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OnWis97

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Posts posted by OnWis97

  1. MLB missed its chance to contract. Now too many teams have publicly funded 9-figure ballparks.  They could have contracted four out of the Marlins, Expos, Twins, A's, and Rays in 2001...but I think it was the lease on the Rays ballpark that messed with that, in part.

     

    I'm not sure what the right move was...These teams had various histories and fanbases. Even for a small fanbase, killing off a team was probably a questionable PR move.  Given the union's likely response, it was probably a bargaining chip and empty threat the entire time, anyway.

  2. That's the only way to make Army/Navy work if there's insistence on it being after the season is over. I think it's a relatively recent thing to  have that game so late. I guess if the conference wants a championship game, the Army / Navy game would have to move up two weeks.  That's what I'd prefer to see, but I assume Army / Navy gets its own week because, despite the fact that we're supposed to care about and watch it, it's not going to do well up against other games.

     

    Scheduling this game after the season has always bugged me. Imagine if, say, Navy was undefeated and there was clamoring for including them in the playoff (not even that far-fetched when the playoff expands). Then they get put in and lose to a 3-8 Army team. 

  3. Anecdotally, a friend of mine is a Cubs fan because in the 1980s their games were so frequently day games that he'd watch with some frequency while babysitting his siblings in the summer. Twins games were not on during the day as much and between late starts on the west coast and even home games ending past bed time, he just attached himself to the Cubs. I'm sure he's not unique nationwide. On cable (which my parents would not get) in Minnesota (and I think much of the Country) TBS was also showing Braves games. And while they became beloved in the early 1990s, TBS didn't do much for them in the 1980s. Sure, part of it was because they kind of stunk, but they also didn't have as many day games as the Cubs (who stunk at times but won a couple of division titles in the 1980s). Given what happened starting in 1991, it's weird to think that in the 1980s the Braves were one of the least notable franchises in MLB (Maybe I would not see it that way if I was old enough to remember 715).

     

    To what degree that helped bring the Sox to "un-favored sibling" I am not sure. I think Wrigley Field was always going to make that happen.

    If MLB didn't exist and a new 30-team baseball league was going to be developed, I don't think anyone outside of New York and maybe LA/burbs would get multiple teams. The Cubs and Sox situation is kind of lingering from the the AL and NL were competing leagues. I hope it works out on the Southside, though. It would be nice for a city/region that size to have an MLB option with attainable tickets. (based on my 2007 experience, the Bay Area seems to be losing that...)

    • Like 1
  4. 26 minutes ago, BBTV said:

    Again, for the smaller sports, couldn’t the conferences just make the “western league” (and other similar regional ones), which would be made up of teams from multiple conferences, with a title that’s sanctioned by them? The schools would remain in the B1G or Big 12 or whatever, but they’d play a mostly non-conference schedule and compete for a title that’s sanctioned by the conferences, but not a conference title. 
     

    The conferences got what they wanted for football and basketball - would they really care about doing something like that? It’s not like each conference has different rules (like a DH vs pitchers hitting) or large media contracts for most of those other sports. 

    I have to think something like that is going to happen. Football is unique in playing once a week and almost entirely on Saturdays.  This makes no financial (which is what matters) sense for sports that play more often and any time of the week; particularly the majority of sports, which are non-revenue. I have to think it's at least a bit more expensive for Washington to travel to Maryland than to Oregon. I don't really know the scheduling formulas for non-revenue sports, but I would not be surprised if the focus for some schools becomes non-conference matchups. For example, is there any way that Washington could only play 10 conference tennis matches even though Ohio State plays 20? I know that messes with the integrity of the conference race, but there probably aren't many people that'll care.

     

    I'm really curious to see how this works out for basketball. I'm guessing mid-week games will focus on shorter travel (e.g., Oregon to Washington, USC, UCLA) but even then, they'll have to make some trips into the central time zone. But I'd bet those four teams have home-and-home every year, whereas they might play Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc. about once a year and have rare games vs. Rutgers, Penn State, and Maryland. Outside of football, it might almost become an unofficial three unbalanced divisions.  This makes me think the Big Ten should have grabbed Cal and Stanford; they'd secure the Bay Area and get something resembling balance with rough divisions of 7, 7, and 6.

