Monthly Archives: October 2020

Dodgers-Rays World Series Recap

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Summary: This was one of those seasons where there was an unbeatable team, and it was their year. The last time it was this way in MLB was in 2018, when the Red Sox won it. Most of us didn’t know at the time that the Red Sox were using electronic devices to illegally steal signs, so that removes some legitimacy from their title. If they were so great, why did they cheat?

I don’t see any such issues with the Dodgers in 2020. They were clearly the best team, and did it the right way, since after Game 2 against the Padres in the NLDS. They have young pitching & players, so they’ll probably be back. The Rays went as far as they could go on a payroll of $58.3M. You need MUCH more to win it all in this era. Maybe Cash should have stayed with Snell a bit longer, but it felt inevitable that the final outcome would have been the same.

The Tommy Pham-Jake Cronenworth deal to the Padres for Hunter Renfroe was mandated last winter by ownership to stay under $60M in team payroll for 2020. It was a cheap-ass move, and it finally caught up with the Rays in the World Series. They couldn’t score runs, and were always a bat or two short against the Dodgers. Andrew Friedman won this World Series when he acquired Mookie Betts, David Price & Brustar Graterol in the off-season.

Game 4 of the 2020 World Series had the most unbelievable & exciting finish in baseball history. Francisco Cabrera in 1992, pinch-hitting for the Atlanta Braves in Game 7 of the NLCS is the only thing close, and it wasn’t as amazing as this. Here’s that heart-stopping baseball moment, with the classic call by Sean McDonough.

To be able to quickly & precisely analyze the action, here are a few of my MLB viewing secrets. First, I mute the Fox broadcast because everyone sucks except John Smoltz, and even he was overwhelmed at the end of Game 4. I had the sound on for that, but 95% of the time I’m watching, it’s muted. This takes Joe Buck out-of-play, which always helps, and I’m especially grateful when I see ‘Ken Rosenthal reporting’ on the silent screen.

Secondly, I don’t watch a lot of the game anymore. I have alternate channels for commercial breaks, and often I’ll stick with that instead of going back to the game. I don’t want to watch the Dodgers pile on runs early, I’ve seen enough of that as a Padres fan, so for Game 4 I watched Bullitt (1968), and made the game my alternate channel during commercials. Great movie.

I prefer to have two alternate channels, in case of overlapping commercial breaks. A classic Columbo episode I hadn’t seen before helped during Game 4. If I miss something important in the middle, I can review the highlights & boxscore on the internet. With these tools at my fingertips, the game isn’t such an exhausting & emotional roller coaster. I’m relaxed & in-tune at the end when it’s all the drama, and all the chips are on the table. All this helps a sports blogger comment intelligently on the action. I don’t have the advantage of access, like so many of these flunkies I’ve mentioned, so I have to be A LOT better than them to have an impact.

I thought Dave Roberts managed his bullpen poorly at times, making this series longer that it should have gone. If Brustar Graterol starts the 9th in Game 4, he has to face at least two batters. Having Kenley Jansen ready if Graterol faltered, was the winning manager move for Dave Roberts in Game 4. The Padres had rocked Jansen a few times earlier in the season, and Roberts knew he was shaky. That was a high-leverage situation in which the manager MUST go with his best pitcher. Graterol is the Dodgers’ best reliever, and he had 0.1 IP in Game 4, on 7 pitches.

Rays manager Kevin Cash doesn’t make these types of mistakes because he’s not tied to a high-$$ closer, or sentimental about ‘his guys’ to a point where it clouds his judgment. Cash is perhaps too analytical, and not trusting enough of his guys. Both extremes can get your team beat, and it’s a razor’s edge. Instead of the Dodgers taking a 3-1 lead, and the Series basically over, they put themselves in a dogfight after they gave it away in the 9th.

The final losing nuance was that Kenley Jansen didn’t back-up home plate on the GW play, which makes him fortunate he doesn’t close for the Yankees. West Coast media is far more relaxed & understanding. When you do that for Steinbrenner, he goes directly to the NY media, “If that fat toad can’t get off the mound and back-up home plate, then blah, blah, blah… rant, rant, rant…” In contrast, Dave Roberts quietly never went to Jansen again in the Series, and that was that.

