The A’s actually have 20 Cactus League games under their belts, but a couple of those were split squad, and there was an offday, so…
After a slow start to spring, the A’s are 13-7, and generally looking like a team that is ready for the season, whether the rest of us are allowed in the Coliseum or not.
Let’s socially distance ourselves in the usual place: Free Kraut!
Barreto throws one away, giving up a run. His defense may be more of a worry for me than his love of strikeouts.
I forgot until just now that the Royals hired Mike Matheny.
LOL
I would feel better if KD could get an extra-base hit at some point before the team goes north.
Might be tempting at some point to carry three catchers and let Allen get some games at DH.
Should have showcased mateo today
I just… WTF
Thanks, and go As.
As opposed to, ya know, making this wealthy industry pay them a living wage.
I very much want to believe that the answer to one of the great cosmological mysteries of our time is the sexaquark.
Unlike on most baseball blogs, you’re likely to get a reasoned response to this.
The article says that the York model for the d* has net charge, which seems like it would make it a lousy dark matter candidate. But the only specific sexaquark configuration that they mention is uuddss, which is neutral — maybe this is the model from the NYU physicist? I will run it by some theory colleagues tomorrow.
Damn I love this blog.
Turns out “pioneering NYU physicist Glennys Farrar” was a Cal undergrad. Top of the class of 67! Random old amusing bio.
After discussion with theorists, there is some skepticism that the sexaquark would be stable… and it has to be stable if they were created during the big bang but persist to explain present day dark matter. They seemed open to the possibility that it could be stable, but it would be really hard to calculate.
The next challenge is that the dark matter particles would interact strongly with each other. There are viable theories of interacting dark matter, and they can even help explain the structure of galaxy clusters in certain cases, but again it’s not obvious that this particle would fit into that viable range.
Yeah – Glennys is unconvinced by the York model specifically because of the charge.
Presumably this would have to form and freeze-out pre-BBN. Hmmm …
Dood!
Let Phil sing!
Sounds like the Mariners’ opening homestand is being shut down by the governor of Washington. Personally I’m more in favor of dealing with this by shutting down the Internet for a few weeks but that’s not the way it’s going to go.
If this is going to be the trend of political reaction I don’t think it matters whether the A’s play in Oakland, Mesa or Las Vegas. They and likely all MLB teams are going to have to open the season without any fans in the seats. Many teams in lousy weather cities may stay at their spring camps, others will play in their regular home parks. I’m sure the players would like to get to their in-season homes so “everybody stay in Florida and Arizona” wouldn’t be popular.
The whole airport/airplane experience yesterday was completely normal, right down to wailing baby who finally cried himself to sleep halfway across the country.
Yes, grilling in my backyard opening day seems more and more likely
We’re all still invited, right??
Yes, I’ll trade French toast kabobs for hand sanitizer and hazmat suits.
I love Klopp
March Madness in empty arenas. My handicapping instinct says this hurts underdog. Give the points.
And now they’ve cancelled the Hunky Jesus contest, resurrection notwithstanding.
This statement is as clear as mud.
Sounds like they’re considering alternative venues (like Arizona as per Soaker), as an alternative to empty stadium.
This reminded me that I have not received my new 2020 A’s Access credential. Have any of you?
I have not. I submitted my photo late, so I may be at the back of the line.
Same here…I ignored the original email awhile then sent them last year’s pics.
They went ahead and took some more of my money today anyway.
Yes, got it at the end of last week.
I thought this morning there might be a political push to have all stadiums empty for a few weeks, and since I made that comment the news certainly seems to be trending in that direction. So I’d say the decision about where to play is about logistics for the teams. The Twins and Astros have hotel space arranged in San Francisco so Oakland would be easiest in that sense…but the Twins and Astros would have to ignore some of the media hysteria to be willing to stay in San Francisco for a few days. I think they will play in an empty HoHoKam as by that time Arizona will have shut down large public events as well.
On the bright side, the A’s may not have to go to Minneapolis on April 2 either.
The NBA just halted the season because a player tested positive. I wouldn’t assume these games are going to be played on their scheduled dates regardless of location or crowd.
My softball team played our league opener tonight (W 17-5!). Our consensus was this is a bad look for the NBA, reacting only to player health not fans.
I assume the NBA will just move directly to a (shortened?) playoffs, but the problem with not starting the MLB season is what then? Don’t start until June and play a 120ish game season?
