Category: Sports

Joe Biden is an idiot

UncleScoopy

Oh, a benign idiot would still be better than an evil idiot, but would it be too much trouble for just one of our major political parties to give us a candidate who thinks matters through before he speaks?

“Biden tweeted his support for the women’s team to keep moving forward in the wake of a judge’s ruling against the USWNT in its equal pay lawsuit. Biden said that he wanted U.S. Soccer to pay the women’s team equally to the men’s team. And if it didn’t, he would withdraw support for the World Cup should he be elected president.”

Yeah, that’s just what we need – a president who ignores due process and issues an executive fiat based on an emotional reaction to an issue he hasn’t studied.

Been there, done that.

The Judge made the exact right decision. The women’s equal pay suit had no merit. The reason they don’t get paid on exactly the same formula as the men is that they were offered that formula and turned it down. When they were negotiating their CBA, one of the offers on the table was “just take the men’s deal.” They didn’t want it because of the high risk involved. Instead of the higher performance-based salaries, they wanted more of the money guaranteed, they wanted longer terms on their contracts, they wanted more players on the team, and they wanted a different set of benefits. In fact, they bargained well. Their total compensation package is actually more than the men’s, even though their salaries are lower. The women get far more in total because they play more games, but they also get slightly more per game. Both sides before the judge stipulated that from 2015 to 2019, the period covered by the suit, the women’s national team averaged $220,747 per game in total payments, for a total of $24.5 million, while the men’s national team averaged $212,639 per game in total payments, for a total of $18.5 million. But now they are suing because the men get paid higher salaries – the same salaries the women were offered and turned down in order to improve the overall package.

The judge understandably ruled that such an Equal Pay Act claim had zero merit. Because he is a judge, he could not say that the claim seems to be a complete scam devised to make lawyers rich.

But I can.

The judge did rule that the rest of their suit could proceed. They also filed some claims under the Civil Rights Act regarding the unequal access to flights and hotels, proper medical services, quality of training facilities, etc. That part of their suit seems to have merit, or is at least debatable enough to require a full trial.

Mickey Mantle led the league in scoring every year

UncleScoopy

You won’t see these stats at baseball-reference.com.

Mickey claimed to lead the league in the category of in-game blow jobs

Mickey also holds the record for most times vomiting on Angie Dickinson – actually he’s tied for the lead with the great Cap Anson.

I made up the Anson part. Angie isn’t that old. (Anson is a 19th century player). But the Mantle story is true, or so he claimed.

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Mickey also carried with him a cute little Hallmark-style card that said “wanna fuck”

“Mickey Mantle’s creepy come-on detailed in new reporter memoir”

UncleScoopy

Mickey Mantle once slipped a female reporter a cutesy greeting card during an interview — with the message “Wanna fuck?” written inside.

“As the evening wore on and Mantle kept drinking, he became tipsy and, at one point, nearly fell off his chair. Later, as we walked along Central Park South, he tripped on the curb at Sixth Avenue and — for one fleeting moment — oh, God — there was my hero, lying in the gutter.”

Happy Easter

UncleScoopy

Luscious Luke was my favorite player when I was a kid. If you grew up in Rochester or Buffalo, you will probably say the same thing. He was a local legend. Although a kind-hearted man who was a clubhouse joker, he was a brute in the batters’ box. He was 240 pounds of muscle with shoulders that seemed as wide as two ordinary men, and he could hit the ball as hard as anyone ever has – as hard as Bo Jackson, Giancarlo Stanton, Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle. In fact, if you want to imagine him, just picture a black version of Stanton. By the time I saw him, Luke was nearly 50, wore glasses to bat, and was slow to time the fast ball – but was so strong that he hit 400-foot homers to the opposite field.

Wikipedia summarizes:

“As a player, Easter was best known for his powerful home runs, colloquially known as “Easter Eggs.” While with the Homestead Grays in 1948, he became the first player to hit a home run into the center field bleachers at New York’s Polo Grounds during game action, a section that was 475 feet from home plate. During his rookie season, he also hit the longest home run in the history of Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, a 477-foot blast over the auxiliary scoreboard in right field. The only other player to match that feat was Mickey Mantle, who did it in 1960. Finally, during his twilight days with the Bisons, he became the first player to hit a home run over the center field scoreboard at Buffalo’s home park, Offermann Stadium, doing so twice in 1957. On June 14 he cleared the board, and newspapers reported the blow at an estimated 500 feet.[Rochester, New York, Democrat and Chronicle, June 15, 1957, p. 21] On August 15, he hit the board near the top, and it went through a space between the board and a sign just above it.[Rochester, New York, Democrat and Chronicle, August 16, 1957, p. 26]

When told by a fan one time that the fan had seen Easter’s longest home run in person, Easter is reported to have replied, “If it came down, it wasn’t my longest.””

