Tag: comparison

Sure would be nice if the Braves had Trevor Bauer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So the Braves’ best pitcher, Spencer Strider is probably toast for the year, and some of next year; UCL damage is usually the precursor to Tommy John surgery, and even if there’s no actual tear that all but necessitates it, it’s almost worse to be on the lookout, because in so many cases, they burn time trying to rest and rehab it, and then when they try and pitch with it months later and then get the tear, prompting the TJS, they’ve burned an extra few months in which the surgery and rehab process might already have begun.

Furthermore, the Braves’ second-best pitcher, Max Fried has started the season acting like he’s not in his contract year, with his piddly five innings pitched in two starts, allowing 11 runs and with an ERA of 18.00.  Surely it will have to get better as the season wears on, but his start isn’t inspiring confidence at the moment, and if not for the two “old guys” in Charlie Morton and Chris Sale, as well as their potent offense, the Braves most definitely wouldn’t be over .500 at this early juncture in the season.

That being said, I’m writing this a day removed from the Braves having gotten absolutely nuked by the Mets, 16-4.  In the absence of Spencer Strider, the Braves have already dipped into the minor leagues, calling up Allan Winans to start, and he did not perform very well, allowing six of the Mets’ aforementioned 16 runs, and was promptly sent back down to the minor leagues afterward.

And that’s just what the Braves do, and will continue to do throughout the season; rely on young, mostly untested talent, like Allan Winans and AJ Smith-Shawver or guys who benefited greatly from the Braves’ offensive output to mask their general mediocrity like Bryce Elder, none of whom I will feel at all at ease when watching at this state of their respective careers.

All, while Trevor Bauer still is hanging out somewhere in Arizona striking out Eric Sim 58 times a day for YouTube content, or jet-setting down to Mexico to pitch for the Locos Diablos Rojos Tacos or whatever the fuck they’re called, because MLB is colluding to blacklist him from the league because of alleged crimes that multiple active players in the game right now have had an actual history with themselves.

Yes, this is a hill that I’m willing to die on, because I firmly believe that there is no team in league that Trevor Bauer doesn’t make better immediately, and as much as it guaranteed will not happen, I really fucking wish it could be the Braves, who very obviously actually need him, yesterday.

Bauer’s arsenal actually comps very closely to Spencer Strider’s, starting with a big fastball that can hit the upper-90’s, a reliable slider, but also a curveball as well as a cutter.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful that as soon as Strider went down, quite literally pick up a wandering free agent who has almost the exact same arsenal and have him start in his place?  Yeah, that’s what I think too, but Braves gonna Barves, and stay behind the picket lines with their MLB brethren, thinking they’re too high and mighty for Trevor Bauer.

I see arguments on almost a daily basis about Bauer, and I understand there are a lot of fans who are concerned about the rumored other allegations that Bauer has yet to beat, and that they will rear their heads throughout the season, but to those concerns, I say so what?

Bauer has stated that aside from being willing to play for the league minimum, he would accept being cut without argument.  Let him join your roster, win 5-6 games, and if a court date or legal matter emerges in June, then cut him.  Then, dip into the minor leagues or B-squad and cross the bridge when you get there, but let Trevor Bauer be the bridge to get you to that point and let him win baseball games for you.

I don’t understand why this is such a difficult concept for MLB squads to accept, but collusion is collusion because everyone is on board with the idea of blacklisting a currently innocent man, no matter the value and talent he’s capable of providing.  I like to imagine that behind the picket lines, there are numerous general managers sweating over wanting to pick up Trevor Bauer for their squads, but out of fear of breaking solidarity with the collusion, their hands are tied.

I retract what I said about how I believe someone will definitively pick him up, because it really is looking like Colin Kaepernick out there in baseball land, and no matter how clearly needed guys like Kaepernick and Bauer would be needed by many professional sporting clubs, the collusion is for real, and teams would rather suffer and take losses than risk crossing the pickets.

