Sport

Hard-lining "no hockey teams should be in the south!" is as dumb as making excuses for the southern markets that have clearly failed. But I haven't seen this large swath of Redditors rushing to Atlanta's defense like Admiral claims exists. Mostly the reaction I've seen about this announcement is "uhhh why???" and "They get a third try, but X doesn't get a second?" or "X doesn't get a first try?" I don't think many hockey fans are sticking up for Atlanta and the ones who are are like 15 year olds romanticizing the wacky asymmetrical jerseys, but are too young to remember the Atlanta Thrashers as the silly useless goofs that they actually were. We shouldn't do Atlanta again. Columbus has two 18,000 seats arenas set four miles apart, built two years apart, and it's still stupid to this very day. Creative arena refinancing saved the Blue Jackets about 12ish years ago, but they were only in that mess to begin with because Ohio State absolutely refuses to be a good partner with anyone in the city who isn't Ohio State. It's why the NHL has never hosted an outdoor game at Ohio Stadium and it's why they schedule games and concerts opposite one another. I'm not ready to rule out deliberate antagonism on OSU's part. Nationwide Arena where the Blue Jackets play is vastly superior in every way to Value City Arena* so all's well that ends well, but if I had my way the two would've collaborated on a shared arena in the late 90's like NC State and the Hurricanes did. *which is both a total dud as far as college basketball atmospheres go while also having all the bad hallmarks of early 90's arena design without the good stuff that came a couple years later. Nationwide Arena looks like it could've opened yesterday. OSU's arena is New Comiskey Park, Nationwide Arena is Camden Yards. Does that analogy make sense to anyone else? If I had my way Buckeyes basketball would still play games at St John's Arena, which is a rowdy old barn that still houses volleyball, Skull Sessions during football Saturdays, and sometimes basketball. That place could get loud and felt like it was gonna fall down when big games were rocking. It's one of those old venues that makes college basketball great. VCA is a corporate warehouse where old alums pay a ton of money to sit in the good seats and golf clap. It STINKS!

I tried to watch and couldn’t because of the technical issues and grew frustrated with Apple’s interface. First, they didn’t have the FCC-StL game listed under the games that were happening live because of the weather delay so I had to search for the game. Then it kept telling me I had to subscribe, but wouldn’t give me any option to login so I’d click subscribe and then it’d tell me I was already subscribed and then give me a path to logging in on the appletv box’s settings which means I had to leave the apple+ app every time, which means I had to re-search for the game the ten or so times I went back into the apple+ app. That path they told me to follow to login on the appletv settings doesn’t actually exist in their settings. I was so frustrated and it was already 2-0 so I gave up. Their own tech issues aside, my inability to easily navigate through their app because of their insistence on being all “Appley” made things incredibly difficult. And I’m not 1,000 years old, I’m somewhat tech savvy.

My personal vendetta comes from having met a large sample size of Penguins fans and witnessed boorish behavior inside of Nationwide Arena that I've not seen out of any of the other visiting fanbases. If it makes you feel better the meaningless win last night elevated us out of the 32nd spot so the Penguins got one over on us. Again.

Still misleading with Cincinnati's CSA. By definition SLC CSA might be larger than Cincinnati's CSA, but in practice Cincinnati's region is larger. Our CSA doesn't seem to include Dayton's, which is silly because Dayton is right there, and this may be redrawn in the next census anyways as the two continue to merge in the middle. That's a million more people within an hour's drive of the ballpark that aren't included in our CSA. Cincinnati is also in the middle of the trapezoid of Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Lexington. That's another 6ish million people within two hours drive of the ballpark. I'm not saying SLC wouldn't do well in MLB, but there's more people here than a simple CSA search would suggest.

I was hoping the Isles would lose so the Pens would have something to play for tonight against the Blue Jackets. Our last two games are against Pittsburgh and Buffalo and it'd be such a CBJ move to win both of them and drop from 32nd to out of the bottom 3. On the other hand, the worst people alive missing the playoffs for the first time since forever is very cool.

