Bid Adieu for a Few
Read a quote from Mike Trout that was a little irritating. He, as well as a few other prominent players, said there are red flags about the plan to re-open baseball in these *quarantined* cities in Arizona and Florida. —specifically, he said he didn’t want to miss the birth of his first child and that it would be too hard to be away from family “for a few months.”
Uh, ok, that’s fine, he’s allowed to feel that way. But the consequence for not playing is no salary. I’m sure a lot of these guys are cool with that at least from a living day to day standpoint. Still, that’s a lot o’ scratch to leave on the table.
I read a good quote on twitter when this all started, it was someone who was mad at the people who wouldn’t quarantine at home. It went something like this: “Your grandpa got called to war. You’re getting called to sit on the couch. Go sit on the fucking couch.”
I think if I was a ball player making millions of dollars a year I’d be cool with saying hasta la vista to my family for a few months. But maybe that’s just me……
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Love it…
The donkey went on to write the famous poem “Footprints In The Sand”…
Great picture, and so true. The donkey looks like he kinda likes being carried.
If I was a ball player making millions of dollars a year, I would have only played one year.
outlaw golf or real golf? Looks like there is a plan to restart golf, without fans, by mid June.
A lot of the players aren’t going to be onboard with Thunderdome Quarantine baseball.
I was surprised to hear Dr. Fauci sound like he was on onboard with it. But, Fauci walks a fine line. He sometimes says certain things so Trump won’t fire him from the virus task force. Fauci wants to stay on the task force so he can give factual information to the American people. So even Fauci gives a bit of a mixed signal sometimes.
Someone had the idea that the players wouldn’t sit in the dugouts together, but would sit up in the stands separated from each other. I guess if fans have a morbid fascination with seeing how strange it could all be, that’s one thing; but I don’t see how players could be forced to risk their lives to do it.
I get it that these are athletes in prime health; but the virus has killed some military people and medical personnel who were relatively young. Some of the players might feel they’re invincible, but not all are going to feel that way.
Totally personal decision to be away from your family for a few months. But, if my first child was due, and I had made the bank that Trout has made, I would definitely stick-around and experience the birth of my child. Even if I was making rookie/minimum, I think I would choose to see my child born, first.
I agree. And I’m not sure I’d want to spend this summer hanging with dozens of guys spitting seeds and chew juice. (I think the CBAs grandfathered vets on tobacco.)
You can keep that delivery room mess.
I’m gonna go play ball…
Yeah Loo, I only say I would opt to be there for the birth of my kid…especially my first, because my son’s and daughter’s births were both amazing moments in my life. Truly two of the highlights of my life.
And again, especially if I was Trout, given all the coin the dude has made to date.
In the SI article posted on the Flap, it mentioned the ball itself, in a lot of the sports, being a potential virus-carrier. I had never thought of that.
Snot rockets will have to be legislated as well…
A red flag to not put yourself at risk? Esp with a young family? Thousands dying and they should risk exposure? A friend of ours just died from it last night. He was a retired firefighter in San Clemente. He was getting better, but when they tried to take him off the ventilator he didn’t respond to breathing on his own.
A woman I work with however, has beaten it.
Sorry about your friend Chuck.You night be one of the first Flapper to have a friend lose they’re battle to this virus! The breathing aspect of this virus disturbs me the most.Gasping for every precious breath is damm right freighting..
Sorry to hear the news on your friend, Charlie. Peace and comfort to all…
Unc sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. It’s hard to make conjectures these days as more data comes in and scientific advances seem to be making progress. Watching BBC news last few days, cautious optimism in parts of Europe including Italy and Spain.
Testing in all varieties (sero antibody), as always the key, hopefully can pick up here locally. Does make me wonder, as member of vulnerable age group, how testing would be put into place as pretext for being allowed to return to workplace. How many different types, how often, some sort of ID card like is used in Europe, etc.
While doing little as possible venturing out to laundromat and grocery/food shopping, have noticed changes in SD rules per 6 foot, and how many allowed inside at one time, shields, etc…that does seem to be new normal for those businesses currently open and likely a key factor for those allowed to reopen.
My 93-year-old mother is locked up in a skilled nursing home in Sunnyvale. They’ve had one case. They called to tell me about it. I worked hard to get her into that high-priced place last year. Probably the best situation she could be in, given her condition. She and I and my two kids are on a continuum, I suppose. In the silence of this shutdown that fucking bell toll is all too clear.
