Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This fight is for everything.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Not all heroes wear capes.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

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

T R E 4 5 O N

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You are here: Home / Absent Friends / RIP / Rest in Peace, Don Zimmer

Rest in Peace, Don Zimmer

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Baseball legend Don Zimmer died yesterday. He was a local icon and senior adviser to the Rays, and news of his passing was announced to fans last night during another losing effort, putting the slump into perspective.

Zimmer, who was in his 80s, made a living off the diamond as a player, manager and staff member for 60+ years. He played and managed all over the league, and he knew he was a lucky man.

I’ll never forget the time then-70-something Zim, on the Yankees staff at the time, charged Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez during a playoff game melee. Martinez bounced Zim’s head on the ground. Zim later apologized for his behavior. His fury was probably inspired by having had his own melon caved in by a pitch as a young man and spending two weeks in a coma.

He wasn’t one to complain, though, and he didn’t like it when others complained either. Here’s an excerpt from a 2001 article on Zim written by Scott Raab of Esquire:

Zimmer’s anything but bitter about his playing days, and he will wave you off if you dare accuse him of courage. Still, despite–or because of–the head-hunting he survived, Zim has no pity for new-school batters who get concussed and then kvetch.

Particularly Mike Piazza of the Mets, who caught a Roger Clemens heater with his head last summer. We’re at dinner at a little Italian place near the dog track when I ask Zimmer about it.

“When Piazza said that in his mind, ‘No doubt he threw at me,’ that stinks. Is Piazza the only sumbitch in America ever got hit in the head with a ball? That’s what burned my ass. There’s only one man in the world that knows–the guy who threw it. This guy”–Zim’s talking about Clemens–“he’s mean. He’ll pitch inside like you’re supposed ta pitch. The other guys are pussyfoot–they don’t wanna pitch inside. Piazza made a little man out of himself. Fuckin’ cry. I don’t care who knows it, I lost a little respect for Piazza. I got hit in the head, and I know the cocksucker threw at me–fuckin’ buried me. The Dodgers wanted me to say that, and so did the press. But even though in my heart I knew, I’d never say that. The prick never called me, never sent a get-well card, nothin’. I was in the hospital twenty fuckin’ days, I never heard from him. But I’d still never say that he threw at me purposely. Even though everybody knew this was a nasty cocksucker–there’s always the one chance that he didn’t, that the ball got away.”

You fancy old school? That’s old old school, brother.

Anyway, Zim will be missed in the Tampa Bay area and throughout the baseball universe. Rest in peace, Don Zimmer.

Reader Interactions

127Comments

  1. 1.

    BGinCHI

    No!!!

    I had not heard that.

    He was beloved here when he was a Cub, except for when everyone was bitching that we sucked at baseball. One of the good guys.

  2. 2.

    JMG

    I had the good fortune to know Zim slightly. He was Red Sox manager and I was a young sportswriter and he was at the end of the line in Boston, and he could not have been more open and nice to me. This when my peers were toasting him on a print and electronic fire every day. Speaks to your excerpt above, in a different form of expression.

  4. 4.

    Jonny Scrum-half

    I liked Zimmer, too, but I completely disagree with his “old school” approach that it’s somehow unmanly to object when someone throws a hard object 90 mph at one’s head from 60 feet away.

  5. 5.

    SFAW

    I remember reading about Zim’s beaning when I was a kid. Was amazed that he managed to come back after that. That part of the Raab interview is pretty neat, too. After reading that, it’s a lot harder to think of him as a “gerbil.”

    Sorry to see him go.

  7. 7.

    Gravenstone

    I loved Popeye as the Cubs manager. First became aware of him in ’84, when I had the misfortune of becoming a Cubs fan. He definitely had an incredible legacy within the game, at all levels. Best wishes to his family, colleagues and many friends.

  8. 8.

    dmsilev

    @TooManyJens: Oops. Yeah, he’s probably not in a good mood right now. I’ve had several oh-so-amusing ‘the contractor did *what*?’ episodes so I know how he feels, though ours tend to cause floods instead of fires.

