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Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

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The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

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Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

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I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

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98Comments

  3. 3.

    The Dangerman

    I read in one of his Obits that Weaver smoked through at least his first heart attack and, maybe, to his passing. Surprised someone so strong willed couldn’t beat the habit (and lived this long; I understand he was a chain smoker). I hope he and Ron Luciano are greeting each other in appropriate fashion.

    Far too young to recall Musial, but, in these days of zero HOF inductees, I’ve heard nothing but how classy he was.

    RIP to both.

  7. 7.

    The Dangerman

    Since this thread should pull in mostly the sports junkies, any one agree with me we will have the Harbaugh Super Bowl in a couple weeks? The Niners should abuse the Falcons and the HSB looks like destiny.

  8. 8.

    ranchandsyrup

    He was a frugal man. Weaver:

    “Economics played a role. Raleighs have gone from six fifty to nine dollars a carton, but there’s a three-quarter cent coupon on the back. You can get all kinds of things with them, blenders, everything. I saved up enough one time and got Al Bumbry.” Source: The Sporting News (July 22, 1985)

  10. 10.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    A mystery has been solved. Every night the dog goes apeshit barking out the back windows. Today I actually LOOKED and saw a COLOSSAL opossum grooming himself on top of the shed 15 feet from the back door. I shot a bunch of pix for Facebook, then threw a boot at him. He didn’t go far, and he’ll be back. Between this and the hawk raid on the bird feeder around dinnertime it’s been critters galore out there today.
    What’s next? Bigfoot? Zombies? In any case, the dog will keep us informed.

  11. 11.

    The Dangerman

    @redshirt:

    No small matter to overcome.

    No disagreement and a lot depends on the weather, but, the Ravens, pre-injuries were the early season favorites…

    …and they’ve gotten healthy.

    The 2nd game should be some old school, smash mouth football. I’m still calling Baltimore (who all need to buy Rahim Moore a nice vacation).

    ETA: Healthy may be a stretch; healthy enough to play.

  12. 12.

    JWL

    RIP, Stan The Man.

    His baseball career? What can you say? The Man was great.

    But it is also a fact that Musial is one of the (relative) handful of people that heard the Remagen Bridge collapse in March of 1945. He was attached to an engineering corps that was called on to protect the Rhine crossing when the stakes were the death of Nazi Germany. He dodged death at that river’s edge by a few minutes.

  15. 15.

    RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist

    @Roger Moore:

    We’ve already had skunks, pheasants and raccoons, and there are coyotes in the area. Too many fences and too much traffic for deer.
    The Detroit Zoo is 1/4 mile away and there’s also a big old golf course. It’s critter heaven. But a little exhausting.

  16. 16.

    PeakVT

    Weaver was ejected from games at least 91 times during the regular season (98, according to one source)[2] and several more times during post-season play. He was ejected from both ends of a doubleheader three times. He was ejected before a game started twice (both times by Ron Luciano[3]). Luciano alone ejected him from all four games of a minor-league series and eight games in the majors.[4]

    Before a game even started? Now that’s talent.

  18. 18.

    catatonia

    @efgoldman:

    I love the fact about Weaver’s tirade that he launched it in the top of the first.

    Kind of poignant to see in that clip that it’s Mike Flanagan — who committed suicide last year — who was the O’s starter in that game.

  20. 20.

    Hunter Gathers

    @efgoldman: Cripes. Perhaps I should, I don’t know, scroll down before posting something I think is clever. Reading skillz? I haz none.

  23. 23.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @The Dangerman:

    Seattle was supposed to tear the Falcons apart too. Now I wouldn’t bet lots of money on the Falcons (if I were a betting man, which I’m not), but nothing’s a done deal yet.

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    @PeakVT:

    Before a game even started? Now that’s talent.

    It happens. The manager wants to restart the previous night’s (or previous series’) argument, and the umpire doesn’t want to hear it any more the second time.

  26. 26.