It sure is happening fast. I’m waiting for the air/bus/rail shutdown. How My Week in Florida Turned Into Three Weeks in Florida. I bet I could get a real nice hotel room dirt cheap though.
Yeah I’d fly home now if you can.
Backup plan in place. I have a rental car booked. Pick up Thursday AM in Fort Lauderdale, drop off Sunday night in Phoenix. It’s under $300 because under normal circumstances the rental companies want people to drive one-way rentals out of Florida at this time of year. Gas, food and motels would bring that to about $900. I have never driven my own car farther east than Denver and assumed if I were ever going to drive across the country I would have done it before now.
Cross-country driving can be a great time, if it comes to that I hope you can find some enjoyment in it. Though probably more of a grind than an adventure in this circumstance.
(checks mid-day news from beach) So the shutdown is looking likely? I’m scheduled to fly to Phoenix Wednesday night and for now think we’ll get at least 4 days notice so no changes yet. Rental car backup plan still in place.
Dear god, we are screwed.
holy shit. today… the last hour!! where’s the hand sanitizer??
…’coz my evening sazerac doesn’t seem strong enough anymore.
fun!
Rhodes: Has been on DL.
Haynes: Has not pitched in awhile. Really should never pitch again because he’s terrible. They will dump him on some team like Oakland that has no pitching whatsoever.
Fax date april 12, Jays don’t play o’s till july that year
Coppinger did not make his major league debut until June of that year so it could not be before then. Rhodes being on DL and Haynes not pitching in a while also suggest August or September. The mystery deepens.
So the notes have to be from spring?
They signed Archie Corbin on May 7 (after he had been with the A”s in spring training), his first game for them was two weeks later, and I think that name is there, third from the bottom.
Really the only thing that makes sense is that it is from late in the season, and the date setting on the fax machine was wrong.
Clearly I’ve spent way too long looking into this. If only I had a podcast.
Maybe it was printed on a mostly blank page that got reused?
why don’t we just call the number and ask?
they didn’t pick up.
Lets go home
Disney and Broadway. Whoa.
Not that it’s about me or sports at all, obviously, but my vision of self-quarantine is a lot less fun without live sporting events to watch.
Thank God I am stocked up on booze. But I do need to venture out tonight to the grocery store to pick up mass quantities of staples to get me past the normal grocery trip.
The empty condition of the shelves in the Whole Foods across the street a few minutes ago got my attention. Miami isn’t really one of the centers of the problem.
I went into Publix for the rest of my beach snacks. It was generally better stocked than Whole Foods. Paper towels I get; TP makes me chuckle but OK. Why are they hoarding bottled water though? It’s like there’s a FKing hurricane in the Bahamas and headed this way.
Thank goodness beer isn’t one of the hoarding targets, for now. On the drive home from Phoenix I’m going to stop somewhere and buy about a dozen cases of IPAs.
… and then remember that IPAs don’t keep and drink them all.
5 cases, and don’t worry ptbnl it’s not all IPA. Plenty of Bell’s Two Hearted included though.
…though as indicated by my anguished scream when I stepped on the scale this morning after a couple weeks on the road without much exercise, drowning the absence of baseball in a sea of beer would not be a workable solution.
I know. I quit my job and now there’s no baseball. WTF?
Bummer/congrats, depending on which feels appropriate.
Thanks. A bit of both, but more of the latter I guess. Bummer that the job got to that point, but I could really use the time off. Maybe unfortunate timing, given the uncertain economy, that I could be “working from home” instead, and the aforementioned sudden lack of baseball. On the other hand, it makes “social distancing” easy.
Better to be your choice than theirs, and once you feel that way about a job you’re probably inviting them to make that choice.
I love the neon green of the Bay Area hills at this time of year. Put on running shoes or hiking boots or get on the bicycle and get in the Best Shape Of Your Life.
I came home from work yesterday with sore throat, cough, and fever (all mild). Today the fever is gone, but other symptoms persist (mildly). I got tested for flu and strep (both negative), so now I need to decide if it is safe for me to be around people once the cough fades and I am fever-free for 24 hours. I’ve been texting with my siblings who are doctors and their response is mostly *shrug emoji*.
The novel part especially sucks, no one fucking knows what constitutes safe, including (maybe especially) medical professionals. Nurse U is certain she and all her coworkers will catch it. It’s all well and good around other basically healthy people, but the aged and immunocompromised…this piece about health care rationing choices in Italy terrified me.