#TRYHARDSZN2024: That’s one way to get out of Arkansas

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Just 4?  Arkansas high school senior accepted into four Ivy League schools among numerous other acceptances

Not a lot of context given with this tryhard.  But at least 7 On My Side doesn’t question the intelligence of its readers by giving some superficial combined value of all her college acceptances and claim she’s miraculously in possession of $1.6M scholarship dollars, because that’s always bullshit in the grand spectrum of #TRYHARDSZN.

But 16 college acceptances, with four of them being Ivy Leagues, not bad.  Harvard, Colombia, Penn and Cornell, and with the article not even mentioning money, it’s my assumption that these are merely acceptances and good luck getting together the money to tuition sure hope daddy is a doctor of the variety that actually makes money.

Otherwise a good scattering of college acceptances that are actually named, which means that this kid isn’t just flinging college applications into the wind like Gambit throwing cards, with almost all of them being out of state, which is a safe assumption that this kid wants the fuck out of Arkansas.

Considering what her family name is, and the fact that her biliteracy is in Arabic, which I can’t imagine is particularly useful in a state like fucking Arkansas, I imagine the goal is ultimately to get out of the state by any means necessary, but if she can manage to get a decent education in the process, then that’s a double win.

Laughably, the article does point out that the one full-ride offer she has, is to Hendrix; not going to lie, I had to Google them, and it turns out that they’re a liberal arts college in, you guessed it: Arkansas.  And when decision time comes about, that full-ride is always a hard thing to ignore, especially from families of immigrants.

You know what they say though, sometimes if you don’t tryhard, you die hard, which I’ve literally never heard anyone say but one of my close friends.

Dad Brog (#130): Parenthood did this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t really felt much like writing over the last week or two.  It’s like no matter how much I try to streamline my days and look for ways to open up a little bit more time in the evenings to where I can have some quiet, wind-down time to myself, the more it seems like the windows of freedom get smaller and smaller.

Whether it’s daily chores and the resetting of the house for the kids to wreck it the following day, food prep for the kids, side projects that have long since gotten to the point where it almost feels like a chore but I still have to follow it through to the end, or when I feel like I need to do some exercise, what used to be 4-5 hours a night of downtime feels more like three hours, sometimes two, where I feel like I can actually goof off and do something, not necessarily productive.

And then I get choice paralysis and/or trapped into doom scrolling on my phone, where I fall into a reel pit of Game of Thrones clips where I muse about how good the television show really was in spite of the dodgy ending.  Now I have like an hour to myself, and an hour doesn’t feel like an adequate time to get my head into the act of writing, so I end up watching Ted Lasso clips on YouTube or continuing to fall into the pit of old GoT clips among other useless things.

Or, I watch an episode of Yellowstone, which is actually something that’s been on my list of things to watch.  I’m on season three currently, and I’m relieved that save for the pilot episode, the episodes are a fairly manageable 45~minute range.  It’s not necessarily the banger of a series that I thought it might be, but at the same time it’s still slowly intriguing.  I have yet to watch Succession, which is another show on my list, but given what I know about that show, I feel like Yellowstone is basically a cowboy version of it.

Not giving anything away, but some of the moments of the show that I’ve found myself enjoying every time, is whenever Kevin Costner’s John Dutton character, is interacting with his grandson, Tate.  At least so far, the boy is as innocent to the world as they come, and in spite of being the cunning mastermind of just about everything that goes on in Yellowstone, Montana, John Dutton turns into a tender, caring and seemingly awesome grandfather to Tate, and as a parent to young children, it’s scenes like these that pique my interest every time they present themselves.

But it’s not just Yellowstone solely, I’ve come to the realization that when it comes to watching shows or movies, what tends to elicit the most uncomfortable reaction out of me is whenever there’s anything pertaining to violence, trauma or just a negative situation against young kids.  Like if a kid is in danger, I find my anxiety beginning to spike, and these are the instances where I feel like I might squirm or squeeze an arm rest. 

It bleeds my heart when children characters have to deal with non-physical trauma like learning of a death in the family, abandonment, or divorcing parents.  Just about anything that results in a child becoming sad, breaking out in tears or wailing out hits a place in me that obviously didn’t exist prior to having children myself.