Meanwhile, however, the bear population in Yosemite Valley has quadrupled. Gotta like that.
Blessings of health to you all, xoot. And yes, I read about the bear population in Yosemite. That is bad ass.
April 16 1967 SF Warriors lost game 2 of nba finals to Wilt’s 76ers. Wilt had triple double 10 pts 38 rebounds 10 assist. Philly led in scoring by my hero Hal Greer with 30 and Billy Cunningham off bench with 28.
Barry led warriors in scoring with 30. Nate Thurmond 29 boards but only 7points.
Fun fact: January of 1965 Warriors (SF) traded Wilt back to Philly in what turned out to be lopsided deal; one of the players they rec’d was sharpshooting guard from Stanford Paul Neumann. He was only one of 3 players acquired still on Warriors during 1967 playoffs but retired soon afterward at age 29. Still alive at age 82.
Zack Wheeler and I totally agree with him is balking out at MLB.1st he’s saying they’re is NO WAY I am missing the birth of my wife’s first baby which is far more important then baseball.
Then he goes on to say about quarantine and how the players would basically be held hostages for 4-5 months everyday, but wives and kids would not be allowed to see each other? That’s a ridiculous scenario to come up with..
I’m disappointed with Fauci for giving new life to this dangerous nonsense.
And Fauci made an amazingly tone-deaf statement: “People are dying to see baseball.”
Fauci and everyone else are not above sending mixed messages…
Nobody in our part of Oregon is getting tested unless they are sick and going to be seen by someone. No one that I have talked to has been tested. There is just no way that people know what’s going on at this point. And, it doesn’t look like anything is gonna change anytime soon.
Yeah, it really stinks. Everyone knows someone at risk and until there are millions of tests available, there’s no way around this. The dithering by the fucking twitiot in charge and now defunding the WHO is incredibly reckless.
It’s so much fun to just watch this trainwreck of a presidency continue its march to destroying everything we used to stand for.
Don’t yell at me, Chuck, but everything we stand for is what gets us into these messes…
Common sense and believing in the scientific community should be considered a good thing. Not a political position by the left.
And, as such, stupidity should not be called a freedom when it puts others at risk. At some point, Darwin’s theory comes into play. Like pastors dying of the ‘hoax’ they thought it was. I’m all for dumbfuck rednecks gathering together and sickening and killing each other as it weakens Trump’s base. Not really serious, but really, being stupid isn’t a virtue, or an expression of one’s rights.
Nailed it, Charlie.
Ironic thing is, despite Trump’s best actions to destroy the environment, the air quality is likely the best it has been in 80 years. But of course Trumpo is upping the amount of mercury emissions allowed from coal-fired factories.
Yay!!!!!
If Fauci says there is a way to make baseball work with certain restrictions in place, I can trust him on that as a respected scientist who has been through a lot of other disastrous epidemics. Any plans for baseball could change quite a bit over next couple months.
I’m sure anyone like Trout or others that don’t care be isolated away from families will have certain opt out IL or other way to cover it. non issue, until there is agreement btw owners and MLBPA.
Fauci is not pure as driven snow. Several times he has hedged on some things in order to not anger Trump. I get that Fauci has to walk a fine line, but he’s compromised himself a few times.
I think he’s being more diplomatic than untruthful. . What he says about the possibility of baseball seems like separate issue from what he has to put up with re:Trump.
I think he is sincerely doing the best he can in working for trump. I don’t fault the man at all, and trust him from a scientific standpoint, emphatically. And IMO the science is what is really important.
You know it’s totally a disadvantage for the teams that were training in Florida to come out to Arizona to play a season( of course unlikely imo) of baseball.All Cactus league teams have their own facilities /Stadiums in place.The teams from the East( Grapefruit League) will be road teams all year, how is that fair?
The two separate leagues for this season one in AZ to start and the other in FL is the most reasonable idea and they return to those states for the playoffs. I also think by July we will have enough testing that people who have immunities to covid will have a health pass and then attend live sporting events. I would say they could limit attendance to season ticket holders with the health pass and then spread out in the stadiums and then rotate the games season ticket holders cam attend. Maybe say each season ticket holder can go just half or 21 games this season.