Luke was already a PCL legend when he made it to the majors. In 1949 he batted .363 for San Diego with a .722 slugging average.

Nobody is really sure when Luke was born, and the big guy offered a different birth year every time he was asked. The census data indicate he was born in 1915, making him a major league rookie at 35. Despite his advanced years in baseball terms, Luke had three great years with Cleveland.

1950: 28 homers, 107 RBI
1951: 27-103
1952: 31-97

After the Indians cut him, he went on to hit more than 200 minor league homers.

Here is a really great article about Luke’s colorful life, mostly about the early days of his career.

Hall of Famer Al Kaline passes on at 85

UncleScoopy



Al was about 18 or 19 in this photo from his 1954 card. The following year, at age 20, he won the AL batting championship with a .340 mark. He was one day younger than Ty Cobb had been when Cobb won the batting title in 1907, making Kaline the youngest batting champion ever, a mark that has endured to this day.

“Al Kaline, who in a long and unique Detroit Tigers lifetime grew from youthful batting champion to Hall of Famer to distinguished elder statesman, died Monday afternoon at his home in Bloomfield Hills. He was 85.”

If you are a baby boomer and a baseball fan, you certainly remember him well. He never played an inning for any pro team but the Tigers, not even in the minors. He was probably the 2nd-best American leaguer of his era, behind Mickey. He never won an MVP, but he finished second twice and third once – and finished in the top ten six more times!

He is considered one of the two best defensive right fielders of his time, perhaps of all time, alongside Roberto Clemente.

Kaline had nowhere near Mickey Mantle’s power, but thanks to his consistency and a 22-year career, he managed to hit 399 lifetime homers without ever reaching 30 in a season, and in 1959 he even managed to lead the AL in slugging average, upsetting the favored Mantle.

COVID-19 updates – thread #1

UncleScoopy

The Dow dropped another grand on Friday. It’s now about 550 points lower than it was on the day before Trump’s inauguration.

The Trump administration is asking state officials to hold off releasing unemployment numbers. As Trump likes to say, “I like the numbers being where they are.”

Mortgage Lenders Consider Plan to Suspend Payments Amid Crisis. One company, Bank of America, is already committed, and the Fed is taking action on Freddie and Fannie mortgages to suspend payments for those laid off during the crisis.

More light at the end of the tunnel: Although “there are no confirmed effective treatments specifically for COVID-19 to date,” a very small-scale French test (30 patients) has produced excellent results from a combination of hydroxycholoroquine and azithromycin. The Chinese are also reporting excellent results from the same combination. Although this combination has not been proven safe and effective through large scale clinical trials, it at least offers us a glimmer of hope.

BUT NOTE


Italy and Spain record their highest single-day death tolls

Remember those dolphins in Venice? Maybe not. Definitely not. (I was among those conned by this one.)

The State Department has warned Americans abroad to either come now or plan to say out of the country indefinitely. And of course they are also advising Americans now in the country not to leave because coming back may not be possible.

Light at the end of the tunnel (for the Northern Hemisphere). New study says ‘high temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce’ spread of COVID-19. “An increase of just one degree Celsius and 1% relative humidity increase substantially lower the virus’s transmission, according to the data analyzed by the researchers.”

More light at the end of the tunnel? China reports zero new domestic virus cases for the first time!

Walmart to give hourly workers cash bonuses, seeks 150,000 new employees

This is how long coronavirus survives airborne — and on cardboard, plastic and steel, according to a peer-reviewed study

South Korea seemed to have the virus under control. How did they do it? Unfortunately, even they are experiencing a roller coaster ride, with numbers of new cases starting to creep up after many days of decline.

Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism.

WrestleMania 36 WILL happen on April 5, but without fans., and it will last two nights.

Studio Movies in Theaters Will Be Offered for In-Home Rental. “Universal Pictures said on Monday that it would no longer give theaters an exclusive period of roughly 90 days to play new movies, a break with longstanding Hollywood practice that could have wide-ranging reverberations. At least some competing studios are likely to follow.”

