Tag: Yahoo

Bill Belichick Sidesteps PR Disaster and Declines Medal of Freedom from President Trump

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Bill Belichick is a well known military historian after growing up in Annapolis where his veteran father was an assistant football coach at Navy for 30 years, who just turned down the nation’s highest civilian honor from the Commander in Chief. This is not a garden variety accolade, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award for “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” So for Belichick to decline the Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States is not something he took lightly.

After the shit show that was last week at the Capitol it would have been utterly impossible for Belichick to accept this award from the man who has become politically radioactive. Not to mention all the heat Bill has taken over the last few years for his friendship (and endorsement letter) with Donald Trump. After what we’ve seen in the last week along with the fierce opposition from NFL players who have publicly railed against the President the last four years, the blowback Belichick would have faced would have been immense.

Now you can argue that this is all bullshit and Belichick got bullied into declining the award, but it brings to mind something I always say to my own team: perception is reality. You can have the best of intentions (or not), you can think you’re in the right, but you need to be mindful of perception. The Patriots are coming off their worst season in 20 years, the United States Capitol was just stormed for the first time in 100+ years after the President whipped people into a frenzy, and the man that would be personally handing this award to Belichick just became the first President in the history of the United States to be impeached twice. Even the dumbest person in the room knows you don’t want to be associated with somebody accused of inciting an insurrection.

Yahoo’s Charles Robinson thinks the decision was more personal than business for Belichick.

“The league has been largely living inside its own bubble the past week where it concerns Trump, a bubble that was forged by past events and whose ideology is it’s better to ignore the things Trump says and does than to engage.

All of that makes what Belichick just did feel more personal. He could have accepted Trump’s honor as an outright show of support, or simply because Belichick doesn’t like to be told what he should be doing. Also because he could have simply said “no” without context. If anything, it’s more unprecedented for Belichick to explain himself. So the fact that he did so suggests he knows the gravity of the moment.

What Belichick said sounded personal to him, particularly his reminder that he is speaking as “an American citizen.” That sounds like someone who is making a clear prioritization. Yes, he wrote a letter to Trump in support of his presidential run in 2016. Yes, they previously had a long friendship that Trump likes to drop into conversations from time to time. But Belichick is complicated. He also has an appreciation of American history and a steeped family history in the military. And while he doesn’t engage politically very often in public, those who have known him for a long time suggest he’s as thoughtful about the foundational elements of democracy as he is about football.”

So maybe it was a come to Jesus moment for Belichick and he is now questioning his relationship with Trump or maybe it’s just an infamously shrewd strategic mind in Belichick reading the room and sidestepping what would have been an inevitable PR shit storm. Either way he deserves credit for putting the team before any personal accolades and not only declining the award, but going against his modus operandi and providing a detailed explanation as to why he made the decision.

Dolphins Announce Plan for Fans to Attend Games Amidst COVID-19 and Social Distancing Concerns

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Yahoo – Hard Rock Stadium can hold around 65,000 fans, but Garfinkel said it might be closer to a 15,000-fan maximum this season to adjust to social distancing and to keep everyone safe. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) currently recommends keeping six feet (two arms lengths) from other people and to avoid crowded places and mass gatherings.

The team would also schedule arrivals and assist with exiting after the game. The plans include fans being required to wear masks...The examples show colored spots on the ground to show what six feet of distancing looks like, not unlike what grocery stores have done near registers to keep from having a mass crush of people together in one spot.

Attendees would order food from their seats and leave to pick it up instead of waiting in line, just as people are doing elsewhere with curbside pickup.

I’m holding out hope for some semblance of sports to resume later this summer, but I’m not exactly optimistic. By all accounts, it would seem our best bet of sports returning any time soon is some form of games without fans in attendance. Even that has plenty of hurdles to overcome, most of which revolve around logistics. The NBA has kicked around the idea of every team playing a tournament in Las Vegas, while basically on lockdown in a bubble. MLB has considered restructuring leagues and having teams play games in just a handful of Spring Training stadiums to reduce cross country travel, but even that would require players to be away from their families for four months straight. So every story you read about how or when sports can return leaves me with a pretty bleak outlook.

