I hope so. If it's going to be this cold, at least give me the interesting visual.
63 thoughts on “December 28, 2017: Snow?”
John Bonnes has sounded a viability warning for Twins Daily. It sounds like at least part of the problem is self-inflicted (unsustainable overexpansion into non-baseball sports), but the rest of it seems to be part of the natural cycle of collaborative blogs. It does sound like they need a full-time editor to nurture writers, sift through content, and raise visibility of the best stuff published by the community there.
I don’t comment or post there, though I do occasionally read the content. I may try to link more often to pieces there in an effort to get the writers a few more page views, particularly since we all stand to benefit from multiple clearly & cleverly articulated perspectives on the Twins.
This seems like a good occasion to tip my cap to the folks who put in the regular contributions here. Thank you for keeping the lights on in the Basement every day, for shepherding featured subjects on rotation, and for all the effort that goes into writing the pieces the rest of us get to read. I don’t always have something to say, but I benefit from your generosity of perspective, time, and dedication.
I read Twins daily...daily. I'm on the email list. Actually, I was a little surprised that the authors are paid (not sure why I am), but I guess I've been living in the WGOM basement too long.
I think I visit Twins Daily about once a year. The problem, to me, is that a lot of the content (during my admittedly very few forays over there) is either complete fanboyish (Seth is a great guy, but the enthusiasm for the Twins 65th best prospect gets a little tiring, and the other random writers that John notes they are trying to cultivate are often eat too positive) or they are GOSO to the extreme. There just doesn't seem to be too many voices when I visit who aren't either Pollyanna or doom and gloom. Not sure how to fix that.
I'm nearly caught up on "Off-Season's Greetings". I was on yesterday's Dominican League games and saw that the Gigantes at Escogido was postponed due to "emergency". Turns out that there was a fire at the baseball stadium. The article does not say what's going to happen to the games that were scheduled to be played at that stadium.
Yuck.
Edited to add: obviously not to Plouffe
Interesting how this news ties in with the CoC title....
I'll be curious to hear his response. If he'll admit and apologize, or resist. It's probably better this gets out in the open sooner rather than later.
And Bravo Betsy for coming forward.
Ugh. Glad she was able to share this. Fuck that guy.
On a self-absorbed level, I'm not going to be able to enjoy Twins baseball as long as he's a part of it.
I wonder if the #metoo is now going to explode over baseball or professional sports, and there will be a guy on each team who will make their fans feel similarly
It totally could.
It totally should.
Dido.
Exhibit A of why not to buy a jersey with a name on it.
Damn it all, anyway.
may want to take some WGOM headers out of the rotation for now
Yup, that probably ought to be the end of his time with the Twins unless there is some way for him to truly apologize and credibly ensure it hasn't and won't happen again.
This will be an interesting couple months to see if the Twins organization cares more about humanity or only about winning.
unless there is some way for him to truly apologize and credibly ensure it hasn't and won't happen again.
Eh, he can find redemption somewhere else, if such a thing is possible. I don't have to subsidize it.
Fair enough, and if recent history indicates anything, I am deeply cynical that he'll be capable of saying or doing anything credible enough to show he understands what he did, why it was wrong, and how to be professional help about it.
Sano issued a statement Thursday denying the allegations.
"I unequivocally deny the allegation made against me today -- it never happened," Sano said in the statement. "I have the utmost respect for women, especially those working in professional sports, and I deeply sympathize with anyone who has experienced sexual harassment. There is no place for it in our society."
Whelp. I think we can count "meaningful public restitution" out, then.
Done.
I knew I was deeply cynical about it for a reason.
You don’t have to subsidize it, of course, but I do see there being some value in the community he let down being the one that holds him to account. Unlike, say, a politician, Sanó’s not in a position to make decisions that affect every corner of other people’s lives. If Sanó owns up to this charge, sincerely apologizes, and can illustrate his penitence by disclosing in detail how he’s making a meaningful, thorough public restitution (and who is holding him to account for that restitution), then I think anathemizing him might be excessive.*
Of course, one still runs into the problem of cheering Sanó’s accomplishments and how they benefit the team, and if that makes a large group of Twins fans (men & women) feel gross, I think it’s an important consideration for the front office as they evaluate how they should respond. The reason why I boycotted the Twins when the previous front office brought back Torii Hunter as a “mentor” in the clubhouse was because I have absolutely no reason to believe he disavows his bigoted pronouncements, and that he was – by elevation to “mentor” status – being given a platform by the team to pass/inflict his bigotry along to/on a younger generation of players. Not only that, but the expectation was that he would be working with several young players who from easy outside observation clearly fit the “race imposters” label he’d ginned up in Anaheim. (For all I know, there may be gay players in the Twins clubhouse, but I’m not privy to that information.)
