Armory

"I don't need alcohol to make it through the day.... (shakily takes sip of water) Oh that is awful, oh my God, 70% of the Earth is made of of that s***? How do the fish do it?" "That ball can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery because it was tattooed!"

That's one we tossed around! This player has gone through several names for his character, including Killer Fog (he started as a villain), and The Green Gasser...

"World's Greatest Dad" - Robin Williams in a dark comedy written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwaite.

"I'm gonna count to one."

I'll wait for an "I told you so" until they actually reinstate him. ?

Call the full strike zone? I say automate home plate. It's time to ditch the subjective zone. I don't mind video challenges, especially considering the number of calls that are overturned. The DH...meh. I've always been an NL guy but recently I'm coming around to adding it to the NL. I agree, eliminate interleague play. Contract a couple of teams if that unbalances the schedule. I disagree about tipping into the catcher's mitt being an out. It should remain a foul ball. I too would like to see the automatic walk eliminated, but I don't consider it that big a deal. It does save a bit of time, but not enough to be significant. I agree, go back to 154 games. This also might require contraction. Ask Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin about the value of clubhouse chemistry. I like the idea of adding Caribbean and Asian leagues to MLB, but I'd vote for actually adding some of those teams to MLB. They're already defacto MLB farm systems, to a degree. Free agency is fine the way it is. I agree, don't mess with the ball. But if you do, freaking admit it. Not sure where I land on defensive indifference, but considering the dearth of stolen bases in the last few decades I'm not sure it makes any difference to anything.

I gotta brag on my hometown Indianapolis Indians: last night against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, not one but TWO Indians players hit for the cycle! https://www.milb.com/indianapolis/news/indians-ride-bi-cycle-to-rout-over-ironpigs/c-289349626 "The bi-cycle by Newman and Stallings marked the second time in baseball history where teammates have hit for the cycle in the same game. Oddly enough, High-A San Jose accomplished the feat in April of this season."

I think the outpouring of support from pretty much everybody will have an affect on Disney's knee-jerk decision. Just one example of such a reversal is Chris Hardwick's reinstatement by AMC. But of course, I'm not an industry insider...

I agree with that last bit. I'm all for second chances, but that's it.

Oh let's not pretend that objectionable words are comparable to physical assault, even in this hyper-sensitive age. I'd bet money Gunn will be re-hired. I'd bet that same money Weinstein will never be, because what he did actually harmed people. What Gunn said harmed exactly no one.

If you leave a dimensional portal laying around something will come through it that wants to kill you. Even if it looks just like you.

Our primary super-team is based in Indianapolis, but they've had adventures in Chicago, NYC, Seattle, rural Kentucky, and as far away as Sri Lanka. Oh, and the next one will be Indianapolis, but in a mirror dimension. ?

One of my players has a gas-based PC called Vapor.

Not a fan of the "tosses self out of the plane with no parachute" shtick, or perhaps I should say I was a fan of it the first time I saw it in Captain America. That makes me worry about other choices they've made. But I'll go see it.

Saw a headline on ESPN this morning about how getting Machado makes the Dodges the "NL team to beat". Last I looked LA had a lot more holes to fill than SS. Between other injuries and a few underperformers like Bellinger they need more help than Manny's going to bring them.

This^. Iron Man was the only comic I had a subscription to back in the early '70s. I used to have a ton of old Tales of Suspense, including #s 39 and 40. I had no problem with the way they handled the Mandarin in IM3, for the reason you stated: he was a racist caricature, with a rather silly origin to boot. Having said that, I am interested in who this 'real' Mandarin is who was mentioned in that short, if they ever get around to showing us. I'm hoping it was more than just a sop to the fanbois who were complaining.

That's probably the only good thing Manfred has done, to get rid of that "this time it counts" nonsense. It's an exhibition game, it shouldn't count for anything. OTOH I think it should be treated less like an exhibition in that I'd like to see the lineups handled like a regular game, meaning more concern for winning and less concern for getting everybody into the game. As far as expansion goes, I'd rather see them contract. Get back to an odd number of teams so we can do away with interleague play during the season. That's part of what made the All-Star Game so great in the past, it pitted players against each other who normally would never play on the same field. The World Series has lost a bit of its luster for the same reason.

I come up with titles for all of my adventures. Some are better than others, of course. I don't usually come up with one until after the session, in case the players do something that would suggest a better title than I had in mind while writing it. They can all be seen at the Obsidian Portal links in my sig, but here are the better ones: Jurassic Quark - a particle collider accident creates a breach between dimensions and the team is pitted against intelligent, evolved dinosaurs. The Shocking Dead - the team fights electric zombies...cross that one off the bucket list. He Ain't Hedgy, He's My Brother - long story short, a PC with a plant-based origin discovers his long-lost brother, who transforms into what is basically a gigantic, walking tree of destruction. Nano He Didn't - The mad scientist father of a PC's girlfriend infects the team with nanobots, which led directly to the next session where he took remote control of three PCs' bodies and forced them to murder villains, which was called: Excuse Me While I Kill This Guy - to the tune of "Purple Haze", natch. Twisted Christmas - the PC team Christmas party is crashed by their evil twins from another dimension.

"The rest of the world loves soccer. Surely we must be missing something. Uh, isn't that what the Russians told us about communism?" -- Tom Weir Thankfully I don't have to grin and bear it, I can just ignore it.

The website told me Spain, but I'm actually rooting for the whole thing to be cancelled. I am the typical American who finds soccer to be the sports equivalent of loose bowels. It's something that is endured rather than enjoyed; it feels like it lasts longer than it really does; and it stinks. ? ?

The contract thing is one part of it. The other, I think, is that baseball is hard. Even for the best-of-the-best, it's a difficult game. I don't think it's all that easy for guys to completely change their game plans (their process, as Brian Kenny says). For a guy who's never bunted, it's not an easy skill to learn. OTOH, baseball is a game of constant adjustments and if more of them started bunting against the shift and succeeding, the shift would die.

I get that. I disagree, but I get it. It did feel authentic to me. What bothered me about it was that his Celestial powers were nowhere to be found.

"Meta-textually"?!? Whatever. He's human, thus fallible. That is all.

IOW, it's not reasonable to consider Quill a human being. He shouldn't be a human being, because he's a hero. Pffft.

At Crosley Field, the era of nighttime baseball begins on this day (well, night) in 1935. Twenty-five thousand fans watch the Reds beat the Phillies 2-1 in the first Major League game ever played under the lights. During the pre-game ceremonies, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushes a button at the White House to illuminate the field.