What’s In A Name?
Bailey, Schmitt, Swiney, Glowenke, Harrison, Dabovich, and Murphy…..
Right now, those names mean nothing to us. In ten years how will we feel? Will they evoke emotions in us like when we see the names “Clark” or “Posey” or “Bumgarner?” Hell, even writing the first word of the previous sentence got me a little jazzed up…..
The bottom line is that we have stunk for years. Stix, when I asked about the highs and the lows of being in the hoosgow you really should have listed “didn’t have to watch the SF Giants shitshow” as your singular high.
We need new players who are good at baseball. It’s really that simple. Catchers, pitchers, who cares? If Z hits on these draft picks it won’t matter who’s in front of them. They will have value and he’ll get something for them, either on the field or in a trade.
Last year someone commented about how it’s too bad for these older vets, by hanging around all these years their reputation is being tarnished by being part of so many terrible SF Giant teams since 2014. And I think that’s true. It sucks but it’s true. In ten years when I hear the names “Crawford” and “Belt” will they not ring as sweetly as when I hear the names “Lincecum” or “Renteria” or “Zito” or…”Huff?”
Think about it. A lot goes into those names.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
So details I didn’t know about this incredible night
https://nypost.com/2020/06/12/pirates-pitcher-dock-ellis-bizarre-no-hitter-while-on-lsd-50-years-later/
wow, thx. “What happened to Thursday?” That HR Reggie hit off Ellis hit top of light tower in Detroit iirc.
Great share. I remember this story, but there are a few nuggets about which I was not aware. I just cannot imagine tripping while pitching a MLB game…
Nice column. There’s also a film about Ellis called “No-No: A Dockumentary” that prominently features the no-hitter.
http://www.nonoadockumentary.com/
Good thread and you sort of read my mind regarding Stix (I will explain in a bit). Regarding baseball, I seriously have less than zero interest in baseball at the moment. Especially true when you consider what’s happening on this “ball” as we wake up this morning. Trump; minorities being murdered by the police; and COVID-19 are on my mind . . . not baseball or any other sport for that matter. I am also dealing with difficult logistics of moving from Colorado to my new home in Pollock Pines. Couple that with what we’ve experienced with the Giants for 4-5 years, I can use a break from that shit show.
So, regarding Stix, I’ll preface by saying – I have not followed the blog for a few weeks. Consequently, I may have missed his explanation of what happened that day with the police helicopter. Have you provided your version of what happened Stix? I understand if you’d rather not talk about the experience because it was traumatic and/or you’ve already said what occurred in a previous post. Whatever you decide, it’s understandable.
Listening . . .
Blade what is also on my mind is this African-American retired cop shot dead in St. Louis, this African-American federal officer killed in Oakland and these African-American small businesses looted and destroyed. Has there been coverage of these stories in the “main stream” networks. The two officers are having funeral services and no tv coverage…it seems from my view that all Afircan-American lives matter and deserves equal coverage and respect (not saying you or other Flappers have not had same concerns. I just only been on the Flap infrequently)…
Yes, I agree – that is troubling GH. Quite frankly, I am a neophyte regarding television news (or TV shows in general). It’s been 10 years since I cut the cord and I only got DirectTV now because I am living relatively close to my parents. Need something to entertain them when they visit (lqtm).
Seriously, I get depressed watching the news, as it’s all fear based and/or is directed at you to “buy” something to make you feel better, reduce anxiety, look good (see all the fucking hair, skin, nail products). In short, it’s a two – prone attack, where the news provides the “fear” and than their sponsors sell you something to feel good about yourself or reduce your fear. Beer commercials are the best at it, e.g., drink this (fill in the blank) and you’ll be like the most interesting person in the world. Umm . . . right.
Black Lives Matter is not a movement, but a highly-organized, heavily financed operation of $hit-$tirrer George $oro$, a made-man via the Cabal based in City of London. It’s all about creating the foundation for a race-war in America.
Of course black lives matter. So do the lives of old hippies like myself who, along with blacks, were targeted by Tricky Dick (a minion of the Rockefeller Crime Clan and controlled by Heinrich Kissinger) when he announced his notorious “War on DrugZ” in 1972. In his speech he specifically targeted blacks and hippies
. How many Americans (and their loved ones) have been victimized by this war by elements of the Federal govt. and their state, taxpayer-financed grant moneys, understudies? The War on Drugs, as someone writing in ‘High Times’ a decade or more ago, is nothing less than war on WE THE PEOPLE. Think about it. OUR public servants, paid and protected by tax dollars taken from our wallets and purses, making war on those who by constitutional law are rightfully their employers and masters. World turned upside down.
Blade. Yer goddamn right, I do have a very full explanation of what happened on that day. It’s not total, like about the high probability of psychotronic weaponry being used on 8-8-16. Don’t google that as some folks I’d rather not mention right now have had an LTR with googs. Find another search engine and look up the term.
Most of that which i wish to relate appeared as my 10 page sentencing statement in a Minnesota state court on the very same charge the Fed$ used on me. Got hold of a transcript and made up a few copies. Sent a copy to Xoot earlier in the week. I’m ok with you and/or any other Flapper contacting him on this. He may well have received it by today. In case that’s a place he doesn’t wish to go, I can understand as the matter is long and complex. I’m a little leery of doing addresses and phone #’s on the site, but if all else fails…I’m sure and the rest of the gang are full well aware that the mass media today simply print or air the “official” side of the story and only very rarely take the time (or piss off the “authorities” by interviewing the civilian citizen involved).
What I will say here and now that the pilot violated FAA regulations (and a Supreme Court ‘ruling’) by flying at barely over 100 feet altitude and within 90 feet of my front door in successive passes and that in the process quite likely violated at least seven federal statutes and two Minnesota ones. But in this day and age the House always wins AND I learned just the other day that Federal District Court conviction rates have recently achieved a 99% success rate and its still rising. Only two other major countries during my lifetime achieved the full 100 percent conviction level. I won’t name them right now, but maybe you can guess.
