Signor Baseball's My God What Took You So Long, The Season Is More Than A Third Over 2024 MLB Preview

Well, it is easier this way. All those early season improbabilities--hot streaks and cold streaks--have played out. Things have settled down a bit and we can get down to the nutcracking.

AL East

Do the Yankees finally have enough pitching? Beats me. So far they do, but like every other team, they're a couple of strained tendons away from disaster. They certainly have enough bats. Boy, do they. Judge, Soto and Stanton are a modern Murderers Row. And they seem to be in a race to see who can hit the ball the hardest and the longest.

However, the Orioles, despite flaming out in the Playoffs last year, are still for real. So it looks like the race in the East will be neck and neck til October, with the runner up a lock for one of the Wild Card slots.

For the rest of the division, Toronto, Tampa, and Boston, mired around .500 as I write this, there is a chance to pick up one of the other Wild Cards, if only because they're all capable of winning more than they lose the rest of the way, and that puts them ahead of most of the rest of the AL. Also, they're all still good enough to screw up New York and/or Baltimore's season. 

AL Central

The White Sox are loathsome. Perhaps even historically bad. But besides the stench coming out of Chicago, this is a very competitive division--at least for now. Cleveland should win, but Kansas City and Minnesota are right there, and even Detroit could cause some problems.  Right around .500 might conceivably get a Wild Card slot. And we saw what can happen last year, if you can sneak into the playoffs. So, hope springs eternal for a bunch of fundamentally mediocre teams. Get hot at the right time and anything is possible.

AL West

The Athletics and Angels are bad teams--not White Sox bad--but plain ol' bad. This is what happens when you have garbage ownership (in both cases) and you lose your two best players to free agency and seemingly perpetual injury (in the Angels' case). It's hard for me to trust Seattle, based on them trading their closer last year while they were still in a pennant race. That's just odd. The Rangers don't look like defending champions--but there is a lot of time left for them to figure it out. And it's beginning to look like Houston's window has closed, at least for the time being. Again, it's possible for any team around .500 to have a shot at a Wild Card, which will make August and September very interesting.

NL East 

Right now, the Phillies have no apparent weaknesses. Injuries--and there are almost always injuries--could change that in a hurry. However, barring something truly catastrophic, they should win the East, with Atlanta right behind them and in line for a Wild Card. Washington and Miami are simply not good enough at this point. It's hard to believe that the Nationals were champions not that long ago. It's also hard to remember a championship team that was dismantled so rapidly. And the Marlins are, well, the Marlins...The Mets are a punchline. All that hedge fund money for this?! Might be time to sell off a few "assets" for prospects and magic beans.

NL Central

One kinda good team (Milwaukee) and four teams hovering around .500. Again, if one or more of the Cards, Cubs, Reds, and even the Pirates, gets hot at the right time...they could grab a Wild Card. I'm not sure what's happened to St. Louis--they used to be the class of this division year in and year out--but I bet it has something to do with Yadier Molina retiring. Chicago has some interesting pieces and Craig Counsell has won with much less. And both Cincy and Pittsburgh have exciting young players and two very nice ballparks. The ball parks will be around for many years, but the exciting young players will probably leave when their rookie deals are up. For now, enjoy! So, if the Brewers hit a rough spot, we could have a five team race right down to the finish line. Five fairly mediocre teams, but still it would be a lot of fun for their fans.

NL West

If the Dodgers don't win this division there ought to be a Congressional investigation. They are loaded. Every Ohtani at bat is a must see event. So it's strange that they aren't running away from three essentially average teams (and, of course, the Rockies who are a perennial punching bag). It's better to be 6 games ahead than 6 games behind, but with all that talent you would expect L.A. to have a double digit lead by now. The Padres, Giants, and Diamondbacks are in the same boat as every other .500 team--and boy, are there a lot of them. Get hot at the right time, sneak into the playoffs and hope that you can stay hot. Hey, it worked for the D-Backs last year...

Life On The Farm

You know, looking back, my favorite time on the family farm was when we rounded up all the "difficult" animals, put them in a ditch, and shot them. Good times!

Puppies, goats, whatever. Bang Bang Bang! I can still hear the screams, and it makes me feel...I don't know...wistfully nostalgic.

Because animals need to know that there are rules and these rules must be obeyed.

And there are consequences when they are not obeyed.

Sure, puppies can be boisterous. They can be hard to train. On our farm--on any real farm--there's just one way to deal with an uppity pup. Fuck 'em! Bang Bang Bang!

And don't even get me started about goats. I mean, why do we even have goats? You ever tried to train a goat?

Nope. In farm life you get one chance to do things correctly, and if you don't...BANG!

Incidentally, we used to do the same with our seasonal labor--when we were done with them, of course. It's much easier that way. No paperwork to fill out. No Big Government meddling. No complaints about working conditions or being underpaid. Just BANG!

