Magnetic Curses

No kidding. Me too. I told Hendry today that he'll have the Baseball Prospectus writers on his speed dial pretty soon. This is culture shock. Does Jim even know walks are a good thing? after being so vehemently against hendry's lack of love for the base on balls, i've grown to believe that he is at least partially right in a sense: walks are generally a symptom of being a good hitter. you can't really teach a hitter to be patient if he isn't already. when someone's isod goes up with age, it generally means that more and more pitchers are growing to respect his bat. you can teach a young hitter some tricks regarding pitch recognition, but if his core processor isn't fast enough, there's no way that having him attempt to shrink his strike zone will net positive results. it will probably just end up ruining a perfectly serviceable baseball player. great hitters walk a lot because they get pitched around. Yeah that is true, I think the big thing that was working against Jim in many of our minds was the manager he hired hated walks. very true.

No kidding. Me too. I told Hendry today that he'll have the Baseball Prospectus writers on his speed dial pretty soon. This is culture shock. Does Jim even know walks are a good thing? after being so vehemently against hendry's lack of love for the base on balls, i've grown to believe that he is at least partially right in a sense: walks are generally a symptom of being a good hitter. you can't really teach a hitter to be patient if he isn't already. when someone's isod goes up with age, it generally means that more and more pitchers are growing to respect his bat. you can teach a young hitter some tricks regarding pitch recognition, but if his core processor isn't fast enough, there's no way that having him attempt to shrink his strike zone will net positive results. it will probably just end up ruining a perfectly serviceable baseball player. great hitters walk a lot because they get pitched around.

lilly is too highly paid to go to the bullpen. the organization will give him every single chance in the book to work through this. quite frankly, i agree with them

i disagree. telling people that they shouldn't be offended by something clearly offensive and based upon an offensive stereotype is tantamount to telling black people that they cannot be victims of racism because it doesn't exist. I'm not even saying people can't be offended by this, just that expressions of outrage aren't useful on this, especially when they aren't genuine. Let's face it, when you are threatening violence against large numbers of people for wearing offensive t-shirts, you are putting on an act or you are imbalanced. Every time something offensive (though not always consequential) happens, people feel a need to take their reaction to extremes to demonstrate how much they are offended. When the story about the Yale art student hit, people wished she would be barren. Everytime some perverted criminal commits a horrendous act, people talk about sending him to jail to be repeatedly anally raped. This acting is not helpful. There is still damaging racism in our society. If you want to combat it, do that instead of making a big deal over an idiotic but ultimately unimportant racist t-shirt. i didn't say anything about people being offended to the point of violence. i didn't know that that was the case. in the case of threats of violence, i'd say those people are much more likely to be unbalanced than faking. you simply cannot tell people that they aren't offended by something.

i disagree. telling people that they shouldn't be offended by something clearly offensive and based upon an offensive stereotype is tantamount to telling black people that they cannot be victims of racism because it doesn't exist.

Nope, this is unrelated to that. People who are actual victims of racism have a valid complaint. Neither you nor I nor anyone on this board is being victimized by the idiots selling these t-shirts. we have what is generally referred to as a slippery slope, here, don't we? I think the difference between t-shirts, and for example, voter suppression, isn't too complicated. Not to say that ethics and race are simple, but on a practical level, we can usually make these distinctions, can't we? On the other hand, the slippery slope argument can be used the other way. I'm loathe to do that, because it can be used for just about any issue, so you pretty much have to deal with it regardless, unless you adopt absolutes. an assumption that people are faking their outrage at such an image is born from the same mentality that causes people to accuse outspoken racism victims of playing the race card. that is my point.

I know I'm playing semantics, but it isn't racist. It's stereotypical and insensitive, but it doesn't espouse the idea that races have different abilities and some races are more valuable than others. xenophobic, maybe?

So we can't be offended, disgusted or complain about these people because they aren't being racist to us? That's ridiculous. You can do whatever you like. If you want to post angry messages on an internet forum about these guys, go right ahead. I just think that to some extent, the offense is not completely genuine. Sometimes it really is, and that is fine. But to some extent, the responses are often conditioned by expectations, as people want to seem properly outraged at something socially unacceptable. And then there are the people who feel it necessary to compete to show how much more outraged they are than everybody else. All that outrage makes talking about race calmly more difficult, which is not a good thing. your views are intriguing to me and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Nope, this is unrelated to that. People who are actual victims of racism have a valid complaint. Neither you nor I nor anyone on this board is being victimized by the idiots selling these t-shirts. we have what is generally referred to as a slippery slope, here, don't we?