However, a failure to plan is a plan to fail so teams are doing their due diligence and trying to figure out how exactly they could safely allow fans back in the stadiums.

The Dolphins came out with a proposed plan of how to safely bring back fans once the government gives the green light and it has a serious dystopian future vibe.

  • 15,000 fans allowed in the stadium (compared to 65,000 normally)
  • All fans required to wear masks
  • Order food and drinks from your seats rather than waiting in line
  • Staggered arrival times and exiting “much like a church environment, where each row exits so people aren’t filing out all at the same time in a herd.”

Before all this I was a borderline germaphobe, so I am not going to be one of the first fans jumping through hoops just to pay $200 to attend a game in person. Sports on TV would be more than enough for me right now, but you know plenty of people are dying to get out of the house and return to something resembling normal.

Who knows, maybe this becomes the preferred way of going to a game and it acts like a form of EZ-Pass. With just 15,000 people and assigned entrance times you could just breeze into town and right up to your seat. Anyone who has been to a Pats game in the last decade knows its a 3 hour tour just getting out of the parking lot and back home after a game. OR the demand for tickets will go through the roof because of the limited supply and we’ll all look back and laugh at how cheap $200 Patriots tickets were before COVID.

It’s crazy to think about how the next Patriots home game could look more like a college lacrosse game with less than a quarter of the seats filled, and have it not be because Tom Brady’s gone. It’s going to take a long time for things to return to normal, if at all, depending on how long the coronavirus lingers. So until then we’ll have to take what we can get as everything from our offices to bars and restaurants to concerts and games at Gillette Stadium slowly figures out how to bring people back together once again.

McNabb and T.O. Continue to Feud 15 Years Later While the Patriots March On

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Yahoo – Old grudges die hard. In 2005, Terrell Owens engaged in one of the most public holdouts in NFL history…his feud with teammates and repeated jabs at quarterback Donovan McNabb led to locker-room discord. The Eagles devolved that season from NFC champions to 6-10 and last place in the NFC East.

For that, McNabb is still agitated. He recounted the experience in an interview with Bleacher Report’s Master Tes released on Wednesday and blames Owens for breaking up a contender.

“I thought that was the major distraction for us,” McNabb said. “He’s doing sit-ups, he’s doing push-ups, he’s playing basketball, he’s ordering pizza for the people out there, and we’re sitting there in training camp just like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ …

“This is like ‘Days Of Our Lives.’ It’s unbelievable. But that was something that kind of broke us up.”

And this is why the Patriots are the Patriots and every other team in the NFL is forever chasing their own tails. Fifteen fucking years later, T.O. and Donovan McNabb are still sniping at each other in the media. McNabb even says in the interview with Bleacher Report that T.O. is what broke up the Eagles, which is the softest shit I’ve ever heard. Was T.O. an all-time asshole diva receiver? Yup, you bet. But, T.O. is also the reason the Eagles were ever that good. In 2004 McNabb threw 31 touchdowns, 14 of which went to Owens. It was also the first, and only, time McNabb threw more than 25 touchdowns.

But, I’m not here to bash McNabb because he was also one of the godfathers, well more like a distant uncle I guess, of the mobile QB revolution we see today. The guy was fun as all hell to watch so if he wants to bitch about T.O. in 2020 go for it.

My point is this is exactly why no team has ever replicated the Patriots’ run of dominance. The Pats literally had the biggest asshole in the league on the team this year in Antonio Brown. A guy who forced his way out of Pittsburgh, torpedoed his short stint with the Raiders, and then got cut by the Pats after a whole bunch of (alleged) dirtbag behavior came out. So the Pats dropped him like a bad habit and his name was never uttered again like he was Beetlejuice.