    FredW

    My Dad’s family was from St Louis and my earliest baseball memory was going to a Cardinals game at the old Sportsman Park with my Dad, uncle and Granddad. This must have been ’58 (or maybe ’59). Stan the Man hit a home run that day and I have been a Cardinals fan ever since.

  27. 27.

    redshirt

    @PeakVT: The O’s were so close to making the playoffs last year. I was rooting for the Sox to take down the Yanks at the end of the year so the O’s could make it. But nope, Sox sucked that bad. Sorry!

  28. 28.

    redshirt

    @The Dangerman: Ravens have played an extra game and a half more than the Pats the last three weeks. That’s gonna add up for a team as old as the Ravens. Also, the Ravens D is not what it used to be, by far. Also, while I am nervous as heck and could easily enough see the Ravens winning, I ask myself (and you) this:

    Are the Ravens a better team than last year’s AFC Championship contender? I say no.

    Are the Patriots a better team than last year? I’d say most definitely.

    So, given the league’s number one offense and an improved, healthy defense, and home field advantage, it’s hard to see the Pats losing in most scenarios. They’re the superior team with superior conditions.

  30. 30.

    redshirt

    @MattR: Ah yes. I meant win the division. But can no longer edit. Also too, I’ve had like 15 concussions and am old enough to wander if I got that NFL disease. Hrmm.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @efgoldman:

    Earl (and Bobby Cox) got ejected so often, I doubt they did it consciously for team stimulation purposes.

    Bobby Cox supposedly did it to protect his players. When he thought one of them was risking ejection by arguing with the umpire, he’d go out there and start arguing to draw the attention away from his player. It’s supposed to work fairly well as a tactic.

  33. 33.

    The Dangerman

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    Seattle was supposed to tear the Falcons apart too.

    Well, but for some Wilson/Carroll brain cramps, Seattle wins that game (yes, yes, I know, and how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln). Atlanta showed they can’t handle a QB who runs and the Niner QB (whose name I won’t even try to spell; shit, change it to Johnson or Adams or something if you are going to replace a Smith) may not be as good as Wilson, but if Atlanta didn’t figure out how to play a mobile QB in a week, they have problems.

  34. 34.

    PeakVT

    @redshirt: Last year was the first good year in a long while. The most recent previous winning season was in 1997, after which Davey Johnson quit after tangling with Angelos over a rather trivial matter.

  35. 35.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: I hope they do. I frankly miss the heartbreak Sox who could never win anything. They might come close, but nada. These 21st century Sox leave me wanting.

    I want my sawdust and vomit Sox back, not these corporate stooges.

  36. 36.

    Mornington Crescent

    @catatonia:

    That’s what gets me too about that Weaver clip, it’s about 2 batters into the game.

    Some background on that clip.

    It was filmed for a program called PM Magazine, a syndicated program where they filmed magazine-style segments, and then fronted the program with local presenters to give it a local feel, and then showed in the early evening typically. It was a kind of happy/feely early evening non-thinking magazine kind of program.

    They got permission to wire the first base umpire for a kind of “day in the life of an umpire” segment, and then unexpectedly this confrontation happened.

    The baseball people at the park were concerned that this might get out and they demanded the tape back. While the crew were talking to the baseball people, one of the crew hustled the tape offsite in a van while the rest of the crew stayed to talk to the baseball people about the tape, and that’s why you’re able to see this clip today.

  37. 37.

    ? Martin

    @Roger Moore:

    You don’t have start worrying seriously until you get bear and wolves.

    Bobcats. We had one in our yard a few weeks back. They can make your day interesting. The mountain lions are a mile away or so. Hopefully they don’t start showing up. They’ll really ruin your day.

  38. 38.

    The Dangerman

    @redshirt:

    Are the Ravens a better team than last year’s AFC Championship contender?

    Hey, at least they no longer have a kicker named Succup that lived up to his name and the receiver might catch the ball at crunch time this year.

  41. 41.

    the Conster

    Where’s the hockey talk? Da Broonz looked in fine form, and beat the Rangers fair and square, with fights and everything! RIP Earl Weaver and all that, but it’s the fucking middle of January, and it’s hockey time!