I find this pretty stupid and unfunny, but I can think of things that are worse. I wish people would have a little more respect for other cultures and just not buy them, though. (Not aimed at snoodmonger) Not quite as unfunny as the shirts themselves are all the pompous or downright violent reactions provoked by them. Faux outrage is not awesome. I'm not crazy about real outrage either when it is a reaction to t-shirts. so, you're accusing people of lying when they say they're offended? yeah, i hate those a-holes who are offended by racism, they make me want to just puke. Not lying, just exaggerating for show. that's just dumb. it's this type of thinking that allows any victim of racism to be accused of playing the race card. medgar evers, harry moore, addie may collins, martin luther king. dead, or just playing the race card? by which i mean "exaggerating for show".

I find this pretty stupid and unfunny, but I can think of things that are worse. I wish people would have a little more respect for other cultures and just not buy them, though. (Not aimed at snoodmonger) Not quite as unfunny as the shirts themselves are all the pompous or downright violent reactions provoked by them. Faux outrage is not awesome. I'm not crazy about real outrage either when it is a reaction to t-shirts. so, you're accusing people of lying when they say they're offended? yeah, i hate those a-holes who are offended by racism, they make me want to just puke.

Maybe so, but the guy was selling Cub merchandise without the organization permission, not to mention alot of fans found it offensive. I mean the vendor said it was his highest selling shirt, which means there are alot of people who didn't find it offensive. But there were prolly as many, or more people who found it offensive, thus they call the Cubs org, and the org decide to confront the vendor, and forced him to stop selling the shirt. I don't found it offensive, a lack of taste, sure, but offensive no. Would I buy it? No. I haven't seen the shirt, but it sounds more like a really bad attempt at making money off being cute/funny than actual racism. how is that cute? i know it's hilarious but it's still racist.

Oh, I agree. A lot of the behavior out there is embarrassing, and should be fixed. But to say that is emblematic of most Cubs fan's behavior is ridiculous. imagine if yankee fans had no titles in the last 100 years.

i still don't get how brennaman goes from the fans to "the cubs will never win because they are the cubs". it doesn't make sense. if you want to pile on the fans, fine, but i don't understand how that has anything to do with the cubs losing because "they are the cubs". brantley actually stayed away from the cub fan bashing, simply poking fun of the goat superstitions.

Yep, that's right. just checking.

the fact that he's black is relatively meaningless. it's simply what he said that got him flamed, not how he posted it. i doubt he gets crap if he agrees that racism doesn't exist and never has in any way shape or form.

This is going to be so much fun on "Da Lounge". shouldn't you be sleeping on your bed of money with many beautiful women?

haha, black people have a history of having more rights than white people in this country. it's not fair i tell ya.

why do you care so much about grammar all of the sudden? You're a funny guy sometimes. but why do you care so much about grammar all of the sudden? you never have before. i mean, the post was fairly innocuous, hardly worthy of such a flame. perhaps he just should have reiterated the idea that the only racism that exists is reverse racism. maybe then he would have received a warm reception, huh?

why do you care so much about grammar all of the sudden?

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/5540/grammarkv8.gif what's your point?

Me too. I doubt there was a bigger Patterson supporter on here when he was a cub. I dunno, there was that one REALLY fat guy. I remember him: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v386/edstevensiscool/4234.jpg yay! i miss that little guy. little? yeah, he's a littyle kid. lot's of kids are fat, i've seen way fatter.

Me too. I doubt there was a bigger Patterson supporter on here when he was a cub. I dunno, there was that one REALLY fat guy. I remember him: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v386/edstevensiscool/4234.jpg yay! i miss that little guy.

corey is what he is. he'll hit for power and he's fast, but he'll never be very patient unless he can maintain his power numbers over an extended period of time.

that reds team is very patient, but dusty has only been on the job a short while. a manager only has so much influence over the short-term upon his players individual habits. but i have no doubt hat you will see a decline in walks. swinging at first pitches i have no problem with, as long as his players aren't just trying to put the ball in play.