FiddySicks

11 hours ago, LMU said:

The Judge chase has to be one of the most meaningless, overhyped stories in recent memory. He tied a league record in a sport where leagues practically don’t matter anymore, putting himself now tied for seventh all-time and eight back. Setting aside feelings about steroids, this whole thing wouldn’t have raised a single eyebrow if anyone but a Yankee was involved.

Couldn’t agree more. Baseball has been losing popularity my entire life, but it’s always had one thing going for it. The history. It’s legit the ONLY thing baseball really has to sell at this point that’s worth any value. Trying to ignore the current records, despite your feelings on steroids, is nothing short of revisionist history. All that does is take the one thing baseball has left going for it, and completely delegitimizes it. How are you going to ever attract fans when your entire operation is that unserious? 
 

Look, there are ways to handle the whole steroids era issue that doesn’t just erase the history of the sport. With some creativity, baseball could absolutely include these records (as well as put these dudes into the hall of fame) while pointing out the context of the era. In fact, that’s the only really correct way to teach history. But, no. The people in charge of baseball are pathetically lazy and would rather just operate on old man outrage and erase the history rather than do the challenging work of embracing it and putting it out there in a way that explains the history of the game. 
 

I get some of the anger the steroids era brought up (Not really from the fans, though. Get over it. What a waste of your life to be mad about that). But if I’m being completely honest, for as tough of a situation as that was, it’s more the response to the steroid era from the old heads and executives that has really killed my interest in the game. It’s a :censored:ing children's game made pro. You (the Royal you) look like a legit loser trying so hard to gatekeep for what is essentially just a TV show to all of us. 

Twins look so weird without pinstripes. Gotta keep those IMO. 

1 hour ago, DTConcepts said:

Slightly tangential, but I think I'd like jersey ads better if they were local(ish) businesses instead of multinational banks and tech startups that will be belly up in three years. Like, if the Avs (god forbid) decide to have jersey ads, I'd much rather see a King Soopers ad than a KeyBank or Pepsi ad.

 

I still hate jersey ads on the whole, don't get me wrong, but I think it'd be much more palatable if the Coyotes had an In-N-Out ad instead of a massive casino chain. And though having the ad still sucks, I'd much rather see the Bruins have a local-ish company on their jerseys than Chase or Bridgestone.

I’d actually be surprised if In-N-Out  wasn’t a bigger company than Gila River on the whole. I’m not sure how big GR is, though. Maybe I’m underestimating it. Also, Gila River is probably a lot closer to being a “local” ad than In-N-Out is. 

On 9/23/2022 at 10:56 AM, Jezus_Ghoti said:

 

It's in protest of Qatar's human rights abuses. They are boycotting commercial activities around the World Cup.

 

Would think someone with a NO ADS avatar might be OK with this. 

They’re basically saying that they don’t want to be visible in a tournament that has committed so many human rights violations before the first kickoff, even. I’m good with it. They’re not wrong. 
 

And I think the reason FIFA is being relatively lax about this is because what other choice do they really have at this point? They’re catching a ton of heat from just about everyone for this tournament. Why escalate it even further? 

Yes. That’s exactly it. The Sharks had a good amount of success in the past decade, but ultimately it has a stench to it because they could never actually get the ultimate goal accomplished. They’ve FINALLY and mercifully rid themselves of guys like Thornton and Marleau, and for the good times they had with them, it was so long overdue. That mentality you have fits how I feel about it perfectly. Sure, the black helmet and pants fits well historically, but frankly I think most fans are sort of tired of that history and what’s associated with it, and simply want a bit of a fresh start. It’s a weird bit of symbolism that I think most people who aren’t Sharks  fans are overlooking. This team was SO reluctant to any kind of change for so long, and this just feels like a willingness on the organization’s part to finally try and do things a little bit differently. 
 

This is probably gonna get mocked, but this legit feels like more than just a simple uniform change. This feels like a small first step in finally changing the culture a bit. That I’m all for, because the culture of Sharks hockey has mostly sucked in the last ten to fifteen years. 

