JSngry

And think about this - the Dodgers had almost literally no offense 《speed yes, bats no) and in a three way race with the Giants and Pirates (power aplenty, both, as well as pretty damn good staffs), they came out on top. Pitcing, pitching, pitching. And more pitching. I wish I had been old enough to really appreciate Sandy Koufax, especially since that was his last season What I do recall is damn near pure awesomeness. But them O's, man, they were NOT going to be denied!

Hard to beat this year's staffs. but 1966 Orioles vs Dodgers, O's starters didn't have uber-impressive stats at that point, but Palmer & McNally were there w/Barber holding his own, and the Drabowsky-led bullpen was steady killing it. Dodgers had Koufax, Drysdale, Osteen, and Sutton all in peak/peakish/peaking form. The Vulture was in the pen, but so was bob Miller. That was a great series if you were an Orioles fan (and I was), but the O's, even with the Robinsons & Boog, were not the favorites in the face of the Dodgers' starters. How about that!

AFAIC, the key part of "Twitter" is Twit. It's a sign of These, The Last Of The Good Old Days, that Twitter is considered an effective fix to any long-standing/ongoing social issue. That's that Devil Work going on again... But yeah, tweet phone numbers, Or better yet, go answer the damn phones when they ring, because they do ring, with or without Twitter. Shut your damn phone off and get your ass in with real peoples with real hurts, occupy your time doing that. I'm far more a fan of grace than I am of righteousness. Now, where are our Agents Of Positive Change who are tweeting AA #s, or MADD #s, or NarcAnon #s, or Gamblers Anonymous #s, or all those other numbers relegated to harmful behaviors that at least one (or more) professional athlete has been demonstrated to engage in? Just set up a Twitter Station in front of evry event and cover all bases, and then feel good when the phones ring for somebody else to answer. (for the record, I don't think the reporter in question is necessarily guilty of this type of empty "advocacy", I sincerely hope she's not, she sounds pretty gutsy to me, but good god, if everybody who "likes" the tweeting actually did impactful work in their immediate communities, the phones might ring just a little less, ya' think?) As for Kapernick, he was vulnerable because he was good, not great. He took his stand (ok, his kneel) anyway, hopefully fully aware that he was gonna be fucked in so doing. More power to him, and now, I still ain't gonna buy Nike, because Nike, but more power to them too.

Yeah, I too am distressed that racism and misogyny are not on equal economic footing.

Woody Herman snakebit?

Not defending Osuna, and there is NO defense for Taubman. But people should get their own shit together before whining about the obvious. That's just too easy. Like, if you know somebody in your world who is perpetrating domestic violence or being victimized by it, what are you doing about it besides piling on an already identified asshole on social media? Seems like the cheap way out, and definitely doesn't help that neighbor of yours who's been acting kinda weird... Sports is a great way to live vicariously. But real problems of real people, that's not sports, and that's not vicarious. Easy outrage against easy targets is an easy out for a serious problem. But such is life today, where everything is media in some form or fashion, everybody's looking, right? and btw - "woke" and "SJW" and all that bullshit don't play well with me, either as actors or as derogatory tags. Just one more line of digital behavioral code for what were once analog creatures. Outrage outrage everywhere, and not a drop to think. and while I'm at it - fuck professional sports, period. I've had enough.

Yeah, that's a major record in its original form, but the expanded edition is MAJOR major.

They started last night? Who knew?

Y'all maybe need heroes more than I do? I mean, in both the keeping and the failing, nobody knows and exemplifies my own personal moral principles than I do. Why should it be otherwise for anybody? And of course he should be fired. He got caught, and that's the way it should work for any smart business. Actually, any competent and ethical business would realize that, so maybe the whole organization should fire itself. After all, competent and ethical, we have certain expectations of our pigs these days! And let's not stop with the Astros, let's audit all them assholes, ALL of them, everywhere. even if it means there would be likely no professional sports left. At this point, I could live with that! Seriously, actually, I could. We got e-Sports now, so hey, all we need is AI to replace the gamers and then our troubles will be over. almost there... And then the banks! And the lawyers! And the....EVERYBODY! FIRE EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE! WE SHOULD FIRE US ALL!!!!! and surprisingly enough, their ass looks like any other ass, just hanging over the rail on the front row right now. Put that ass back where it belongs, Astros! The ghost of Judge Hofheinz finds your display public display of vulgarity undisciplined and bad for business. One or the other, please, but never both. At least not at the same time. Well, I'd be happy to root for the Braves, but they're not in it. And i could pull for the Nats, but they're, like, the team that neither Canada nor Bryce Harper wanted (nor, for that matter, did the American League want their town - TWICE!!!!), so, hmmmm...again, one or the other, but not both. Maybe if they bring out Felipe Alou we can negotiate. Felipe Alou was cool. No idea if he was a pig or not, though, so that's gonna have to be conditional coolness. Competent and ethical, my endorsement of Sport Love is. Unless/until, here's to REAL gentlemen playing in REAL stadiums!

