Things the Royals have taught me, 2015 edition

by | Jul 20, 2021 | LifeSkills, Pastimes, Sports | 182 comments

I keep a commonplace book of sayings and whatnots, things I find here and there that touch me in some way. During the run-up to the KC Royals’ 2015 World Series win, which had some pretty fucking spectacular moments*, players, coaches, commentators, and historical figures had some pretty awesome things to say about baseball in general that were poignantly applicable to my life at the time. I look at this frequently and remember. I might be living in the past and dreaming of the good ol’ days, but these are pretty timeless. So, since the site is begging for content, I will share these with you.

  • Hack at the ball. Put it in play.
  • 90 feet at a time
  • Steal bases.
  • Swing at the ball on the first up, even though everybody already knows you’re going to.
  • Little victories–being able to see and hear the opportunities.
  • Sacrifice an out for a run.
  • Have a deep bullpen. (Translated to my situation: Have a long-term plan, figure out where to spend money, invest the time and be patient.)
  • .366 is the best batting average ever.
  • Run for the grass line past 1st base.
  • Hit the fast balls.
  • Change up the pitcher. And the pitches.
  • Home runs are rare and special. (Translated to my situation: Don’t bet on big wins; keep to the small ones.)
  • Have fun.
  • Hit the wall to catch the ball.
  • Keep the line moving.
  • Take a chance and see what happens.
  • Pressure busts the pipe.
  • If you hold something down, it’ll grow sideways.
  • Show up ready to go tomorrow (after a blow-out loss).

More quotes:

The beauty of baseball is that it’s a very long grind and over time, it tends to reward the people who do the small stuff right and punish the people who can’t be bothered with the fundamentals. —KC Star, 5/29/16

 

That’s what speed do. –Jarrod Dyson

 

Luck is the residue of design. –Branch Rickey

 

I saw it trickle away and I said, “I’m going.” That’s all I need, is a trickle. –Terrance Gore

 

[a rookie’s confident performance] says, “I belong here; I can play.” –internet rando

 

If he [an asshole pitcher] doesn’t want to compete in a situation that’s not sexy, they should just send his ass home. –Danny Duffy

 

and my favorite:

NY team shut down by a gaggle of boulder-nutted young studs from Flyover, USA. Please more of this forever. –internet rando

So I decided that, for that period of my life anyway, the sacrifice fly was my spirit animal.

_____

*”It was realizing that at that point in the game, you have to take a chance. You have to be aggressive. That’s how we’ve been all year. We don’t play the normal style of baseball, according to most people.” –Eric Hosmer

He was right. The play, as crazy and ill-advised as it might have been, perfectly exemplified what this resilient and relentless team has been about all along since the beginning of its 2014 run: complete fearlessness. —Sports Illustrated, 11/2/15, “World Series Royals Win Title, Leave Legacy

About The Author

Mojeaux

Mojeaux

Aspiring odalisque.

182 Comments

  1. Don Escaped Texas

    “If you hold something down, it’ll grow sideways.”

    This is a restating of the law of unintended consequences . . . you should see if the Federal Reserve might understand this version.

    • Chafed

      They understand it. They just deny they are holding anything down.

  2. Raven Nation

    Hosmer’s steal was awesome!

    I read somewhere that the Royals has scouted that first baseman and he had a history of throwing wild when throwing home.

    • Mojeaux

      I read somewhere that the Royals has scouted that first baseman and he had a history of throwing wild when throwing home.

      I might have said it. That was a well-worn anecdote at the time all over local news.

  3. pistoffnick

    I hoard quotes as well.

    One of my favorites:

    Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

    • pistoffnick

      “It’s easy to make things difficult. It’s difficult to make things easy.” – Marty Lang

    • Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

      One of mine: “an ounce of pretention is worth a pound of manure”

    • EvilSheldon

      “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast,” is just something that slow people say.

      • blackjack

        No, it’s a racing thing. Mostly road racing. You want to take chances and jam the vehicle around really “fast,” but your lap times are slower than taking it slow and smooth.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        We say it in martial arts as well. Meaning learn how to do it properly by doing a technique slowly and then increasing the speed as you get better.

      • Shpip

        ^^^
        Easy on the brakes to transfer weight without upsetting the car, smooth on the throttle to accelerate out of the corner.

        Get it right, and the speed comes naturally.

