The Home Opener

 

I was eight years old when my family moved to Erie PA.  We moved into a stereotypical suburban neighborhood with houses packed with kids perched on flat green backyards which served as ideal baseball and football fields.  I had moved from Philadelphia and thus was born into the level of passionate support of that city's teams that only an 8 year old can possess.  I can remember listening to Phillies games on a little transistor radio in my garage in Philly as a six year old to give light to what a sick little bastard I was at that time.  There weren't many six year olds that were jacked up about the Phillies trading for second baseman Dave Cash, but I was in deep.  I still remember going to my first MLB game, a 2-0 Phillies win in the old Veterans Stadium.   Box score

In my new neighborhood was a kid named Paul that was in my grade.  He lived two houses over from me.  As passionate as I was about the Phillies was about 1/8th the level of support Paul had for the Pirates.  I cannot picture what the top of Paul's head looked like because he ALWAYS had on one of those pillbox Pirates hats.  He could have been bald as far as I know.  It's a good bet that some teenage girl has a memory of losing her virginity to a pale skinny kid from Erie that was completely nude except for his Pirates hat.  I'm telling you, that hat was as much a part of his identity as Slash's top hat is to his.  

In the mid 1970s the Phillies and Pirates were heated rivals in the NL East, one of two divisions.  Both teams were really good with the Phillies being slightly better and winning the East in 1976/77/78.  The Pirates won it all in their magical 1979 season, a horrible occurrence in my childhood that can be measured in the same scale as the death of a grandparent or family pet.  The importance of each Pirates v Phillies game in the world of 9-12 year olds cannot be understated.  The wait at the bus stop and tone of the day would be determined by the outcome of 18 guys that had played baseball somewhere in Pennsylvania the previous evening.  If your team lost, you would find yourself eating shit all day.  I don't think guys like Jay Johnstone and Del Unser understood exactly how important their late inning pinch hit at-bats were in the scope of my life.

People who didn't grow up during this time also have no idea how scarce sports information was to come by.  There was no ESPN.  There were two ways to get the MLB scores.  You could somehow stay up until 11:25 pm to get the score on the local newscast or you had to wait for the Erie Daily Times to arrive at the end of the driveway to get the box score.  It was possible to watch baseball games three ways.  1.  You could see the Pirates and whoever they played on WSEE-TV, the CBS affiliate that pre-empted summer re-runs for Pirates games.  2.  The two network MLB games a week, one which was on Saturday afternoon on the NBC station and the other on Monday night as ABC tried to cash in on their success with Monday Night Football.  3.  Go to a game.  Pittsburgh was two hours away, so those games might as well have been in Egypt.  

Despite being a big baseball fan in this period, there were teams and players I would NEVER see.  As the Pirates network only showed National League teams (this being before interleague play), a team would have to be noteworthy enough to get on one of the two network broadcasts for me to even have the potential to see them.  Thus, I never saw teams like the Twins, White Sox, Angels, Tigers, Brewers and Rangers until the 1990s.  This basically made baseball a sport that distilled down to about eight teams, fairly easy to get a handle on.  The depth of knowledge I have about late 1970s-early 1980s NL East utility infielders and backline starting pitching even now is baffling.  I can still see Tim Foli's stupid wire rimmed glasses in my mind.

There is nothing like the anxiety of being nine years old eating his morning Pop-Tart opening the paper thin sports section to see the result of a Pirates v Phillies game.  The immediate lift of seeing a Phillies victory, hopefully decisive, and knowing it was going to be a good morning at the bus stop is a high you never quite reach later in life.  "Hey Paul... I didn't get a chance to see the sports page this morning.  Any idea who won the Pirates v Phillies game last night?".  This would almost immediately be countered with a wave of the hand and an obscure stat tossed out to argue of the Pirates superiority over the Phillies.  Thus, the morning arguing would commence.  Ah, it was a golden time.

As Cleveland prepares for Opening Day today I have no intention of going.  Those bastard parking lot owners will have jacked up lot prices to San Francisco price levels of $75, the stadium will be filled with super drunk corporate types that snaked tickets from the company, and absolutely no one will be paying attention to the game except cranky fucks like me.  Let's also be honest, my relationship with my hometown team is "casual" at best, and ever since the Cubs finally won a World Series their fans are only slightly less annoying than Red Sox fans.  My eye will instead be on my surrogate teams of 2026, the SF Giants and oddly enough, the Pirates.  Go Bucs.  

       

Advertising Secrets and Giants!

When I worked in advertising, one of the biggest hurdles that I think the industry had in creating effective ads was in overestimating the intelligence of the audience.  Most of these advertising jobs are filled with college graduates.  I mean, I'm not saying a bunch of Rhodes Scholars but "college graduates" like somehow they made their way out of Kent State or Bowling Green or somewhere similar.  A roomful of people that work in advertising is not a group that will stun you with academic insight or creative problem solving, but know at least something.  I think the problem is when you are surrounded by your peer group, regardless if that is a bunch of day laborers or genetic scientists, you make the assumption that everyone you come in contact with is fairly similar to you and your people.  This is not true by any stretch of the imagination.  Let's take a car ad for example...