In a recent phone conversation Xoot told me he had thoroughly researched my case and he offered some takes on that. Should Xoot care to comment on the case over this medium, he certainly has my permission to do so. He also has my say-so to share my address and phone # with any regular Flapper who would care to get in touch directly. Not currently doing e-m ing as this Microsoft mess seems to have that function lost in never-never land. Can’t wait to get that Apple desktop which just might be user-friendly for antiques like myself.
Thank you buddy. I would believe anything you have to say on this subject before I take anything the Feds might say about this as the truth. They lie everyday and twice on Sunday.
Haven’t received the package yet, Stix. Mail is slow these days, for imaginable reasons. Look forward to it. I seem to remember, back in 2016, seeing in one of the federal court filings a photo of the chopper that dove at you. The DHS logo was small and pale. htf were you supposed to know who they were?
Transcripts aren’t as freely available as other court docs. The court reporters have to get paid somehow.
Local kid from Archbishop Mitty selected by Red Sox at #17 in first round, IF Nick Yorke. Older brother plays for Bosie St., Mom played college softball at Fresno. Mitty is part of WCAL private school league that dominates most sports (girls and boys) up and down Peninsula and includes host of pro baseball players.
and we wonder where this great national divide is coming from….
yup; still fighting the uncivil war
Great thread, Flav. Belt may not be remembered in the vein of Clark and other greats, but I will always remember his HR in the 18th inning of the 2014 playoffs against the Natty Nats. Same is true of Craw…I will always remember his slam against the Bucs in the 2014 wildcard game. So while they may never have a place in my heart like many Giant greats, I will have these memories, and do not see them going away.
I think Z and crew did a pretty damned good job. They got a switch-hitting C, 3rd baseman who also did some closing (and had good numbers doing so), four pitchers (one from NC State who grew-up about an hour from where Bum grew-up, and was the compensation pick for Bum), and a SS.
I know snark will probably go off about no OFers, but overall, a solid draft IMO.
I understand your position Blade re: baseball, but for me, with all the covid-19 and racial turmoil stuff going on, I would welcome the diversion of some live baseball. Hope you get your phone situation figured-out, brother.
As the Flapper vets may recall, I was always pretty high on Belt and probably commented more than once that he might have benefited from a good hypnotist who could relate to baseball skills. Some of you may also recall that time and again I groused about the sacred and recently retired other BB wanting his first baseman to segue into a power hitter. As a line-drive hitter, getting his share of doubles and the occasional low-trajectory blast; my take continues to be that some combination of manager and hitting-coach messed with his head, turning a man who couldda been a steady .280 hitter with an equally steady mid-300’s OBP and regularly batting second into but a shadow of his potential. Crawdaddy, I feel, got caught up in the undertow of the general team malaise.
The Bochy approach worked excellently well with pitchers, who tended to achieve their highest potential under his tutelage. Something was missing, however, in strategizing an offense. G.M. and crew were also complicit in that. Magic worked in 2010, 12 and 14. In ’16 that second playoff game vs. the Cubs sent the team into a tailspin from which they never recovered. A reset was due during that offseason. Perhaps the primary culprit was a level of loyalty to the vets who brought us those three World Championships. Nothing is wrong with loyalty, per se. But as Leo the Lip famously commented: “Nice guys finish last.”
I’m not sure how much I really care about this, but is Scott Harris still the Giants GM? I don’t think I’ve seen his name mentioned once with this draft.
Far as I know, yes. It was interesting to see the Z being sole face of the draft and interviews. Haven’t heard a word out of Harris.
Really hope baseball happens even in limited form and we can see Giants younger players, Kapler and his staff managing what he has, and what the next moves are from Harris as GM.
Yeah we heard more about Michael Holmes( lead development of scouting) and his imaginary friend Patrick Bailey then we heard about GM Scott Harris..
So the Giants drafted a pitcher, Ryan Murphy (nothing like a daringly original Irish name), from Le Moyne College, from which as a member of the class of 1970 I received a BA in English. It has become a decent baseball school, especially for pitchers (Tom Browning, Jim Deshaies, Scott Cassidy). We’re a small town. I fell on my elbow 2 weeks ago (ouch; no break; bursa sack did its job) and the PA I saw pitched for Ursinius near Philly and for Le Moyne (good guy to have for an elbow injury; he said he chose to forgo TJ surgery and rehabbed for a year; I asked him why TJ pitchers come back stronger; he said it’s actually the rigorous rehab more than the operation itself; his father, in the same practice, worked with the famed Dr. Andrews; agrees Dr. Jobe should be in HOF; his good friend is Josiah Gray, highly touted, in the Dodgers organization). It was not a surprise to know that my youngest has a friend who knows Ryan Murphy (same age range roughly).
FAILURE TO THRIVE is selling surprisingly well.
I don’t miss baseball much. I suppose if the Jints had a more exciting offering I might feign interest.
Pawlie: Perhaps you will agree with me that baseball is a metaphor for the real American dream of chocolate bars and Willie Mays and tuning into Louie Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald somehow managing to top Paul Robeson’s basso profundo rendition of “Summertime” in “Porgy and Bess”. It’s all about baseball and apple pie before the forces of greed and destruction shattered that marvelous matrix on 11-22-63.
Check out Dylan’s recent take on all the implications in his second poetic masterpiece “Murder Most Foul”. Maybe he’s due for an unprecedented second Nobel in literature for that magisterial seconding to “Desolation Row.” The incredible element in “Murder” is that this time his lyrics were every bit as much intellectually derived as channeled.
Good timing, Stix. Interview with Bob Dylan in today’s NYT is simply riveting. Every word.
Yeah Swiney is The Bumgarner pick at 67 if you ever want to compare down the line( doubtful)
And Glowonke from Willie Wonka is the Will Smith pick at 68.
One thing the Giants have is a run on North Carolina St players with Swiney’s catcher Bailey joining him along with former teammate SS Will Wilson the number 1 rd pick acquired from the Angels also a Wolfpack..
Still think they scored well with Casey”What about Schmitt “ with the 49th pick a player who grades out well as a hitter and apparently a solid pitcher with a bunch of saves as well.But 3rd base should be his calling card..
I am hoping there are a couple of gems there but I think we knew even before their particular drafts that the Thrill, Bum and Posey were studs. Of course no one probably thought of Lincecum that way. This high school kid from SJ has some nasty stuff but from what the video I had seen and his arm angle, can he avoid a major arm injury??? I hope so.