They’re still running at Golden Gate Fields and most US horse tracks, without fans.
Are all the OTB places still open too?
Finally shut down today.
Not news to anyone here but OMG our president is a dolt. He can’t even act like a responsible adult.
Maybe having a functional government wasn’t all bad, eh GOP?
Every other crisis he gets saved by other parties (like the iran war he started, the ukrain business, anything in mueller, children in cages, govt shut downs, etc,jesus there are a lot).
Nobody can save him from this. Being prepared and doing hard data work is the only solution and he can’t do that at all.
it’s cool. he’ll hold a press conf an hour before market close on friday.
I’m just spitballing here, but maybe don’t let Stephen Miller prepare his remarks this time.
bigger font
There are over a thousand people out here losing their tan lines if they had any. Fortunately Miami-Dade hasn’t banned assemblies > 250. Many bringing money from outside the US per the Ontario and Quebec license plates in the lot. It’s all good. With good weather the crowd should be bigger over the weekend.
I’d be extra careful down there given your proximity to Mar-a-Lago.
Tick…tick…tick. As expected there was a big crowd at Haulover today, though that beach is so huge it’s still easy to have 10 feet between groups.
The a’s now have a few weeks to get a radio station
I don’t normally talk about my work on-line, but it would be really nice if our management gave some guidance as to whether or not we should come into the office tomorrow.
We’ve been given till Thursday or someone tests positive to take whatever we need home.
My company has tried to do it right. Letter from the CEO saying if you dont have to be there talk to your manager and dont be. But then they water it down with a few lines of “we dont want to FORCE you to work from home and we know some of you HAVE to come in…”. This results in several people in my area saying “well I dont like working at home so Im just coming in anyways”.
I sent a text to my boss telling him I was taking a monitor and a docking station and I would see him when this is over.
My court told us business as usual friday, but hastily called a meeting today when over the weekend most real courts freaked out. today they told us of new changes limiting service. there is a judges meeting right now and more information being disseminated wednesday.
They are such bean counters
Santa Clara County forced their hand today. Typically, we got a lame-ass notification from the head of HR, and nothing from the big bosses.
My observation from the last several days is that these orders to shut down restaurants, brewpubs, etc. are mostly superfluous because locals are staying home. Every place I have gone in, there have been maybe 3 or 4 customers and the employees standing around with nothing to do. I have not been to South Beach or Fort Lauderdale on this trip, and most of the local government actions here seem to be directed at the allegedly irresponsible spring breakers who hang out in those places. They are still plenty happy to take money from us geezers.
Unless something newsy develops today I’m going to stick to the original plan, fly back to Phoenix Wednesday night and drive back to Tahoe Thursday. The notion of a possible night in Vegas to break up a 13-hour drive is scratched.
Several days ago I counted the available seats on the seat map for that JetBlue flight; there were 62 available out of 162 total. This morning there are 86 available. I’d say Fear Of Middle Seat on planes has gone away for now.
rich hill drives a bill king car?
A year in the independent league will do a lot for your frugality I’d imagine.
@GM Perhaps as I drive across the isolated Arizona and Nevada deserts I’ll tape a sign to one of my windows:. Driver Carries No Toilet Paper.
They’ll have to pry my few precious ounces of hand sanitizer from my cold dead hands though.
Effective noon tomorrow all Bay Area residents ordered (not suggested) to stay at home except for essential activities.
NBCCA should start running 2012 A’s broadcasts to make us feel happier.
Midnight tonight (technically 12:01am), not noon tomorrow.
I’m an essential!!
second time in my life, woohoo!
I feel so needed
I’m an essential but able to work remotely, which is good because between a healthcare worker spouse and a just-returned college student I am at the center of some risky vectors.
That sounds like overreach.
When you start acting like Chicken Little people stop listening pretty quickly.
Between 10,000 and 100,000 Americans, or more, are about to die from respiratory illness which exceeds our capacity to treat it. The ONLY thing we can do right now to influence that range is to separate.
Think of all the domestic violence victims if you lock families inside their homes for weeks though.
Now if you want to talk about overreach, Pennsylvania just closed all the liquor stores.
but that’s… that’s…
that’s where philly is.
DO THEY REALIZE THIS??
It sounds like that’s the state-operated wine and liquor stores only, and private stores with wine and liquor package sale licenses can remain open. See, that’s where the “out of an abundance of caution” stuff just becomes illogical.
