Yankees - Dodgers World Series: Can we finally put to rest the bullshit Moneyball theory of baseball?

 Among all of the major sports, Baseball has resisted the idea that Superstars are not only a sufficient condition but, also a necessary condition to win a Championship.  We've been assured throughout our childhoods that how you play the game is the most important aspect and that a scrappy team of fighters can overcome the obstacles and win.  This is so much nonsense.

Moneyball caught everyone's attention, mainly when the Brad Pitt led film came out in 2010 but, also with the book in 2002.  And all the Sports Nerds who asserted that professional scouts, and baseball managers and general managers didn't know the game at a deep fundamental level were ignoring the Holy Algorithm first established by Bill James, and then expanded refined, reinvented by PECOTA, Sabermetrics, Wins Over Replacement, or On-Base+Slugging Plus or any of the cutesy, new fangled statistics and statical measurements which many people claim are the true measure of the player and of the game.

Well, it's all crap.  And it's always been crap.  You need Superstars to win in Baseball, and superstars cost money.  Look at these rosters for Dodgers and Yankees.  Aaron Judge and Juan Soto?  Shohei Otani and Freddie Freeman?  These teams aren't comprised of plucky, grit and gristle, hustle players but, with players who cost more by themselves than many other teams rosters.

This list of the Team salaries for 2024, shows the top 6 highest payrolls made the Playoffs and #2 and #5 made the World Series.  You can go back to 2011 and find this pattern every time, the highest payrolls make the Playoffs and one of them wins.  But, you might point out other teams with lower payrolls also made the playoffs; and yes some teams get there and get bounced and then their best players are cannibalized by the Dodgers or Yankees. 

What's the last team you can think of built not bought to make and win the World Series;  the Kansas City Royals of 2014 and 2015?  That team hit with players on the rookie deals who panned out and since then when those players left (for Big Contracts) the Royals haven't sniffed the Playoffs until this year with a new crop of players on rookie contracts playing well.

And that Moneyball team in 2010 movie didn't win because of David Justice or Scott Hatteberg even though those players performed well enough, or because of Billy Beane's savvy mathematical wizardry.  They had Miguel Tejada (131 RBI), Barry Zito (23wins), Jermaine Dye, and a young Eric Chavez.  None of whom were even mentioned once in the movie.

But, nobody wants to admit that money is more important in this game than the vaunted Sabermetrics and even more important than old head baseball man Ken Hawk Harrelson's "TWTW" The Will to Win...  because then everyone would understand that as long as there are rich teams and poor teams, the rich are going to dominant the Playoffs and World Series and undercut the Hollywood fantasy of a Bad News Bears scruffy team of misfits catching lightning in a bottle and banding together to win it all, and all the LIES and PROPAGANDA sold to the GenX and Millennial kids about the True Champions winning.

This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community. 
Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America,
and in America, you're on your own. 
America's not a country.
It's just a business. 
Now fucking pay me.

So enjoy this Dodgers/Yankees World Series with big name players but, don't fool yourself into believing anyone can build a team and win because it's like everything in America, as Brad Pitt (playing Billy Beane) said about America in Killing them Softly the Official/Unofficial sequel to Moneyball...

Fighting Joe Biden not so Sleepy State of the Union Rope-a-Dopes Republicans again

The choice between Battlin' Joe Biden and the Toxic Treasonous Predecessor remains absolutely clear and easy.

I'll be darned but President Joe Biden remains a force during these speeches and Major Traitor Greene and every Republican remains a classless piece of shit.

Fighting Joe delivered an absolute knock out State of the Union address.  A feisty engaged speech filled with concrete ideas and promises to fight the Republican forces of Fascism.

Again, Republicans have nothing to offer the American people.  Republicans have no policies, no political platform, no aspirations, no ideas.  Republicans stand for nothing.  Don't ever forget Republicans routinely take credit for Bills they vote against and deny culpability for the bigoted and hateful laws (IVF) they do pass. Mighty Joe Biden called them out on it again!

The Entire Republican Congress are naught but, trolls and hecklers.  They have no self-control and no decency.  It's the natural endpoint of 40 years of incestuous rightwing propaganda; Republicans have been sitting in their rightwing bubbles endlessly farting and then inhaling in each other’s farts. In fact, Republicans have been huffing their own farts for so long they believe their own agitprop about Biden’s age, as the GOP continues to engage in incestuous amplification.

Yet, Joe Biden is perfect at responding to this type of heckling and continues to get the better of them, even though he’s older and slower he still beats them. 