And now that I got a chance to respond to this laughable conspiracy theory of voter suppression in Georgia, please Flappers use your remarkable skills of reason. Tuesday’s election wad a primary. There were no Repubs against Dems facing off. Why the F would Repubs want to suppress Dems from voting in a Dem primary???? It is laughable to suggest such. If there was a grand conspiracy why show your hand to suppress votes in a Dem primary and not just wait till Nov???
Evert county in this country contols their own elections picking polling stations and its operations. If people think the GA Sec of State is picking where polling stations are located in each county and they are managed, that is also laughable. The reality is not suppression but incompetence. We have seen such incompetent election management in Dem countries for decades like Miami Dade and Cook and whatever county St. Louis is part of. Instead of chasing windmills ala Don Quixote chasing fantasies that Repubs are suppressing votes in Dem controlled counties with Dem mayors and Dems controlling their county operations, why dont these Dem politicians figure how to competently run their counties. As I suggested the other day, the solution to accusations of suppressing votes is to promote early voting where people at their own convenience can vote. Early voting can be managed at the county level and Dem counties have Dems in control. Enough of this suppression nonsense.
Republicans in Texas and Georgia and North Carolina aggressively suppress black voters. The USSCt’s Shelby decision, 2013 I think, gutting the Voting Rights Act (neutering among other things provisions that protect voter access), has emboldened the repubs. They got caught tampering in NC and a repub operative got indicted and convicted for fraudulently interfering in the 2018 elections. This is a short section on NC from a recent report analyzing the more “legally” rigged, post-Shelby world in the republican south:
“Voters in North Carolina, where more than one-fifth (21 percent) of the population is African American, also have less access to polling stations. The 40 counties once covered by Section 5 of the VRA now have 29 fewer voting locations than they had before Shelby. The vast majority of these reductions occurred under the proverbial cover of darkness — without any notice or reporting from the news media. They are especially concerning because majority-White counties voted to shutter voting locations with significant Black populations over the vocal objections of local civil rights groups. The Pasquotank County Board of Elections, for example, shuttered half of the polling places in Elizabeth City — a majority-Black community — without public input and over the objections of the local NAACP branch. The consolidation was undertaken in 2015 in the name of saving money, yet no polling places were eliminated in other parts of the county.”
to even consider that republicans aren’t trying to suppress black voting is outrageous. GH, you can’t possibly believe the stuff you’re churning out can you?
“Why the F would Repubs want to suppress Dems from voting in a Dem primary????”
To discourage them from voting in November. To give them such a terrible voting experience in the primary that they won’t want to do it again in November. Yes, low income people can get discouraged. It’s one of the pathologies of poverty which makes it hard to break the cycle.
The answer is to let every voter in the nation vote by mail. It always has been the answer, and always will be the answer.
exactly. They could also be running a trial to see how effective it is to just send broken machines— expect that tactic to be quite prevalent in Nov
It’s called a trial run, GH.So closing polling places in historically black districts helps the Democrats? Got it. And Stacey Abrams didn’t face voter suppression running against Brian Kemp in GA? Jesus. Who ran the election? Gee. Brian Kemp. There are conspiracy theories and then there are scenarios like connect the TWO dots.
Sending off-duty police officers to black polling places as ‘voting monitors’ is Jim Crow style voter suppression. Throw in faulty/broken machines installed, no one received their absentee ballots in time, and in the past 8 years, 1.8 million voters were wrongly purged according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
I suppose it is just a coincidence that voting in the Republican counties went smoothly. GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger knows how to butter his bread.
First, it wasn’t a “Dem primary” it was a primary for both parties that included House and Senate seats. also on the Georgia ballots were a shitload of NP Judgeships being voted on.
“If there was a grand conspiracy why show your hand to suppress votes in a Dem primary and not just wait till Nov???” Again, not a “Dem primary” also voter discouragement is voter disenfranchisement, making people wait 4 hours to vote in a primary may give them second thoughts on voting in November,
“The reality is not suppression but incompetence.” The reality is since the Supreme Court overturned a key portion of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Georgia has closed 214 polling locations, many in poor, rural counties with large African American populations. The current governor, Brian Kemp, presided over his own election in 2018 while serving as Georgia’s secretary of state and overseeing a purge of hundreds of thousands of registered voters.
“Enough of this suppression nonsense.” Agreed, if the Republican party would stop trying to suppress voting, we could stop this nonsense.
potd
The American party of Putin, in future, can only govern by a form of political apartheid we’re seeing now in states under their control. A minority governing an opposition majority by controlling access to voting, which though theoretically available to all, is in practicality, not available to all who would vote opposition. This is, by exercise of “legal” voting suppression, enabled by laws enacted by the minority rulers,and rubber stamped as constitutional by compliant apartheid judges appointed by — you guessed it, the ruling minority legislature and governor. Where somehow the opposition does get its candidate elected as governor, before the power transfer the ruling minority guts the power of the incoming governor by “legal” means, so the minority apartheid legislature still maintains enhanced control (e.g., Wisconsin; https://tinyurl.com/y48ss4ct). These are all grossly un-American actions of a group that will do anything to maintain political power in the face of unavoidably bad trending demographics. If not stopped, we will be a banana republic after another 4 years of this abomination…
Your witness, counselor. BOOOM!
It is a fact that the repubs have become the party of voter suppression. And that is NOT a fucking conspiracy theory. repubs benefit from a lower voter turnout more often than not.
Voter suppression is only part of the problem. We need to:
Overturn Citizens United (get the big money the fuck outta politics)
Completely outlaw gerrymandering
Make all elections public elections…each candidate gets the same amount of $$ with which to work
Make vote by mail a reality in every state (as an option – you can still go voter in person, or drop you ballot at an official ballot box, etc.).
Spot on, Chi. Maybe we could include outlawing BOTH the RepublicRats and the Demoli-cans as their central committies are stringpulled by the financial powers that run most everything in our ruptured republic. Let’s have open elections, not selections by those organized gangs of grafters, greedheads and ideologues.
Great story flav, the Pirates of the early 70’s we a very tough team and I remember Ellis well. i used to paint metal parts in a paint booth and one day i decided to take a hit of window pane and go to work. It was actually kinda fun.
