Before I begin, let me say that I’m saddened to hear that one of my baseball heroes, Joe Morgan, second baseman, Red’s legend, Hall of Famer and a good man passed away. And my condolences to the Morgan family and his teammates and to his fans here in Cincinnati and all across the country. He played one year on the Philadelphia Phillies. Now, I’m going to get myself in real trouble, but I have a bad habit of telling you the truth. I happened to grow up in a household in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where, if you wanted to have dinner, you had to be Yankees fan because that was the farm called, the Triple A ball club was a Yankee ball club.
He obviously couldn't call to mind the name of the Triple A ball club in Scranton.
And my grandpop was an All-American football player, but he was a great Yankees fan. But it wasn’t hard back in those days. There was Whitey Ford and a few others, but in Delaware, if you are not a Phillies fan, and let me put this way, if I were not a Phillies fan, I’d be sleeping alone. My wife’s a Philly girl. You think I’m kidding. I’m not. But Joe actually played for a year in the Phillies if my memory serves me correctly, but he had fans all over the country. It’s amazing to be both the heart when he was a second baseman, and the voice as one of the great baseball announcers in history, of the same club. I mean, that’s a pretty incredible accomplishment. And so, my best to his family and to his fans, and he has fans all across the country. Folks, as my football coach says, “Go time, Joe.” It’s go time. This is the most important election of our lifetimes, not because I’m running, because what’s at stake....
The Union Terminal is a big conspicuous place in Cincinnati. I've been there. Photo from 2010:
So I wonder, how many people were there. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports "Biden spoke for about 35 minutes to about 20 local Democrats and union leaders in the massive rotunda of Cincinnati's Union Terminal." He goes to a "massive rotunda" and only got 20 people? Well, the article says "The event was limited to invited guests in order to follow COVID-19 safety protocols." It also says that local party officials "urged Biden supporters not to show up outside for safety reasons." That's lots of safety... and also lots of protection from creating an embarrassing visual if nobody shows up.
Here's the Wikipedia article on the Scranton triple A baseball team, and the name of the team in the relevant years — 1919–1988 — was Heritage. Something metaphorical in Biden's forgetting "Heritage," but there's also a lot of basis for confusion as the team has a few different names since then — Red Barons (1989–2006), then Yankees (2007–2012), and now RailRiders (2013–present). [CORRECTION: “Heritage” is the heading for a section on a series of names, not a team name. And this team, in the relevant time period, wasn’t located in Scranton. Biden seems to have been talking about some other minor league team in the Yankee system!]
Why RailRiders? "The team name was submitted by Chuck Parente of Duryea. Although 'RailRiders' received the most first place votes by fans, 'Porcupines' received the most overall fan votes on the ballots ranked one through three. As a result, a porcupine was incorporated in the RailRiders' logo. The name of the team was a tribute to the Wyoming Valley's history as an economic powerhouse and railway center in the eastern parts of the state and Scranton's long contributions to the history of the US railroad and streetcar industries."
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123 comments:
I was a big Orioles fan in Yankee territory because the local team the *Pioneers* was an Orioles farm club, and I would never struggle to remember that name, it might be one of the last things to go if I had Alzheimers. Maybe they cut that part of his brain out with the aneurism, or maybe he is full of shit.
Why have the fans vote on it if you plan on blowing it off anyways? Porcupines would have been a fantastic name for the team!
Well nobody else wants seems terribly interested in talking about him.
"Here's the Wikipedia article on the Scranton triple A baseball team, and the name of the team in the relevant years — 1919–1988 — was Heritage."
Per the Wiki article, that club was in Jersey City when Biden was born, moved through Ottawa, Columbus, Charleston (WV), and Portland (ME), before finally settling in Scranton in 1984. Scranton seems to have had an Eastern League franchise (one level down) during Biden's youth, but that looks like a Red Sox farm team.
1. Trump is doing a rally every night this week.
The FL rally had 31% non Republicans and 14% who did not vote in the last 4 elections. This is how Trump wins.
2. Omaha’s minor league team has been called the Royals, Golden Spikes and Storm Chasers.
Urged supporters not to show up? This is the most bizarre campaign ever. Did he go just to prove he can leave his basement?
Porcupine Railriders? Ha! Our double A farm club are the Jumbo Shrimp. Ughhhh.
This is also from the Enquirer story:
" The Hamilton County Democratic Party urged Biden supporters to not show up outside for safety reasons. But about 50 Biden supporters showed up anyway and set up across the street. They faced an equal number of Trump supporters."
I know Biden is up in the polls everywhere, but Trump voters seem incredibly energized to me.
I do see they stopped doing the white circles. I think Trump making fun of those at the last debate shamed them out of doing those. They were incredibly weird.
He's going to get himself in trouble not for liking any given team but for going off script. (And then messing up forgetting details). His handlers give him enough grief that this isn't the first time he's spoken about getting in trouble. And yet he lacks the self control to keep himself from doing it. Cowed and weak.
No way to tie the Underground Railroad into it? Shame.
Philosophy conundrum : if a candidate speaks and no one is there to listen - has he made any promises?