Author Kelly Swails
@kellyswails
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“The epidemiologists I follow said a few weeks ago “be aware that when our mitigation efforts start to work and projections go down, people are gonna use that as proof we overreacted, not proof that mitigation efforts worked.” *looks at twitter* Damn, the experts know their shit.”
Great write-up on Fauci in the Chron yesterday on how he handled the AIDS crisis in SF in the 80s. How he adapted as he saw what and how it was killing people. He went from being vilified to being a champion for the gay community, and the country at large as it spread. Without Fauci, Trump will simply throw tantrums at the press all day in his worthless pressers while his sycophants gibble up his drivel.
Just finished re reading Isabel Allende’s “Love and Shadows” set in Chile under Pinochet. Response to those who dare disagree with the General is eerily similar to what Trump does. Watching him dismiss the reporter lady who questioned him he immediately goes off with, “You’re fake news…” yada yada. Meanwhile talking up what great job he is doing.
I still dont see why they cant go first month (28 games as I laid out previously) in AZ and FL. If players rent their own houses and their family limits to stay at home orders it takes care of the problem in my eyes. Players can have a fever check daily. Then 42 home games and 42 road games that would probably could be kept to 3 or 4 road trips. Plus teams like the Giants and Angels would have one series against a regional rival and could stay at home.
It is not like baseball is a contact sport and the other contact sports all have the most athletic people on the planet and likely most resistant to such viruses.
And first month is June and by July you are playing at home and road series.
There’s a bunch of stuff wrong with all of that; but, hey, I’m a big believer in science.
GH, what don’t you guys get? The virus is transmittable 2-3-4 days before symptoms (fever). So ONE guy gets it from the gardener. Spends a few days in whatever form of clubhouse exists and shows up one day with a fever. BANG! Everyone he has had contact with (including the opposing team’s 3rd baseman who missed a tag on the guy’s triple yesterday) goes into quarantine. How does that affect the next day’s series start with a different team?
In a perfect world something like this could be possible. This is the human race we are dealing with and I haven’t seen us make/do anything perfect yet. OK, maybe Tanqueray Gin.
Tests to see who has it and who has had it that are 95% accurate will be necessary. Unfortunately, the Dear Leader has decided to look for scapegoats rather than put the whole govt. behind developing reliable tests. From what is starting to come out with previous tests is a whole bunch of false negatives. The worse kind of result.
Well said.
Agreed. OSF has gone from “Clubber” (Twins nickname for him) to Flap laureate.
The best!
Good post, Seal. Twin would be proud.
One sailor is dead, and hundreds are infected on the Roosevelt, GH. Were they all infected somehow? No. One guy brought in onboard, and it spread from there.
Get real. Is one death acceptable to you? Five? 20? All so you can watch a fucking game? Get over it.
Haven’t been able to log in from my phone for a couple weeks for some reason. Trying from my work phone and this seems to work.
Anyone who thinks the players sole reason for not wanting to play in a bubble is because of missing their family is clueless. What they really mean is they don’t want to miss out on going to bars, clubs, Topgolf, and whatever else these guys do in the evenings. They just have zero interest in being trapped as part of their job requirement.
Yeah I can see that WJ.The problem is the young bucks will want to go pickup strippers are just hang around virus infected sleazy clubs that could still pass “Cyrus the Virus” back to they’re teammates and families..
.
Ted Williams didn’t care much about missing the opportunity to cut the cords of his kids in the delivery room. Play ball. Long ago I recorded the NPR doc on him but only watched it recently. Pretty good, considering how short it is. It hits all the interesting spots–baseball, including disputes with the fans and press; his shame over the Mexican-American side of his heritage; his astonishing crash landing in Korea after getting strafed from the ground. Etc etc. I didn’t realize that he suffered several serious strokes toward the end of his life. That put a whole new spin on the cryogenic chapter. wtf would want to revive that?
A fascinating complex not-always-likable character. And one of the the biggest heroes ever because of serving 5 years in the middle of his baseball prime doing U.S. military service in 2 different wars. And real combat. Not like Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays playing baseball to entertain the troops.
And he was a key driving force in getting Negro League stars inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Also one of his ex-wives said he was the most profane cusser she ever heard in her life.
WOO HOO for the proface cussers!
Thanks to Flav and whoever else recommended Ozark. Great show. Only have four episodes left and I am already getting upset thinking about it ending.
The scene where the cartel tears off Marty’s toenails is one of the most disturbing moments in the history of television or film.