The goalie situation is pretty rough right now, but one bright side is that other Americans are starting to get some looks. One potential candidate that keeps popping up is Maccabi Haifa GK Josh Cohen, who’s quickly turning into one of the very best players in the Israeli Premier League. I would be absolutely over the moon if this were to happen, as I’ve known Josh for the last five years and consider him a good friend. Even if he ultimately never does get that look, it’s great to see his name pop up in the conversation. 

Czech government: Nashville Predators, San Jose Sharks Russian players unwanted in Prague

A thousand pardons of this ranges too close to the whole “no politics” thing we’ve got going here, but I figured this was important. 

6 hours ago, Durden said:

 

An albino tiger. Makes no sense to me. 

This is an actual, real life thing that exists. What in the world are you even on about? 

I kinda want them to bring back the underlined M cap as an alternate

TC is superior as the primary, I’ve already been convinced of that from other posters here who are Twins fans. But ngl, I legit miss that M cap. 

On 9/24/2022 at 5:45 PM, tBBP said:

Don't look now, but Tennessee--yes, them Volunteers--are sitting 4-0 right now after holding off and taking down Florida for the first time since 2016 and only the second time in dang near 20 years, leaving them swamp thangz sitting at 2-2. (And had Utah not come up short in that goal line stand UF would be 1-3 right now.) I can't remember the last time Tennessee looked even halfway competent; they seem to be getting that thang together down there on ol' Rocky Top.

 

And also don't look now, but Florida State ain't wasting no time on Boston College, already up 21-0 in the first quarter. We'll see if they can pour more on while holding BC off...it'll say a lot about their mettle if they can blow BC out. But there's still three quarters to go, and my Seminoles ain't quite back jusssssst yet, so we'll see how this plays out.

Been a long time since I’ve been able to have positive thoughts about the Vols. Last time was probably when they beat Miami while Kellen Winslow Jr. was screaming about being a soldier. 

Goodell made it pretty clear from the minute he took over that he didn’t think the Pro Bowl was a valuable tool, so they tried to “fix” it. So basically either they’re so incompetent that they just completely ruined an event that was fine by any definition in the misguided attempt to “make it better”. Or it’s more of what I expect it to be, in that they disliked it, but instead of doing the unpopular thing of just scrapping it, they just set it up in a way that was meant to fail. Totally bad faith setup from the jump in the attempt to “organically” kill it off over the course of about a decade. 

41 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

 

This is a good point, and you're 100% correct when it comes to that small subset of the MLB audience. Can't argue that point. But for a league that's so frequently derided for its rapidly aging fan base, I'd think that partnering with a streamer -- particularly one attached to Apple -- seems like the sort of thing you'd want to do to grow the game. 

 

 

In theory, yes, that would be a good idea. But the overall issue isn’t really them switching to streaming services, it’s the overall lack of access people have to the game to begin with. Playing a random game here and there on Apple TV+ isn’t going to really cut it when there’s more than 150 other games people can’t access on a team’s season due to needing cable. All you do in this sense is make it more difficult for the older fans who don’t use these services to offer a product that most young people simply do not give a about. If baseball really wants to grow, they need to cut out all this gate keeping bull with “blackout” restrictions that are extremely firm yet still very confusing. Let people who don’t subscribe to the right cable network in, like, Iowa Actually watch a Cardinals or Cubs game on a regular basis, or something. Let people in Reno watch the Giants or A’s without forcing them to spend $100 or more a month for a bunch of other useless crap in order to actually get the games. 

6 hours ago, Sport said:

 

That's what they're going to do along with the usual skills competition stuff. I wonder how Robert Edwards feels this morning.

 

This is like 30 years overdue, but also sort of surprising because the game always got better ratings than the World Series and NBA Finals. I feel like the players kind of forced their hand because last year's game was such a farce, even by pro bowl standards, that they felt like they couldn't go through the charade of dressing the players in pads any longer. 

 

I wish they'd made this decision years ago before Tyler Eifert was injured in a pro bowl and required offseason surgery. 