I’m not saying that I was ever immune to empathy for children prior to having my own, but now that I do, it’s amplified and it’s almost like I’m going to start needing trigger warnings on things that feature children having to deal with trauma of any sort.  Having my Dada-radar tripped and bringing me close to tears watching innocuous television is something I didn’t know was going to happen when I had children.

Landon Knack won the MLB Seoul Series

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol’d heartily: while in Seoul, Korea, Los Angeles Dodgers caught on camera marveling and drooling over Korean actress Jeon Jong-Seo throwing out the ceremonial first pitch during an exhibition game between the Dodgers and the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes

Honestly, I didn’t think I’d get as much enjoyment out of the MLB Seoul Series as I did.  I’m so far removed from my general fandom of baseball these days, and I’m so cynical and jaded, that I figured this was all just some typical cash grab by MLB to try and dupe and hoover money out of the Korean market, and that it’s always kind of weird, rhythm-wise when MLB teams play regular season games in Asia during Spring Training, and then come back to wrap up Spring Training before re-embarking on the regular season for 160 more games.

But then seeing highlights of Freddie Freeman acquainting himself to the Korean fans with a blast of a home run, and seeing the Padres’ Kim Ha-Seong coming home and blasting two dingers of his own against the LG Twins were pleasant highlights.  And then there was the gleefully enjoyable wake-up call on the final day of the trip, waking up and checking the score to the Padres/Dodgers game to find out that the Dodgers’ $325M acquisition Yoshinobu Yamamoto, got absolutely blown up, lasted one inning, and took a monumental L to start his MLB career.

I mean seriously, there isn’t a better narrative than a Japanese pitcher getting absolutely shelled while pitching in Korea.  I’m sure he will settle down and have a very fine season and possibly career in America, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t smile like the Grinch upon seeing his woefully embarrassing line for the morning, and knowing he’ll be leaving the motherland with little else than a big-ass L.

However, the best story of the trip, was undoubtedly the hilarious spectacle of the entire Dodgers roster going gonzo once they laid their eyes on Korean actress Jeon Jong-Seo, taking the hill for the ceremonial first pitch. I mean, I can’t blame all these baseball bros, for most of them, they’ve probably never seen a proper Korean celebrity like Jeon, with her perfect face,* slim figure, legs that go to the moon, and for a Korean girl, she got a little bit of booty.*  

*most likely surgically enhanced

And then she proceeds to hit the target pretty impressively, considering she was kicking off on the wrong side of the rubber.  But it didn’t stop pretty much everyone in the Dodgers’ dugout, most visibly Ryan Brazier, Gavin Stone, Gavin Lux from letting their jaws hang to the ground.  And hilariously extra were Tyler Glasnow, Chris Taylor and surprisingly, the happily married Freddie Freeman from staring a little too hard at Jeon.

But to me, the best part about the whole thing is that if there was going to be a singular winner of the entire Seoul Series, it’s definitely #96 for the Dodgers, Landon Knack, who was the guy who caught the first pitch from Jeon, but also got to take his photograph with her afterward.  Without question, Knack is envy of the entire Dodgers locker room, getting to be the guy that got to get up close with the Korean bombshell, and even put a hand on her, during the photograph.

The thing with ceremonial first pitches is that with 162 games plus exhibitions and playoffs for some, there are a whole lot of ceremonial first pitches in a season.  Every now and then, it’s going to be a legitimate A-lister or powerful figure, but for the most part, it’s going to be like the local Wells Fargo regional office’s VP’s son type of guys throwing out the lion’s share of ceremonial first pitches throughout a year.

The rule of thumb typically is that the bigger the celebrity or figure it is throwing out the first pitch, the higher caliber of player will be behind home plate waiting to catch the ball.  When George W. Bush threw out the first pitch, Ivan Rodriguez caught him.  When Pedro Martinez returned to Boston after being inducted into the Hall of Fame, David Ortiz caught him.  The list goes on and on, where depending on the level of celebrity, the higher the caliber of player is waiting to catch it.

