It seems that I have contracted Omicron. I told you I was going for the trifecta. Compared to the other bouts, this is a vacation. I had a fever for a couple of hours and felt a little fatigued. Omicron is the end of the pandemic. It will peak soon (if it hasn’t already) and be gone. It will be next years’ flu shot! BTW: to all those who told me to explain why Donald Trump had killed so many with COVID-19… Joe has now Trumped Trump! It is up for debate as to which one is a worse human being… but I digress!
Let’s Talk About Girls – Real Girls!
As most of you know, I have no desire to be politically correct. I am not woke but I think some people need to wake up. I also think it is deplorable that men who have “transitioned” to women (“transitioned” is a heck of a way to say it), are winning by beating females at women’s high school and college sports. If an autopsy is done on a trans athlete who is a female that transitioned from being a male, the skeletal structure will be that of a man. The chromosomes will be male. The heart and lungs will be bigger and have more capacity. The bones will be denser and there will be more “quick-twitch” muscles. No matter how hard they try, they will never be a woman… even if they look like one.
I have six granddaughters whom I would really do not want to see have to compete against men in high school or college sports. That’s pure lunacy. They will never win! Males who transition to females will always win in female sports. It’s a joke that anyone can believe that a transgender person who was a male should be able to compete against real females. Also, if a female transitions into the look of a man, they would never be able to compete against real men. It ain’t happening! It does not work that way.
I realize that some of you will disagree with me (I already know your names). That is your right! I don’t force you to be here… although I do appreciate those who do disagree with me without being disagreeable. The Radical Left bullies and cancels people who disagree. No Common Sense or Reason – Just Cancel! LGBT, queer, homosexual, gay… whatever! I don’t care! They deserve the same respect and rights as a human as anyone else. Transgender restrooms? That seems extremely weird to me (do you want your granddaughter in there?), but trans men competing with women in sports? I call BULLSHIT! It’s just flat-out wrong and arguing otherwise is counter to common sense.
What I do not have a problem with is the Yankees naming Rachel Balkovec as the first female manager in all of baseball. Rachel was born a female. As a student at Skutt Catholic High School in Omaha, Balkovec played softball, soccer, and basketball. She attended Creighton University, where she was a catcher on the softball team, but then transferred to the University of New Mexico, where she also played catcher. She graduated from New Mexico in 2009 with a degree in exercise science. She then received her master’s degree from Louisiana State University in kinecology (I wonder if she knows Mike Marshall?). In 2018, she enrolled in Vrije University in the Netherlands to study human movement sciences.
She was appointed as the hitting coach of the New York Yankees in 2019. She also spent the 2021 season as a coach in the Florida Complex League and was given the opportunity to participate in the Futures Game, which is a yearly event during MLB’s All-Star Game activities. Prior to joining the New York Yankees, Rachel was the strength and conditioning coach for the minor league teams for the Houston Astros and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Rachel is a girl… actually a woman and she has arrived as MiLB’s and MLB’s first female manager. Good on her! I think that is awesome! MLB should not hire women just because they are women – they should hire them because they are qualified! Congratulations Rachel – we are rooting for you.
Well said and I’m 100% in agreement with all of it. Dr. Brett Giroir has opined that he indeed believes Omicron will be the end of the pandemic and will move Covid to an endemic if it continues its trajectory and will be, in essence, a cold.
By the way, Dr. Giroir seems very pragmatic, reasonable, competent, intellectual, and trusted which are all adjectives that can no longer be used to describe Dr. Fraudci. There is mounting evidence, if you’re willing to be “open minded” about it, that Dr. Fraudci has indeed lied about the Covid-19 origins and the NIH’s involvement in funding the research. He has nearly been wrong on all of his “stop the spread” decisions. Masks aren’t necessary and don’t work, err sorry about that wear a mask, heck wear two. 15 days to stop the spread, err two years later to stop the spread. Vaccinations will keep you from getting Covid-19, err the vaccines were never created to prevent your from acquiring the disease, just make cases less severe. Vaccines will keep you from spreading Covid-19, err you can still spread the disease so keep wearing a mask.