      • Damaged Plastic

        It’s also a Disc thing

      • Not Adahn

        Eeet’s a joke.

      • EvilSheldon

        Not to me. That saying has doomed more shooters to perpetual D and C class than the ammo shortage and the BATFE combined.

        The only way to get faster is to ignore accuracy and practice pure speed. You don’t get any points for ‘smoothness’.

      • Ozymandias

        It’s what they teach SEALs and Delta Boys about shooting because I must have heard that from those MFers a thousand times at the range if I heard it once. YMMV.

  4. The Late P Brooks

    Finally! Actual rain is coming down. Yay.

  5. Don Escaped Texas

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteyball

    “Put it in play. 90 feet at a time. Steal bases. Sacrifice an out for a run.”

    Small ball has been around for a century, and it’s unappreciated in the loud, roaring big-ball America of today, but many of these elements congealed on the other end of I-70 a decade earlier under Herzog’s Cardinals. Speaking of I-70, it’s fair to say that the World Series loss to KC in 1985 sounded the death knell of the scheme.

    • Ted S.

      Didn’t Don Denkinger fuck up that series six ways from Sunday?

      • Don Escaped Texas

        He blew one call as bad as it can be done.

        My Cardinals gave up 11 runs the next game.

      • Ted S.

        +1 Lance Easley

  6. Ted S.

    Don’t stick it in crazy.
    — Prince Harry

    Oh, not *those* royals….

    • rhywun

      I thought he said, “Do stick it in crazy.”

    • Tulip

      When I saw the title, I thought British Rivals.

      • Tulip

        Royals. Stupid autocorrect

      • Spudalicious

        Oh, there’s plenty of rivalry in the British Royals.

      • Count Potato

        I think Kansas City could beat the British, even though the queen can move in any direction.

    • Shpip

      Corollary: Don’t let crazy stick it in you.

      — Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Catherine Howard

  7. westernsloper

    Pressure busts the pipe.

    This is correct.

  8. The Hyperbole

    NY team shut down by a gaggle of boulder-nutted young studs from Flyover, USA.

    How many Met’s were from NY and how many Royals were from “Flyover, USA” , It’s fun I guess to get all regional, but the days of “your” team being from “your” area are long gone ( if it every actually existed that is. I’d wager even from the earliest days bringing in a ringer from out of town was a common occurrence.

    • blackjack

      They move so much, we’re really just rooting for the uniforms.

    • rhywun

      Tangentially not-really related… I’ve occasionally wondered why even the largest American metros attract at most only two sports teams. NYC should by all rights have ten or twelve MLB teams.

      • kinnath

        collusion

      • Don Escaped Texas

        The Giants escaped the Polo Grounds because there weren’t enough hobo- and hippy-shit on the sidewalks?

      • mikey

        I was a lad in the Bay Area when the Giants came to town. It was HUGE deal. I can still feel the pain in chest from tryng to make a Willie Mays basket catch on a fly ball.

        May’s having trouble buying a house in the Bay Area was my first real awareness of racism. Yeah, the were the “colored parts of town”, but I never thought anything about it – it was just how things were.

      • KSuellington

        Mays finally got a house in Miraloma Park. He used to take some of the neighborhood kids in his convertible to games. A different time for sure.

      • mikey

        Highest paid professional athelete in the country – $100 k a year!

    • Don Escaped Texas

      It’s a great point and illustrates the absurdity of many collective notions.

      Neph has made the excellent point that team loyalty is about the only decent/allowable/defendible sort of collective there is.

      Even in sports with arguable regionalism, it hasn’t worked to speak of for a long time. My own Vols won their last football championship with a quarterback from Mobile; their greatest quarterback was from the Mississippi delta via New Orleans. Bama also won once with a Mobile QB and once with a kid I watched play in Texas middle school. Joe Willie Namath, the greatest Jet of all time, went to Bama but grew up in west PA. We should be close to just calling folks folks.

      Exceptions that prove the rule:
      * Cowboy Dandy Don was from Mount Vernon, TX.
      * Steeler Jack Ham was from Johnstown PA and went to Penn St.

      • Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

        Adam Thielen (current Vikings star) was born in MN and went to Mankato

  9. The Gunslinger

    Thanks for sharing these Mo. I love baseball. I just picked up 2 baseball biographies at the used bookstore in the library that I hope to read soon. Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio.

    You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.
    Earl Weaver.