I used to do a reasonable amount of automotive ads for people, or at least tried to along the way.  The auto dealer would tell you "We've got this zero percent financing incentive and a $2500 rebate plan from the factory we need to advertise."  Then you'd run the stereotypical car ad with stock footage of the car in question driving down the picturesque road with the announcer saying something like "Take your choice of zero percent financing options or $2500 rebate to drive today!" as if that would get people excited.  Those schedules usually didn't work very well.  You know why?  Because the general population doesn't know what the fuck a rebate is or understand how the interest rate impacts the price.  The general public doesn't know anything.  The only thing almost anyone you look at in a grocery store understands is "2 for 1" or "$200 a month".  That's it.  They can't do the math on what 25% of 100 is much less figure out how much money they'd save at 0% versus 8%.  As far as problem solving ability it goes fish<goat<average Lorain County resident<squirrel in that order.  I am serious.  Randomly ask someone in a public place how much 15% of 80 is, or who the United States fought in WW2, or what states border Ohio... You'll be stunned at who doesn't know the correct answers.

I sit and listen to people talk in public spaces.  It's really disheartening.  I have been pouring wine to people in weird beverage store sampling events lately.  Let me tell you something.  It's almost impossible to simplify something too much for an average person to understand.  Like if I tell someone "it's hot where the grapes come from so they get very ripe because it's from Southern France", almost none of them can find France on a map much less know that there would be climate differences in different parts of the country.  You can't use the word "climate" because they don't know what that means.  There is no way in hell you can talk about tariffs impacting store prices because they don't know what a tariff is beyond having something to do with money.  A lot of times people nod their heads along like they understand something, but you know they have no fucking idea of what you're saying.  The problem is you already broke the conversation down so a 10 year old could get it, and there's no way to speak even more simply.  So when you think about current events, how in God's name can we expect most people in the country to understand how the oil market works, or why the Save American Act is voter repression, or how you can't just leave Iran as the "winner" because you decided to make a statement on social media.  Fucking A, it's a grim time.

I watched this documentary on PBS the other night called "Hard Hat Riot" which was about the 1970 riots when construction workers beat the crap out of college anti war protesters in NYC.  It's interesting how similar the man-on-the-street TV interviews sounded to present day as the construction workers were pissed off because they had this black/white view of "America" that they felt the protesters were desecrating.  There is a slim difference between the "America: Love It Or Leave It" 1970 construction worker and the 2026 flag decal in the window pickup driver with the beard "Don't Tread On Me" guy today.  Both of them had this "don't tell me something I don't want to hear, and if you step on that flag I'm gonna beat your ass" sensibility that is timeless in America.  In their defense, the 1970s hippie movement that waved Viet Cong flags as they occupied Columbia University buildings is as annoying and naive as the "Defund The Police/Black Lives Matter" suburban liberals of today, so I get why they wanted to knock their heads in.  It's the same cycle over and over, and because no one reads any history, we repeat it all over again.  The worst thing about getting older is seeing the same movie over and over with people telling you "you just don't understand the plot" when you know goddamn well how it ends.  I recommend that documentary though.  It's time better spent than watching reality tv shows.

Thank God baseball is about ready to begin.  I could really use that daily distraction of the endless regular season to zero in on for awhile.  I had been looking for another team to bet on the over/under but haven't been sold on one like that Pirates bet, which the Pirates being the Pirates is probably doomed.  I am feeling a little bullish on the Giants this year but the win total of 80.5 is probably right on target.  I don't see an advantage anyway as once you get past the Giants first two starters (Webb/Ray) anything can happen.  That's when I saw an odd little head-to-head bet sitting there:  More wins, Giants or Guardians?  Now that's intriguing!

I'll give you a quick overview on the Giants.  Two solid starters, injury prone Tyler Mahle #3, injury prone Adrian Houser #4, and maybe Landen Roupp?  This is where the Giants get into their version of "Well, if that guy stays healthy and that guy can start 18-20 games this year, they should be OK".  Realistically two of those five starters will get hurt and some AAA guys that are shaky as shit will pitch more often than you'd hoped.  As far as the starting lineup, they've done that move some other teams have done by making the infield the offensive focus and then put fleet footed contact hitters in the outfield.  Devers/Adames are a solid power hitting combo.  Chapman has pop at third.  Arraez is a former batting champion at second.  That's a really good infield offensively.  The outfield?  Eh...  Heliot Ramos is decent in left.  Jung Ho Lee in center hasn't been what they'd thought, so Bader probably plays a lot in center with Will Brennan platooning with Lee in right.  It's a "buncha guys".  Still, this is a team that can score some runs.  I think the everyday lineup is good enough that 85 wins is a reasonable expectation and falling below 78 would be a disaster.

The Guardians are what they always are, aren't they?  Pretty good pitching with Jose Ramirez getting some help from Steven Kwan and then 7 other guys floundering around.  That is the game plan.  They were a shocking playoff team last year with that Tigers collapse plus some of the luckiest swings of fortune possible driving the bus.  The assumption is Bibee/Williams/Cecconi will be really good because their young pitching is ALWAYS good.  The team didn't add shit in the offseason and are either confident in their young players developing or are just talking shit to avoid any bad contracts across the inevitable 2027 labor dispute.  I think Manzardo becomes a reliable power hitter with a low average.  I sort of believe in Rocchio taking another step too.  Arias is a utility guy getting too many at bats until Bazzana gets called up full time.  I mean, can he possibly give you less than Arias?  Delauter seems like he's doomed to be injured all the time, but at least there's hope there.  Kayfus or Valera in RF is a daydream.  Rys Hoskins is a professional hitter, so he's going to mess up those other guy's destined failure in right by stealing their potential at bats as DH.  Hoskins isn't great, but he's better than what they've got.  Cleveland is at 79.5 wins on the line right now.  This looks like a shit lineup, but it ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE A SHIT LINEUP and then they somehow win 86 games.  I think luck catches up to them this year and they finish third in the Central behind Detroit/Kansas City.  The Guardians have way too much of that "well if ALL the young players develop at the same time AND none of the starters get hurt AND Hoskins plays well AND the bullpen comes together AND Jose doesn't get hurt at any point in the year, they could be OK.  I am going to do the following... Giants More Wins Than Cleveland.  I am also going to see how Cleveland starts the season with their brutal first two weeks.  The Guardians start @Seattle (4 games), @ Dodgers (3 games), Cubs (3 games), Kansas City (3 games) @ Atlanta (3 games).  If they start 6-10 or so, that win total will move off the 79.5 to 78/77 and I am going to bet Guardians OVER 78 as a hedge.  