I’m not an anti-vaxxer, I’ve been doubled-vaxxed and boosted. I’m not sitting in my mother’s basement with tin foil on my head, I’m not a Q-anon zealot, and I’m not anti-government. I am of the growing belief that Dr. Fraudci (the single highest paid government employee) has not a clue with how we should handle the Covid-19 crisis and never did. He has denied e-mails sent by him and Dr. Collins where it was said that it was time to “ruin the reputations” of three scientists who were of the belief the Covid-19 virus was indeed a lab leak from Wuhan and not an animal to human transmission, as he wants us to believe. He says we should trust the science but only if it’s his science and in typical left-leaning fashion he sets out to “crush” anyone who is not in agreement with him.
Get well Mark and thanks again for keeping this blog going. Sorry my long diatribe isn’t baseball related but with the news of the MLB offer being rejected by the MLBPA (as expected) it is becoming clear ST will be impacted/delayed.
Faucci is a Democratic political hack. Don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. He is a “butt boy” for sleepy incompetent ,the worst President ever since Jimmy Carter. The longer that Covid goes on ,it detracts from all of Biden’s failed policies.
On a positive note, Fanatics who recently purchased Topps the card company for 500 million plus will maintain the Topps name.
Thank You. From a proud member of the LGB-FJB community!
Worst ever. Carter was a nice man in a bad situation. He just was not a leader.
Count me with you, Mark. I might borrow your line about disagreeing without being disagreeable. The world would be a better place.
As for the Yanks new manager, I saw the headline but did not know Coach Balkovec’s resume. My guess is her impressive background and hard work earned respect among all professionals with whom she worked. Gender was an afterthought. No doubt some jerks were around along the way, but that is an earned promotion not given. I still don’t like the Yankees, though!
Good for her. Women are making some inroads in MLB and I am happy for them. Dodgers started the trend when they made Kim Ng an assistant GM. Then they hired a female trainer. Now I doubt any woman will ever have a lengthy career as a player, but coaches and trainers and front office jobs are clearly there for those qualified.
Good for her. Hope she does well.
Really liked Kim Ng. Ned Colletti wanted to make her the general manager for the Dodgers at one point. He would move into baseball operations role, similar to Andrew Friedman’s role, but I’m guessing Frank McCourt didn’t want to spend the money so it didn’t happen.
I certainly agree with Mark that girls and women’s sports should be limited to those who are born female. Some of us worked very hard to create equal footing for girls and women’s athletics. Although there has been isolated cases and at some point this probably reaches the Supreme Court. There are built in advantages for those born male and a six month hormone treatment plan doesn’t make that much difference.
On the baseball front, the two sides met again, but no real breakthroughs made. MLB did offer some improvements. But this needs to pick up steam. Found it interesting that Jerry Hairston said on the Dodgers network that he doesn’t believe either side understands the potential damage they may do to the “fringe” fans they have been gaining over the past few years. All that may go up in smoke if the two sides don’t pick up the pace and get something done.
The fringe are those fans who are beginning to follow the game in person and on TV and radio. They are not hard core, but they are taking an interest. Lot of competition out there for people’s attention.
Hairston also pointed out the two sides need to understand the country is coming out of a two year pandemic and people are not in the mood for drawn out battle between owners and players.
No question, the current surge is beginning to peak and decline in some areas. Within the next few weeks it’s expected to fall in California.
I guess we should present Mark with a triple crown.
Everyone but the most rabid leftists understand that this is a farce, but it is just a subset of the larger ideological capture that is happening. We are currently in a cultural revolution. Most of us don’t notice because it doesn’t intrude upon our day to day lives. We aren’t female collegiate swimmers. However, even female collegiate swimmers remain silent, or give tepid lip service to the Woke pieties – because they’re afraid. If they speak out they will be ostracized, insulted, attacked and cancelled. It’s how a small minority of disruptors and agenda driven radicals are able to manipulate their way into power, and, remember, it’s all about power.
At some point either the whole Woke phenomenon just collapses under the weight of its own absurdity or it becomes the prevailing theology of the land, and if it becomes the established religion, then our all of institutions that have been based on individualism and meritocracy and objectivity crumble.
I had a disagreement with Badger some time ago about the election law in Georgia. The mere fact that I disagreed with him that convicted felons should have the right to vote was prima facie evidence that I was in favor of voter suppression, that I was, not only wrong, but morally a bad person – because I didn’t agree with him. That’s how the manipulation works. It’s the abandonment of the classical liberal tradition of open discourse and the adversarial exchange of ideas. Disagreement is evidence of apostasy against the Church of Woke.