Contrast Joe's witty retorts and extemporaneous ad-libs as he's heckled with Trump's responses to interruptions during his fascist rallies.  When Trump is interrupted his brain ceases functioning, he stops, gets visibly angry, continues to sweat profusely, breathes hard, and yells to get them out of here like your angry Faux News watching Uncle gets when you interrupt their racist harangues. 

It's impressive.  Fighting Joe, the Delaware Dandy, the Son of Scranton, is a canny old fighter just out-boxing them over and over again.  Watching President Biden set-up obvious rhetorical traps and watching Republican howler monkeys simply start shouting and flinging shit at him and "I'll be darned..." if Fighting Joe didn't come out on top again.  And make no mistake, Republicans absolutely want to steal your Social Security, because Republicans hate you, they hate American, and the hate the American Dream of being able to retire and enjoy your golden years.

I wish President Biden could look over his long career and decide to hang'em up but, I know he sees what an existential threat to American Democracy MAGA is, and he can't sit on the sidelines and watch the Toxic Treasonous Predecessor destroy the United States.

Again, the choice is clear, simple, and easy;  either hand the Federal Government over to a gaggle of Nazis or bring Joe back for 4 more years of easily the best President of Joe Biden's long lifetime.

President Biden is correct. The Soul of America is a repudiation of everything Trump

President Joe Biden is a brilliant political tactician.  By isolating and identifying the MAGA Republicans as the rot inflecting the body politic, he's giving conservatives an out.  A way to escape the stronghold Traitor Trump has on the GOP and its lickspittle leadership.

It will infuriate the likes of Major Traitor Greene but, she's exactly the one who's aided terrorists and attempted to overthrow the US Government on January 6th.

I'm certain Twitter is a flame with livid Magats.  Denouncing President Biden.  Let's Going Brandon. Wallowing in their crocodile tears about civility and cloaking themselves in the mantle of false grievances, petulantly shouting, and making threats of violence.  As President Biden stated, "good manners is nothing they’ve ever suffered from."

(As an aside President Biden calmly talking through the Magats hootin' and hollerin', playing a megaphone siren and the "good manners" remark vs. Traitor Trump encouraging violence demonstrates the difference.)

But, If President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had done nothing since the 2020 election but slow the rising tide of Fascism coming from the MAGA Republicans his Presidency would have been a success, but, the legislation he's helped pass with the august guidance from Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Pelosi in the slenderly controlled Senate and House make his Presidency the best of this century and the best since FDR.

President Biden spoke to the Soul of the Nation.  The GOP Soul was consumed by Trump but, for many years Republicans set the table for a Trump to arrive.  President Biden laid it out clearly,

But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country. 

And I believe it is my duty — my duty to level with you, to tell the truth no matter how difficult, no matter how painful. 

And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution.  They do not believe in the rule of law.  They do not recognize the will of the people. 

The hard truth as President Biden stated MAGA Republicans don't believe in America;  Conservatives want to engage in political violence.  Conservatives love lies and hate America.  Conservatives yearn to destroy the United States of America and replace it with a simulacrum; a Reactionary Apartheid State of White Supremacy, Bigotry, and Fundamentalist Terrorism.

But, President Biden does believe in America.  He's doing a damn fine job as President.  I hope my fellow Americans can help him along the way.  Voting in the 2022 elections is just the first step.  There's a lot of work that needs to be done to repair the damage Trump and his cabal of grifters, sleaze buckets, thieves, and fanatics wrought.  Let's help President Biden along the way to reclaiming the Soul of the Nation.

The President's Problem

According to Franklin Graham is that he was born.

Graham is a leading white christian fascist. As such he ascribes to biblical thinking known today as unscientific, racist, bigoted and evil. Christian Fascism and Racism are rampant in the Conservative movement. Conservatives will never consider non-whites, non-Heteronormative, non-christians as Americans.


Police hating, Uber-Chicken Hawk, Christian Fascist Erick Erickson confirms the Conservative belief that only Whites are Americans, "What Franklin Graham said is dead on."

Hence they do not accept Obama's Presidency. He's illegitimate to them. But, it's more than just simple overt hatred of the black man. Now, of course, a vast block of Republican and conservative voting power comes from the uneducated pigfucking racist klansmen who don't have to go any further than President Obama's skin color to know that he ain't their President and he ain't a Real American. But, there is a near ineffable deeper IT that is driving the Tearrorists and White Christian Fascists who comprise conservatism and caues these pasty white flabby assed chicken hawks to play dress up and bandy about terms they have no inkling of and whose definitions they've gleamed from racist puffy anti-american, cowardly, chicken hawks like Sean Hannity and R. Limbaugh.