Let's play ball.        

     

Play Ball!

 

I was going to write something about how an 80-year-old man in orange pancake makeup and a trucker hat announced he decided to take the United States to war with Iran for reasons only he knows, but I’m tired.  It seems like everyone else is too.  There are some engaged people around who look at this turn of events and wonder how much grift those Congress members are cut in on to abdicate their responsibility to their stated purpose and to the people they allegedly represent.  There aren’t that many though.  Ultimately, most people I observe are wondering who the Browns are going to have play QB and what’s going on with Savannah Guthrie’s mom.  (Probably Watson and she’s dead.).  We are all on this ride and nobody is going to do anything about it.  It seems like a tough break for people living in Iran to have million dollar US missiles drop on their heads killing their loved ones, but an old man in Florida needs a distraction to get your attention off the fact that even though God Knows How Many “justice” department employees scrubbed those Epstein documents, there’s too much to get totally clean.  The Old Man had sex with teenage girls and who knows what else, and nobody is going to find out what happened while he’s alive.  If a whole bunch of strangers need to die, that’s a cost he doesn’t mind.  Nobody is going to do anything about any of it, so let’s talk baseball.   

After much consideration, I am on the Pirates.  I am not a voice in the wilderness on this either.  There is a growing drumbeat pointing to the Pirates as a team to have playoff expectations.  I knew I was in trouble when I heard a guy on the Bill Simmons podcast enthusiastically telling listeners that the Pirates had the horses to make a playoff run.  I found a “Pirates 75+ wins -120” on Draft Kings that I really liked as the win total has slowly drifted up to 78.  Let’s be honest.  The Pirates are still the Pirates.  Even their podcast in the “Locked In” network closes with the tagline “We care about the Pirates because someone has to”.  So why am I on them?

First off, they still have a couple years left on Skenes who is either #1 or #1A behind Skubal as the best pitcher in baseball.  The Pirates last year scored remarkably few runs for Skenes and consequently threw away killer start after killer start.  That has to regress back to the mean, and I think that’s good for 4-5 wins.  Secondly, their lineup in 2025 really sucked.  They had two legit hitters on the team and what Krusty and I refer to as “A bunch of guys”.  These are the kind of instantly forgettable players that drift through MLB for a few years and presumably return home to become high school gym teachers/baseball coaches.  

I used to have season tickets with the Indians.  Note, I did not say “Guardians” not because I am a stubborn old white man that for some reason refuses to the societal shift that dictated an entertainment vehicle was absorbing negative PR because their corporate logo was a racist cartoon caricature of a Native American.  I said it because I bought “Indians” tickets and this was 2001.  It was a simpler time when Bill Selby played 120 games a year patrolling the outfield and the team traded away legit players whenever they had to give them market value contracts.  Ah, there is nothing like roasting in the sun on a Sunday afternoon watching a doomed team play the Royals at home in a half empty stadium to hear the PA announcer say “Bill………Selby….”.  The echo of the half empty stadium and smattering of half hearted applause told you everything you needed to know.  When Bill Selby or “Some Guy” came to bat, nothing was likely to happen.  That was the Pirates last year.

So, in Pittsburgh, they must have realized that they were going to squander the best pitcher in baseball, so they went out and signed some players.  Now, let’s temper our enthusiasm.  They signed guys like Ryan O’Hearn who the Padres rented for a few months from the Orioles and said, “Ehhh we’re good”.  Still, Rhino (seems like that should be his nickname) hit 17 HRs and 63 RBIs last year, and in Pittsburgh that means he’s playing everyday and in the meat of the order.  They also signed Ozuna which caught me by surprise.  I was thinking “Shit!  They signed Ozuna?” until I looked him up and found out he was 33 years old (allegedly) and hit about .220 last year.  Still, he’s good for 25 home runs if he stays healthy, and again, it’s better than what they had.  While these guys aren’t going to set the league on fire, they are legitimate MLB players.  For Pittsburgh, that’s something rare.

The other big news is that they have Konor Griffin, the no-doubt-about-it #1 offensive prospect in baseball.  He’s a shortstop which will allow them to move Cruz out to the outfield and Griffin should become their best player fairly rapidly.  There is the legit chance that he comes in and struggles.  He’s only 19 and has less than 200 minor league at bats after all.  Still, every single thing you read about this kid is “Mike Trout” comparisons.  If he can have a fast start, the Pirates are legit.  Dude had two HRs in a minor league game last week, so I’m optimistic.  Look, if we’re being honest, all he has to do is be better than Nick Gonzales and it’s a win.  It’s not exactly a tall order.

The major concerns are the bullpen and starters 3/4/5.  They all look like “some guys”.  For some reason the Pittsburgh sports media is VERY concerned about what they are going to do with #2 starter Mitch Keller who on paper doesn’t look any different than their next two starters in the rotation.  If Keller came to Cleveland, he’d be the #4 and it’s not like the Guardians have Paul Skenes sitting at #1.  The bottom line on that staff seems like it’s Skenes and a buncha guys.  That’s fine.  They spend a whole summer playing the Reds, Cardinals, Marlins, Rockies, Dbacks, Nationals.  It’s not the Dodgers and Cubs every weekend.  If Skenes stays healthy, and there’s no reason to think he won’t, they’ll be OK.  The bullpen?  Who the fuck knows.  My equation is 71 wins last year should be more than 74 wins this year with Skenes alone, but toss in the everyday player additions, and I think they are scuffling for a Wild Card spot around Labor Day.  Pirates 75+ wins. 