From what I would consider true feminists, many have noted & more are speaking out that this “movement” is actually a direct attack on woman & as “anti-feminist” as you can get. Since truly, a “trans-female” IS NOT a FEMALE. period,exclamation point.end.
If you want to know how really butt hurt this country is, this will give you a clue. I was banned from posting on facebook for 14 days for using a John Wayne movie quote as a good morning greeting. The quote is from McLintock and it was when he said to Curly, played by the elderly Hank Worden, “Don’t say it’s a fine morning or I’ll shoot you”. Now, if that is inciting violence like they said, I am neigh on to the worst part of ISIS. There are more cupcakes anymore than one can count. I am more than sick of all this crap.
According to the frog-in-the-pan anecdote, a frog will jump out of a pan containing boiling water since the dramatic temperature change induces an immediate reaction. Conversely, if the water in the pan is slowly raised to a boil, the frog will underreact and perish. In the psychology literature, Gino and Bazerman (2009) conclude that small gradual changes induce less critical evaluation than large dramatic changes. Their study found a greater acceptance of unethical behavior, defined as instances of cheating when behavior gradually erodes compared with abrupt shifts in behavior.
I don’t know about others, but I will not sit here and boil.
Dodger related, I was checking some things out on their baseball reference page. After all of the great offensive players who have played for the Dodgers, Snider, Wheat, Campy, Robbie, the career WAR leader for a position player is Pee Wee Reese with a 68.5 career WAR. Snider is 2nd with a 65.3 WAR. Kershaw is the only Dodger over 70 at 71.9, but his has sunk a point or so over the last couple of years. Big D is # 3 with a 67.1
Baseball-Reference has Clayton at 69.1 and Sandy at 53.9. They use slightly different metrics.
Might be new ratings. The page I checked had CK at 71.9.
WAR is a counting stat, so Pee Wee gets WAR points due to his 8800+ career AB (2nd all time to Zack Wheat) and his play at SS. The Duke is #1 in offensive WAR (68.2). (Believe it or not, Baseball Reference has assigned the Duke negative defensive WAR, which is inconsistent with everything that I’ve ever read about him.)
Pee Wee is number 1 in career defensive WAR by a wide margin (25.6 – #2 is Bill Russell (!)).
I’m not too wild about WAR as a measurement of a player’s production for these and other reasons.
I’m glad your third bout was a lay up.
Regarding Presidential Covid counts, what you say is true. BUT most deaths are With the unvaccinated population. One thinks of the old saying, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”. So for now, most of the culling is with Republicans who want their freedom. It’s a shame they clutter the healthcare resources. Check the Recent Reuters article on United Airlines experience with their work force, sickness, death with Covid. It’s enlightening to those who wish to study real world results in a real American company.
Regarding your thinking of an endemic. My uneducated guess is I think that’s wrong (who knows, of course?) but I’ll tell you my opinion. The human Petrie dish of Omnicron is so vast, the Darwinian side says the likelihood of something new popping up somewhere in the world is high. Just like we all had a sigh of relief with C19, then oh shit Delta hit and then surprise here’s the most contagious form in Omnicron. It has run through my kids and grandkids, hope they now have immunity. I am lighting a candle in the church for the pandemics end and baseball in 2022.
I am not anti-vax, but I was surprised at how many friends I have who were and why. Although more were Conservatives who were against it, I also had some moderate liberal friends (not many left) who also were. The world is a very unsafe place… especially with “gain of function” being something people want both for good and bad. The idiots on both sides of the aisle are all to blame.
This pandemic was never driven by science, but rather by politics… still is! It’s a damn shame. The statistics do not tell the tale in many cases as there are lots of other things to consider, like the average age, etc.
Porpoiseboy “Thank You. From a proud member of the LGB-FJB community!” I get the LGB, but what is the FJB? Concerning MLB Awards, How is it that Koufax was never pitcher or player of the month?
Koufax was the NL player of the month once, June of 1962. As for pitcher of the month, the award was not created until after Sandy retired. It is odd that in his Cy Young seasons, Koufax did not win player of the month. Only Drysdale, 59-60 and Howard 62, won between 59-68. Drysdale won another one in 68.
All I will say is that the last two letters stand for Joe Biden.