  43. 43.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: True, and while I enjoyed 2004 immensely, I also knew it to be the end of the Sox that I knew and loved. The tragic losers. No more! And so began the Era of the Pink Hats and led to the fall of Fried Chicken. Tragic, but not in a cool way.

    Back when I was young, you could walk up to Fenway before the game and get bleacher seats on some insignificant Tuesday for 5 bucks. At those kind of prices, why not go to 20-30 games a year? Good times.

  44. 44.

    redshirt

    @the Conster: I only jump on the bandwagon in the playoffs.

    I saw the Cup at a bar in the North End. It was wicked cool. Fulfilling my goal – to see (in person) all 4 of the major sports trophies. Yay Boston!

  45. 45.

    Mornington Crescent

    Incidentally in that clip, when Weaver says “you’ll have your chance tomorrow”, he’s referring to the fact that umpires rotate their positions clockwise each game, so that the first base umpire will be able to screw over his team with calls behind the plate next game.

    Earl Weaver really knew which buttons to push on those umpires.

  47. 47.

    different-church-lady

    My favorite Earl Weaver story:

    “One game I pitched I led off an inning getting the first batter to hit a ground ball to Cal, and it took a bad hop,” [Tommy] Flanagan recalled. “The next guy hits an easy fly to Singleton in right, but he loses it in the sun. Now there’s two on. Earl comes out, says ‘Don’t let them hit it on the ground and don’t let them hit it in the air,’ turns around an walks back. I get a line drive double play. As I walk in the dugout, Earl says, ‘Am I a fuckin’ genius or what?'”

  48. 48.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @redshirt: No you’re not imagining Weaver’s smoking. Relief pitcher Don Stanhouse got the nickname “Full Pack” because of it.

    Stanhouse was great at pitching out of trouble. So much so that if he wasn’t in trouble he promptly pitched himself into a jam. Weaver would retreat to the tunnel and chainsmoke to deal with it.

  49. 49.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: Word up! I lived in the Fenway for 15 years. Love/hate relationship but now that I’m gone it’s all love. Your old man days are well before mine, however. :) Still, 5$ bleacher seats IIRC in 1992.

  50. 50.

    different-church-lady

    @efgoldman: 1995: Sox have a chance to take the American League East that night. I hear on the radio there’s still seats available. I figure I’ve never seen a sports team clinch anything in person before so I took the T down to Fenway and bought an upper grandstand tick for maybe 18 bucks, and saw Mo Vaughn ride the police horse.

  52. 52.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @redshirt:

    Are the Ravens a better team than last year’s AFC Championship contender? I say no.

    Yeah, well, I say yes:

    Joe Flacco 2012 > Joe Flacco 2011
    Jacoby Jones >> Lee Evans
    Bernard Pierce > Ricky Williams
    Dannell Ellerbe > Jameel McClain
    Paul Kruger 2012 >> Paul Kruger 2011
    Justin Tucker >>>>>> Billy Cundiff

    We miss Lardarius Webb but Corey Graham & Chykie Brown have played well at CB and Cary Williams has improved. We miss Cory Redding more but Pernell McPhee is coming on now.

    Now that the OL is properly aligned (McKinnie-KO-Birk-Yanda-Oher) it’s playing at least as well as last year.

    To quote the immortal Johnny Unitas, “Talk is cheap–let’s play football.”

  56. 56.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @efgoldman: 1979. I was part-time at Hopkins and living within walking distance of Memorial Stadium. Student-discount tickets for upper deck seats were $1.50 and you could bring in your own beer. We’d go to the game just to watch the sunset on a nice night.

  57. 57.

    the Conster

    @redshirt:

    I said on this very blog two years ago as a Pats fan I wanted no part of the Pack when they were on their roll – and they went all the way. I’m rooting for Atlanta, big time.

  58. 58.

    Cacti

    Stan The Man had retired before I watched my first Cardinals game, but he was always a fixture in the organization, and a visible link to the team’s past.

    Baseball is the civic religion in St. Louis, and Musial was easily the most beloved Cardinal in its history.

    RIP Stan The Man.

