pitchleague

Just a comment (or two) from another BF.net teacher/educator: 1. In 24 years, I think I have received only a handful of "gifts", and they were all fairly small, inexpensive items. It never has bothered me and I never expected anything. If I do receive something, it IS appreciated, though. 2. In 24 years, I have never--not one single time--had a three month vacation. EVERY summer (and I, literally, mean every summer) has been TWO months off of school--at the most. (We end in May, right before Memorial Day, and we go back to school at the end of July. It's an Arizona thing, I guess.) However, EVERY summer, I (and my wife) are taking classes (either online or in-person) for professional development, working on prep work for the upcoming school year (planning out the year, working on lesson plans, finding and researching classroom projects, etc.), and (mainly) doing a bit of decompressing because we can finally do some teaching work without the stress of dealing with students and parents. There is a huge misconception that teachers spend their summers at the beach, poolside, the golf course, etc. MOST teachers do exactly the same things that my wife and I do EVERY summer. (Yes, we aren't hedonists. We DO take a bit of R&R, too. But it's not much.) 3. I can't speak for other districts around the country, but our district pays us for our 10 months of work, while the up-to-two months of summer you are expected to have saved money from your paychecks (and the final balloon payment) to get you through the summer. You do NOT get paid for the summer months. Instead, you have to budget the money that you've earned. Overall, the salaries of teachers and the salaries of, for instance, a person who works a 9-5 office job, are pretty much similar. They get paid for 12 months; we get paid for 9 (or 10 in my case). But our paychecks may be slightly larger to offset the not getting income for 2-3 months. (Technically, the balloon payment on the last day of school is your 3-4 paychecks that you would normally receive over those 2 months, but smashed into one paycheck.) I don't know how much of any of this is common knowledge. I'm just letting you know how it is for me and my wife. Your results may vary (if you are also a teacher.)

I don't like it! (too soon?)

Your “F” comments made me laugh, so thanks for that

They cut to Cardinals-49ers here in Arizona, too. LUCKILY, I had Red Zone going on my tablet so I was able to see the winning kick "live." I know those casts that people do (I assume that was on Twitch) are very popular, but I don't get it. Watching a guy sit there and screaming and yelling? I do that myself, why would I want to watch someone else do it? It seems like watching a game would become secondary to watching him and what's the point of that? More power to him, I guess.

Yeah, yeah. Alabama lost. $10 says they drop to #5 (at worst). Whoopie. (Congrats to you, PinaMadness, though!)

Sounds dead there. Whether we’re batting or pitching. Disappointing to see / hear.

On the broadcast, they said Javier Baez was the last to steal home in a playoff game.

It was all pretty dang impressive. I never thought I'd see such a staff from a Milwaukee Brewers team in my lifetime. We've always been a team focused on hitting and power. So nice to see a change, for once.

I don’t have much to add but I do want to say thank you for the well-written post. And the paragraphs made it so much easier to read. There are so many posts here on the site that are probably very well-written, too. But I skip so many of them because they are just one giant lump of text with no paragraph structure. They are just so hard to read!! So, thank you! And your post was excellent and very informative.

We’ve already had issues here in our school/town. I heard that October’s challenge is “Slap a Staff Member.” *sigh* o-boy…..

It was said that the incident occurred at home, well after the celebration at the stadium.

We just can’t have nice things, can we? It’s ‘82 all over again…..

Yes. I realize that I have ended up pushing my own post. But I thought of this during the post-game stuff: I’d like to give mad props to Sophia for her professionalism and sheer joy working the clubhouse. And that smile!!! Whenever she got doused, that smile came through and just warmed my heart. It really made me appreciate her even more. Some might call her “just a journalist” but I could tell, she is a part of the team.

A bit off topic, but I’ve been struggling to find the video the Brewers made for the Uecker celebration yesterday. They said it was posted by Brewers Twitter, but all I could find were the little one minute snippets with Counsell, Attanasio, former players, and 50-plus year announcers. I wanted to see the vide narrated by Yount. Any help, fellow BF.betters?

