Left Coast Sports Babe

The Los Angeles Dodgers, with a $310 million payroll – BEFORE the trade deadline, will pay $47 million in tax to MLB. For the uninitiated, $47 million is more than the entire payroll of either the Baltimore Orioles, Oakland A’s, Pittburgh Pirates or Cleveland Guardians.

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Braves beat Rockies 3-1 in 10,, with help of ghost runner in extra innings.

The bigger story – tonight was “Second game in Coors Field history to be scoreless after nine innings.”

Coors Field opened 27 years ago….

But no, Coors is not a Little League Field masquerading as a real MLB stadium.

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The 162 game baseball season can be a long grind, and it’s tough for players being away from home so much. But your awww moment today from SF Giants’ rookie Sean Hjelle, 25, on his first major league road trip: “This is the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed at in my whole life.”

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Why are NBA finals games THREE days apart? Because the league couldn’t figure out an excuse to stretch it out to a game a week. (If they could they would.)

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Labor shortages are contributing to higher prices this summer in the travel and hospitality industry, because employers need to pay more to attract workers, and still face staff shortages. If only there were people who wanted to come to the US to work. Oh, wait, never mind.

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Special Olympics, starting June 5 in Florida, just dropped vaccine requirement when DeathSantis said he’d fine them $27.5 million. “This will be a relief to a lot of athletes.” Amidst COVID surge, where heat means athletes will spend lots of time indoors. What could go wrong?

Republicans will blame everything for mass shootings – video games, parents, mental health, doors… Everything except guns.

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If a teacher gets blamed for a mass shooting when she was falsely accused of leaving a door open, imagine what’s going to happen if a teacher has a gun that an angry student gets ahold of….

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Economists expected 328,000 jobs added in May. 390,000 jobs were added. And good luck finding any media outlet who reports this as good news.

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Labor shortages are contributing to higher prices this summer in the travel and hospitality industry, because employers need to pay more to attract workers, and still face staff shortages. If only there were people who wanted to come to the US to work. Oh, wait, never mind.

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This is our world now. Stephen Colbert last night: “Sad to say the number one story today is not only tragic story, it is tragically common…. But last night’s Late Show was a repeat. Colbert was talking about the Buffalo mass shooting.

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Finally, your periodic reminder that none of President Obama’s administration have been indicted.

Even the Atlanta Falcons can’t believe what happened to the Golden State Warriors in the 4th quarter.

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Per ESPN, Tom Brady said yesterday he “felt pressure to end his retirement because of free agency.” Give me a bleeping break. Translation, probably took Giselle a week to get tired of Tom hanging around the house.

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GOP – We need to tighten regulations for Americans to vote. Also GOP – We don’t need to tighten regulations for Americans to buy guns. Republicans think ballots are more dangerous than bullets.

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If anti-choice protesters can show up outside clinics with graphic pictures of aborted fetuses, why can’t pro-gun control protesters show up outside the U.S. Capitol with graphic pictures of the bodies of children killed by AR-15s?

So is there ANY place in the country that GOP doesn’t believe should have one door now? Wonder how all those Republican members of Congress would have reacted if there was only one door out of the US Capitol on January 6?

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McConnell said John Cornyn will be GOP Senator working with Chris Murphy on gun control legislation after Buffalo, Uvalde (and now Tulsa.) Cornyn just tweeted “Not gonna happen” about making gun laws more restrictive. GOP is the anti-life party.

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President Biden points while some say “An 18 year old can use weapons in the military, someone in the military is trained to use a gun responsibly.” Yep, well-trained 18 year olds can compete at NASCAR. But Hertz still won’t rent most 18 year olds a car.

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Lionel Shriver wrote “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” an absolutely haunting novel from the perspective of the mother of a young man who massacred students at their school. Wonder if that book would be considered too upsetting and banned now if GOP knew about it?

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I challenge ANY Republican to provide an example of where a civilian having an AR-15 saved lives. Would take a h*ll of a lot of characters tweets to share examples – just in 2022 – where AR-15s meant people including children lost their lives.

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One of travel agency clients traveling next weekend emailed me worried because her husband felt sick today though “so far negative.” This after having her adult son visit & go out repeatedly w/ friends last weekend to bars etc. We all want COVID to be over. COVID is NOT over.

