Tag Archives: Covid

Recent Posts

An Intentional Balk

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LOL, I love it when these leaders of the sports world make decisions that they believe will save their beloved sport. Good luck! It’s Economics folks, pure and simple, which is a “social” science, so again good luck figuring out what your fan base will do when you enact something. Since I have never been an avid MLB fan, I could care less, but I will enjoy watching what happens. 

By Greg Maresca

In 1968, Simon and Garfunkel wanted to know where the Yankee Clipper Joe DiMaggio had gone. Over half a century later, the suits of Major League Baseball (MLB) have to be wondering the same for their younger fan base.

Economists say demographics are king, and if true, then MLB is in more trouble than the British Royal Family. A survey by Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal reported the average MLB fan is 57 years old. By comparison, the average age of an NBA fan is 42.

 Baseball like the culture it entertains has its share of problems.

 The game is still popular but is rapidly aging. Declining attendance has also plagued MLB having lost 6.3 million in attendance over the last eight regular seasons.

Those who play the game are shrinking as well from Little League up through the minor leagues.

It is no secret that participation in Little League has declined greatly through the years. All one has to do is look around. The one youth baseball entity that is doing well is travel baseball. Travel ball provides a chance to play year-round with exposure to college coaches and professional scouts. The problem is the costs are out of reach for many families pitting the baseball haves against the have-nots.

Stickball and stoopball were both central components of the urban youth streetscape experience that have now joined Ringolevio, Hopscotch, and Double Dutch as just more relics of the past. What does any of this have to do with MLB?

Plenty.

All came of age like MLB during the first half of the 20th century. We are now in the first half of the 21st century and like anything else, change is in vogue and baseball is an agrarian game from another century.

MLB is trying to adjust, but at what cost?

The homerun is baseball’s signature and in 2019 BC (Before COVID), the regular season homerun record was broken. The strike-out record also fell that year turning baseball into a prolonged version of Gillette’s Home Run Derby. MLB’s response: the 2021 baseball will be slightly “deadened” meaning a 375-foot stroke will be a few feet shorter – enough to keep more balls in play.

 The changes that remain post-COVID include doubleheaders lasting seven-innings each. Positive coronavirus tests saw teams play 55 doubleheaders. These abridged seven-inning games took an average of just over two and a half hours. This change should help address today’s compromised attention spans that can be juxtaposed to a barn cat in June. And with the average baseball game lasting three hours and seven minutes – Houston we have a problem and it is much more than the Astros cheating.

One change suggested was that all television and radio broadcasts would only be able to air just one 30-second advertisement at the half-inning. Greed overruled and the idea was dropped as quick as conducting more Joe Biden press conferences.

After allowing the designated hitter (DH) during last year’s pandemic-shortened season, the National League (NL) will again have pitchers batting. However, this season could very well be the last time pitchers’ bat. The consensus is the DH is the future of the NL, as it has been in the American League since 1973.

 Moreover, all extra innings with start with a runner on second base. This has been successfully done throughout the minor leagues in recent years, but to the purists of the game it’s nothing short of baseball heresy.

The MLB playoffs will return to their previous format with three division winners and two wild cards per league. But when MLB’s collective bargaining agreement ends December 1 expect the playoff field to permanently expand.

There has never been a time where competition for the entertainment dollar is as fierce, so what does MLB do? Propose eliminating 42 of its 160 minor league teams.

The games abiding fabric can be found within the minors, where the prices are affordable and the players accessible. Kids can get on the field during promotions. The minors are not just for player development, but for fan development, too.

Eliminating many grassroots minor league teams which, in and of themselves, carry a longstanding history is baseball’s version of euthanasia.

This is no 7th inning stretch.

 

UPDATE:

As though all these woes are not enough, the MLB Commissars  have decided the MLB should enter the political arena. Since GA has enacted, or are about to, election laws requiring an ID to cast your ballot, they have decided to move the All-Star game and the MLB drafts from Atlanta to who knows where. Reason? They say enacting a requirement for an ID to vote restricts people of color from voting. WHAT? That is asinine. How many actions today require an ID? So people of color can not do anything today that requires an ID because, what — they do not have one? Why? Someone of color please explain that to me.

