Tag: cashmoney

The MLB All-Deferred Money Team 2023 presented by Bobby Bonilla

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In honor of Bobby Bonilla Day, I took it upon myself to compile a list of all the baseball players earning deferred money for the 2023 season, and if possible, put together a lineup that could hypothetically have competed in an actual baseball game.

In total, there were 22 players making deferred money from 12 different teams according to Spotrac’s records, totally roughly $75M which is equal to the Pittsburgh Pirates and higher than the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics.

Seven players are still active, with six of them making money from their former teams while getting paid by their current teams.

Of teams to NOT have any players with deferred salaries, the two surprises are the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, two teams typically with the biggest pockets in the game.  The Dodgers lucked into not having the embarrassment of having any deferred payments this year, as they have been known to employ the tactic in the past, but the Yankees, much like House Lannister clearly believe in paying their debts and not getting themselves into any deals that involve paying for guys once they’re gone.

The team that was most surprising to see with a deferred salary was the Oakland A’s, the de facto cheapest team in baseball, with $5M still committed to pitcher Trevor Rosenthal, whom hasn’t played a game since 2020.  This accounts for nearly 1/12 of their dead-last $60M payroll.

The teams with the highest deferred monies are the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles with $23.5M and $15.7M tied up to guys retired or not on their teams anymore.  These numbers account for 25% and 24% of their respective payrolls.

And of course, we can’t have a discussion about deferred money deals without bringing up the guy that relatively made the whole thing famous, Bobby Bonilla.  By now, most people are aware of the hilarious $1.2M he is paid by the Mets every single July 1, seemingly until the end of time, or at least it feels like it, but not as many people are aware that he’s also getting an annual $500K stipend from the Orioles as well.  That being said, Bobby Bo might not be the highest deferred payment on the list, but he definitely is the only guy to show up twice.

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Home Groanership

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Good news/bad news: the bad news is that pretty much my #1 worst nightmare involving my property happened; a tree fell over during a seemingly spontaneous storm with very forceful rain and wind for like an hour.

The good news is that it was not one of the trees in the back of my property that I always fear will fall onto one of my girls’ bedrooms and hurt them.  It was a tree in my front yard, and it fell in a pretty precise manner in which nobody was hurt, it did not hit my home, and it did not hit my neighbor’s home either.

The point remains however, a tree fell down on my property, and I didn’t really know what the fuck to do.  It’s not exactly something that I ever anticipated would happen, but then again I did have suspicions that this particular tree wasn’t optimally healthy based on the fact that mushrooms were growing out of one side of it.  But it was still sprouting leaves and growing branches, so I didn’t suspect that it was really dying beyond survival through a storm.

I did remain calm and rational and figured out what my next steps would be, but I also went ahead and threw out a query to my community’s Facebook page to see if anyone could recommend a tree removal service that didn’t have a completely booty experience.  One of my neighbors chimed in and stated that because the tree had already fallen, it shouldn’t be difficult for him to break it down, and he volunteered to assist.  And seeing as how raising children stretches my finances into frequent discomfort, this type of assistance was extremely welcome.

My priority was that I wanted to clear as much of the tree off of my neighbor’s property as soon as possible.  I know that legally, even though the tree originated on my property, most states’ laws say that the owner of the property where it lands is still the one liable for it’s removal.  Sure, it would be easy to shirk the responsibility but such truths don’t sit well with me, and the last thing I ever want would be to have beef with my next door neighbor, with whom we have a normal, neighborly, friendly relationship with.

But after putting the girls down for the night, I could already hear that work had already begun on the tree, and by the time I came outside to get to work myself, several of my neighbors were already hard at work, and moving branches and cutting down the trunk, and nearly halfway through with breaking it down.  Needless to say, I was quite floored by the immense generosity of time, labor and camaraderie spared by my neighbors, and it’s hard to put in words just how grateful I am for the help.

I’d say it took maybe another 90 minutes before we wrapped up, with not a single scrap of fallen tree left where it had dropped in sight, with only a smattering of wood chips and a jagged stump to indicate that the tree was even there in the first place.

I really need to make sure to compensate my neighbors with some form of food, treats or drinks, because I can’t even fathom just how incredible they were in assisting getting this tree off the property.  I’ve lived in so many places where everyone is just so insulated and keeps to themselves that I’ve practically forgotten what it’s like to have neighbors who care and are willing to help out and it makes me want to be a better neighbor and pay forward the generosity of effort to those whom might need it in the future.

However, as positive as the tree issue is, it’s unfortunately not the only thing to have happened, to warrant the snarky post title of home groanership.

