Murfdogg21

Tucker with a wooden peg leg would be a more effective DH than Singleton.

Another photo with the alleged perp

Brandon Marsh looks like Jesus two hours into the crucifixion.

Nm

Tucker was out there with the pitchers warming up in right field an hour before the game, light jogging and throwing ropes.

LOL me and 3 friends are drinking beers on the railing in front of the 4th level Michelob Ultra bar to the right of the foul pole in the background of this photo

Sally’s bastard

Why are you cockblocking the lad?

Then where will the bodies hang after the next one plows through Galveston?

My point was it doesn’t have to be either/or. They could have worked an onside element into the new format but they are lazy.

As others have said, it’s the same amount of money being spent by owners, it just goes to the other 96% of non-QB players in the NFLPA. You’d think it would pass easily. Surprise onside kicks are rare, but they are exciting as shit and force receiving teams to stay on their toes. They should’ve/could’ve got some smart people together and came up with a wrinkle like if the ball drops anywhere 5 yards past where the kicking team lines up, it’s a live ball that can be recovered by the kicking team. Instead they were lazy and and copy pasted the XFL rule.

I'm in need of a good, bad, and ugly tutorial on select/travel ball. My oldest son just finished 7U and moving to 8U this fall with a very good group of rec players. We lost two to select this upcoming season, and at least half the other parents have FOMO about it. I've been in the national and Houston area select facebook groups for a year and read a lot of their drama. My mostly ignorant summary is as follows and is where I need education and correction. Select ball started with American Legion etc. at the high school level 1980's and before, then spread to other select tournaments at the high school level, then at some point permeated down to the youth level as young as 6U. Select ball is now a necessary, or at least unavoidable, evil because "rec ball sucks." Basically if you don't go select, you are making a decision today that your son will never play high school ball down the road (short of freakish natural talent). [The most level headed select parents I've spoke to say it is out of control but you don't really have a choice. If everything has become money driven, from the coaches and programs down to the tournament directors, is there a need for some Daenerys Targaryen to come in and "break the wheel" of select baseball and get it back to the basics of higher talent kids getting more reps?] Select ball is no longer select. Any kid of any talent can play as long as the parents shell out the $$$. Select ball doesn't have to bankrupt you, except you get what you pay for. You need professional paid coaches. "Daddy ball" select is basically as bad as rec ball? [We are in the Woodlands area, and it seems most teams/programs cost $300-350/mo with tournament fees, and there is an expectation that you will stick with any program for 12 months (no "spring only" or "spring and summer" option). There's also an expectation that you take paid private lessons with the coaches, or unofficially the kid's playing time is going to get docked. The facebook groups say there are teams closer to $175/mo, but I don't see them in our area plus we are told to avoid "daddy ball", so I don't understand how pro coaches can afford to charge $175 including tournament fees.] [Stereotype select parent]: "Select ball is really about player development, but..." conversations quickly turn to which teams win the most, and when a parent makes a comment about developing multiple positions or getting more playing time, mob mentality comes in and tells the parent to STFU because their kid clearly isn't good enough. I've also seen 7U and 8U teams in my area recruit for a few spots and mention that they already have a [insert positions here]. So at 8U, you already know Sammy is going to be a SS and Ricky is going to be a RF when they grow up? Does Ricky getting game reps at SS (at 8U mind you) hurt Sammy's overall development especially if Sammy is getting reps at other non-SS positions? [The facebook talk sounds toxic AF. Parents screaming at each other on social media, and sounds like there's a lot of parents screaming at each other and the umpires during games. The mentality above I've seen several times, where parents will tell others that their "weaker" kids should savor their development opportunities in practice, but leave the game reps for the best kids. Do the kids' futures and the parents' joy hang on the team W/L outcome of every single pool play game? This toxicity has trickled down to rec ball even at young ages, with parents screaming at the coaches and umpires and losing their shit over close calls in a regular season game, or which kids shouldn't be allowed infield reps. Sounds like a lot, or most, or all paid coaches are the same, because the more their teams win, the more new families they attract. Parents at 12U will say that's the appropriate age to take competition seriously and focus kids on one position and winning, but younger ages are more for fun and rotation. But if you talked to them at 10U they'd say that about 10U. Then parents of 9U will say that 9U is when it turns serious and 7/8U is for fun and development. Most of these parents and coaches can't get away from MUST WIN mode at any age it seems.] "Kids should play multiple sports..." but if you don't make the 2x/week practices because of a conflict or try to sit out summer or fall ball to play other sports, you are dead to us and will be the 12th man on an 11 man roster. [Many parents with kids playing 9U-12U select that I've talked to state their kids are "focused on baseball only" like a source of pride. Ok, great for little Billy. My son likes several sports]. These points are generalized and (a tiny bit) exaggerated, and I mean no offense to y'all in the travel ball game. I come here as a concerned dad. My son just turned 7 about to start 2nd grade. It seems absurd to me that my wife and I are already "deciding he won't play HS ball" by keeping a 2nd grader in little league. He plays flag football and soccer simultaneous to fall and spring rec baseball and has expressed an interest in basketball. He was 3rd or 4th strongest kid on his very good rec team, and he made All-Stars, but I don't have an expectation that he'd be top end on a select team. It sounds like several of his best buddies come from families with no financial limitations and the parents have FOMO, so most will go select by spring 8U. I coach his baseball and flag football team and assistant coach my younger son's baseball team. The coaching alone in my "spare time" is getting overwhelming, but dealing with the drama of parents and having to play Mack Brown recruiting them to stay season after season just so my kid can keep playing with his school buddies is exhausting. I'd almost be willing to pay the select ball money just to be free of it, plus to just focus on my son who has probably gotten the shaft over the seasons as I attempt to avoid the perception of "daddy ball" and give him fewer reps than he deserved and never bat him higher than 4th in the lineup. I come to this thread because y'all are my people and have the knowledge. It feels like I'm Don Quixote and pushing against the unstoppable ocean of disagreeing with a culture I have no hope of changing, even on as small a scale as my own rec ball team. Here are the TLDR questions, TIA: My wife and I could probably budget for it, but is it worth it, is it necessary? If so, at what age is the real ROI over rec ball? What is the point of no return age that you must start select ball by? Am I going to shell out $350/mo for 12 months a year, plus another $85/week in lessons to the coach, just to be on a team where we have no clue how much playing time or which positions my son will have an opportunity to play? Most teams in our area require 12 month contracts and the coaches say what they need to at try outs to convince you to join. I talked to parents at two tryouts we attended, but I feel their feedback is biased since they are the parents who stayed, not the parents who bailed. ^ continuing, is it really about development, or does testosterone and competitiveness ultimately always take over and it's about winning more than developing the bottom half of the roster? Will the schedule impede my son's ability to play other sports and extracurricular activities? Can a hodgepodge group of rec players just sign up in the AA division of a tournament and play for reps and competition, or must you be part of a recognized program to enter? A few of my parents who don't have the $$$ have asked me about this option.

