Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Seventh Podcast



The seventh podcast is up. Thanks to freemidi.org for the audio files. This week Eric and Matthew talk the 1971 A's.

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18 comments:

  1. OK I've tried to read up on the labor cost estimates. Still hard to understand but obviously it varies drastically from one industry to another. If you are a restaurant your labor costs are going to be a much higher percentage of your costs than will manufacturing. For restaurants they assume around 20%-30% in labor costs. For manufacturing it could be from 5%-15%. So I would say this plant in KY is right around the lower end of labor costs which I would assume would be the case if the facility is highly automated, etc. Then your costs are going to be more on materials and overhead. I also understand that those margins 1% to 2% can make a big difference in profits, but the idea of wanting to essentially throw out work rules and dismiss the idea of work rules as being something that simply gets in the way of profit is very disturbing to me.

    I'm sure I got the number from dad wrong on the cost of labor, but he was in a labor intensive industry so the costs of labor would have been higher for him, closer to the restaurant model than manufacturing.

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  2. Also I should say that part of the "protected" one in hockey also came from the notion that if you messed with the "protected" one the enforcers on his team would punish you. Over time hockey as fewer and fewer enforcers and so it is definitely much more of an honor system now than it once was.

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  3. I wonder what counts as "work rules."

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  4. Here's William Leggett in the May 3, 1971, Sports Illustrated:

    (T)he Athletics flew into Milwaukee with a 2-4 record and a wise guy aboard the plane who thought it would be fun to take a battery-operated megaphone off the plane with him. That did it. Before the bus moved, Dick Williams, the team's 11th manager since Charles O. Finley became its owner in 1960, stood up in the front of the vehicle, stuck his hands into his raincoat pocket and delivered to his troops a sermon the likes of which only Dick Williams can deliver. "Gentlemen," he said, although he did not use precisely that word, "some of you think you can be awful. Well, I can be worse than any of you. I've been mild up to now. There will be no booze served on our airplanes this trip. I have no small fines. I suggest that you stay in your rooms the entire trip. And if any of you want to phone Charlie, I have three numbers where he can be reached."

    The megaphone magically returned to its rightful spot, the team rode off in a blaze of silence and by the end of last week the Oakland Athletics had won 12 of 13 post-blast games. In the process they rose to the top of the American League West and defeated the division's only other real challengers, California's Angels and Minnesota's Twins, five games to none. By Sunday, Oakland had won as many times as the San Francisco Giants, and, like their cross-bridge counterparts, had a handsome lead.

    The winning A's were displaying some varied talents, such as: the hottest young pitcher in baseball, 21-year-old Vida (The Blue Blazer) Blue with a record of 4-1 and 40 strikeouts in 34‚Öî innings; the most impressive young catcher in the American League, Dave Duncan (see cover); the league's second best homerun hitter, Sal Bando with five; Reggie Jackson and Dick Green delivering big hits; and, best and most surprising of all, a pitching staff that had run off 10 complete games.

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  5. I need to look up the 1971 SI baseball predictions.

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  6. It finally dawns on me--after, honestly, 40 years--whom "Catfish" Hunter reminds me of: Ken Stabler. He's Baseball Ken Stabler, or "Snake" Stabler is Football Jim Hunter.

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  7. Vida Blue topped out as a .200 hitter in 1970 and then slumped to .118 in 1971, so, contrary to what I suggested on the podcast, it's not like his absence from the batting order after 1973 would've been a big blow to Oakland's offensive attack.

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  8. Nashville beat St. Louis last night to go up 3-1 in that NHL Western Conference semifinal. I warned my wife and daughter a couple of nights ago that, as my relevancy in their lives wanes over the next years, I might become one of those guys who drives the 90 minutes down to downtown Nashville and spends $100 or $150 to watch a Predators game three or four times a season.

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  9. It was a long way to get to how the Seinfeld speaks to the Eric Lindross deal, and you were sweet for sticking with it.

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  10. Playing "Name That MIDI" right now ... oh, my word ... OK, I got it.

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  11. Is the connection that this was a giant hit along about the time we would've gone to that Dolphins game?

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    Replies
    1. No, I just picked it at random. I try to find something that is recognizable almost immediately.

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    2. You do a good job with that--I get almost all of them quite quickly.

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