  59. 59.

    Mike Jones

    I’m betting Earl finds a way to kick dirt on St. Peter’s shoes. And gets in anyway.

    I’ve always been a Sox fan, but you had to love (and respect) Earl. He was the only manager ever thrown out of a Senior League game. He didn’t have a sign for the hit-and-run. He said (at least two truly brilliant things):

    It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.

    You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.

  61. 61.

    redshirt

    @the Conster: For the Pats to win another SB (IF – big IF – they get by the Ravens), Atlanta has to be the opponent. SF will spank us again.

    You’d think it wouldn’t be so, given the “transitive property of football victories”: St. Louis went 1-0-1 against SF this year; The Patriots beat St. Louis 45-7 this year. Ergo, the Patriots should beat the 49ers 106-10.

    But surely it would not be so!

  62. 62.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    @redshirt: Boston Bruins color commentator on NESN. He likes to use the word “wicked” a lot. “That was a wicked hahd slap shot there”

  64. 64.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    Gus Triandos? Shit, that’s the first time in about 40+ years I’ve heard that name. Probably good for another 40.

    Who’s next, Dennis Ribant? Ed Brinkman?

  67. 67.

    handy

    @redshirt:

    I had a friend who used the same kind of argument to pick the Pats in the Superbowl over da Bears in (86?) because (I kid you not) the Pats beat the Dolphins during the regular season, the same team who handed the Bears their only loss in that Monday night game.

    Yeah dude was really collecting the following Monday.

  68. 68.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    How the hell do I remember that?

    I hear (or heah, since yah from Bahston) that old farts like you remember a lotta useless shit.

    [Well, Coolidge Corner is technically paht of Brookline, I guess, so you get a little bit of a pass on your accent. But not much.]

  69. 69.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    And “youse” is not part of any New England accent. You need to go about 220 miles Southwest for that.

    Global warming has caused it to migrate Northeast.

  70. 70.

    smintheus

    This by Thomas Boswell is the best appreciation of The Earl that I’ve read today.

    For Weaver, the strain of the game was his certainty that he was often one of the few adults in the room. “You must remember that anyone under 30 — especially a ballplayer — is an adolescent,” he once told me. “I never got close to being an adult until I was 32. Even though I was married and had a son at 20, I was a kid at 32, living at home with my parents. Sure, I was a manager then. That doesn’t mean you’re grown up. Until you’re the person that other people fall back on, until you’re the one that’s leaned on, not the person doing the leaning, you’re not an adult. You reach an age when suddenly you realize you have to be that person. Divorce did it to me. It could be elderly parents, children . . . anything. But one day you realize, ‘It’s me. I’ve got to be the rock.’ ”

  72. 72.

    LosGatosCA

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    Seattle did tear the Falcons apart – after they woke up when their natural biological alarm clock rang in the second half.

    The Falcons will likely give up over 150 rushing yards tomorrow, just to the RBs – Gore, James.

  74. 74.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    Hey, there was no Wikipedia then – somebody had to remember shit!

    Yeah, I know, I get that a lot, too. {ETA: from my own daughter, not from your daughter, of course.]

    And I was trying to cut you some slack re: Coolidge Corner. It’s not like Boston-proper has a lot of neighborhoods to recommend it. Southie? Eastie? Hyde Pahk? Mattapan? Even Dot is overrated.

  75. 75.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @efgoldman: Natty Boh is still around, owned by Pabst and brewed out of state. I think it’s better than the piss Heileman turned it into. And somebody on the Eastern Shore bought the National Premium name last year and is brewing it as a microbrew.

  80. 80.

    ? Martin

    Even better than the 5 people shot on gun appreciation day:

    Things a 7-year-old boy expects Mom to put in his backpack: A peanut butter sandwich. Pencils. Maybe even a nice note with a little heart scrawled on it.
    Things he doesn’t: a flare gun, a .22-caliber pistol, a loaded magazine and, for good measure, 14 more bullets in a plastic bag.
    But that’s exactly what a second-grader had inside his Batman backpack Thursday morning when he arrived at Wave Preparatory Elementary School in Far Rockaway in Queens, Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said Friday.