MLB is dying, as is NFL and NBA. And as far as I am concerned they can all go the way of the Dinosaur. I’ll continue to watch certain  NCAA sports, but it appears there could be some drastic changes coming about from that group of misfits as well e.g.,  some literal college grants a transgender a scholarship to play women’s basketball.. Don’t believe me, watch and see, I guarantee there is a university out there thinking about it and many transgender basketball players filling out their applications as I write.

Originally posted 2021-04-03 09:52:54.

Recent Posts

Indoctrinated to be inoculated

9 Comments

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, been busy, too busy for a man my age. LOL The fact is my computer was in the shop for a much-needed health checkup. All’s well now and am back. While there is so much going on in the new world order and in our beloved country, I find today’s post to be of import to many.  To be upfront and honest, as I always try to be, I had my first vaccine shot (Pfizer and Moderna type) two weeks ago with no side effects at all, and will get my second in two weeks. So, the decision is all yours. Good luck!

Meanwhile our move towards a Socialist third world sh*t hole continues at a fast pace supported by the MSM, the rich and famous, and everyone else who stands to benefit from such a move. Of course, you and I do not stand a chance of gaining anything from it. I see in my area gasoline has already risen $0.40 per gallon.  My uneducated guess is it will cross the $3.00 mark before summer is out.

Meanwhile, I await my $1,200 stimulus check to arrive, and must decide what I shall do with it. Any suggestions?  Have you read what is included in the  trillion dollar stimulus package? I suggest you do so. I had to actually search for something that had anything to do with COVID. And how about the nine GOP senators who crossed the aisle and voted to impeach {President Trump? I wonder what their constituents think about that? Oh well, have a great day and it’s good to be back! Semper Fi Devil Dogs!

By: Greg Maresca

 

Most COVID-19 cases have had mild symptoms and despite an average mortality rate north of 75 years and a 99.6% survival level, vaccination is a must.  The virus’ ability to infect political tyrants more concerned with their “great reset” than Constitutional rights continues to metastasize.

The hype and fear campaign continues unabated despite a thousand-fold risk difference between young and old.  To “flatten the curve,” lockdowns, masks and social distancing went vogue and those who stray are shamed and ridiculed.

None of this is a panacea.

Neither is a vaccine.

A Gallup poll says 40% are unwilling to vaccinate and unlikely to change their minds. A Kaiser Family Foundation report said nearly one-third of hospital staff “would not get vaccinated.” Over half of the members of New York’s Uniformed Firefighters Association would also refuse.

The reasons are legion with unknown side effects, genome manipulation, and high-tech chip branding leading the charge. The British government warned pregnant women not to vaccinate because there is “no or limited data on the effects to the child and to fertility.”  The CDC agrees, “… only limited data are available on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines administered during pregnancy.”  Are long-term infertility issues in a Western world with already declining birthrates just another function of the great reset?

Other reports say the Moderna, and Pfizer vaccines could cause blood clots, brain inflammation and heart attacks and its effects on compromised immune systems remain suspect.  Despite a plethora of concerns, the vaccine received “emergency authorization” from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Even smokers still have the right to smoke despite the known dangers. What is the real motivation for attempting to vaccinate millions of healthy people?

No need to fear because the vaccine success rate increased from 80% to 95% after the numbers were run by Dominion and any chip implant will be a Spicy Nacho Dorito.

Sarcasm aside, concerns about the vaccine’s safety and ethics are understandable considering its unprecedented development and distribution that normally would take years. Were cells from aborted babies used in its development and what procedures were circumvented to get it to the market so quickly?

The practice of medicine has been lobbied with Uncle Sam governing nearly two-thirds of healthcare.  It is evident that since COVID began, a simple, cost-effective solution would never be allowed.  When science is politicized, we all lose as the medical malpractice of the pandemic will continue, especially when the only medical opinion permitted is Uncle Sam’s.

The Great Barrington Declaration, that can be found online, has been signed by over 55,000 medical and public health scientists.  They have affirmed that due to the relatively mild hazard of COVID-19 to the vast majority, “those who are at minimal risk” should be permitted “to live their lives normally [and] build up (herd) immunity to the virus.”

Research Dr. Michael Yeadon with over 30 years with Pfizer said in LifeSite news: “There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk. You also don’t set about planning to vaccinate millions of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn’t been extensively tested on human subjects.”

