Tag Archives: Covid

An Intentional Balk

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.

Indoctrinated to be inoculated

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.