The Patriots are just experts in PR and damage control. AB is a legitimate disaster waiting to happen and currently has a warrant out for his arrest, but the team never let it become a distraction. This is the same team that, albeit disappointingly briefly, rostered Tim Tebow without any distraction, gave new life to perceived diva Randy Moss, and even had a convicted murderer on the team in Aaron Hernandez without it breaking up the team.
So my point is, T.O. did not ruin the Eagles and cause them to go from playing in the Super Bowl to finishing last in the NFC East the next year. The Eagles did that to themselves.

The Red Sox Front Office is a “Miserable Place to Work” Just Like Your Job

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Yahoo – The last two men in charge of baseball operations – Ben Cherington and Dombrowski – were shown the door quickly after winning championships, and those moves are painting the Red Sox in a very bad light, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney.

“These decisions loosely frame the industry perception of the Red Sox as a chaotic company, a miserable place to work. Boston owner John Henry needs to understand this, because it is why some of the people he’d probably love to consider as possible replacements for Dombrowski privately dismiss the idea out of hand.”

Olney writes that some potential candidates have no interest in working for Henry, because they “doubt he’d have the patience to back his next general manager through the difficult crossroads ahead.”… A wide-held view in other front offices is that the highly respected and well-liked Red Sox president Sam Kennedy stands as a thin buffer between the team devolving to the level of the Mets, the team generally regarded by rival executives as baseball’s model for dysfunction. “If Sam ever walked away,” said one official, “the whole thing would be a complete mess.”

Well thats sobering to read for a team with 4 titles in the last 15 years. Are the Red Sox a complete mess of a franchise that wins in spite of its values, philosophy, and culture, not because of it? 100% Thats what happens when you have finishes of 1st, 1st, 1st, last, last, 1st, last over the previous seven years. So that is two World Series titles and three last place finishes across two GMs and three managers in seven years. Not exactly a model of consistency. In fact, the Sox have finished 15 or more games out of first place four times since 2012 (including 2019), which is the first time they had achieved that level of mediocrity since 1998.

But even with all that said for Buster Olney, one of the most well respected baseball writers in the country, to report that Fenway has become “a miserable place to work” is still startling.

I feel like I’m living in Groundhogs Day. Didn’t this same exact thing already happen a few years back? Am I the only one that read Feeding the Monster? Or the Francona book?

Those two books could not depict the highs and the lows of this organization any better than they already did.

Now for as much as we dump on the Mets for being an absolute circus:

It would seem the perception of the Red Sox, despite all their success, is not far off. That is ENRAGING as a fan of this team because it has been and should be one of the top 2 or 3 jobs in all of baseball. You have more money than almost any team to spend, a fan base that shows up and pays through the nose to support the team, and a roster built around home grown talent. Yet somehow we’ve arrived at a point where nobody of note even wants the job.

That all leads us to the most pressing question of all; who the hell is going to take the reigns for the Red Sox moving forward? I think we’re all in agreement that Theo Epstein returning would be a wet dream for everyone in town….but that ain’t happening. Olney makes it sound like nobody wants the job because John Henry has created an absolute shitshow of dysfunction at all levels, which is ironic because it all started when Henry chose a nearly 70 year old Larry Lucchino over Epstein all those years ago. During the Epstein era the Red Sox were a team of efficiency and consistency. The team boasted one of the best farm systems in baseball for years and supplemented homegrown guys like Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buccholz with high priced free agents. There was always a balance and the team rarely pushed all of its chips into the middle of the table to sacrifice the future for the present. Sure, what Dave Dombrowski did was exactly what John Henry brought him here to do. I don’t fault Dombrowski because we knew who he was when he got here. The Sox won a title, but absolutely ravaged the farm system to do it. Boston now has the worst farm system in Major League Baseball. He’s basically the baseball equivalent of Thanos.

Now Peter Abraham is making it sound like the Red Sox are very aware of this negative perception around the league and are resigned to promoting from within. According to Abraham it looks like the Sox are positioning the pieces that would point to an internal candidate being the next GM.