The train conductor look Astros of the early 2000's was a good look, but wrong for the Astros. Plus it took the shooting star and made it static and slow. Give me the 90's look every time.

I merely like it. The number treatment keeps it from being top tier for me. They should've just used the same double outline numbers from the home uniforms and I'm not really sure why they didn't.

Baseball is so back. I must I admit I was wrong about many of these changes a few years ago when they were proposed. I had a very enjoyable time watching baseball this weekend and it wasn't just nice that the games ended sooner, it was nice that the actual pacing during the games was better. Things moved. Didn't realize how much we needed this. Here's your semi-regular report on our beloved Cincinnati Reds aka the Redport: Started 2-1. Good outings from all three of the sophomore starting pitchers. We knew Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo would be good, but really excited for Graham Ashcraft as the kind of surprise stud starter. They're 2-1, which means they need to win two games out of the next 22 to beat last year's 3-22 start and I feel pretty good about that. Craziest part about the 3-22 start is they opened the season with a 2-2 series split against Atlanta, which means they won 1 game out of the next 21. For me that's the rock bottom moment for the rebuild. I don't expect them to make the playoffs or anything outlandish, but it would be nice if they're not eliminated by Tax Day.

The Rockies home whites are effectively the White Sox, though, and there's never been a good reason for that. "The pinstripes are purple" is technically true, but those pinstripes turn black from like five feet away. I didn't even know the pinstripes were purple until a solid ten years after the franchise started. If I was King of the Rockies they'd be a purple and gray team.

I never had much affection for the Goofy Giants Marlins look they had when they first went to the Miami Marlins moniker, but it's a masterpiece compared to the current uniform, which is like if seasonal depression were a baseball uniform. I am a huge fan of their 1997 uniforms with both the full sleeved look and the vested look. I think that was the best balance of those colors. The road uniform was a unique, but attractive look itself, but its arched wordmark was inferior to the later Florida script that matched the home script, unfortunately that coincided with the flip to a black heavy look so they never got it 100% perfect. I want to love the all-teal hats, but the originals were so bright and so pastel that they looked goofy in helmet form. The hats and helmets they wore on Friday look great in HD and maybe that's the whole difference, but these ones look and feel far more saturated and I thought it looked great.

Regardless, it wouldn't "spit in the eye of history" when history is that McCarthy and the others mentioned didn't wear a number. There's actual historical precedent for managers not wearing numbers. If the norm changed at some point, then that means it can change again. That doesn't mean that I think we should go back to numberless jerseys for the players. When everyone wears 42 or the Red Sox-Yankees throwback game where nobody wore a number, it actually demonstrated how necessary the numbers are. For the players.

I didn't take that position. You took the position that the managers and coaches not wearing numbers "spits in the eye of history" when there's a long history of baseball managers not wearing numbers. Is it the norm since the 50's that managers wear numbers? Yes. Would a manager not wearing a number "spit in the eye of history?" Connie :censored:ing Mack says no.

Historically speaking - Connie Mack wore a suit, Joe McCarthy never wore a number, Burt Shotton wore slacks and a handsome satin Dodgers jacket. The Yankees went overboard with the number retiring (Would anyone have made a fuss if they never retired Paul O'Neill's #21?), but historically there's been a lot of managers who weren't numbered so I fail to see how this would be "spitting in the eye of history". Most of the time these days managers look like this. What would look sloppier? The hoodie or wearing the actual uniform top without a number? I can't remember the last time I saw the Reds David Bell in his actual uniform top. I doubt he even bothers to put it on before he puts on his red hoodie.

According to Phil they were out of contention before first pitch yesterday.

Ke'Bryan Hayes just tried to call time, got denied, and then had to jump back in the box and struck out swinging. Pitch clock baseball is good.