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    @TooManyJens: With that problem, Soonergrunt’s not just going to be having a bad day, I predict that it will be more like a bad month. Sorry, Sooner.

  11. 11.

    Tokyokie

    Back when I was a kid in 1963, I’d always go grocery shopping with my mom, because I could usually get her to buy me a couple of packs of Topps Baseball Bubblegum (back when they were 5 cents a pack for 5 cards and a slab of Bazooka). But I remember one time she said no and that if I wanted any, I’d have to buy them myself. I searched my pockets, found one lousy nickel, and bought a pack.

    Because it was going to have to last me awhile, I waited until we got home to open it. Top card in the pack: Don Zimmer, 3B-2B, L.A. Dodgers. Well, this was a mixed blessing; I previously didn’t have that card, so that was good, but I knew enough about him to know he wasn’t very good, so that wasn’t so good. Next card in the pack: Don Zimmer. Third card: Don Zimmer. Fourth, fifth cards: Don Zimmer. I went from no Don Zimmers to quintuplets of the bum in one exceedingly lousy pack! And I wasn’t going to get any more baseball cards until the next time my mom went grocery shopping.

    The next time we were at the store, my mom bought me the usual couple or three packs of cards, so it wasn’t nearly as horrible when one of them contained only 3 Don Zimmers. And I never again got a pack of Topps with even two of the same card in it, or, for that matter, another 1963 Don Zimmer.

    I always wanted to share that story with Zim; I figured he’d have found it amusing.

  12. 12.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @TooManyJens:

    Sounds more like something that would happen to Cole. Except in that scenario, Cole would be both the contractor and the contractee.

  13. 13.

    JMG

    One more thing about Zim. He never made a nickel in life except doing what he loved doing best. Pretty damn good epitaph.

  15. 15.

    Schlemizel

    @Jonny Scrum-half:
    Agreed. Pitch inside no problem but intentionally throwing at a batter is is wrong and unnecessary. I have no love for Piazza but Clemens threw to hit him & everyone knew it. Just because careers rarely end now like when Zim got hit is no excuse. Supporting head hunting is part of the unwritten rule BS of baseball.

  19. 19.

    Schlemizel

    @Tokyokie:
    That is a great story! We never had extra so every pack of cards I ever got was the result of scavenging allys for pop bottles. I don’t think I ever saw that many duplicates in a pack. I bet he would have gotten a good laugh out of it.

  21. 21.

    Ash Can

    I have no problem with the pros getting a little high and tight to try to push a batter off the plate to set up the next pitch. It’s legitimate strategy, and pros can both control the placement of their pitches and lean out of the way fast enough. What I think is stupid is actually throwing directly at someone, as used to happen from time to time right after a home run. Yeah, the last guy beat you, so what are you going to do, throw a tantrum? Grow the fuck up. That nonsense seems to have fallen out of favor in recent years, thankfully.

  23. 23.

    Mart

    Driving Chicago listening to the SCORE sports talk and it was mostly Zimmer war stories. Good stuff. A caller tells a story about how he got into it when Zimmer didn’t signal to lay down a bunt. Say’s he leaned over the duggout and hollers why no bunt, we would’ve won the game. Zimmer tells him to stuff it. Cubs soon win with a walk off hit, and the fan and Zimmer are still going at it. Later in the day a station staffer mixes Al Michaels ABC MNB extended (couple pitch) commentary about Zimmer and a fan really getting to know one another. Of course the story ends with Zimmer flipping the bird at the fan. Great find. (How do you sports trivia people store all this minutiae in your heads, to piece a random caller story and a twenty year old game tape together.)

  24. 24.

    Tokyokie

    @Schlemizel: Wow, and that would have been back when you only got 2 cents for an empty bottle. But then, Topps wax packs were only a nickel, so I guess it worked out OK.

  27. 27.

    the Conster

    @Jewish Steel:

    Red Sox fan here. That series, and that game was awesome. The only thing better was the following year when Varitek literally got up in A-Rod’s grill. Pedro pushing Zim down was really unseemly except it was Zim and he pretty much asked for it, and I think he genuinely regretted going after Pedro. RIP Zim. Manny was a thug though.