    • Mojeaux

      Funny you should mention Joe DiMaggio. I once wrote an angsty essay with “where did you go, Joe DiMaggio” as its thesis. I had just pulled that out the other day to see if it would fit here. It does not.

  10. Damaged Plastic

    A srtike by the MLB players caused me to give up Baseball forever, Fuck them!

    • blackjack

      What if they did it three times?

      • Damaged Plastic

        the First time was the charm, what? not getting paid enough? showers too cold? Fuck You and your kids, Baseball players,

      • The Hyperbole

        Fuck You and your kids,Baseball players

        That seems unnecessarily harsh.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        He might just be into baseball players’ kids. I’m not judging.

      • straffinrun

        As long as he doesn’t stretch a double into a triple, meh.

  11. Spudalicious

    Nice, Mo. Thank you.

    • Tonio

      I know. It makes me feel… happy.

      • Spudalicious

        Nice pull, Tonio!

    • Mojeaux

      You’re welcome. 🙂

  12. Don Escaped Texas

    KC

    The Royals are named for the stockshow there

    MCI was originally for Mid Continent International airport

  13. KSuellington

    Thanks Mo, some good things there. Some of my earliest memories are going out to Giants games at Candlestick Park back in the day. When we were kids in the 80’s it was 2.50 for GA, a bargain as I believe a movie was 5 bucks then. I am presently on strike from baseball, which sucks as my Giants are killing it this season, but I haven’t missed it that much. MLB fucked around with politics too much and completely lost me, maybe I will be back one day, but I don’t know. I got rid of cable tv some months back because I no longer watch sports.

    • zwak

      Wait, are you saying that there is another bay area baseball team? That the Athletics aren’t the only ones?

      (My mom will still talk about taking the ferry to get to Candlestick from East Bay with her younger cousin.)

      • mikey

        The ferry was gone by the time I could go to the games. My friend and I would take the bus over from San Leandro. A twi-night doulble header would find two thirteen-year-olds making transfers in the SF bus depot around midnight. Nobody thought anything of it.

      • rhywun

        I took Greyhound by myself from Rochester to Potsdam, NY when I was 12 to visit my bro in college when they could legally drink in the dorms.

        Different times indeed.

      • KSuellington

        I wonder if the A’s are gonna stay in Oakland. Something went down today about it. They have been taking about putting a small (35k capacity) stadium on the waterfront. It would be sweet, but if anyone can fuck it up it would be the A’s and Oakland. Obviously I am not in favor of cities giving out sums to pro sports teams to build their palaces, but they also shouldn’t stand in the way of them building something.

      • zwak

        Yeah, I had been hearing something about that. The talk is they might go to Vegas if they don’t get a spot at Jack London, which means I will root against them in the same way I always root against SF. I loathe ATT park. OK, that’s mostly to rib my wife.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      I remember bleacher seats for 5 bucks. Way warmer than sitting in the shade in the upper decks.

      • creech

        50 cents for a Sunday doubleheader. And, about 7th inning of game 2, no one stopped you from sneaking out and over to the box seats.

    • Breet Pharara

      FUCKKKKKK YOOUUUUUU.

      RON, STOP DOING COCAINE AND DO A FUCKING DEFENSIVE REPLACEMENT. CRUZ SUCKS DEFENSIVELY.

      • Gender Traitor

        I seem to have struck a nerve.

      • Breet Pharara

        Meh, I’ve made peace with it. Rangers have always been my go to team for pain and misery. Just look at them now. 2010-12 were the only good years in the teams entire history.

        Also, Dirk won his title in 2011, so that soothed the pain somewhat.

    • Mojeaux

      Well that gave me chills!

      • Gender Traitor

        Tom couldn’t stand to watch the later part of the game when they were behind. I watched on pins & needles until the end, then dragged him back into the living room and rewound the DVR so he could see it all! 🙂

  14. Jerms

    Good stuff. My Yankees have purposely turned themselves into the exact opposite of that Royals team. Its either a home run, a walk or a strikeout. I love baseball and my wife and i watch every game together at night, and have for years. These last 2-3 years have been much less enjoyable than in the past. Group of boring all or nothing guys who i have to force myself to root for.
    Brian Cashman needs to be fired for this disaster hes put together.
    Thanks for the post.

    • Mojeaux

      You’re welcome, and thanks for reading!

    • creech

      Couple of homers did it for them tonite.

