Besides the chuckwalla photos I shot there this spring and posted here about two weeks ago, here's a few mine photos, plus a desert five-spot at the end.
Twenty years ago, I climbed the mountain face all the way up past that last hoist. Oh, to be younger.
It's discussed and analyzed by Jeff Passan with Joey Votto. As in lost.
>"This video has never been seen by the public," Passan says at the start. "I had not seen it. Outside of friends and family, nobody had."
The video comes from a fishing trip with Bobby Doerr.
Five main points from Ted, analyzed and updated for today's hitting world by Votto:
>Point 1: 'Now, there's two things about hitting that I want to stress. Quickness. This is a quick game and a strong game. You wanna be as quick and strong as you can be.'
>Point 2: 'Everything you do, hips ahead of hands.'
>Point 3: 'You cannot have good hip action without a slight upswing.'
>Point 4: 'In order to be quick and strong, you have to have a certain length of stroke. I can get you here or I can get you a little further out. But the more stroke you have, the more stroke you have. The more chance you have to build up power and speed in this bat.'
>Point 5: 'I wanna puke and get a knife in my throat when I'm out in front and hit a f---ing ground ball at first.'
There you are.
We hear talk about "escrow accounts" for contracts like Shohei Ohtani's, and how they have to be created within two years.
BUT?
If you're thinking "escrow accounts and only escrow accounts," as I have in the past, maybe you and I need to think again.
This piece is a good starter:
>The CBA controls terms and requirements for the MLB’s deferred compensation contracts. Article XVI of the CBA specifically provides for deferred compensation, notably with no limits. The CBA requires the club to fully fund “the present value of the total deferred compensation obligation,” but it gives clubs a two-year grace period before having to front the funds. Fully funded means “the current present value of the then outstanding deferred payments, discounted by 5% annually.” That 5% discount rate can be negotiated later by the player and club based on the stock market fluctuations. The discount is based on the assumption that the club will invest 95% of the amount, and that it will grow by at least 5% to equal the full deferred amount by the final distribution date.
>The CBA gives clubs freedom to invest the 95% as they see fit, provided that the amount is earmarked for the player and remains rather liquid. A player’s agreement may provide otherwise or require with more specificity how that money is put aside. Unless a player’s contract provides otherwise, a club may fully fund the deferred compensation amount “in such manner as it elects.” The funds are also “subject to the claims of the club’s general creditors.” The CBA outlines various compliance measures for the Player’s Association to monitor the club’s funding obligations.
Note that second paragraph, especially. VERY especially the two items in quotes, both of which I've given additional emphasis.
What if Mark Walter put Ohtani's deferred money in one of his insurance agencies, for example, regarding the first quote?
What if the feds put Walter on trial, get him convicted, and become one of the club's general creditors, per the second quote?
Is it any wonder that the Dodgers' use of deferrals exploded after Walter bought the team?
The reasons to investigate his finances keep growing, per The Ringer's Katie Barker.
Among her many links?
Way back in 2012, when he bought the Dodgers, at DealBook, Andrew Ross Sorkin said it didn't pass the smell test.
>In fairness, many insurance companies use their premiums to make investments, including private equity and real estate deals, a slice of which can sometimes even be speculative. As long as the insurance companies meet minimum capital requirements as determined by various regulators, they do not run afoul of the law.
>However, rarely does an insurance company — let alone an investment firm — buy a sports franchise using its policyholders’ or investors’ money. When Tom Hicks, the founder of the private equity firm Hicks Muse, Tate & Furst, bought the Texas Rangers in 1998, he had the good sense not to use his fund’s money; he brought in qualified outside investors, who by the way, ended up suing him anyway when the team filed for bankruptcy.
Sorkin also said that Walter's then-stated reasons for buying the team didn't totally pass the smell test.
