65 thoughts on “July 31, 2020: Can The Crowd Noise”

  1. I get it, but you could've said, "I don't see any reason to have fake crowd noise" and just left it at that.

      1. It is super variable depending on broadcasters/venue. The A’s in-stadium noise sounded *awful* over the broadcast. Some of the stuff I’ve heard added to the broadcast seems to blend pretty well.

  2. Basketball. That was fun last night. The biggest thing I noticed, aside from the fake crowd, was the enormous amount of space around the court. The typical NBA experience has fans right on the court, but this environment has large sections of real estate surrounding all sides of the court, which makes it safer for the players, but was somewhat distracting on TV. I think wider out of bounds lines would make the floors more aesthetically pleasing on TV, but otherwise it was good to not see players tangled up with courtside fans. Also, the trend of shoving teams further down the lines to allow for $$$$$ seats between the scorer's table and the benches is gone, too, allowing the players to sit in spots where they can see the floor.

    I didn't see the end of the LAL/LAC game until this morning. LBJ still doing things. He didn't shoot very well last night, but he got a rebound -- he was the only Laker in contention and the Clippers had all five of their players in position -- and put back to give LAL the lead with about 5 seconds to play. Good game, hopefully the virus stays out of the bubble.

    1. Totally agree on the sidelines—it really jumps out at you. I know this is wishful thinking, but I wonder if more space on the sidelines can help the refs get better angles on plays, or get up and down the floor easier.

    2. hopefully the virus stays out of the bubble.

      My first thought was, "there's a strip club called "the bubble"?"

      1. I feel a little sorry for Dusty, but the cheating was the reason for the job opening so f@#$ him.

  3. Rumblings of a quick move to 7-inning doubleheaders instead of the regularly scheduled season.

    I'm in favor of whatever makes a season more likely to continue with Covid.

    1. I don't really like it, but at this point I'm just hoping we continue to have a season, so I can't get too worked up about it.

    2. I think the double-headers aren’t to replace the regularly scheduled games, but to provide a pitcher-friendly way to have makeup games.

      1. Might well be. I haven't seen any official agreements or anything. Either way, finding that type of solution is a good idea.

        I'm still waiting for them to go to bubbles ala MLS/NBA.

          1. MLBPA may relent if it’s clear it’s the only way to have games and stay healthy. If the end of August rolls around and half the league’s games are being postponed while the NBA and NHL are having no issue, then MLBPA may rethink their bubble stance, but at that point it’s probably too late for 2020.

            1. But by starting with traveling from city-to-city, it may already be too late to switch for this year, considering the quarantining that would need to happen before entering the bubble.

              1. If they were really determined it could work—stop now, quarantine and test players in a local hotel for two weeks, then fly charter to the bubble and quarantine and test players for two weeks there. Should bubble at a warm weather location and play through December—WS Game 7 would be Dec 20th or something. That or they need to immediately quarantine teams for two weeks if they have a positive test.

  4. Brewers/Cardinals postponed tonight because of positive Covid test.

    The wheels are coming off. But, hey, my district is sending kids to school (hybrid model -- kids go two days a week -- but the staff gets to be there 5 days a week). We can opt out and we're gonna.

    1. I'd be worried if I was a team that recently played the Cardinals. Oh. Wait.

      1. Right. When I posted this, all I had seen was a tweet saying a positive test. I now know that it is multiple Cardinals. *Sigh.* It's gonna be all over the league soon.

        1. I wouldn’t be as worried about that—I’d be more worried about having the same clubhouse attendant(s).

          1. I don't mean in an actual risk, but in a way that humans are bad at evaluating risks and tend to focus on severe but extremely unlikely events.

  5. I am clearly frustrated in the decision by my school district to hold classes even in a hybrid model. I want to explain why just to get it off my chest.

    The governor's model indicated that the level of new covid cases in the county in which the school district is located should be a factor to weigh when determining the school district's model. The number of new cases in the last 14 days per 10,000 people in the county is the factor to consider.

    If that number X is less than 10, they are recommending full school days for everyone.
    10 - 20, full days for K-5, hybrid 6-12
    20 - 30, hybrid for everyone.
    30 - 50, hybrid for K-5, distance for 6-12
    X more than 50, distance for everyone

    The department of health put out a chart for every county in MN.
    On 6/13, Dakota County's number was 8.32. That would have put us in the full days for everyone.

    On 6/20, it had fallen to 8.11. Good news! But, by 6/27 that number was 10.55. Oops, looks like maybe we should hold our 6-12 students out for most of the week and have hybrid learning.

