton]

2 minutes ago, Ms. Canadian Destroyer said:

I disagree. The wild card games can be so incredibly fun. If we wanted the team with the best record to be named champion, we would just eliminate the playoffs altogether.

Wait until the day the Blue Jays win 100 games and have to do a one-game playoff against an 81-81 team. It will make the whole season feel like a waste, trust me.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

3 minutes ago, Meacon said:

Wait until the day the Blue Jays win 100 games and have to do a one-game playoff against an 81-81 team. It will make the whole season feel like a waste, trust me.

I don't know. I have so many memories from 2015 & 16 and we didn't win the World Series. The Bautista bat flip, the Encarnacion walk-off, the Donaldson dash, etc. And that's just the playoff moments. There are a bunch from the season as well. The general atmosphere of the city at the time was electric. At the end of the day, only one team can win. Do I want them to win, certainly, but I'm at least glad we got so many memorable moments along the way, even if we lost. 

[Gabriel]

2 minutes ago, Meacon said:

Wait until the day the Blue Jays win 100 games and have to do a one-game playoff against an 81-81 team. It will make the whole season feel like a waste, trust me.

Yeah, I don't necessarily hate the addition of a second wild card team, but I do hate that the two wild card teams play one game to decide who moves on to the Division Series. The 162 game regular season shows us frequently that even the worst of teams can beat the best when the stars align properly. I feel like it should at least be a Best of Three.. or maybe something like, the team with the winning record in the season series only has to win once, and the team with the losing record in the season series has to win twice to advance.

There's just way too much left to chance when it's possible that the first wild card team could have a record of 15-20 wins more than the second wild card team.