Based on how few great bats with significant playoff experience got traded, I wonder what Bregman would’ve fetched.

We could fail Kikuchi on his physical and void the trade?

That package should’ve yielded Blake Snell.

The players collectively should get paid as much as they can negotiate for. Many people don’t like to see one player grab 25% of a salary cap, both because of inequity to the other 98% of players but also colossal risk to teams (and more importantly their fans) if the one dude taking up 25% of the cap either gets hurt or starts to sunk and your franchise is fucked. Wanting to create an individual max (for QBs) doesn’t mean “don’t want to see players get paid,” it means the salary cap is spread around to the other players. Owners spend the same.

Stevie Saltwater will be laying pipe on 6th street

I’d be less worried about him drinking than him becoming distracted by chasing new pussy and not coming up with badass game plans.

Yall have apple or did I miss a squirrel thread?

I fly every ~6 weeks and most of the IAH to DAL, DEN, LAS are usually close to full, or not much different than flights I take out of AUS or HOU. I wondered if they were playing chicken with IAH management on rent or gate location and lost. IAH put SWA down in a dungeon area at the end of Terminal A, about what you’d expect for Spirit or Allegiant. My family is fairly loyal to SWA, but we live north of Houston now and won’t make the trek to Hobby very often.

Flew out of IAH this morning and back tomorrow, probably for the final time (although SWA had a few flights at IAH in the early 90s so maybe they will return for a third time).

Yeah welcome to this thread. Instead of Anakin (and maybe Grogu?) being some one of a kind miracle (with influence by Darth Plagueis or Sidious), we have lesbian witches splitting zygotes to create twins without pronouns, and the new canonical backstory is Darth Plagueis was voyeuristically watching it all from the cave with his man boy, and stole the witches’ intellectual property to create Anakin.

My wife lived less than 10 minutes from the campus for a year while working a biotech job. That area seems exactly like what you would imagine some shit suburb town in New Jersey would be. You can find good pizza/italian. 30 mins from NYC if that’s your thing. At least the football tickets should be cheap.