    How about 7/4? Hmmm, the number is up to 13.13. Still no change in the model, but a little disconcerting.

    How about 7/11? 14.99. Growing a little, but still in the range.

    How about 7/18? 16.79. Huh.

    How about yesterday when the district made their announcement? Going by the Dakota County dashboard, I see that the number is 19.33, just below the threshold for the hybrid for everyone model that they selected. But, um, that number seems to be rising. School doesn't start until Sept. 7.

    In the 12 days between 7/18 and yesterday, the average daily increase was 1.26%.

    I know that the number may not rise at a linear rate. But let's suppose that it does. By September 7th, the rate in Dakota County will be at 31.93, which is above the threshold where the state would suggest hybrid for K-5 and distance for 6-12. In other words, there's a pretty good chance that before a single kid sets foot in school, we will be over the recommended case rate for the model we've chosen. Do we think that the numbers in the county will go down once school starts? Let's assume my same rate of increase, 1.26% per day. By Oct. 13, the case number will be above 50, the level that the state says we should move to all distance learning. It is at least somewhat likely that we are gonna have 5 weeks of in-person schooling before the whole damned thing is completely out of control and we are shut down. In those five weeks, we are gonna put a lot of people's lives at risk. I also get that the rate won't go up steadily forever. But, I think it's clear that we are on the verge of a major outbreak in MN and I'd like to not fuel it by sending kids into the classroom.

    This to me seems like insanity. This is why I'm opting out. I know everyone can't, but everyone who can, should. I don't care about social development this year. It doesn't trump staying alive.

    1. Our district has come up with tiers, with tier 1 being fully virtual for all grades. The school board voted to start the year at tier 3, which is k-8 in school full time and then high school being mostly in school but some rotating virtual days. Fortunately, we have the breakdown of the votes and know the seven members who voted to start this way and the 2 that did not. So I know seven people I won't be voting for when their time comes up.

      Anyway, they are offering virtual schooling as an option and we are definitely going with that. The governor also just put out a state wide mask mandate yesterday, so I think the tier 3 decision will change by the end of this month.

    2. I'm 100% with you there, man. Our school district announce a hybrid model a few weeks ago, with an online option. Which they announced during a board meeting done on Zoom, because it isn't safe for the board members to meet in person. Hmmm....

      We absolutely picked the online option. A week later, the district switched to everyone being online. And for reference, even though we're under different state rules, for the last 14 days our county has 44 new cases per 10,000 residents, and has been steadily increasing since early June. Not a chance I would be sending my kids into that.

      I'm pretty sure getting our 1st grader to actually do the online schooling work will be a big-time struggle. But, considering the risk to the kids, parents, grandparents, teachers, staff, etc., online is definitely the better option.

    3. Obviously we’re in the same boat, neighbor. As a family that can make the same decision, that’s what we’ll be doing. Skim will understand, but Sour Cream got her nickname for a reason, and won’t be thrilled, to put it mildly. With this in mind, though, we’ve been saying all summer that this is what we’d be doing if hybrid school happened.

      1. I think the form comes out today, need to fill out by August 14. So you might want to get it done ASAP.

    4. We also have the luxury and privilege of choosing the at-home option. Another good reminder that the next year will only further disparities (especially with regards to education and health) with those in poverty, especially people of color.

    5. Hybrid is the reality that we're in, and I think that's likely going to be the case all year and I think that's for the best. If a person wants to go full time distance, that's an option, but the number of people who either can afford a stay at home parent or have a job situation that allows for extremely lenient work from home is extremely small. I know that Newbish's school is likely going to have him come onsite for four days a week, and figuring out that fifth day will not be trivial for us at all -- and we're on the privileged side.

      Thus whole thing is already going to knock a TON of people (statistically, mostly women, minorities, and lower income groups) out of the workforce entirely. It will take years for many of them to get back what they're going to lose.

      So... Everyone who can do this ought to keep in mind how extraordinarily good they have it.

        1. Of course, but anyone who is upset that school is doing anything but full distance has likely not considered all of the situations.

            1. of course, many governmental units have, and are petrified of discrimination lawsuits.

              In the family situation, treating your kids equally doesn't have to mean treating them the same. In the policy situation, that's a lot harder to pull off, unfortunately.

              1. Seattle Public Schools were really against remote learning for reasons of equality, and that might have worked out if it was a one month problem, but for a whole school year, you wind up with rich people hiring private tutors and pulling away even from middle class kids and low-income families left way behind.

