Brock Beauchamp

Just pretend Spring Training stats don't exist. You'll be happier for it.

Wow, what a slimeball move by MLB. There's no excuse for this kind of blatant money-grubbing.

I have no idea how to feel about this. I'm glad it's over with but it feels like justice may have fallen a bit short here. Hopefully MLB did their due diligence (from what I know, it appears they did) and came to the right conclusion.

Fair enough. I'm not trying to diminish what was done to Asians, particularly the Chinese, I'm only pointing out that (as you said) the eras were different (black people were brought over much earlier, in larger numbers, and there was were many more laws systemically put in place to keep them as an underclass, if not outright slaves) and that, maybe in part to the differences in eras, that mistreatment of Asians largely dissipated in time while the oppression of the black community was still enshrined in actual law just 55 years ago. My own father was in his mid-20s when the final blow was struck against Jim Crow. It's kind of hard for me to wrap my head around that last statement, actually. Wow. What a depressing thing to say.

I have an email out to our ad networks re: this problem. Hopefully, they will resolve it ASAP.

I saw one this morning but couldn't capture the domain origin. If I see it again, I'll get it blocked. Also, any time you see this stuff, PM me directly or post in the Minncentric forum. You can also email me at brock@twinsdaily.com.

Yeah, huskies are nightmares. My wife had two of them and while she loved the dogs, they were exhausting. I'm not trying to be mean to shepards, as they can be great dogs. They're smart, loyal, and energetic... but lots of them need to work. And all the lunatic shepards I've met are dogs that badly wanted to work but didn't have anything to do. And a dog in that situation slowly becomes less and less manageable. They're good-tempered (mostly) and extremely trainable but if the effort isn't put in on a shepard, it can be a pretty miserable dog to own.

Yep and yep. I had a slight preference for Cobb but at that price, Lynn is the no-brainer.

Yeah, gotta know your dog. I let my dog out to run around the backyard all the time but she's kind of an idiot. Her life goal is to run around without purpose and woof at squirrels that enter her line of sight. She could clear the fence without a thought but somehow hasn't learned that she's capable of leaping. She's real dumb. I like dogs that are real dumb. They're easier to manage.

Eh, I'd call him "bad". He was absolutely brutal in 2016 but outside of that one season, he's just been bad.

Yep, it entirely depends on the family and how they raise the dog. I'm not condemning Shepards, they're very sweet dogs, but they're often a nightmare for people who aren't ready to own a German Shepard. It's almost never the dog's fault. It's almost always the owner's fault if a dog is a mess. The three most psychotic dogs I've ever known were Shepards owned by three different people. I did not and do not blame the dog for their psychosis. That's on the owner.

In my experience, that statement is nearly universal for urban-owned Shepards. They're not a dog you should keep in the city unless you're a fanatic runner, hiker, etc. Those dogs have more energy than 20 five year olds hopped up on sugar and they're smarter than your typical five year old. Great dogs if the owner knows how to manage them but all too often, an absolute terror in the typical household.

Not in the long-term, no, but I don't see him sticking with Cincinnati and wasting a bunch of time in the process. I'm not saying he won't LOVE that $500k but, again, I just wish he'd get a legitimate shot at playing on a regular basis.

Agreed on kids and a good point to raise that I forgot to mention. I say that about labs because I've been around them quite a bit in my life. They're definitely moderate energy early in their lives but seem to settle down much more quickly than, say, a German Shepard (which are absolute terrors in multiple ways... way too eager, smart, and energetic for most households). You definitely need to exercise labs early in their lives, maybe I didn't stress that enough, but in my experience they settle into being pretty docile animals pretty quickly (3-4 years). Pitbulls definitely have an unfair reputation but they are naturally slightly more aggressive dogs (which is probably why they're owned by such *******s who help give them a bad reputation). I don't mean to disparage pits - we considered rescuing one if a lab didn't come available in a reasonable timeline - but a person probably shouldn't go out and just get a pit without reading up and focusing on training them properly. It's not hard to do and every pit I've known owned by a responsible dog person has been a *fantastic* dog but I don't think they're a dog you just buy and let it ride. But I'm super-critical of how people choose dogs in the first place. More than anything else, it's necessary to take a good, hard look at your life and choose the breed that fits your lifestyle because few things piss me off more than people who go out and get a dog because it's "cute" or their favorite character on TV has one; more likely than not, the dumb bastard who does that ends up with a husky or dalmation and the dog isn't living the life it naturally wants to lead. It's so unfair to the animal and so selfish of the human to inflict that upon an animal that has natural instincts that need to be filled in some capacity.