Per another link off the RInger main? Maybe Walter's buying-up of Crested Butte, Colorado was part of why I hated the place when I was there a couple of years ago:
>The Brühaus space is just one of a half-dozen Elk Avenue buildings Walter scooped up in 2021, along with the 88-acre Almont Resort down-valley and the largest undeveloped lot in town, known as Sixth Street Station. Under the previous owners, this chunk of prime real estate on the north end of Crested Butte, en route to the ski hill, was the biggest project ever to undergo the town’s entitlement process, a tedious labyrinth of permit approvals that took years to navigate. It was set to become 62,500 square feet of mixed-use space anchored by a new high-end boutique hotel. According to the sellers’ real estate agent, Chris Kopf, they were hoping Walter would see the four-blocks-long project through. But the sixtysomething businessman has let the entitlements expire and has yet to divulge what he plans to do with the languishing lot.
>The fates of other Walter acquisitions, like the iconic 1881 Forest Queen hotel building—recently home to the Coal Creek Grill, it has been dark or under construction since Walter bought it in early 2021—are similarly mysterious. Stealth mode seems to be the MO for the notoriously media-averse mogul, who did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him for this story. And while Walter isn’t new to town—he purchased a vacation home in Mt. Crested Butte in 2009, and he bought the historical Grubstake Building in 2011—he reintroduced himself in a big way with this sudden spate of pandemic-era purchases. The buying spree has become cause for speculation and guardedness. “Mark Walter is used to doing things a certain way,” says Crested Butte News editor Mark Reaman, who has repeatedly and publicly implored the investor to at least hint at a plan for the future. “He’s probably a great businessman…. I don’t think he’s out to change or destroy [Crested Butte]. His error is that he’s not taking community feedback. That doesn’t go over well in a small town.”
One also wonders how "leveraged" this and other major real estate acquisitions of his are.
==
In all of this, we're reminded that Walter's runner-up for the Dodgers buy then was ....
Drumroll ...
Steve Cohen.
==
EDIT: Re a few commenters, I just dropped a new piece about what the CBA says about funding deferred accounts, including ...
The amount of latitude involved.
Details up front in the story:
>Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes, battling another dip in his fastball velocity, was lifted after just 65 pitches in Tuesday's loss to the Miami Marlins, leading to further speculation about the health status of the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner.
Followed by either straight fact or spinning:
>Pirates manager Don Kelly insisted that Skenes' early exit "wasn't injury-related," saying he lifted the All-Star before the start of the sixth inning because he "thought it gave us the best chance to win."
Which Skenes accepted:
>Skenes said he understood Kelly's quick hook, adding that he did not plead to stay in the game and quipping "if I were the manager, I'd probably do it too."
>"[Kelly] walked me through everything, and it made sense," Skenes said. "I wish I could have gone more, but it kinda is what it is."
And now to details on "why":
>Skenes averaged a career-low 95.7 mph on his fastball and did not throw a single pitch harder than 97 mph. He induced just four misses on 34 swings for a 12% whiff rate, the lowest single-game mark of his career.
Let the speculation continue!
Skenes admits his innings load isn't high, but that he's had some high pitch-count individual innings:
>"I know the innings total isn't super high right now," said Skenes, who has a 3.88 ERA in 134⅔ innings this season. "I think I've probably had more 30- to 35-pitch innings this year than I have probably in the last two years combined, so that doesn't help either. It's still volume, even if it doesn't show up on the innings total. That's probably part of it too."
Out of more curiosity, I checked his total batters and innings pitched. This year, it's 4.1 batters/inning vs 3.9 last year. It was also 3.9 his rookie year.
Deferred payments jokes aside, the investigation involves serious issues. It's unclear at this point if there's any direct connection to his Dodgers ownership, or his recent sale of his majority ownership of the NBA's Lakers, but, the investigation DOES involve some of the same types of financing deals that allowed him to buy the Dodgers.
Here's what it's all about:
>The federal law enforcement probe into the financial affairs of the Dodgers’ controlling owner, Mark Walter, seems to focus on what looks like an obscure financial maneuver: related-party transactions.
>They are deals between entities with business or personal ties, including loans, sales and other transactions, that can have legitimate reasons but pose potential conflicts of interest and typically require extra scrutiny.
>Walter tapped insurers he controlled to provide most of the financing for the $2.15-billion acquisition of the Dodgers in 2012, The Times has reported — a deal later vetted by state insurance regulators.
>Now, regulators reportedly are investigating whether billions of dollars’ worth of similar loans made by Walter’s companies were properly disclosed.