The Long Dreary Days Of February

 

This is such a bleak time of year.  I've escaped a couple of times, to Mexico and California, but despite the reprieve you know you're headed back to your little suburban prison of ice.  It's the second week of February and this is the point when the calendar in NE Ohio has turned from "The Abyss" straight to "Soul Sucking".  We haven't had a winter like this in a long time, which will no doubt embolden every moron I know to reveal themselves as such on social media saying things like "It was 14 degrees today.  So much for Global Warming!" as if they just landed the ultimate "gotcha".  For the record, it's "climate change" not "global warming" and there are easily accessible data points on outlier drastic weather events, water accessibility issues, frost, hail, deluge rains, extended droughts, heat spikes, introduction of new pests into regions without natural predators, and...  It's exhausting.  Why does every debate now have to be with complete morons that have no information on the topic yet are completely positive they have it all figured out?

Football is over so even that distraction is gone.  There are some people around me that are into the Olympics but I just can't get into sitting there and watching ice dancing or luge.  I think I'd like to take a luge run assuming I could do so without shattering my spine, an outcome that seems unclear, but I don't have any interest whatsoever in watching some dude from Poland jet down an ice chute.  I was asking one of my riveted friends about what the point is of getting all jacked up about whoever emerges as the women's mogul champion as whoever that is will be largely forgotten by those outside of that niche inner circle in about ten minutes.  You spend your entire life to become the best in the world in mogul skiing and then what happens?  He then gave me the response that seems to be the end game of everyone in our attention currency culture.  "She will cash in on the internet."

This idea of gaining huge wealth because you are either a notorious person or physically very desirable and you will gain vasts sums of money by putting images of yourself online is our current version of "writing it off on taxes".  Much like the elusive tax write off, the nuts and bolts of how people actually make money on short bursts of fame is very unclear.  The guys that own my gym are absolutely convinced that all women who are on OnlyFans are funding glamorous carefree lifestyles for themselves by adopting the lifestyle of a low rent porn star, which seems unlikely to me.  "No, you just don't know."  Look, I have no clue as to what the economics are in that world, so maybe I'm wrong.  My thinking is that only the platform and the performers with leverage make money just like the world of music streaming, TikTok and YouTube.  Why we have allowed people the produce no ideas or products to become filthy rich and have vast control over the minds of the population, I have no idea.  I decided to take a deep dive into it.  Are there untold riches available to those that win a gold medal in women's moguls?  Is there more at stake than being the best in the world at something sorta weird that not many people even attempt?

I looked into women's skiing sponsorships.  I turns out that if you are good enough (and healthy enough) to be in the top 5 of the sport, companies like Red Bull, Rolex and Porsche can drive sponsor dollars to the top 3 stars to about $10-25 million annually.  Hey, that's pretty good money.  The problem is there is a massive dropoff after that with a 2018 report showing that those not in the Top 10 earn only $30,000 a year from the sport.  The costs of training and travel are out of pocket, so for most of them they are at a loss.  It can't be cheap to spend all your time in ski resort towns in Colorado, Switzerland, and Austria.  For example, when is the last time you saw someone at a WalMart strolling by you who then passed you a few weeks later with a hot chocolate in Gstaad Switzerland?

Maybe by "the internet" they mean social media.  OK, so let's say that you need to get social media going where you build a community where you sell some merchandise and have ads running on your professionally shot video clips.  Now you're tapping into the murky world of "influencer money".  If you have 10,000 to 50,000 followers you are a "micro influencer" in that industry.  They'll get paid $100 to $1000 depending on the product and level of endorsement.  The women that took the silver medal?  She has 20,000 followers.  Here's the other problem on this front.  Your content needs to be very high quality to boost engagement.  If people aren't reacting to the stuff, you can't convince potential sponsors to give you money.  I read a line about skiing content creation that an annual budget will be $50,000+ a year for logistics, filming, post-production and travel.  The gross take on these accounts tends to be $100,000 for very noteworthy personalities.  Net, $50,000... 

OK... So let's say you're more morally flexible and don't mind getting naked or having sex on video.  It seems like you'll lose all of your Red Bull money, but it's time to get paid!  I have been consistently assured that all these women are making MILLIONS on OnlyFans.  According to an article on Reuters, an average OnlyFans model makes $2.06 per subscriber.  The top .1% of creators make 76% of the revenue.  Only 4.2% of site users spend money.  The median revenue generated per month is $180.  So wait... You mean a few people with these accounts are like Beyonce/Taylor Swift and everyone else is is playing first on a three band bill at the Happy Dog on a Wednesday?  Hmmm... Looks like this isn't the answer to the financial problem either.  By the way, the owners of the OnlyFans platform itself make $1.9M A DAY.  He would be the "pimp" in this relationship for those of you keeping score.  

Now I'm really out on all this Olympics malarky.  There is only one thing to do.  Focus on MLB futures win totals.  Much like in 2024 when the Oakland A's took me to the promised land and in 2025 when my beloved Brewers came up big, I will be searching for a team to put an uncomfortable amount of money on to help conjure up some enthusiasm for MLB across the entire Spring/Summer.  It's tough going into it because the teams I'm looking for have a few key qualities.