I do worry we’re running ourselves down a road that destroys people who seek forgiveness and do something substantial & meaningful to show they deserve it. I don’t mean that someone like Al Franken should be restored to power once a full restitution is made, but I do wonder whether we are beginning to create a double standard between the important work of rehabilitating & resocializing convicted criminals and anathemizing public figures who admit certain kinds of wrongdoing without going through the courts.
Thanks, CH, I think you've said a little better what I was trying to say. There is a path to truly atone for something like this, but it does seem as if that level of honesty with oneself has not remotely been present in the assaulters, except for, perhaps, Franken.
I certainly don’t expect many of those accused to hold themselves to this standard, which I think is why it’s important for communities to support those who do want to rehabilitate themselves & make an adequate, heartfelt restitution. (I think the scale of “adequate restitution” is sliding, too, both by the nature & number of incidents and the level of power over others abused in the predatory moment. It’s probably easier for an athlete to make restitution than a politician or employer like Weinstein.)
That said, I haven’t sorted through my own feelings well enough to know whether I’m personally comfortable with a fully contrite & repentant Sanó remaining on the team. On the one hand, someone who truly fixes themselves and can speak to how they went astray & how they found their way back bears a message worth hearing. On the other hand, I don’t want the applause that comes from athletic achievement to ever feel quite the same, and the only control over that I have is whether I participate in it, not how he receives it.
To contrast this with another Minnesota sex scandal that continues to ripple outward, sunlight is the best disinfectant. The way the archdiocese handled priestly sex abuse is revolting, and I’m glad to hear that, at least in this instance, the Twins didn’t already know about what happened. How they choose to proceed will tell us an awful lot about the regard the very highest levels of leadership – the Pohlads & St. Peter – have for their organization and the many people who work in it, not to mention the people who have willingly or unwillingly supported it as fans & taxpayers.
Fair enough. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of public and interpersonal penitence and redemption in these sorts of things. I agree that there's probably a way for him to honestly and truly come back from this.
That said, he tried to destroy someone's life one weekend, because why not? I think the bar is higher than a little meaningful public restitution. I don't know where the line is, but I guess what I'm saying is that if he ever finds it, he can call me when he gets there.
Totally fair, nibbish. I’d say a minimum meaningful public restitution would need to be a pretty substantial monetary contribution to organizations that support victims of sexual assault, plus a long period of non-work-related, supervised community service. What exactly that looks like, I couldn’t say offhand. But I’d need to see more than just paying his way toward forgiveness and saying “my bad.” He has to work at it, it has to be both inconvenient and substantial, and it has to last a long time.
He is roughly the age of a college graduate, compared to the much older names which have been in the news for similar incidents. Which is to say, still well old enough to know better.
Yep. I do wonder, given Sanó signed when he was 16, how much human/lifespan development support he received from his employer. I suspect very little. If that’s the case, then the Twins aren’t blameless here.
FWIW, this is a fair part of my wanting a community to say "these are our criminals." We're all society, and to the extent that society is to blame, we all share in that.
There's some Brother's K in my thinking here... "“Every one is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything."
I've been very much thinking about this tension. A society that cuts off and throws away every person guilty of a particular crime or sin, without regard to rehabilitation, restitution, and repair is not a society that meets the standards I seek. Forgiveness and rehabilitation are very real and important values. Indeed, among the most important. That doesn't mean forgetting, that doesn't forgiveness doesn't need to be earned. Indeed, I think the Catholic school of thought on this issue is instructive: penance is required. I've heard it likened to a piece of metal and the sin/crime knocks a dent into that. Apologies and forgiveness are good, but that dent still needs to get pounded back out to put things right.
On some level, I want a community that says "these are our sinners, these are our sins, these are our criminals, these are our crimes," and works to rehabilitate and repair.
What does that look like in this case? Maybe Sano stays under contract, but his pay is redirected for a time to corresponding causes, and instead of playing baseball his work every day first taking classes and getting better educated about these issues, and then for a time community service, and then, only when it really seems like change has been made, do we welcome him back to the team. That's a model I can get on board with.