The Rays had a chance after winning that wild & amazing Game 4, but when Manny Margot got nailed trying to steal home in the 4th inning of Game 5, that turned the Series back to the Dodgers. It was a bad play, so don’t believe any of the media hype that excused it as a good attempt. Runners at 1st & 3rd, 2 out, Rays down 4-2, with Kevin Kiermaier at the plate against Kershaw. The upside if Margot makes it is the Rays are still down a run.

It’s the runner on 1st, and potential run at the plate that mattered more in terms of winning the game. Kiermaier is the heart & soul of the Rays, so what Margot is saying is that he doesn’t trust their team leader to do the job. If Margot stays put and Kiermaier homers, it’s 5-4 Rays.

The Rays were REALLY upset with Margot over this, and that’s why he had to say to the media it was 100% his decision. It hurt the team’s chances immeasurably. When it happened, I said to myself, “That’s why AJ Preller traded him. He’s got tools, but comes up short against the Dodgers. Stupid & selfish play.” The Rays committed zero fielding errors in 6 WS games, but that base running error was more than they could afford.

I snoozed on Game 5 shortly after Manny Margot got thrown out trying to steal home. The Dodgers were making the plays & getting all the calls, so I didn’t think the Rays had a chance. The home plate umpire was very generous with Clayton Kershaw’s strike zone as compared to Rays pitcher Tyler Glasnow.

I thought Corey Seager was out at second base on his 1st-inning stolen base attempt, even though replay upheld the safe call. That gave the Dodgers what they needed to win easily. East coast bias works against the Rays because Yankees & Red Sox staffers in the league office (& replay booth) despise them much more than the Dodgers.

It’s just as important to know when to give up, as it is to know when to pay attention. This video above at 2:04-05 shows Seager is tagged by Willy Adames just before he reaches second base, which means he’s out. Replay is there is correct that, but instead it upholds an incorrect call– because of human bias.

My alternate channels weren’t so great for Game 5, which was another reason I snoozed. Classic Columbo, ruined by that annoying dopey side-kick jerk Dennis Dugan, who got that part on every great 1970’s TV series– from The Rockford Files to any action show. He married Joyce Van Patten, so I think that explains it. Ghost Whisperer is always muted. I don’t know any of the characters names, I just like to look at Jennifer Love Hewitt.

All this made Game 6 feel like impending doom for Rays fans. Randy Arozarena homered in the 1st to put them up 1-0, and from there they tried to hang on. Trying win 1-0 games against $200M+ payroll teams in the World Series is next-to-impossible. Even when the Rays win, it’s often not an enjoyable experience, more a combination of surprise & relief. They’re amazing to admire & learn about, but painful to root for.

The Rays are locked into their 30-year lease on the Tropicana Dome in St. Petersburg. Tampa won’t build them a new stadium, so that means in 2028 they’ll be the Charlotte Rays. It sucks being a Rays fan for so many reasons.

It was an inexcusable & irresponsible act by Dodgers 3B Justin Turner, after being pulled in the 8th inning for testing coronavirus positive, to rejoin his teammates for celebrations after the game– without a mask [!] on top of that.

Dave Roberts lowering his own mask to spit (over & over) in the Dodgers dugout wasn’t good either. The final lesson is that these athletes (for the most part) haven’t taken this pandemic seriously. They are privileged jocks, so they ignore science because know they won’t have to deal with any of the nasty consequences. I hope there is no more baseball until this pandemic is truly under control.

Ratings Review: The Los Angeles Dodgers-Tampa Bay Rays World Series TV ratings average was 32% below the previous low, which had been the Giants sweep of the Tigers in 2012. The NBA, NHL, and the rest of sports are down too. What explains this?

I watched parts of the NBA Playoffs & Finals, so I can say the basketball was as well-played as I had seen in a long, long time. LeBron James & Jimmy Butler both performed for their respective teams, and it was a good series, more competitive than most had predicted. It was the same with MLB in 2020, all the way through the World Series, the quality of the games were the best I have ever seen.