>There are examples in which related-party transactions led to trouble, including the 2001 bankruptcy of Enron Corp., the largest at the time in Wall Street history. Bernie Madoff profited from his Ponzi scheme through related-party loans.
>At issue with Walter is $21 billion in loans not disclosed to state insurance regulators that were made by two Delaware insurers he owns, according to ratings agency Fitch. The loans reportedly were made to companies with ties to Walter or his TWG Global holdings company.
Seriousness: This:
>The seriousness of the investigation has been highlighted by subpoenas served on the insurers and the reported seizure of Walter’s cellphone and laptop by federal authorities. Still, investigations by prosecutors and securities regulators can result in no action.
Well, there you go.
Per other news stories, attorneys at the US Southern District in Manhattan as well as the SEC are investigating.
People are talking about how fast the Lakers sale came together. Gee, wonder why. Suppose Walter has a sudden need for additional liquidity?
I have seen chuckwallas twice in my life.
The first, 21 years ago, Keane Wonder Mine, Death Valley, where I saw a lone male.
Then, this spring, on vacation at ...
Keane Wonder Mine!
A male and female looking to do the chuckwalla muskrat love. The male looks like a mini-T Rex horndog.
Solo female and a couple of solo male pix at end.
Actually, it's not "gone wild," it's a wild rose.
A person at r/flowers suggested posting here.
As I said there, I'm not great at identifying wildflowers outside my region of the US. When I got back from vacation two weeks ago and got into the process of editing photos, Google Images first suggested either "dog rose" or one other. Problem? Both are most common east of the Mississippi, and I was on the trail at Two Oceans Lake at Grand Teton National Park. Well, I followed a link or two to a link, then saw "Nootka Rose." I had heard of Nootka Sound, and this sounded more likely, and a Wiki page said that one of two varieties grows in the Intermountain West. Bingo.
From Coal Creek, Targhee National Forest, just south of Grand Teton National Park, from end-of-July vacation.
Per edited photos, one sure item on unedited photos and guessing at another couple, I think I had seven lifers on the trip.
Desert National Wildlife Refuge, north of Las Vegas, spring vacation, March
I have seen chuckwallas twice in my life. The most recent was my spring vacation, at Keane Wonder Mine.
Before that, I saw a lone male 20 years ago ...
At the Keane Wonder Mine!
This time, I got a male and female, with him chasing her to do the chuckwalla muskrat love. He looks like a mini-T Rex horndog, or a mini-Godzilla, whether in the photos of both of them, or in the last two, including a close-up, of just him.
Grand Teton National Park — another one from my recent vacation.
TL/DR version? Dodgers A (shock me), TIgers D.
Here's why, even though Detroit will have hope for Hope, they don't give the TIgers more:
>Detroit's return in this deal feels like a bad dream. OK, let's calm down. Skubal, as good as he is, was on an expiring deal. There is only so much value that can be extracted from a trade partner for a player who might be a free agent in four months. The fair-value matches you can conjure in these scenarios won't make the hearts of Detroit fans go pitter-patter, though you can always hope that the real-world outcome is that with multiple teams vying for a true difference-maker, those fair-value assessments might go out the window.
>Zyhir Hope is a top 30-or-so prospect across baseball. That's a valuable prospect. But on most prospect lists, he's the fourth-best outfield prospect in the Dodgers' system. So for the best pitcher in baseball, the Tigers could not command the Dodgers' best prospect out of their amazing surplus of promising outfielders?
>River Ryan has stud potential, but he's 27 and blew out his elbow after his 2024 debut for the Dodgers. He didn't pitch last season, and this season, he has a 4.46 ERA over eight outings for Oklahoma City. Smith, 21, was a third-round pick as a prep righty in the 2023 draft. He's 0-10 over 30 professional starts with a 4.72 ERA. The prospect wonks like him as a top-30 prospect for L.A., so maybe we have to look past the ugly superficial results.
Sounds about right, contra one person here on one of the two threads about the trade itself, who was touting all the Dodgers gave up.
Wrong.
The Dodgers gave up one promising bat who is a likely DH, not fielder, for whatever MLB career he has, one meh pitcher who might not ever get back to MLB, and one meh prospect who might never get to MLB in the first place.