And it’s clear that the Dodgers weren’t made aware of who was throwing out the ceremonial first pitch in their exhibition with the Kiwoom Heroes, because they sent a guy with the number 96 out to go catch.  Because the rule of thumb is that the higher and wonkier the number is in Spring Training, they’re younger minor league guys who are actively in a tryout phase with the team.  I actually had to Google the Dodgers’ 40-man roster to even find out who #96 was, and I still have no idea who Landon Knack really is.  His minor league numbers look promising, and I’m sure he’ll have a new number at some point this year, but the truth is that he was the low-man on the totem pole, thrust out there to do grunt work.

Clearly the mainstays of the Dodgers couldn’t be bothered to go out and catch a ceremonial first pitch, so they sent Landon Knack to go do it, and gee golly I’m sure Knack couldn’t have been happier to do the duty when he saw Jeon Jong-Seo step onto the field and take the mound.  Without question, if any of the players knew who was throwing it, and what Jeon Jong-Seo looked like, we probably would’ve seen Tyler Glasnow or Chris Taylor fighting over who would get to catch.

Unsurprising, as soon as the Seoul Series was over, Knack was immediately cut and sent down to the minor leagues to start the year, because anyone wearing a number higher than 70 typically is, unless they’re one of the baseball edge lords that asks for a high number.  Regardless of if he gets called up or not, gets hurt or not, Landon Knack is definitely going to have a core memory from his brief trip to Korea.  And his teammates will always be green with envy when he inevitably makes his picture with Jeon Jong-Seo his phone’s lock screen, and gets to flash it around when he’s called back up to the majors.

Without question, Landon Knack definitely won the Seoul Series, and MLB players probably will remember this the next time they’re sent out to Korea for any exhibitions.

Not what I was hoping would happen

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Obviously, Blake Snell wasn’t going to stay unemployed forever, regardless of how funny I would have found it if he did go unsigned, because the San Francisco Giants were the team that blinked, and signed Balakey to a two-year deal, worth $62 million dollars.

I do take satisfaction that the money-grubbing Balakey and his money-grubbing uber-agent Scott Boras were denied in getting the long-term, fuck-you-money deal they were obviously hoping to get, but the fact of the matter is that Balakey is still hoovering up a wildly high $31M a year, and from what I understand, he does have an opt-out clause, which means that this is really more like a 1/$31M deal, because Balakey is undoubtedly going to try and pitch his ass off again so he can opt-out and try against next winter, but will also have the safety net of $31M more dollars from San Francisco should he get hurt, or realize that he’s not as good as people think he is and phones it in and prepares to try again in 2025.

It does just suck though, that an obvious money-grubber like Balakey Snell actually is going to make coin, because I am not a fan of such obvious money-grubbers.  I know that everyone is out for themselves, but at least try to pretend like you give a shit about the team, the city, the fans, or community.  Do some public appearances, read books to kids at schools, volunteer at the local grocery stores or something.  Instead, Balakey goes home and streams video games, while airing out his grievances over how he thinks he’s underpaid when he gets to throw a baseball for a living.

Whatever though, Balakey going to the Giants means he’s going to a team that I already like to root against, and despite the fact that they’re the team that signed Korean superstar Lee Jung-hoo, it’s nice to know I can consolidate my want to see the Giants not succeed, with wanting to see Balakey not perform well enough to warrant getting the big money contract he’s hoping to get.

Switching gears though, if there was anyone who didn’t believe that there’s a Colin Kaepernick-like collusion blacklisting of Trevor Bauer, the signing of Balakey all but solidifies its existence, because we’ve just watched a team commit $62 million dollars for a pitcher that is debatably comparable to Trevor Bauer, who has been shouting on the rooftops that he’s willing to play for the league minimum $740,000.

I hate to sound like I’m the world’s biggest Trevor Bauer fan; I admit that I am a fan of him as a pitcher and some of his personal idiosyncrasies, and I was disappointed when his name was associated with a sexual assault.  But I also know that he was absolved of the accusation that got him blacklisted in the first place, and I would like to see him get a second chance in the Majors, because he’s obviously good enough to hang still, and frankly, what I’m finding the most obnoxious aspect of the blacklisting is how every single team has their own history of embarrassments when it comes to housing players with abuse accusations and actual charges, so there’s just something so hypocritical of the entire league colluding to blacklist one guy like this.