- They need to be flying under the radar.   It is very challenging to find an edge in betting on the Dodgers or Yankees.  These teams are dissected daily on national sports programs much less their major media market content farmers.  What am I going to figure out before a dialed in MLB fan about the Yankees pitching rotation?  There is no edge to be had there.  Yankees, Mets, Phillies, Dodgers, Cubs, and Red Sox are out right off the bat.

- They need to be hovering with expectations around 75-82 wins.  I have spent a season locked into bad teams like my doomed bet against the White Sox last year, and nothing is worse than watching a Tuesday night White Sox game at home versus the Royals in July with no one in the stands.  Watching the Marlins play indoors all year?  No way.  Nationals and Rockies are too grim.  I just can't do it.  I'm looking for a team that I can get behind that could, just maybe, slip into the Playoffs as a Wild Card.

- The team needs to have wearable gear.  Look, if I'm getting behind the team, I'm going ALL IN.  I have a bunch of A's and Brewers stuff now, and there is nothing like getting stopped in the supermarket by someone asking you if you're a fan and then getting into how excited you are about Sal Frelick's play in right field for the Brew Crew.  I can't back the Reds because if I'm walking around in that red cap people might think I'm a Nazi Trumper.  The Rays, while a well run organization, have largely terrible gear.  I'm out on them too.  I can't see myself in baby blue Royals shit all season.  It's really a illogical but important component to this wager.

- Is there is disconnect between the line and the sabermetrics totals?   This is an absolute key for consideration.  Right now my main focus on my 2026 Team Of Destiny are the following teams based on what the geek patrol sees as gaps in perception versus realistic outcome.  I am taking a hard look at the Pirates, Twins and Braves for the OVER.  I also like to bet against a team I think is vastly overrated.  Teams under consideration for further analysis include the Guardians, Red Sox, Phillies and Padres.

I expect to kill the rest of February cooped up inside reading about wine and studying baseball spread sheets looking for value.  While some foolishly involves themselves in the stock market or bitcoin, I think we can all agree that the real action is on what are the implications of the Pirates trading Mitch Keller?  There is much to consider.  I will be releasing these results in mid-March, with enough time for you to jump on board this train bound for glory and get your new cap by opening day.   

2025 NFL Season Total Record:  41-33         

Mock Exams and Super Bowl Week

 

I attended the Master of Wine seminar this week in Santa Rosa CA, a more budget minded stay than glamorous nearby Napa Valley on the other side of the mountains.  I prefer Sonoma to Napa these days as Napa is now in a doomsday spiral of “premiumization” where each winery and restaurant is trying to outdo each other on who can be the most focused on conspicuous spending.  While there are plenty of great wines and places to eat, after all, an unlimited budget can really help deliver results, it’s all a bit of overkill.  Sonoma, while hardly a cheap place to hang out, is very conscious of not becoming Napa.  Of course this means they sell $75 wines instead of $175 wines, so it’s sort of splitting hairs at that point.  Still, the people are nice and the weather is good, so it’s a good stay in February.

I did four consecutive mock exams on Tuesday through Friday.  What that means is I have 12 wines poured in front of me and I must identify them blind and write full page notes on why I came to conclusion I did.  That went first thing in the morning from 800a to 10:15a.  It sounds sort of easy until you have to fill up a 16-page test paper with writing on conclusions you arrived at moving very swiftly with the pressure of not looking like an asshole in front of your peers, some of the best blind wine tasters in the world.  The time is about two minutes per wine for identification, which is faster than it sounds, and then the writing is 9 minutes per wine.  

What has become the most challenging part for me now is the writing, which you wouldn’t think would be that big of an issue for a guy the writes as much as I do.  I find it difficult sometimes to write not only the basic facts of what they are looking for, but the way they want it written.  Like If the question was “what kind of bird is this?” and they showed you a photo of Daffy Duck, you’d immediately know it’s a duck because, well… you know what a duck looks like.  However, can you prove that Daffy is a duck in a series of logical statements?  It has to be written something like this:  “Evidence of feathers points to being a bird.  Lack of scales or fur confirms the creature is a bird.  Evidence of a billed mouth and ability to swim points to waterfowl.  Webbed feet confirms water based bird.  Considered duck and goose as identity.  Dark feathers and ringed patterned neck consistent with duck.  Orange tinted bill confirms duck as goose would have white feather and black elongated type bill.  Considered Looney Toons and Mallard type duck.  Black feathers and white patterned neck, 12 pound body weight confirms Looney Toons species.”  So, I did that for four days with a bunch of weird ass wines and then tried to defend my point in group settings for saying a late harvest Gruner Veltliner from Austria was a reasonable miss on something I painstakingly wrote an answer for that I thought was a warm vintage Vendage Tardives Riesling from Alsace.  It’s all sort of ridiculous as nobody but the people in this room really care, but that’s how I spent the week.

The great news was that I was able to avoid all the banal Super Bowl hype.  The worst part of that is the NFL threatening to sue anyone that even says “Super Bowl” out loud which is perhaps the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.  Maybe FIFA will come and knock down your door with a bunch of ICE goons if you say “World Cup” out loud but I don’t think they’ll do that.  They have the wherewithal to understand that all publicity is good publicity, and if a chicken wing bar wants to advertise a “World Cup Finals Party” it’s good for the brand.  The NFL is a bunch of fuckers though.  They don’t want most of the money on the table.  They want ALL of the money on the table.  