IT runs deep into the crevices of the warped illogical conservative brain. IT is a deep seated emotional hatred that is Conservatism.

And what the last two years have done is lay bare the Evil that is Conservatism. Conservatism is Terrorism, it's unthinking aggression, it's raw hatred of anyone who deviates from White Christian Fascism.

They Want Their Country Back! Conservatives want that Power back. The power to Oppress, Enslave and Murder.

And when their childish Ids are thwarted at the polls by Democracy; Conservatives are going to lash out with more violence, with more Glenn Beck inspired Terrorism. The Right are on the cusp of engaging in all out violence and bloodshed. The Conservative Christian Fascists are on the verge of starting another Civil War.

Updated:
Mark Hoback at Fried Green Al Qaeda argues Franklin Graham is telling mulsim fanatics that Obama is an Apostate and should be killed for leaving islam.

The word Assassin comes from Hassan i Sabah "The Old Man on the Mountain" who created and ran the Society of Assassins, during the Crusades. Sabah would recruit, indoctrinate, drug up and expose to all sorts of licentious pleasures young mulsim men and then send them on suicide assassin missions. Interestingly, these assassins were often recruited by the christian leaders of the Kingdoms of Outremer...

The Terrorists (The Republican Party) Are Winning

Counterinsurgency has taught us how to lose wars while rationalizing these losses as victories. The following is a COIN Leadership exercise -- a mirror and a Class A uniform are required. This is self-administered and can be conducted at any pace.
[1] Dress up in Class A uniform with all applicable awards, tabs and decorations.
[2] Stand in front of mirror. Be at ease.
[3] Breathe deeply while placing one hand on the Soldier's Creed and one over the Ranger's Creed.
[4] Look earnestly in the mirror and reflect upon your glory while reciting:

"I am a soldier of the United States of America."
"I am a member of an Army that hasn't lost a battle since 1950, but hasn't won a war since 1945." - Ranger Against War

I read the excellent Ranger because of his insight and experience something completely lacking from the 5 Deferment Dick Cheney and our current President.

Our response to Terrorist attacks gives them weight. I'm not advocating a turn-the-other-cheek response but what did Dick Cheney do after the worst attack occurred while he was in charge; Dick Cheney and the Republicans destroyed America.

It was the culmination of the Republican Party Platform. Evil Republicans, like Idaho Republican Rex Rammell, have always hated America and have worked ceaselessly to undercut and destroy every program designed to help Americans grow and prosper; because to Republicans Americans are chattel with the sole purpose of providing them with access and control of the American Government. Once in charge they use the power of Government to enrich themselves, their families and their Corporate Masters, for whom they do they bidding.

However, a slight glitch occurred as the American people, despite the Fox News efforts, began to turn and vote out the Republicans in 2006 and 2008. Despite the Punk Ass Bitch Chicken Hawk Cowards bellicose rhetoric that the deaths of thousands of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan were "worth it", Americans do not want to be sacrificed on the Altar of Republican Aggrandizement.

Frank Gaffney: "It is regrettable that they had to die, but I believe they did have to die."

However, the System (The Military Industrial Complex) rolls on, even with Obama as President and the Wars for Profit continued in Iraq and were expanded in Afghanistan.

But that isn't good enough for The Chicken Hawk Republicans. Those Punk Ass Bitches want and need to be in power actively murdering Americans for Money. Republicans love to see Americans die because it means they get campaign donations or lucrative jobs in the Defense Contractor or Defense Lobbying "industries". Industries which produce naught but Death and Destruction.

So, a one man operation has provided the REMFpublicans a chance to attack President Obama for being Weak on Terror. It being the Season of Joy and Peace and Forgiveness the Right Wing Extremists have embraced Hatred with Glee.

The Punk Ass Bitch Republican Party are actively aiding the Terrorists. Because they view them as another device to be used to win votes and regain power. And that's all they care about, they even say so publicly:

Allen Quist, a [Punk Ass Bitch] Republican who is seeking to defeat Rep. Tim Walz in southern Minnesota’s First Congressional District, told attendees of the Wabasha County Republicans Christmas Party in mid-December that beating the “radical” liberals in Washington, D.C., is a bigger battle than beating terrorism.

Republicans have one goal it's to regain the levers of power in Government, because what they do when in charge is use the power of Government to enrich themselves and kill people. That is the Republican Party Platform: Use Government to make themselves and their Corporate Masters Wealthy and Kill as many Americans as possible.