It appears the baseball commissioner (the owners lackey) will impose a 45-50 game season for this year as both sides have decided further negotiations are futile. I think most fans (those that don't apply the knee-jerk reaction of “i'm never watching baseball again”) will not consider 45-50 games a real season. The idea of 162 games in not carved in stone but the idea of a season long enough for players and teams to withstand the vagaries of a game that goes through highs and lows as a matter of course is important. So who is wrong or right here? (I clearly think the owners should be held responsible for this nonsense). As agent Scott Boras puts it. owners are trying to privatize gains and socialize losses. Average player salaries declined in each of the last two years while revenues continued to rise to record levels. The owners also have a new broadcast deal with TBS that promises $3.29 billion in revenue. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic has a great piece looking at all of this today. And if you haven't spent the piddling price for The Athletic yet, what are you waiting for? The baseball players union is a solid a group as you can find and they are not going to roll over. It may cost them in the short term but they realize they cannot let the owners divide them with the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire in December of next year. It all stems from a lack of trust between the two groups dating back generations. Players still remember the “collusion” years and refuse to believe the owners “poverty” when those same owners refuse to open their books. It's a scorched earth policy with no real winners but that is where we stand. Is 45 games of baseball better than no baseball? Can this impasse lead to better understanding from the two sides going forward? Hadly seems likely. But if you are among the crowd of message board yakkers who claim “they will never watch baseball again”. I don't believe you.
“Coming grievance: MLB arguing players didn't negotiate in good faith over salary, MLBPA arguing owners didn't negotiate in good faith over length of season. And then comes the start of talks for a new CBA, between negotiators who spent the last two days torching one another.”-Bill Shakein
We know that Charles Lindbergh made the first solo transatlantic flight in 1927. But did you know that two pilots did it 8 years earlier. John Alcock and Arthur Browne flew together from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919. I don't think I had heard about this until I read it this morning.
The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame is opening today for the first time in 3 months. All guests must wear face coverings and have their temperatures checked at the door.
The R&B singer best known for the high-energy song “Tossin' and Turnin'” has died. “Billboard” says Bobby Lewis passed away April 28th after contracting pneumonia. He was 95. Lewis's death was recently announced on Facebook by his granddaughter. The Indianapolis native recorded “Tossin' and Turnin'” in 1961 and it quickly reached Number One on Billboard's Hot 100. It stayed at the top spot for seven weeks, which was an unusually long period of time during the chart's early history.
“Tossin' and Turnin'” was also featured on the soundtracks of the 1970s movies “American Graffiti” and “Animal House.” Lewis continued to perform into his 80s despite eyesight problems. He spent his final years at a New Jersey healthcare center.
Covers Of The Day
NYPD guarding the Wall Street bull…This is a metaphor for pretty much the entire problem with this era.
Trump hates losers so why is he re-fighting the Civil War on the losing side? Read it
here
Meet the hidden architect behind America's racist economics. Read it
here
The
@SeattleTimes
catches Fox News digitally altering photos to mislead the public about the situation in Seattle:
“Fox News willful service as an instrument of propaganda is despicable. The steady parade of Trump Administration officials indicates an incestuous relationship between Government and the fake news Fox News. Fox mixes propaganda in with a unique blend of racism and xenophobia.”-Lawrence Boorstein
Quotes Of The Day
“The health and fitness of any Presidential candidate for the rigors of the office is a legitimate issue. Video of Trump shows he is unwell. Why did he have difficulty sipping water? why is he slurring words? why is he incoherent in speech? Why can he barely walk?”-Steve Schmidt
“I'm sorry but I will never stop finding it funny as hell that the guy who has spent his entire life mocking the weak and helpless is now falling straight the f*ck apart before our very eyes”-Jeff Tiedrich
“The press freaked out when HRC had a cold but crickets when Trump can barely walk down the steps or hold a glass of water.”-Matt Murphy
“I don’t care if #RampGate was caused by Parkinson’s, Adderall, or a stroke; the people deserve to know if the most powerful man in the world is not right in the head.”-Santiago Mayer
“Serious question: what is going on with him? His supporters have tried so hard to get the media to question Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness but they so often engage in projection it seems worth inquiring.”-Joy Reid
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/127190255341713…
“Trump’s West Point speech showed a man who is physically and mentally impaired. Drinking water should not take two hands unless you are hiding a tremor. Trump’s delivery was halting, at times slurred. And his departure down a slight ramp revealed he needed a walker or golf cart.”-John Dean
https://twitter.com/chrisdjackson/status/127193186…
“Since @jeffsessions is such a history buff I’m sure he’ll advocate for the full release of the unredacted mueller report with all its underlying evidence, the trump phone call transcripts that were hidden on a special server and that book the WH is trying to erase by John Bolton”-Juni
“It’s funny Jeff, I’m from Alabama and I’ve never been mocked by a stranger for believing the things Doug Jones believes. Usually the folks who make fun of Alabama assume we’re all like you.”-Jason Isbell
https://twitter.com/jeffsessions/status/127157493…
“The president was at West Point today. Benedict Arnold once was the commander. I was surprised Trump didn’t rename it in Arnold‘s honor.”-General Michael Hayden
“American police departments should not have SWAT teams, save for perhaps one roving tac squad that is on call citywide in the event of a terror attack. It should never be deployed against citizens otherwise. Policing is not soldiering.”-David Simon
https://twitter.com/baltospectator/status/12719303…
“Call me crazy but murdering someone at work should cancel out your pension”-Jim Jelly
https://twitter.com/complex/status/127145594479125…
“Saddened that @realDonaldTrump appears to have perverted every agency he touches. Even the Secret Service, which was caught lying. Thank goodness for the free press and video. And our eyes and ears.”Ted Lieu
https://twitter.com/geoffrbennett/status/127190628…
“President Trump’s planned convention speech in Jacksonville, Florida, on Aug. 27 falls on the city’s 60th anniversary of a brutal KKK-orchestrated attack on black activists known as “Ax Handle Saturday.””-Yamiche Alcindor
https://nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/politics/trump-…
“At a certain point it stops being coincidental.”-Joy Reid
“It is a sign of the moral bankruptcy of the @GOP that this is only of concern to Democrats.”-Marc Elias
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/502535-demo…
“Taking a knee isn’t disrespectful to veterans. Kicking them off medicaid and leaving them to die is.”-Mohammed Safa