I was talking with Krusty about this year’s game and it seems odd that all the chatter from the sports gambling community is centered around props.  I haven’t heard anyone floating out speculation on who is going to win the game, with an even more muted level of conversation than when some of those Cowboys and Niners monster teams were clearly going to fucking destroy their second rate foes.  Gen Z dudes like betting props and parlays, so that’s where all the public money and interest is focused.  I don’t really understand that thinking as to me, the Seahawks are clearly the better of the two teams and at the Draft Kings opening line of -3.5 seem like a gift.  Nobody seems to give a shit though.  

The Seahawks metrics are really good.  They are top 8 for almost anything you want to rank a good football team on.  They won the #1 seed and beat the Rams twice (a team I still think is the better team BTW), and had to tangle with the 49ers twice.  The only real question is our national agreement on refusing to believe that Sam Darnold is not going to flame out in the bright lights despite putting up two 13+ win seasons in a row on two different teams as a Top 3 overall draft pick pedigree QB.  I think he just had to scrub the Jets off him and that takes time, but who knows what happened there?  All I know is that he’s been solid, but the real thing that sells me on Seattle is how good their defense has been.  If you have a tough defensive team in these big games, that’s usually who has the edge.

The other key to this game to me is the Patriots schedule.  Look, I know you can only beat who is on your schedule, but what are this team’s best wins?  Beating Buffalo on the road I guess?  The Playoffs were a dream scenario for them.  You had Stroud putting up maybe the single worst playoff game performance I have seen since Brian Hoyer flamed out as a Texan and threw like 5 INTS.  Stroud singlehandedly lost that game for Houston.  Brutal.  Then they get to play a Broncos team that had to run out a backup that hadn’t played a game in over two years.  That’s not exactly the same run as beating the Niners and Rams, is it?  At a certain point you’d want to look at the Patriots and think, “OK, these guys are a Top 5 NFL team”, and I just don’t think that’s possible with the data set we have in front of us.  I’m on the better team who played the much tougher schedule with who I think also has the better Xs and Os coach.  Seattle -3.5

               

It's Just Fine, NFL Championship Weekend

 

There is a friend of mine that owns a small business which imports products from Europe.  He doesn’t like to talk about politics because either he dislikes the potential conflict it brings or feels under-informed to  confidently participate in the conversation.  He voted for Trump last year, something that was clearly not in his best interests, mainly because of the views of his support network of people from his hometown.  When confronted about his choice he generally wavered between the position of “all candidates are the same anyway” and “I don’t like Kamela’s laugh” (which probably means “I don’t like women in power and/or her skin pigment” but that’s saying the quiet part out loud).  After the election when things appeared to be veering into an extreme that was somehow unexpected, his business suffered from tariffs.  Like many people, he pivoted to the mindset of “I don’t really pay attention to politics” as if avoiding bad news will somehow make you immune to the impact of it.  This seems to be a common tactic employed by people now to lean into disengagement as if that will allow not only the freedom to avoid reality but to also downplay consequence of their own inaction.  And so as anyone who has read a history book predicted, we find ourselves today with a prototype Fascist leader in full blown cognitive decline ready to burn it all down around him.  Meanwhile, the herd watch Tik Tok videos assuming everything will somehow work out OK.  Check out this new dance.  

There is a false assumption afoot that the systems we created as a society will prevent “really bad things” from happening to us.  As there has never been tangible negative consequences felt by most people from national policy actions, therefore the expectation is that it’s all a game.  Real misery and loss is something that can be swiped away on your device.  On to the next funny dog video or fashion tip.  It’s all for you to consume.  The disconnect is that people don’t understand that the systems you have taken for granted to make things work out just fine for you aren’t working any longer.  They have been dismantled by greed heads, monsters and zealots.  There is a Doom Cult and you’re in it whether you remember joining or not.  Everything you have taken for granted is about to be given away by an 80 year old reality tv star/failed casino operator/convicted sex criminal.  Sit back and take in the sights.  If you make it to the other side you’re going to want to remember the details in your “way it used to be” stories you’ll tell to a disbelieving audience of young people.

After yet another normal person got murdered in the street by masked Federal government goons, the gaslighting from The State has edged into "brazen" from the already unbelievable position of "really fucking absurd".  This week you will see people that you know begin to parrot the Right Wing alternate reality world talking points of "Who brings a gun to an event like this anyway, he was going to murder law enforcement!" (as if two minutes ago that same media source wasn't shrieking about how everyone everywhere should be allowed to strap on guns, second amendment rights, blah blah blah).  Even worse, you'll see some stupid "breakdown of the tape" like this is a disputed NFL catch where the general thinking is if you talk confidently enough you will be able to talk away the obvious evidence of that guy getting beaten/shot/murdered from multiple angles and somehow say it was his fault.  The worst people of all though will be the ones that say "I heard something about that, but I'm not really a News Person" as a hedge to see if they can just ride this out with micro influencer reels and Volcano Quesaritos.  It's a grim time, but it's what America does.  

A quick reminder that when the Kent State shootings happened, a Gallup poll taken the day after the shootings reportedly showed that 58 percent of respondents blamed the students, 11 percent blamed the National Guard, and 31 percent expressed no opinion.  Although it's hard to imagine that a majority of people thought it was OK that American military troops fired rifles on a group of college students, to me the most amazing stat is about a third were "Eh, I don't really have an opinion on that".  Of course, this time there are multiple video angles, so the mental gymnastics needed to blame the dead guy are going to be more difficult to summon up.  I will say this. From my years in marketing I can tell you, people see what they want to see.  That brings me to perhaps the biggest and most important point I have to make today.  Why do people think the Broncos starting Jarrett Stidham is no big deal today?