This means the problem is NOT the athletes. The problem is the COVID pandemic which has wrecked so many lives, to the point where people don’t care about sports the way they used to. The corporate messaging & political virtue-signaling are HUGE turn-offs too. Whenever you read a mainstream article on the internet about the ratings being down for sports, they never tell you why, because they can’t admit they are the problem. One final fact, no one has lower ratings than Trump.

Since it’s so close to the election, I’ll shift towards politics for the conclusion. If you’ve voted, or are planning to vote for Biden because you hate Trump, then you’re wasting your vote. Biden & Trump are the same. They are rich, who represent the rich, and despise all those who work for a living. I’ve read more than a few partisan supporters (on both sides) framing this political position as that of a ‘Russian communist,’ who wants to destroy the American way of life.

That’s nonsense. I’m a baseball fan, as I have proven here, and there is nothing more American than baseball. The truth is capitalism is dead, and we need a revolution. This is a war they started, which revolutionary socialists are going to finish. Read the WSWS, and support them. That my political line.

This Conway/Underwood banner above is what Election 2020 is about to become, a real-life nightmare installment of Netflix’s original series House of Cards. We need a massive intervention of international youth & the working class. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) attacks both Democrats & Republicans as fascists, which is correct. The SEP are the only ones who tell people the truth.

The Socialist Equality Party, which has sections around the world, traces their roots to the founding of the Fourth International in Paris in 1938 by Trotsky, two years before he was murdered by an agent of Stalin in Coyocan, Mexico. Troskyists are historical materialists, and insistent there is objective truth.

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Confessions of a Russian bot

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I don’t support either the Democrats or Republicans, therefore I’m a Russian bot. I criticize both parties for social inequality, global warming, their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of fascism– but this only means I’m a tool of Putin. It’s so easy when you turn off your brain, and think only in binary terms.

The title and above paragraph are, of course, satire. I’m not a Russian bot, I’m a US citizen. I’ve been across America & back; traveled to Canada, Mexico, and a few Caribbean islands–and that’s the extent of my worldly travels.

I’ve read English translations of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1869) and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1867). I would compare the experiences to taking Organic Chemistry for pre-med/pre-dental students; it’s something you have to understand and get through in order to call yourself educated in the field.

The primary Russian authors I’ve read & studied are VI Lenin & Leon Trotsky. This is what makes me a “Russian bot,” according to official opinion makers at the New York Times. The Russian Revolution is a taboo topic for MSM. Trotsky is forbidden in bourgeois politics, and that’s why socialists are censored & blacklisted.

Reading Marx & Engels used to make you educated, but now it brands you as a Russian bot. When did this change & why? The collapse of the Soviet Union (1989-91) is another cataclysmic event which never gets seriously discussed in MSM. What it meant, and it’s implications going forward, are still relevant today.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was an Earth-changing event, that transformed a 3rd-rate global power, a crumbling czarist regime, into the Soviet Union that defeated Adolph Hitler’s Nazis in WWII. The USSR engaged 80% of Germany’s war resources in WWII, at the cost of 27 million dead. Millions of others were purged by Stalin’s terror before the war. Trotsky himself was murdered by a GPU agent– in Coyocan, Mexico City in August, 1940. It was a Revolution Betrayed.

These issues are relevant today, because political revolution is on the table. The ruling class will never admit to that, and fights against it with all its being. They want COVID-19, wildfires, and economic ruin to continue for the great majority. They encourage you to vote for Biden-Harris.

As an independent contractor dentist in Florida, jobs are hard to come by, and they now pay half-to-one-third what they did. Most contractor dentists are paid on production, and it isn’t there anymore with COVID-19. Furthermore, the risks & expenses of working in patients’ mouths are much greater, with no real protection for the operator and everyone else in the office.

That’s why I’m a hopelessly out-of-work dentist, who is not officially unemployed. As for being a musical artist, Florida is trying to re-open its clubs, with mixed-to-poor results. No socialist artists are allowed a venue. This is the situation in the professional ranks, so it’s surely much worse for blue-collar workers.

So what’s coming? An election that Trump will lose in a landslide, yet he will claim it’s rigged. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. That’s Trump’s strategy to stay in the Oval Office. The question is not who will win the vote on November 3, but who will be President on January 21?