You simply can't have chaos on the family farm. What if Kim Jong Un drops by? Or some other dictator you're trying to impress? No, you need to show strength. You need to show resolve. You need to show who's the boss. 

BANG!

I'm getting misty eyed just thinking about it.

Master Of Delusion

When I look in the mirror, I wonder "what happened to that handsome young man? Oh yeah, he got old."

When Donald J. Trump looks in the mirror he apparently sees a combination of Cary Grant, George Clooney, and Superman.

He truly believes that he is a ridiculously attractive, vital, sexy man. Indeed, a Love God. A hugely successful business man, the envy of all. So intelligent that he knows more about, well, everything, in every field, than all of those so called experts.

This is a level of delusion that is truly breathtaking.

And all of his remaining supporters, the dead-enders if you will, must see the same thing.

Their level of delusion is also truly breathtaking. And by now it's painfully obvious that there is nothing that can be done about it. We will just have to be patient and let them all die out. And they will, either by avoiding vaccines, road rage, alcoholism, opioid abuse, playing too much with their bang-bangs, or just a backup of bile.

Back here in the real world, the relatively sane world, we see a morbidly obese grifter, in a badly fitting suit, with a clownishly long tie, and wearing more makeup than many drag queens, selling bibles, trading cards, anything he can think of, to the drooling simpletons that worship him. A lifetime con man criminal who has cheated everyone he ever did business with, blown through his father's fortune, gone bankrupt many times, and bows down before any strongman "Daddy" he comes close to. I guess the members of his cult need a "Daddy", too.

Hey, now here's an idea! 

Trump Mirrors! 

Look into them and see what you want to see!

Look into them and be what you want to be!

It's all a delusion anyway, so why not?

And here's the catch phrase:

Trump Mirrors: To Hell With Reality

A Field Guide To Spotting Traitors

This used to be a lot harder.

In some cases, it might take years to figure out who the traitors were. 

The Cambridge 5, for instance, got away with all sorts of treasonous shit for decades.

But now, just look for the people with an "R" next to their names.*

It's just that simple.

* the "R" stands for Russia.

TOP SECRET: NSA Phone Intercept. 1.7.24 Moscow Station

(VP Kremlin direct line rings. Recording begins)

VP: Da?

DJT: Boss it's me.

VP: Who is "me"?

DJT: Donald

VP: (silence)

DJT: Your boy. Donald.

VP: I don't, uh, I don't recall any Donalds. You must have wrong number.

( call disconnects)

(VP Kremlin direct line rings)

VP: Hello?

DJT: Boss, we had a deal.

VP: Deal? 

DJT: Yes. Yes deal--

VP: What is this deal you say we had? 

DJT: You know, uh, our deal.

VP: No idea what you're talking about.

DJT: Boss, that's not funny.

VP: You know what's not funny? I will tell you. I put a lot of money into you and all your little friends over there. And what do I have to show for it? I will tell you. I have Ukrainian drones blowing up a lot of my stuff. I have sanctions freezing my money and my friends' money. I have NATO expanding while my armies are contracting, one corpse at a time. All in all I have royal pain in my ass.That's what I have to show for "our" deal.

DJT: But-

VP: I tell you, at this point all I can do for you is send some of my Mama's special tea. Old Russian recipe. Sip to your health.

DJT: But-

VP: Das vedanya.

DJT: (unintelligible)

VP: Bye bye.

(call ends)

(recording ends)

Henry Kissinger Was A War Criminal

That's it.

That's all.

Take your realpolitik and shove it up your ass.

Burn in Hell.

Punching Down

You can learn a lot about people by who they choose to attack.

For instance, Republicans always go after minorities.

ALWAYS.

Never powerful people. People able to strike back. People with deep enough pockets to defend themselves.

No. In fact they grovel before wealth.

Republicans much prefer attacking relatively powerless people.

Black people. Brown people. Young people. Gay people. Transgender people. Muslim people. Pick a minority and the Republicans will eventually attack it.

The only exception to this that I can think of is Jewish people.

Republicans don't generally attack Jewish people. (George Soros being a notable exception.) Mind you, this isn't because there isn't a rich strain of antisemitism running through The Big Tent. Always has been, always will be. No, it's just because there are enough wealthy Jews willing and able to hit back.

And when you punch back at a Republican, they generally run away with their tails between their legs.

They even attack women.

Of course this is because they're so fucking stupid that they think that women are a minority.

And just because most Republican women are content being breeding stock, they think that all women should be content being breeding stock.  

So they were shocked, shocked by the backlash against the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. 

They finally got what they've dreamt about all these years, and quelle surprise, a large majority of Americans are pissed at them.

Good. Let them squirm and dissemble. Let them spew their States' Rights bullshit. Let them try to walk it back.

After years of making punching down a key part of their policy, they've picked a fight they cannot win.