To each their own. I think they look silly. I lived through those years and I have no fondness for them. Furthermore, the hats dirtied fast and they looked weird on fans, especially with all the variants in pinstripes from hat to hat and manufacturer to manufacturer. It's so much simpler and looks better to just use a red hat. When those uniforms were at the plate they wore red helmets, which looked a lot better. It was a sturdier, more balanced look. The red lid on top gives a nice button to the white vest and a better ratio of colors while the white hats just feel like so much white.

Yeah that was me and I still believe that. They were the last team to drop their pullovers and sansabelt pants and rather than embracing their pre-pullover look like most teams did, they chose to redesign to a vest and pinstripes look with silly white hats. If they'd just readopted the 1970 uniforms as the Good Dude intended then I don't know if we would've had the BFBS Reds. Here's the good part, though - it's not too late. And I think an overwhelmingly high percentage of Reds fans would love if the team dropped the 90's drop shadows and went back to being a strictly red/white team.

I know it's like "I'm actually not mad. This is actually funny to me." but the "Cincinnati SUCKS wooden spoons!" t-shirt really doesn't bother me at all. The thing that bothered me was actually watching the three wooden spoon teams. Those guys paying for those shirts, wearing them, having them in their possession so they have to launder and store them is really just a joke on themselves. I'm not owned by you wearing a shirt that says Cincinnati Sucks because I'm not the one who has to live with that shirt.

I had no animosity for Nashville before the game, but I kind of do now. Those Nashville fans seemed angry. Not sports angry, but like angry angry. Like when Acosta got bumped in the eye and the two dudes in the "Cincinnati Sucks" shirts were yelling at him from the corner - Middle fingers and grabbing their sacks and just really classy behavior. Relax.

Rumor is that the Reds will be black jersey with black pants so, if true, that sucks.

Yes and every Hockey Influencer was erect about that team for like a month and if you dared to question it for one second you were deemed lame and uncool. I liked watching their games, but it totally cut the actual Team USA roster off at the knees because most of our best players were under 23. I know it also kept McDavid and Mackinnon off of Team Canada, but they won the tournament anyway. USA went 0-3 in group play. Next time they do it they need to skip the U23 team and Team Europe. Hard to believe the last World Cup of Hockey was 7 years ago, which fits the history of that tournament because there's no rhyme or reason for when they decide to put one on.

The script-writers having the game come down to Ohtani v. Trout was a little too predictable.

Terrible news. The only good part about that is it means the old authentics will be on sale? Because of past experiences with Fanatics I refuse to buy anything from them so I guess I just won't buy a new jersey for a while. I think that might add fun tension to the broadcast. Or they figure out a way to quickly clean the bucket of the balls for a team who's already been picked? All I know is to avoid any question that this is a fair drawing it has to be analog and visible. I escaped stats with a C- and was happy with that grade so I'm also not the guy to talk to about this stuff. The assigned numbers make sense, but doesn't make for compelling TV. Also it happens behind closed doors. I want this thing done out in the open.

The Ewing lottery is hilariously quaint. That was the first ever draft lottery and their design of the lottery seems perfectly tailored to be riggable. They dumped like ten enormous envelopes into this big clear plastic drum, which is cranked by this old bald dude and then Stern sticks his hand in and without looking fishes for the cold one. I’m not saying it was rigged, but if they were trying to rig it, the setup wouldn’t have looked any different. I don’t get why they use the numbering system, though, and not just put 100 balls in the hopper with each team’s logo on them and give the worst teams more balls? So the Blue Jackets this year would have 25 of the 100 balls, the Sharks would have 13, etc. Then you could do the drawing on live TV like the state lotteries do and make it a better show than Bill Daly turning cards over and it would more visibly transparent. People say it’s rigged because we can’t see how the results were collected.

What a game. Japan comes back to steal it from Mexico. Ohtani doubles to start the 9th, then a walk, and then Murakami knocks them in with a shot off the wall to walk it off. Ohtani vs Trout for the championship.