They basically did their best impression of the Oakland A’s that they possibly could’ve in the way they tried to intentionally make it worse over the years. The Pro Bowl was just fine the way it was after the Super Bowl in Hawaii, but they insisted they were going to “make it better”, when everyone kinda knew they were just trying to intentionally tank any and all interest in it. 

I dunno. I’m probably the only one out there that’s sad about this. I’ve been to seven Pro Bowls with my dad and they were all fun (well, the last one we went to in AZ was garbage, but that was post rule changes). It was a pretty fun little event that the NFL just insisted they were going to completely ruin, so, whatever I guess

Yeah this is why I couldn’t ever be a 49ers fan. 

Very weird week for the NBA. They seem to have those at least once or twice every few seasons, too. The off court stuff really is the bread and butter of that league. 

I’m never going to understand the hate for

the “Flaming Thumbtack” logo. That’s a GREAT logo, and looks awesome on the helmet. 

Wow. 
 

ASU drops Herm like a bad habit.

fork em Devs, I guess. 

On 9/19/2022 at 12:53 PM, Gary said:

Tigers just hired Scott Harris as their new President of Baseball Operations. Turned down the Mets for the same role. I know that he’s been the hot hire in the past few years. Has to be better than Avila

Seems weird that the Giants are losing their GM to a team like the Tigers. I’m hoping that just means that the league respects the Giants pipeline, but it might

just mean that Farhan is really difficult to work with and people want to get away from him. 

1 hour ago, GDAWG said:

 

I’ve never heard of this person before in my entire life. Like, WHO? 

6 minutes ago, CaliforniaGlowin said:

Props to Vegas for making gold primary.  Unique color that reflects both the team name and the city. 

Tacky and unrefined? Yup, fits Vegas like a glove. 

That Titans identity had become a bit stale, but the main issue is they made the same mistake a lot of teams make. They had a fairly solid look and tweaked it to absolute death. The navy jersey and white pants was a VERY solid look. As soon as they started introducing the powder jersey and pants, the whole thing kinda went off the rails. That being said, the current look is a total disaster. BY FAR the worst look in the league. 
 

Also, the navy helmet was a significant downgrade for them. 

13 minutes ago, Red Wolf said:

 

This is the perpetual state of the Titans. Can you believe that there are people that thought that Tannehill was the guy? Tennessee is the least interesting team in professional football and they share a league with the Falcons. It's impossible to properly convey how impressive that is.

Does Vrabel end up in the hot seat after this? Kinda feels like it may be just about that time. They’ve steadily declined every year since that fluke run to the AFC title game   

The Bills look scary as hell. Titans look like their window has completely slammed shut. 

3 hours ago, Gary said:

What they need to do is get rid of Ray Anderson as the AD. Other than Bobby Hurley, he’s really crapped the bed in Tempe. Get someone in there that is credible and capable of hiring the right coach and get ASU respectable again. Honestly I think we could get rid of Michael Crow as well. Him and Anderson are against the NIL and there’s alumni who are willing to give money to the University just for the NIL. We don’t know where ASU is going to be in 10 years. But the fact that it is the largest University in the United States. I think I’m the long run, the football barring any penalty will be fine.

Don’t even get me started on Michael Crow. ASU is a shelled out corporate husk of what it once was, but at least they lead the way in “innovation”

Yeah the Herm Edwards hire never made much sense. The Graham years left some to be desired, but frankly, not really. Two ten win seasons and a berth in the PAC 12 title game my second year there was incredible. Plus huge wins over teams like Notre Dame and Wisconsin and it really was probably just about the ceiling for that program in its current form. Moving on from Graham felt kinda bold, but to go to a guy like Herm just felt like administration was just flailing around in the dark with no idea what to do.

It sucks, but the good days (which weren’t even really all that great to begin with) are pretty much over for the Sun Devils. 
 

Now watch them not learn a single thing from any of this and throw a stupid amount of money at Urban Meyer. Which he’ll turn down.