Biden is Amtrak's most famous RailRider. Time that might have been better spent keeping Hunter in line.
They "urged Biden supporters not to show up outside“ the same way he asked Obama not to endorse him in the primaries.
"He goes to a "massive rotunda" and only got 20 people?"
Democrat voters don't need to show up. They have zero enthusiasm for this doddering 78-year old figurehead. They have no positive, affirmative reason to vote for Slow Joe - they hate Trump and are satisfied that Slow Joe merely checks the right liberal boxes.
Biden's crowds remind me of Spinal Tap's. His appeal is more selective.
I watched the size and enthusiasm for Trump last night, and noted that Biden had zero- that's a 0- show up to hear him in Toledo.
This is nothing if not a Potemkin candidacy.
Hard to reconcile “party of science” propaganda with the way Democrats pretend we’re living in the Black Death Plague Part Two. Even Karen B’s favorite bureaucracy the CDC has had to admit that transmission of COVID has occurred mostly among people who wear masks religiously (meaning secularly but with fervor, as conforms to current definitions of religious).
Wait -- Biden grew up in Scranton? First I've heard of that.
"But Joe actually played for a year in the Phillies if my memory serves me correctly, but he had fans all over the country. It’s amazing to be both the heart when he was a second baseman, and the voice as one of the great baseball announcers in history, of the same club."
What's he talking about? Morgan was never a Phillies announcer, and he certainly wasn't the heart and of their 83 team, the only year he played for them.
It's never clear when Biden has forgotten or is merely stupid. "...but in Delaware" it matters which part of the state you live in. Up north in Wilmington they are indeed Phillies fans. But once you get to Dover and further south they are Oriole's fans. You wouldn't pick up on that riding on AMTRAK. Heads-up for Joe, DE has a very long border w/ MD.
One thing that both Trump and Biden do when they're talking is use "but" incorrectly. They'll make a statement and then connect non-contrasting statement with a "but" instead of an "and'. Something like "My favorite color is blue, but my car needs an oil change." It's really weird.
The Delaware guidance for indoor gatherings is 250 people. Joe drew/invited 1/10th of that.
And why is Joe campaigning in Delaware, a deep blue state.
Yesterday in Arizona he drew about 20 to an outdoor event.
This is why we laugh at them. They couldn't get a crowd if they paid people. They are lying. Why bother going out if that's the case...he could make the same speech through Zoom.
"He obviously couldn't call to mind the name of the Triple A ball club in Scranton."
At least he didn't say the senator who is a Mormon played for them. Good job, Joe.
"there's also a lot of basis for confusion."
And so the excuses for Slow Joe begin.
So he continues to hide from the American people and their questions. Imagine interviewing someone for a job, and they answered your questions with "you don't deserve to know, but you will after you hire me."
Would it be intelligent to hire that person? Would they deserve the job?
His handlers are just glad he didn't start talking about the time he was in a cornfield in Iowa and he and Shoeless Joe practiced some cutoff throws.
As a result, a porcupine was incorporated in the RailRiders' logo.
Are you sure that’s not Biden and his leg hair?
"I thought you'd be interested that he went on and on about Joe Morgan... and himself"/"Yeah, it's mainly himself."
But is he really talking about himself if he gets all the facts wrong?
The rail terminal at La Plata, MO would be perfect. Amtrak stops there M Th S now, between Chicago and LA.
The platform is shorter than the train so sometimes they have to stop twice.
Who knew that even Hall of Famers die?
Pretty convenient that the DNC-Media has already given up on exit polling. If Biden’s “rallies” are a preview if Election Day the D party better hope their margin of fraud is sufficient to overcome the hordes intent on voting for Trump. 31% of rally goers were not Republican and 14% haven’t voted in last two elections. Those are outstanding stats for Team America!
Maybe they cut that part of his brain out with the aneurism, or maybe he is full of shit.
Embrace the power of “and”...
BTW: The current minor league team in Scranton is a Yankee affiliate.
This is why we laugh at them. They couldn't get a crowd if they paid people. They are lying. Why bother going out if that's the case...he could make the same speech through Zoom.
According to the Local report, the crowd in Arizona was comprised of campaign workers and local Democrat dignitaries. So the people were indeed paid to be there.
The enthusiasm gap between Biden and Trump is wide enough to drive an election through.
"But Joe actually played for a year in the Phillies if my memory serves me correctly, but he had fans all over the country. It’s amazing to be both the heart when he was a second baseman, and the voice as one of the great baseball announcers in history, of the same club."
Is he talking about himself here? We know he likes to appropriate the lives and experiences of others.
I thought Biden, at one time, wrongly claimed to be the first in his family to go to college. And now he claims his grandfather was an All American football player.
What's he talking about? Morgan was never a Phillies announcer, and he certainly wasn't the heart and of their 83 team, the only year he played for them.
Maybe he's conflating Joe Morgan and Harry Kalas.
Joe tends to get confused about stuff like that.
And isn't it cute how Joe likes to insert himself into every notable event that occurred during his lifetime?
This is the funniest thing i ever saw..
https://twitter.com/i/status/1315892305644195841
is it really a massive rotunda?