Yeadon underscored 30 to 40% had T-cell immunity prior to the virus, and with nearly 30% having already been infected means we have reached the 65 to 72% level of herd immunity and that “the pandemic is effectively over.”

Dr. Joseph Meaney, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center said since long-term effects remain unknown due to the lack of extended testing, coercion to vaccinate is “ethically unacceptable.”

The resolve that vaccination is somehow a social responsibility is not a self-evident truth.  No matter how noble, it is limited.  As immunity builds, the risk of infection drops.  Herd immunity certainly fits as we stampede into hysteria too easily. The ends do not justify immoral or unethical means.

A dishonest press and rampant censorship by social media regarding the inexpensive, safe and effective therapies like ivermectin, colchicine, fluvoxamine and hydroxychloroquine could have prevented many from dying.

The cure should never be more invasive than the disease.

When a vaccine to protect us from Leftism is developed, I will consider.

 

 

Originally posted 2021-02-18 13:32:31.

Current Events

A COVID Christmas

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Please allow me to take this moment to say that I sincerely hope  all my blessed followers had a wonderfully merry Christmas regardless what your local dictators may have said. Mine said have a joyous Christmas with your families and friends, but then I consider myself fortunate by choice to have a sensible, for the people, Governor. My bride and I go to church every Sunday and then to a late breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants.  Life is good in Florida.

I will wish you a very happy new year if you can. I will not have a happy one as best as I can see into the near future. Our MSM wants you to believe 2020 was the worst ever. Well, don’t chalk it up to record books just yet for 2021 may prove to be a close competitor.

Here another thought provoking article from one of my favorite authors.

 

By: G. Maresca

 

American religiosity has been in decline for more than a generation and with the added fear of COVID-19, many Christian leaders have deserted their flocks.

Welcome to Christmas 2020, where the biggest crisis is not a virus but a lack of faith.

Church leaders have conceded to government diktats in this era of COVID-19 in a doleful attempt to brand themselves as benevolent.

The Constitutional right to freely worship, virus or not, was underscored with the recent Supreme Court ruling prohibiting arbitrary limits on church attendance.  Despite the court’s 5-4 decision, religious liberty has never been in more need of defense, especially when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo dismissed the ruling as “irrelevant” and “political.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom had imposed a 10 p.m. curfew, which would have made attending Christmas midnight Mass, a criminal offense.  Perhaps Newsom would find Mass more acceptable if it were celebrated in the French Laundry restaurant – site of his crowded birthday party?  This is another example of directives made by the faithless affecting the faithful in the ongoing leftist agenda to secularize America.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen would be appalled how the church hierarchy has acquiesced to the state.  The state prohibits Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, yet liquor stores remain open.  Churches should have had the same rights as beer distributors, pot smokers and abortion clinics – all deemed essential.

Mandatory masking, overflowing hand sanitizer, and social distancing are in vogue in houses of worship, but what is missing are the children.  Churches will not survive without them.  Few in the pews are under age 50.  Sign-up sheets, roped off pews, and parking lot services did little to bring anyone back, let alone evangelize.

Limiting, or worse, cutting off sacramental grace from Christ’s mercy has only deepened the divide.  The science supporting lockdowns has failed to stop the spread, and may prove deadlier than the virus it was meant to heed.

If anything, COVID-19 underscores daily that no human endeavor can prevent our eventual death from any cause.

Any government that has the authority to restrict your livelihood, family gatherings, and houses of worship is worse than any virus.  The alternative is subservience, empty pews, and lost souls.

The COVID-19 generation may never come back.  The unrelenting attack on Christianity will never cease until the faithful stop kowtowing to tyrants.  Science isn’t going to save you and it is no coincidence Democrats are leading the charge.  What do you expect from a political party that has forced religious sisters to provide for contraception?   The left knows all too well that faith can be exorcised by breaking one’s spirit and will.

Too many politicos claiming to be Christian believe Jesus Christ came to put a chicken in every pot rather than to feed souls and offer salvation.  As long as a portion of a bishop’s budget is generated from government service contracts, towing the party line will be its low-hanging fruit.

Where are the bishops’ supernatural faith?