Maybe thats a good thing who knows. Maybe having a guy thats been with the organization for years and already understands the internal workings on Yawkey Way will benefit the team in the long run. Instead of slapping a band aid on things with a big name. However, the Sox better have a plan in place. Don’t just promote someone from within just because you couldn’t do any better. Pick a guy, develop a philosophy, and stick to it. Most importantly, give the guy the power to make the tough moves. The last thing this team needs is another puppet that just does the bidding of his bosses.

Just don’t tell me you’re letting a homegrown ace walk because you don’t sign pitchers over 30 and then sign a pitcher over 30 to the biggest contract ever given to a pitcher a year later. Your move, John Henry.

Former Chargers GM Says Trading Eli Manning Was the Highlight of His Career. Respect the Spite

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Yahoo – In 2004, the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Chargers made a trade that would forever change the course of both franchises. Moments after the Chargers selected Eli Manning with the first pick in the NFL draft, the team traded him to the Giants for Philip Rivers…

“[The trade] was the most satisfying moment for me in my career and I really mean that. I would say that if I was ever fortunate to win a Super Bowl, I’m sure it would’ve trumped that, but I don’t know that. I gotta tell you there was a lot of highs and lows in the business, but that moment was the greatest high for me as an executive for an organization.”

As Smith explains, the deal netted the Chargers with enough draft picks to select Shawne Merriman and kicker Nate Kaeding. Both guys played big roles in the team’s success from 2004 to 2009. More importantly, though, Smith was happy he took some of the power away from Manning and his agent, Tom Condon.

“When I heard emphatically from Tom Condon and Archie Manning ‘don’t take us,’ that hit me — call me a traditionalist — it hit me the wrong way,” Smith said. “I decided I was not going to play this game with them and I flipped it, in my view, to an unknown where they didn’t know what I’m going to do or how this is going to unfold — they really didn’t.”

I hated the Chargers growing up. Hated them. Shawne Merriman was an arrogant dickhead who could dish it but couldn’t take it when the Pats did his Lights Out dance in San Diego after an upset. LaDanian Tomlinson was the greatest runningback I’ve ever seen, but all he did was complain about how “classy” the Patriots were. All while sitting on the sidelines in his Darth Vader outfit while Philip Rivers played on a torn ACL. So aside from the Peyton Manning Colts and the Rex Ryan Jets the mid 2000s Chargers were my most hated football team.

BUT, I now LOVE AJ Smith. The architect of one of the most hated teams of my youth is an A+ grudge holder and I have to respect the spite. Oh whats that Eli, you don’t want me to draft you No. 1 overall in the NFL? In fact you won’t even play for my team if I do draft you? Well fuck you because now I’m doing it.

AJ Smith wasn’t going to let some rich kid and the Manning Mafia tell him how to do his job. I bet he would have ate the draft pick and let Manning sit the year out if he didn’t get the trade offer he wanted. Just spite that whole family because you ain’t John Elway, kid.

Now obviously this trade was the rare trade that worked out swimmingly for both sides. The Chargers got Philip Rivers and a boatload of picks that turned into franchise cornerstones and the Giants got Eli and 2 Super Bowls (kill me) out of it. Big Z made the point that the Giants might actually have won more Super Bowls with Rivers under center because aside from two month long hot streaks by Eli Manning, Rivers is clearly the better player. Rivers has a better career Completion %, more TDs, 60+ less INTs, and a better QB Rating.

I’d still rather have two SB rings, but I respect the shit out of AJ Smith for deriving so much pleasure out of something so small. An early candidate for The 300s 2019 Hater of the Year.

The Masters Was an Instant Classic and I’m Happy for Tiger Woods, But My Wallet is Not

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Joey B previewed The Masters last week and boy was this year’s event a doozy. That was a full four days of entertainment. From watching in between meetings at work on Thursday and Friday to sitting my ass on the couch all day Saturday and then waking up early on Sunday to watch the last 5 or so hours. It was an instant classic.

