Random thoughts 1: Just Sayin'

[azzaman333]

Might I advise not doing that? I doubt you have a group of ardent admirers with a Shroud of Eden on hand.

Only one way to find out!

 

[warpus]

If you wait 3 days until you revive yourself it might be easier to get groupies

 

[Traitorfish]

If participation trophies are so awful, why do we give soldiers campaign medals?

 

[Synobun]

If participation trophies are so awful, why do we give soldiers campaign medals?

Most would consider there to be a difference between ineffectually kicking a ball for twenty minutes and going to war.

 

[warpus]

Because soldiers put their lives on the line for the country

and kids playing soccer is not even entertaining to watch, there's 0 contribution to society there

 

[Takhisis]

I think I'm going to drink myself to death on Friday night, be dead on Saturday and revive myself come Sunday.

Might I advise not doing that? I doubt you have a group of ardent admirers with a Shroud of Eden on hand.

Diamond dust is too expensive in this economy. I wouldn't be able to afford the Teleport scroll.

 

[Commodore]

If participation trophies are so awful, why do we give soldiers campaign medals?

A lot of the soldiers I served with (myself included) actually had a similar attitude towards campaign medals. At least in regards to modern military campaigns where soldiers get them despite doing nothing but sitting on the FOB the entire deployment. That's why the real "badges of honor" were the CIBs, CABs and Purple Hearts. Because those badges are indicators that a soldier was actually engaged in combat.

 

[Commodore]

I have seen the world...I wasn't impressed.

Just sayin'

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I keep getting mail from Camp NaNoWriMo. The first few were from a girl in a hijab who was an "online diversity advocate" and enjoyed writing about "tough girls forging their own paths toward their destinies." Now they're coming from a girl who is proudly described as "bipolar, biracial, and pansexual." I know an event centered in Berkeley is going to have a liberal bent, but this is kind of outlandish.

What kind of cabin did you set up, anyway?!

The only email I get is the odd reminder to donate to the organization. Since I didn't register a project this time around I haven't had any of the weekly pep talks and invitations to online events.

 

[Arakhor]

I don't regard anything human as alien, but the thread number written out in full? That I do.

 

[Takhisis]

That feel when you compose a long post on a topic you're passionate about but it's the penultimate post in a serial thread and so will assuredly not be read by anyone.

Oh, I read it. It really seems that sport is just an industry in the US of A. What would have happened if Federal Baseball Club v. National League had happened after the famous switch in time that saved nine?

 

[Gori the Grey]

I don't regard anything human as alien, but the thread number written out in full? That I do.

Word numbers are better than number numbers of any sort.

 

[sophie]

Oh, I read it. It really seems that sport is just an industry in the US of A. What would have happened if Federal Baseball Club v. National League had happened after the famous switch in time that saved nine?

Yeah, this is basically it. Professionalism is really the thing that torpedoed pro/rel. Before the development of the National League as a fully-fledged professional league, baseball looked rather similar to soccer in England: hundreds upon thousands of clubs of likeminded enthusiasts. The advent of professionalism with the Cincinnati Redstockings in the 1880s imploded the NABBP and created a cluster[snip] of an arms race for the best players. Without an overarching Representative Organization for the sport as a whole, there was nobody to settle team or contract disputes, and poaching was extremely common. Only teams with the money and clout to buy the best players stuck around in the limelight, and those tended to be teams in major cities backed by wealthy owners.

Moderator Action: Please remember that CFC has a policy about not using swearwords, either written out or masked in such a way that it is obvious what was intended, even when such words are not being used in an offensive manner. ~ Arakhor
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Takhisis]

Reposting, because it's worth it and I might need it for further reference:

Because the baseball equivalent of the FA folded and rich owners stepped onto the scene who had an interest in keeping the national league as a closed circuit, admitting teams who would play ball with the other owners, and kicking out those (e.g. Louisville Sluggers, Cleveland Spiders, Washington Nationals, Baltimore Orioles) who wouldn't.