The Trump White House cabal of fascists are organizing right-wing militias to be his shock troops. Their objective is to sow fear & intimidation into the population. They are also meant to eliminate socialist leaders. The Democrats pretend like nothing is happening, because they are fascists too. They are helping Trump get his right-wing Supreme Court nominee rammed through before the election.

All this recalls childhood memories with my mother. I would say something that gets everyone (kids & adults) upset. Mom gets a call, or whatever, and then has to have this discussion with me.

Mom: Eric, you can’t say that.
Me: But it’s true.
Mom: Yes, I know… but you can’t say that.
Me: Why?
Mom: Because people will get mad, and want to hurt you.
Me: [wide-eyed stare]
Mom: Eric, you can’t say that.

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Eddie Van Halen obituary

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Classic rock fundamentalists claim Cream was the all-time greatest supergroup, but Van Halen in their initial incarnation broke rock music in half, with their amazing skills & originality. Van Halen was the greatest rock supergroup ever: with Eddie on guitar, brother Alex on drums, Michael Anthony on bass, and David Lee Roth as the vocal frontman.

Rock acts were either post-punk or a dinosaurs after Van Halen I (1977). David Lee Roth brought an obnoxious, yet hilarious, sense-of-humor & style, which further separated Van Halen from the rest of heavy metal.

Roth suggested to Eddie that the band be named Van Halen, when he joined. When Eddie Van Halen married TV-star Valerie Bertenelli, they became the biggest paparazzi couple on the planet. These pressures eventually tore the band (and their marriage) apart.

Van Halen was the original ‘hair metal’ band, eventually becoming a parody of themselves, like so many others in the industry. Ted Templeman was their ‘5th member’ for all six of the classic David Lee Roth records, a first rate producer whose credits include Captain Beefheart’s Clear Spot (1972). Van Halen was very much like the Velvet Underground & Nico with Andy Warhol, in that they had it all, until the egos blew it.

Supergroup means everyone is a star. Alex Van Halen pioneered the ‘double kick’ sound. Listen to his drum intro to “Hot for Teacher,” which he plays live. It sounds like Alex has at least one extra appendage. The way Alex & Eddie play together sounds like no one else.

On bass was Michael Anthony, a rock solid player with all the chops, and also their main backing vocalist. Classic songs like “Ain’t Talkin’ About Love”,  “You Really Got Me”, & “Panama” are great examples of Michael Anthony’s backing vocals, and how it filled out their sound. “Eruption” is the all-time Eddie classic.

Here’s an explanation of tapping as an innovative guitar technique. As a right-handed player, such as Eddie Van Halen, it is possible to sound notes using only the left hand by applying hammer-ons & pull-offs. That’s traditional guitar playing technique. What Eddie pioneered was tapping, which is using his right-hand fingers to hammer-on & pull-off, higher up the neck– instead of picking. He’s doing this, while playing with his left hand simultaneously on the lower frets. This is almost impossible to do on an acoustic guitar. You need an electric, with a slim neck and a ‘fast action’ set-up. You also need a ton of practice, and some talent.

When MTV came along in 1981, Van Halen made their first video, “Intruder/(Oh) Pretty Woman” from Diver Down (1982), which was promptly banned from MTV– for it’s surprise ending…

Four amazingly talented people working together, Van Halen was even greater than the sum of their parts– through 1984.

Eddie kicked Roth out in 1985, and that was it for the real Van Halen. Van Hagar was mostly uninspired, and ‘Extreme’ Van Halen was terrible. Eddie bringing in his son Wolfgang, to replace Michael Anthony on bass, was maybe the worst. RIP Van Halen

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Fake Economics & the Nobel Prize

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This is such garbage. Among the profound Nobel Prize-winning insights of U.S. academics Paul Milgrom & Robert Wilson is the “winner’s curse,” which is when a bidder pays too much in an auction. It’s essentially the same as when the LA Angels overpaid for Albert Pujols in MLB free agency, to use one example. But everyone knew this already, so where’s the genius here?

Milgrom & Wilson are also noted for their various bourgeois theories on “perceived value,” which have little to do with actual value, since all the stock, bond & derivatives markets are divorced from reality. It’s the Federal Reserve that keeps these zombies upright, but academics never focus on those realities. These are pseudo-intellectuals who rationalize capitalism, by obscuring its horrible inequalities, and they are richly rewarded for it.