    2nd grader had a .22 in his lunchbox, put there by mom.

  81. 81.

    SFAW

    @redshirt:
    @efgoldman:

    OK, I cede the point(s).

    Yeah, Southie was already turning that way, back when I was working there (about 10 years ago). Not very much like it had been in the 1970s.

    South End was starting to gentrify in the late 1970s or early 1980s, I think.

    But it all sounded better my way. At least, if you’re one of those persons who think all Bostonians talk like Damon’s and Affleck’s pals in Good Will Hunting, it did.

  82. 82.

    patroclus

    Stan the Man was also a liberal on civil rights who was friendly with African American players, he campaigned for JFK and was on LBJ’s fitness council (in addition to being a great baseball player and a gentleman through and through).

  83. 83.

    SFAW

    @? Martin:

    2nd grader had a .22 in his lunchbox, put there by mom.

    His mom was probably worried that the school bus would get lost, and end up in the slums of Woodmere.

  84. 84.

    Slaughter

    Musial ranks with Mays and Mantle among the all-time greats. 1,815 hits at home, 1,815 hits on the road.

  85. 85.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @JWL:

    That Remagen story seems familiar, but I think it was a different player. Musial was USN, not Army, and he went from duty at a training center in MA early in ’45 before being transferred to a ship repair facility at Pearl Harbor- and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion he was transferred upon request of some admiral at Pearl who wanted him playing in the 8-team baseball league they operated there during the war.

    BTW, the father of a friend of mine graduated high school in ’44. He was an all-city middle infielder in Detroit. He signed with the Cubs before being drafted into the military (I don’t recall if it was the Navy or Marines that got him). He was talented enough that he was put on a team of ringers that was hopping around from small base to small base in the Pacific, playing exhibition games. Disembarking from an early helicopter, he fucked his knee up badly enough that he never got to play professionally.

  87. 87.

    J.W. Hamner

    My dad got season tickets to the Orioles when I was 8 and after they won the World Series in ’83(sucker!), so my formative baseball years were managed by Earl Weaver.

    He will be missed.

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman: Thanks for mentioning Bobby Cox. Would have to look up the stats, but I feel quite sure he matched or exceeded Earl Weaver’s 91 ejections.

  91. 91.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    I love in that clip where the ump questions Earl’s assertion that Earl will be in the Hall of Fame.

    Thank you Earl for making baseball in the 1970’s great to watch.

  93. 93.

    Tangent of 90

    Musial: still the only man to hit 5 homers in one day … Also an excellent harmonica plater

  95. 95.

    Kathy in St. Louis

    @FredW: Fred, Stan was baseball in this town when I was growing up. My dad took us to games, parked on a meter on the street, for God’s sake. He wasn’t about to pay those jerks who lived down there a buck to park on their lawns. So, we arrived about the third inning and left after the seventh inning stretch so that he didn’t get a ticket. I saw Stan plan a lot of times, and it is still the biggest thrill I ever had in watching sports.

    These are also some of the best memories of my childhood. RIP, Stan and Daddy. You made me a lifelong fan of baseball, Musial, and,of course, my father.

  97. 97.

    centerfielddj

    @PeakVT:

    My previously favorite Weaver story (there’s a lot of great ones new to me on this thread) illustrates how Weaver could get tossed out by Luciano pre-game.

    A sports magazine of the era pubished Luciano’s Top 5 most difficult managers. As I remember his description:

    5.Earl Weaver

    4.Earl Weaver

    3.Earl Weaver

    2.Earl Weaver- “The problem with Earl is that he holds a grudge. Other managers, if they disagree with a call, may holler and shout, but you can still go out for a beer with them after the game. Not Earl. He never forgets. Heck, he even holds your minor league record against you. Once, a couple of years ago, I made a controversial call at the plate. Earl charged out of the dugout, screaming that that was the same call I’d blown at Elmira in ’66. That sort of thing can get to you.”

    1.Frank Robinson- “He’s Earl’s protege.”

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