Chuck- I don’t know if it’s just me or not but i am not able to post on the forever site. There is no posting box.
I’m in the same boat Winder on Chuck’s blog posting.I have a lot of issues with Flavors too but still manage to post fornos..
you just get flagged more often than other for accidently using banned words. It’s just been bad luck you’re using words I use to catch trolls.Keep bloggin’ my man it’s all good!
So for some perspective for especially Flap Universe in the Bay Area and for those who have never lived in the South, the confederacy to a lot of native southerners like Lee was not about slavery (even though that was the prime motivation for southern states in seceding). For example, in my rural county in Virginia, i stumbled upon a local graveyard behind a very old small rural church. My part of the county was not a slave holding area. No major plantations but they did exist elsewhere in the county. I see a grave with a confederate flag and look at the details and the person dies early 20s in a battle and the marker simply says “Died for his home state of Virginia” and that was the reality of many of the average soldiers. They were not fighting to maintain slavery which most soldiers did not take part in that inhuman terror, but they believed they were fighting for their states and their “honor.”
Now I fully support renaming military bases and states and localities removing statues if that is what their residents want, but I also want to see statues reflecting the horrors of slavery created to demonstrate that horror…
“fighting for their states and their honor.” Yup, no other possible reasons right? They sounded very righteous indeed…..
The Confederate statues were put up during the early Jim Crow era to celebrate a belief in white supremacy and to send a strong intimidating message to black people. Those statues are racist to their core.
Being a Bay Area native I have also lived in CT, and just outside of Charleston SC. I found both places interesting and good places to live. I think the reason for so many different attitudes concerning slavery is that a lot of people don’t really know the history behind it. I know the schools I went to just glanced over it without much background. Americans should really look at what was going on for more than a 100 years before the Civil War. Whether the average person really knew what they were fighting for or not makes little difference. Slavery was the main issue of the War, so if you were a Confederate soldier you were fighting for slavery. Chivalry was a rich mans hobby.
I doubt that guy in the graveyard wrote his own marker slogan. The draft, when it’s on, always goes after 18 and 19-year-olds first. They make the best cannon fodder — often too green to have solid plans or dreams, healjhy and strong, and very impressionable as that frontal lobe takes its time developing. Many of those guys have only a vague idea what their war’s about when they get dragooned in.
LMAO!!!!!!!!!! Great line!
The Confederate draft, much like that of the Union, came into play towards the middle of the war, likely after the slaughters at Chancellorsville, Antietam and Gettysburg. Basically, both sides had pretty much run out of volunteers. Those who fought for state’s rights on one side or to preserve the Union on the other were mostly drawn from green idealists
Came the drafts and 1863 featured largely Irish draft riots in New York City and open rebellion among secessionists against secession in favor of slavery in large sections of the mountain South in places like Andrew Johnson’s eastern Tennessee. Many, on both sides, were dragooned into the draft in a war that had more and more become ALL about slavery. Preservation of the Union or first loyalty to one’s state were no longer parts of the equation.
What flag was flying over Fort Sumter when the state of South Carolina fired on it?
Head, though not seeing eye to eye with you on a number of political issues, I do hafta recognize your take on Virginia and the four other Southern states which opted to join the Confederacy post Fort-Sumter. As a broadly read student of history (honors major in the subject prior to a much heavier load autodidactically, particularly as to military/political matters) I read up a bit on Robert E. Lee, who was Lincoln’s and then army commander Winfield Scott’s (a Virginian, BTW) number one choice to head up the Union field army
. Lee, a gentleman through and through, painfully opted for his sense of patriotism to his STATE, in the Revolutionary and Constitutional Convention sense of localized loyalty rather than to the ever-centralizing, financier-controlled Federal government. The majority of Confederate soldiers were non slaveholders and in that day and age owed their primary loyalty to their state and not to the nation.
True, slavery was a powerful motivator among the hotheads in the Deep South, particularly in Charleston and New Orleans in the likes of Pierre G.T. Beauregard and Judah P. Benjamin. The radical Abolitionists also played a prime role in igniting the hostilities (think John Brown and “Beecher’s Bibles). From the get-go Lincoln was not about abolishing slavery, but for preservation of the Union. So the underlying motivations for a probable of those who served their respective causes were a matter of divided loyalties–to the Union or to their respective states.
Contemporary Americans have but a dim understanding of American history, due largely to the machinations of alleged educational reformers such as John Dewey and James Bryant Conant, who heavily influenced primary colleges of education (and educational theory) primarily at Columbia. Those not born into the elite were to be considered merely as “drawers of water and hewers of wood” so to speak as willing workers and compulsive consumers (today’s reality). Consequently, the Fed$ in the Department of (mis)Education, actively discourage the teaching of civics in American school systems. Also, decent liberal educations, focusing primarily of the queen of the liberal arts–history and concomitantly, geography, have received short-shrift . Contemporary “higher” education in this ruptured republic is all about socialization/preparaton for credentialized entry into the job world. Economic utilitarianism is the meme.
Errata: Paragraph 2, line 4 should read “probable majority”
Stix, I’ve read some James Macpherson and some Eric Foner, but I’m no scholar of 19th century political economy. But I think 10 of the first 12 presidents of the USA owned slaves, and three of the first four, from VA, were wealthy slave-owning plantation overseers. I also know that the southern slave states were pretty happy with the federal government during the early decades because they, due to the 3/5 clause in the constitution, controlled the house of reps and, thus, the electoral college (and, as a result, often owned the presidency). All that changed as new non-slave states joined the union. I think, but again this is shaky scholarship, that Lincoln’s election demonstrated the south’s loss of control. Ergo, let’s go. Now, of course, the rise of the newly constituted federal gov. during the same period is another thing.
“Died for his home state of Virginia”
GH, they were lied to. Just like we were going back to when we were little pups in kindergarten school. Think about it. Genocide of the Indians? Red scare in the 1950s? Japanese internment in World War II? I could go on and on . . . You get my drift. I don’t believe for one minute that the Federal government is being straight with us. I will give Trump credit for one thing – you know when he’s fucking lying. He doesn’t even know the meaning of the word, artifice. Not in his vocabulary. By the by, I responded to you above.
