Tag: cashmoney

Does anyone else feel the Washington Redskins are deflecting from bigger issues?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The skinny: amidst pressure from large corporate sponsors who have likely been pressured themselves by myriads of influences, the Washington Redskins have acquiesced to “thoroughly reviewing” the name of the franchise AKA changing the name may actually be happening after multiple decades

Pretty much my entire life after realizing that I was someone who enjoyed sports, the Washington Redskins have been under fire for their name.  In all fairness, “Redskins” is probably the most offensive of names out in professional sports that borrow from Native American culture, because it’s basically the equivalent of if there were a team named after Africans called “Blackskins.”

But for all intents and purposes, the Redskins were the closest thing in my life I’d ever have to a home team, and when I was really started to develop interests in sports, the Washington Redskins were a powerhouse and were on the cusp of winning the 1992 Super Bowl.  Fewer things make it easy to become a fan than immediate success, and seeing the Redskins topple the Buffalo Bills for a championship made it really easy to become a Redskins fan.

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Bobby Bonilla, Christian Yelich and baseball is fucking idiotic sometimes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Most baseball fans know by now, that July 1st is known as Bobby Bonilla Day.  As in the day in which the New York Mets pay a guy that hasn’t played professional baseball since 2001 $1.19 million dollars, and will continue to do so every single July 1st until 2035.  It’s one of the numerous reasons people love to clown on the Mets, and one that literally has no expiration for 15 more years, and it’s ironically celebrated by all in baseball geek circles, because for some reason we’re fascinated by money that people who have no direct impact on our lives make.

And because all this shit is in concrete writing, in spite of the shortened 2020 season where all active players are going to be taking giant hits in their salaries due to prorated numbers, Bonilla will still receive his full $1.19M, and as I mentioned in a post not long ago, shitheads who didn’t officially retire like David Wright and Prince Fielder will still be making multi-millions from their teams, with the former, also being the Mets, because the Mets really love pissing away money.

Also I learned something new about Bobby Bonilla this year, which is how he somehow inexplicably has another deferred money deal with another team, being the Baltimore Orioles, where in addition to the $1.19M he gets from the Mets, he also receives a cool $500K from the O’s every single year between 2004 and 2029.

I sure hope Bonilla still sends Dennis Gilbert, his former agent, a nice gift basket every single year.

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Cancellation of Minor League Baseball kills my soul

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Primarily thanks to coronavirus, Minor League Baseball has officially cancelled the 2020 baseball season.  I say primarily, because the insinuation is that it was not the one and only factor in this decision; because prior to the world going into the shitter on account of a pandemic, MiLB was already at risk, because Major League Baseball is full of greedy cocksuckers, and they were trying to kill off associations with a large chunk of existing Minor League organizations.  Coronavirus just gives MLB a convenient scapegoat to push the whole thing under the rug for the time being, and possibly come back later to put the nails in the coffin at a later, easier time.

But commentary aside, the reality is that in 2020, there will be no Minor League Baseball, and that fact alone hurts my soul in a variety of ways.

Obviously, my love for the minor leagues throughout the years has easily made me prefer them over the MLB product, despite being but cogs in the grander machine, but there’s no denying the appeal of the more laid-back, relaxed culture of MiLB, where everything is not taken so seriously, and there’s vastly more accessibility and intimate closeness with the players and the teams, than their MLB parents.

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MLB 2020 the (Shit)Show

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Welp, after months of billionaires feuding with millionaires over millions of dollars to play a kids game, while millions of Americans are applying for unemployment in the midst of a fucking pandemic, Major League Baseball has gotten their shit together, and it looks like we’re going to have a 2020 season after all.

Honestly, I really was hoping that the entire season was going to be cancelled.  The aforementioned narrative is no stretch from reality, and it was disgusting to the core to see so many rich assholes balking over as much money was being argued over, while the entire country has been brought to their knees by coronavirus, and millions of Americans are in financial ruin.  The lack of a season and the financial hit that the owners and the players would all have taken would have been an appropriate slap in the collective dicks for all these greedy fucks for their money-grubbing ways and a reality check that there are things in the world way more important than fucking baseball and I love baseball.

Plus, the sheer decimation and mistreatment of minor league baseball is saddening and can be filed in part of the millions of Americans who are out of jobs and will be in the unemployment lines, and brings the Major Leagues a questionable step towards an uncertain future, but more likely they have a lucrative alternative to the minor leagues already in mind.

Regardless, so it looks like we’re going to have a season, as begrudging it may seem to me.  In the other hand, the last time the Braves won the World Series, it was also in a shortened season, when the 1995 season was reduced to 144 games down from 162, so here’s hoping that the Braves can capitalize on another shortened year, and maybe fulfill the joking theory I have that babies bring luck for baseball fans.*

*A friend who is a Cubs fan had a kid in 2016, another friend who is a Nationals fan had twins in 2019 and look what happened

I mean with only 60 games to be played, 2020 truly stands to be a genuine shit show of a season where literally anyone can win right now.  Teams will fall out of contention within three weeks, but those in contention can remain such all the way to the end.  Sports have proven that any team can get hot on a moment’s notice, and/or have a torrid stretch, and with so little baseball to actually be had, all it takes is one well-timed hot streak, and any team can ride it to the World Series.