That's right!  We aren't going to let a little state sponsored murder impact our Championship Sunday!  I've been reading and listening to a lot from "The Sharps" about the Broncos v New England game.  I should note that "Sharps" basically means "syndicated sports talk show host, guy with a podcast, or ex-athlete that needs to fill a segment".  The narrative that has coalesced is this:  Jarrett Stidham (a.k.a. "Stiddy") was a top priority signing for Denver when Sean Peyton arrived.  Peyton LOVES the guy.  Stiddy was drafted by Belichick, coveted by Gruden and signed to a high paid (for a backup) deal with Denver because he is so capable.  He's really good.  The fact that the line moved from Denver being favored by 1.5 to them being a 4 point underdog is crazy.  Bo Nix isn't worth 5.5 points!  That's just too many points.  You HAVE TO take Denver.  I don't know if the Broncos will win, but 5 points is just too many.   

Allow me to offer a counter narrative.  Jarrett Stidham has not played a down of professional football since 2023.  He has started four games in the NFL and went 1-3.  If Stidham is so fucking good, why did the Patriots, after Brady left, trade him to the Raiders for a 6th round pick in 2022?  The Patriots signed broken down Cam Newton instead of playing Stidham.  Why then didn't the Raiders hold onto him in 2023 when they soured so badly on Derek Carr they released him outright?  Then the Broncos, in the midst of horrible QB play from Russell Wilson, didn't put Stidham in until two weeks before the end of the season when the Broncos released Wilson strictly for financial reasons.  Stidham has played only because teams have had no other option, just like the Broncos today.  Now, let's also take into account that you're starting a guy that hasn't played a down of football in over two years, only started 4 games in his career, and then said "Good news.  You're the starting QB in the AFC Championship game.  Think about that all week and don't get tight."  Stidham's biggest start up until now was either the Peach Bowl against UCF in 2017 (lost 34-27 ) or Nov 24, 2018 when he led Auburn against Alabama (Lost 52-21).  

People will bitch about the Patriots weak schedule, but you can only play who is on your schedule.  The Patriots went 14-3, and 9-1 ATS in the last 10 games.  Denver is 5-5 ATS in their last 10 games.  The Broncos escaped with close victories over the Raiders, Chiefs, and Washington.  Hell, Denver should have lost to Buffalo last week.  Why are the Broncos going to just show up with Stiddy and take care of business?  We spend all year talking about quarterback, quarterback, quarterback and now that just doesn't matter?  If these teams are both full strength, I'm still probably leaning New England here anyway.  Drake Maye is a huge advantage in this game and yet everyone is talking Stidham.  New England is top 8 in whatever team metrics you want, and Denver had a shitty offense with Nix much less with what I'm supposed to believe is the second coming of Johnny Unitas in Jarrett Stidham.  New England -4 is the side here.     

The game I feel most strongly about is the Seattle v Rams game.  Seattle is easily the best team left in this tournament.  If this game was about a month ago, I would probably have gone Rams.  They just don't look like the same team to me.  I think the Rams are more beat up and injured than is being reported, especially Stafford.  He just doesn't look like the same guy.  Now I know they will shoot him up with a bunch of goo-goo juice to get out there today, but that Seattle defense is looking top flight.  On all the metrics the Seahawks are having one of the best overall seasons of any team in the last three decades.  Now toss in that the Rams are playing their sixth road game in seven weeks, and you have a tremendous rest advantage for Seattle.  Sure, we all have Sam Darnold questions swirling around our heads, but Darnold doesn't have to win this game.  He just has to not lose it.  I really like Seattle -2.5      

Current record:  39-32

Avoiding Ron and NFL Divisional Round

 

For the second consecutive flight I have been placed next to a passenger which cannot sit still, every four seconds a herky jerky move like he is unable to be comfortable in silence or a stationary position.  When I was in elementary school these children were called “hyperactive” and dosed up with some kind of downer to make them less disruptive in class.  As an adult, people can mask this behavior if they somehow fail upwards as being “on-the-go” or perhaps have their casually laughing wife say something like “Oh, you know Ron… He just can’t sit still.” as if that were some sort of virtue.  In the suburbs guys like this can blend in, intently running their leaf blowers and power washers, whatever they have to do to not sit quietly in their own minds.

I have a theory that the rise of smart phones has created an epidemic of these people, unable to go more than a few moments without some kind of stimulus for their brains.  Maybe this hyperactive trait had always been there and now it’s been exacerbated by a steady regimen of dopamine hits from quick videos of guys getting hit in the nuts and girls in yoga shorts stretching.  It could also be the rise of the coffee chain culture where maybe this dude is just speeding his dick off from a quad shot Venti Pike delivered via suppository for faster intake.  “Ron?  Ron?  Quad Pike Venti?  Ron?  Yes, can you step over here onto the plastic tarp?  Your drink order is ready.”

It could also be from dwelling in a world of apps and online portals that have just fried people’s brains out.  I spent 90 minutes yesterday trying to check into a flight in which Frontier Airlines had constructed the absolute perfect electronic maze.  Log onto the app with your Frontier Miles number.  Password not recognized.  Forget your password?  Click the button to have a link to set a new password.  No email arrives.  Go to the website.  Chat with our AI assistant.  What’s the problem?  I’m happy to help.  Explain the problem.  Have you tried to log onto our app?  Connect to representative.  Hello, I am happy to help.  What’s the problem?  Explain the problem.  Have you tried the app?  That’s the problem.  So sorry.  I have re-set your password in the app.  Log onto the app.  Unexplained error.  Unable to log in.  Please try later.  Log on with your Frontier miles number.  Unexplained error.  And back around.  Have you tried our app?

