Oakland

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IceX says,

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RESPECT is a feeling of admiration.  

It is elicited by another person's achievements, attitudes, or character.  Typically it is associated with a certain level of deference.  It recognizes the intrinsic worth of another person - almost always, because of the choices they make, and not because of the talents they were born with.  

You don't respect blond hair; you respect a bald person using a walker in a courageous fashion (as I witnessed at the gas station the other night, where a young man took several minutes cheerfully folding up his walker to put it into the back of his truck.  How many times has he done that?).  

You do not respect intelligence; you respect a surgeon who calmly spends 10 hours making sure every single move he makes is precise, however tedious it gets.  You respect the woman who spends her Saturday volunteering at the food bank.  You don't respect Colin Kaepernick's footspeed, not on a human level; you respect Russell Wilson's determination to help the Seahawks, and not himself.

I can respect the discipline any man uses to become one of the top 1% in his profession, as all MLB(tm) shot-callers are.  That doesn't mean that Dan Duquette receives the same overall deference that Pat Gillick receives.  You do not respect George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton at exactly the same levels, or even similar levels.  

You don't respect Ken Lay of Enron the same way you respect Bill Gates of Microsoft. Once you ask for, and get, the steering wheel, let's see what you do with it.

You don't respect inborn talents.  You respect priorities.

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America, today, is about demanding respect.  It is about treating respect as a courtesy, something you do as a favor to others.  Those two mis-definitions miss the entire point of respect.  If you want to talk about courtesy, then use that word.  Or sensitivity.  Or kindness.  Or helpfulness.  Or use another word.  Some word other than "respect."  Because respect can only be earned, not demanded.

Maybe America is re-defining "respect" as a shortcut.  We're a drive-thru society, aren't we?

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Grizzly sez,

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Q.  They're on pace for 86 wins, 76 losses.  Would that ever get the second Wild Card?

A.  In the AL, the #6 teams over the past ten years -- the teams the #5 squads have had to exceed -- have been as follows:

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The last two years were the only times, the last decade, when it required 90 wins to make the new playoffs.

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Nelson Cruz went to the Baltimore Orioles for 1 year, $8M.  He is an unrestricted free agent in four months.

Pull up Baseball-Reference on the Orioles -- the team the Mariners are chasing in the Wild Card -- and it shows you that Cruz is the Orioles' best player, by WAR.  (He is not there for WAR; he is there to change the scoreboard.)  

He has 15 homers in 45 games ... let me divide 162 by 3 here real quick ... and 43 RBI in those 45 games.  (Cano and Seager lead our team with 28 RBI each; we feel very relieved to have Mike Zunino's 18 RBI, which pro-rate to about 70.)

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Needless to say, if Cruz hits 44 homers, drives in 137 runs, and the Orioles win the pennant, then ... the skeptics will still have been right about Nelson Cruz.  It's about process.  (And you know where to find The Right Process!)

Even if Cruz hit 200 homers from here to the end of the wire, they'd still have been right.  This is, as you are only too well aware, a peeve of Dr. D's.