     

    What a mess. Example # 4,692 of how none of this is about the student athletes.

  5. On 8/5/2023 at 4:30 PM, TrueYankee26 said:

    Oregon Ducks and Rutgers Scarlet Knights never played football against each other. Rutgers played the first college football game in 1866 and Oregon took the field in 1894. Now they will be conference mates in 2024 in the Big Ten.

    And given the size of the conference, it still could be a long time before that particular quintessential Big Ten matchup occurs.

    • Like 1
  6. I feel like I've heard sliding pits in the fairly recent past, but never cutouts.

     

    When they were still prevalent in the 1980s, I don't think I ever heard any term for them. I think people would just say something clunky like "only has dirt around the bases" or "doesn't have dirt all the way around the infield."

  7. 1 hour ago, AnPheitseog said:

    I'm not going to source this, but going to respond of memory so I'll take corrections as needed.

     

    The primary use of sliding pits in MLB were due to multipurpose stadiums, where MLB and NFL teams(soccer was yet to be a force in the US at the start) would share a stadium and be awful for both. These stadiums also used artifical turf, rather than grass, to make the maintence easier.

     

    Sliding pits made it so the turnover waseasier, because you only had a little bit of dirt to remove as compared to a full infield, while keeping the saftey for the players. The Blue Jays, as you noted, were the last to have them. This was due to the Toronto Arognauts of the CFL playing at Rogers Centre as well(In fact, my first even at Rogers Centre was an Argos game in 2013, not a Blue Jays game). Once they kicked the Argos out and started renovations, they made it into a baseball only facility with still artifical turf but a full infield.

     

    So, the history of the sliding pits in MLB follows the history of multipurpose stadiums in MLB due to ease of turnover. If you look at the exceptions, the stadium in Oakland hosted both the Raiders and the A's. However, they still had a full infield and the Raiders played on dirt for the beginning parts of their season and it was beautiful. They are not the only ones to do so, and I believe we have a thread here dedicated to that glory.

     

    There are also teams in Japan that use the sliding pits now, even without a near. Yokohama Stadium, home of my Yokohama DeNA Baystars, has a full turf field and sliding pits. You also still see it at the collegiate level, with Pitt doing the same despite it being a full park.

    I was trying to think of any baseball-only stadiums with artificial turf and there were surprisingly few.  What you say about the football/baseball conversions makes sense but I had always thought that the distinction between pits and full infield was based more on grass vs. turf until the Rays went full infield at that RIP.

     

    Royals Stadium had artificial turf for much of the 1970s/1980s (see photos here) and it had sliding pits. I can't think of any grass fields with sliding pits...dirt infields on grass fields were used at times by the Raiders, Broncos, Dolphins, and maybe others (probably the Chargers, but I don't specifically recall).

  8. 8 minutes ago, oldschoolvikings said:

     

    I know that UCLA style road uniform is beloved, but personally, I'd rather see it left in the past.  As discussed on these boards ad nauseam, the current cut off version of those stripes leaves a lot to be desired. The disconnect between the gold trimmed home numbers and the non-trimmed road number bugs me, too.  And then there's the fact that it's just straight up LSU's jersey. But mostly, the below version from the 60's is just so gorgeous.

     

     

    Even as I was typing it, I was thinking about the decline in visual appeal of UCLA stripes in modern jersey cuts.  The Colts jerseys are inferior to 20 years ago for that reason.

    So I might be clinging to something that cannot happen. Perhaps a white counterpart to this purple jersey is the way to go.  In any case, I'd take it over the current look, if offered.

    • Like 1
  9. 10 minutes ago, nuordr said:

    The Vikings look good with the helmet shell and everything neck down. However, they should have been like Cleveland and not rolled out gray facemask. Purple or white would've been so much better. 

    I disagree and I'm the gray-facemask-hattingest gray-facemask-hater who ever gray-facemask hated.

  10. Jersey: Absolute perfection.

    Pants: The right move.

    Socks: Whatever. Thumbs up.

    Older-style logo: The right move for a throwback*

    Gray facemask: Also the right move for a throwback**


    Overall grade: A. 

     

    *Unpopular opinion (I suspect)  but I like the updated horn better because it visualizes the horns going up better. And if it were up to me, they'd keep this jersey permanently but with updated helmet logo.