The amount of actual value in a commodity is precisely determined by the amount of human labor needed to produce it. Karl Marx published Capital in 1867, and since then, bourgeois economists everywhere have been unsuccessfully trying to refute it.

Paul Milgrom & Robert Wilson are professors at Stanford, one of the most prestigious universities in America. Stanford is also one of the most well-connected to the US deep state. These “auction theories” allowed broadband signals to be sold (cheap) by the US government to cell phone giants such as T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, etc.

These corporations now have access to everyone’s data, which sells it to governments & other institutions around the world– for profit. No user allows this consent, but all cell phone users are forced to agree to a boilerplate policy set by corporate, which allows this.

As far as government protection for the consumer goes, there is none. It’s toothless alphabet soup oversight (SEC, FCC, etc…), where waste & bureaucratic incompetence are systematically encouraged. The same now applies with social media platforms & search engines, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google & Yahoo!.

Paul Milgrom & Robert Wilson have provided finance capital with a post-modernist rationale for their monopoly of digital, internet & cell phone technologies. That wins the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2020.

Karl Marx was right. Today there are too many fake awards for fake theories to justify class interests. It’s the same deal with the CDC, NHS, etc, when it comes to coronavirus. The theory of all post-modernist award winners is: all profits go to the few, while the rest get hosed because they aren’t worthy. That’s nothing more than a pseudo-intellectual justification for fascism.

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Trump catches Kung Flu

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United States President Donald Trump was airlifted to Walter Reed Medical Center Friday evening after testing positive for Kung Flu. According to the extremely limited information released by the White House, he was treated with a cocktail of experimental drugs during the day but had a persistent low-grade fever.

I posted a poll question on my Fakebook page, but at this point I don’t think anyone sees me anymore due to Democratic party (Zuckerberg-CIA) censorship, so here’s the question.

Donald Trump has come down with Kung Flu. Do you hope that: A) he recovers well; or B) he suffers & dies?  Vote here.

You can be sure Donald & Melania Trump won’t have bleach or Lysol injected into their veins and/or lungs. That’s not the way professionals treat Kung Flu. The dedicated staff at Walter Reed will provide the best doctors & nurses, drug therapies, and PPE in Trump’s medical suite. This is to help Donald Trump in recovering from Kung Flu.

Trump is a fattie, so he needs this help– for sure. Without it, he would be at the mercy of Kung Flu, which is merciless. For those not privileged, this pandemic has been a nightmare. In just over six months, over 210,00 dead in the US, and over one million globally as of this publication. That’s probably an undercount. Economies wrecked, jobs lost by the tens of millions, and tens of thousands of small businesses going bankrupt– never to return under capitalism.

Question: Is this Kung Flu an attack on the US Presidency, by China? Has Kung Flu put our “national security” at risk? How should the US strike back at China for their Kung Flu aggression? I know this looks like three questions, but it’s really just many variations of the same fake question: how does the ruling elite blame China? Or Russia?

When the seriousness of something such as an outbreak of Kung Flu is ignored, and turned into a sick joke, there will come a time for the masses to stop laughing & start thinking seriously. How is humanity going to defeat Kung Flu, a deadly & contagious virus? Professionally speaking: COVID-19 attacks the body, while Kung Flu afflicts the mind.

Coronavirus positive Donald Trump is the leading global super-spreader of Kung Flu. His ‘herd immunity’ policy is malign neglect, an impeachable & criminal offense against the American people, yet the Democrats refuse to attack Trump from the left, which proves their bankruptcy. We now have medical proof of Trump’s sickness with his hospitalization. Trump is positive, it’s Kung Flu.

The führer and his trophy wife were supposed to fly into Sanford International Airport last night for a campaign event, but this much ado was cancelled, due to Trump being positive with Kung Flu. Biden-Harris spread Kung Flu too. Who knew about Kung Flu, and what did they do? I ask you.

Nancy Pelosi knew about Kung Flu back in January, but what did she do? It’s a false choice between red or blue. We aren’t animals in a zoo. Herd immunity is malign neglect, it’s true. It only spreads this bad ju-ju, known as Kung Flu.

Let me ask you, “Who flipped Kung Flu?”

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