With brick-and-mortar stores closing, Amazon will hire 100,000 new workers.. The only aggressive employers now are going to be places like Amazon, Supermarketers, Netflix and the toilet paper manufacturers.

This can’t be good: Man who recovered from covid-19 has become re-infected. At this moment it is not possible to determine whether the virus re-appeared without additional exposure or if he was exposed a second time.

Zamboni driver wins first NHL game after being tapped as emergency goalie

UncleScoopy

“A 42-year-old Zamboni driver won his first NHL game Saturday after being tapped to play as an emergency goalie for the opposing team. Dave Ayres stepped in for the Carolina Hurricanes after both the team’s goalies had to leave the game with injuries, prompting the Zamboni driver to play against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the home team.”

Read that again carefully, because it’s even stranger than you think. Ayres works as a Zamboni driver and area maintenance worker for the Toronto Maple Leafs’ AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies, but he played AGAINST the Leafs, after having been loaned to the other team – and he essentially beat his own employers.

(This seems to be SOP in hockey, as I understand it. This is all new to me, but I just read that every game has a designated emergency goalie, provided by the home team, but available to either team in case both of their roster goalies are incapacitated in the same game.)

It’s the Chiefs and some great commercials

UncleScoopy

21 points in the 4th quarter.

The Super Bowl was the third post-season game they won after trailing by double digits. The Chiefs started the post season by falling behind the Texans 24-0. A Super Bowl victory seemed unlikely at that point, which makes it sweeter now.

The Onion’s take: “Victorious Patrick Mahomes Thanks Bears For Drafting Mitchell Trubisky”

All the 2020 Super Bowl commercials are here.

SHOCK: Kobe Bryant, former NBA star and Los Angeles Lakers legend, dies at 41

UncleScoopy

Bryant, 41, was killed along with one of his daughters, 13-year-old Gianna, in a helicopter crash

“In 2006, at age 27, Bryant scored an amazing 81 points in a single game against the Toronto Raptors. Two years later, he earned the league’s Most Valuable Player award, calling the trophy a blessing at the time. At 34, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to earn 30,000 career points, edging other scoring greats such as Abdul-Jabar, Chamberlain, Karl Malone and Michael Jordan. He is currently the fourth-highest scorer of all-time in the league.”

(Kareem is the #1 scorer of all time. LeBron should be in the future, if he plays three more seasons.)

Larry Walker joins Jeter in the Hall of Fame

UncleScoopy

Jeter was an obvious selection. Although he was not as great as some seem to think, he is certainly a Hall of Famer. 3400+ hits, a .310 average and a complete handful of rings speak for themselves. He missed being a unanimous selection by a single vote.

The selection of Larry Walker was more contentious.

Many people believe he is the best Canadian baseball player ever, but I went back and forth on his HoF merits for some years until I finally concluded that he was a Hall of Famer. To place my logic in a nutshell, Walker was exactly as good as Duke Snider, and Duke Snider is a solid Hall of Famer, therefore Larry Walker is a solid Hall of Famer. Normally I don’t accept the logic of “X should be in because Y is” because when people make that argument X is usually being compared to a Y who shouldn’t be in there. If we based the HoF on that logic, about half of the players who ever played should be in because they were better than Tommy McCarthy, who was a totally average player (lifetime wins above average: 0.2). But the “X vs Y” logic is valid in this case, because The Duke is a bona fide, solid Hall of Famer.

To take Denver out of the equation, Walker’s numbers outside of Coors are just about identical to Snider’s outside of Ebbets Field. When I place them side-by-side, you won’t be able to tell which is which because they are virtually identical:

Player A Player B
Batting Average .282 .286
On Base Percentage .375 .372
Slugging Average ,501 .505
OPS .876 .877
HR/550AB 26 28
RBI/550AB 91 96

Moreover, I think you can fairly argue that Walker was a better overall player than the Duke outside the batter’s box, even though Duke played a more difficult position. Walker was a better baserunner, stole more bases, had a better arm, and actually had comparable range factors on those occasions when he was called upon to play center field.

Of the three New York center fielders in the famous baseball song, Larry Walker was not as good a player as Willie and Mickey, but he was as good or better than the Duke, who is not only in the Hall of Fame, but definitely belongs there.

As does Walker.

The longer version of this article can be found in Uncle Scoopy’s Ballpark