July 17, 2018 – American League 8, National League 6, 10 innings (All-Star Game) – Nationals Park

https://www.mlb.com/news/american-league-wins-all-star-game-in-extras/c-286288460 

Attendance: 43,843

Duration: 3:34

Weather: 82 degrees, Partly Cloudy

Wind: 3 MPH Out to Center

Umpires: HP: Ted Barrett. 1B: Jim Reynolds. 2B: Alfonso Márquez. 3B: Andy Fletcher. LF: Mike Muchlinski. RF: Cory Blaser. 

Section 312, Row D, Seats 18-19 – great seats, on the aisle and almost directly behind home plate. Not sure how we managed that … 

Overall summary – It was the perfect game for 2018, with almost half of the plate appearances ending in one of the Three True Outcomes (strikeout, walk, homer). The 10 home runs obliterated the previous All-Star record of 6, and there were more strikeouts (25) than hits (20). Only one run scored on something other than a four-bagger. Somewhat unexpectedly, relief aces for both leagues were pounded, and a starting pitcher got the save. Beyond that, it was actually a calm game for the first 7 innings, and an offensive explosion for the final 3. 

Game notes (innings 1-7) – hometown hero Max Scherzer got the start for the NL, fanning Mookie Betts and Jose Altuve to begin the evening, adding Ks of Jose Abreu and Salvador Perez to end his outing in the second after an Aaron Judge homer … Mike Trout added to the AL lead with a round-tripper off Jacob deGrom an inning later, but Willson Contreras got the home team on the board in the bottom of the frame by taking Blake Snell deep on his first pitch … the NL finally tied it following the seventh-inning stretch on a shot by Trevor Story off Charlie Morton … other than that the pitchers were in control, with Phillies ace Aaron Nola tossing a scoreless 5^th … Bryce Harper struck out in both of his plate appearances

Game notes (innings 8-10) – in the top of the 8^th with 2 on and 1 out, Joey Votto dropped a pop fly for an error (drawing boos and sarcastic cheers for the rest of the game), and Jean Segura made him pay by homering on the next pitch for a 5-2 AL lead … Christian Yelich got one back in the bottom of the inning with a HR off Morton … in the bottom of the 9^th, pinch-hitter Scooter Gennett electrified the crowd with a one-out, two-run homer of AL saves leader Edwin Diaz to tie the game at 5 … the hometown good feelings wouldn’t last long, as the visitors scored 3 in the top of the 10^th, starting with back-to-back longballs by Houston teammates Alex Bregman and George Springer off Ross Stripling … Votto only partially atoned for his earlier miscue by homering on the first pitch from J.A. Happ, who nevertheless earned the first save of his career

 

Other – there was a big storm earlier in the day, but only a brief, relatively light rain during the game … we were able to get going quickly on the Green Line after the game (which ended just before midnight), and a Red Line train was just arriving when we got to Gallery Place, but we then had a lengthy wait there waiting for a problem ahead of us to be cleared up

 

July 15, 2018 – Team USA 10, Team World 6 (All-Star Futures Game) – Nationals Park

https://www.mlb.com/news/usa-defeats-world-in-futures-game/c-286024578

 

Attendance: 38,071 (many disguised as empty seats)

Duration: 3:01

Weather: 86 degrees, cloudy

Wind: 9 mph, Out to LF

Umpires: HP: Malachi Moore. 1B: Edwin Moscoso. 2B: Kyle McCrady. 3B: John Mang

 

Section 306, Row C, Seats 3-5 (still on the 3B side, but down the LF line)

 

Game notes – back and forth game, with most of the runs scoring on the 8 home runs, 2 of them courtesy of Dodgers OF prospect Yusniel Diaz (World) … 18-year-old fireballer Hunter Greene (USA) of the Reds, who was the 2^nd pick in last year’s draft, hit triple digits with each of his 19 fastballs, one of which (at 102.3 mph) was turned around for a 2-run HR by White Sox OF Luis Alexander Basabe … the US finally took the lead for good in the bottom of the seventh off Philadelphia pitcher Adonis Medina, a last-minute addition to the roster (he replaced Enyel de los Santos, who wound up as the starting pitcher for the Phillies earlier in the afternoon) … frequent mid-inning pitching changes contributed to the length of the game

It’s not just Roe. Worry about Chevron too.

How this Supreme Court pick could cement Trump’s real economic legacy

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/07/11/how-this-supreme-court-pick-could-cement-trumps-real-economic-legacy/?utm_term=.83b20cccf1a8

 

“In its 1984 Chevron decision, the Supreme Court declared that when a law passed by Congress is silent or ambiguous on an issue of how an agency should exercise its regulatory authority, the courts should defer to the reasonable judgment of the agency. In the years since, this “Chevron deference” has provided the legal basis for hundreds of regulations protecting consumers, workers and the environment promulgated under laws that, in many instances, could never have anticipated the economic, social and technological changes that would necessitate them decades later.

 

“But to the business community and legal and ideological conservatives, Chevron has come to be seen as a giant legal loophole that has led to the creation of a vast “administrative state” that has encroached on the power of Congress to make the laws and the judiciary to interpret them. And no two judges have been more closely associated with the campaign to pare back Chevron, or overturn it completely, than President Trump’s first two Supreme Court nominees, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.”