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Grasping at the low-hanging fruit obvious joke

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A Maruchan plant in Chesterfield, Virginia reported seven employees testing positive for coronavirus.

If they were forced to destroy all product manufactured in the presence of these infected employees, Maruchan stands to lose $7.82.

Don’t get me wrong, few things are as guilty pleasure than instant ramen and their 9 billion grams of sodium per pack, and as a proponent of limiting waste, I don’t like to hear stories of so much food having to go to waste.  But the joke is so obvious, it has to be made.

Baseball is great, but sometimes I fucking hate MLB

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was reading this article about how David Wright is still going to be making $12 million dollars in 2020, regardless of if any baseball happens or not, and it leaves me with a feeling of disgust for Major League Baseball for allowing shit like this to happen.

In this particular instance, I can’t blame David Wright for anything other than being a leech and not retiring four years ago, because the Mets and MLB allowed this contract to happen, and MLB doesn’t have the balls to reject the Players Association’s demand for guaranteed contracts, falling back on insurance policies to cover up for the sunk costs.  But the reality is that David Wright hasn’t played in a meaningful game since 2016, missed all of 2017, played in two symbolic games in 2018 to signal his retirement, but didn’t actually retire and continued to get paid throughout 2019, and will get paid in 2020, the final year of his contract, in spite of the very good likelihood that there will be no MLB at all this year.

Also mentioned in the article is Prince Fielder, whom like David Wright, called it quits in 2016, but by virtue of not actually retiring on paper, continued to cash in over the last four years by virtue of the remainder of his contract.  In fact, Prince Fielder stands to be the highest paid player in all of MLB in 2020, because unlike all the active players that are sitting home doing diddly squat on prorated per-diems, Fielder’s remaining $24M is 100% guaranteed, and I suppose there’s something in the literature that even protects it from complete work stoppage.

Let that sink in for a second; two guys that haven’t even played baseball in four years, will be making more money for not playing baseball, than guys like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, who have the highest respective contracts in baseball currently, because even if some hackneyed season does come to fruition, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be on prorated salaries.

Speaking of prorated salaries, let’s talk about about Tampa Bay pitcher Blake Snell, who has boldly stated that he will outright refuse to play in 2020, unless he’s going to be receiving his full prorated pay, because the current proposal dictates that there be a 50/50 split between the owners and player salaries, meaning players would effectively be receiving 50% of their prorated salaries if a season were to occur.

So for example, if MLB gets their shit together and slaps together a season of 81 games, or half of a season, than Blake Snell should be contractually obligated to half of his $7.6M salary, which would be $3.8 million dollars.  But with the 50/50 split coming into play, then that $3.8M is reduced to $1.9M.

$1.9 million dollars.  To play baseball, ultimately a children’s game.

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Among others, fuck the Lakers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Of the numerous things that has pushed me from disenchanted to faith broken with America has been the recent events of how the Personal Paycheck Program, or what most people know as “the small business relief” program, was abused like a child on a Lifetime network special, and ultimately ran out of money, leaving countless small business owners across America dead in the water.

For clarification, what had happened was that a ton of notable, recognizable and most importantly, large businesses, began declaring themselves as small businesses, and began applying for the PPP loans left and right, and the next thing we know is that companies such as Ruths Chris Steakhouse, Shake Shack, Ritz Carlton hotels and W Hotels, among countless large businesses were receiving millions of dollars in relief loans, and eventually the entire PPP program literally ran out of money and said fuck it and fuck you to the rest of all the applicants that were actual small businesses whom the program really was designed for.

Basically, they all gamed the system because America is not the smartest kid in the class in spite of what Americans might believe, and the criteria and literature behind the loan qualifications had more holes than a Baked Potato in Charge Twitter rant, and big businesses were more than happy to capitalize.  Most franchised businesses began applying as individual applicants to qualify and then suddenly Potbelly Sandwich Shop has amassed $10M in loans despite the fact that they’re literally a publicly traded company, while the local sub shop in your neighborhood can’t even get a form letter of rejection, because the US Postal Service is under fire, and there’s no money for fucking postage.

However, among the elites that have received PPP money, one of the ones that ticked a nerve with me was the Los Angeles Lakers basketball organization, which received $4.6M in loans from the program.

The Lakers, an NBA team, which like most professional sport teams, practically prints money, applied for, and received money reserved for small businesses.

Fuck the Lakers.  They’re literally a franchise valued at over $3 billion dollars, and they’ve got the audacity to cry poor and apply for a PPP loan?  To say bullshit on this is about an understatement as saying coronavirus is just a really bad flu.

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