biggentleben

Scott Frost

Not sure if anyone is watching the re-boot of Firing Line on PBS, but they had Ben Sasse of Nebraska on this week. I enjoyed his discussion. After the past two guests made me question humanity, Sasse was a nice reality break.

No one said they're not using their 85. However, there are 112 listed on their roster page currently.

I did not say never. It happens for many, though. Depending on the school, depending on the player's entry to the University, depending on so many things. For instance, I was walking on, without scholarship, and when offered scholarship, before eye surgery that same week ended that, that scholarship would have been for the fall semester of that year only, renewable in the spring. When my surgery didn't heal right and football was no longer an option, there was nothing there for me. A couple coaches provided kind invites to games along with the team, but the team officially had nothing more to do with me once I had the surgery. For most of those guys who are inspirational stories and get the t-shirt with their scholarship offer printed on it or other such things, they are also on a time-limited scholarship. Each scholarship also contains certain out clauses that allows the school to end the scholarship in the case of injury.

Some of them. While it's fun to see the awarded scholarship moments in a spring ball ceremony, there are many different types of scholarship levels a college athlete receives. For instance, nearly no college baseball player at the U of M is on full-ride. Football has a lot less full-ride scholarships as well because Minnesota values hockey and basketball more. That stuff all does matter. Not every player is getting a free education, and none of them has any free education the moment that they're no longer able to play the game.

As someone who has put on the pads, these are not grown men. No more than any college freshman is a grown man. They're also not part of any industry. They're pawns for an industry that makes billions of dollars off of their bodies, their minds, and their failures. Tens of thousands of players strapped up to play college football across this country last year. Roughly 300 were drafted or signed as an undrafted free agent into the NFL in April. Those are the 1% of all college football players who will even have a training camp at the next level, let alone play at that level. The players receive no benefit from the industry. When I played, over half of the team qualified for scholarships on their own merits coming out of high school, so trying to sell the "free education" is bull, especially when that education is not extended to the athlete when he/she leaves their chosen sport due to injury or pursuit of a professional career in that sport. To put it more clearly - if right now Annexstad said "F- you, Fleck, I'm out of here." He has no choices for another school in any FBS or now FCS school with new added regulations if he wants to be able to play in the 2019 season. He could pursue lesser competition for one season and then come back up for one season, but he doesn't get the ability to move. On the other hand, if Minnesota tells Fleck the same thing at the end of the season, they are on the hook for the rest of his contract, and he can pursue a job at any school he wants while still being paid the rest of his contract by Minnesota. The industry has nothing to do with the players on the field. You want to rip on the coaching, go right ahead, but click into the young men on the field, and that's where you'll get a big charge from me. Those guys are indentured servants, not "part" of anything profited from their actions on the field.

It started in spring training that year. Deion would get the chant blared on speakers during spring training games. Fans that were at spring training began the chant during games in the regular season and it slowly caught on during the year.

Many Braves fans are not fans either. However, it was brought over initially by Deion Sanders from Florida State, and FSU has worked with the Seminole tribe closely on all things around the team. The tribe endorses and possibly even initiated the chant. However, bringing it to the Braves is not the same environment, and while using it with Deion was one thing, many fans were good with it going away as Deion did...

He's also done some things to change his pitching approach on the mound. I had a scout say if he were using the 20 to 80 model on Sanchez, he has 3 pitches in the 60+ range, and none of those is his fastball,

*raises hand*

Sadly, he's right, but the Braves checked all the boxes to keep their draft pick and avoid losing this grievance.

