Ask Grandstander

[phenweigh]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

... that your son gets an electrical shock each time he removes his hands from the ten/two position.

My understanding is that with the advent of airbags, the nine/three position is recommended.

If you have sex with a prostitute against her will, is it considered rape or shoplifting?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by phenweigh

If you have sex with a prostitute against her will, is it considered rape or shoplifting?

Rape? Such an ugly word, no wonder it's a felony. It could be a simple misdemeanor with a better name such as "Assault with a friendly weapon."

I of course very much favor legalizing prostitution, or rather, those forms of it which are direct, the indirect forms are already legal such as when the eighty year old rich guy marries the twenty two year old floozy. What annoys the crap out of me is the argument against legalizing it which centers on all the associated crime. When you deconstruct the situation, it is instantly apparent that all of the residual crime arises from the fact that prostitution is illegal, not from prostitution itself. Pimps are evil? Sure, but how evil would they be if they had to be licensed by the state and subject to inspections by some oversight agancy? The legal brothels in Nevada do not seem to suffer from any of these associated crime problems.

It is also puzzling as to why it is illegal to hire a woman to have sex with you, but not illegal to hire a woman to have sex with a stranger while you film it for commercial purposes.

[phenweigh]

What disease did cured ham actually have?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by phenweigh

What disease did cured ham actually have?

The lung cancer you get from smoking hams.

[LongtimeBravesFan]

Are there any times we would have been better off if the president had pulled a Harrison and checked out a month into his term and the VP had taken over?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LongtimeBravesFan

Are there any times we would have been better off if the president had pulled a Harrison and checked out a month into his term and the VP had taken over?

It would have been interesting if the not so dynamic Buchanan had gone belly up ala Tippacanoe, and Breckinridge had been handed the job. While Breckinridge was pro South on slavery, he was also very much a unionist and against secession. He felt compelled to serve the South once it had declared independence, but always regretted the division. Breckinridge was a very able man, his biography is one of sucess at everything he attempted. The problem of course in projecting him as being able to have kept the union together, is that he himself was becoming too much of a polarizing symbol for the South. However, it is easy to prject that had Breckinridge been running as the incumbent in 1860 with a United South behind him and no Stephen Douglas in the picture, he would have defeated Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War would have been postponed for at least another four years. I suspect that the war would have eventually come about, but today we probably wouldn't have Lincoln's face on our money or Mount Rushmore.

[heyterry]

Was it Mary Terrell you saw or Tammy Terrell? I remember Tammy. Was there also a sister named Mary?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by heyterry

Was it Mary Terrell you saw or Tammy Terrell? I remember Tammy. Was there also a sister named Mary?

Seems we are both wrong. It was Jean Terrel, not Mary nor Tammy. I was fusing her with Mary Wilson, another member of the Supremes. She was really the star of "Ernie Terrel and The Knockouts" which was how the act was billed when I saw it.

Here is her bio...turns out that her discovery was in Miami, although I only saw her in New Orleans.
Jean Terrell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[perfectstormhits]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

I do not understand the mentality of the Packer front office behavior. They are acting as though the announcement they made about Rogers being the starter, when Favre was thought to be out of the picture, somehow or other locks them permanently into that position even when the situation has changed and Favre is once more available. Why?

So they could trade him to the Jets for nothing.

I guess it keeps him out of Minnesota.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by perfectstormhits

So they could trade him to the Jets for nothing.

I guess it keeps him out of Minnesota.

When the public aspects of such things makes little sense, then there is a high probability that the parties involved are acting on information which has been concealed from the public. Despite his heroics, there must have been something going on which made the Packer front office relieved when Favre announced his retirement, and extreme discomfort when he took it back.

When the Giants announced that Bonds would not be offered a contract for '08, and did so with just a handful of games remaining in '07, and followed that with the least sincere, most strained farewell tribute on record, I figured that something was up and that we would be hearing about it shortly...and we did, the indictment followed.

It's a tough situation for any pro sports team...what do you do with the legendary franchise player who is still beloved by the fans, but has become a costly liability? The Barry Larkin case was one of the more awkward ones, he was clearly in serious decline, had not really been healthy for a number of years and it was time for him to go. Sentiment got in the way and Larkin leveraged it into a costly contract extention for which the Reds got nothing of value on the playing field.