The Masters was awesome last year too with Patrick Reed swooping in and snatching the green jacket like an 80’s movie villain. Just an emotionless robot looking rich kid with ice in his veins. Reed finished at a just ridiculous -15 to win the event. I watched last year at my house and then at the bar before heading in for a Celtics playoff game and it was thrilling. So I figured 2019 would have a tough time topping what was such a great event last year.

Really all you’re hoping for is that Tiger is in contention come Sunday. I know a lot of people say that, but it’s true. Whether thats a reflection on the absolute void of exciting and entertaining personalities in golf is a valid question. Either way though, Tiger is must see TV when he’s within reach of victory. Going into Sunday he was just 2 strokes back and there was about 6 or 7 guys all within 3 strokes so it was going to be a battle. Add in the fact that they pushed everyone’s tee time up on Sunday because of an incoming storm and it was Tiger time before I even had my morning coffee. It was too early the perfect time to crack that first Sunday morning Bud Latte too.

Tiger looked like a man on a mission, but a couple of gimme putts he missed had me thinking he just wasn’t going to have enough in the tank.

The legend of Tiger has faded a bit in recent years, or so I thought. Less and less do we see guys just wilting under the mere presence of Tiger on their six. Well lucky for us the guy Tiger was chasing, Francesco Molinari, is exactly who he was paired up with on Sunday morning. So every time Francesco tee’d off, Tiger was staring a fucking hole in the guy’s back. And Molinari could *feel* that.

With a two stroke lead he started to melt when he put his first shot in the water on No. 12. Even Tiger’s caddy, Joe LaCava, was shocked:

LaCava said that Tiger was all business after Molinari, inexplicably, put his tee ball in Rae’s Creek. For LaCava, it wasn’t something he saw coming. Molinari, who’s so steady it’s borderline infuriating, wasn’t a player you’d peg as a candidate to drop a ball in the water on the back nine of a major.

“[Molinari]’s one of those guys, he’s not going to go away,” said Lacava. “I was a little surprised he hit it in there. I was thinking this is a perfect 8 iron for him, it’s probably a smash 9 iron for us. I actually thought he was going to hit not to two feet, but 15 feet left. I was very surprised. Things definitely changed.”

The cameras cut to Tiger and you can see his eyes come to life.

It’s like when Eminem gives the mic to Papa Doc in the final rap battle and he slowly realizes that Papa Doc just doesn’t have anything left.

After that it was a wrap. Tiger slowly but surely chipped away at Molinari’s lead before just having to two putt on 18 to win The Masters. No problem.

It was an incredible scene to watch and say what you will about his past transgressions, but I love a good comeback story. People thought his career was over, his back was in shambles and here he was putting for his fifth green jacket.

It means so much more to him these days too. I first saw it at the PGA Championship last year where he narrowly lost to Brooks Koepka and he walked off and hugged his kids and looked like he was about to cry, but in a good way. Like he was beaming with pride because all though he didn’t win, he was healthy, he played his balls off, and his kids saw it.

He was a fucking legend back in the day, a complete force of nature, but his kids were too young to see that. Tiger even said it in one of his interviews Sunday, for the longest time he was just “the YouTube golfer” to his kids. So for him to be dominant and winning majors in front of his kids who are now old enough to understand and appreciate what they’re seeing is a huge change for Tiger. And now the chase of Jack Nicklaus’ 18 majors is back on.

It wasn’t all gumdrops and rainbows though as the price of admission for me seeing Tiger return to his former glory was a shit ton of my own money. I had Brooks Koepka at +2,500 and Xander Schauffele as my longshot at +4,000 to win The Masters. Both of them finished ONE stroke behind Tiger. That hurt. Xander was a guy I bet on solely because of how confident my barber was in telling me to do so just a few weeks ago. So I thought well I’ll feel like a real schmuck if I ignore this divine intervention and Xander goes on to win. Welp, my guy was gunning for it late and missed a couple of putts, but would have at least gotten into a playoff or even won it outright if not for Tiger. Tiger picked a great day to pull a vintage performance out of his ass.