I know that there are still several accusations still pending, but call me crazy, but I do believe in the whole innocent until proven guilty thing, and frankly Bauer himself has said that if a team wants to cut him after taking a flyer, they can cut him at-will, but the man just wants a chance to demonstrate that he can still get the job done in the majors.  Let the man pitch, maybe go 4-1, and if it turns out that at one of these future hearings, something comes out that he really is an abuser, than cut him.  It wouldn’t be any worse than Jose Reyes, Aroldis Chapman or Marcell Ozuna getting busted for violence against women but still getting to keep their jobs.

No matter though.  It’s not like I’m actually going to watch a tremendous amount of baseball this season, and frankly the jury’s out on whether or not I’ll actually watch a single full game this year, seeing as how I haven’t done that since like the 2020 playoffs, so when the day is over, I still really don’t care.  But I would like to see Balakey struggle, and despite my optimism that some team would eventually get desperate and pull the trigger on Trevor Bauer, things are looking less and less likely.  Although I definitely wouldn’t mind being incorrect on the latter, because I would like to see Trevor Bauer get another opportunity to pitch in the majors, plus I think he’s better than Balakey.

The Power of The Rock

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

By now, everyone knows that The Rock is back in the WWE, presumably just for Wrestlemania SZN, but the reality is that he’s still back on television, making appearances here and there to hype up the event.

His return has sparked a lot of debate among the general wrestling community, and there are some pretty concrete sides on the field: those fans who dislike when guest stars pop up during Mania SZN, just to hype up the event, and ultimately vanish into thin air once Mania is over, and then there are fans who love it when part-timers like The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, or the Undertaker show up for Wrestlemania, because they’re legends, they’re icons from their era, or whatever reason.

Typically, I’m often times in the camp of not really preferring when guests show up for Wrestlemania, because I’m of the mindset that the people who carry the company week in and week out, should be the ones to get the biggest billings at the biggest show of the year.  And in lots of cases, I don’t want to see some older performer who’s rusty, out of shape, and incapable of putting on a good show any more, having the opportunity to do so, and denying one of the aforementioned week in and week out guys in the process.

Stone Cold Steve Austin had a respectable program two years ago, but I’d still maintain that it had largely to do with the fact that a very respectful and capable Kevin Owens was carrying him, and let’s not forget all the times in history we’ve seen the Undertaker, Mick Foley, Hulk Hogan and even Triple H gear up for Wrestlemania, only to be one of the least impressive contributors on the card.

But The Rock, I have to say that he’s just on another level when it comes to drumming up excitement and hyping up a program.  For starters, mythical wife, who actually did watch a little bit of Attitude-era wrestling when she was a wee lass, heard completely independently, that The Rock was back, and put forth her own independent effort to check out his first promos.

Since then, The Rock set an incendiary blaze on the internet wrestling community, diving up the fanbase entirely, and even forcing me to soften my stance on Cody Rhodes, and then adjusted based on the crowd feedback, and has gone full-ass heel mode, and has returned to his Attitude-era roots and is once again doing the lord’s work when it comes to cutting promos and building up hype for a show.

Obviously, I look forward to Wrestlemania just about every year, but I have to say that I’m really looking forward to Wrestlemania this year.  Even if it’s going to be in a cesspool like Philadelphia, I know the crowd will be hot, because Philly fans get hot for wrestling, and The Rock, being the mutant athlete he is, is sure to still be capable of putting on a decent match.

Despite the fact that when The Rock came back, I was just kind of like oh cool, I have to say that the way he just so effortlessly creates excitement and drums up anticipation for the event, is truly why he is the most electrifying man in sports entertainment.  It’s just so easy and organic for him, and now I’m looking more forward to this year’s Wrestlemania than I have in prior ones.  The card seems wildly predictable in what’s going to happen, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m looking forward to it this far out, and that, really is the power of The Rock.

WTF is AEW doing #302

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not entirely sure if Tony Khan thinks he’s being clever, subtle or he’s flagrantly doing it on purpose, but pretty much every wrestling fan on the planet knew that BIG BU$INE$$ in BO$$TON was going to be the debut of Mercedes Mone.

