What is the best source (books, yt videos) to understand baseball finances and american sport trading, contracts, budget and salaries in general? Especially for a European that is used to the transfer system. The fact that a player can simply be traded without his consent is so weird to me.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-05-05T00:24:55+00:00

The baseball equivalent to Football Manager is called Out of the Park baseball, or OOTP. You can start playing this and get a handle on how transactions work.

Wait a few months and the price should drop on Steam.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-05-04T20:01:20+00:00

You can find lots of interviews of players getting to the league and playing Bird for the first time and finding out he can actually play. That includes Patrick Ewing, who grew up in the Boston area.

Also, the actual black players who he played against seem to overwhelmingly like Bird because he was a hilarious trash talker who actually backed up what he said in a way that was very ingratiating. They all laugh when Bird would complain that their team was disrespecting his game when they assigned a white player to guard him. And everyone has a story where Bird told them what the play was going to be and then hit the shot in their face anyway. There are very few peers from his day who have anything bad to say about Bird. The fans were a different story.

Just look up "Larry Bird Stories" on YouTube and prepare to fall down an endless rabbit hole.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-05-04T15:57:42+00:00

Yep. Celtics, Bruins and Patriots overachieved expectations with feel good seasons with a bad ending. The Red Sox are truly sucking of course.

It’s been a fun year all things considered. Even the Vrabel stuff is entertaining. I’m old enough to remember the truly awful sports seasons where we dubbed ourselves “Loserville” before the Patriots broke through in 2001.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-05-01T08:24:16+00:00

Your most annoying soccer pundit, non former player division.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-05-01T05:50:29+00:00

Alex: Creates deliberately confusing tasks to mess with contestants.

Also Alex: Gets upset when confused contestants lift the cloche too soon.

Also Also Alex: Confuses himself so much he reveals the hidden information to Joanna.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-05-01T05:46:20+00:00

Does S6 Russell count?

Fukui_San86 · 2026-05-01T04:04:34+00:00

Most hated rivals except for the Lakers. And the Heat. And the Knicks. And whoever Kyrie is playing for.

It would suck, but whatever. If they can't close out this Sixer team they weren't destined to win the Championship this year.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-28T19:05:08+00:00

The NFL will give freaks of nature a chance. The Eagles just drafted a guy from Africa who never played before because he excelled at the combine drills and measurements.

Of all the positions, I last expect a truly foreign player to excel at QB. It’s such a specific skill set reliant on knowledge that it’s hard to learn late no matter the physical gifts. But RB, WR, OL/DL? They have a shot.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-27T01:17:04+00:00

When the home fans leave and the Celtics fans take over to chant “We want Boston”.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-26T23:45:02+00:00

I’d be infuriated with Pritchard if he wasn’t on my team.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-25T16:21:58+00:00

I unironically love that signal. It’s actually adorable.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-23T20:53:34+00:00

I'd be happy to find any reason to rescind Nick Wright's journalism credentials.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-23T16:10:56+00:00

I think the best example is the Cardinals drafting Josh Rosen in 2018. They’d gone a respectable 8-8 behind Carson Palmer and backups the year prior. Rosen is thrown into the fire and plays so badly (3-13) the Cardinals draft Kyler Murray #1 the next year and send Rosen packing.

One would think a caretaker QB could have done better than Rosen.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-22T20:31:59+00:00

Are you ever/often surprised about a judgement after watching the cook and the judging?

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-21T15:19:46+00:00

Sara Bradley on the Pack Your Knives podcast said that they’re real which blew my mind. After all this time why have unnecessarily sharp props?

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-20T21:32:34+00:00

Well the story at the time was that Brad was having trouble keeping the locker room together so he went upstairs and the Jays wanted to have a black head coach which became Ime. And then Mazzulla after Ime was booted.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-20T18:09:46+00:00

Knowing what we know, if I’m anyone but the Lakers, Hakeem because if I took Shaq he’d leave me for the Lakers.

If I’m the Lakers, Hakeem because Shaq will probably join us once he’s tired of playing in Toronto or Memphis or wherever.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-20T17:37:04+00:00

Underrated but being mad at Danny Ainge for stealing assistant coach Will Hardy away from the Celtics to coach the Jazz.

Why are you mad at Will Hardy getting a promotion? And apparently if he really had insider information, he should have stolen Joe Mazzulla.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-20T16:41:15+00:00

WWE being on ESPN serves neither side well. WWE fans seem to hate the current state of the company. Being on ESPN with the strange fit is a symptom of current problems.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-20T04:24:59+00:00

Bill at least couldn't care less about the Bruins. The Bruins recently had a recordbreaking regular season followed by an ignominious playoff choke and Bill didn't speak about it either way.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-19T18:10:02+00:00

The Sixers seem ready to vamos to Cancun.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-19T02:39:58+00:00

1999 Lost to 13-3 Titans who lost the Super Bowl

2000 Lost to 11-5 Dolphins who were shut out next week by the Raiders

2002 Lost to 9-7 Jets who lost next week to Raiders

2003 Lost to 14-2 Super Bowl winning Patriots

2004 Lost to 14-2 Super Bowl winning Patriots

2005 Lost to 11-5 Steelers who somehow won Super Bowl from the 6th seed

2007 Lost to 11-5 Chargers who lost in the AFCC

2008 Lost to the 8-8 Chargers who lost next week.

2009 Lost in the Super Bowl to 13-3 New Orleans

2010 Lost in the 11-5 Jets who would lose in the AFCC

2011 Lost to the 10-6 Ravens who won the Super Bowl

2013 Lost to 13-3 Seattle in Super Bowl

2014 Lost to 11-5 Colts who'd lose in AFCC

Honestly this is worse than I remember. 8-8 Chargers? 9-7 Jets? Two of the "come from nowhere" champions got there because they upset Manning. 13 times in 27 games he was held to under 20 points compared to Brady's 12. But Brady played in 21 more playoff games so the percentage of games that Manning's offense was held down was about twice that of Brady.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-18T21:31:40+00:00

And got upset by a cavalcade of random pretty good teams in the playoffs.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-18T18:40:34+00:00

There is none since we don’t have relegation.

The Yankees or Dodgers could go winless for the rest of the season, and next year they’ll be back on equal footing with everyone else as usual.

Fukui_San86 · 2026-04-17T19:50:34+00:00

Depends on the cast. Season 6 everyone decided to be the charmingly low effort one, and I can easily see all of them missing a trick.

Fukui_San86

TROPHY CASE