RobDeer 45

I've been thinking about your statement all weekend and in to this week now. Way too early to mock the cards. I feel like this thread was the reason we got pounded two days ago! I'm not superstitious but I'm a little stitious.

Thanks for all the information everyone. OWBC - that's a great story. I'm so excited to visit this stadium and feel the history. I did splurge on some good tickets between home plate and the Red Sox dugout. Fingers crossed for good weather!

Yes getting any sort of involvement from the high school coach and kids is so huge. We are lucky enough to have that with our baseball coach and his players. We've had no involvement from the basketball coach and I bet you can guess which program does way better. Well the high school coach got fired this year so I'm hoping for a little change on the youth basketball front. Glad to hear things are going well!

I agree with you on Burnes..... but what's your number? 😉

Get in your May Predictions so you can give us a "I knew it," on June 1st. COL 3 SF 3 LAD 3 KC 3 STL 3 TB 3 HOU 3 SF 4 TOR 2 Total = 27 My prediction - 13-14 staying alive

I wanted to bump this to see if anyone had any advice. We are taking our oldest son (10) as a surprise for his birthday. We are going to do several things around Boston but we will attend a game as well. I've never been to a game at Fenway and I love old baseball parks, so I'm really excited! Any advice for things to do pre or post game around Fenway, please let me know.

I thought I'd check in to see how the start of the season is going. Bobahunter, how was the volunteer turnout?

Louis Ely - Son of two teachers, I think we count! That's amazing that there are so many teachers on here. Thanks for what you all do! Crazy this thread just popped up because I was crunching numbers on our retirement accounts just this weekend to see how we are doing. We are a little ahead of where we should be using some basic rule of thumb calculations, so that was nice to see. I think what we are struggling with is what do we want in retirement. That is obviously a big part of understanding where you need to be at certain ages. Also when do we want to retire. I feel like that all could change depending on what our kids end up doing and where they end up. As others have said, just put that money away and start right away. It's so important. Madbad2000 - That's a great way of looking at things. Don't keep chasing more as your career progresses. We've started to pull back on things like cars. I'm going to try and follow that mindset!

I too have been questioning this a bit. I do think there will be a draw to go watch your team when they play in Vegas. I would love to do that. But my question is, will it be an annual thing for people or just something people will want to do once. We shall see. I hope it works because I think it will be cool. I'm sure the stadium will be bonkers and cater to the people looking for a higher end experience.

That West Coast swing went way better that I could have hoped for. What a blast. Keep it rolling!

Didn't realize he's still only 26..... possible person to trade, maybe a change of scenery helps him out?

First off, I do like BA and Rock. I don't want BA to leave, he's so good. I don't care if he's only there for a partial schedule, we are lucky to have him. I think Levering does a good job and is a professional broadcaster. I didn't like Vinny when he started working on air. Two days ago I thought to myself, "boy Vinny is getting pretty good, I kind of like him now." You can tell he's working at it and becoming more comfortable. I think it's good what we have going right now. A good mix of talent. It keeps things fresh. It should keep the people who get super annoyed by the repetitiveness of a daily broadcaster and their sayings happy.

Thanks for the recap! I like all the added media in here.

Boy this team has been fun to watch so far! I love having the young kids up and making an impact. Hope they can keep up the great work. Go Crew!

I would say our league is really well run. As for coaching, we have volunteer hours that everyone has to do. You write a big check, maybe $250 per kid, at the beginning of the year. If you don't complete your volunteer hours they cash the check. Coaching takes care of the full amount, and for multiple kids. I think that's smart because the coaches put in a lot of time. Other things to do are concessions, field prep, they used to have umping on there, volunteering for uniform and equipment distribution, and then of course clerical things. If you make that check big enough, you'll get plenty of volunteers!

Cool, just wanted to clarify. I'd add to that, most people should keep a good mix of equity stocks (with fixed income) in retirement because hopefully most people will have 20-30 years of life left and will want their money to continue to work for them.