PA has always had some weird laws regarding alcohol dating back to the Quaker days. As far as baseball, it pissed Connie Mack off that the A’s and Phillies couldn’t play home games on Sundays, and he complained about that and campaigned to change it for years. I think the law was finally repealed in the mid-1930s. Before that, for opponents where it was practical like the Yankees and Senators, they would schedule a 4-day Thursday through Sunday series, playing the first 3 days in Philadelphia, then putting everybody on a Saturday night train and playing on Sunday in New York or Washington.
As I remember it PA is still maybe the most strict liquor control state in the US. Hard liquor for off-premises consumption in ONLY sold the state-owned “Fine Wine and Good Spirits” stores, which are now closed. Beer and wine are more available, but nothing like here. If you wake up in State College this morning needing a bottle of whisky you’ve got a two hour drive to Maryland ahead of you.
OK, it looks like beer, wine and liquor are on three tiers. A lot of places sell beer and some have expanded licenses allowing wine sales, but the state stores have a monopoly on liquor and they are deemed “non-essential” and being shut.
I watched parts of game 162 yesterday for just that reason.
It was interesting to see the camera focusing in on Hamilton like 1-2 batter before the drop. Feels like great foreshadowing now.
So we’re at mid-May for the most optimistic Opening Day. It’s getting easier to manage the innings load on Luzardo and Puk, and also to keep Machin as the 26th man.
I only have one A’s trip scheduled this year, May 12-14 at Seattle. I’ll leave it on the schedule for now.
Expanded playoffs seem like a good bet. That plan floated a few weeks back with the league-best record getting a bye and the choosing of the first-round opponents…why not give it a test drive this year?
Round robin double elimination tourneys if we go much past May.
It sounds like tonight’s dinner will be the last meal not out of a paper bag. DeSantis will resist to the bitter end but local officials aren’t waiting. It really has been an enjoyable trip in spite of the escalating distraction but if it weren’t scheduled to end tomorrow I’d be changing plans at this point to wrap it up.
I got to see all my Cactus League games and the Florida weather has been typically March fantastic.
Edit re paper bags:. “The new rules take effect Thursday at 11 p.m.” Streak of lucky timing continues.
I obviously understand the logic behind postponing primary elections right now, but boy oh boy does the precedent make me nervous for November, especially the way the Ohio governor did it at the last minute, in defiance of a court order.
Immediate national vote-by-mail availability would be good thing for Senator Sanders to call for in what I hope is a campaign-suspension speech tonight.
arent ther 2 dems going after jim jordan? thats my worry
Yeah, no matter what Marco Rubio says about “Marshall” law my fears are not assuaged.
As I commented above the “shelter in place for X weeks” order crosses a civil liberties line for me. If you start allowing yourself to be governed that way you’re giving Trump an opening and that guy is liable to drive a truck right through it. Use persuasion, not dictatorial edicts like that one, and I think we’ll have an adequate response, without trampling civil liberties to try for the speediest solution.
And for goodness sake don’t even think about giving $1000 handouts until the hoarding idiocy stops.
And re the effectiveness of persuasion and voluntary compliance, the bar and grill where I had a burger and beer this evening, which is allowed to operate at 50% seating capacity for a couple more days, was at about 10% capacity. On St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t even think the restaurant restrictions are necessary; a lot of them would just close their doors rather than operate at a loss.
In the current conditions, economic stimulus aimed at massive production of protective equipment, hand sanitizer, and home delivery infrastructure makes more sense to me than giving cash to people who don’t have many ways to spend it right now.
Voluntary separation just isn’t working well enough in a nation full of Fox-addled Twitter idiots saying if we stop living normal lives the virus wins. The new UK epidemiological report is sobering, in that no measure is going to prevent thousands of deaths, but reassuring in that mitigations clearly will reduce the toll.
Yeah, I would say “I don’t get the rush for the handouts” but, giving the voters cash in an election year. If it were Obama and Boehner we’d probably have the same proposal. Part of my beach reading was “The Age of Eisenhower” and poor old Ike, who truly was a “Fiscally Responsible Republican”, is screaming down there in his grave.
Incidentally that book’s author clearly leans GOP and was quite favorable to Ike. He came under fire mostly for ostrich behavior on Jim Crow (but the Southern Democrats in the Senate were hit even harder on that) and also for giving Allen Dulles way too much leeway on CIA covert operations.