I would argue that there is a sizable difference between "a society that cuts off and throws away every person guilty of a particular crime or sin" and "a society that enables famous, rich people to continue to be famous and rich with minimal redemptive effort or regard for their victims".
He's playing the "nuh UH" card, which means that, given the extreme unliklihood of this being a false accusation (and that's just the base stats, even BEFORE we get into the fact that a former teammate backed her up within mere minutes), the front office has a few rough decisions to make.
Also, redirecting his pay is not going to play well with the player's union.
First off, screw the player's union in this regard. Mine was an aspirational suggestion, and I'd like to see that sort of thing included in future negotiations.
Second, you are absolutely right that we have been (and continue to be) a society that enables famous/rich/etc. without regard to their victims. That doesn't mean we aren't also becoming the society that cuts off and throws people away. Indeed, it seems in some ways we're getting the worst of both worlds: the really powerful still have all the power and can deny things away, unless and until they get outright caught in the most damning of circumstances, and then they're completely eliminated without any path towards rehabilitation.
Indeed, nothing about my desire for rehabilitation options says we shouldn't believe victims, or work to prevent victimization. Quite the opposite, in fact. One of the reasons people doubt victims is because it seems like the consequences (totally cutting them out) are so severe, and people don't want to see their beloved idols fall from grace with no chance of ever getting back up again. But if we have true paths of rehabilitation, then maybe that's all the better for victims?
I think part of the problem is that I don't even know what rehabilitation would look like. I don't even know what the first step (an honest, unguarded apology) would look like because I don't believe we've seen one yet. The first instinct is ALWAYS to deny, and it makes every apology after disingenuous and false. If even his (eventual and certain) apology can't be trusted, isn't the rest of the foundation built on quicksand?
I believe that rehabilitation is possible, just not with the playbook we've been trotting out for...well, forever.
Watching baseball is fun. It's going to be hard to convince myself of that while watching him out there for the local 9.
I'd suggest that part of the reason the "playbook we've been trotting out for...ever" is that playbook is precisely because we don't give people the opportunity for rehabilitation. Look at Franken, who apologized, etc., and was still forced into resignation. A straight denial is the only option offered by the "make them outcasts!" society.
As for the rest... I wouldn't "trust" any apology. It needs to be backed up with action. That being the case, I don't think a subsequent apology is any less meaningful than an immediate one. The true measure of an apology is whether the person is contrite and makes amends. If Sano does that, great. If Michael Vick does that, great (and I think he has, from what I know?). If Mel Gibson does that, great (and I think he has too, from what I know?). It's preferred if an apology comes before the individual feels pecuniary pain, sure, because it speaks to sincerity. But if Louis CK or Al Franken or whoever else make real, honest efforts, and they're ongoing... that's what matters, far more than any PR statement.
Regarding your last paragraph: yesterday I was wondering whether, for the time being, basketball has eclipsed baseball as far as my interest is concerned. It would've happened during Garnett's prime, but the Twins were pretty good for much of that, so it never quite got there.
With today's news, I find this to be very fortuitous timing.
As if Franken wasn't already a big enough test for Minnesota, this is going to really challenge us. Franken's misdeeds were stupid, misguided and invasive in a way that was definitely over the line. The allegations against Sano are much darker and scarier, though I find it...uncomfortable...to compare the relative levels of these sort of misdeeds.
There's a lot of offseason to go, and in that time, we'll hopefully find some clarity and maybe by some miracle the book will be closed on this particular story.
It's a given for me that I'll have a hard time supporting the Twins if they employ Sano despite the allegations proving to be completely true as I assume they are. I'll go one further, though, and say that if any team in the MLB takes him on under the idea that it happened elsewhere and a new fanbase will give him a fresh start, I might just say to hell with all of it for the time being.
On your "go one further"... I'm curious what distinguishes this from Chapman or Rothlisberger or Kobe or, for you personally, professional wrestling? I mean this as a sincere question, not a "gotcha". Maybe the answer is something as simple as "Baseball has just burned their last chance for you" but I find myself curious.
That's a more than fair question. I think I'm being affected by the growing knowledge that these aren't the bad apples - this problem is endemic of sports and entertainment, and enabling bad behavior perpetuates the behavior in a larger way given the scope of the problem. Maybe that's a strange way to approach this, but I think more than ever that these torches have to be snuffed out if we're going to have any impact on the problem at large.
