Banned From MLB Trade Rumors

No Shohei Ohtani and the Phillies talk allowed. No mentioning who owns the Phillies baseball team and no discussion whatsoever that might lead someone to discover this blog.

This was the opening in a thread about the latest on Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani who will be posted this winter. I had previously noted in Phillies threads that exactly zero articles about Ohtani had ben authored by sports writers who cover the Phillies. When I saw this posted the morning of November 14, 2017 I took note of it.

Immediately the personal attacks began quickly - as within several minutes - the moderators jumped in to stop me from responding and advancing the discussion.

What is objectionable about this post that it would go into moderation? There certainly was something because this post went into moderation when I attempted to post it again, but other posts I made before and after the second attempt at posting went through fine. My guess is "John Middleton"was entered into the moderation filter.

Then the feces hit the fan. Attacks from new posters who had just made accounts flooded on demanding that something be done about me for exactly what I posted above in the screens and I complained about the censorship and received this response from Jeff Todd:

Sounds pretty nonchalant, however, that post is just for public consumption. Not even a half hour later I tried to make a post and it did not go through or go to moderation. My account was banned from posting entirely.

Here's some of what I recovered from a couple days back when something similar happened when the subject of Shohei Ohtani, the Phillies and the Orioles came up:

And the post that blew up the site and sent Jeff Todd and others at MLB Trade Rumors into a tizzy of deletions:

So MLBTradeRumors will not allow discussion about why the Phillies and Orioles have no interest whatsoever in the most talented Japanese player ever to be posted. They insist upon maintaining the fiction that all thirty MLB teams are trying to sign him.

Today after being censored and just before being banned I excoriated Jeff Todd for his sites blacklisting of this blog, pointing out that I had over the years made submissions for MLBTradeRumors blog roundup and been ignored. I have also had many posts in the past deleted when I used search terms in my post that would point someone doing so to this blog.

Everyone who writes about MLB professionally knows about me. People in MLB - beyond the Phillies - know about me yet I am totally blacklisted from the game. People who are grossly incompetent to speak about the Phillies are never the less invited onto national podcasts to discuss the Phillies. Those podcasters know about me and this blog but will not even have contact with me.

All the back and forth was removed by Jeff Todd as well. Some of it I pulled out of email notifications sent to my account:

It's not as if the years of online blacklisting and site banning in the comments have prevented everyone from finding this blog, a few have and even years after reading this blog they recall it later. There were others who yelled through their keyboard that they knew it was me too (calling me "Free_AEC" or just "Free"). I've never seen another baseball commenter noted and remembered by others like this, yet I am an untouchable with anyone who has any kind of professional relationship with MLB.

Here is another post by "Cat Mando" (someone who just popped up there) and my reply:

How much abuse, imprisonment, beatings, banning, public disrespect and being treated like a leper can one man accept?

The Destruction of the Atlanta Braves

What have the mass media done to Braves fans? This is going to be ugly so hide the kids.

Can you believe that it's 2011 and the Braves payroll is just $89 million this year? It just boggles the mind. The Braves payroll has basically been frozen at this level for ten years, while they have played in brand new, beautiful Turner Field. If Ted owned the Braves their payroll would be at least $200 million.

And they could afford that.

That's the reason for this ugly post. Through mass media brainwashing from the local yocal press in Atlanta to the national baseball media, Braves fans have had their brains scrubbed like the Manchurian Candidate.

But this movie is dirty, it's from the backwoods of Deliverance notoriety. Braves fans have been made to strip, bend over and squeal!

Squeeeeal!

These good old boys actually think Atlanta is something called a “mid market team” to quote a Braves fan at MLBTradeRumors.

According to A.C. Nielsen, the folks who get paid big bucks to track markets and rate them for broadcast advertisers, Atlanta is the 8^th largest market in the country right behind Boston and ahead of Washington D.C., which just signed Jayson Werth away from the Phillies.

And it just gets uglier the more you look at these statistics.

A.C. Nielsen market rank, TV Homes in millions.

2010-11		2011
Rank	DMA Name	TV Homes
1	New York	7515330
2	Los Angeles	5666900
3	Chicago	3502610
4	Philadelphia	3015820
5	Dallas-Ft. Worth	2594630
6	San Francisco-Oak-San Jose	2523520
7	Boston (Manchester)	2460290
8	Atlanta	2407080
9	Washington, DC (Hagrstwn)	2389710
10	Houston	2177220
11	Detroit	1883840
12	Phoenix (Prescott)	1881310
13	Seattle-Tacoma	1874750
14	Tampa-St. Pete (Sarasota)	1795200
15	Minneapolis-St. Paul	1753780
16	Miami-Ft. Lauderdale	1580580
17	Denver	1572740
18	Cleveland-Akron (Canton)	1526200
19	Orlando-Daytona Beach	1453120
20	Sacramnto-Stkton-Modesto	1409400
21	St. Louis	1258580
22	Portland, OR	1197780
23	Charlotte	1166180
24	Pittsburgh	1160820
25	Raleigh-Durham (Fayetvlle)	1131310
26	Baltimore	1108360
27	Indianapolis	1106420
28	San Diego	1089010
29	Nashville	1039430
30	Hartford & New Haven	1018770
31	Kansas City	974820
32	Salt Lake City	953950
33	Cincinnati	923830
34	Columbus	915950
35	Milwaukee	901100

St. Louis has a payroll $20 million more than the Braves, yet St. Louis is just the 21^st largest market in the country and about half the size of Atlanta.

Can you handle anymore ugliness? I hope so.

Milwaukee's payroll is just a few million dollars shy of the Braves and Milwaukee is the smallest market in the game.

How small is Milwaukee in comparison? Atlanta is more than two and one half times bigger than Milwaukee. That's probably why the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta after the 1965 season.

This is some serious abuse that Braves fans have undergone over the last decade, and there is no sign of the abuse subsiding. The entire baseball media continues to operate under the big lie that Atlanta is some kind of tiny market buried under Chipper Jones contract.

It was once much different.

Way back when Greg Maddux was a star product of the Cubs farm system and about to become a free agent. The Cubs would not pay him the big bucks and Greg Maddux hit the market.

The Yankees did not sign Greg Maddux. The Braves did. And the Braves signed Maddux to what was then the biggest contract for a pitcher in MLB history.

In fact, when you look at what the Phillies have done the past few years in acquiring Halladay, Oswalt and Lee and paying them the big bucks, it very much resembles what the Braves once did to become the dominate force in the N.L. East.

The Braves developed Tom Glavine through their farm system, the Phillies did likewise with Cole Hamels.

Braves fans need to stop hating on Phillies fans and the owners of the Phillies. They have nothing to do with the Braves puny payroll. Liberty Media and John C. Malone are responsible for the Braves embarrassing backwardness. Braves fans need to organize a large Tomahawk Chop protest against Liberty Media and John C. Malone.