Temporarily (hopefully…) laid off people will need money for basic expenses. I think sending checks makes a lot of sense. Even more important perhaps is doing something to make sure small/medium businesses don’t go under so people have jobs to go back to.
He later corrected that to “marital” law.
As an Ohio resident who a) avoided early voting because I wanted to know who would drop out and b) currently has a cough and runny nose, I am glad that I didn’t have to make a judgement call about whether to visit my local polling place, where the average age of poll workers is usually around 75.
I hope that they decide to go full vote-by-mail for everything, forever.
If this is a plot to make people forget about the Astros I think it’s working.
Hey, actual A’s news. Except not good news.
Lawsuit filed to stop fast-track new ballpark review. Backed by Schnitzer Steel and port industrial interests. Say that the deadline for comments was supposed to be Jan 1 and by going long the State has voided it’s authority under AB 734.
Sfgate (autoplay ad warning) article includes A’s statement that “At a time when our community is coming together in the midst of a global public health crisis, the decision to file a lawsuit to halt the environmental review process for the new A’s ballpark reeks of cynicism and desperation. The new ballpark will be critical to the environmental, transportation, and housing future of Oakland. It’s a once-in-a-generation project that will contribute to the health and vitality of Oakland, and we won’t let Schnitzer Steel and its allies stand in the way of improved infrastructure and transportation solutions, cleaner air quality, additional housing, and more championships in Oakland.”
I am not nearly as concerned by this bullshit lawsuit as I am by the thought that we’re heading into a recession, and anxious, self-isolating people are probably not taking advantage of any free time they suddenly have to shop at gap.com.
And hi, as The Princess of Darkness always says.
Hi EM!
Matt Williams looks like a genius right now.
That gave me hope, then I remembered they have a functioning government
Must be nice huh.
Rand Paul manages to be extremely, history-book horrible even by “Senator from Kentucky” standards.
Hope you all are doing OK. It sure is hard not to let your brain spin out of control with worst-case scenarios. Especially with the clown car we’ve got running things. We’ve got this guy staying with us while the shelter is closed to the public. Once this is all over, if any of you are interested in a snuggling machine with severe separation anxiety, hit me up!
I am still going in, I wish I was home going stir crazy
Aw, Ralph is a sweetie! My neighbor just adopted a rescue dog and I’m totally jealous, this would be the absolute perfect time to be welcoming a new dog.
Lily and I were going to go to the shelter to walk dogs yesterday since it seemed like we could do that while still distancing, but they told us they’re pretty much all out with foster families.
Yep, they’re nearly cleaned out. I think just 7 dogs (5 originals and 2 strays picked up today) and 1 cat left at the shelter. They did a lot of adoptions last weekend so that helped. I think many had Upgrade’s idea of it being a good time to adopt.
I heard from a friend that the day of the SIP announcement, OAS put out a call for fosters and 120 people lined up when they opened and took every available dog to foster. Pretty great!
On the other hand, as financial conditions get worse I expect a rash of surrenders. Fingers crossed I’m wrong.
Happy travels Soaker, look forward to hearing of your safe arrival back home to (suddenly snowy again) Tahoe.
Thank you, on my way shortly, should be home by midnight. Phoenix and Tempe are shut down but the city of Scottsdale has left the bars and restaurants open. The first spring training breakfast place I checked seemed to be voluntarily shut down but the one a couple doors away was open for sit-down service. Was nice to get a real breakfast (with plenty of social distancing!) before the drive rather than something out of a Jack in the Box bag.
The A’s and Giants were supposed to play tonight a few blocks from there. I wasn’t going to hang around for another Cactus Leage night game a week before Opening Day. But Scottsdale should be full of baseball fans and instead it looks like I imagine it does in July. All these business owners* lost 10-12 of their most profitable days of the year, like telling retail they can’t be open between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Edit: and employees who lost all that tip income
The Grand Princess situation is so FKed up.
Declined?
encouraged to??
Cool, we get back to 1980s level drafting
Can we find out if they have a girlfriend?
At least Top Chef is back.
I haven’t watched Top Chef in a long time. Too meaty for me. But I have been enjoying the new incarnation of Project Runway. Christian Siriano is a delight, and is equal to, if not better than Tim Gunn.