And, if I'm being honest, this is the most I've felt personally betrayed by one of "my own" guys since Chris Benoit, which of course was eleventy-seven times worse. I did quit watching for a few years after the Benoit family tragedy.
Kobe is the most interesting of the cases you present. He was exonerated, but the bigger story to me at the time was that friends of the accuser came out and stated she had made false claims against multiple men at the school. That made for a very ugly situation all around. I never liked Kobe the basketball player, but as a man? Maybe he's awful, and maybe he's just an idiot. We can't be sure, and I don't think the accuser's friends were right to come forward with what they believed, unless they had some sort of incontrovertible evidence.
I've been personally struggling with this for years. A guy and girl in my theater department in college, both very close friends of mine, slept together one night at an after-party. She ended up claiming rape. He claimed consensual. Both acknowledged that they were drunk out of their minds. While most folks naturally gravitated to one person, I ended up remaining friends with both, hoping against hope that at some point, a story would change and I'd have some clarity. Twenty years later I feel certain that both believe they are telling the truth.
The male is a feminist activist, and has been for years. He always had that in him, but it's only natural for me to wonder if he feels lingering guilt toward what happened that night, and if it was the main catalyst for his crusade.
I'm still friends with both. I still talk to both regularly. I don't know if that's the right thing to have done, but it's done. Life's fuckin' complicated, and sex makes it worse. I always wondered what human flaw would define our generation, and I think we've got one of the culprits by the tail.
It gives you pause and makes you think about what you are rooting for.
Most of us probably became sports fans when we were kids. We thought of these players as role models. Or at least they were something we aspired to wanted to be ($$$). We said "Kirby" as we reached over a fence to grab home runs. We yelled " Bruno" as we jogged around the bases simulating a home run. We channeled Brad Radke as we gave up first inning home runs
Then we found out about Kirby. In Buffalo I started to hear stories about the 90s Bills teams how they acted.
I made excuses that it was a different time. Time has taught me that wasn't the right way to approach it.
Sports , I think, are for kids. Either literally or for us to channel our childhood. We want our kids to dream about hitting a home run, stealing second, or blocking the plate to stop the tying run in the bottom the 9th.
My Herd hasn't really gotten into sports. The Boy likes Legos and bikes and my daughter likes stuffed dog toys and being mean to her older brother.
In the 90s I didn't understand the Charles Barley role model controversy. Now I do.
This is a reminder that as parents we have to be the role models for our kids. We have to help teach them right from wrong. We have to introduce them to other positive mentors.
I used to idolize anyone who had certain words stitched across their chest.
Now I will teach my kids to idolize the people strong enough to speak out and do the right things.
I hate seeing the word "idolize" applied to sports figures. I don't for instance idolize a Kurt Warner, but I do admire him. That said, I rooting for the team name on the front of the jersey and not the name across the back, and I hope the people in power do their best to keep that team name something to admire.
I totally agree with your larger point as an adult. My point was more aimed at how those feelings are seen by a child.
With more time to think it through I would have changed the wording.
As a kid, it's not hard to get caught up in the idolizing, yes.
And it seems, through that ease of idolizing as a child, that it is very easy to develop it as a lifetime habit of things like Penn State are any indication.
Well said, Buffalo. Our culture (hell, EVERY culture) idolizes and infantilizes. It is not the fault of the Internet or drugs or the breakdown of the traditional family or the Gay or whatever. It is what we are. And what each of us has to struggle against to live our lives authentically and respectfully, and to raise our children to do the same.
I believe Betsy, and he's dead to me. I'm not watching or listening while he's a member of the team. I'm furious.
I assumed the coach was with the Twins but a divisional opponent would be at nine-ish games. But this seems really easy to nail down. I couldn't remember who it was for the 2015 season, but Wikipedia says Butch Davis.
Makes you think twice about seemingly random firings of perceivably good coaches/managers by the FO. Unfortunately.
Well, we've join in with several others looking at the current tax situation, and we're going to pay ahead our charitable contributions for next year (as much as we are comfortable doing so). It looks like we'll be in the standard deduction next year, so it makes sense to get credit for it while we still are able.
I realize that on some level, taxes are going to be arbitrary, but it would be nice if they were arbitrary in a less complicated way. I think we’re going to thread the needle to “stay” itemized (2017 will be the first year’s taxes I’ve ever itemized deductions), but we wouldn’t have if some of the thresholds were a bit lower.