  30. 30.

    jharp

    How did he know the guy who hit him was a cocksucker?

    I don’t use that term anymore. It is disrespectful of cocksuckers.

    And I think I can speak for most men that we don’t want to do anything to make there be less of them.

  31. 31.

    elaine benis

    Shooting at Seattle Pacific University. Two shooters. Multiple victims. ‘Good guy with a gun’ is MIA, as usual.

  32. 32.

    Heliopause

    Sorry to mention this but mass shooting at Seattle Pacific University. I’m in the Seattle media market and it could be bad. Don’t bother with CNN, MSNBC, or FOX, they all can’t be bothered because BergdahlBergdahlBergdahl.

  33. 33.

    DougJ

    Thanks for this, Betty. I’m from a family of Red Sox fans, and they were so obsessed with the Zim from his days as Red Sox manager. Would leave messages for each other (in the early days of answering machines) about “betting on the puppies” as Zim would say.

  35. 35.

    BAtFFP

    @elaine benis:

    oh joy. (North Seattleite here.) But at least it’s not in my immediate neighborhood, as opposed to the horrible shooting at Cafe Racer two years ago. That was 5 blocks south of us and directly affected friends.

    When I was growing up, I never imagined I would one day live in a world where 7 people get shot at a university 4 miles away and my reaction would be “oh, we’ve had closer.”

    ETA: no fatalities so far. May that continue to be the case, pray god.

  36. 36.

    D58826

    equally OT but the administration gave a briefing to the Senate today on the prisoner swap. Many of the senators, including the loudest screamers left early. Rand Paul didn’t even attend. No why in the name of the FSM should Obama brief these guys ahead of time and risk a leak if they can’t be interested enough to stay for the entire briefing.

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Good news, I guess, as these things go. The suspect is in custody and it appears there are no fatalities among the seven (?) people shot.
    ETA: And apparently only one shooter, not two as earlier reports had it.

  39. 39.

    Heliopause

    Depending on which station you’re tuned to, number of victims is 4-7, number of suspects one or two.

  40. 40.

    JPL

    @elaine benis: It must be Thursday because they are reporting seven shot but no deaths .

    also, too.. I was late with my comment. In my sleepy little suburb two were shot to death today.

  41. 41.

    Linnaeus

    @BAtFFP:

    When I was growing up, I never imagined I would one day live in a world where 7 people get shot at a university 4 miles away and my reaction would be “oh, we’ve had closer.”

    Or, “at least it’s not as bad as…”

  43. 43.

    ? Martin

    Sounds like they’re doing HealthCare.gov 2.0 right.

    Whether or not Marketplace 2.0 works as promised, the effort has already achieved a turnaround of sorts. In the past, such an effort would have avoided risky innovation, producing something with Rube Goldberg-esque code bases, a lockdown on data centers, and hundreds of veteran engineers schooled in the traditional ways of producing government IT. (Like… the original version of HealthCare.gov.) Not this time, or at least not as much. Marketplace 2.0 will use contemporary tools, a third-party automated data center, and a system of A/B testing and rapid iteration. And though the Marketplace 2.0 team will grow a bit in the coming months—with some original members of the rescue team returning as contractors—tech lead Liaw reports that the current headcount stands at ten.

    Moreover, the rescue effort has provided a blueprint for reforming long-moribund government IT. The next step is getting more people like those on the Ad Hoc and Marketplace 2.0 teams into public service. Indeed, many of them have become evangelists for this cause. “This is my second job—I’m only 24,” says David Chang, who took over as de facto product manager after Jini Kim. “It’s phenomenal to have this impact on how government does IT, how millions of people get healthcare.”

    This could be a big fucking deal.

  44. 44.

    mouse tolliver

    @elaine benis:

    Shooting at Seattle Pacific University. Two shooters. Multiple victims. ‘Good guy with a gun’ is MIA, as usual.

    Two shooters. It’s only a matter of time before mass murders involving multiple (like six or more) shooters becomes a regular thing. It’s inevitable with all these open carry asshats running around.

  45. 45.