Jets Gonna Jet; Lose Tight End for the Year After He Drops a Weight on His Foot

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Yahoo – The New York Jets placed tight end Eric Tomlinson on injured reserve Thursday with one game left to play in the season. The move appeared to be the sort of end-of-season housecleaning that many non-contending teams use to fill out their active roster for the final game of the season, but then, well, we found out how Tomlinson got injured.

Tomlinson received his season-ending injury by dropping a weight on his foot in the weight room and lacerating two toes, according to ESPN’s Rich Cimini. The injury was reportedly serious enough to require surgery..the Jets are currently on pace to finish last in the AFC East for a third straight season and endure even more time as the team everyone loves to dump on.

I’m not gonna play around like this can’t happen to anyone because my roommate freshman year of college did the same exact thing. Went to slide the 45 pound plate (NBD) off the bar, but didn’t realize there was a 10 pound weight in front of it. Slid 10 lbs of  pain right off the bar onto his toe. SNAP. Kid was in a boot for quite a while. But that was my 18-year-old roommate, not a professional athlete paid in part to lift weights and work out. Sucks to see because that shit must HURT, but man if this isn’t another Jets debacle in a long line of Jets debacles then I don’t know what is.

Now just don’t lose on Sunday boys or it’ll make this snarky blog look much worse in hindsight.

Go lock up that No. 2 seed!

Jimmer Fredette Wants Another Shot in the NBA. YES! YES! YES!

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Yahoo – Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Jimmer Fredette is once again tearing it up in China, averaging 38 points a game (fifth best in the league), shooting 51.2 percent overall and 46.7 percent from three. He is a former Chinese Basketball Association International MVP and a two-time All-Star. And once again, he hopes this will turn into a chance in the NBA.

Do I have an unhealthy affinity for professional athletes based primarily on their video game performances for me? Maybe. I even blogged about Jimmer captaining the greatest video game team ever assembled back in January 2017.

“These guys compiled one of the most dangerous basketball teams to ever step on the court in my old NBA2k franchise. I basically assembled the deadliest 3 point shooting team ever and completely bailed on any rebounding or post play. The ball touches your hands? You’re jacking up a 3. Jimmer Fredette. JJ Reddick. Ray Allen. I believe I had old man Mike Miller playing center just so he could step out and drain 3’s. And of course to top it all off I had Dougie McBuckets McDermott. It was like an And1 team and it was glorious.”

It’s why Chad Jackson will always have a special place in my heart because nobody and I mean nobody in the league could stop Chad on 10 yard hitch routes in Madden 2006.

Thats why I’m not a GM.

But, if you don’t think the former CHINESE LEAGUE MVP Jimmer Fredette could help a bench over in the states then you’re crazy. Look at that range!

If there is a team in the NBA that could use a three point guy to stand in the corner and knock down daggers, it’s the Celtics. The C’s have a ton of flexible guys that can play multiple roles and do a lot of things pretty good, but nobody that is really an elite 3 point shooter. With Kyrie, Hayward, and Tatum spacing the floor and drawing defenses in, just dish it to Jimmer to bang home 3 bombs. Count me IN. He seems to be chomping at the bit to get another shot too after flaming out in the NBA.

“I want to have another opportunity in the NBA because there is some unfinished business for me there. After this [Chinese] season is over, I want another NBA chance. This time, I’ll succeed. I feel really good about how I am playing. I know that if I get a chance, I will take advantage of it and be successful and help a team win… I know what it takes to win and I’ve helped lead teams to winning cultures. I want to be a part of a winning culture. I’m going to help the young guys get better. I can be a great fit on the locker room and on the floor at a high level. There are certain times when I was younger, I was occasionally more passive. This time, when I get that chance, if I get it, they’ll know that I will do whatever I can to help my team win.”

Look this is a man who has it all: adoration all across the state of Utah, a Chinese MVP trophy, not to mention his very own shoe line! The one thing he doesn’t have? A successful NBA career. Jimmer’s ready. His bags are packed, he’s got his airplane tickets. Bring him to the airport, Danny. Send him home.