Not surprised at all to hear the Dodgers featuring prominently in this. The folks that I talk with that do extensive work in Latin America scouting have mentioned how Latin America is controlled by four teams - the Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, and Rangers. Those four had most of the major buscones either on payroll or with very distinct handshake agreements. When a team came into the Latin American game making noise, they were knocked down. Heavy word that I've had from more than one person is that the Red Sox investigation was keyed by Cubs representatives in the region. Only heard Dodgers from one person, but multiple people have said the Yankees reps in Latin America were a driving force behind the Braves investigation last year. Basically, any team that's signed an international player is dirty to some degree in that market, as far as letter of the law is concerned. The question will be whether they pursue MLB as a whole or particular teams individually. I attempted to utilize a mutual connection to set up an interview with John Coppollela this past spring, and the response I got was that he could do the interview, but he could not discuss anything involving his time in baseball due to pending litigation. Now he's among multiple former Braves employees who have already given written responses to this investigation. For his case, I hope Coppy sees Hart and Schuerholz get theirs, perhaps getting MLB to reconsider their lifetime ban. It continues to blow me away that a guy who wasn't given full GM control in his first year somehow did all of the naughty things in that year of being supervised, but the guys who were tasked with supervising him apparently came away clean and are still making money in the game - Hart as an on-air analyst for the league's television network, no less.

https://twitter.com/jackmjenkins/status/1045488489335345152

Not at all pointed at you. It's a common refrain I've noted in baseball discussion around the internet. One thing I do note is a great discourse that you (as the noted one of the board who remembers the formation of the dirt around MLB fields!) may appreciate...I recently had a good discussion with a friend and a scout, and the friend related that he had been to a field and seen where Frank Howard hit a home run in the minor leagues, and he absolutely could not believe that a player could hit a ball that far. The scout and I piggybacked on one another with a similar refrain, but he had the experience in the game to hammer it home. With bigger ballparks, to be a three true outcome hitter required an incredible amount of strength. Guys could pound out a few home runs that threatened 500 feet each summer, and many were well past 425 feet in distance. One of the big things rarely discussed is that with all of our knowledge of launch angles and exit velocities and such, we know enough to get the ball just over the fence. More home runs has not been at greater distance, in spite of all of the knowledge - it's been the opposite. If baseball really was concerned with the strikeout issue, they could bring back fences, meaning only the guys with "true" power would clear them, and seeking out more consistent contact would be the goal of those guys who are not the truly elite giants of the game in power.

I always love reading two articles from someone back-to-back (or two consecutive arguments on a message board) where they in one breath advocate for the DH strongly, using arguments about more offense and how fans love the added offense. Then the next argument or article is how horrible it is that strikeouts are at such a high rate. Yeah...

It's on Netflix, and upon me opening the pilot episode for fun with them, my kiddos became hooked, so the 60-70 episodes they have on the service are currently being worked through!

You would just get a lot more information about the most recent episode of He-man that they've viewed. So, actually, more entertaining, honest, and coherent. Sad state of affairs at 1600 Penn.

My 4-6 y/o's own up and admit their wrongs, even the one that has a history of "big stories".

All that said, the Gophers are down two legit All-Big 10 caliber running backs. They also had a teammate for many of these players pass away over the weekend due to cancer, so that had to be hard to emotionally deal with. Add in Maryland getting a boost in that they expected to lose staff and/or players this week coming into the game, so they had a rallying point when that didn't happen, and it was really a perfect storm. Not saying this performance was "okay", but it's also not purely based on a talent differential, either.

The first season tried way too hard to incorporate too many things into one season - the back story, the reunification with family, the love story, etc... The second season had really one distinct focus, and it was much better because of that, in my opinion.

The Astros met with MLB and came away satisfied with the answer. Reportedly, MLB reached out to the Red Sox and Yankees to offer the same discussion and were declined. Easier to cry and be rich than to actually talk with the league about what happened.

Pretty, pretty good........

Rodney Smith is one I like a lot. Winfield is fun to watch, as is Barber. The receiver corps has some interesting pieces, but whether they'll be able to get the ball to them in the B1G conference remains to be seen. Good win last night, though.

The ending to Sharp Objects - holy hell. I've not enjoyed the end of a television series season more in a long time! Make sure you watch the credits, though!!

One thing I will always respect about McCain - he's a rare politician willing to 1. go against his party, and 2. change his beliefs based on evidence. We could use roughly 100 Senators just like that.