...or a "massive rotunda the size of a modest rotunda?
Either way, kudos to the Biden campaign for effective 'crowd control'
He's still not quite as good as Obama at making the anniversaries of historic moments, or the passing of world leaders or great athletes, all about himself.
Imagine if, after coming down with COVID and then saying he was healthy, Trump had said, "I'm running as a proud Republican for the Senate." Every Democrat and journalist would be screaming that he was unfit, disqualified, losing his mind, etc. There would be tutorials on the 25th Amendment in every paper.
But of course, it was Biden in Ohio: "I'm running as a proud Democrat for the Senate." And this wasn't the first time he has said that.
It gets better and better.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said during an interview on Monday that the 56% of Americans who say that they are better off now than four years ago “probably shouldn’t” vote for him, adding that they have “memory” problems.
“Gallup, in a survey between Sept. 14-28, found that 56% of registered voters said they were better off than they were four years ago, while just 32 percent said they were worse off,” Fox News reported.
I happened to grow up in a household in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where, if you wanted to have dinner, you had to be Yankees fan because that was the farm called, the Triple A ball club was a Yankee ball club.
Nowadays, if you don't have a slight Indian accent, you starve.
One thing that both Trump and Biden do when they're talking is use "but" incorrectly. They'll make a statement and then connect non-contrasting statement with a "but" instead of an "and'. Something like "My favorite color is blue, but my car needs an oil change." It's really weird.
That could be the "but" that stand-up comedians use to indicate a change of topic. Say "and ... and ... and ..." and people can think you are repeating yourself or rambling. "But ... but ... but ..." signals that you are transitioning to new material.
"Now, I’m going to get myself in real trouble, but I have a bad habit of telling you the truth."
Says the guy who thinks that voters don't deserve to know his plans for packing the Supreme Court.
Joe’s brain is scrambled. There’s not much more to say on the subject.
Why RailRiders?
Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton was the subject of controversy years back. Critics asked what business the federal government had in acquiring some old trains and saw the project as pure pork-barrel politics. Today, there's talk about putting the site and train collection back into private hands. The park/museum has its defenders even today, but it seems fitting to make the connection between Steamtown -- Congressman Joe McDade's pet project -- and Joe Biden's decades of log-rolling, pork-barrel politics as usual.
Joe's best years, if he had any, are way back in the rear-view mirror. The real reason to be concerned about the country if he is elected is that we don't know the name(s) of the man behind the curtain.
Apparently not being Trump is qualification enough.
Why didn't he bring paint so he and his supporters could paint over the mural of white supremacy?
(I'm not serious. Just trying to get in the 2020 spirit.)
Regarding the "Rail Riders" minor league baseball team, may I share a boring childhood baseball anecdote?
1. I grew up in small town in Califormia, that had a really devoted, competitive, community-driven little league baseball program.We loved it and took it seriously. The coaches were ex-jocks like Buttermaker in the Bad News Bears.
2. I was decent (good field, no hit), but my best friend LT was the best - beginning in 3rd Grade all thru high school.
3. After high school, LT got a scholarship to play catcher for San Jose State.
4. LT had two good years in college, got drafted by the Texas Rangers, was sent out to single A ball in some God forsaken city in the Midwest. LT was our hero. All the girls liked him, star in high school & college, now en route to the Big Leagues, baby!
5. He washed out in 2 years. We were crushed - he didn't like talking about it.
6. 20 years later, in our 40s, at a bar, he finally opened up. Said it was the most humiliating experience of his life. The pitching was so "lights out" at that level, that he couldn't get a hit. Batting average sunk below .200, got benched, hurt his knee, felt like a failure for the 1st time ever. Also, the teammates tend to shy away from the scrubs, and he becamc an isolated scrub. Didn't quit, but got unceremoniously cut.
7. Thankfully, he did well in real estate and built a nice family and even coached the high school team, but he hated that minor league experience. It wasn't Bull Durham, at all!
True story.
Now advise Biden voters to stay home on Nov.3rd. Just in case. Don't touch those China-Coup-ridden mail-in ballots, either.
I just don't know. The MSM and polls are saying this is a slam-dunk for Biden... but nobody is showing up for his rallies.
What the heck is going on?
BAG, that's the experience of MOST that try to make it to the big leagues.
I went to HS with a guy who was the #1 draft pick for the Chicago White Sox. Pitcher. He got lit up by major league hitters, blew out his arm. No real career. He ended up working for the Sox and ran scouting. So that worked out.
"And my grandpop was an All-American football player, but he was a great Yankees fan. "
Yep, that's right, at a time when only 2% of Americans went to college, his grandpa was one of them
Too bad this conflicts with Joe's stories about being the first in his family to go to college.
Does make me wonder if his "grandpa" actually WAS any sort of college football player.
And isn't it cute how Joe likes to insert himself into every notable event that occurred during his lifetime?
Zelig... Gump... Biden...
For reasons I can't explain I opened the transcript and started reading. I didn't get all that far before I found this:
You know how many miles you traveled on Amtrak?” I said, “No, Ang, I don’t.” He said, “Joey,” he said, “we figure 117 days a year, 36 years, and then X number of days as Vice President, you’ve traveled 2,100,000 miles on Amtrak.” I think I hold the record, other than a conductor.