Okay! “Let’s Go Brandon.”
The International MLB Draft is today.$4,644,000 lowest signing bonus pool money for the Blue Jays and Dodgers
The Blue Jays (George Springer) and Dodgers (Trevor Bauer) each forfeited $500,000 in international bonus pool money to sign a qualified free agent last offseason.
Los Angeles Dodgers ($4,644,000) Signees today thus far:
Samuel Muñoz, OF, Dominican Republic
Accimia Morales, RHP, Venezuela
Raynerd Ortega, SS, Venezuela
Daniel Arrias, Venezuela
Jose Gonzalez, OF, Venezuela
Samuel Munoz Ranked #7
Scouting grades: Hit: 55 | Power: 55 | Run: 55 | Arm: 50 | Field: 50 | Overall: 55
Munoz is a left-handed-hitting infielder with an advanced approach at the plate and tons of power projection.
He already shows an above-average ability to barrel up the baseball to all fields, and the thought is the ability will translate into homers in the future as he fills out his large and developing frame. He sprays the ball to all fields with pop.
Munoz has already come a long way. The teen was first showcased as an outfielder but moved back to his original spot in the infield because of his improved athleticism and quickness. He runs the 60-yard timed run in 6.6 seconds and has the potential to be a good baserunner. His high baseball IQ and makeup are also noteworthy. He shows good actions in the infield and displays solid arm strength. There’s still a chance he moves to third base because of his size, but it’s too early to tell.
Accimia Morales, RHP, Venezuela Ranked #37
Scouting grades: Fastball: 55 | Slider: 50 | Changeup: 55 | Overall: 50
Morales is one of the most interesting pitchers on the market and has the type of upside scouts seek.
Large and durable with a 6-foot-4 frame, Morales shows plus command potential with all three of his pitches. He’s athletic, features a repeatable delivery and has a presence on the mound.
Specifically, his fastball has been clocked at 93 mph, he throws a hard slider with a sharp break and throws a changeup with lots of movement. His ability to mix up his repertoire while still pounding the strike zone stands out for a prospect his age. He projects to be a mid-rotation starter in the big leagues one day.
Good stuff AVF!
Jackie Robinson would be rolling over in his grave:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/she-said-she-is-like-the-jackie-robinson-of-trans-sports-transgender-swimmer-competing-against-women-reportedly-claims-parallel-to-jackie-robinson
Los Angeles Dodgers ($4,644,000) Signees:
Samuel Muñoz, OF, Dominican Republic
Accimia Morales, RHP, Venezuela
Raynerd Ortega, SS, Venezuela
Daniel Arrias, OF, Venezuela
Jose Gonzalez, OF, Venezuela
Yorfran Medina, OF, Venezuela
Josue De Paula, OF, Dominican Republic
Mairo Martinus, SS, Curacao
Domingo Geronimo, RHP, Dominican Republic
Jeral Perez, SS, Dominican Republic
Javier Peña, C, Dominican Republic
SS Nathanael Castillo, SS, Dominican Republic
Yuliangel de la Cruz, RHP, Dominican Republic
Luciano Romero, RHP, Venezuela
Victor Rodrigues, C, Venezuela
Peter Bonilla Hernandez, LHP, Spain
Cristian Rueda RHP, Venezuela
Darwin Rodríguez RHP, Venezuela
Eiver Espinoza RHP, Venezuela
Johan Palacios RHP, Venezuela
Jonas Uzcategui LHP, Venezuela
Julio Mendez LHP, Venezuela
Rafael Brito RHP, Venezuela
Santiago Suarez RHP, Venezuela
Nicolas Uriepero RHP, Venezuela
Greyber Altamirano INF, Venezuela
Byron Chourio OF, Venezuela
Deivis Mosquera OF, Venezuela
Eduardo Guerrero, SS, Venezuela
29 players listed, 20 are from Venezuela.
We obviously know good pickins when we see ’em and it looks as though the rest of MLB hasn’t quite caught on yet.
Cartaya and Graterol (and Kaybear) are all from Venezuela. I have no clue how many others now in the system call Venezuela home, but we are obviously taking advantage of a good thing here.
We also signed a player born in Spain today and another one who isn’t on the list but which I saw listed elsewhere is a guy born in Russia to Cuban parents.
Thanks. Good intel.