Where are today’s St. Thomas Mores, and St. Joan of Arc’s, or Fulton Sheens?

Prophetic voices must emanate among the bishops to speak truth to this abuse of government power.  As suicides and other mental health issues increase, we need more prayer, not less.  The secularist, dictatorial governors and mayors and designated so-called experts seeking to oppress worship reveal their contradictory priorities, daily.

Christmas is not the time to take counsel of your fears, but recall the hope that only a sincere faith provides.  Has there been a year in living memory when the Christmas promise is in such demand?  The reason for the season is here, and never leaves.  Jesus was born during one of the darkest periods in human history as the Roman Empire begot moral depravity on an unparalleled scale.  Our Lord did so by entering the world in the humblest of ways to show He will go anywhere when invited.

In a remarkable sign, Jupiter and Saturn crossed paths this past week appearing as one body in the night sky.  They were closer than they have been in nearly eight centuries and was labeled the “Christmas Star.”

Many need to heed the message the angels announced that first Christmas: Fear not!

The child whose birth we celebrate is Emmanuel, “God with Us.”

If God is with us, who can be against us?

 

Originally posted 2020-12-26 10:26:05.

Recent Posts

Independence Day – Really?

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Another thought-provoking message from Greg. We have so much to think about this 4th of July, but in today’s society I fear that many folks will think of nothing but hamburgers, hot dogs, pop, beer, and a day off from work, that is for those who are working and not  taking government handouts. Meanwhile the “silent majority” sleeps.

 

Freedom’s landscape

By: G. Maresca

As America plans to celebrate the nation’s birth by taking inventory of the hotdogs, hamburgers, soda and beer, the most treasured and esteemed American stock lies forsaken along freedom’s continuum.

In his seminal work, “Crisis and Leviathan,” economic historian Robert Higgs argued how in the 20th century the federal government grew as a result of three crises: World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. In the 21st century, you can add 9/11 and COVID-19 to the list. During those crises, the federal government went about raising taxes, instituted more spending programs, and added to their arsenal more regulatory power.

With the heady combination of 9/11 and COVID, the government continues to fester as America devolves into Gotham City. I was reminded of this during a recent trip to the airport. I was not flying, just dropping off, and still had to remove my shoes, empty my pockets, and go through a full body scan in order to escort my daughter to her departing gate.

What Benjamin Franklin, our first self-made American, said over two centuries ago certainly resonated: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

As we traversed the terminal there was a sketching of the top ten skyscrapers in the world. The U.S. has only one on the list at number six – the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan – that was supposed to fill the void left when the World Trade Center met its untimely fate on 9/11. A generation ago, America had all ten.

Besides the overwrought airport security courtesy of The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), I couldn’t help but wonder what other things have been compromised all in the name of security in a time of heightened emotions “where something must be done.”

Never underestimate governmental mission creep.

Enter the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, TSA and an emboldened National Security Agency and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts that illegally spies on more than three million Americans, and this is according to that leftist fortress, The New York Times. Not to be dismissed was America taking on the costly role of being the unwanted landlords of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Government’s resulting muscle has grown too penetrating and too concentrated. Many throughout the federal bureaucracy are overly determined to inject this power into all aspects of American life. Proposals for more legislation, regulations, and interventions is akin to treating a poisoned patient with more poison.

Solving problems caused by too much government with more government is no answer.

Evidence of this can be found in the latest Gallup poll where only 19% said they trusted the government “most of the time.” Juxtapose that to the same 1958 poll where nearly 75% said they trusted the government to do the right thing “most of the time.”

Government has devolved into a centralized religion telling houses of worship to close, while giving abortion clinics the green light to remain open during a pandemic. Government bureaucrats sell voting and vaccines as salvation while indoctrinating America’s children through public education.

The government has banned God in the classroom, the locker room, the public square, public buildings, and ignores His teachings when writing its laws. Observing constitutional limits that does not provide for a “right” to abort an unborn child is depicted as violating “women’s rights” when the left cannot or will not define what a “woman” is.

The country is on a suicidal path culturally and taking our freedom along for the ride. The Founding Father that would not be surprised: Franklin.

On September 17, 1787, as the delegates departed the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Franklin was asked what kind of government the convention had created. Franklin famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Franklin also remarked how “freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.”