Scott adams was just talking the other day about an ability to look at a number and think "Hmmm.... That looks fishy." and it is one of my superpowers too. 2.1mm miles on Amtrak? Between DC and Delaware? Just didn't look right to me.
It's 220 miles round trip DC to Wilmington. if he made the trip 117 times a year for 36 years, he traveled 926m miles. add in another 8 years of 50 trips per year as VP (88m miles) and he is still a million miles short of 2.1.
Why does he need to lie to us about something as simple as this? A million miles on a train is still a pretty impressive amount of time. Why the lie, Joey?
John Henry
Blogger Dan from Madison said...
Why have the fans vote on it if you plan on blowing it off anyways? Porcupines would have been a fantastic name for the team!
See also Boaty McBoatface and HMCS Uganda
It gives the appearance of democracy but, when the plebs don't vote the way they should, fuck 'em
John Henry
I kinda think that the Dems have backed themselves 8nto a corner here. It’s hard to get Joementum going when you can’t have rallies with more than 20 prop,e present, in a country of 330 million. Trump gets away with large rallies because he is immune now to COVID-19. Everyone else there is an adult, and are responsible for their own chances there. The Dems are essentially saying that they wouldn’t do something like that that endangers so many people. Republicans are essentially saying that a lot of the COVID-19 scare is manufactured by politicians and the government, and are big boys and girls now and can make their own decisions. After better than six months of masks, shutdowns, etc, Trump’s message is very attractive to a lot of middle Americans.
So why can’t the Democrats back off their message that COVID-19 threatens the world and everyone in it, and we have to trust the government to get through it? Because COVID-19 is their justification for having either politicians or judges remove voting integrity measures in the various states. There never has been a realistic reason to mandate voting by mail. It’s safer, COVID-19 wise, to vote in person than to go to the grocery store. We all know the reason here - the Dems are working hard at stealing the election through massive voter fraud. We are already seeing it, with millions of ballots turning up where they aren’t supposed to be. That plus laws about late receipt of ballots being overridden, so that their boxes, trunks, etc of miraculously discovered late ballots can be counted, where needed. Many states have statutes to prevent just that, but they are being overridden by COVID-19 fears.
Which very much suggests to me that the people in charge of the Biden campaign figure that they will win far more votes through mail in voter fraud than if they let Sundowner Joe out more in front of actual crowds.
This is the weirdest campaign....
Trump events are packed. Biden events are semi-empty to literally (literally, Joe!) unattended. And the guy who supposedly has a commanding lead is telling the press, I don't want to answer your question because then that's what you'll talk about. Talk about the other guy!
I was starting to believe this is the extreme example of Scott Adams' Two Movies, where on one screen Biden is cruising toward a landslide, and on the other he's going to get crushed.
But in the liberal suburbs of my red-state blue city, the lines to vote early are hours long, and liberals are crying Voter Suppression! because they know they're a huge majority of who's in those lines. Maybe I'm watching the wrong movie.
Bay Area Guy said...
"He goes to a "massive rotunda" and only got 20 people?"
Democrat voters don't need to show up. They have zero enthusiasm for this doddering 78-year old figurehead. They have no positive, affirmative reason to vote for Slow Joe - they hate Trump and are satisfied that Slow Joe merely checks the right liberal boxes.
It's in interesting hypothesis.
Look, up until 2008, being th e"candidate of the youth vote" was aq guaranteed loser, because "the youth vote" never turned out. Then, for Obama, it did.
But it didn't turn out when Obama wasn't on the ballot, which is why Democrats got hammered in 2010 and 2014
So now, we face a different claim:
That enough unexcited voters will turn out to vote the incumbent out of office, even when the challenger is telling those voters
"you don't deserve to know" what he's going to do if elected
Is that good enough to get the votes of all his side's committed partisans?
Probably.
Are they enough to win the election?
Not if history is any judge.
Will that get the "mushy middle" to come out and vote for him?
I haven't seen it happen before. 2002 CA Governor's race Incumbent Dem Davis vs Bill Simon.
Simon's campaign was pretty much exclusively about how much Davis sucked, and not about how Simon would be better. Davis won.
The next year, when there was a "recall" of Davis, Davis had to run as himself, and lost. Because he really did suck.
But "Davis sucks" wasn't enough to get people to vote for the unknown Simon. And I'm not convinced that "Trump sucks" is enough to get people to vote for "you don't deserve to know what I'm going to do" Biden.
Althouse, I don't think the team's name was ever "Heritage"; that was just a part of the article describing the heritage of the franchise that eventually moved to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Biden will be 78 in 5 weeks. He lived in Scranton from 0-11 and for 66-67 years since then has resided in, raised his family in, and represented the greater Wilmington/Newark parts of Northern DE.
Seriously, why do we hear about Joe Biden's memories of the time he was 6-11 years ALL THE TIME?
Things I like about his history:
- He didn't come from wealth
- He's a teetotaler (like Trump)
- He managed properties himself early in his career when he was trying to be successful
- He dealt with and survived the realities of losing his wife and daughter and being a single father for 3 years....that would break many men.