Good call, Rhu. That part had not occurred to me.
I got over it with Cosby. A lot of men are pigs, and a lot of men with power or money or celebrity or some combination thereof have used them to be bigger pigs with relative impunity. One advantage to having meager means is that you seldom get your character tested in such ways. While I'm grateful that women are speaking up, I'm also skeptical enough to always question everybody's motives these days, which is itself a sad commentary on the times. What concerns me is that in the court of public opinion, the presumption always seems to be of guilt instead of innocence because titillation, there is no due process for weighing evidence and testimony and determining truth, and the rush to judgement can lead to very unjust outcomes. It doesn't take much imagination to see how such a situation could be exploited, even weaponized, by people of scant scruples and ample ambition.
I'd suggest that there's a healthy difference between "skepticism" towards victim's claims and distaste for the current rush in the court of public opinion.
The realities bear out that false claims are few and far between, that victims often have little to gain by making their claims known, and that far more unreported cases exist than false claims. In short, absent specific facts that would tend to indicate a lie, I think claimed victims should be given the benefit of the doubt. And if we're not rushing to condemn the accused totally and outright, and are instead aimed at rehabilitation, then giving victims that same benefit of the doubt is all the more appropriate.
Thank you, I was not trying to imply that victims are trying to exploit circumstances, but that third-party bad actors will.
You mean the lawyers, don't you? 😉
Thanks for clarifying - I certainly read that wrong initially. My bad.
Your reading wasn't off, my writing was.
Today's upside: this basketball game.
Love the back to back clank dunk attempts by the Bucks.
Tyus Jones is Rubio like with his steals
I hate this "lets get a 20+ point lead and then blow it" thing the Wolves have going on this season.
I don't think that's going to change until Thibs rests some of these guys a little more.
Oh, here's the first Bucks lead of the night. Feels all too familiar.
Ugh. Complete and utter collapse.
And now for something completely different... I had a colonoscopy today. Just one polyp, benign appearing, labs back next week. The prep was not as bad as I supposed it would be. Nothing resembling fun at all but not exactly traumatic, either.
Your first one? A bit delayed, isn't it?
Yes, and guilty.
You're forgiven; don't do it again. And by that, I mean do it again -- on time. You didn't get put on the 5-yr track, did you?
John Bonnes has sounded a viability warning for Twins Daily. It sounds like at least part of the problem is self-inflicted (unsustainable overexpansion into non-baseball sports), but the rest of it seems to be part of the natural cycle of collaborative blogs. It does sound like they need a full-time editor to nurture writers, sift through content, and raise visibility of the best stuff published by the community there.
I don’t comment or post there, though I do occasionally read the content. I may try to link more often to pieces there in an effort to get the writers a few more page views, particularly since we all stand to benefit from multiple clearly & cleverly articulated perspectives on the Twins.
This seems like a good occasion to tip my cap to the folks who put in the regular contributions here. Thank you for keeping the lights on in the Basement every day, for shepherding featured subjects on rotation, and for all the effort that goes into writing the pieces the rest of us get to read. I don’t always have something to say, but I benefit from your generosity of perspective, time, and dedication.
I read Twins daily...daily. I'm on the email list. Actually, I was a little surprised that the authors are paid (not sure why I am), but I guess I've been living in the WGOM basement too long.
I think I visit Twins Daily about once a year. The problem, to me, is that a lot of the content (during my admittedly very few forays over there) is either complete fanboyish (Seth is a great guy, but the enthusiasm for the Twins 65th best prospect gets a little tiring, and the other random writers that John notes they are trying to cultivate are often eat too positive) or they are GOSO to the extreme. There just doesn't seem to be too many voices when I visit who aren't either Pollyanna or doom and gloom. Not sure how to fix that.
I'm nearly caught up on "Off-Season's Greetings". I was on yesterday's Dominican League games and saw that the Gigantes at Escogido was postponed due to "emergency". Turns out that there was a fire at the baseball stadium. The article does not say what's going to happen to the games that were scheduled to be played at that stadium.
Yuck.
Edited to add: obviously not to Plouffe
Interesting how this news ties in with the CoC title....
I'll be curious to hear his response. If he'll admit and apologize, or resist. It's probably better this gets out in the open sooner rather than later.
And Bravo Betsy for coming forward.
Ugh. Glad she was able to share this. Fuck that guy.