Apparently, I’m having some plumbing issues in my home, to the effect of realizing that there’s a leak in one of the ceilings of my lower level.  It doesn’t take a physics genius to realize the correlation between when the dripping began with the bathroom right above it, and what we’ve got is a scenario of a mystery leak that’s most likely hidden behind the walls and will require some cutting into drywall to identify.

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Dad Brog (#114): Of course she picked the J’s

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Welp, this post didn’t age well: a long time ago, apparently back in 2017, I made a post questioning the existence of Air Jordan shoes, for toddlers.  Like, Air Jordans were developed to be Michael Jordan’s signature line of athletic shoes for when he was in the act of playing basketball, but almost instantly they became anything but athletic shoes to anyone other than MJ or any other basketball players who wanted to be like Mike or were also under contract to Nike.

They became status symbols, reasons why people were killed, eventually becoming acceptable as formal wear and/or a stylish option that could be paired with just about anything at all and be met with an approving nod.  Eventually J’s would be released for women, and much like it was back in like 1988, Jordans were about as popular as they’ve ever been, if not more than they were when they burst onto the scene.

And then I saw a kid that could barely walk, rocking some MJ 12s, and was like wtf, why does a toddler need J’s???

But this was six years ago, and now I have a three-year old enrolled in a hip-hop dance class for the next season of her dance school’s year.  No tap shoes or ballet shoes for this class, it’s about sneakers.  Now I’m probably a little bit more of a sneakerhead than mythical wife is, but she knows that J’s are still the cream of the crop when it comes to stylish sneakers, so naturally she trolls the shit out of my by deliberately steering my daughter into wanting some J’s of her own.

And as much as I didn’t want to plunk down the $60 for a pair of shoes that most likely won’t even be able to fit her by the end of the dance year, the idea of my own kid rocking her own J’s wasn’t entirely undesirable.  Naturally, when Nike opened their Disney vault and basically made every iteration of Air Jordans available and customizable to the Nth degree, the 9-year old in me that loved MJ 1’s got my own pair, and in spite of the price tag, I like the idea of my kid having a pair of her own 1’s, regardless of how absurd it is that there are J’s for toddlers in the first place.

So here we have it, it took some steering from the wife, but the seed was planted in #1’s head, and she picked out the MJ 1’s out of several options that she also picked, and through process of elimination, naturally landed on the J’s as her pick for hip-hop class.

$60 poorer, but at least I’ll have pride of having some matching kicks with my kid, doubly when she outgrows them, and bequeaths them to #2 to where they’ll get a second life.  And if I can take care of them well enough, maybe I’ll sit on them to where I can flip them on like StockX in the future for its original investment in like 15 years.

Oh, MARTA #699

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TIL: apparently retired train cars can be cleaned and dumped into the ocean to create an artificial environment that can eventually grow into reefs

When I first came across this story, it was actually brilliant; the headline was something along the lines of MARTA trains to be dumped into the ocean, and I could already feel the gears grinding at just how such a story can write itself, with less thought to how Metro Atlanta Rail Transit Authority trains go from Atlanta to like, Savannah.

How it surely sounded like some sort of catastrophic fuck-up that only a company like MARTA would be capable of doing, to where trains from the city end up in the ocean, and just the thought of MARTA trains being unceremoniously dumped into the ocean would have to be quite the visual.

But then I come to learn that MARTA is just jumping aboard a program that’s apparently been around for a while, the practice of dumping retired train cars into the ocean, so that they can ultimately be grounds for reef life to grow and become artificial reefs for marine life to inhabit.

Honestly, once I started looking into the whole thing, it really does sound kind of cool, and I can understand the logic of how an old and busted dead train car could still serve a purpose, 20,000 leagues under the sea.  And as much as I love to clown on MARTA, I do have to give them a tip of the cap to participating in a program that’s progressive, creative and resourceful.

However, upon further reading something did catch my eye and pique my critical ire:

The cost to dismantle, clean, and transport the eight cars is just over $2.1 million.

I’m no expert, but those numbers seem pretty high.  I’m going to imagine that the vast bulk of expenses have to be in logistics and the costs to get these train cars on a tanker to boat them over to their eventual final resting spots, but I’m still hard pressed to believe that $2M bones is still what it actually costs to clean and dismantle and transport eight trains.

This, is where it all seems to make sense why MARTA is doing this, so they can create a smokescreen to (falsely) justify blowing $2M on an activity that looks like they’re trying to do good, but really just pad some peoples’ pockets as is the customary norm for an agency like them.

How did the Ford Bronco become such the white peoples’ car?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few days, I had a pretty white span of existence.  Sure, this doesn’t help detract from the narrative that I’m a Americanized banana of a twinkie kind of Asian person, but as the circumstances have it, my family and I spent a few days on the road, stopping in Savannah and for the first time in my life, visiting Hilton Head Island, which is about one of the whitest places in the country.