    Helen

    @JMG: That’s lovely. So lovely it makes me want to cry. We should all be so lucky.

    If any of you baseball fans want to read a fantastic autobiography – read Lindsey Nelson’s. The Mets’ broadcaster in my youth. On every single page, reading between the lines, all you hear is “How great is this? How lucky am I?”

  47. 47.

    Rob_in_Hawaii

    I saw him at the end of his playing days in the early 60s when he was with the Washington Senators. Hope we can all come to love something in life as much as he loved baseball. R.I.P.

  49. 49.

    ? Martin

    Seattle Police Dept.Verified account
    ‏@SeattlePD
    Confirmed 4 victims in @SeattlePacific shooting: 1 man 1 woman with life-threatening injuries; 1 man, 1 woman in stable condition

    Buildings still being cleared as of 3 minutes ago. No confirmation of how many shooters.

  50. 50.

    Roger Moore

    @Ash Can:
    I think the comment to Rule 8.02(d) says it well:

    To pitch at a batter’s head is unsportsmanlike and highly dangerous. It should be—and is— condemned by everybody

    Unfortunately, the “—and is—” part is flatly untrue. There are a sad number of people who condone head hunting. Clemens was clearly throwing at Piazza’s head, and I’ve never forgiven him. The bit where he threw the bat at Piazza in the World Series was just more proof of what an absolute ass he is. He may have been a Hall of Fame caliber pitcher, but he’s a Bush League human being.

  51. 51.

    Heliopause

    Hey, CNN broke away from Malaysian Flight Bergdahl long enough to notice the shooting.

  52. 52.

    JPL

    He was a good coach that was respected throughout the league. When he charged Pedro, it was unfortunate that Martinez reacted the way he did. I often wonder what the media reaction would have been, if it were someone younger. His comments about Piazza was off base. Clements was out of control at the time.

  53. 53.

    2liberal

    Bucky F. Dent. Mike Torrez. Don Zimmer.Those three names were considered unspeakable throughout New England after the Red Sox’ at-the-time-all-time-worst-franchise-season collapse in 1978. Zimmer was the manager of the Red Sox when Torrez gave up a three-run homer to Dent, giving the Yankees the lead for good in the the 1978 Red Sox-Yankees “playoff game” that actually counted as part of the regular season.

    http://www.boston.com/sports/blogs/obnoxiousbostonfan/2014/06/don_zimmers_time_in_boston_historic_for_all_the_wrong_reasons.html

    I am not a zimmer fan. He is a nice guy to have in baseball, but only for another team, and only when not making important decisions.

  54. 54.

    elaine benis

    @BAtFFP: Just another day in ‘Merica!

    Lot’s of conflicting info….police presser soon. (I’m in the southend.)

  56. 56.

    Helen

    Here’s a great “throw at your head” story from Tom Seaver’s autobiography. And it’s especially fun for those of us who grew up in the era where the umps ruled the field.

    So the game is in progress and Bob Gibson, one of the best African American pitchers, nay one of the best pitchers EVER, hits a Met’s player. Next inning, Seaver gets to the mound and hits a Cardinal player. Next up – the Mets; Gibson hits a Met. Now the Cardinals are up and yep – Seaver hits the first batter up. The ump (dunno who) starts to walk to the mound and Seaver meets him between home and the mound and he says to the ump “You get your ass back behind the plate. Bob and I will settle this.” AND THE UMP TURNS AROUND AND DOES WHAT SEAVER SAYS!!! Imagine an ump doing that today?!?!

  58. 58.

    raven

    @Helen: Funny, I just watched the 30 on 30, Requiem for the Big East and John Thompson was really pissed when the press talked about him being the first African American coach to win the championship.

  59. 59.

    Bob In Portland

    Off topic, but you expect that from me.

    The Right Sektor National Guard (stone fascists) entered the Railroad Hospital Krasni Liman and killed 37 wounded men in hospital beds. They’re not very good on the battlefield but when it comes to burning people alive in buildings or shooting people in hospitals these guys are top-notch.

    Your tax dollars at work. Enjoy it.