                1. I wasn't even talking about the actual inequities of the experiences of the kids during distance learning. That's a whole other ball of wax.

                  When over two hundred kids don't have internet (and we were actually on the more "well served" side in rural Minnesota), the gap gets even more severe.

                  1. oh, agreed.

                    But, for instance, our school district (maybe the whole state) wasn't teaching ANY new material this spring when they went virtual, because equity.

                    I feel for the schools, as they have huge targets on their backs. Teachers are being maligned for caring about their own safety, kids are losing. Special needs kids, in particular. Principals are in no-win situations. It's a mess.

      1. There aren't any good answers. I'm pretty sure that's the case. But, I just added today's numbers to my chart and adjusted things. The last 14 days went from 19.33 to 20.47. Using the last 13 days instead of 12, the linear projection of our country (my formula of projecting the days from 7/18 forward to Labor Day), the number on the first day of school is going to be 38.66, up from 31.93. We would reach 50 on Sept. 23, 16 days(!!!) after school starts. In other words, things are accelerating and trending toward out of control.

        1. There are trade-offs, but some answers are better than others. Would be nice for schools to help match families that can’t work from home with families that can—I expect everyone would be nervous about liability, etc, but if we worked together to limit interactions, I think we could keep things moving in the right direction.

          1. That's an idea. Do people that have the means believe in this enough to open what amounts to day cares for the less fortunate?

            1. It’s also hard because you don’t want it to seem like a charity for the sake of either party—people have pride, etc. But maybe if you can bill it as essential vs non-essential, families that have to send out kids could be viewed as the ones making the sacrifice to not get to be with their kids.

              Also, yeah, practically speaking there are surely a lot of parents who wouldn’t invite a student in their home who would otherwise be sharing a classroom with their kids, you’d get a lot of the same drama that happens with nanny shares, etc.

              It’d be hard, it would have its own problems, maybe there is a better option out there—I just wish we’d be able to pull together to keep people healthy, kids learning, and keep families from getting foreclosed on.

              I also wonder if we couldn’t just use this as an opportunity to fundamentally rethink the future of education. Are huge, centralized schools the right option even if a vaccine is developed and implemented? It’s unlikely this is the last time we’ll have a virus kick our asses, and mitigating flu season would be great, too. (Apparently in Australia with distancing and masks they saw a huge drop off in flu cases. Anecdotally in Seattle, our pediatrician mentioned that ear infections were way down and ENT doc were placing way fewer ear tubes.) Decentralizing schools could help reduce commutes, pollution, etc.

      2. I am super happy to be in a county where we're advised to go back full time. And even within the county, we're in a smaller district, and less likely to get hammered if/when cases do grow within the county.

        I am nervous that there won't be a quick enough adjustment to at-home/hybrid if/when the need arises, but it's still good to know we're in a good place to start.

        1. All Minnesota schools were ordered to have all three plans (onsite, hybrid, and full distance) already drawn up at least two months ago. It's very, very unlikely that any public school district in the state doesn't have at least an idea of how they transition to hybrid or distance, should the need arise.

          1. Yeah, I know we've got the plans. I just also know that there is a local disincentive to shifting away from in-person learning (namely, the amount of anger the community will express), that will make pulling that trigger a little bit harder. I know the superintendent, and I know he's taken this stuff seriously, but that doesn't mean it'll be easy.

    6. St. Paul announced last night that they are going with distance learning to start the school year for all students and I'm happy that that's the route they decided to go in.

      We have considered having, at least our youngest, do distance learning with a classmate/friend to make up potentially for the lack of social interaction. We haven't formally decided, but we're all making it up as we go right now.

  6. I mean, normally I ignore the Marlins, too, but if MLB is really this blind they basically deserve to fail.

  7. I get where Manfred is coming from, but to pretend like their current procedures are sufficient is ridiculous. Kick the players out of the dugout -- everyone gets assigned a seat in the stands, one player per row, two empty rows between players. Aisles are one-way traffic only -- marked-off six-foot boxes for exiting the field, penalties for when two players are in the same six-foot box. Like they can at least do as much as Home Depot, right? No elbow bump lines on the field after wins, FFS. Stop using the clubhouse. Everyone gets a 6'x6' space in the concourse to change -- bring a duffel bag to work, change clothes in your area and shower at home. If a pitcher is ever closer than 45 feet to a designated hitter, you've screwed up. Even without a bubble, it's like they aren't even really trying.

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