Absolutely agree on Runway. I was expecting to abandon it after Tim and Heidi left, but Christian is just great at what he does. Kind and engaging like Tim, and probably better at the mentoring. I’m also pleasantly surprised at how good Karlie Kloss is. I thought the contestant pool this last season wasn’t nearly as strong as many earlier editions, but Christian made it work (to coin a phrase).
I need to go back and watch Christian’s winning season.
Are you up to speed on the season that just ended?
Yes, I’ve seen the whole latest season.
Christian has to have the most successful post-Runway career so far. Maybe Mondo a distant second?
OK were you SHOCKED at who won? After the runway I thought “well he’s out” and the rest I thought were a toss up. Pros and cons to each.
I’ve always been amazed that someone like Target doesn’t do some sort of “runway winner” collection each year. I think it would be a great pop-up and would sell well.
Yes, quite shocked. I thought those balloony coats were hideous. Wasn’t impressed with Moldova either (how arrogant to brand yourself that way). Thought it would be Nancy or Sergio.
As if on cue:
He’s so great!
The current BANG headline, “Bay Area sewers are making thousands of homemade masks” troubles me a bit, though.
The elimination challenge for the Top Chef episode next week (Thurs 4/9) is vegetarian.
I like this cast. Relieved that Kevin didn’t go home.
Pretty sure Padma and Jonathan Waxman got stoned before filming this episode.
So, say you’re cooped up at home with your cats and nothing but time on your hands…
https://news.avclub.com/just-3-full-minutes-of-cats-and-dominoes-1842411948
You’ve got to know when to fold ’em, and for Kenny I’d say this was as good a time as any to do it.
Hmmm, Vince just twitter-shared one of those 10 million word corona-skeptic Medium posts by a libertarian tech dude whose qualification seems to be this:
Manned toll booths are a casualty in the Bay Area? Good riddance, I hope it’s permanent. Most places I travel to don’t have manned booths at all.
Now if we could get bipartisan cooperation on a single national transponder standard and a single toll account, that would be even better.
Opening Day, using the existing A’s schedule and assuming Sept. 27 is retained as the final day of the regular season:
120-game schedule: May 12
110 games: May 23
100 games: June 3
90 games: June 15
80 games: June 27
70 games: July 8
65 games: July 17 (starting with the first game after the All-Star Break)
60 games: July 24
If they can’t play a 60-game regular season, I think they send 28 teams home for the winter and just have the Yankees and Red Sox play a best-of-15 “World Series”. My dart, for what it’s worth, which is nothing, hits a 90-100 game season starting in early June. I think we’ll have some sort of expanded playoff but with a compressed schedule so Game 7 of the World Series would be on Sunday, Nov. 1 which is two days before the election.
NBCCA is showing an old A’s game, right now I’m watching Santiago Cassila on the mound in the 9th with a 4 run lead and I’m nervous AF.
Another game starts in a few minutes, 6/15/17 vs NYY.
Matt Chapman’s debut!
Enter Casilla, one run lead in 9th…
Walkoff Khrushed (for a 2 run bloop hit)!
I’m going to re-live some of the road games I’ve attended the last couple years. The A’s are going to spend the next 3 hours beating the crap out of the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium.
…and if you told me I saw a game where Trayce Thompson was the starting center fielder for the A’s I would not have believed you.
Thank you jose for getting me around the paywall.
As one of my friends said. Were I watching a movie where in the middle of a pandemic there is an earthquake, I’d give it 3/10 on IMDB. And yet, it’s exactly what’s going on in my hometown of Zagreb. The quake wasn’t that strong (5.3), but its epicenter was both very close to the city and very shallow, causing structural damages to the hospitals.
This one is about five minute walk to where my aunt lives, and what you see on the video are local soccer ultras helping transfer newborns to, well, somewhere else. She herself has pretty visible damage to the walls on the first floor and we are awaiting someone to assess if she can stay at home. I hope so, because she is recovering from a stroke and we had the house adapted to her needs, and there is no place for her in the hospital. It has not been a splendid 2020 so far.
Hope everything turns out OK :(
Also, Dinamo Zagreb!? How did I not realize this…
Thanks, and go As.
Thanks Mike,
yeah, BBB are Dinamo Zagreb ultras. For all the stupid things they do often, they were the first ones there to evacuate the hospital, before even military came.
When all this blows over, if I may humbly request a couple of scarves for the boys walls in their bedrooms.
Let me know how to get payment/shipping to you.
