forced jab?

 https://x.com/i/status/1794914100365111425

playing their home games outside of the city in their name

 There are currently ten NFL teams playing their home games outside of the city in their name.

1. The Los Angeles Rams and Chargers play in Inglewood, CA.
2. The New York Giants and Jets play in East Rutherford, NJ.
3. The San Francisco 49ers play in Santa Clara, CA.
4. The Las Vegas Raiders play in Paradise, NV. (Fun fact, the Las Vegas Strip is not in Las Vegas, but in a pair of unincorporated towns called Paradise and Winchester.)
5. The Dallas Cowboys play in Arlington, TX.
6. The Washington Football Team plays in Landover, MD.
7. The Miami Dolphins play in Miami Gardens, FL.
8. The Buffalo Bills play in Orchard Park, NY

There are also six teams who have a state or region in their name instead of the city. That means there are 16 NFL teams playing their home games in the city in their name.

had the dodgers stayed

 Here's some material for the argument that moving to LA wouldn't have been any more profitable than staying in New York City. LA Dodgers are valued now at $4 billion, 2nd place of all teams. But historic teams Red Sox and the Cubs are also around 4 billion. In 6th place is the Mets at 2.5 billion. So I see no reason that the Dodgers had they stayed in a city of 8 million couldn't be 4 billion too when Chicago with 2.5 million and another team are worth 4. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2022/03/24/baseballs-most-valuable-teams-2022-yankees-hit-6-billion-as-new-cba-creates-new-revenue-streams/?sh=7e2e4b33600a

Requirement to live in EY?

RZs never shut up about this and each time they spin their yarn they act is if they are revealing the most profound truths that all ignorant people miss. The Ramban himself didn't move to EY until the last 2 years of his life. You can argue that it was easier to live in EY then. The country wasn't under the power of heretics. It wasn't populated by screaming lunatics who have no derech eretz. Dwellings didn't go for 3 million shekels or 40 years of income. There was no compulsory draft into the brainwashing abuse machine that some insist on calling the IDF. Was Persia building a nuclear bomb in the Ramban's day? Would the Ramban ever have moved to such a country? I tend to doubt it. Isn't it ironic that the book that RZ ideologues wave around to argue with Reb Moshe, asserting that EY is safe now, was written by a man who was killed by terrorists? And how about the whole issue of ascending like a wall and rebelling against the nations, you know, the 3 oaths. If everybody moves to EY, isn't that ascending like a wall? Isn't joining a military that has had conflict for 70 straight years taking the land by force? They think this is a simple subject and just can't imagine why most people ignore them. That's because the RZ ideologues are simpletons. They don't care about derech eretz. They don't care about mental health. They aren't bothered by the giva that dominates Israeli society because they themselves are so arrogant. They want to have a country like the nations do. That's all. It's one big egofest. 

Stan vs. Ted

On Base Percentage

Stan Musial – .417
Ted Williams – .482 (MLB Record)

Slugging Percentage

Stan Musial – .559
Ted Williams – .634 

Chris Russo and Ted Williams

 

Chris Russo said about Ted Williams – who he called an immortal – that he was a bit too caught up in the science of hitting and wouldn’t swing at a ball slightly off the plate with two strikes in the ninth of a big game. He’d take the walk. 

I think this criticism is misplaced. Hitting a baseball is the most difficult of tasks in sport. Since the ball is coming in at 95 mph, it requires trained reflexes. There’s no time to think. Ted had a .482 on base % because he was so disciplined. He had a slugging % of .634 because he was disciplined about which pitches to swing at in the string zone. When asked about not adjusting to the Ted Williams shift, he said that he didn’t want to pick up bad habits. Here too, if he swung at the pitch that was outside the plate, he might pick up bad habits. 

You can’t question a man with an OPS of 1.116. He knew what he was doing. 

Also, as for his being a pain in the neck (another comment of chris) that was only with reporters, not with teammates. He was the life of the clubhouse, big personality as we know.

 

 

The short and long of Cinema Paradiso

The cut original release version of Cinema Paradiso is an engaging film about the endearing relationship between an old man and a boy, the joy of cinema, and a charming Sicilian village full of amusing characters. We have seen films like this before, both of quaint villages and friendships between the old and young. 3 1/2 stars for being a very good one in those genres. However, the uncut director’s edition is a classic, one of the finest films ever made. 4 stars and more.

So what did they cut out upon the orders of one Harvey Feinstein? They cut out the complexity of the relationship between the man and the boy, the darker side of Alfredo, and the resolution of the heart wrenching love story between Salvatore and Elana. With the full version, Alfredo goes from kindly older friend to a flawed individual who projects his own ambitions onto Salvatore. We thought of him as wise, but to some extent he really was as Salvatore said “a madman.” His own cynicism about romantic love decided the boy’s future. The man lied about Elena trying to meet with Salvatore against the wishes of her parents. Who is he to lie? Is a career as a film director really worth more than love between a man and a woman? Who is to say? The full film leaves that as a question. We don’t have an answer. We see the pain it caused. The film career was a shot in the dark. The love was here and now. I think it’s reprehensible what Alfredo and the parents did. True love is rare, but it does happen. We see that Salvatore pined for this woman all his life.

And we see that when they met up again, the chemistry was as powerful as when they were young. This time it was based on more than beauty. These two clicked, two classy, mature individuals. What a love they could have had. But is that how it would have played out? Who knows? And that’s the stuff of a great film. It leaves us with questions. With the director’s cut, we think about the ideas of the film after it’s over. With the edited version, we remember it’s charm.

I saw the cut version in the theater decades ago. I wondered, what happened to Elena? The film spent 40 of the first 120 minutes on their romantic engagement, both his meeting her, pining for her, and briefly getting her. It was the most intense part of the film. You need to resolve it. In life, you don’t always get to. But art is artifice. You can do what you want. The resolution is 15 minutes long. Why is that what you’d cut out?  There are plenty of other scenes that could have ending up on the floor. Were the sex scenes really necessary, like the numerous ones of prostitutes and the one of boys masturbating in the theater to images of Bridge Bardot?

Did Weinstein make the call? I have heard that as producer he ordered the film to be shortened, but did he pick this part of shorten? We see from his conviction decades later on charges of sexual assault in the first degree and rape in the third degree that he probably didn’t relate so well to love. Rather, he might have preferred scenes about prostitution and masturbation. I want to know. Who chose to turn this film from a classic to 3 ½ stars.

We are so glad they released the full film. We waited as long to find out what happened to Elena as Salvatore did. The reunion scene with the recently deceased French actor Jacques Perrin and Brigitte Fossey is so superbly acted. I imagine their disappointment when the original was released, particularly Brigitte’s since she only appears in the reunion scene. Find me a more powerful scene in all of cinema. I have watched it 25 times.

Classic.