  60. 60.

    Calouste

    Seattle police said the gunman walked into Otto Miller Hall, shot four people and then began reloading. As he was reloading, SPU staff disarmed him and held him for police

    The NRA will construe this to say we need more good guys with unlimited large clips.

  61. 61.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bob In Portland:

    So how about that election in Ukraine, Bob? Kind of amazing how all of the far-right parties combined got about 2 percent of the vote. Or is that just more proof that they’re all Nazis?

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    And just to make the happy happy joy joy of this day complete, it appears Charles Manson has been granted parole.

    Haven’t checked sources yet, I will be happy if it turns out to be a hoax.

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    @Helen:

    Here’s a great “throw at your head” story from Tom Seaver’s autobiography.

    Untrue, at least in the details. This is the kind of story players love to tell because it used to be very difficult for people to track down the facts so nobody could call them on it. Now it’s fairly straightforward to find these kinds of details and find out it’s BS. I did a quick check on Baseball Reference, which shows Seaver had only 5 games in his career where he hit more than one batter: 13 April 1967 vs Pirates (his MLB debut!), 11 May 1968 at Cubs, 3 June 1972 vs. Braves, 20 June 1975 vs Pirates, and 9 June 1986 vs Angels. Gibson wasn’t pitching, or even on the roster, of any of the teams he faced in those games.

    Maybe there was a game where they were both pitching inside but hadn’t hit two batters. Maybe he misremembered the opposing pitcher or made it Gibson because the story sounds better. Maybe he heard the story from another pitcher and stuck his and Gibson’s names in to make a better story. But the story as he told it didn’t happen.

  64. 64.

    JPL

    @raven: Do you remember when the local news covered that incident? A friend was shocked cuz the last two seconds showed an old guy being thrown to the ground. I am shocked that the news covered it that way. (not)

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Haven’t checked sources yet, I will be happy if it turns out to be a hoax.

    Yes, it’s a hoax. Here in California there are stories every time he’s up for parole, so I’d know if it were even a possibility. A quick check on Google gives a hit saying that it’s a story from a satire site that people are repeating as if it’s true.

  69. 69.

    raven

    @JPL: Sure I do, I was watching the game so I knew the gerbil charged. It’s like Kermit Washington and Rudy Tomjanovich, it’s too bad it happened but when you start messing around in that shit you are liable to get hurt.

  70. 70.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @SiubhanDuinne: You can pretty much rest assured that any story about Manson getting paroled is a hoax. It will never happen.

  72. 72.

    Helen

    @Roger Moore: Good God and Jesus Fucking Christ- really? You fact-checked a fun baseball story? Go have a drink, dude. Who the fuck cares if it’s true? It’s baseball – not science.

  73. 73.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @raven: Oh yeah, pardoned, sure, that’s just the kind of thing Obama might do. But paroled, never.

  77. 77.

    JPL

    @raven: This is OT.. but two young men were murdered in an area two miles from me. One channel did not carry the news at all. It reminded me, when we first moved to the Atlanta area. There were several incidents that should have made the news but didn’t. The first was there were two big time drug dealers in the neighborhood and the feds shut them down. The two houses were then put up for sale. Another was when Honda execs were caught getting kick backs including one in my neighborhood who went to jail.
    There is a mentality that we must protect property values in the burbs. They are more interested in what crime is committed in the inner city.

    If I didn’t get the NYTimes, I wouldn’t have known about the Honda deal. btw.. It was a really nice family.

  78. 78.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    And just to make the happy happy joy joy of this day complete, it appears Charles Manson has been granted parole.

    Thanks, Obummer!

    ETA: I either gotta type faster, or refresh more often.

  79. 79.

    raven

    @JPL: They sure as hell have every murder on the damn news complete with the families begging the perps to turn themselves in.

  81. 81.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    IOW, whoever installed the system didn’t ventilate it correctly, or missed a duct somewhere that allowed it to leak into other areas. It’s really only useful in an enclosed space that doesn’t vent to other areas — you can’t do an entire building’s fire suppression system that way.