    **Polarizing opinion but I don't like gray facemasks and I while it's the right move for a one-game throwback, I want them to have purple facemasks for standard uniforms.

     

    That all said, I had no idea this was coming. What I great surprise.

    • Like 4
  11. 6 minutes ago, simtek34 said:

    One note. This is the 1965-1969 version of the Vikings Home uniform. Not the 1961-1964. The only difference is the lack of sick stripes. That’s unfortunate, but I’m still stoked to finally see Vikings throwbacks return, especially the 60’s version with the numbers outlined in gold.

    I'm embarrassed to say how long it took me to figure out what this typo was.  

    Now that I have, I don't really get that into socks (comparted to others here), but I think I prefer this without the striped socks.

  12. 8 hours ago, justin23iu said:

    Goodell is anti-uniform ads. As long as he’s at the helm, I doubt it happens. He believes, correctly IMO, that the monetary gain loses out to the “cheapening” of the brand. I hope he holds the line.

    I guess I didn't know that specifically about Goodell. I guess everyone has some redeeming quality...

     

    To that point, I've always wondered about weighing sharing of the brand vs. the income that said sharing generates. I recall when the NBA first really started to consider it, reading that it would generate $100 million. Now, that's a lot of money. But it's also like $3 million per team. Maybe that number has grown since the "program" started. But in a league that has seen Allen Crabbe earn eight figures, is this really a difference-making amount? Is it really worth watering down the brand for? I guess the answer is yes...and I suppose it make sense. I doubt they lose much, if any revenue. How many fans spend less money on games and gear because of it? Probably almost none...the only direct impact is authentic jerseys.

     

    All that said, it's kinda sad that teams will take semi-significant amounts of money to water down the brand like this.

    And while all of the jerseys are cheapened by the ads, it's really jarring on the most famous jersey in sports history. The patch isn't as big as San Diego's patch or as jarringly tacky as Atlanta's. But it's the poster child for taking a big old crap on a sport so rooted in history and, to some degree, aesthetics. It really cheapens their look and if they win the World Series on a walkoff or something, seeing Starr Insurance will forever have a part in that moment, which is far more depressing than the Cavs winning it all in the worst jersey they had (by a mile).

    • Like 2
  13. 3 hours ago, DCarp1231 said:

    Y’all really thought the Yankees wouldn’t cave? Tradition is tradition until the check clears.

    I thought they'd be the last to cave. Though in fairness, I'm surprised how many teams have yet to do so. I figured the other 29 teams would all have done this by now.

  14. 1 hour ago, AstroCree said:

    This is Adam Silver's fault. He opened the floodgate with this BS. 

    It was over the moment the NBA allowed it. At that point, I already felt like we'd been on borrowed time for a while. Given how long pro sports leagues elsewhere have done much worse than this, I can't believe this didn't happen in the 1980s. Silver? Well, he made the big decision, but given where we were headed, if it wasn't him, it would have been someone else.

    Prediction: We're entering our last year of no ads in the NFL.
    Prediction: MLB and NHL will have bigger sponsor presence than team presence on jerseys by 2030.

  15. 5 hours ago, Kramerica Industries said:

    At this point, the Yankees might as well sell naming rights to the stadium as well. If the most iconic uniform in North American sports isn't sacred from cash grabs, then nothing else is either. Rip the entire Band-Aid off and just be done with it.

    I know if it was up to me I'd rather Yankee Stadium become Starr Insurance Stadium and the uniforms be left alone, but I'm not sure the general fanbase would feel the same way. There's probably a certain sacredness to both but also a quick "I'll get over it" for most fans that would not visit this board.

     

    That all said, if there's one uniform for which ads are going to generate outrage from the fans, it's this one. I'm not sure how it's playing with the fans but it's not like people are going to stop following the team. 

     

    Along with selling naming rights to the stadium, I don't really see any reason not to have a dark alternate to at least wear on the road and maybe an alternate cap (white or silver bill, perhaps). 

     

    I guess I'm stuck in a past decade because I thought there was a chance the Yankees would not do this.

     

    I would not be surprised if the rest of the teams speed up their process of getting sponsors. "If the Yankees are doing it to the pinstripes, what's the point of us no having ads yet?"

    • Like 2
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