Are the Astros Stealing the Red Sox Signs? Probably. Do I Care? Not Really.

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Yahoo – The Boston Red Sox were warned that a man credentialed by the Houston Astros might try to steal signs or information from their dugout after the Cleveland Indians caught him taking pictures of their dugout with a cellphone camera during Game 3 of the American League Division Series, sources with knowledge of the situation told Yahoo Sports.

A photograph obtained by Yahoo Sports showed a man named Kyle McLaughlin aiming a cell phone into Cleveland’s dugout during the Indians’ 11-3 loss that ended their season. McLaughlin was the same man caught taking pictures near the Red Sox’s dugout during Game 1 of the AL Championship Series, which was first reported by the Metro Times. McLaughlin was removed by security in Cleveland and Boston, sources said.

It would be the height of hypocrisy for a guy from Boston to fire up the outrage machine over alleged sign stealing from an opponent. It would go against the line I’ve *always* preached that it’s really not that big of a deal. I’m not going to go as far as the old trope that “if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying to win,” but particularly in baseball it is a part of the culture. If a guy on second base relays a stolen signal to his teammate at the plate then it’s generally accepted, if not applauded.

I suppose the influx of technology makes people more uncomfortable as it becomes a bit more sophisticated.

“Teams around the league are perhaps more wary of the Astros than any team, fearful that their employment of cameras – they use high-speed models made by Edgertronic to help evaluate players, according to sources – allows them to steal signs. MLB has not punished the Astros for any illegal behavior, sources told Yahoo Sports.”

If you happen to notice a catchers sign and relay that to a teammate you’re just competing, but if you have a whole system of deceit people regard it as more seedy.

I don’t really care and that may be because I am just entirely jaded by overblown cheating accusations (and stories about Apple Watches). If the Astros are indeed cheating then punish them, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you we need to take draft picks, and suspend players, and resurrect the ghost of Senator Arlen Specter to investigate the whole thing.

With that being said, at least PRETEND to be stealthy about it my dude.

But all this really does is raise the question I’ve always had as to why some of these stories blow up and others don’t? I mean anything the Patriots and Bill Belichick are accused of will always take on a life of its own because Bill is a glorious dickhead and people will take any chance they can get to try and bury the guy.

I guess the ‘Stros don’t play grabass with the media like some of the players/teams who have had similar stories swept under the rug.

Remember when Peyton Manning was (allegedly) taking PEDs? That shit was like a midnight news scroll on ESPN and was really never mentioned again. Ohhhh it was his wife taking the HGH guys, not Peyton the 40-year-old QB with a surgically fused spine, it was his wife!

Remember when the St. Louis Cardinals were caught hacking into the Astros entire scouting database? This got absolutely ZERO burn by the national media and this may have been the most outlandish scheme I’ve ever heard. The fall guy did end up going to prison and the team did get docked a couple of draft picks, but hey the Cardinals are the classiest team with the best fans in the world.

Genius and Condescending Marketing Has Millennials Everywhere Fired Up to Vote

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AOL – A campaign that aims to get millennials to register to vote turned heads by enlisting the help of actors posing as elderly, white Trump supporters. The ad, titled “They’re doing fine, are you?” was created as part of the Knock the Vote movement, started by ACRONYM, an organization that claims to be “the largest digital program focused on electing Democrats to state legislative seats across the country.”

In the cheeky one-minute PSA, a group of elderly white actors purported to be Trump supporters urges “young people” not to get out and vote on Election Day for a plethora of outrageous reasons.

This is A+ stuff. Whether you’re into politics or not, this video cuts right to the core. Don’t vote? Fuck you, I’ll vote twice. Well, not really since thats frowned upon, but you get the point. Tell me not to do something and the first thing I want to do is exactly that because I’m a golden retriever at heart.

It doesn’t matter how great of a marketing campaign any voting PSA creates though because none will ever top the GOAT.