Should get crazy this weekend with every team picking players not drafted hoping to lure them to sign for just 20k.I can see tough decisions for some.The high school kids will probably go on to college,while the college kid well especially a senior you would think would sign?
It’s amazing that most all teams are scouting over 800 players,even with this year only 5 rounds and a total of only 160 players drafted.So yeah they’re still a lot of good talent out there to be landed.Its unfortunate with the pandemic especially with the high school kids that had only a few games for scouts to evaluate off of it really affected the draft status imo..
I would imagine most of the 160 that were drafted will sign for sure, knowing even the last round guy still makes a shit load more then 20k players top salary..
This just might be the norm if it turns out that players will sign for that. We are talking huge bargains for players that pan out. Don’t know what the unions will say about it but you can bet the owners are on board.
The reality of the situation is slavery has been a part of the colonies, and then the country for over 400 years.
Our economic strength was built upon the backs of ‘free’ labor. Slaves were animals to be bought and sold. They were bred to be bigger and stronger. Our country does not become the economic superpower it grew into without slavery.
Much like the Nevada guys who were feeding their cows for free on BLM land, and got pissed when the feds took their cows, feeding their animals for free cut costs to the point of being highly profitable. Just as free labor to grow crops grew the profit margins as well. Losing slave labor killed southern economic strength.
Unca, we must always bear in mind that slaves bought from Dahomey and other slaver nations in Africa were initially a second or even third consideration for the greedy colonial leaders and their backers in Britain. They attempted to enslave Natives. That proved to be a no-go as the then freest people within the westernizing world were simply too spiritually free (no dominative organized religion or state-structure) to become enslaved. They would rather die and did so almost uniformly.
The piggish government of elitist England then turned to what they euphemistically called “indentured servants”, poor folk and many who had committed crimes only the Fed$ and their regionalized minions would consider as crimes in this devolutionary era. Generally brought over in chains, the “servants” were expected to slave for something like seven years before their period of indenturement was fully served. Many ran off to nearby tribal villages where they would generally be well-treated and ultimately adopted into the tribe.
Finally, the African option proved out. Toiling away in tobacco, hemp, rice and indigo plantations in the hot, sticky climate south of the Mason-Dixon line was something they were genetically (if not spiritually) equipped to survive and even in some senses, to thrive. Upon Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin, the Deep South plantation culture went into high gear. Many descendants of Africans brought to the U.$. in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries and lived in the upper South, got “sold down the river”, families busted up and all the other destructive practices and ended up in places like South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana to toil in the cotton fields. Northern investors and ship owners were highly complicit in all of this. There were few clean hands in the economically elite classes in America’s ante-bellum world.
Well, yeah. But that doesn’t negate the fact that slavery started here in 1619. The indigenous people weren’t captive, and they fought to the the end. But they were murdered and poisoned to extinction. At least on the east coast. The west coast saw the same slavery practices used with blacks in the south with the missionaries and indigenous folk.
I need to post a new thread. That is why mine is down.
What would be motivation for a prospect to sign for $20K? College players that could remain in school and play next season will be looking at much expanded and more lucrative draft, correct? Isn’t it supposed to be 20 rounds? Mac posted something about the large difference in what was paid out to guys signing 5th round and lower; it was astronomical.
Other issue too would be, where would anyone signing now actually play except for possibly Fall Leagues, rumored to be expanded to AZ and Florida.
I don’t see the draft ever being 20 rounds again.Thats over 640 players being drafted and then you have the unsigned players on top of that.I kind of liked the 5 round format , it’s long enough to weed out the cream of the top to the also rans..
It is amazing that these scouts from all teams evaluate up to 800 players though.
Billy Jo Bumpkins from little creek South Dakota, he’s on a scouts list cause maybe his breaking ball looks like it has more bite than the kid from Division 1.Life of a scout I guess? If Billy boy makes it that scout looks like a genius!
Slow Hand and Winston…nice. Thanks for the share.
your welcome. to me that is the 2nd best version of that song.
And the best version, in your opinion, is?
The original by Howlin Wolf
Howlin Wolf didn’t write the song. it had been around since the 20’s or at least some version of it. it’s said that Roosevelt Sykes was the first to record it. The first version I heard was Howlin Wolf’s.
Winder, in case you and others from the War Babies/Boomer generations did not scroll back to yesterday’s blog, I did a posting there after a few hours of engaged listening to the wonderful musical efflorescences which those of us fortunate enough to be born between roughly 1940 to 1960 were able to enjoy. For me, it was a magical mystery tour down memory-lane. Perhaps most of the engaged folks from “our generation” will get some positive vibes from the excursion I made last night. Flav checked it out and though a bunch younger, found some resonances there.
That was an awesome post, Carstie. I grew up 5 years too late to see Jimi, Janis, Jim Morrison, and my cultural heroes of back then (my first concert was Stevie Wonder, and my 2nd was the Dead and Bob Dylan at Kezar stadium in 1975, but my older brother and sisters played their stuff all the time, and I was immersed in all that music. My wheelhouse of course was 70s hard rock. Robin Trower, Blue Oyster Cult, Ted Nugent, and the everpresent Grateful Dead.
But I think the punk/new wave explosion of the late 70s had nearly the same impact going forward, as even that was rooted in the early late 60s/early 70s velvet Underground/Stooges/NewYork Dolls stuff. Even up to and including the grunge revolution of the early 90s, and the rap/hip hop movement of the late 70s.
What has come to pass is there has been no real successor to grunge on the music scene that has dominated the collective psyche. Sure there are great bands among the formulaic drivel, but contemporary hard rock doesn’t exist anymore. The Bay Area, which used to have upwards of 6 rock stations at any given time, has one in 107.7. And they don’t play any new music.
Stix- that’s why I love youtube so much. Even when the Fillmore was going strong and tickets were $2.50-$3.00 there was so much music that I missed. You can now go back and just about see anyone from back in the day. I am a blues, R&B, and Rocker from way back and i still love it today. Korean War baby here.
Nice Winder, Diggin alittle Slowhand Clapton on a Friday!
