- This could not have been a difficult decision for
arbitrators Mark Burstein, Steven Wolf and Gary Kendellen. There they sat in an
arbitration hearing with little-known catcher Caleb Joseph, asking for a $1
million salary for next season after setting major league records for most
at-bats and plate appearances in a season with no RBIs, and on the other side,
the Baltimore Orioles, offering to pay Joseph less than he wanted and more than
he deserved ($700,000). The stress in arbitration cases is often high; this one
should not have been. This wasn’t a high-profile case, a relatively small
amount of money was on the line and in the end, the arbitrators sided with the
team, awarding Joseph the team's $700,000 offer rather than his $1 million
request in a decision that gave teams a 2-1 record this year in arbitration
cases against players. Joseph and Boston pitcher Fernando Abad have lost their
cases, while Oakland outfielder Khris Davis is the lone player to emerge
victorious up to this point. While Joseph didn’t get the money he wanted, he did
make history by setting a new record for most times at the plate in a single
season without bothering to drive in a single run, eclipsing the previous highs
for a player with no RBIs, set in 1971 by Chicago White Sox All-Star pitcher
Wilbur Wood with 96 at-bats and 124 plate appearances. To sum all of this up, a
dude who batted .174 last year with three doubles in 132 at-bats and 141 plate
appearances and drove in zero runs will still be paid $700,000 to once again
play baseball poorly next season………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Normally, the death by natural
causes of a country’s longtime opposition leader on foreign soil isn't a reason to rage against the machine,
but normalcy isn't really their thing in Congo, where police in the capital
city used tear gas to disperse crowds gathered outside the home of Etienne
Tshisekedi, the opposition leader who died in Brussels, where he had been
undergoing medical treatment. One day later, his supporters gathered outside
his Kinshasa home to show their support and renew calls for President Joseph
Kabila to step down and in a country like Congo, you don’t really show up in
the street en masse to voice support for one of your dictator/president’s most
vocal critics and echo that critic’s calls for that despot to leave office.
Tshisekedi's death happened at a tense time, just weeks after Kabila's party
and the opposition signed an agreement that calls for new elections later this
year in which Kabila will not run. Opposition members worry that with Tshisekedi's
death, the deal may not be implemented, at least not as intended. He was part
of the country’s opposition movement for more than three decades, having
founded his opposition party in 1982 and he was heavily involved in the deal's
negotiations. Now, the process of wresting power from a despot’s hands and
giving it to someone new has been thrown into serious doubt………
- Scrap the jokes about irony and word choice….these are
tough times for Bad Brains frontman Paul “H.R” Hudson, who has announced that
he will undergo brain surgery later this month after being diagnosed with a
rare neurobiological disorder last year. Hudson suffered from this condition,
known as SUNCT (Short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache with
conjunctival injection and tearing), which causes sufferers to experience extreme headaches, often at a moments notice.
Following Hudson’s diagnosis last year, a GoFundMe page was launched to help
pay for his medical bills. Apparently the right mix of finances and need have
come together and Hudson has revealed that he will undergo brain surgery on Feb.
21, a procedure he hopes will improve his condition. “[My wife] took me to the
hospital so I would learn about what was going on in my head, because I was
experiencing bad headaches at the time,” he said. “And the doctor came to me
and he said we’re going to have a surgery.” For now, he’s managing his
condition with a “cocktail of pharmaceuticals” he says incudes spiralina,
wheatgrass, goldenseal and Vitamins A, D and C. It’s a tough spot that yes, is
ironic for a guy who has spent decades fronting an iconic band called Bad
Brains, but at this point it’s all about trying to make that bad brain behave
as much as possible………
- “Cops” has never really been thought of as an educational
program. But for Florida resident George Wood, the long-running show featuring
wife-beater-clad meth addicts jumping over trailer park fences to escape the
cops who respond to the call regarding a domestic dispute at their mobile
estate was exactly what he needed to escape police custody. Wood was able to
break out of the back of a patrol car using a trick he learned “Cops” and
although his return to freedom was short-lived and he now faces charges of escaping,
possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, felony criminal
mischief, resisting arrest without violence, aggravated assault on a law enforcement
officer and driving with a suspended license, at least he tried. According to the
Flagler County Sheriff's Office, one its deputies was driving through a Circle
K parking lot when he noticed a dispute in which a beer bottle was thrown out
of a vehicle and shattered on the pavement. The deputy tried to talk to the man
- later identified as Wood - involved in the dispute, but Wood dove into his
girlfriend’s car then tried to drive away by cleverly operating the car from
the passenger seat. He then battled with deputies and refused to obey orders,
forcing one deputy to hit him with a Taser blast to subdue him. Even then, he wasn’t
done trying to wiggle his way out of trouble and told a deputy he needed air.
The obliging deputy rolled down the window in the back of the cruiser for him
and within minutes, that deputy noticed the back door of the cruiser was open
and Wood was gone. The deputies then set up a perimeter and used a helicopter
to help locate wood. He was soon found treed in a small wooded area about a
quarter of a mile from the convenience store. Wood informed police that he was
able to escape because he saw an episode of “Cops” in which it was shown that
the mechanisms to secure the cage that confines prisoners in the back of
cruisers are flimsy, so he knew he could rip off that cage and crawl out the
window. Score one for education…….
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