Oh yeah Ozark is one crazy show! The whole cast is stressed 😩 out to the max as they all have personal demons to deal with,and the killings are non stop! Yeah I’m finished up with season 3 and WJ it will keep blowing you away!
I’m not technical enough to post a tweet I just saw of the Ohio Trumpanistas banging on Ohio’s states house (shutdown by a Demo Gov.). It was a riff on the zombie deal. Called “Dawn of the Braindead). Worth finding and posting. Who can be the first to do it?
One of the things the medical people are finding out is that some of the people that have recovered from the virus have sustained some permanent damage in their lungs.
I would think a pro athlete would want to know that.
Same thing happened in Michigan, Seal. Hundreds of cars filled with Maga-Morons blocked streets leading to the capitol building. Blocking ambulances and workers from getting around the city as a bunch of whining fucking babies cried about not being able to get hair dye and other ‘essential’ things.
I liked the well-heeled republican burgher who was outraged that he couldn’t buy fertilizer and grass seed for his Spring lawn. I’ll bet he pays an undocumented gardener peanuts.
Moises Alou was born on this infamous day in Giant history.
Dad was busy…
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN196607030.shtml
Looks like Felipe was distracted. He was the only Atl starter without a hit or a run scored, right?
Good call, Xoot although I wonder if he even knew she was delivering in those primitive times.
Felipe was pulled after 4 PA in 4 innings, but it doesn’t look like he flew home.
He was back in the starting lineup the following day in Houston…
WJ, if you can’t get to the Flap the regular way, it can be accessed through the WordPress website, wordpress.com.
It’ll have links to all the WordPress blogs you belong to.
Nice Zum, this appears to work well. Thanks!
You’re welcome. Visually it’s kind of different, but it works. 🙂
You can bet the republicans who are protesting are being financed by the party. Trump is trying to pave the way by saying look at all the unhappy people that want to get back to work. One thing that will work against him is that a lot more people will die because of it. Of course he will blame somebody else for it but maybe the damage will be enough to hurt him.
Joe Scarborough this morning angrily talked about how there are Republicans so willing to kill off the WWII generation in order to vastly open the economy too soon. That’s the reward the WWII generation gets. Killed off to help the Dow Jones.
The pro-life party.
No they aren’t. Look at the protests in Michigan. They are bona fide dumbshits. They don’t need money to act like fools.
Yes they are, maga hats and flags. They use the constitution whenever is suits their purpose
I never knew Twin’s political bent. From his service days I would have guessed conservative. But, Twin was smart and my now day guess he would be all over this shit being put out and called it out. BF, what do you think?
His impact on the Splash and Flap can be reflected in that we keep referring back to him. He was unique.
huge liberal.
Yuuuuge…
Here ya go, OSF. Lots of hilarious takes on this photo.
WTF, oooops.
Crosby,Sills,Nash &Young
Ohio..4 dead in Ohio
Gotta get down to it Virus is cutting us down.
Should of been cured long ago.
What if you knew her,laying dead on the ground , how can you run when you know?
It would’ve been so much better if the boy had gotten it wrong and the girl got it right…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/16/michigan-whitmer-conservatives-protest/
Sorry about that link. When I sent it It was the whole article.
Oh, I’m dead-certain they are card-carrying Maga-maggots. All I’m saying is these guys aren’t getting paid by anyone to protest. They just feel they have the God-given right to be irresponsible idiots who put working people and government workers at risk to protest stay-in-place orders. If a Republican had ordered it, do you think they would be out there? Fuck no.
I love the woman on the video my daughter showed me yesterday who showed her roots in her hair and was adamant that she should have the right to go to her hair salon and not be forced to go to Walmart for hair dye.
The dumbing down of America is on full display.
EVERYTHING is on full display.
No one’s any dumber than they were 30 years ago.
It’s just all in your face 24/7…
Tru dat- it just seems a little scarier now.
From the WaPo article Winder linked: “The Michigan Conservative Coalition and Michigan Freedom Fund — founded by Greg McNeilly, political adviser to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — planned the protest following Whitmer’s executive order.”
I saw that yesterday, Mac, and nearly spit out my beer.
Congratulations Mac, you won my one-person contest.
OSF
The plans for Arizona baseball, as I understand them to this point, are ridiculous.
This country needs to look in the mirror and get real. This pandemic shit is deadly serious business.
