Greg Taggart

RIT Alum ⋅ Big 3 Engineer ⋅ Mitten Resident ✋ ⋅ Always up for new adventures

[Greg Taggart @Tagzation]

Still one of my favorite photos I've taken recently. https://t.co/uj284XHlAz

[Greg Taggart @Tagzation]

Take a minute to look back on where you started. Maybe not here if you're afraid of heights though. 😳 ·
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#Raw… https://t.co/LaLPPLXQ53

[Detroit Tigers @tigers]

Repost for a chance to win a game-ready ball from JV’s 2011 no-hitter, a bobblehead & a team-issued jersey!

[Greg Taggart @Tagzation]

@wobblymami The hair turned out so good!! 🔥🔥

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset.

US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records.

So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros.

Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability.

Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business.

They will not.

[Mitch Goldich 🐙 @mitchgoldich]

The biggest game of the first round is on Friday, when Long Island battles Arizona for iced tea supremacy

[Jonathan Mills @JonathanDMillsy]

“Me and JVR went to a {@DetroitPistons} game, and you can see how they play with an edge all the time,” Simon Edvinsson said following the @DetroitRedWings’ practice in Carolina on Friday afternoon. “I told him, ‘We should have this a little bit more in our team.’” #LGRW

[Chris Vannini @ChrisVannini]

Connor Hellebuyck, the best goalie in the NHL, had the reputation of always falling short in the biggest moments.

Today: Stopped McDavid breakaway, stopped Celebrini breakaway, killed a 3-on-5 PK, paddle saved an open net, 41 total saves.

🥇 Legendary game.

[Jim Costa @JimCosta_]

Phil Jackson coined the "40-20 rule" which states serious NBA title contenders win their 40th game before their 20th loss

40 of the last 44 champs met the criteria

Pistons are 40-13 after last night

#DetroitBasketball

[cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic]

Treasure Planet 2 was well into development. Concept art and storyboards were done, with new characters and a fresh adventure planned. Willem Dafoe had been cast as the villain and was reportedly on his way to record when Disney canceled the film.

[B.W. Carlin @BaileyCarlin]

Might be a top 20 tweet ever

[Greg Taggart @Tagzation]

215 followers. Let's give it a go.

Zohran Mamdani

[Greg Taggart @Tagzation]

@saradietschy So sorry Sara, send my condolences. I think so many of us saw our own mom's in Jeannie which makes it all the tougher to hear. An amazing woman and mom through and through. ❤️❤️

[Greg Taggart @Tagzation]

@Ultherdor @emkenobi @DillanRoberts8 @servedcoldcuts @bruzzhuzzchuzz 1000% agree. But I think it has been passing around the galaxy for awhile since the Aldani raid.

[Greg Taggart @Tagzation]

@emkenobi @DillanRoberts8 @servedcoldcuts @bruzzhuzzchuzz Cassian didn't necessarily release it. They said during the scene it was playing that it was organically spreading and the ISB couldn't quash it. It was showing how the thoughts of rebellion were spreading and couldn't be stopped.

[Greg Taggart @Tagzation]

@WillCleveland13 It stunned me how much Beers of the world had fallen off when I visited late last year. When I went in college it was stuffed with product.

Now it's just mostly empty shelves of things you can buy anywhere.

Such a bummer.

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

For every $1 the IRS spends auditing the top 1%, it can collect $13.

For every $1 the IRS spends auditing the top 0.1%, it can collect $26.

Laying off 7,000 IRS employees (during tax season) isn't about efficiency.

It's about making it easier for the rich to evade taxes.

[The Sassiest Semite @LittleMissLizz]

The rules are extremely strict because the risk of rejection is extremely high. This is not a new policy. You can’t get a heart transplant without your vaccination because the patient will need to be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their life that make them immunosuppressed. If the patient then gets Covid & dies, then the patient dies & the heart is wasted. This isn’t political.

[Blake Scholl 🛫 @bscholl]

Boom! We cracked it! Today we are introducing Boomless Cruise—supersonic flights up to 50% faster with no audible sonic boom.

We quietly (har har) demo'd this on XB-1's first supersonic flight—three times actually. 🧵👇

[Dr. Alexander S. Burns @KKriegeBlog]

Just saw Robert Eggers' Nosferatu.

As a historian, more than any other director, I trust Eggers to capture the "vibes" of a historical setting, even a fantasy one like this.

From the standpoint of capturing the 1830s in Germany, this film is great.

🧵 1/25

[Ron Filipkowski @RonFilipkowski]

I have waited so long for this argument to be made.