I was thinking about this the other night: what if some of Yelich’s problem is because he feeds off of huge, raucous crowds, of which he hasn’t really had any of for two years? Some players have said that they thrive under those conditions. Maybe he’ll bust out in the post-season in these loud, tense ballparks like he did in 2018 and 2019 when the races were heated and the ballparks were packed. Ok, maybe this belongs more in the Optimism thread. Here’s hoping, though!

sixtofan, that was a very enlightening read. It just is really difficult to process it (and believe it) when your team is one of those that is having a tough time right before the playoffs, you know? [heck, the Brewer/Wisconsin Sports fan pessimism in all of us is probably saying something along the lines of, "Yeah, well, the Brewers will probably be one of those outlier exceptions to this study because, well, you know. . . Brewers.) I'm excited for the weekend. Heck, I think I saw there is a possible scenario out there that we could clinch Friday night! Go Brewers!

I don't know if people are aware of this or not, but professional sports team do create different "tiers" of rings. Players and top brass get the primo rings. And then the ring quality drops precipitously from there, all the way down to the ticket sellers. My cousin worked for the DBacks front office in 2001. He worked in media relations. He got a ring. It's pretty nice, but not even close to what the big-wigs got. I know another friend who worked in the ticket office. His ring is even more simplistic (think Green Bay Packers Super Bowl I ring.) I think it's great that teams do that. Are you referring to a different design altogether? I know they only do real diamonds and other gems for the players and top execs/owners, but I wasn’t aware they changed anything else with the ring. Even the rings without the real diamonds are a few hundred dollars apiece to purchase. Yes, I have seen three different designs (although they’re all similar-ish.) This was 2001, though, so things may be different now.

I don't know if people are aware of this or not, but professional sports team do create different "tiers" of rings. Players and top brass get the primo rings. And then the ring quality drops precipitously from there, all the way down to the ticket sellers. My cousin worked for the DBacks front office in 2001. He worked in media relations. He got a ring. It's pretty nice, but not even close to what the big-wigs got. I know another friend who worked in the ticket office. His ring is even more simplistic (think Green Bay Packers Super Bowl I ring.) I think it's great that teams do that.

Well done, my friend.

I feel that Topa has a lot of potential, but it seems (to me) that he is still struggling to “find it” after his injury woes last season and the recovery this season. He’s a back end guy for this season. A full off-season of rest could do wonders for him next year. As for you tonight’s appearance, I think I saw it coming from a mile away. He didn’t look sharp at all and seemed to have little control of where his pitches were going. The fact that Posey even got wood on that was remarkable. Just some poor luck for the Brewers of where it was hit.

MLB audio has now added an unskippable ad whenever you try to connect to a radio broadcast. When I start it up, I get the ad for some dog food thing. When I change to a different game I get the same 30 second unskippable ad for some dog food thing. If I try to switch to the Home feed or the road feed, I get the same dang ad. They need to fix this ASAP.

I'm driving up to Vegas today to attend Summer Slam with my brother. He is huge into wrestling, but I am not. I'm only going because his friend pffft-ed out on his ticket and my brother couldn't find anyone else to go. I'm happy to have some bonding time with my brother--lord knows he does things with me that he probably isn't all that thrilled about (based on the time he spends on his phone during those times) so I guess turnabout is fair play--but this is 5-6 hours of wrestling. I gotta imagine that I'll get bored after only 2 hours, but I'm trying to have an open mind about it and make it as fun as I can. I highly doubt that I'll become a full-time wrestling fan or anything, though. Hey, at least I get to check out the new football stadium!

huh, I always thought the easiest way to find out the magic number was to just let someone else do the work and then read about it in a thread like this.

The Red Sox had a 10-game lead over the Yankees in late July (the 23rd, maybe?). Guess who is in third place now? Yup, the Red Sox. It happens. Will it happen to the Brewers? Doubtful, to be sure. But certainly possible. And, for the record, I don’t believe they will. But it would be totally “Brewers” if they make things interesting.

Just something I thought of while laying in bed: After the 2018 season, Bryce Harper left the Nationals after being the teams hope and Savior for so many years. Once he was gone, the Nationals won the World Series that very next season. Ryan Braun left the Brewers following the 2020 season after being the team’s hope and Savior for so many years. You see where I’m going here?