Baseball 2021 - we defy you to care

[Famous Mortimer]

My mind goes back to when I saw an interview with a Hall of Fame voter, who said "I straight up asked (player X) if he was juicing, and he said no. I thought we were friends and he lied to me". I'm paraphrasing, but not by much. My response to that would be - and I wish the person interviewing him had asked this - why did you accept one person's lie? You're a journalist, why not do your job?

I'm bored of banging on this drum, and this year's joke of a result is probably the last year I'll give a damn about the Hall, but the majority of the voters are just PR for baseball teams, people who write for the local paper and rely on "access" for their non-stories. Everyone who displays the least bit of independence will find themselves out of the loop really quickly, and my local market, St Louis, has plenty of examples in recent years.

I drew my list up to show that the hypocrisy of it all is the thing that's annoying. The Hall of Fame's official website reads "Off the field, Rogers Hornsby was tough, uncompromising and outspoken" before talking about baseball achievements, and there's zero reference to anything off-field for Cap Anson. I resent the way no-one (apart from outsiders like the Jomboy crew, and the occasional Fangraphs guy who isn't angling for a front office job) is prepared to call this out. If you want to keep the character clause, enforce it for the people who are already in. Talk about the racists in the game. Talk about the drugs, the gambling, the cheating and the reserve clause. Don't pretend that everyone up to the current people on the ballot had no negative habits, personality traits or opinions. If they did that, I'd be cool with them not electing Bonds or Clemens, because those guys were incredible assholes away from the game.

I just read and I'm repeating myself. Sorry. My opinion is just more screaming into the void, and I honestly kinda want this labour dispute to be a complete fucking disaster and for money to disappear from baseball. MLB is a racket. 

[Ferris]

I completely agree with your stance, the more I think about it. A better compromise might be to fully scrub someone's personal life descriptor from their Hall memorial if they're already in, then you can go and research why. We shouldn't memorialize their off-field activities because some of them were reprehensible. Then a general "No Shitbags" for any new nominations.

I'm also frustrated by the lockout. I think it's just nonsensical and greedy - why must everything be run at an egregious, short-sighted profit? A profit for whom? It is pathological.

Surely you give everyone a salary, astronomical ones if you must, then cover costs and call it a day. This late-stage capitalistic view that every enterprise must cover costs, and then extract even more value out of the markets they operate in is a cancer. It is driving this labour dispute and will cost them all money because they just can't see past Q1 revenues even to the point of obliterating Q2.

How much would it cost to pay minor leaguers a reasonable salary? Or translators? Or coaches and training staff? Or stop gouging people at the ballpark for a hotdog and a beer? A few million - would any owners notice if they dropped that in the street, or if their stocks dipped by that for a day or two? Still, let's not do it and who cares if players are unable to financially continue through farm systems, and our customers are unhappy that we're fucking them over 6 ways from Sunday, and a generation of kids is growing up without any interest in baseball? Who gives a fuck, Q1 revenue projections are up! As for Q2, well, we'll think of something.

The wild-eyed, frenzied drive to just make a little bit more has always annoyed me. And to be fair - the players union isn't blameless here either. They should absolutely admit minor leaguers and speak out about abuses that happen beneath the majors.

Baseball, the administration of MLB, and my principled socialism - all things I could talk about for hours so I'll stop here.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm probably going to buy the subscription for the Savannah Bananas this season, because they seem to care about producing an entertaining product and I like the fact that their name doesn't scan at all when pronounced the English way.

Michael Baumann, one of my favourites, currently writing for The Ringer, has a disappointing article about it where it's pretty much "ah well, the steroid era of the Hall of Fame is over, let's move on". It does seem like no-one has the stomach for a fight to improve the Hall of Fame - next year, Scott Rolen will probably go in, then 2024 and 2025 have enough big names that they're hoping everyone will have forgotten about it by then, or it's just the same old cranks they can ignore.

Anyway. Your point about the ever-increasing extraction of profit from all endeavours, especially baseball, is absolutely right. Even when you can find a decent ticket for a game (to be fair, when it's a less famous team in town, you can get bleacher tickets for $5), beer and whatever veggie option I can find is a stupid amount - like $15 cans of crappy local beer, a markup they ought to be ashamed of.

A sensible business would be investing in the future, subsidising the kids game, but that would affect their bottom line and have no immediate benefit (travel ball is, apparently, out of reach of all but the wealthiest or most determined).

I get job emails from the Cardinals, and they're just sending out a general opening for a Korean translator, for the new guys arriving on the team. It feels incredibly low-rent to not have this shit sorted out in January when pitchers and catchers are supposed to be reporting in less than a month.

[Ferris]

A team owner (west coast, Mariners or Angels?) was caught on camera complaining about the 70k they have to pay a translator (though annoyingly, I can't find the link).

Assuming your payroll is the league average $115m, that is ~0.061% of your outlay. It's the equivalent of me whining about spending a dollar on something critical to making my house function, but even more absurd because I'm not a millionaire who has nothing to worry about.

It is pathological, and the failure to invest in the future and get kids interested is going to kill the sport. When the NFL is giving games away for free and seeing record audiences, MLB is working to make sure their blackouts are enforced effectively on their streaming app so you can't watch your local team on the app you paid for, unless you pay an additional unrelated company even more.

I used to collect caps, don't bother any more because I can't justify giving these cunts any more money. Same for the subscription service (which I think I've talked about before - I paid $140 a year for it) - I stream everything now because fuck 'em.

[Famous Mortimer]

Nolan Arenado just hit for the cycle, the first Cardinal to do so since 2005, and only the 17th of all time for them. He did it both away from home and in a weird way - although he reached 2nd, it was correctly judged a single and an error on the throw, so the crowd didn't even realise it was the cycle til the next guy was at the plate; it was a bit of an underwhelming reaction to one of baseball's rarest feats.

It's more common, though, than getting 6 hits in a game, which the Cardinals have only done once in the last 90 years (and that was in a 14 inning game).

[Ferris]

Just watched the play... there's an argument that he reached first on a fielding error (a good third baseman would have fielded that cleanly and made a competitive throw to first), then got to second on an additional throwing error but you'd have to be a total dickhead to score it that way with a cycle on the line.

Great player, always liked Arenado.

[sevendaughters]

Yankees on track for 118 wins. I want to be sick.

[Famous Mortimer]

I just realised this is the wrong thread, but as it's just a few of us chatting, I don't think it really matters.

I had the same thought as yours, like if the scorer had called that an error he was getting his ass kicked by somebody. Then, after the game, Arenado said "it'll be cool later on when I call my Mum and she'll be really pleased I got the cycle, but I'd rather win the game". I'm delighted he's a Cardinal, though.