    • mikey

      “If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life without even considering if there is a man on base. — Dave Barry

  15. zwak

    OK, OT. I know many of you like to cook so I will share a recipe that is one of my go-tos. Ground lamb and green beans, Georgian style. The country, not the state.

    Saute a large, chopped onion in olive oil till golden; add a pound of ground lamb and cook for 10 minutes. Then add a can of chopped plum tomatoes, plus their liquid, two cloves of crushed garlic, 1/2 tsp. hot Hungarian paprika, 1/8 tsp. cinnamon, 1/8 tsp. cumin and a pound of trimmed, blanched green beans. Cook on low heat for 15-20 minutes or so, until the beans are very tender–Georgians like their green beans well done, and I do too. Eat with rice.

    It comes from this sadly no longer updated blog: https://yulinkacooks.blogspot.com/

    • Gustave Lytton

      Sounds delish. Wife doesn’t like lamb so maybe ground pork or beef.

      • rhywun

        #metoo

        I was thinking ground beef.

    • one true athena

      ah, good new use of my garden beans. I’ll try this one.

  16. Tundra

    Thanks, Mo!

    I used to be a huge baseball fan and my favorite Twins were Harmon, Rod and Kirby. My favorite quote:

    I was told I would never make it because I’m too short. Well, I’m still too short. It doesn’t matter what your height is, it’s what’s in your heart.

    Fuck yeah.

    • Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

      Kent Hrbek or GTFO

      • Tundra

        *Chills*

      • Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

        I love Kirby & all, but Hrbek had that kind of local-boy-makes-good thing going on

      • Tundra

        I grew up a couple miles away from him. I was so goddamn lucky to go to so many games at the old Met Stadium.

        Bloomington, FTW!

    • KSuellington

      Got mad hits like Rod Carew! I still have a perfect mental image of him at bat.

      Kirby was also the man.

    • straffinrun

      You don’t need a quote when you gotthe do.

  17. Mojeaux

    Oh shoot. I didn’t know this was dropping tonight. Last I looked, it was still pending.

    • Gender Traitor

      Surprise! ?

  18. Trigger Hippie

    ‘Swing at the ball on the first up, even though everybody already knows you’re going to.’

    +1 inside the park WS home run.

    ‘Have a deep bullpen. (Translated to my situation: Have a long-term plan, figure out where to spend money, invest the time and be patient.)’

    *ahem*

    Have a historically great bullpen. If KC had the lead after six innings, the game was over.

    ‘Hit the wall to catch the ball.’

    +8 Gold Gloves

    ‘Pressure busts the pipe.’

    *smirks at sloopy*

    ‘Take a chance and see what happens.’

    You covered this.

    Thanks for the article.

    My personal favorite moment aside from the WS win was the comeback during the 2014 wild card against the A’s. After the late 90’s all hope of ever seeing the Royals succeed had been beaten out of me after years of 100 loss seasons. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing at the time. Think it was the first time since I was a small child that a sports moment made me shed a tear of joy.

    • Mojeaux

      My husband is from SoCal and is a Dodgers fan. During the 2014 year, I started to get interested in baseball and basically, he had to teach me how to watch the game.

      Come to find out, you don’t really learn it from listening to it on the radio without context.

      Then I learned that radio listening and TV listening are two entirely different things.

      So the Royals and my husband made baseball fun for me.

      • Trigger Hippie

        I played baseball for ten or so years and followed it religiously as a kid whenever I could catch them(no cable as a kiddo). I guess that made listening on the radio a much easier experience to get into. I could envision the defensive shifts and other minute details being described by Denny Mathews. Some days when a game wasn’t available on TV I’d just mute it and listen to the Royals games on the radio. I found the ambient crowd noise, the announcers banter and the sounds of the game very cathartic.

      • Mojeaux

        Yes. When I was in my DIYing phase, I had the streaming MLB app and listened to all the games while I worked.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Nice. I’m glad the hubby got you into the game. I kinda boycotted the MLB at the beginning of last year but have recently found myself watching a game or two a week recently. What can I say? I love the sport.

      • KSuellington

        Yup, baseball has always for me been consumed as least as much on the radio as the tv (when I wasn’t actually there). I absolutely love the picture you get in your mind as you do something else. Jon Miller is the frigging man along with Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow. Back in the day it was Hank Greenwald and Gary Park and Lon Simmons for the Giants.