Things I don't give a damn about:
- How his experiences between the ages of 6-11 in Scranton PA have totally made him connect to blue collar workers
there may be a dog whistle in "please don't show up" >>>
could screw up wholesale ballot harvesting by personally voting and strewing bread crumbs for fraud investigation
Every once in a while I mistype the url for this website and end up at THE WORLD TODAY.COM, some sort of apocalyptic, end times thing. It is a jarring displacement. I wonder if that is how Joe feels, when he is facing a crowd of 12 to 20 people standing in painted circles on the floor. "Hey, I thought I was giving a campaign speech. Who are these people? Where is everyone else?"
If you, too, wish to see how Joe feels, type: althouse.blogpsot.com but be prepared to run your antivirus program immediately after, as I suspect the site has more cooties than a third grade boy.
LOL - I checked about 4 local media sources of this campaign stop. They all headlined "Joe Biden" makes "big push in Ohio" yet not one data source on local crowds and online watchers (which are not Covid at risk)? This appears to be playing out like 2016 where the Pollsters are getting overwhelmed by orders (contracts) from Democrats for polls favoring their candidate. Moreover, the pollsters model methodology is so out of touch (also like 2016) that they should stop polling. Gallup in 2016 stopped polling 1 week before election by announcing their methodology models where flawed cause they got nothing but massive outlier results.
Joe being Joe again? As Rory mentioned, the Scranton minor league team (Scranton Miners, aka Scranton Red Sox) that was playing when Biden was a kid was a Red Sox farm club, aside from its last two years as a franchise in the 50s when it was affiliated with the St. Louis Browns and the Washington Senators. To be fair, the Scranton area is mostly "Yankees territory," and it has had a Yankees team since the mid-2000s, but still...
A lot of these old railroad stations are really spectacular and it is good to see them converted to good use like this one.
Frederic Jueneman, years ago, wrote a column for R&D magazine. He was a consulting analytical chemist and a Hell of a writer. I have a couple of books of his collected columns.
One of the columns that has always stuck in my mind was about companies needing to know what business they are in. He used the example of the railroads. He posited that they did not see themselves as being in the transportation business. He thought they were in the monument business. He pointed out the grand terminals as exhibit A.
He thought that if they had paid more attention to transportation such as speedy, gentle, delivery and working with trucking rather than fighting it (eg intermodal) railroads would not have constantly gone bankrupt. This was written in the early 80s.
Also, on railroads and their silliness, see Chapter 16, The Railroads, in Henry Ford's autobiography My Life and Work. He wound up having to buy the Toledo and Ironton Railroad because its poor management and bankruptcy were interfering with Ford Motor operations. When he bought it, he described it as "Something more than a streak of rust and something less than a railway." He applied "Toyota Production System" principles to it and turned it into a paying business. So successful the ICC made him sell it off whence it sank back into a slough of despond.
The point of Joe Biden's speech at the terminal seems to have been that if he is elected, he will make the trains run on time. High speed rail for everybody! Government control, just like Amtrak. Yeah, that's the ticket!
Joe's choo-choo is completely off the tracks and he wants to make us all ride on it. At gunpoint if need be.
John Henry
PS. Those murals in the Union Terminal have to be problematic, no?
The Democrats may not worry about Biden rallies' poor turnout because all is based on vote fraud. The army of lawyers on both sides will determine the outcome, like Florida in 2000.
For a Brandiose logo, it is surprisingly non-cartoony.
The real reason to be concerned about the country if he is elected is that we don't know the name(s) of the man behind the curtain.
This.
"Why have the fans vote on it if you plan on blowing it off anyways?"
They picked the one with the most first-place votes. Presumably that was the official standard.
"Per the Wiki article, that club was in Jersey City when Biden was born, moved through Ottawa, Columbus, Charleston (WV), and Portland (ME), before finally settling in Scranton in 1984. Scranton seems to have had an Eastern League franchise (one level down) during Biden's youth, but that looks like a Red Sox farm team."
Well, hell. His confusion is more confusing than I'd thought.
Well, hell. His confusion is more confusing than I'd thought.
If Joe Biden were a computer, you'd be backing up the hard drive and getting it to the repair shop before it threw up the blue screen of death.
PS - the backup is Harris and she'll decide which of Joe's files are too corrupted to carry forward.
Biden is almost a year older than Joe Morgan.
Treejoe,
I had not known until a few weeks ago that Joe is a teetotler. Something I like about him too.
I was not aware that Biden ever managed property. Can you tell us more? How did it work out for him?
I do know he tried to be a developer (of an old DuPont property) with hilarious results. Such as selling his own driveway, not just once but twice.
See this article on his competence as a developer. This was before he had his skull removed twice. I doubt that made him any smarter.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/joe-biden-s-money-misadventures/ar-BB18WwYf
Next year, Biden starting selling off bits of the land for development to pay for improvements such as storm windows. Small problem here: One of the lots he sold off was his own driveway, and the new owner blocked it off so he couldn’t pass through it. So Joe built a second driveway, which turned into a swamp in winter. He sold off another piece of property that, it turned out, included the front of that second driveway, so he couldn’t use that one anymore either. So I built a third. He hated that one for being a dumpy little thing. Eight years went by, and he made a deal to buy back the original driveway, the one he sold off when he first bought the house. Which cost him a fortune in landscaping to reshape.
