The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

Is there a better er worse look in baseball than the pajama pants?? Come on someone bring back the 70's high socks, something retro.

 

Gibson has sounded better this year than the last couple; speculation is he's on a new treatment regimen which makes him sound somewhat more energetic.

Gibson has NEVER been very exciting as a broadcaster. People project his public image as a player (fiery fist pumping holler guy) and expect he should be a rollicking rip roaring broadcaster, but he was never thst, not before or after his onset of Parkinson's.

For that matter, Gibson was surprisingly subdued as a coach and manager -- except when he was on the staff of the low key Alan Trammell as manager, and Gibson was asked to fill the role of "bad cop"/ designated ump baiter. On his own managing in Arizona, Gibson was noticeably NOT a holler guy. Maybe it was early stages of Parkinson's starting to slow him down, but also he might have figured out as a manager in his 50s he shouldn't run around screaming like a player in his 20s.

 

Tampa shouldn’t have a team. Period.
“19k” for a wildcard game is an embarrassment.
It may not have been half that.
There was no one there.
You can’t get 20k in a dome, you got something wrong.

 

Day game, against an opponent that doesn’t really stir the hearts, on a weekday when school is in session, in a wild-card round when the expectation is that the team will advance. Many reasons, but most of them point to the fact that there’s something about Major League Baseball that doesn’t resonate on the west coast of Florida.

Which sucks, because I love that organization and how it builds to win on a limited budget. But it’s hard to argue the basic premise: That St. Pete-Tampa doesn’t deserve major league baseball.

 

It's bad enough, but imagine how bad the optics would have been if the Rays had been allowed to do that high-on-asinine plan of splitting the season between Montreal and Tampa?

 

Why would anyone question why Marlins Man is at D'backs-Brewers?

 

On its face, the basic premise -- can the 12th-largest TV market in the country support a baseball team? -- sounds self-evident. Of course it should be able to. The argument advanced about the area is basically "It's not the market; it's the place," meaning Tropicana Field. And specifically that it's in an inaccessible spot because of insufficient bridge access from Tampa. So I have a hard time wondering how playing in a new locale in St. Pete will solve their attendance problems. Maybe I'm wrong.

I'm amused that the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes now says he wants to bring MLB to the Triangle. To Raleigh, specifically.
We'll see about that one.

 

I hope it includes a look at how white people can’t dance.

 

Hey, when you get a chance to sit next to Front Row Amy and stare down her shirt all night, ya gotta go.

 

My only interaction w/him was in scrums, but I was stunned at how subdued and borderline relaxed he was as D-Backs manager. In the few times I saw him, he never lashed out at a question and seemed to enjoy shooting the shit. He also moved very slowly both in the office and on the field, but I chalked that up to the beating he took as a player. After the fact, I also wondered if all these elements were the Parkinson's starting to encroach upon him. Sports Illustrated did a really terrific piece on him and how his attempts to undo the behavior of his youth were well underway long before he was diagnosed:

https://www.si.com/mlb/2018/07/19/kirk-gibson

 

The city is willing to fork over hundreds of millions in tax money to make multimillionaires even more rich. They deserve all the baseball there is!

 

Best thing I did all summer was tour the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa. I’m a sucker for museums and I dutifully watch the overview film first thing wherever I go. But I’ve never had a museum employee who gave such an interesting and compelling introduction to a film before and was so obviously in love with the topic. It really set the mood for a great visit.

Anyway, the museum had a temporary exhibit on the rise and fall of disco, which felt hilariously out of place. I wasn’t even sure I was going to spend any time on it, but then that same guide came through the main exhibit area letting everyone know he was about to give a talk on the disco exhibit. He had been so good with the film intro I gave him a shot.

That was one of the most amazing hours I’ve spent listening to someone. Possibly the best lecture I’ve ever heard, although it was almost more like a one-man stage show. He covered the prehistory, the elements that came together in NYC to allow the scene to be born and flourish, the “four on the floor beat” and the crucial role it played, what disco meant to gay kids and black kids and other out groups, the backlash (including an extended discussion of Disco Demolition Night) and what was truly behind it and so much more. I wish I could do justice to the kinetic energy and off-the-charts enthusiasm he poured into this topic. At one point I had to leave and go move my car from a metered spot and he was still going when I got back. Utterly captivating.

https://woodyguthriecenter.org/visit/exhibits/lovesavestheday/