Thanks, and go As.
Sure, no prob
I would be much obliged, my friend!
Thanks, and go As.
Funny distraction
Keep safe ec. A quake hitting while we’re stretched so thin is one of my worst fears right now.
Best wishes to your family and friends there, ec.
Yikes. Hope everything is better from here
If anyone is seeking an escape from the grim news i recommend the new AMC series Dispatches from Elsewhere. Magically realistic sweetness and whimsy. And apparently inspired by a public performance art concept by one of the Oaklandish founders a few years back.
Oh, the irony of Rand Paul unintentionally making the case for mandatory separation requirements. He may have infected a huge percentage of the Senate GOP caucus. Fucker voted against sick leave requirements last week.
Fuck Rand Paul, and his dad too. Hypocritical pieces of shit.
Thanks, and go As.
………..what?
I don’t see any provision in the CBA allowing for crediting of any service time during a period when play is suspended, and the Uniform Players Contract has a paragraph relating to the suspension of play during a national emergency.
Marcus Semien is 54 days short of the 6 year service time required for free agency. My literal interpretation of the document language is that Semien would be bound to the A’s in 2021 if the season doesn’t start by August 5 (or possibly August 6, if the A’s had to play a tiebreaker game on September 28). I imagine this is something that will have to be addressed as this drags on, especially for players who need nearly a full season to hit the next service time target whether arb eligibility or free agency.
Edit: Calcaterra wrote something about this and didn’t come to any conclusion.
I think they will likely negotiate a separate agreement to deal with this.
Related question: Will teams announce 26 man rosters, and can we start running out the Rule 5 clock on Machin?
…………WHAT?!?
It is so emblematic of the wretched era we live in that the Senate Republicans can propose massive giveaways to corporations without any workforce protections or safeguards, then when the Dems say hey what about the workers, accuse them of politicizing the crisis. I may despise Mitch McConnell more than any Senator ever…and I remember Jesse Helms.
James Eastland is certainly in that horse race. He managed to hold chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee for two decades, too.
Oh, ok then.
The collision of coronavirus and conservative political culture is going to get weirder than we can possibly imagine.
I saw a graph last week of cases over time in two Italian cities that had implemented different isolation policies.
We’ll likely see some results of natural experiments like that across different US states in the next few weeks.
GM:
We got balboa, which I am pretty happy about. Its an easy commute and the elder kid liked the pathways. He was really pumped after the tour.
NOt getting SOTA was expected, only 7 admits and all, he was not upset about it at all
That sounds like a good outcome. We did get SOTA, which is nice, and we’re close, though I don’t think he actually wanted it that bad, and most of his friends are going to Lowell or other places, so we’ll see.
Cool. Congrats. Not quite as close as Lincoln, but same walk to the bus.
Lincoln is basically in our backyard. That would have had its advantages but we were afraid of playing the lottery.
Three of his friends got in to Lincoln (a set of twins and someone else). It was a very popular pick I think
Balboa is either 2 block walkto the 49 which drops off about a half block from the school, or a 4 block walk to bart and a 1 block walk from the station for us
also, did you have any “luck” accepting? my experience was the screen to accept said “save” and when I hit that button nothing happened. When I emailed “enrollinschools@sfusd.edu” like it says to do with questions, the email was bounced back
I don’t want to be an unsympathetic jerk, but there are some annoying behaviors that need to be addressed.
Today in Safeway I wanted to grab a hand basket, but the guy in front of me wasn’t going to take the top one off the stack until it was fully sterilized. He had his wipes and went at it for a good 45 seconds before he finally pulled it up and moved away. Pick it up with your wipe and move aside to do that business.
I also saw this on the airplane the other night, when during the boarding people were standing in the aisle and leaning over to wipe their seats, thus blocking everybody behind them from getting on. The berating from the flight attendants on the intercom didn’t seem to have any effect.
So far I haven’t yelled at these people, but it’s coming.
There is a very particular psychology a scourge can manifest, a threat both intimate and civic. It could be anywhere; it’s already everywhere. I basically get where both the guy quivering in fear of supermarket antiseptic vulnerability and the Gotta Live My Life 401(k) bro are coming from. It’s worth a pause to acknowledge that every one of us is uniquely freaking out, all together.
Don’t forget “this haphazardly assembled drug cocktail will save me” guy.