John Henry
One of the columns that has always stuck in my mind was about companies needing to know what business they are in. He used the example of the railroads.
Peter Drucker said the same thing. He said that was the first question he asked a client.
The army of lawyers on both sides will determine the outcome, like Florida in 2000.
10/13/20, 9:59 AM
And how did that work out for the Dems?
I think the very best people must be thinking that Biden won't last long, and President Kamala will be run by the global consensus via Barack Obama pulling the strings behind the scenes. So we will have government of the USA ultimately run by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Diamond, Goldman Sachs, Apple, and China. What could go wrong?
I keep trying to figure whether we are living through Brave New World, 1984, or Atlas Shrugged. I think maybe all three at the same time.
You may have already voted for Biden on one of those unsolicited mail-in ballots. Your Democrats at work.
Oh for fuck's sake- his staff reminded him just before he went to speak to mention that Morgan once played for the Phillies at the end of his career. Nice try, Biden.
Joe is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Because he is so clearly fading out, he will be a short-lived nonentity if he wins. So then we turn to Kamala--who and what is she?
Actually, she is a nobody.
So, who has the big thoughts that will determine that next four years? Bernie? AOC? I think not. Pelosi? Schumer? Now we are getting warm. How about the globalist consensus? Yup. Silicon Valley, the defense industry, Wall Street, the Aspen Institute, Davos man. President Kamala will constantly consult her mentor regarding which way to go. Willie Brown? We should be so lucky. Her real mentor will be revealed as President Obama, the conduit of the global consensus.
Goodbye, America. You had a good run. Life Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are not enough for 2020, I guess.
And, predictably- Biden completely fabricated the story about the Scranton minor league team, or was completely blindsided by his staff's incompetence. The present Scranton team is a Yankee farm team, but only since the 1980s. As far as I can tell, the only minor league team in Scranton/Wilkes Barre during Biden's youth was a class A team that was a Red Sox affiliation.
I am guessing Biden isn't misrembering here- his staff probably just quickly googled minor league/Scranton, PA and landed on the RailRiders as the top search item, and then just fed it to Biden for his talking points- they probably even told him to work in a story about them from his youth.
Joe Morgan, second baseman, Red’s legend
Who's Red?
I was waiting for Biden to say he and Joe Morgan often attended Black churches together.
Or maybe he had met Joe Morgan while Biden was attending a Black college.
Joe Biden's life story is a fantasy.
According to Joe Biden his life story in a mixture of Forrest Gump and Zelig.
Note that since he ran for VP his wikipedia page has been washed of his father's wealthy linage.
"almost a year older"
Yeah. I'm a baseball fan since childhood, but the only players I think of as "heroes" are guys who I saw when I was still a child.
"Heritage" is the name of the wiki section, not the baseball team.
Bave Begley: The Omaha minor league team was the Omaha Cardinals. Saw them quite a few times in my childhood at the Rosenblatt. AAA franchise for the cards. I was at the stadium with siblings and Dad when the world record baseball throw was performed. Can't remember it as I was too young. Did meet Stan Musial at one of the games. He was injured and was at the game assessing talent I believe.
Morgan was an announcer/analyst for the SF Giants for a few years. Played for them too for a little while. He was very good at everything I ever saw him do.
Morgan had all the talent and scrappiness of Pete Rose, but with much more class and intelligence.
SpelChek is telling me that 'scrappiness' is incorrect. The first alternate they suggest is 'crappiness'. ???????
mccullough said...
Biden is almost a year older than Joe Morgan.
Shhhhh! If Biden hears that he'll start claiming that Joe Morgan was named after him!
Why does it feel like Joe is the warm-up act for the headliner??
The Wyoming Valley, also home of the Erie and Wyoming Valley RR, and Hughestown, where Harry Tompkins was walking along the right of way one night....And the rest is history.
Good grief, Biden left Scanton when he was 10 years old in 1952. That was 68 years ago! Yet, because Pennsylvania is a key state, he talks like he grew up there and graduated from HS, 10 years ago.
And I've done a lot of googling (bored at work), and I find no evidence that Biden's grandfather's were "All-American Football players". the listing of "All AMericans" shows not finnegan's or Bidens'. It just shows what a liar he is.
they will win far more votes through mail in voter fraud than if they let Sundowner Joe out more in front of actual crowds.
After the fraud is detected, they mantra will shift to "the results can't be trusted". Do over.
The minor league team in Green Bay is called the Booyah. And for those not from NE Wisconsin, that's chicken soup.
This is the most important election of our lifetimes, not because I’m running, because what’s at stake....
--
"You know the thing..that I won't talk about."
Tree Joe,
"Shoe Leather" also lied about that car accident, at expense of the other driver's legacy.
But hey...so he likes to tell a good story or two....
