Ulice Payne

OK, that's it. They'll get em tomorrow. These are the Cubs, after all

Torturous? Six innings of no hit ball, a couple home runs including one to tie it in the 9th and some extra innings on a beautiful night with all the windows open? Torturous? Not so much. Win or lose, it's been a good game.

Adames, McCutchen & Renfroe due up next inning, with Yelich on 2nd. They've got a couple runs in them, don't they?

Good. A good night for some extra baseball

Huira legs it out. Getting hopeful

There we go. Rowdy in the 9th

Here's the 2023 schedule. I've missed a lot of the old AL teams, and I do get tired of seeing so much of the Pirates & Reds. But now that we have all 29 other teams on the schedule, it does seem like a bit much. Still getting used to this,

Yeah. Unless the team is trying to sneak into a playoff spot in the last week of the season, just pitch them how they line up.

Still early. Plenty of time for them to come back

Yes; this. Trading Hader was the right trade at the wrong time. I agree with the trade in a vacuum, but the greater return can't be worth the added jeopardy to this year's division title. As for the Melvin transactions, well, it was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. 28 years without playoffs. If we hadn't experienced it, it would almost be unimaginable. Melvin had to get them back to the post season. It almost didn't matter what it cost. Hope Padres fans are enjoying this. Sincerely.

Preller was like a guy putting a trip to Disney on the credit card. Stearns was like a guy making his 401K contributions, flossing, and getting to bed on time. Which approach was better? We shall see.

Hoping they pick up Josh Bell. But until proven otherwise, I get to imagine Soto.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10043935-mlb-trade-rumors-brewers-josh-hader-receiving-interest-ahead-of-deadline Reports that Brewers are getting calls on Hader. I can't see it happening, unless its some 3 team scenario where Hader goes for prospects & then those prospects are immediately flipped for a hitter. Unlikely, but still some entertaining speculation.

If I recall correctly, Angels selected Trout right before the Brewers draft pick. I used to be disappointed about that, but the Brewers may have dodged a bullet there. If the Angels can't afford to put a playoff team around Trout, how would the Brewers have done it? I can't see the Milwaukee payroll navigating how to deal with Trout any better that the Angels. Better for them to spread the talent across the roster instead of focused on one very talented & expensive guy.

I'm sure everyone would be very neighborly.

Anytime Milwaukee & Minnesota play, the Brewer Fanatic & Twins Daily game threads need to be merged. @Brock Beauchamp

Bell would be a good acquisition. Certainly, pay as little as possible. But this isn't about a two month rental; it's about increasing the odds of getting to the NLCS instead of another quick exit from the playoffs. That's worth quite a bit.

Bell would be a good acquisition. Certainly, pay as little as possible. But this isn't about a two month rental; it's about increasing the odds of getting to the NLCS instead of another quick exit from the playoffs. That's worth quite a bit.

Yeah, the only way this isn't ridiculous is if that anonymous executive is in the Brewers front office

Yeah, the only way this isn't ridiculous is if that anonymous executive is in the Brewers front office

Realigning MLB is a nice pastime when I'm bored. When there's nothing else to do, and not enough mental energy to proactively start something of consequence, I'll often draw the outline of the US & start re-dividing baseball. Here's a proposal of eight four-team divisions. Assuming two new expansion teams, one on the east coast and the other on the west coast. Div 1. Angels, Dodgers, Padres, Diamondbacks Div 2. Mariners, Giants, A's, New West Coast Team (Las Vegas or Portland?) Div 3. Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Royals Div 4. Braves, Reds, Rays, Marlins Div 5. Rangers, Astros, Rockies, New East Coast Team (Charlotte or Nashville?) Div 6. Twins, Brewers, Guardians, Tigers Div 7. Blue Jays, Red Sox, Yankees, Mets Div 8. Orioles, Nationals, Phillies, Pirates Did my best to respect time zones and minimize travel. Also my intent to preserve existing rivalries, i. e. Cubs/Cardinals, Yankees/Red Sox, Guardians/Tigers, etc. Hoping this would create new rivalries. The crosstown teams in New York, Chicago, and LA just seem too obvious. Also, I have to think that Giants/A's, Orioles/Nationals, and Royals/Cardinals could be good, along with potential in-state rivalries in Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Would have liked to get pairs like Dodgers/Giants, Reds/Guardians in the same division, but the geography is what it is. The new team in Charlotte/Nashville gets hosed a bit, as they have to travel across 2 time zones to get to Colorado, but I think that's the only division that's not in two or less time zones. The placement of the Rockies is really one of the most difficult parts of realignment. This could be solved if the two expansion teams were in Portland and Las Vegas; with Las Vegas joining Colorado & the Texas teams, and Portland joining the Mariners, Giants, and A's. Not too worried about preserving two leagues in this plan, especially since we're putting city-sharing teams in divisions together. I would have liked to have kept Milwaukee with the Chicago teams, but again; the geography. Brewers lose the Cubs and Cardinals in this plan, but I don't think that's so bad. The Cubs and Cardinals are chiefly rivals with each other, and Milwaukee is a secondary rival to both those teams. There's a lot of history with the Twins, Tigers, and Cleveland; and Brewers fans could do very well re-learning to despise teams in other northern cities.

Reading two books concurrently; The Presocratics, edited by Philip Wheelwright The First Philosophers; The Prosocratics and the Sophists, translated by Robin Waterfield They both go through the Greek presocratic philosophers. I'm going back & forth between the two books one philosopher at a time. Really I want to study Aristotle. However, I didn't want to just jump immediately to Aristotle without getting the the academic basis he had to work from. So I started with Homer, then Aesop, and now these guys. Next will be Socrates / Plato, then finally to Aristotle himself. Eventually I'll end up going through the Stoics, but I'll use some caution with them. The Stoics have such a well thought out world view, it's tempting to join them. I thought the Presocratics would just be a stop along the way, but I'm really appreciating them in their own right. They come from a time when philosophy and science were still considered to be the same thing. They ask questions that no one before them had thought to ask, at least among those whose work has survived in the written record. They move forward from the anthropomorphic views espoused by Homer & his contemporaries. They want to know what is the basis of the world / universe, what is a human, where is the earth located; metaphysical questions like that. It's Socrates who will turn the philosophical questions towards how a person should live; these guys were still just figuring out what a human was.

Agreed. Some of these folks have to be trolling. There's just no way someone disagrees with absolutely everything; is there? haha

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." -Socrates

Bad balk call