Goodbye MILB

The press release that we all knew was waiting finally was released yesterday as the 2020 minor league season was officially canceled.

While not unexpected, it still was a sad day to have things confirmed that there will be no baseball in most Mudville's for 2020.

And while today isn't the saddest day for me as that day is yet to come- when the Rob Manfred-led power play to eliminate 40 plus teams from the minors and depriving those teams fans even a chance to say goodbye is announced will be that day, it still has a degree of sadness to me.
You wait all winter during the worst months of the year (Jan, Feb, and March), battle through short days and cold nights, and wait out the darkness until the warmth begins to arrive with it the fun that comes with the baseball season.
And this year, I feel that fans all over the country have been cheated of that.

Not only the minors, but the majors too.
The players hearts aren't in this sham of a season and the excitement from the viewers won't be either.
I'm not paying for a MLB package for this "exhibition" (Ok, if its 20 bucks or so, maybe) and should I not do that, I may not watch much.
My teams aren't going to be televised often and I'm not watching the Orioles get beaten 10-1 every night by their rivals or listen to one of my least favorite announcers in sports (F.P. Santangelo) blither for the Nationals every night, so I may not be as involved.
MLB should do the right thing by allowing the blackout rules to be dropped and giveaway their Extra Innings and MLB.TV packages for the year.
It would be a small gesture of goodwill towards a fan base that is in desperate need of it.

There are many culprits to blame for killing what would have been the final season for Hagerstown baseball via Covid-19.
The WHO, China, countless people that are so reckless and stupid by not taking precautions around the country, and of course Donald John Trump, but most of all Rob Manfred, who has to be quite pleased with himself for being able to kill minor league baseball's leverage ( They were beginning to gain ground with Congress before Covid-19 arrived) and cannot wait to get his plan for the minors installed- a plan that was thought up by a man so disgraced that he was run out of the game, mind you.
I want to add a special tip of the cap not only to that gentleman but to his two former assistants who now run the Brewers and Orioles, who I hope will be as successful as a salesman selling snow blowers in the Caribbean in their current positions.

This is a sad day and the worst is yet to arrive.
But I'd like to add this on masking before I finish.
Please don't make this about political stances, toughness, the media, or even your belief.
It's about none of these.
It's about courtesy and teamwork.
Courtesy towards others that may not affect the person you contact, but it may affect the people that they contact.
I know you feel silly, I do too and I've joked that I feel like I'm the bad guy in an old Western film, but be safe.
I know it sucks breathing with it on after a while and I get all of that.
But we've lost so much in sports already-the Final Four and I'll believe that MLB, NBA, and NHL complete their seasons when they are on their fields of play raising their trophy, and even if they do it won't mean as much and will delay the start of the next season.
Football is next and professionals far higher on the medical chain than me have stated- You want football in the fall? Wear your mask and do what you need to do to kill the virus hygencially.

Don't want to do it for yourself or the people you care about and care about you or even your fellow man?
Do it for your team!
Want to see sports again with the excitement of fans?
Don't be selfish-wear the mask, at least around others.
It is the best chance to bring fun activities back, keep the spread down, and keep our essentials and workplaces open until the vaccine can be developed- hopefully affordably so!

Thanks for reading.

Cleaning out the inbox

We start to clean the inbox with Benjamin Hill's article on the four stadiums that have been moved aside by new stadiums in their city and by teams that have moved away to new cities.
I've been to two of the four (Kannapolis, pictured to the left and Potomac/Woodbridge) with the other two being out of my area in states that I have never visited (Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana).
I've often said Kannapolis was the hottest ballpark that I have ever visited, but in Hill's article, he mentioned Woodbridge as the stadium that lacked shade, which I thought was interesting.
I haven't heard very much about the future of these facilities, although I'd bet that Pfitzner Stadium in Woodbridge will wind up as a host of high school, American Legion, etc. games as it is located in a facility that is surrounded by softball fields.

ESPN writes of the start of a fan revolt against the Buffalo Sabres, who are on their way to missing the playoffs for the ninth year in a row and their owners Terry and Kim Pegula, who also own the Buffalo Bills.
For all the talk about this place or that place is "Hockeytown USA", for my money- it would be Buffalo.
Even as the Sabres are in such a playoff drought, the team's attendance this year "dropped" to 90.8%, which shows the fan base is strong and interested despite the poor product (other than the phenomenal Jack Eichel) on the ice.
I remember "Hockey Towns" such as Detroit in the pre-Yzerman days being dragged down with poor teams and attendance and for all the hype over Pittsburgh, check their attendance out between Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby.
Fan protests make excellent soundbites and they give media plenty of chances to discuss franchise issues, but they make little change in the organization and other than showing that the fans are still passionate, they don't prove very much.
Buffalo does deserve better from the Sabres.

I've written before of my political standing as that of a centrist and I often read and listen to the site and podcast of The Bulwark, which is edited by centrist radio host Charlie Sykes of Wisconsin.
You'll be seeing links from Bulwark in the COTI and this is the first as Ed Condon takes on Major League Baseball and their recent rule changes.
I loved the title of "MLB is like a drug cartel trying to kill its customers" and it's a pretty accurate title to me when you take the panoramic view about the actions of MLB and its Gordon Gekko-like leader Rob Manfred.

The Bulwark also sent me this via the Chicago Tribune as the Tribune held its own taste tests of various hot sauces involving the more popular mainstream sauces.
I didn't agree with all of their results, most notably Tabasco being spicier than the others. but it is interesting in seeing how these stack up against the others from an unbiased observer.
While I love trying different sauces from smaller batch companies and have many in the house at all times, Frank's Red Hot and its Buffalo version are the house staples here of the sauces that are carried in most grocery stores.

I'm generally all for renewable energy, but this article from Bloomberg news does make you wonder about just what it takes to create renewable energies.
The difficulties in finding something to do with the worn-out blades from wind turbines, other than burying them in landfills, are more than unsustainable for the future of windmills.
The blades need to be cut into three pieces by a diamond-encrusted saw just to be able to then be transported on a semi-truck to travel to landfills, so these aren't exactly a treat to take care of.
It will be interesting to check back in a few years and see what type of business could have been created from the leftovers of these blades.