Yes, that's exactly what I was getting at. Try harder.

I don't follow NBA outside of maybe the finals. What was the lead up to the banning of zone D, if that's actually a thing.

Yes, but if he bunts for a hit 8 straight ABs and gets a hit in 5 of them, suddenly it makes 0 sense to shift on this batter

Depends on the game situation. Harder to shift when guys are on base which is when you want one of those 40 HRs. But going the other way or bunting to lead off an inning makes a lot of sense even for power hitters. More sense than trying to power through the shift. Do it enough to keep them honest and the avg and obp will rise as will his value as a ballplayer.

Ty Cobb pleaded with Ted Williams to bunt against the shift but Williams was an exceptional hitting talent who could hit will above .300 anyway. Most of these .240 hitting power guys getting shifted on nowadays aren't in that league. Wee Willie Keeler said it best "hit 'em where they ain't".

I haven't given it a ton of thought since my early teen years, so any definitive information I could give would just be regurgitated Google searches.

ERIC THAMES HAS LEFT THE GAME, NO IDEA WHY

From ESPN box score:

Game Notes
1B THAMES (APPARENT INJURY) LEFT GAME TOP 8TH

Hamstring looks like

But yeah probably being suspended for steroids midgame amirite?

Yep, we're all bandwagon fans, everyone definitely suddenly started being a Cubs fan in 2015.

Except for the average attendance at Wrigley was still >32k every year since the late 90s.

People just don't like fans of teams that win I think? I was wearing a Cubs hat in NOLA in October when the NLCS was going on and a waitress even said "that looks like a new hat" in a snide way.

It was a new hat, I'd bought it at the HoF 2 weeks before. It's also one of 5 that I own.

Hate the attitude that if you're a Cubs fan now you must be bandwagon.

Wow dude. You sound like you either have no sense of humor, or a butt that's very susceptible to hurt. If you don't see a correlation between a team winning and them picking up a bunch of new fans that never claimed to be a fan before, I don't know what to tell you.

It's not just with the Cubs, so don't be so offended. Warriors fans have come out of the woodwork lately, and the number of Seahawks #12 "fan" jerseys I've seen around here over the past 4 years or so is ridiculous. People get on bandwagons. It's kind of a fact.

That's cool you've been a fan for many years, and have 5 hats, but let's not act like someone saying they're a die hard Cubs fan necessarily means they've been a fan more than a year or two.

No I get it, but just sensitive to it I guess specifically with my accent. I've taken a lot of **** the last 2 years (didn't take much in 2011-2015 though).

OBVIOUSLY when a team wins then even real casual "fans" come out of the woodwork, that's bound to happen. I'm not sure winning one world series gets a lot of new fans who had no connection before though? It's not like the Yankees, or the Cowboys in the Aikman era, or the 49ers in the 90s (both of who have a ton of fans even in England). I grew up in the 90s in the South of England with a ton of Man Utd and Liverpool fans - obv I realize what happens.

I actually think it's the hurt of butt fans of other teams that feel the need to point out "bandwagon" stuff that's the most amusing. The Reds even had a "bandwagon cam" at the series at Great America Park when the Cubs were there. LOL.

Of course I have a sense of humour. I'm British. It's one of the few things we have going for us (have to do something to deal with the 50% overcast days).

I guess we'll see in the coming years what happens, but let's not assume that there are tons of new fans who had absolutely no connection to it before just yet, right?

I hadn't even noticed your accent.

The Suns had a bandwagon cam going this year once when I was there too. For the Warriors I believe. Be happy when you have to deal with bandwagon comments. It means you're winning. I look forward to the day I get called a bandwagon Dbacks fan. I've already heard a little bit of it for being a UNC fan.

lol

Off-topic but I assume you're either from NC, went to UNC or have some other link there?

Reason for asking is one of my mates over here is from Wilmington, went to ECU but is a die-hard UNC fan. I don't get it. She says she roots for ECU but if ECU played UNC she'd root for UNC.

Her brother went to NC State and roots for NC State no matter what, soooooooooooo I'm kind of confused.

Is this sort of thing common there? I understand college hoops is a religion there and not something I can properly get, but I can try.

Yeah I'm from NC. Elizabeth City to be exact(the ec in my screen name), about 90 minutes from ECU, and 5 hours north of Wilmington at the NC/VA line. Out there, you grow up either a UNC or Duke fan, for the most part. ECU isn't really a rival of UNC which is why it's not uncommon to find people attending ECU but cheering for UNC if they grew up a Tarheel fan.

NCSU is definitely a rival of UNC, though not as much as their fans like to think they are. Usually if someone is a NCSU fan, it's because they do/did go to school there, or someone in their family did.

/derail. Sorry guys. Back to your regularly scheduled mlb talk.

Edit: my avatar is a poker table I built for a buddy years ago. He's a UNC fan, his wife a Duke fan. Hence the "house divided" table.

needs some love <3

McCullers getting smacked all over the place here. Still only one out.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand immediately Lonald Chisenhall GIDP.

Infielder Gift Ngoepe called up by the Pirates. First African to reach the bigs! A Lithuanian was demoted to call up an African, in major league baseball.

This is awesome. Hoping the sport continues to increase in popularity globally.

Felix and ****ing Haniger on the DL. Sigh

All rise for the Judge. Not a bad first at bat ever in Fenway for him on his birthday. Smashes a 2 run homer!!! Sicko. Severino balling as well and Bird with a shot off the monster. Things looking pretty good for the young Yankees especially given Didi and Sanchez have so far contributed nothing to the season.

So far so good for Gift. He's making Jon Lester look like Andrew Cashner.

lol'd at this article from some random source when I was reading about it.

lol

My kids got to be the play ball kids tonight. That's kinda cool.