Seriously, thinking back to the time spent in HHI, I genuinely can’t recall seeing more than one other person of color, and that person was also Asian which is to say that I don’t remember seeing a single black person while out there.

We stayed at a bougie resort for a few days, and lounged in the pool, went to the beach and even went to the Salty Dog Café, which I’m only aware of its existence because of an old neighbor of mine growing up always seemed to have a lot of Salty Dog Café apparel.  For the record, the dining experience was pleasant on the water of a relaxed beach community, but the food and the prices were not quite as satisfactory and I could be content with the rest of my life if I never experienced them again.

But overall, it was a pleasant trip spent with my family and I got to watch my children have a lot of fun in the pool, in our suite, on the beach and chowing down on all sorts of junk food we typically don’t always make available to them at home, and in spite of the shade I spout about HHI being a really white place, it’s also a really nice place, and I’d definitely be open to going there again in the future, and hopefully for longer.

However, to get to the point of this post, as the subject goes, I’m very curious to how the new Ford Bronco seems to have become the official car of white people across the country now.  When Ford announced that they were reviving the name and creating a new vehicle to resurrect the car, I couldn’t possibly have been more indifferent.  In fact, I was more perplexed and wincing over such news, because to me, the Ford Bronco has forever been tainted and etched with death and scandal since OJ Simpson led the LAPD on the most televised chase in history after he “didn’t” murder his wife.

Apparently such reaction and recollection didn’t resonate with the white people of America, because since they started rolling off the line, Ford Broncos have been snapped up and are being driven like crazy by white people all over the place.  Seriously, I haven’t seen a single Bronco driver on the road that isn’t white, and they’re often times being driven with the arrogant mentality of “I have one and you don’t,” because of the sheer demand for these murderer cars.

And I can’t help but be curious to why the Ford Bronco has caught on with white people with such enthusiasm, when I can’t shake the association of the car’s reputation of being what a tried-but-not-found-guilty murderer drove notoriously.  And then be further curious to what kind of message it sends that not only is the Ford Bronco more popular than it’s ever been in history, it’s apparently solely within the white community itself.

All shade aside, it really is fascinating that it’s so rabidly popular.  Aside from the whole, being OJ Simpson’s car, the Bronco is still a Ford product, and I will probably never not think of all Ford products being cheap, plastic turds with questionable build quality and reliability.  Even when I was on the market for a new car a while back, and told myself to wipe the slate clean with all makes and models, Ford was the first maker to get slapped back onto the blacklist after test-driving the option I had earmarked as a potential car, because it felt cheap, performed like shit, and was blown out of the water by every other option.

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Let’s see if Philadelphia gets the same shit Atlanta did

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR: a portion of I-95 in Philadelphia collapses from a tanker fire

Back in 2017, a portion of I-85 in Atlanta collapsed when a homeless guy set a couch on fire, the fire spread and ignited a bunch of flammable shit underneath a bridge, and then the bridge collapsed.  I-85 had a gaping interruption that caused a tremendous amount of logistical issues for everyone who needed the major vein, and was only fixed as quickly as it was because of more or less, a reward bounty being put on the completion of time of the repair. 

It was still months slower than the Japanese repairing a sinkhole the size of a lake, but in the time in which it occurred, Atlanta became the butt of bad jokes, memes and all sorts of opportunity for people to dunk on us, because for some reason, Atlanta is an easy punching bag for all the unfunny comedians on the internet.

Welp, the shoe is on the other foot now, and what we have here is an extremely similar situation, happened in another major city.  I-95 is obviously one of the most essential veins not just in Philadelphia, but across the entire eastern seaboard, so the impact of it being collapsed in Philly is about similar if not worse than Atlanta’s highway collapse.

I can’t say that I care enough to check, but I would be curious to see if Philly gets the same types of criticism, ridicule and memes poking fun at their situation as Atlanta did, or if, by virtue of not being Atlanta, Philly gets off easier than things were here.

Frankly, all government doesn’t do shit jokes aside, at this point, I’m curious how this could have even happened after the debacle in Atlanta.  I don’t work in a DOT or anything, but I would’ve thought that routine checking of structural integrity and examination of bridge construction probably should’ve leveled up at least a hair after Atlanta.  Sure, highways are meant to be resilient structures meant to support millions of cars and pounds of weight crossing over them endlessly, but come on now, fire shouldn’t be disintegrating bridges.

Someone somewhere in the PA DOT wasn’t doing their job, and for their troubles, they alleviate Atlanta from their own embarrassing bridge collapse, and I hope they pay the internet price of criticism and ridicule the same way we did here.