The whole issue of slavery building the profitability of the South is certainly real. This is why racists still thrive in parts of the South- -they are still pissed. They may not always be sure why, they are still pissed. Not all but a bunch. Usually not out in the open until Trump showed up.
However, I feel that that scenario is being replayed out now by the petroleum and mining industries. Huge profits by sucking oil or digging coal out of the ground and letting everyone else deal with the CO2 problem. Huge metal mine trying to get started on coast of Alaska that could wreck a whole salmon base ecosystem. Same as a situation here in Oregon. A big petroleum company wants to build a pipeline through the middle of our waters and forests and export it in a LNG plant in Coos Bay. Get this- -the company is Canadian and their projected customers are in Asia!
Get that- -a foreign company wants to fuck up our land and air for Chinese customers! It’s touch and go up here on that project. Needless to say, the Trump admin is all for it. Is it a coincidence that the same people who don’t get BLM are the same ones in favor of projects like this?
“the Fed$ in the Department of (mis)Education, actively discourage the teaching of civics in American school systems.”
That’s a misleading statement in the sense that the states have huge control over their own curriculums, regardless of anything the Dept. of Education does. I can speak for California and say that California is very committed to students learning civics. It’s a myth that students aren’t learning civics anymore. But I still see that myth on Facebook sometimes. I also see the myth that students aren’t doing the Pledge of Allegiance anymore. The vast majority of schools still do it. The media will find a loner school somewhere not doing it and make it sound like it’s all the schools not doing it.
On the topic of the horrors of slavery, it was an eye-opener to me to learn how HUGE cotton was to the American economy back then, and why it was called King Cotton.
Look at a map of the U.S. before the Civil War, showing where cotton was grown. It staggers the mind.
As someone said, free labor (slavery) made it especially profitable.
Someone mentioned Eli Whitney. He inadvertently exploded the growth of slavery with his invention, the cotton gin, which took the seeds out of cotton much quicker, and made cotton more profitable. He was a New Englander who didn’t fully understand the consequences of his invention.
Picking cotton is awful. The plant has big thorns on it. I’ve never picked cotton, but my dad did as a youngster, out in the hot Arkansas sun, to make some money. He told me about the awfulness of it.
Slavery was a horrible horrible thing. And still, the more we learn about, the even more horrible it is. We were all told, as kids, a folksy story about George Washington having wooden false teeth. And now scholars know that his false teeth dentures were made by having teeth pulled from the mouths of slaves.
Zumiee, I thought this story/song by Spencer Bohren kinda fit in with your post.
Zooms: Teaching to the test is a DOEdu. prescription which segues hand-in-glove with Federal grant money to the “lower” levels of government in our current bass-ackwards governmental imperative. Agree, that the states and even the districts do have a large input into their curriculums. My niece teaches in an upper middle-class suburban system which,I’m informed, features a broadly-based curriculum which includes civics. Guess I’m harking back to the four-room (8 grades) village school I attended back in the 50’s, where we had a full year of civics in it would have been either 5th or 6th grade. :Presumably, that was tied to the then rather minimal state aid to local districts. Some seven or eight years ago I came upon an 8th grade graduation test administered to Kansas students. After reading it over, my conclusion was that today’s average PHD holder could not have passed that exam.
My basic premise is that via deliberate dumbing down in the socialization and jobs oriented contemporary reality in America’s schools, combined with boobtoob programming; the average American doesn’t know shit from shinola when it comes to how government works or how it was originally conceptualized to work.
I appreciate your thoughts and insights on this; but I think it’s also important to acknowledge the reality of how much people just flat-out forget, when they’re done going to school.
Polls show that most American adults can’t name the three branches of the U.S. government. I’m confident they learned about it in school, but just forgot it as time went on and they got caught up in work and family responsibilities. It’s really up to each adult to be a lifelong learner, if they want to. Refresh old knowledge, and learn new things. I just read a fascinating article yesterday in Discover magazine about early humans. A lot of scientists now believe our species, Homo Sapien, has been on Earth at least 300,000 years. Humans, like us, for 300,000 years. Humans that liked to play games and sports. Humans that laughed when the other guy stepped in animal poop. Humans that loved music and art.
Zumiee: It’s also all about the textbooks: Boring, boringer and boringest. No life. No soul. Written by edjumacationist bureaucraps/academicists. Even good, dedicated, idealistic teachers have to wade through that shit and all too many of the best of em end up dropping out outta sheer frustration. Also, study after study have come to the conclusion that the best teaching situation is done in a circular or oval arrangement with a spirit of collegiality, as against teaching down to the ignorami.
Group dynamics posits that ideal number of individuals in a classroom situation would range from 12 to 15. Instead of intelligently enhancing learning situations, funding which should go to lifetime learning facilitation goes to the WarDefense industry and to the Security (for the elite) state.
If you want to read about the myth of how Robert E. Lee was a principled military man just feeling duty bound to stick up for his native South, rather than slavery having much to do with his motivations, take a look at this.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/.
And for a mind expanding article on why the American Putin party has jumped on the Drumpf train to collaboration hell and can’t get off, this is a must read. Beware, long, but fascinating and deserving of a Pulitzer prize IMO…
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/trumps-collaborators/612250/
interesting stuff. (Minor oddity: I didn’t know that Arlington Nat’l Cemetery was installed on Lee’s old plantation land.)
Yeah, the land was “available” for burying the body count, and it was an “in your eye” move to Lee. Two birds with one stone….
“The American Putin party”? C’mon, Snarkk. Do you happen to get most of your noose from the corporate-financed talking heads on boobtoob noose? Putin is a Russian patriot. He has been deliberately demonized by (yes it’s true) fake news outlets working on behalf of the WarDefense industry which just happens to be the most lucrative and biggest employer in these Untied Skate$ of a Miracle.
It’s all about the bottom line for those major investors like those London bank$ters who hold controlling interest in Lockheed-Martin and their Skunkranch. The WarDefense investors need to have a primary enemy in order to keep those trillion dollar, no-bid, cost-overrun contracts, well-lubed by campaign fund largesse going to key prostiticians in the District of Corruption.
Putin is a mobster, thief, and murderer. And he interferred in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in an attempt to help get Trump elected.