He's nuts. - Readering
Look at all the white people in the mural.
"I find no evidence that Biden's grandfather's were "All-American Football players"."
I think they were soccer players, in Wales. But still All-Americans!
Blogger Michael K said...
Peter Drucker said the same thing. He said that was the first question he asked a client.
10/13/20, 10:42 AM
You're 100% correct! Having worked with Drucker in Graduate School he loved that question because it got CEOs caught in their own B.S. He also believed that you can measure how good CEOs/Sr. Mgrs., are is just look up how much senior management got payed and then look how much the company doled out in management fees. If equal - you got mediocre managers.
In the spirit of the 1619 Project, with deference to diversity dogma, in the interest of social progress, that mural should be torn down to serve the narrative.
After the fraud is detected, they mantra will shift to "the results can't be trusted". Do over.
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. The Democrat mantra. It's like a quasi-religious revival. But first, throw another baby on the barbie.
Voters don't deserve to attend his rallies.
"WhoKnew said...
The minor league team in Green Bay is called the Booyah. And for those not from NE Wisconsin, that's chicken soup."
They're part of the Northwoods League, and there are a number of teams with unusual names:
Traverse City Pit Spitters
Mankato MoonDogs
My favorite is the Fond du Lac Dock Spiders.
"And for those not from NE Wisconsin, that's chicken soup."
I meant to comment on this too. It's actually a chicken and beef stew.
Players from my beloved Pioneers of the Eastern League (in those days) used to rent rooms at a house behind my house, the house was run by the granddaughter of the lady who owned it, it was kind of like Bull Durham, in a way. And we even had Steve Dalkowski (1962–1964; known as "the hardest throwing pitcher that never made the Major Leagues.”) -Wikipedia as kind of a “Crash” type player. The players used to give us baseballs, which was great. Earl Weaver managed there. Jim Palmer, Paul Blair, Lou Piniella, and Andy Etchebarren all played there when I was a kid and had a “Knothole Pass” that got me into all the games pretty cheap. After we got too old for those, we just climbed the fence behind the bleachers, jumped onto the roof of an outbuilding, and jumped to the ground and we were in.
John Elway played for them for a short while while he negotiated with the Broncos and the Pioneers were a Yankees farm team, the Yankees had drafted him too , so maybe I should add him as a “notable” on the Wikipedia page.
I say an interesting thought:
Assume the worst happens, and Biden gets elected President
Then Harris tries to Amendment 25 him
Now, the people around Joe, starting with Jill, are NOT going to be happy at teh thought of all their power being taken away.
It take a 2/3 vote of the House and Senate to dump the President
Which means that the GOP can negotiate with Jill and company. Because without their votes, Harris can't take over for more than 25 days
So, what do you think? Would Jill trade away a bunch of the leftists agenda, for her ability to effectively be President for 4 years?
Would Harris and co pick a fight to get rid of the Bidens, knowing if they do she can cut a deal with the GOP?
I don't believe Joe is mentally competent to be President. I don't think it's the act of a mentally competent person to vote for Joe.
But if he does get in to office, I wouldn't bet on Jill letting Harris cut her out of power.
Missoula's team is the Paddleheads. It was pretty embarrassing but I guess stupid names are the norm in the minors.
It is not terribly surprising that Biden would not know the name of the Scranton minor league team. The Scranton Miners left after the 1953 season when Biden would have been about 11. The city did not get another minor league team until 1989, long after Biden had left. Minor league baseball teams have a tendency to change names fairly often, either because they changed their major league affiliation or for marketing purposes. In addition, minor league teams tend to focus on families and having a name that lends itself to a cute mascot never hurts. I suspect that the porcupine got the consolation prize since they needed a guy in a suit and that's hard to do with a train.
Wikipedia is a good source for minor league history, though it is a bit sparse for some teams. Baseball-Reference.com is also useful for looking this sort of thing up, but again perfect information is not always available. Here's Scranton's baseball history:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi?city=Scranton&state=PA&country=US
And if you want to peruse minor league baseball by state, then here's the link for you:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi
Pete Rose was a hustler, in every sense of the word
Before they had the Braves, Atlanta's minor league team was the Crackers. Truth in advertising?
I don't often listen to country and western music, but I'd like to hear a country and western ballad about the Biden campaign.
Michael,
I know about Drucker saying it but I am not sure he was the first. He may have, I just don't know. It seemed a pretty common idea that I first encountered in grad school in the 70's. Perhaps from one of Drucker's books.
Two specific examples I remember from school were Avis and McDonalds. Everyone knows that they are in the car rental and food business, right?
McDonalds was floundering and in danger of failing until Harry Sonneborn convinced Ray Kroc that he was in the real estate business and the food was only a way to enhance the leasing fees the franchisees paid.
Most people think of Avis as being in the car rental business. They are not, they are in the used car manufacturing business. They make their money selling the cars. More or less break even renting them.
Jueneman on the railroads was interesting because of the way railroads are regulated. They can't make money providing better service, the ICC won't let them. See Henry Ford's experience with the Toledo and Ironton.