      • Trigger Hippie

        *Shakes fist at the Giants, especially Madison Bumgarner*

        That bastard just had to have one of the best WS pitching performances against my beloved Royals now didn’t he?…Neanderthal looking bastard.

      • KSuellington

        Yup, I am a huge Bumgarner fan (and a huge fan of Neanderthals in general). The guy was a force of nature, and that WS was unreal. I loved watching him pitch and liked his ornery, NC country attitude.

      • Trigger Hippie

        *drunken blurb*

        I recall screaming at my television at least once something along the lines of: “You are not Randy Johnson, motherfucker! Stop that!”

        Ha!

  19. Crusty Juggler

    Blah blah blah three true outcomes for life, bros.

    OT: Dutch toilets are wild.

    • KSuellington

      You dig the shijten

      • KSuellington

        That should have been “ schijten shelf “

      • rhywun

        With a knijf?

      • KSuellington

        The Germans have a scheisse shelf too, right? It’s so frigging weird. The first time I encountered it I thought it was just a one off bizarre thing, but they are all over the place. They love having a good look at their droppings.

      • rhywun

        A wise and practical people.

      • rhywun

        Sadly, the German word for knife is Messer. ‘Knife’ is Scandinavian in origin.

      • KSuellington

        Yup, it is mes in Dutch.

      • Ask your doctor if BEAM is right for you

        Supposedly comes from a time when intestinal parasites were common and having a gander at your poop prior to flushing was one way to determine if you were infected with (say) worms.

        Also, reduces splashing most of the time.

        You’re welcome.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Dutch sound like Canadian Germans.

  20. Fourscore

    Thanks Mo. As a 1/2 Score I went to a few games with the Mpls Millers, saw Willie M in his first game with the Millers, he came up from the Negro League with an old guy named Ray Dandridge. Dandridge put on a show that day, 2nd base or SS, I forget, but he taught a few white youngsters how the game was played around 2nd base. Can’t remember how Willie did but I do remember after a dozen games or so Willie was on his way to the BigTime. Ray was great but not Big League great, he was into his middle 30s when he hit Mpls.

    Only saw a couple Tom Seaver games, my son was a bigtime fan.

    • Mojeaux

      Dandridge, but has nothing to do with Ray.

    • creech

      I saw Jackie play more than once at Connie Mack Stadium. Always booed by the crowd (notoriously racist in Philly). Except once – near the end of his career, the Dodgers had him playing left field. So late in the game, the Dodgers come to bat and it takes only six or eight pitches to get them out. Dodgers run out on field and Phillies hitter steps in. Wait a second, where’s the left fielder? Everyone looking around, and here comes Jackie out of the dugout, buttoning up his fly! We gave him a huge cheer as he trots out to left.

  21. Fourscore

    My fave Satchel, “Don’t look back, something may be gaining on you”

    Too many things gaining on me, need to stop looking back…

  22. straffinrun

    Thx, Moj. Will read after the NBA finals are over. The Greek Freak just played the most dominant finals game I’ve ever seen. The guy is, well, just a FREAK.

    • Brochettaward

      Basketball is the soccer of American sports.

  23. OBJ FRANKELSON

    .366 BA?

    Is there something I am missing here? Ted Williams’ .400 season?

    I get the sentiment, even people that are the best at their craft still fail more often than they succeed. I have used baseball batting averages to teach my kids that failure is the norm. It is the guys that stand back up and crowd the plate after getting brushed off the plate by some high and inside heat are the ones that succeed.

    • Mojeaux

      I used “all time” not “season.”

      Ty Cobb has the best batting average of all time.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Dammit, should have refreshed.

    • Trigger Hippie

      Ty Cobb’s career BA. I’ve seen it rounded up to .367.

      The highest-ranking season BA was in the dead ball era. In the mid .420’s…possibly Ty Cobb. But I don’t think so. A contemporary, I believe.

    • hayeksplosives

      Hey, Colonel!

      How ya doin? Good to see you.

      Yes, conservatarians are all over the map. I’m a libertarian but I “converted” from conservative so I can tell I’m different than libertarians who have lefty roots.

      Ah well, we’re all in this mess together whether we like it or not.

      • dbleagle

        Aloha HE! I am doing okay. I saw your note about “Saaannn Diego” and I will comply if I make it out your way. Let me know if you will be coming out to my archipelago. Da VID overreaction put the last real Ticki bar out of business, but I have a few other places I know.