As for what other teams might or might not have been offering? We'll see if any rumors get dropped or not.
And no dinero, either. The Giants are cutting off the payment train to Bader over the scooter accident he had recently while rehabbing (since May) from plantar fascitis.
>"Over the weekend, Harrison Bader was involved in an accident that has delayed Harrison's prior treatment timeline for plantar fasciitis and, unfortunately, his return to the field," Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey said in a statement Friday. "We are still investigating the circumstances of the accident, but will be suspending payment to Harrison until he is able to resume performing services for the club."
How long until the MLBPA jumps in?
Meanwhile, ESPN adds this:
>This isn't the first time Bader has gotten into trouble in a scooter accident. He was suspended in college at Florida in 2014 after he hit a curb and ran into a truck while driving a motorized scooter, according to a report from the Gainesville Sun. He was unresponsive on the ground and, according to the incident report cited, smelled of alcohol.
As for rehabbing since May from plantar fascitis? Even though it bothered him off and on during most of his Angels years, it never kept Pujols out two and a half months or whatever.
==
EDIT: Per my comment last night about Jeff Kent's "truck washing accident," the LA Times has a compare-and-contrast story. Re Bader, it does note the CBA has a general "high risk activities" rider clause. Whether being on a scooter, even if already injured, is high risk remains to be seen.
Eastern collared lizard, Wichita Mts National Wildlife Refuge. Love these guys.
That's Dan Wetzel's take, serving in part as a PR intro to ESPN's 30 for 30 podcast take on the issue, linked at the piece.
The nutgrafs, contra the conspiracy theorists still lurking here and elsewhere, are:
>All along, despite a flipped explanation, a doubting public and questions about extreme naiveté, federal investigators and prosecutors assert that Ohtani was nothing more than a victim.
>There is extensive evidence to back it up, from electronic receipts, to interviews, to details such as the fact that in a review of some 40,000 text messages between Shohei and Ippei, there isn't a single mention of gambling of any kind, let alone on sports.
>Ohtani simply trusted Mizuhara, who used that trust to feed an ever-increasing addiction.
Going on, the real villian is Matt Bowyer. Wetzel notes Ippei had done low-stakes gambling plenty, but Bowyer getting his hooks into him is what really set this up.
And, without mentioning FanDuel, DraftKings, etc., the bottom line warning is:
>Gambling addictions are not new, but the speed and sophistication of modern sports wagering is like introducing an exponentially more powerful new street drug onto the scene.
I'd add that the good old smartphone is like a crack-pipe delivery system. Unlike a computer, you can drop bets at a game, especially if some new prop bet pops up. Ditto at a sports bar or similar.
From Grand Teton National Park. I was there and Yellowstone last week for vacation. This is not a lifer, but I've already identified four that I shot that ARE butterfly lifers, so you'll get more in days and weeks ahead.
The first photo is a kiosk-type sign that explains the proposed big old development here that creation of the National Wildlife Refuge staved off, after The Nature Conservancy acquired the land. More at Wikipedia. The next couple are a butte generally to the east of Crystal Spring, the source of "life" in the NWR, and what the Shoshone reportedly called a "snake." Then comes the spring, a Say's phoebe on the visitor center roof and a quail backlit at sunset. The Wiki link also notes just how many endemic species are here.
If Elida strengthens AND takes a more easterly track, per this story? Just a heads up. Even if it goes that far east, I doubt there will be major flash flooding, and those are both IFs. But, just a heads up.
That's per MLBTR. Yes, one of the sources is Heyman, but this is probably a time he's right.
>The deadline sale in Queens appears to be underway. Chelsea Janes of SNY and Jon Heyman of The New York Post each report that the 41-57 Mets are informing other teams they’re willing to begin trade conversations on the majority of the roster.
>Both reports suggest the Mets aren’t interested in moving Juan Soto or any of their four core young players: Nolan McLean, Christian Scott, Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing. Everyone else appears to be available, though the Mets obviously aren’t going to line up trades for 80% of their roster.
Story goes on to look at possible deals for players other than those five. And, there you run into the problems of who might want many of them unless the Mets eat part of their contracts.