In 1903 another chance at establishing a tiered league system was firmly rebuked as the upstart (and then-superior) American League agreed to settle with the failing National League and collaborate as equals.

The big death-knells for any chance of a pro/rel system developing, though, were the 1922 decision Federal Baseball Club v. National League, which ruled that baseball, being an essential cultural institution, was not subject to antitrust regulations, meaning the owners' grip on the league and its players was absolute, and the 1926 World Series victory by the St. Louis Cardinals, which proclaimed to the rest of the league the effectiveness of a farm system composed of subordinate minor league teams. This victory kicked off a massive arms race throughout the rest of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s which saw the vast majority of independent and minor league teams get bought out and incorporated into existing major league farm system structures. With the death of the PCL in the 1950s, any hope of a change to the MLB franchise system was effectively dead for all time. The NFL and NBA developed within the context of the MLB's history, and so largely followed the same trajectory.

Consider what could have happened when in 1992 the biggest, richest, most successful clubs from the Football League broke off and formed their own independent league to protect their competitive and financial interests. Because soccer had at that point a 100-year tradition of promotion/relegation the format was ultimately preserved, but had that not been there, the owners that formed the Premier League would have had a financial interest in securing their position in the Premier League and thus would have pushed for a closed structure. That's essentially what happened to baseball in the 1880s and 90s.

tl;dr: the early histories of the soccer and baseball are remarkably similar, but four things happened to baseball that dramatically altered its trajectory compared to soccer:

1) The FA-equivalent for baseball, the NABBP wasn't able to handle the transition to professionalism and collapsed, with wealthy owners filling the vacuum left in the association's wake. This shifted the focus of the game from an open sport-wide system of various affiliated leagues of local, team-owned clubs, to a singular closed system of owners who had a deep interest in carefully controlling the format of their league (restricting players to teams, only admitting teams with large fanbases and amenable owners). Because the National League took in the biggest, most popular, most well funded teams, it was difficult for any other league to compete or negotiate, and there was no larger overarching governing body to arbitrate on their behalf, thus creating a Major-Minor league system.

2) Any attempt to break the existing format failed. Bad teams were tossed from the league. Rival leagues were either smashed in legal battle (The Federal League) or were incorporated into the structure (The American League), at which point they gained an immediate interest in maintaining the closed franchise system. Any attempt on the part of the players to organize and collectively bargain, was likewise crushed. Individual minor league teams achieving a level of play comparable to a Major League team (e.g. the Baltimore Orioles in the 1920s) were ignored entirely.

3) Federal Baseball Club v. National League codified the closed system into law. Baseball was a trust and could act as they pleased without having to entertain competition.

4) The success of the farm system established by Branch Rickey began a process by which nearly all minor league teams were bought out and forced to become subservient to the interests of the Major League.

 

[Michkov]

I love how the tl;dr has the same length as the original piece. Thanks for the extensive explanation.

 

[Hygro]

There once was a poster named Gori the gray
tasked by the rules to start a new thread today
he pondered and wondered
over traditions to sunder
and concluded that numerals were to be done away

 

[Gori the Grey]

Ha! What will I get to rhyme with Hygro in my counter-limerick, I wonder.

Edit: And now that I think about it, I don't know how to pronounce your username. I've always done it as a short i sound, but there's no reason it couldn't be a long i sound. Doesn't matter if I've been mispronouncing it in my mind all this while, but does start to matter when one goes to find a rhyme.

There is precedent. When I went to determine whether it was the one-thousandth or one-thousand-and-oneth poster who gets to start a new serial installment, I fired up Random Raves, and the first three Raves sequels were Two, Three and Four.

You could say that I'm being the most traditional of all.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Gori produces defense
In some threads that are far gone past tense
With those numbers so small
Is there tradition at all?
But since it's Gori it makes enough sense.

I approve.

 

[Gori the Grey]

This is also starting to look like the very many limericks that don't deserve their own thread thread.

 

[Gori the Grey]

"Life" is a pretty audacious name for a breakfast cereal. Just sayin'.