On a self-absorbed level, I'm not going to be able to enjoy Twins baseball as long as he's a part of it.
I wonder if the #metoo is now going to explode over baseball or professional sports, and there will be a guy on each team who will make their fans feel similarly
It totally could.
It totally should.
Dido.
Exhibit A of why not to buy a jersey with a name on it.
Damn it all, anyway.
may want to take some WGOM headers out of the rotation for now
Yup, that probably ought to be the end of his time with the Twins unless there is some way for him to truly apologize and credibly ensure it hasn't and won't happen again.
This will be an interesting couple months to see if the Twins organization cares more about humanity or only about winning.
Eh, he can find redemption somewhere else, if such a thing is possible. I don't have to subsidize it.
Fair enough, and if recent history indicates anything, I am deeply cynical that he'll be capable of saying or doing anything credible enough to show he understands what he did, why it was wrong, and how to be professional help about it.
Whelp. I think we can count "meaningful public restitution" out, then.
Done.
I knew I was deeply cynical about it for a reason.
You don’t have to subsidize it, of course, but I do see there being some value in the community he let down being the one that holds him to account. Unlike, say, a politician, Sanó’s not in a position to make decisions that affect every corner of other people’s lives. If Sanó owns up to this charge, sincerely apologizes, and can illustrate his penitence by disclosing in detail how he’s making a meaningful, thorough public restitution (and who is holding him to account for that restitution), then I think anathemizing him might be excessive.*
Of course, one still runs into the problem of cheering Sanó’s accomplishments and how they benefit the team, and if that makes a large group of Twins fans (men & women) feel gross, I think it’s an important consideration for the front office as they evaluate how they should respond. The reason why I boycotted the Twins when the previous front office brought back Torii Hunter as a “mentor” in the clubhouse was because I have absolutely no reason to believe he disavows his bigoted pronouncements, and that he was – by elevation to “mentor” status – being given a platform by the team to pass/inflict his bigotry along to/on a younger generation of players. Not only that, but the expectation was that he would be working with several young players who from easy outside observation clearly fit the “race imposters” label he’d ginned up in Anaheim. (For all I know, there may be gay players in the Twins clubhouse, but I’m not privy to that information.)
Thanks, CH, I think you've said a little better what I was trying to say. There is a path to truly atone for something like this, but it does seem as if that level of honesty with oneself has not remotely been present in the assaulters, except for, perhaps, Franken.
I certainly don’t expect many of those accused to hold themselves to this standard, which I think is why it’s important for communities to support those who do want to rehabilitate themselves & make an adequate, heartfelt restitution. (I think the scale of “adequate restitution” is sliding, too, both by the nature & number of incidents and the level of power over others abused in the predatory moment. It’s probably easier for an athlete to make restitution than a politician or employer like Weinstein.)
That said, I haven’t sorted through my own feelings well enough to know whether I’m personally comfortable with a fully contrite & repentant Sanó remaining on the team. On the one hand, someone who truly fixes themselves and can speak to how they went astray & how they found their way back bears a message worth hearing. On the other hand, I don’t want the applause that comes from athletic achievement to ever feel quite the same, and the only control over that I have is whether I participate in it, not how he receives it.
To contrast this with another Minnesota sex scandal that continues to ripple outward, sunlight is the best disinfectant. The way the archdiocese handled priestly sex abuse is revolting, and I’m glad to hear that, at least in this instance, the Twins didn’t already know about what happened. How they choose to proceed will tell us an awful lot about the regard the very highest levels of leadership – the Pohlads & St. Peter – have for their organization and the many people who work in it, not to mention the people who have willingly or unwillingly supported it as fans & taxpayers.
Fair enough. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of public and interpersonal penitence and redemption in these sorts of things. I agree that there's probably a way for him to honestly and truly come back from this.
That said, he tried to destroy someone's life one weekend, because why not? I think the bar is higher than a little meaningful public restitution. I don't know where the line is, but I guess what I'm saying is that if he ever finds it, he can call me when he gets there.
Totally fair, nibbish. I’d say a minimum meaningful public restitution would need to be a pretty substantial monetary contribution to organizations that support victims of sexual assault, plus a long period of non-work-related, supervised community service. What exactly that looks like, I couldn’t say offhand. But I’d need to see more than just paying his way toward forgiveness and saying “my bad.” He has to work at it, it has to be both inconvenient and substantial, and it has to last a long time.
