Rommul's right. Not enough people give him credit for coining the term "the invisible hand", the discovery of the Americas (and by extension, the realization that the world is not flat) and the finding that lightning bolts are indeed made of electricity, nor any one of a number of commonly held, but usually unspoken, beliefs.
Yeah, but for so many people, it is. I don't see a lot of newbies here. This looks like Peter Griffin fighting the chicken -- just pummeling each other for sake of pummeling each other. Might as well be talking about capping Michael Ricketts.
Call me an optimist, but I think the arguments do get better over time. And unlike Ricketts, this is an issue that's far from decided. And, well, I'm tired of talking about Seattle. There. I said it.
I think I understand what the other poster meant by rehash. Yet another strawman. I don't see anyone saying they have any solutions. No one here is that pretentious. But quite a few people here like to discuss issues surrounding their favorite sport and apparently that bothers you but I can't tell why. Its almost as if you feel compelled to respond in confrontational manner to people who don't share your view but since you don't have anything substantive to add you feel the need to make up things to be upset about. Another straw man argument. No one has said that we haven't improved. I did however say that improvement relative to yourself is not enough that was clear. You have nothing to add and your making up things to rail against. More strawman nonsense. I specifically stated we din't even need to produce players as good as other nations are producing right now to start to wittle away the gap. I never said anything about us needing to be the best right now. Therefore all this is just rephuntimg silliness that has nothing to with what anyone says. Yet another example of you not reading what people say and just reflexively attacking people because they don't agree with your view. Isn't that kind of a silly question when I clearly said they were better? Then they went to the finals in 2006 I just love how you forgot that part. All progress is relative in this sport teams go up teams go down. The results in 2002 were indicative of our progress relative to the rest of the world as were the results in 2006.
In all seriousness is it all possible for to repsond to anything I say without 90% of it being a personall attack? You simply can't be that obsessive. There is no way I got into your head that fully.
I just love your ability to not only personalise this but also grandstand at the same time while trying to maintain a modicum of false modesty.
Its just a discussion. And most people like me haven't been involved in these threads primarily because its alway the same people jumping in on one side of the issue and pummeling the singular voices that have the temerity to not conform. Thankfully I haven't had the pleasure of being on the recieviug end but some of those giving it out have seemed downright petty.
Learn to read dave. I clearly said that I wasn't on the receiving end so my conformity or lack of conformity isn't an issue is it? From one of your old sigs: Read. Think. Post. BTW what exactly am i wrong about?
It was clearly a core piece of my argument. I may be wordy, dense and convoluted, but this time, the failure is yours, counselor.
Convenient because so similar. But it's not like that was my only example. And I agree that we may have a potential problem where that's true. What I'm saying is that the real solution to the problem of creating talent would necessarily involve this ceasing to be true. If we had the lower levels where they needed to be, the reserve teams would be for warm bodies, rehab stints, and the evaluations aimed at finding the very small number of guys who may have slipped through the cracks. Right now, though, the development structure in the US has gaps way too wide to be called 'cracks' and that's a big part of the reason there are actually decent players on Dev rosters.
It's great that MLB and NBA can keep the wages down of the young players but unfortunately we don't operate in such a vacuum. MLS has to compete with other leagues. Want to keep the wages down? great just be prepared to see a lot less talent coming through the pipe. Nobody's saying we have to pay them outrageous amounts, just enough to be reasonable. Otherwise even the half decent prospects are going to head to europe first. Last i checked, 12k a year is less than what a full-time fast food worker makes. Pathetic.
It's $9 an hour, based on the actual hours worked. Probably a little better than fast food, though not exactly a fortune. But I myself earned roughly that wage for an internship my first year out of college.