Stix, there is more than ample evidence of the years of connections of the current occupant of the WHouse and his party with Putin and the Russians. Loans, election rigging, money laundering via real estate, NRA infiltration. One volume of the Mueller Report is a roadmap to it. Anyway, there is plenty to suggest we have a Russian stooge in the Oval Office…
Snark, I just got around to reading this article about Robert E. Lee. Powerful! Thank you for sharing. Quite frankly, I (shouldn’t have, but did) mistakenly bought into the bullshit myth of this man. I should have known better. Again, thanks for educating me about this.
I haven’t seen any posts from Loo for awhile anyone heard from him?
Maybe I just haven’t seen his post and/or maybe he’s just taking a break from the flap, just hoping he’s OK.
So, no outfielders in the SF draft.
Hopefully, a few free agent OFers will sign for $20K in a roll of the dice talent scoop.
If I’m in college and not a senior, I’m staying there until the next draft. Moreso, in spades, for high schoolers undrafted. $20K is nothing — I can probably get that from a college booster in cash or in kind.
MLB and the baseball business is becoming unrecognizable to me. Dismantling of the minor leagues is penny wise and pound foolish.
A labor / management war over the next CBA appears to me almost a lock….
Huh. Didn’t realize Lee was really that awful. Truly the principles of repeating a lie so long it becomes the truth. Where have I heard that before?
And, GH, please don’t jump on the Republican/Democrat argument of the 1860s through the 1960s. The dixiecrats are LONG gone, and Trump is so far away from what the Republican ideals were that he is in his own stratosphere.
And I’m beyond baffled we don’t even try to get OFers anymore.
6 of the Giants’ top 15 prospects are outfielders, for what it’s worth.
Like I mentioned to P/A the other day.
I believe Loo is just taking a break from all the BS politics that come up all the time here.
It’s just a guess on my part, but his last post stated:”I thought this was a baseball blog”?
Which I would prefer as well.Hey I don’t mind other stuff like movies, people’s stories of crazy past etc
but Talking Politics is never a resolve among a lot of people, especially at a Bar, never a good idea, and most bartenders will frown at..
Politics may or may not be welcome here by some Flappers, but it’s not BS. If we had a competent president we could possibly be having a baseball season right now.
Kat: Until and unless the games return, this place seems to have temporarily the Bar-None Ranch. My politics were apparently deemed wrong by some very powerful people who somehow managed to delete me from Yahoo message boards, the Unz Review and even a tiny handful of links forwarded to my onetime Farcebook account. I contacted another Unz poster and he got in touch with Ron Unz, who responded that he had no problem with my posting on his site and I was welcome there any time. But I never could get back on board.
So was a virus induced into my Mac Powerbook 4 (a gift from the late beloved Michael Scott)…or was some other method used to shut down my anti-Deep$tate commentaries? Within 3 months or so of that development an unidentifiable helicopter took successive passes within 90 feet of my front door and little over 100 feet high. I was scared shitless.
Free and open discussion of depth political matters is actively and energetically being suppressed in this “land of the free and home of the brave.” Trueblue American citizens should not have to fear “our” government…a body which is now becoming as oppressive at home as it is aggressive abroad. And no, my politics has nothing to do with Demolican or Republicrat partisan politrix…That stuff is only for political little-leaguers.
Does anyone have a good explanation of the move to contract the minor leagues?
Covid can be an instigator, but I don’t understand the broader picture down the road, assuming Covid will be fixed with a vaccine at some point. How can MLB survive with a limited minor league footprint? That is the exact wrong thing to do if you really want to sustain public interest in the sport over the long term. I was a happy consumer of live minor league Giants ball as a kid. San Jose Giants ball is a great experience, now. I’ve been to one game at Raley’s in Sac when they were w/the A’s — a great baseball experience. As far as I can tell, the minor leagues themselves weren’t ready to crater; a lot of that has to do with the kids not earning anything more than indentured servant scratch, but that’s another story. The NBA is constantly playing around with the G League or whatever the hell it’s called now, to make it more vibrant and appealing and productive of players to feed the big teams. I just don’t get what baseball is thinking and doing. It appears to be a circular firing squad…
It’s the new team presidents and GMs. They probably have some analytics they think that prove the minor leagues are too big and inefficient.
You’re right, it’s shortsighted.
Maybe MLB ownership is looking to move to a form of the NFL model. NFL spends nothing on minor leagues, it has the colleges do that work, for free. NBA was using that model, too, but is finding the one and done college player model doesn’t get the job done, so it’s spending a bit more on the G league, which is kind of minor league Lite. If MLB truncates the minor leagues down to say 2 levels, I think we’ll gradually see a reduced quality of ball at the major league level, and a move towards cycling players into and out of the league faster, like football, so that long-term and consequently high earning players are rare, like quarterbacks…
i could understand ditching the hot dog salesmen or the parking lot attendants. That’s just heartless and owners are all about that. But to do anything that would harm your minor league system, your future, that just makes no sense at all to me.
When I was a kid, one mid-60’s summer I watched Bobby Bonds play for the Fresno Giants. My Mom used to drop me off at the ballpark, alone or with a friend, to watch games, night games, then pick me/us up after. Can you believe anybody would do that today with their kids? No cell phones. I was totally into ball, I could easily tell that dude was going to end up in the big leagues. So could everybody else that watched him. It was great watching him play there, and then 2+ years later he’s playing next to Willie. Kids and families need to have that kind of personal, minor league experience if we expect baseball to continue as a viable sport into the future and not degenerate into an NHL look alike….
snark-Thanks for those links. Our current administration is so very dangerous on so many levels.
The whole reason Branch Rickey invented the concept of the minor leagues was the same reason he integrated baseball: to win more. Win!!
Teams need to think about what’s best for winning, in the long run.
It worked for Branch Rickey.
A friend said he saw a documentary on the St. Louis Brown and learned that Rickey wanted to start a farm system when he was with the Browns but was rebuffed by the owner. Rickey then started it with the Cards. From Wiki:
Browns owner Phil Ball is perhaps best known for demoting pioneering baseball executive Branch Rickey from general manager to business manager in 1915, which led to his departure for the Cardinals. He considered Rickey’s ideas, such as the development of an integrated farm system, to be too radical for the time; however, he also sought to prevent other teams from experimenting with these ideas by unsuccessfully seeking a court order to vacate Rickey’s 1917 contract with the Browns’ crosstown rivals
Rob Manfred is such a clown 🤡 ( no pun intended Bozo) that he boldly goes where no man has gone before and says:They’re will be a baseball season :I guarantee it. To anyone he hopes he can convince.:
Yeah right like when is that going to happen?