He is roughly the age of a college graduate, compared to the much older names which have been in the news for similar incidents. Which is to say, still well old enough to know better.
Yep. I do wonder, given Sanó signed when he was 16, how much human/lifespan development support he received from his employer. I suspect very little. If that’s the case, then the Twins aren’t blameless here.
FWIW, this is a fair part of my wanting a community to say "these are our criminals." We're all society, and to the extent that society is to blame, we all share in that.
There's some Brother's K in my thinking here... "“Every one is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything."
Regarding your last paragraph: yesterday I was wondering whether, for the time being, basketball has eclipsed baseball as far as my interest is concerned. It would've happened during Garnett's prime, but the Twins were pretty good for much of that, so it never quite got there.
With today's news, I find this to be very fortuitous timing.
As if Franken wasn't already a big enough test for Minnesota, this is going to really challenge us. Franken's misdeeds were stupid, misguided and invasive in a way that was definitely over the line. The allegations against Sano are much darker and scarier, though I find it...uncomfortable...to compare the relative levels of these sort of misdeeds.
There's a lot of offseason to go, and in that time, we'll hopefully find some clarity and maybe by some miracle the book will be closed on this particular story.
It's a given for me that I'll have a hard time supporting the Twins if they employ Sano despite the allegations proving to be completely true as I assume they are. I'll go one further, though, and say that if any team in the MLB takes him on under the idea that it happened elsewhere and a new fanbase will give him a fresh start, I might just say to hell with all of it for the time being.
On your "go one further"... I'm curious what distinguishes this from Chapman or Rothlisberger or Kobe or, for you personally, professional wrestling? I mean this as a sincere question, not a "gotcha". Maybe the answer is something as simple as "Baseball has just burned their last chance for you" but I find myself curious.
That's a more than fair question. I think I'm being affected by the growing knowledge that these aren't the bad apples - this problem is endemic of sports and entertainment, and enabling bad behavior perpetuates the behavior in a larger way given the scope of the problem. Maybe that's a strange way to approach this, but I think more than ever that these torches have to be snuffed out if we're going to have any impact on the problem at large.
And, if I'm being honest, this is the most I've felt personally betrayed by one of "my own" guys since Chris Benoit, which of course was eleventy-seven times worse. I did quit watching for a few years after the Benoit family tragedy.
Kobe is the most interesting of the cases you present. He was exonerated, but the bigger story to me at the time was that friends of the accuser came out and stated she had made false claims against multiple men at the school. That made for a very ugly situation all around. I never liked Kobe the basketball player, but as a man? Maybe he's awful, and maybe he's just an idiot. We can't be sure, and I don't think the accuser's friends were right to come forward with what they believed, unless they had some sort of incontrovertible evidence.
I've been personally struggling with this for years. A guy and girl in my theater department in college, both very close friends of mine, slept together one night at an after-party. She ended up claiming rape. He claimed consensual. Both acknowledged that they were drunk out of their minds. While most folks naturally gravitated to one person, I ended up remaining friends with both, hoping against hope that at some point, a story would change and I'd have some clarity. Twenty years later I feel certain that both believe they are telling the truth.
The male is a feminist activist, and has been for years. He always had that in him, but it's only natural for me to wonder if he feels lingering guilt toward what happened that night, and if it was the main catalyst for his crusade.
I'm still friends with both. I still talk to both regularly. I don't know if that's the right thing to have done, but it's done. Life's fuckin' complicated, and sex makes it worse. I always wondered what human flaw would define our generation, and I think we've got one of the culprits by the tail.
It gives you pause and makes you think about what you are rooting for.
Most of us probably became sports fans when we were kids. We thought of these players as role models. Or at least they were something we aspired to wanted to be ($$$). We said "Kirby" as we reached over a fence to grab home runs. We yelled " Bruno" as we jogged around the bases simulating a home run. We channeled Brad Radke as we gave up first inning home runs
Then we found out about Kirby. In Buffalo I started to hear stories about the 90s Bills teams how they acted.
I made excuses that it was a different time. Time has taught me that wasn't the right way to approach it.
Sports , I think, are for kids. Either literally or for us to channel our childhood. We want our kids to dream about hitting a home run, stealing second, or blocking the plate to stop the tying run in the bottom the 9th.
My Herd hasn't really gotten into sports. The Boy likes Legos and bikes and my daughter likes stuffed dog toys and being mean to her older brother.