    ETA: Well, I suppose you could try to do an entire building’s fire suppression system with inert gas, but you’d be an idiot.

  83. 83.

    bago

    Apparently, as an american I like waking up to mass shooting. The first one was on my way to see an eclipse, and the second was down the street a few hours back.

    #fuckgunguys

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Manson parole story is hoax. Glad and relieved to know it (serves me right for repeating things I see on FB; I should know better by now. P. T. Barnum would have loved me).

  87. 87.

    Helen

    @SiubhanDuinne: Charlie can’t be granted parole. He was originally sentenced to death. Between the time he was sentenced and the time he would have been killed, CA got rid of the death penalty. All those on death row were automatically sentenced to life without parole.

  88. 88.

    bago

    Was that las hashtag sexist? Yes. Are more than 90% of mass shooters male? Yes.

    How many?

  89. 89.

    MikeJ

    @bago: This one was yet another argument for banning extended magazines. People rushed him when he stopped to reload. That’s why the NRA thinks you need 30 round mags instead of 10.

  90. 90.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    You know, before I realized for sure that it was a hoax, I mentioned it to a friend and then said, “Of course, you realize Obama has arranged for Manson’s parole just to distract everyone from Benghazi and Bergdahl.” So not too far-fetched.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Helen:

    That’s interesting. But in fact, doesn’t he try for parole every couple of years or so? If it is an absolute certainty that he will never ever be granted parole, why even go through the motions?

    As you may have guessed, IANAL.

  92. 92.

    Helen

    @SiubhanDuinne: IANAL either, but I am sure about the CA law as it pertains to his release. Maybe new laws say “Everyone gets a hearing” and it’s just a formality that he get’s his hearing?

  93. 93.

    Schlemizel

    @Tokyokie:
    I think we might have even gotten 3 cents for them at one time. But it was a good time to be a kid. Spend a warm summer day digging around the neighborhood playing with friends & hunting empties. Might get 5 or 6 but you could get a nice bag of penny candy for a dime. Tootsie pops were 2 cents each so a stretch but some things were 2 for a penny so it worked out ok.

    The there wasthe time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m’shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. “Gimme five bees for a quarter,” you’d say.

  94. 94.

    Roger Moore

    @Helen:

    You fact-checked a fun baseball story?

    Yes. Rob Neyer actually had a very interesting book (Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends) where he took a bunch of these stories and tracked them down as best he could. I found it fascinating because it was interesting to see the range of stories. They went the range from Politifact’s True to Pants-on-Fire. There was some correlation between how plausible they sounded and how likely they were to be true, but some of the implausible sounding ones turned out to be completely true. So I spent a few minutes checking.

    And yes, I think it’s important to debunk these kinds of stories when they are bunk because they lead people to stupid conclusions. It’s a bunch of stupid macho posturing intended to make the teller look like a manlier man than any man today, and the unfortunate effect is to encourage people today to try to do things that weren’t actually as accepted in the “good old days” as the stories are designed to make you think. It’s important to puncture that macho bullshit when it’s possible to prevent that.

  96. 96.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Helen: @SiubhanDuinne:

    A footnote to the conclusion of California v. Anderson, the 1972 decision that neutralized California’s death sentences, stated, “[A]ny prisoner now under a sentence of death … may file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the superior court inviting that court to modify its judgment to provide for the appropriate alternative punishment of life imprisonment or life imprisonment without possibility of parole specified by statute for the crime for which he was sentenced to death.”[112] This made Manson eligible to apply for parole after seven years’ incarceration.[5]:488 His first parole hearing took place on November 16, 1978, at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.[5]:498[113]

    Manson was denied parole for the 12th time on April 11, 2012. Manson did not attend the hearing where prison officials argued that Manson had a history of controlling behavior and mental health issues including schizophrenia and paranoid delusional disorder[114] and was too great a danger to be released.[115] It was determined that Manson would not be reconsidered for parole for another 15 years,[116] at which time he would be 92 years old.

    His California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation inmate number at Corcoran State Prison is B33920.[117][118]

    Link.

  97. 97.