Hey anybody notice that Vanderbilt baseball Head Coach Tim Corbin wearing the same butt ugly polyester leisure suit for 2 STRAIGHT DAYS!!
Man U might have won the CWS last year, but u have no taste going 70’s with that outfit!
Kat, apparently under the current CBA, Manfred has the power to force players to play some semblance of a season. I’ve heard 50 games as the default number if the two sides cannot agree. Players are not allowed to strike, given the CBA still is in operation. IDK where this power comes from in the CBA, but I’ve heard this from a number of sources on sports talk radio…
There will be an opt-out allowed for any players with health concerns about the virus, from what I’ve read.
I’d have some health concerns about it.
IDK how the NFL is going to have a season. With guys breathing hard, sweating and bleeding on each other, and all in an enclosed locker room every day at some point, there are bound to be cases of Covid throughout the league. Are they just going to put those guys at home (or in the hospital), and keep on going, and infections be damned?…
Well, everyone seems to be relaxing their COVID stances anyway, so we’ll really see how hard it comes back. I was in Aptos yesterday, and we went to a restaurant for the first time since the SIP order. Outside seating, and that was it as far as any parameters. You needed a mask to go in, but once seated, no mask necessary. It was kinda crowded, especially for a Thursday, but most people (say 80%) walking around had masks on.
My company has a workforce spread out all over the country, and some people are able to (TX, AL, GA) go back to their offices to work. They also sent a memo out that says if you want to continue to work from home during and after COVID (or cofefe) give us a couple reasons and we’ll think about it. My main concerns for me ae age (59) and BART.
Some medicos out there are saying there will be another 100,000 deaths by September 1. I hope not, but I don’t have a lot of faith in the stick-to-it-ive-ness (mom’s fave word) of the great unwashed.
Loo updated – A few folks (Paul a few days back and Clown today), have asked about Loo. I was in touch with him via email when we were raising money for Stix. I reached-out to him recently to see if he was OK.
Loo is good, and is just doing what most of us have done at least once over the years…taking a break. I miss his posts. He’ll be back in due time…hopefully sooner than later.
It was good to be part of the microFlapalooza this afternoon with Chi. Unbelievable Italian sandwich (best one I have had in at least 10 years) at Danette’s Brick Oven Pub.
Just googled it up Blade, looks right up my alley for a nice get together hangout !
I know you don’t drink now,but I’m sure they’re a nice selection of non-alcoholic drinks as well.
Chi sure has a tough decision with what looks like over 30 beers on tap( hell maybe’s he tried most of them already)and a great selection of food I assume, the Italian sandwich sure sounds yummy 😋
Did you see their menu Kat? Great selection. That Italian sandwich was delicious. Seriously, I have not had anything as good in years.
Yeah Blade the food looks incredible, between 10 burgers to choose from, pizzas, your Italian sandwich &more and fried pickles, calamari,and onion rings, plus salads of all kinds this place has it all..
In honor of Joe Montana’s birthday yesterday, here’s a game from the 12982 season. Sure, it was a loss, but I was at this game and it was one of the greatest offensive performances by both teams. And the ads are insane. 10.9% financing for a fucking Dodge Colt? Fuuuuuck.
I went to Leatherby’s Restaurant and Ice Cream in Elk Grove about a week and a half ago. The precautions were outstanding, e.g., all wait staff had gloves and masks on. Booths had plexiglass installed above the seats.
Conversely, I just ate lunch with Chi at a pub (I noted above) in Placerville and the food was outstanding. Additionally, social distancing was somewhat in place. I got to the restaurant first, so picked a booth away from everyone. Why? All wait staff were unprotected. Same deal with the kitchen staff. A tale of two cities . . .
Looks like Manfred’s final offer is 72 games, players to get 80% of pro rated salary, expanded post season. If everything including playoffs go smoothly, players cut increases. Rosters will start at 30 eventually go down to 26. Season starts mid July ends Sept 27. Hope this happens, for many reasons including it would allow us to spend more time and energy on giants and baseball, welcome diversions.
one site said salaries start at 70% go up to 80%.
Geez one of the cops in the George Floyd murder case named Thomas Lane
posted 750,000 bail in cash 💵 from contributions from something similar to go fund me.
Yeah I’m sure KKK and white supremacy groups kicked in a nice amount to get him out,..
He’ll be on a plane to Argentina shortly.
Couple player reps said the latest proposal is the same $$ as 100% prorated for 48 games. Still…Craw makes $5-6 mil for 3 months, smrdz cueto Posey and Belt at least that much. Even the league min guys will make $200K . I can understand if you don’t want to play, but if you do then take what you can get under circumstances. Game will be lot better off for it.
Chuck, thanks for the Loo update, glad to hear things are ok and he’s just taking a break. Over the past 11 or so years, I’ve taken a Flap break a few times: in 2010 after a short but maddening discussion here with someone; in 2013 after getting disgusted with TF in discussions after the Boston Marathon bombing; and in February this year, when Corona lockdown got very very dark for me up in Hanoi (distant memory now that I’m back in Saigon!), which also coincided with Niners in Super Bowl and figured I didn’t need to be part of all those discussions, figured I’d wait for that to be over and baseball would then begin.. haha.
Steve, your joy and love for that Italian sandwich is understandable. Nothing like something that is just so good. Obviously living over here I eat a lot of Asian (Thai, always and for decades my favorite), but not long ago I had a burger here that nearly made me cum. I even took a photo of it. Sometimes you just need comfort food like that….
It was great to break away and see Chi. I have really been busy with quite a lot of crap regarding the new house. I hope you’re doing well Paul. Give me a shout via Messenger. I want to discuss International travel (again) to see my daughter. Thanks!
Early reports suggest that the players and their union are not pleased with mlb’s latest offer.
Forgot the link