In the 90s I didn't understand the Charles Barley role model controversy. Now I do.
This is a reminder that as parents we have to be the role models for our kids. We have to help teach them right from wrong. We have to introduce them to other positive mentors.
I used to idolize anyone who had certain words stitched across their chest.
Now I will teach my kids to idolize the people strong enough to speak out and do the right things.
I hate seeing the word "idolize" applied to sports figures. I don't for instance idolize a Kurt Warner, but I do admire him. That said, I rooting for the team name on the front of the jersey and not the name across the back, and I hope the people in power do their best to keep that team name something to admire.
I totally agree with your larger point as an adult. My point was more aimed at how those feelings are seen by a child.
With more time to think it through I would have changed the wording.
As a kid, it's not hard to get caught up in the idolizing, yes.
And it seems, through that ease of idolizing as a child, that it is very easy to develop it as a lifetime habit of things like Penn State are any indication.
Well said, Buffalo. Our culture (hell, EVERY culture) idolizes and infantilizes. It is not the fault of the Internet or drugs or the breakdown of the traditional family or the Gay or whatever. It is what we are. And what each of us has to struggle against to live our lives authentically and respectfully, and to raise our children to do the same.
I believe Betsy, and he's dead to me. I'm not watching or listening while he's a member of the team. I'm furious.
MPR wrote about it and has this:
I assumed the coach was with the Twins but a divisional opponent would be at nine-ish games. But this seems really easy to nail down. I couldn't remember who it was for the 2015 season, but Wikipedia says Butch Davis.
Makes you think twice about seemingly random firings of perceivably good coaches/managers by the FO. Unfortunately.
Well, we've join in with several others looking at the current tax situation, and we're going to pay ahead our charitable contributions for next year (as much as we are comfortable doing so). It looks like we'll be in the standard deduction next year, so it makes sense to get credit for it while we still are able.
I realize that on some level, taxes are going to be arbitrary, but it would be nice if they were arbitrary in a less complicated way. I think we’re going to thread the needle to “stay” itemized (2017 will be the first year’s taxes I’ve ever itemized deductions), but we wouldn’t have if some of the thresholds were a bit lower.
Good call, Rhu. That part had not occurred to me.
I got over it with Cosby. A lot of men are pigs, and a lot of men with power or money or celebrity or some combination thereof have used them to be bigger pigs with relative impunity. One advantage to having meager means is that you seldom get your character tested in such ways. While I'm grateful that women are speaking up, I'm also skeptical enough to always question everybody's motives these days, which is itself a sad commentary on the times. What concerns me is that in the court of public opinion, the presumption always seems to be of guilt instead of innocence because titillation, there is no due process for weighing evidence and testimony and determining truth, and the rush to judgement can lead to very unjust outcomes. It doesn't take much imagination to see how such a situation could be exploited, even weaponized, by people of scant scruples and ample ambition.
I'd suggest that there's a healthy difference between "skepticism" towards victim's claims and distaste for the current rush in the court of public opinion.
The realities bear out that false claims are few and far between, that victims often have little to gain by making their claims known, and that far more unreported cases exist than false claims. In short, absent specific facts that would tend to indicate a lie, I think claimed victims should be given the benefit of the doubt. And if we're not rushing to condemn the accused totally and outright, and are instead aimed at rehabilitation, then giving victims that same benefit of the doubt is all the more appropriate.
Thank you, I was not trying to imply that victims are trying to exploit circumstances, but that third-party bad actors will.
You mean the lawyers, don't you? 😉
Thanks for clarifying - I certainly read that wrong initially. My bad.
Your reading wasn't off, my writing was.
Today's upside: this basketball game.
Love the back to back clank dunk attempts by the Bucks.
Tyus Jones is Rubio like with his steals
I hate this "lets get a 20+ point lead and then blow it" thing the Wolves have going on this season.
I don't think that's going to change until Thibs rests some of these guys a little more.
Oh, here's the first Bucks lead of the night. Feels all too familiar.
Ugh. Complete and utter collapse.
And now for something completely different... I had a colonoscopy today. Just one polyp, benign appearing, labs back next week. The prep was not as bad as I supposed it would be. Nothing resembling fun at all but not exactly traumatic, either.
Your first one? A bit delayed, isn't it?
Yes, and guilty.
You're forgiven; don't do it again. And by that, I mean do it again -- on time. You didn't get put on the 5-yr track, did you?