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Top ESPN baseball story tonight – Mike Trout might quit as fantasy football commissioner over Tommy Pham’s slapping Joc Pederson. Will Smith/Chris Rock story hasn’t died yet. So to get attention on gun control, abortion rights & voting rights who does some Senator have to slap?

-o

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The Pittsburgh Pirates swept the LA Dodgers in a 3 game series this week. No punchline, I just like writing it.

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Trivial in grand scheme of things, but baseball games are routinely delayed while NY replay crews watch replay from many different angles – if someone’s foot was off a bag by an inch or for a half second, or something similar..

But when an umpire misses a pitch by six inches or more, it’s shrugged off as “part of the game?”

Why?

Time for robot umps in MLB

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Are any fans quicker to boo the home team than Philadelphia fans?

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So maybe we should start flying the US flag permanently at half staff?

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There’s a verdict in the Depp-Heard trial? I really don’t care, do U?

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Two of the biggest stories of 2022 involve celebrities. But if one of the January 6 insurrectionists had slapped a member of Congress or allegedly defecated on a sofabed in the US Capitol, think that might have kept media interest in the attempted coup?

Muskrat didn’t just say in an internal memo that he doesn’t want SpaceX employees to work remotely, he said anyone who didn’t want to “spend a MINIMUM of 40 hours in the office per week would be fired.” Yeah, he’s a Republican alright.

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So the (alleged) shooter in Tulsa died by suicide. These people bent on murder-suicide always do it in the wrong order.

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Fox News’s Laura Ingraham trying again to link marijuana use to “pot psychosis” & violence. But does she have statistics on how many pot users have murdered bags of Doritos?

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Reminder for all those who applied their purity tests to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Had she won, we’d have Merrick Garland and two of her nominees instead of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett on SCOTUS now.

Phillies manager Joe Girardi pitches to Joc Pederson in 11th with a 5-4 lead and 1st base open.

Meanwhile, after Pederson hit it 430 feet, SF Giants manager Gabe Kapler looked at Bryce Harper in the bottom of the inning, and said “put the tying run on base and winning run at the plate to avoid pitching to Harper? No-brainer.

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You think you had a bad day at work? Although the Giants won, SF Giants relief pitcher John Brebbia, threw just 13 pitches in one inning to four batters. One run, no outs, 3 hits and one walk. (the last on 6 pitches.)

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Nick Saban is now claiming he didn’t disparage Texas A&M and Jimbo Fisher when he said A&M had “bought every player.” “

“I didn’t say anybody did anything wrong.”

So Saban wants us to believe he was praising Fisher’s shopping abilities?

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Another woman is accusing Deshaun Watson of sexual assault. Number 23. So another “he said she she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said she said situation.”

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In all seriousness if Andrew Yang had even done the work of trying to accomplish something in elected office at a state or local level I’d take him more seriously.

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Travel agent moment that would be funny if it weren’t real life: Client emails today – know we have to get COVID test to get back in USA but my wife is worried. If we test positive it doesn’t mean we have to stay in Europe for a while does it? Uh, that is EXACTLY what it means.

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MAGAs – Velveeta Voldemort is going to win!

He loses – The election was rigged

MAGAs – Hillary’s lawyer is going to be found guilty! He’s acquitted.

The jury was rigged. See the pattern?

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As GOP candidates for Senate bicker in PA over which ballots to count, your reminder Amy Klobuchar & Elizabeth Warren have a no drama bill to reduce election problems by providing federal funding to help states & localities administer elections, train nonpartisan poll workers & eliminate barriers to voting.

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Police in Uvalde have now been caught in repeated lies, the most recent that they accused a teacher of leaving a door open when she was seen on surveillance video closing it. Lying to the police is a crime. Lying by the police should be.

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Gym Jordan is actually claiming “the big takeaway” in today’s verdict on Hillary Clinton’s lawyer is that Hillary is somehow guilty of something. No, the “big takeaway” is that Sussman was found innocent and that Jordan is a lying sack of something you use as fertilizer.

WTAF? Fox News headline “Despite acquittal, Durham trial of Sussmann added to evidence Clinton campaign plotted to tie Trump to Russia.” What’s next “Despite recounts proving Biden’s victory, Velveeta Voldemort efforts to stage coup added to evidence 2020 election was rigged?