    Helen

    @Roger Moore: Oh no. Do not. I was a feminist WAY before it was cool. And I am now still a feminist WAY after it was cool. Do not couch this in macho bullshit.

    IT IS BASEBALL!

  98. 98.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne: Mnem, never said they were all Nazis. When the Nazis were actually running Germany the Germans weren’t all Nazis. And probably all of the people in those National Guard units weren’t Nazis. But we do know that Andy Parubiy was bragging about recruiting Right Sektor bully boys for these special units. And while the regular Ukrainian army seems to be pretty much sitting on their hands it’s the national guard units who have been repeatedly identified in “irregular” activities, you know, like shooting the wounded in their hospital beds.

    In fact, I would say that the number of ministries in the coup government that Svoboda got were a lot more than their political numbers would dictate. That would suggest to me that the coup government was responding to pressure other than from the electorate. (Clue: Who’s been propping up the fascists in Ukraine since the end of WWII? Hmmm. Who could it be?)

  102. 102.

    Roger Moore

    @Helen:
    It is absolutely macho bullshit. Dismissing authority so individuals can settle things mano a mano- which is the core of the story- is distilled essence of stupid macho bullshit. Having the authority figure meekly accept that this is right and good is just icing on the stupid macho bullshit cake.

  103. 103.

    Schlemizel

    @Боб В Портленде:
    Flash forward to today when any semblance of a free press in Russia has been discarded like the stray dogs in Sochi. In March, The New York Times reported how Russia is mounting a “media war” unlike any other since the end of the cold war. Celestine Bohlin wrote:

    “The scale of Russia’s propaganda effort in the current crisis has been breathtaking, even by Soviet standards. Facts have been twisted, images doctored (Ukrainians shown as fleeing to Russia were actually crossing the border to Poland), and harsh epithets (neo-Nazis) hurled at the demonstrators in Kiev — who President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia belatedly acknowledged had legitimate gripes against a corrupt and failed government”

    Now the Russian government has resorted to paying its supporters to astroturf the comments sections of bona fide news organizations with pro-Russian posts. The Guardian reports that its “moderators, who deal with 40,000 comments a day, believe there is an orchestrated pro-Kremlin campaign.”

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhimler/2014/05/06/russias-media-trolls/

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Helen: Basically no, unless, when he is 92, he is so broken down that they take pity on him and let him outside to die. Honestly, I doubt it will happen.

  107. 107.

    Schlemizel

    Each commenter was to write no less than 100 comments a day, while people in the other room were to write four postings a day, which then went to the other employees whose job was to post them on social networks as widely as possible.

    Employees at the company, located at 131 Lakhtinsky Prospekt, were paid 1,180 rubles ($36.50) for a full 8-hour day and received a free lunch…

    Боб В Портленде whats for lunch?

    Reporters for the St. Petersburg Times followed up on their lead and found the essentials indeed checked out. The unsuspecting chief of operations, reportedly, boasted that the St. Petersburg organization was only one of many that were active in several cities

  112. 112.

    burnspbesq

    @Helen:

    Seaver may have looked like a choir boy, but he was a motherfucker.

    I wore number 41 in lacrosse for a reason. And it wasn’t Len Elmore.

  114. 114.

    CB

    I’d call myself a baseball hater, flat out, but I know who Zimmer was and what he meant to the sport. His stories will be legend, and they will be missed. RIP

  115. 115.

    Mnemosyne

    @Schlemizel:

    I heard this quite fascinating story on NPR when I was driving home today:

    Less than three months after Russia annexed Crimea, Moscow is committing billions of dollars in aid and tax breaks to make the Black Sea peninsula a showcase of development.

    But there’s at least one major problem: The region has a deeply ingrained reputation for corruption and organized crime, a reputation that already taints some of the region’s newest leaders.

    After Russian troops seized control of the Crimean parliament in February, one of the first leaders to emerge was a 41-year-old businessman and politician named Sergei Aksyonov.
    (snip)
    But Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University and an expert on organized crime in the former Soviet Union, says Aksyonov has been dogged by allegations that he has longtime links to Crimea’s underworld.