If you catch it, regardless of age, you have a small, but decent chance of dying. Or, being permanently impaired in some physical way. No baseball is truly a meaningless symptom in the scope of this situation.
Putting people, particularly support people, at risk for these quarantined players and team staff is dangerous nonsense IMO.
BTW, Fauci would love to come clean and say publicly that Drumpf is a moron. You know he’d love to say it, just like Tillerson did. He must figure the country is better off if he is keeping some kind of a fact leash on Drumpf, rather than getting tossed out and letting this dumbass crook have nobody of science in the room…
When this is all over Fauci will be on more talk shows than Dr. Joyce Brothers…
This really fucking sucks.
From the Orange County Register: A 59-year-old man from San Clemente who served 38 years with the Orange County Fire Authority spent 18 days on a ventilator before dying Thursday, April 16, due to complications associated with the novel coronavirus, family and friends said.
Retired Fire Apparatus Engineer Ken Caley died while under a medically induced coma at Mission Hospital shortly after midnight, his daughter, Michelle Caley, 30, said. Test results confirmed that he had contracted COVID-19.
“He was well-liked at the station and will be missed by a lot of people,” said Caley’s close personal friend, OCFA Capt. Steve Concialdi.
Caley was most recently stationed at John Wayne Airport, OCFA Capt. Ben Gonzales said. He retired in 2018.
My understanding of this virus is that it effects people in different way. And you don’t really have to have underlying ,medical conditions. A LA Rams player tested positive for it and von Miller is positive also. The virus attacks some people violently and others not so much. Even people who are recovering have some permanent lung damage. Some people lost their sense of smell and taste and it hasn’t come back yet. This disease is a motherfucker.
He didn’t have any underlying conditions.
Howard Finkel died, classic announcer. His intro of Nikolai Volkoff (at the request of Slick the Doctor of Style) before he sang Soviet National Anthem were hilarious theater.
Have/had 3 old friends in Boston who were brothers. One hasn’t been infected (at this time), the 2nd caught it but recovered (at this time), and the 3rd just died. Really tough once it gets inside an entire family. The frustrations of the lockdown will eventually start driving people’s behavior to *open up* in their own individual ways. One of my colleagues over here was recently found to be infected. He swears he did everything right: avoided people altogether, honestly stayed isolated at home for weeks (we’re in our 12th week here now), etc. But he still got it. Touch one handrail, or one delivery bag, etc., and it doesn’t matter how careful you are otherwise. I know some very smart people who have already concluded we’re all going to contract it at some point within the next year (yes, year, not weeks or months) so what’s the point of total isolation, which will slowly migrate toward something like *sensible distancing*. Any reopening of the economy will need to do that anyway. Time will tell if that’s a mistake or not….
That’s why I think the anti-body test is so much more useful now than the virus test.
They want everyone to behave as if they already have it anyway…
Yeah, and I must admit to viewing everyone as a carrier on the rare occasion when I’m walking down the street or seeing people walking around my apartment building… and even thinking that I’m probably a carrier too, even though I’ve *done everything right*……
Craig, just curious, any update on Katie’s boyfriend (who was an F3) and his Mom (F2)? Hope none of them actually got infected after being identified as potentially being in contact ….
she recovered and no one else in the house got sick. Does that sound like in any way possible based on everything we’ve heard about this virus in the news???? I’m still not letting her see him, it’s causing quite the rift between us. She’ll get over it.
Eric Davis never had 150 hits in a season and only once did he even get over 140…
Will Clark, the best hitter in the world (my world) never had 200 hits.
My guess is that Davis couldn’t make through an entire season without getting hurt.
Cuomo’s wife got it after he did.
Yes Craig, it’s possible… that whole exposure chain I was talking about shows how it can work. Mom caught it from someone who was F1, Mom becomes F2, and everyone with possible contact with her then becomes F3 (the boyfriend), Katie would be F4, you would be F5 because of proximity to Katie, etc. Tracking it like that has allowed containment. You are smart to still limit Katie’s contact with F3. Yeah, she’ll get over it… as long as this loosens up at some point. Or, she’ll just have to find a new bf……..
In Craig’s thinking F3 should be 86ed permanently..
lol, he’s actually a very good kid. I’ve been lucky not to have had to deal with any idiots. Well, one idiot but out of 5 total in the last 5 years, I’ll take that ratio.