Freedoms ceded to government are rarely regained.

On the cusp of celebrating America’s independence, the nation is fighting a cold war with itself that has most Americans wishing for a sense of normalcy, but at what price?

Originally posted 2022-06-30 09:18:52.

Current Events

How Do You Spell Olympics?

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Well, are they over? Who won the most gold? Anyone maimed, kidnapped, or killed? No? Shucks. I have no idea as I did not watch one episode, game, or advertisement, which I hear there were very many of them. I did hear something about not knowing who was going to represent who?  Did NBC make any money? I hope not. I watched Netflix and Amazon Prime, they have great movies as well as series. If you haven’t watched Reacher, Ozarks, or 1883, you need to. Anyway, Greg provides somewhat of a recap of the games — should we really be calling them games anymore? Hmm, good question for my watchers. 

 

The indifferent games

By: G. Maresca

 

The television audience for the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games resembled a Joe Biden rally. This is no surprise as the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games made for the worst ratings since NBC first began broadcasting them in 1988.

Running counter to the Olympic spirit, the games have been politically hijacked. The Olympics lost its way after the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, West Germany with the Israeli massacre. The governing body is corruption personified, while half the competing countries use their doped-up athletes as nothing more than public relations fodder.

The latest version provided an international stage for the unholy tripartite of NBC, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and China’s Communist Party (CCP). NBC is a left-wing political subdivision of the Democrat Party. The IOC followed the playbook of the World Health Organization that refused to hold the CCP accountable in the COVID pandemic by allowing them to host the games and ignore their competition rules.

U.S. citizens Eileen Gu and those 16 Americans who played hockey for China is such a violation. Americans competing for any country other than the U.S. is patriotic sacrilege. Perhaps they all need to live the rest of their lives in the Middle Kingdom.

Then there is the 15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva, who was permitted to compete after she failed a drug test. How much was the IOC bribed to award China the games?

China is about slave labor, authoritarian rule, who gave the world COVID-19, while they lied, covered up, and blocked any investigation of the pandemic. Not to mention their repugnant disregard for human rights and international law, while being the foundation of the Biden family fortune. This malfeasance runs counter to good ratings.

Lousy television, debauched politics, cheating in events you have never heard of where officials judge on politics rather than athletic ability sounds like a new Netflix series?

What’s not to like?

The opposite of love is not necessarily hate but indifference. Such indifference was reflected in a poll conducted by the News-Item when nearly two-thirds said they didn’t watch any of the games.

Once upon a time in America, the Olympics were a must watch event where compelling amateurs battled for patriotic glory like in 1980, when the U.S. hockey team prevailed over the Soviets at the height of the Cold War.

Today, multimillion-dollar pro athletes and corporate sponsorships rule the games that are immersed in politics and propaganda and are no longer a welcomed distraction, but a blatant manifestation of them.

Without American broadcast revenue and commercial investment there are no Olympics. All those American woke companies and their media allies dismissed China’s ongoing ethnic genocide.

Moreover, given the assorted internet platforms, it is easier to watch the games piecemeal and at your convenience. That is, if you really care. One friend who actually watched some summarized the games saying, “NBC: Nothing But Commercials.” He also said there was no truth about the U.S. bobsled team naming their sled “Biden” as nothing has gone downhill faster. He admitted that there is only so much curling, skiing and team skating that resembles a roller derby that one can watch that included more than its share of political messaging.

Seeking political direction from athletes and Hollywood is like panning for gold in a dumpster. They need to stay in their lane and entertain and cease the lecturing.

Tonya Harding encouraging our Olympians to “break a leg” was in poor taste but what did you expect? The most telling quote belonged to another skater in 17-year-old Russian Alexandra Trusova, who won silver saying: “I hate this sport!”

She should be awarded gold for most honest.

Why not give the next winter games to Russia who could host them in Siberia where the skiers could do their thing between the gulags. What about having the Mexican drug cartels host? At least, the cartels’ body count is less than the CCP and they have more money.

It is long past time for the Olympics to find a permanent site for the summer and winter games where random and independent supervised drug testing is the norm.

Until then, you can continue to spell Olympics: C-O-R-R-U-P-T.

Originally posted 2022-02-24 10:39:20.