Getting this stimulus package together should, SHOULD, illustrate to people that we are not making college free, M4A, student loan forgiveness on Jan 21, 2021 like they think regardless of who is elected
Clear with a high of 60 tomorrow.
I am working from home, soI guess I can make the game
I haven’t even been able to get what I need for French toast kabobs :(
I’ve got 4 kegs available.
I thought you were going to distribute those via zoom for the S4 meeting!
If prince charles dies, does that mean I have to learn the names of new 40 something dysfunctional royals to be mildly disinterested in instead of william and harry et al?
There is a non-zero chance that that whole Harry leaving the monarchy thing could sort of matter? Just plain crazy.
Not really … all of William’s children have to die before Harry and family come into play.
No – everyone just moves up one place.
He’d only ever have been a temporary placeholder between Elizabeth and William anyway (and, depending on how long she lives, might have stood aside anyway).
Would he refuse to be regent if named? I mean i assume they would ask him before a proclamation was made but who knows? Yes, I am so tired of thinking about work and the virus that I would rather talk Royals.
I think it passes to him automatically on Elizabeth’s death and he has to officially abdicate for William to take the throne (which he would presumably do before all the coronation nonsense), but I’m certainly no expert.
right,but if he goes before QEII i have no idea who the next family is
If Charlie goes before Liz it’s his oldest William, if William goes too it’s his spawn in turn, at least till the oldest living of them has their own heirs.
QEII is immune.
from when she caught it in the pandemic of 1347.
There’s risky behavior and then there’s this:
For reasons I mostly don’t understand* they’re still racing horses at Golden Gate and Santa Anita, with no fans and only essential personnel. GGF scheduled to run Thurs through Sun and has a hefty Pick-6 carryover, if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s sports, of a kind.
*Argument is that all the trainers and grooms are living there anyway, and would still have to care for and exercise the horses anyway. Still, “essential”?
Isn’t that where all the horses were getting killed?
Santa Anita is what you’re thinking about, in the LA area, had a widely reported slew of horse deaths last year. Racehorses die at every track everywhere, it’s just not comprehensively reported. The surface (dirt grass or synthetic) and drug and veterinary practices can change the levels a bit, but fundamentally the animals are bred to promote speed and sacrifice durability. Many believe it’s inherently barbaric and should be banned. Others counter that the horses enjoy racing and are treated well (compared, say, to a working draft animal).
So, it was necessarily more than at other racetracks? At least percentage-wise?
Santa Anita had a significant rise in deaths above the “norm” for the business. It’s hard to quantify, because US horse racing has no single governing body or reporting standards, and the industry tries to hide as much as it can. It is ugly and I am definitely conflicted. This site tries to serve as a clearinghouse.
the plot against america is the wire of trumptime analogies.
Been wanting to watch it but wary of heavy-handed treatment of said analogy. You think it’s worth checking out? I’m almost done with Watchmen so will be ready to jump into a new show soon.
just once or twice it’s all, “this dialog we wrote today about things 80 years ago could still be said today! do you get it??”
but it’s high marks overall and the production is nice.
also, 2 episodes in and winona is maybe on a scenery diet?
The book is good.
We’re number one! We’re number one!
Oh geez, Turkey looks scary.
In absence of Fantasy baseball, I made a bet two weeks ago that USA would be the first one to 100k. I actually had takers.
Who breaks the million? USA or India?
At the current rate of doubling every three days, we would be there in about 10 days.
It’s also been about 10 days since the first widespread restrictions on public activity (and a few more days since unofficial guidance to that effect began). Given that there is a few days incubation period, and usually another few days before people can get tested (if at all) we should hopefully start to see a slowdown in that exponential growth in the next few days, at least in some places. But that will be offset to some extent by continuing growth in places without such restrictions, plus increased testing revealing more of the existing cases.
So I would be surprised if we are not at 1 Million known cases in the US two weeks from now. Best case scenario is probably that it peaks some time around then, declines throughout the rest of April, and maybe we can start thinking about things returning to normal some time in May. But I would not be surprised if even a successfully flattened curve ends up having a plateau lasting several months.
My two weeks are up, and we are at only half a million (officially confirmed) cases in the US. So maybe another week until we officially hit a million.
Clearly time to reopen the economy for Easter.
USA! USA!
Well we just broke three million, with the most recent million coming over the past month. American exceptionalism, baby.
And Tulsa doing its part with some record-breaking days 2 weeks later.