I am hoping to dive in Mexico, something I haven’t been able to do for a number of years now as I have been traveling almost exclusively to wine producing regions.  Of course, there is some sort of risk with my exciting new heart status, but there are worse places to die than in a light blue ocean surrounded by colorful fish.  My doctor told me a story of a guy that had a heart attack at depth.  He had to do a safety stop waiting for his blood to decompress as he absorbed the attack.  He then flopped back onto the boat and chugged back to the port.  He went to the airport to get back to the Clinic to receive care and somehow lived after an intense surgery.  Glass half full, he somehow lived after all that.  Glass half empty, maybe he should have just removed his regulator and slowly sunk to the bottom.  I am hoping to have a couple low to medium depth dives in nice reef locations where I can weightlessly float around, not feeling the need to move every seven seconds like Ron over there to my right.  

My fear is that Ron will wind up being at my hotel.  I will then fixate on Ron, watching him get up to go to the breakfast buffet, sit down, get up again, swiftly walking across the room in his Sketchers and backwards baseball hat, checking his Apple Watch, grabbing a plate for a muffin he doesn’t need or want.  I overspent on the hotel as usually this type of guy is very concerned about securing accommodations that qualify as “a great deal”.  This will then enable him the opportunity to engage unlucky guests at the swimup bar with unwanted conversations like “Great weather, huh?  Way better than it is back at home.  We’re from Cleveland.  Yeah, had some snow right when we left.  We usually don’t come down here this time of year, but I got A GREAT DEAL on the Apple Vacations website.”  I have found that the extra $300-$500 a week tax to price yourself into a higher end place in Mexico is usually worth the payoff to leave Ron at the airport.  Even though I know I will not allow myself into the proximity of Ron to potentially get ensnared in his conversational web, a $100 a day payment on top of the normal cost will be well worth the insurance cost of me not staring at that guy monitoring his behavior, which is of course MY poison I bring to this party.  You’ve got to understand what you’re made of and deal with the reality of the situation.

As expected, Ron was shuttled off to a discount hotel chain at the Mexican Airport which is like arriving in Saigon in 1969.  “Hey GI?  You need taxi?”  A small mini van whisked off to check into the 5 Apple (whatever that means) hotel location where I had the worst glass of sparkling wine I’ve had since a sekt at the Hamburg Art Museum café in the mid 2010s.  I fell into a deep sleep where I had a dream that I had been unconscious and woke up to find myself baked into a large vase with thick clay walls.  The only part of me exposed was my head, with my neck being contained by the top rim of the vase like an amphora collar.  My body was constricted inside the vase in a half squatting position where it was impossible to stand or sit due to the constriction of the chalky interior of the vessel.  My thighs burned but if I relaxed them, the weight of my body would cause great pain on my jaw being jammed against the rim of the opening.  I was in a large room with a tile floor totally alone.  It was silent and with a growing darkness like late dusk.  Across the room I saw a stairway heading down.  If I could figure a way to knock the vase over, maybe I could roll over to fall down the stairs where hopefully the impact would break the vase and free me from the prison.  I rocked my body back and forth and felt the vase gradually topple over and begin to roll.  The floor and the ceiling alternated as I helplessly rolled towards the staircase.  Suddenly I stopped short of the stairs, the vase having rolled into a corner of the room where my face looked down at the tile, trapped into looking at the floor in an uncomfortable position forever.  Then I woke up with the vivid memory.  

I don’t know what you know about dream interpretation, but here’s what I took out of it.  I better get on the Denver Broncos.  Does the vase represent the pass rush of the Broncos D line?  I dunno.  Maybe.  I am not bought in on this Bills team.  Maybe I’m pissed that they beat the Jags last week in what was a great game that I wish I could pin on my personal nemesis Trevor Lawrence, but I can’t.  I keep thinking about that Eagles game where Philly bullied the Bills line and made Josh Allen ineffective (though admittedly he almost pulled it out).  This divisional round is usually where good defense (and a rested one with Denver) beats a good offense.  I am on Denver -1 at home.

I just can’t see how the 49ers can keep losing star players and keep winning.  Kittle is done with an Achilles, approximately the 47th such Achilles tendon injury of this NFL season.  When I was a kid watching football, NOBODY got an Achilles injury.  Now it’s a couple guys a week.  I have no idea why this is, but it takes a good two years to come back from it, which means Kittle is probably done as a premier NFL player.  When you look at this game, the decision is this:  Do you think Sam Darnold will fuck this game up for Seattle?  Darnold has led his team to two (2) consecutive 13 win seasons, and yet it’s hard to shake the “I’m seeing ghosts” NY Jets Sam Darnold.  Even that kid in Oregon was like “Fuck that, I’m staying in school.  I don’t want to be a Jet.”.  I think the Seahawks run, run, run and keep it away from Darnold to win it on his own.  Again, well rested team.  I’m thinking about teasing this game with that 7 point spread making it Seattle -1.

That means I need a dance partner.  I can logically go Chicago +10 or Houston +9.5 as NE +2.5 makes no sense.  I think the Rams are the best team in the NFL.  However, I just saw Stafford sprain his index finger on this throwing hand last week, and now he is going to have to pass the ball in single digit temps in Chicago.  I’m seeing a whole bunch of “Matt Stafford hasn’t won a game in under 40 degrees since 1912” shit which concerns me.  He also was having epidurals for his back in late August.  That dude can tough out whatever happens, but this fucking Bears team is some kind of Team Of Destiny.  I just need them to keep it close on a shitty night in Chicago.  Seattle -1/Chicago +10

Current Record:  36-32