      • Gustave Lytton

        put the last real Ticki bar out of business

        Well shit.

  24. hayeksplosives

    I received my copy of Andrew Heaton’s “Los Angeles is Hideous: Poems for an Ugly City” today.

    I love it. It’s quite brief and very funny, especially if you read it aloud as if it were serious poetry.

    I’m gonna bring it to work tomorrow.

  25. Damaged Plastic

    Third Coast Greetings Glibs, looks like another sunny day ahead, we even have some West coast smoke to deal with, just like real Americans,
    Carpe Covfefe1

  26. Yusef drives a Kia

    Is anyone out there? this is the 21c Correct?

    • Gender Traitor

      Just got up & getting ready for my first sip of covfefe. ?

      • Gender Traitor

        ***SLUUUUURRRRRP!!!*** Aaaaaah! THAT’S better!

        Good morning, Yu! Looks like it’s just me & Yu! ::laughs uproariously, slaps knee::

      • Tres Cool

        Me & Yu & a doge named Boo ?

      • Gender Traitor

        Well, there goes the neighborhood! 😉

        Good morning, homey!

  27. Tres Cool

    suh’ fam ?

    yo whats goody yo

    • Gender Traitor

      I’m beginning to wonder if the traffic jams I keep getting stuck in on Tuesday afternoons on my way to the Y are due to some higher power trying to keep me from getting to the “Butts & Guts” class. If so, it’s working. I get to the gym late, so I just plop down on an exercise bike or some other piece of gear instead.

      • Tres Cool

        You need a job like l0b0t’s moving pallets of groceries around a store all night.

        Or climb smokestacks- my “office” @ Indianapolis Power & Light

      • Gender Traitor

        Yikes! 🙁 I think I prefer my nice one-floor office building with my office right inside the back door (well, a couple of steps through the break room first.)

  28. l0b0t

    Good morning everyone. Once in a great while, the timing works out so that I leave work at just the right moment to catch the bagels coming out of the oven at our local bagel shop. There is little better than a bagel so fresh, the butter melts when you apply it. Hot coffee, fresh sesame bagel, 2 eggs (sunnyside), and a pound of bacon beats that weird Dr. Kellogg all to Hell.

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, l0! That’s sounds heavenly! 😀

      Hope all is going well for you.

    • rhywun

      a pound of bacon

      At one sitting?! ?

      • Tres Cool

        At least it wasnt all the bacon.

      • rhywun

        lol

      • Festus

        I’ve been known to eat a half-pound at a time. Bacon GOOD!

      • Not Adahn

        Bacon and buttered toast sandwiches can make a pound of bacon disappear with alacrity.

    • Not Adahn

      Bagels so fresh they have crackly skin are treats indeed.

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, robo!

      I hope you’ll forgive me if I refrain from clicking your link. I’m in a good mood so far this morning, and I’d hate to ruin it.

    • rhywun

      Is it me or is that random paragraphs from two or three different articles smushed together?

      • robodruid

        ehhhhhh i think you are correct.
        Less impressive after you point it our.
        Great catch.

      • rhywun

        Oh, the first couple paragraphs are certainly alarming if true.

      • Festus

        Yeah. The article was incoherent.

  29. Gender Traitor

    In Sean’s absence, I was trying to think of a “morning” song I haven’t already linked in recent memory. Thought of this one that I recall from the days when my oldest sister was listening to the local Top 40 station nonstop just waiting for the next Bobby Sherman song to come on. 🙂

    Not my favorite, but y’all have already heard most of my faves.

  30. Sean

    I overslept a lil bit. Sort of unusual for me.

    *waves hi*

    • Gender Traitor

      THERE you are! Good morning, Sean! And there’s rhy just upthread!

      Now if UCS & TARDy were here, we’d have at least MOST of the old gang back together…

      Who else is missing? Stinky & Scruffy?

      • Sean

        I still made it to work on time. So, yay me. 🙂

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m sort of awake.

        I’m annoyed at how much I slept in, I need to get up early enough to commute soon.

      • Gender Traitor

        Ooh, back to the office today, eh? I was hoping all was going well with you but that maybe your surgeon would recommend just a few more days off work “out of an abundance of caution.”

      • Gender Traitor

        Oh – not today necessarily – just “soon.” Gotcha.