Their profit is allowed, by the ICC, on the basis of their cost. So if they are allowed, say, a 5% return on investment, should they build a $100,000 shed for a station and keep their costs down? Or a $1,000,000 terminal?
They make $5,000 on the shed, $50,000 on the "monument" (As Jueneman called them)
We have a similar problem today with electric utilities. They are allowed a percentage of profit. So do they have an incentive to spend as much money as possible as the regulators will allow on power plants, distribution, executive salaries and worker wages and everything else? They do.
But you really don't want to get me started on utilities and pricing.
John Henry
Biden has also been a Rail Rider, albeit on the Acela corridor. And like the Porcupine mascot, you don't want him touching you.
n.n said...
In the spirit of the 1619 Project, with deference to diversity dogma, in the interest of social progress, that mural should be torn down to serve the narrative.
Althouse says the picture is ten years old. It's quite possible that it has been torn down, and if not, that activist morons are lobbying for it to be.
"Static Ping said...
It is not terribly surprising that Biden would not know the name of the Scranton minor league team. Static Ping said...
It is not terribly surprising that Biden would not know the name of the Scranton minor league team."
LOL no one asked dementia Joe to name the team...he was "recalling" actual evens and memories from his childhood without a question. And it is all clearly a bunch of bullshit. He didn't have false memory...het didn't get a few dates wrong. It never happened, it never could have happened. It was just another lie from this pathetic POS.
"Atlanta's minor league team was the Crackers."
The Negro League team there was the Black Crackers.
Joe Biden: Now, I’m going to get myself in real trouble, but I have a bad habit of telling you the truth.
Meaning that his first impulse and obligation as a politician is to lie.
Is he thinking of Richie Ashburn? He was the greatest (next to Harry the K) game caller in the history of game calling - "Right down the middle for a ball" is still my favorite. Never forget listening to the AM radio broadcasts of the games when under the car (1973 Ford Torino wagon) with my father teaching me stuff on vehicle maintenance. Still have the radio, a beautiful white round thing from the late 60s. Whitey actually introduced me to Robin Roberts, can't recall the reason or even why he knew me, just the interaction. I wasn't a good enough ball player to be in a position to meet either, must have been one of those banquet type things. It was long enough ago that our Little League uniforms were still flannel and weighed a ton even with the knicker trousers. My dad did work for one of the local radio stations (KYW I think) then, so maybe that played a part.
But Joe actually played for a year in the Phillies if my memory serves me correctly
Next week, it will be Biden himself who played a year for the Phillies, at least according to Joe's memory.
Biden must have read that in the obituary - or his staff did. But for once he scores a point over Obama, who claimed to be a White Sox fan, but couldn't name a single player on the team.
Biden virtue signals his Covid-maddened base by not having crowds. They admire him for not putting them at risk, while Orangeman is gonna kill us all.
Seriously, that’s how they are thinking. His crowds are not an indicator of what his vote will be. His base is completely freaked with Covid fear from all the Covid porn they’ve absorbed.
I think they wear their masks to bed. At least the ones that wear them alone in cars do, I’d bet.
rcocean says “….I find no evidence that Biden's grandfather's were "All-American Football players". the listing of "All AMericans" shows not finnegan's or Bidens'. It just shows what a liar he is”.
We probably need to cut Biden some slack given the Biden difficulty with fractured speech patterns and word choice. In fact, there were two grandfathers who were football players. Probably played flag football in junior high school. They were Americans. Both of them. Both means “all two" of theml. So, they WERE all Americans.
And as for his rank in law school, he’s right about that, too. If you are looking at the list upside down, which could be an honest mistake. Also, he didn’t plan to plagiarize. It’s just that the family dog chewed up his thesaurus before he got to page two of the document he was writing for the address.
rcocean says, " I find no evidence that Biden's grandfather's were "All-American Football players". the listing of "All AMericans" shows not finnegan's or Bidens'. It just shows what a liar he is."
So maybe there were two grandfathers who played footbal in junior high school. They were both Americans. “Both” is the same as “all”, as in “all two of them”. So that makes his two football grandpas “all Americans.”
rcocean says, " I find no evidence that Biden's grandfather's were "All-American Football players". the listing of "All AMericans" shows not finnegan's or Bidens'. It just shows what a liar he is."
So maybe there were two grandfathers who played footbal in junior high school. They were both Americans. “Both” is the same as “all”, as in “all two of them”. So that makes his two football grandpas “all Americans.”
Joe Morgan was a Houston Astro for the first ten years of his career, where he never earned more than $40,000 for a season. Free agency, thanks to Curt Flood, allowed him to join up with the Big Red Machine in Cincinnati for eight years on a six figure salary that peaked at $400,000 as a reward for winning a number of World Series Championship rings, several batting titles and at least as many All-Star appearances. Living in Houston from 1970 to 1974 I attended games during his last two years as an Astro and followed him in the first two years of his career with the Reds when he became a mainstay in October baseball. He returned to the Astros for a ninth season to pad his numbers for the Hall of Fame and did well enough as a seasoned veteran to be hired as a fan draw for a couple seasons with the Giants and a final season with the Phillies. As a broadcaster and pioneer colored commentator he was very good but a little too candid at times.
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