And the Pete Cosey/Mtume bands still do not get a full public hearing. There was The Lost Quintet, lost no more. This band, live and unedited, would be the Severely Underexposed Electric Jungle Orchestra. That's ok. Digital documentation always there, somewhere.

Yeah, I read that. Did you read this? So in this case, yeah, fuck that. But in general, this notion of "Any competent and ethical business..." blahblafblahthatswheremyearsstartglazingoveretcetcetc That's wishful thinking.Especially in the world of sports. In that world, competency is only defined by profit, and ethics only by what you can get by with without affecting your profit. Hell, that's MOST of the corporate world. Don't kid yourself. The only REAL Good Actor is probably a REALLY good actor. So yeah, fuck Astros Corp "response". but I'll still be pulling for them. Pigs gonna pig, but pigs are only sometimes on the field, and even then, you don't know who they are until they get found out (and I reckon that if the pig/non-pig ratio is favorable to non-pig...well, I seriously doubt that it is). So me, I'm still going with memories of Loel Passe and JOE PEPPY-TONE - and not giving them one penny in so doing. That, and the fully grown Second Coming Of Eddie Gaedel, Jose Altuve (who may also be a pig. But who also may not be a pig). My conscience is and will be clear on that one. A.J. Hinch - more-or-less sustainable good guy, and closer to the field at ANY given moment that that asshole Taubman.

It's just that simple!

I'm as tired of being told what's not an acceptable apology as I am of fucking up to the point that apologies are necessary. Just serve the guy up, fire him, discipline him for the fucked up thing that he did, let him pay for being an asshole and for bringing disrepute to his organization (to say nothing of his family, if he has one) and then, if he has real front office skills, bring him back on the shortest of all possible leashes. If that. It's bad for business, for starters. And it's bad for society in general. But in the Free Range Capitalism on professional sports, it's bad for business. Don't overlook the obvious, dumbasses. In the meantime, there's nothing that gets me fuquitous quicker than offering a sincere, heartfelt apology for something and then being told "well, that's not good enough". Well, sometimes it's gonna have to be. Sometimes. We either talk more in the spirit of mutual goodwill or we don't. A sincere apology is a beginning, not an end, and if it is indeed "not good enough", then there's no place to begin, so there's the end, already. And not that the Astros' official" apology doesn't have Corporate Rush Job written all over it. But Shame Shaming is still Shaming nonetheless. Not interested. Start - and finish - without me on that one.

Bryant did some sideman dates as he "returned" as well as leader dates. Not all of them will appeal to those who don't like indigenous club musics from the period, but apart from that, hey, Rusty Bryant never played less than excellently, regardless of context. And in that context, he played better than most. You either seing or you don't. As they say, it's a poor tradesman that blames his tools.

Columbus is the state capitol and all that, but when I started visiting that part of Ohio, I would never have thought to look for somebody like Rusty Bryant up there...Rusty in the Rust Belt, ha, how 'bout that? Not in Orchestraville. Kudos to Bob Porter for his advocacy of Rusty Bryant.

There's a buttload full of those all over the world, too many to count, so could we all move on now? Coda, got anymore of those ubernice landscapes, or something like that?

He was just working locally, in Ohio. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

and yet, if this is not a sex record, nothing is: Big balls/ball's in other places that Cowtown...

Can't wait to hear his acceptance speech!

I heard/played the song many times before seeing the title in written/printed form. I find it impossible to believe that the verbal ambiguity was not intentional, or at the very least, fully innocent. I mean BIG BALLS/BALL'S IN COWTOWN (in all caps b/c nobody whispers that lyric, ok?), there's no way to sing an apostrophe.

I don't think Bob Wills was being malevolent in any way. He was just signifying that people got together in spite of what was "supposed" to be. Now, under what conditions who was able to go where and what happened when they did, that's a different subject, but that's not political, that's just reality. As far as Bob Wills' innocence... https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/the-texanist-bob-wills-played-what/ Yeah, sure,

Bob Wills was never "innocent"! http://thislandpress.com/2011/02/10/take-me-back-to-tulsa-turns-70/ http://stateofthereunion.com/tulsa-ok-reconciliation-way/

Longview, Texas, right in the middle of the area in which I grew up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longview_race_riot I did not learn about this until years after leaving the area. Nobody talked about it. Nobody. Not even the 2-3 Klan members I worked with in the oil field for a few summer jobs (yes, Klan members). But there it was, there it is. And I'm sure that there were plenty of people who knew about it. They just didn't talk about it. This stuff is barely 100 years ago, sometimes less than that. There are people alive today, like my former co-worker, who have lived with first-hand accounts of stuff like this being a part of their family narrative. Families who had their lives literally stolen from them ("Black Wall Street", it wasn't just a massacre, it was over, crude, basic piracy) It was real then, and it's real now. We need to get this out in the open and process it in full, once and for all. If some people get butthurt, so be it.

I used to work with a lady whose grandparents were directly impacted by that event. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Beyond ugly. You can't make it too ugly how all that went down, no matter how ugly you make it, it will not be as ugly as the reality. And still less than 100 years ago, Babe Ruth was playing with the Yankees. Glory days.

Rusty Bryant was a baaaaad man.