      • UnCivilServant

        Not back to work today, today I have to doctor’s appointment for the clearance to return as of tomorrow.

        I need to be in the office by 7am on workdays.

      • Not Adahn

        Yo!

        First morning meeting is at 07:30 grownup time.

  31. Festus

    Mornin’ all! Reading Mo’s article gave me the sads because I realized how much I miss playing the game.

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, Fes! 😀

      I never could play the game worth a damn – nor most other sports (except maybe a little tennis) – but I still enjoy watching.

      • Tres Cool

        Ive been kicking around the idea of getting back into tennis. But its been….decades.

        We should make a baseball trip to Young’s Dairy- batting cages !

      • Gender Traitor

        Yeah! Then we can make a side trip to my favorite winery! 😀 ?

    • Not Adahn

      It’s nice that the ATF is allowing Asian Americans to buy Destructive Devices.

    • Not Adahn

      A Pew Research Center survey conducted after the Atlanta massacre found that one in five Asians blame former President Donald Trump for the uptick in violence against them.

      Only 20% blame Trump? That’s the best Pew could get?

      • rhywun

        +1 “CHYYYY-nuh!”

    • SandMan

      A literal hand cannon!

    • blackjack

      Let’s hope they shoot better than they drive.

  32. Festus

    In other news my three branches of bureaucrats can’t find their own asses with six hands. Panicked texts and e-mails about a work order that was completed weeks ago. Some functionary finally reached the bottom of the pile and forwarded photos about a problem from two months ago. Everyone is working at cross purposes and it doesn’t help that my supervisor seems to have the communication ability of Koko. Everything keeps getting forwarded to everyone. Too many fucking cooks.

    • Festus

      Why you do that to me Sean? I thought we were friends! *runs upstairs and slams the bedroom door*

      • Tres Cool

        Here, Canuck- have a palate cleanser.

        Ft. women in sports bras

      • Sean

        I also like that song.

        [more sexual breathing]

      • Festus

        That does have a fine groove, plus sports bras. Nowadays the only way I could ever catch a girl like that was if I ran her down with my truck.

      • Sean

        I like the song.

      • Festus

        Like the song, point and laugh at the hair? I’m just being glib…

  33. Sean

    https://www.revolver.news/2021/07/black-rifle-coffee-new-york-times/

    This entire episode only happened because of how trivially easy it is to pander to the American right. Black Rifle just slapped guns, camo, and the flag on whatever it could, added a dose of performative masculinity (Want to prove you’re manly? Just say “fuck” a lot!), and then raked in cash exploiting the same demographic that likes to “own the libs” by buying overpriced Dr. Seuss books on eBay.

    Burn.

    • Tres Cool

      “(Want to prove you’re manly? Just say “fuck” a lot!)”

      Uhhh….Id like the author to spend some time with union women. Two from work that immediately leap to mind are wholly incapable of forming a sentence w/o using “motherfuck” at least twice.

    • Festus

      It’s a solid marketing strategy that runs against the overwhelming current and it works. Capitalism FTW! Fuck off NYT. It’s not my cuppa but more power to them.

    • Not Adahn

      Don’t forget the hot chicks.

      And I will freely admit to buying some simply as a reward for how entertaining their marketing was. Which is how I can confidently say after trying more than a half-dozen of their different types, that the coffee is not good.

      I am not alone in this opinion. The last thing remaining on the prize table are bags of BRCC. The fact that they give away such vast amounts of it is a good indication that their margins are pretty steep.

      • Sean

        Shit, their marketing was so good, at one point my GF bought a bag of their coffee. She didn’t finish it.

    • rhywun

      I read a rebuttal claiming they got fucked by the NYT because, you know, that’s what the NYT does.

      I can’t be bothered to dive into the issue other than re-iterate “never, ever talk to a reporter”.

    • rhywun

      I’m glad somebody at least is sticking it to that fucking quack.

  34. Ghostpatzer

    Morning, all!

    Well, this sucks:

    https://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-5-year-old-dies-after-contracting-covid-amid-coronavirus-surge/GSQXBWZLBVGJVKPWTIRW3DUSGQ/

    “Wyatt was a healthy boy with no underlying health conditions before he got sick”

    Really sucks. I cannot imagine what it must be like for yhe parents. But once again, fuck the media for twisting the story a bit:

    “Wyatt, Mitchell said, was diagnosed with strep and staph infections and COVID.”

    Oh, really?