So, there’s a whole undercurrent here that Billy either chose to leave out or possibly just didn’t research. Mainly, Relevent Sports is currently suing the USSF in a federal antitrust lawsuit, contending that USSF is colluding with MLS and SUM to act as a monopoly to block foreign competition. The initial lawsuit was…

did you not read the sentence? if fans see real soccer live, they (perhaps) may demand real soccer from MLS, forcing MLS to up its game.

This comparison of a Yanks-Twins ALDS game from this year with a Yanks-Royals ALCS game from 1976 (credit to columnist Mike Vaccaro) perfectly encapsulates why I can’t watch baseball anymore. It’s not the length of the games, it’s what doesn’t happen in the games that makes them a total bore:

Since when was “enhancing sport” the goal of the top leagues in any sport? Its an entertainment vehicle to make money, for which the players and coaches are pretty handsomely rewarded for, you know, playing sports.

“That is great news for the sanctity of the sport.”

I read this as closely as I can bring myself to read anything Billy writes and I still can’t figure out why a La Liga game being played in the US is bad, exactly. because a US sports marketing company is trying to make money and this hurts the sanctity of the sport because nobody makes money when La Liga plays matches…

All of this is going to get worse. I read Lindburgh & Sawchik’s MVP Machine this summer and my biggest takeaway is that teams are doing everything in their power to make marginal players good enough to replace more expensive players. The owners just don’t give a shit about the MLB rank and file and until the union…

But hasn’t Manfred been bemoaning the length of games since he became commish? So the argument is that he wants to speed up games, but he also approved juicing balls...which slows the game down? I guess I could see him thinking it makes sense (juicing = more fans & the other things to speed the games up will even…

Well, every rotation was using the same baseballs so...

If they actually cared about that they wouldn’t schedule the games to start so late.

Thanks for a great article David. I don’t read about or even care about baseball since they stole my Expos, don’t watch, don’t know anything really, but this was a great exposition, if you’ll allow me the expression, of the commodification of a sport, of the inevitable result of skyrocketing revenue and property…

Before any deeper debates about defensive metrics, it’s more directly a problem for pitchers.

Juicing baseballs to gin up interest in the game makes fundamental sense. De-juicing them for the postseason makes no sense if we accept that my first sentence is true.

Imagine being the poor, underpaid, Hillary-voting English teacher at this high school trying to hold the starting QB accountable to his schoolwork. 

+1 heavy fuckin' fee

Enes Kanter is absolutely right here. Freedom isn’t free.

Counter-counterpoint: The Expos uniforms and caps, much like those of the Hartford Whalers, were uniformly* derided and disliked before the teams moved. They are still ugly as shit and are just kitsch for balding middle-aged guys who think people want to hear about their little league home runs from 1987.

Full Sail is a for-profit university that only has a 50% graduation rate.  Also, it’s called Full Sail University and it’s logo is an airplane.  Run!

Gonna reply to myself here.

Eh, posting things to a locked, private social media account restricted to trusted friends and family is not meaningfully different from sending an email to a private mailing list, or just talking to a group of close associates around a dinner table. It’s fine to expect those people to keep what they hear private, and…