Are you saying financial planners know when the market will peak and then sell off all your equity investments when you retire?

Spot on MrTPlush!!! Excellent idea to start a thread on little league coaching. I've been coaching my two oldest kids the last several years and took the jump to head coaching last year, which included All Stars for the oldest. I was hesitant because I thought I needed to wait until they got older but it was a lot of fun! If you have any specific questions, go ahead and shoot, I'd be glad to help the best I can. This will be a good place to come back to as the season gets going. As for videos to watch, I'd maybe start with the little league YouTube channel. They have a lot of basic how to videos on there. I've also found some good content from this page, but he has a lot of videos. There is so much online content and beliefs on how to do things that it can get confusing. https://www.youtube.com/@UltimateBaseballTraining/featured The biggest thing is there are going to be so many different skill levels in little league. Some kids at the kid pitch level will still not be able to catch a ball well, while others are starting to figure things out and need more detailed instruction. Last year was my oldest's first year of kid pitch. My middle son is going from rookie ball, which is machine pitch (they use a tee if they miss the first 3 times and everyone hits every inning, no rules or scoring because everyone scores every inning), to A ball which is machine pitch but they are playing baseball rules. Best of luck with coaching this year!

Can we run this back with a worst of list for each position? It would actually be very entertaining. Maybe you could have a minimum games played to qualify.

I think Chucky has to take over a bit and get shots/layups more down the stretch or in critical spots. He does it at times but other times seems to give the ball up too easily. Connor looks good and I can't wait to see what he becomes. I love Wahl but he struggled in the clutch. I hope that turns around as he gets more games under him from his injury.

What do you think is the biggest difference between the early season play and current play? I'm hopping they can get off this skid tonight and play well.

No Jeff Suppan? On a serious note, I thought Yo would be in the top 5 but I can see why he didn't make the cut. I too would have Sheets #2. I loved that guy and most importantly he was hilarious. Not sure how to make a stat for that but it should be factored in. Maybe there should be a list for top 5 fan favorites.

You bet. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

I've been a recruiter for 11 years now so I have a lot of experience with negotiating. I think it get's harder to counter after your initial counter, but it can be done. Let me ask you this, if they come back low are you ok with walking away? I think the strongest move you can make is respectfully saying something like "I want the job and I think I'd be a great fit with your company and team. If you can meet me at $____ I'd accept today and give my notice. If you can't go any higher, I understand. Financially it doesn't make sense for me at this amount, so I unfortunately would have to decline." Of course they still may walk away, but if it's close they may come back with the offer you want. I think you need to have the lowest number in your head that you're ok with. Make sure it's a number that won't leave you resentful down the road because you don't want to be in that type of position. In my opinion companies get to the point of "forget this guy" when a candidate is waffling or passively asking for more multiple times (for money or vacation, etc). I think if you're strong they will respect it and hopefully come up to what you are asking for. Again, please know that with this type of move you may lose the job. Having a job you know you'd love is worth a lot. So again, figure out what your low dollar amount is that still leaves you happy with the decision. If they can't meet that, I'd use a counter like I mentioned.

The email they sent to subscribers specifically said they're preserving the $65 price. Plus they're honoring the $15 discount for everyone on their next bill even though the channels were only gone for a day and a half. No price increase, riggggggght. Not today, but wait a month or two. I don't want to bring bad vibes to this thread, but I'm under the assumption that once streaming services become the go to for a majority of people, they will become the cable companies. Rates will continue to go up and I'm assuming customer service will start to go down. My guess is it will be just like DTV. Started out doing everything possible for its customers until they were big enough that they didn't have to anymore. The only hope I have is that because there aren't installs and equipment needed for their services, along with no contracts, they may keep prices somewhat lower than cable/dish, and customer service will still be key. Consolidation of services will be the biggest issue for customers as time goes on. That gives them too much power and the ability to do whatever they please. For the record, I love YTTV and their customer service has been amazing. I hope they continue to see how much that is appreciated.