Say what you will though, I’ve been critical about Mercedes over the last year and change, but I’m also critical because I care.  I was a fan of Sasha Banks, dubious in which the circumstances she left under, but happy to see when she re-emerged in Japan, won titles there, and even predicted her inevitable path that would take her to AEW.

And as much as I like the work possible by guys like Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada, their arrivals in AEW didn’t really make me stop what I was doing and carve out time to see them.  But knowing that March 13th, BIG BU$INE$$ FROM BO$$TON was going to be the arrival of Mercedes Mone, I made the conscious effort to carve out time from my generally time-starved life, to tune in and watch, because I was looking forward to seeing Mercedes Varnado, back in professional wrestling.

However, having watched BIG BU$INE$$, my thoughts were making these posts pondering whatever the fuck AEW is doing, because I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around their general MO.  I get that I probably fall into the category that’s been so indoctrinated with how the WWE operates, that anything alternative to it just seems rather perplexing, but I’ll also say that I had no problems being a fan of WCW and ECW and to some degree, old NWA-TNA back before the days of Impact.  In fact, I’m still a fan of Impact now that they’re back to being TNA, but it’s just AEW, and now the AEW-controlled Ring of Honor, that I’m just so often scratching my head about. 

I want to like the product as their diehard fans do, but there’s just so much going on that I can’t find the ability to be a fan of the promotion as a whole as much as I just like cherry-picked aspects of the company, like Toni Storm, Will Ospreay, Daniel Garcia, and my growing respect for Orange Cassidy.  And I think it’s very amusing that the some of the guys that are doing the best work for the promotion, are all former WWE hands, like Storm, Christian, Swerve and Samoa Joe.

But back to BIG BU$INE$$, it was obvious the entire show was produced structured around Mercedes getting to open the show, as well as close it out.  Because in no logical reality should a match between Willow Nightengale and Riho be the main event of a show, especially one that had Samoa Joe vs. Wardlow and Jay White vs. Darby Allin on the card.  There are three former TNT champs, a former IWGP champion, and the current AEW champion, and they all played the undercard, just to ensure that Mercedes Mone got to close the show out, even if it meant main eventing a match between two girls who were literally Ring of Honor dark match talent not even a full year ago.

Now I was happy to see Mercedes, but I couldn’t help but feel like the arena wasn’t doing her any favors.  I felt like the acoustics in the arena murdered her entrance music, it was hard to hear the crowd actually chanting C-E-O for her, and when she got on the mic to speak, the echo sounded as if the Boston Garden hadn’t updated their equipment since Greg the Racist Valentine cut his scathing promo with terribly racist undertones. 

She cut a good promo, gave love to Eddie Guerrero, and it will be interesting to see how things transpire, because in AEW there’s either really good workers (Toni, Britt, Purrazzo) and then there’s everyone else.  This won’t be like CM Punk coming in to a sea of talent, Mercedes will have to put on her carry boots on every night, and it’ll be telling to see how she measures up to this responsibility.

Again though, I don’t think it was right to structure the entire show around ensuring Mercedes got to close out the show, especially with the talent they lined up in order to make that happen.  I know the logical program is to work in Willow Nightengale since it was her that Mercedes got hurt against, but she’s still green as baby shit, and I can’t imagine that Mercedes isn’t going to have some PTSD having to work with the person who basically cut her entire NJPW deal short.

But then again, this is why this series of posts is titled what they are, because when the day is over, I really have no fucking clue to what AEW is doing.  And because of that, it really doesn’t matter if they have Mercedes Mone, Kazuchika Okada, or even Will Ospreay, unless they find the magic formula that gives them logical, watchable weekly programming, on top of their propensity to put on above-average pay-per-views, they’re never going to be seen as a superior product than the WWE.  I know they and their brainwashed fans insist that that’s not what the goal is, but everyone knows that’s full of shit.  They all want to have their cake and eat it too, which is that they need to be the #1 promotion, so they can all revel in being #1; but it’s never going to happen if AEW continues to operate in the manner that basically makes AEW, AEW.