Dunno about this. I just heard an NPR interviewee refer to a Trump policy as "insane". IMO, they give a pretty balanced viewpoint that focuses more on policy than the typical Trump hysteria found elsewhere. Because if you only deal with the hysteria, it's pretty hard to actually inform your listeners. To some extent, you need to normalize Trump just to stay on topic; otherwise, you'd spent 75% of your time commenting on shenanigans that distract from the actual impact of those shenanigans. There are hundreds of sources available to me if I want to read/hear about how Trump is just the worst. I'd much rather hear about what he's actually doing and make that decision for myself.

I really hate the waiver system. Vargas is a terrible fit for the Reds. He'd be better off in Rochester because if he gets the call to Minnesota, at least he'd get playing time. I really wanted to see him land somewhere he'd get a real shot at playing multiple times a week.

This is basically what we did with our rescue lab mix (lab + something, probably some kind of pointer hunting dog). We did strict crate training for awhile, then moved her to the kitchen outside the crate... but after about a year, we started getting lazy with the kitchen and the dog just settled into the house. She's now three years old and has messed in the house twice in the past 18 months; both times were due to our extreme inattentiveness and overnight when poor little doggy had her legs crossed but we didn't wake up and let her out.

First, congratulations on a dog! Second, congratulations on choosing the right dog! Far too often I see people choose the dog they want and not the dog that's best for their life. A lab is possibly the most flexible breed; they love to play and romp around for a few years but slow down pretty quickly and become affable big ol' lumps of fur if you're not able to keep them exercised as often as you should. One thing I advise is that if you live in an urban area, get that dog out to the dog park regularly once he's big enough to go. Dogs need to be exposed to other dogs to learn how to socialize and not freak out whenever a strange dog is present. Go at least a couple of times per week but consider starting during slow times at the park so the puppers isn't overwhelmed by a horde of much larger dogs who will swarm any new animal. Once the little guy gets used to the atmosphere of the park where he'll meet all his newest, bestest friends, you can take him to the park any time and he should be fine. And do the same for kids, even if you don't plan to have any yourself. Luckily, you're working with a lab so like socializing with other dogs, normalizing kids with the dog is an easy task. It's a bit more challenging with something like a pitbull (great dogs but naturally more dog- and kid-aggressive... not a problem if you take care of it early, though, it just requires a bit more concentrated work to get there). Children move very differently than adults and it freaks out a lot of dogs. Kids are all arms and legs flailing without the fine motor control and it can put a dog on edge. Dogs rarely bite out of anger, far more often it's entirely fear-based and a response to perceived danger. If you expose the dog to kids at a young age and get them used to the weird movements and let them realize that kids are just harmless playthings that will romp around with the animal, it'll chill out and probably be okay with even the most unruly kids it may come across in its life.

Eh, it doesn't matter. One rainout changes everything. Besides, if Lynn can wrap up two wins against bad-but-not-awful teams, I'll take it.

No, the father section of the article clearly shows that there are issues that extend past pure racism (though, IMO, most of the issues have clearly racist roots and/or influences, such as the imprisonment rate being a contributor to the lack of neighborhood fathers). The entire thing is a spider web but I think "Racism" is the center of that web. That doesn't mean racism is entire reason for the rest of the web, but it's influencing everything in one way or another.

I don't care for Hughes in the rotation to start the season but I'll tolerate it if he has a *very* quick hook and they leverage the opening series' on/off silliness to make sure he barely pitches.

Yeah, exactly. When it comes to Native Americans or black people, you won't hear white people describe them as "hard-working", "good at math", "quiet", or other positive/neutral traits. Almost universally, the stereotypes would be far more negative.

It's disappointing that Gibson lines up for the home opener but only from a spectator standpoint. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter one bit.

I never said white society wasn't ugly toward other races but they only erased the identity of and permanently relocated two races: Africans and Native Americans. Unsurprisingly, those two races are the worst off in modern America. Their cultural dissection was very intentional and systematic; very different than the examples of mob violence or typical "immigrant hate" you listed above. Jim Crow wasn't only mob violence, it was a set of laws targeted to continue the oppression of a set of people and they lasted damned near a century. The Japanese camps were certainly a blight on our history and a terrible act but it was temporary and lasted only half a decade; we were at war with their ancestral home and as a nation we regretted the decision almost immediately. There's no comparison to be found in what we did to other races. If we handled the Japanese the same way we did the Native Americans, for example, we would have marched the Japanese 1,000 miles to the camps, starved half of them on the way, also rounded up the Chinese who didn't do a damned thing and were on our side in the war, and maybe handed out smallpox blankets to the Koreans just to see what would happen.