Branch Rickey had the right philosophy on all this...better to trade them away a year too early than a year too late. And his history as a GM shows that he followed this thinking, the Dodgers were always unloading the star vets in their early '30's, even Jackie Robinson wasn't untouchable. The Dodgers were constantly getting the best years out of players, and then receiving value in exchange for sending them elsewhere for their declining years. And the Dodgers were a winning team year after year because of this.

[phenweigh]

How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by phenweigh

How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

Is it degree of importance or specific association with politcs which defines the difference? Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, but John Lennon was murdered. If someone popped out of a crowd and shot O.J. Simpson to death, that would still just be a murder rather than an assassination, even though it was a celebrity killing. But a far lesser celeb may be assassinated if the correct circumstances prevail. For example, if someone had gunned down Florida's Secretary of State, Kathryn Harris, in the summer of '00, that would have been a murder because even though she was a political figure, no one had ever heard of her outside of Florida and most Floridians were only vaguely aware of who she was. If that same person had done us a favor and gunned her down in mid November of '00, that would have been an assassination.

[Zen653]

The Barry Larkin case was one of the more awkward ones, he was clearly in serious decline, had not really been healthy for a number of years and it was time for him to go. Sentiment got in the way and Larkin leveraged it into a costly contract extention for which the Reds got nothing of value on the playing field.

Barry Larkin could have extended his career even further. He had offers to play for the Washington Nationals in 2005 and for the Boston Red Sox in 2006. He spurned both opportunities because he did not want to sully his record as one of the few modern players to spend his entire playing career in one organization. There was a similar situation with Bernie Williams the last couple years.

What is your feeling on whether players should stay with one team their whole career, or finish it off elsewhere? To what do you attribute the popular sentiment of wanting players who have spent their first 10-15 years somewhere, to stay there forever?

Do you feel that Karl Malone's career was tarnished by spending 18 years in Utah and his final season in Los Angeles? What about Bob Cousy, who with the exception of a handful of games as a 40-something benchwarmer in Cincinnati, spent his entire playing career with the Boston Celtics? What about Dwight Evans who played 19 years in Boston and his 20th and final season in Baltimore? What about Joe Montana who spent 11 years at the helm in San Francisco, and 2 unspectacular ones with Kansas City? Or Michael Jordan who spent all but two injury-plagued, average seasons in Chicago? Now there's Brett Favre.

Does your opinion depend on the particular player in question, the specific reason for his departure, or on something else entirely?

[Grandstander]

Zen:

What is your feeling on whether players should stay with one team their whole career, or finish it off elsewhere? To what do you attribute the popular sentiment of wanting players who have spent their first 10-15 years somewhere, to stay there forever?

The retention of one player for his entire career has benefits related to fan relationships, but often winds up being costly in terms of winning ballgames.

Consider...the ideal time to have a player under contract would be from age 26-30. That of course doesn't mean that players outside that age range cannot have terrific seasons or even their best seasons, but the statistical odds suggest that most player will be at their peak of productiveness during that time. The developmental cost is the same whether the guy pans out or not, so it is the post peak years where the problems arise. A guy who hits .275 with 15 homeruns at age 24, has typically done so while making relatively little money. But if he spends the next five seasons batting .300 with 30 homeruns every year, he is going to cost someone a great deal of money at age 32 if he returns to being a .275 /15 homeruns guy.

All the talk of veteran leadership aside, if you had two clubs with identical stats, but one club was composed entirely of players age 26 or younger, and the other was composed entirely of players age 32 or older, which club is going to be superior next year? The young guys are on the rise, the old guys are on their way out. Veteran leadership isn't going to change that.

Further, older players also tend to spend more time on the DL than do younger ones, you are paying a lot of medical expenses for guys who aren't playing.

Further, older players tend to have shrinking versatility. Guys who were five tool players at age 28, are often still valuable at age 33, but are now 3 tool players on their way to becoming 2 tool players as they age.

So, for whatever sentimental value a community gets from having a "franchise" player who remains with the club his entire career, the cost is going to be paying more for less toward the end of that career. It's a fan pleasing strategy, not a winning ballgames strategy.

[phenweigh]

If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?