    “For years, the Ukrainian police have been saying that the elite in Crimea, even by the standards of Ukrainian politics, was thoroughly interpenetrated by figures who were in organized crime or connected to organized crime,” Galeotti says.

    He says police reports identified Aksyonov, who went by the nickname “Goblin,” as a member of a cigarette-smuggling gang.

    Any thoughts, Bob? Has Moscow given you the new talking points yet? Let me guess, a mafiosi is better than a Nazi.

  116. 116.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bob In Portland: Any non-RT or non-Tass sourcing for that? Because every other source I’ve read in Russian or Ukrainian has one dead from mortar rounds fired at the hospital, as a result of separatists taking cover in that building and firing *out*.

    No wonder you never provide links.

  117. 117.

    Culture of Truth

    I love Don Zimmer. Love, love the old guy. But he wants it both ways. Says ‘I’d still never say that he threw at me purposely. Even though everybody knew this was a nasty cocksucker”.
    Calls out Piazza, when it’s all about the team. Which is fine, but if you’re gonna be tribal, be tribal, don’t act principled — Clemens was a Yankee and a jerk.
    And even if he was your jerk, and you’re old school, then don’t complain about the cocksucker who threw at you. Because your man Clemens was true cocksucker.

  118. 118.

    Culture of Truth

    and I say that as a Yankee fan. and in my own sport, really old school.

  119. 119.

    different-church-lady

    I’ll never forget the time then-70-something Zim, on the Yankees staff at the time, charged Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez during a playoff game melee. Martinez bounced Zim’s head on the ground.

    Bill Lee on the Zim/Martinez bout: “I’m really proud of Pedro — it’s hard to grab a bowling ball by the ears.”

  121. 121.

    notorious JRT

    @different-church-lady:
    Bill Lee. Christened Zim “The Gerbil” and said something about Yaz sleeping on his side so his number 8 would be an infinity symbol and Yaz would go on forever. Bill Lee was some kinda colorful.

  126. 126.

    Bob In Portland

    @Gin & Tonic: Well, this is a point I’ve been trying to make. That is, western media, especially US MSM is pretty much repeating the party line. There have been a few cases where the NY Times has had to walk back some of their lies. Often lies are offered without any corrections. It just sits out there like poison.

    So if there are two distinct narratives about the events, and you have utmost confidence in the western press and the Kiev government’s version of events from Maiden through Odessa to the east, then address the big question: Why has it taken two months for the Ukrainian army to accomplish absolutely nothing but capture an airfield and further anger the eastern Ukrainians?

    Why can’t the Kiev government negotiate with the east? Why can’t it conquer the east? Where is the proof of Russian armies participating in the war? I presume that Russia has supplied the easterners with some weaponry. We know that the West is also in the mix, although the press seems to avoid any examination of what aid they are providing.

    What do you see as the eventual outcome of all this? A war? Flowers and candies in the street for the IMF bankers? The eastern Russians dutifully attending Ukrainian languages, like you apparently did at some point in your past?

    Do you believe that this has nothing to do with petroleum products and the control of their sales to Europe? Did you think the lies about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction had anything to do with petroleum products and the control of their sales? Did you think that the overinflated “threat” of Iran’s nuclear program had anything to do with petroleum products and the control of their sales? Did you think that the decade-long war against Afghanistan had something to do with petroleum products and the control of their sales?

    If the US is essentially backing a civil war in Ukraine do you see any connection between that and the US’s attempts to block the completion of Russia’s South Stream pipeline to the south of Ukraine? Do you think that this is free enterprise?

    Do you think that all of the above were expressions of America’s divine right and duty to bring democracy to the world and that oil and gas reserves were just coincidental?

    I ask you questions and all you do is avoid them. It’s okay. In six months or a year or a decade it will be revealed like the WMDs in Iraq were exposed. And you will have walked away from your current positions.

  127. 127.

    Bob In Portland

    @Mnemosyne: Remember Bebe Rebozo? Or the CIA importing cocaine and heroin during Iran-contra?

    An anarchist might say that all governments are organized thievery. Luckily, we live in America and everything’s aboveboard and fair.

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