@georgerlewis I understand the Offense is great BUT we have ZERO bullpen arms worth a crap! So my question is If the developmental system is making visually apparent strides then where is the strides for our pitchers and why don’t we have anyone competent coming up?
I’m sure you all remember Avery Jackson, the “trans girl” who, at 9, was on the cover of National Geographic in January of 2017. Avery was given the gold standard in gender affirming care: he was chemically castrated and sterilized with “blockers” to hold off male puberty.
Now Avery has come out as “nonbinary” and chosen not to pursue transition, meaning that his puberty was blocked for no reason — but that’s not the worst part. He also identifies as asexual, meaning that he doesn’t experience sexual attraction.
This is undoubtedly the result of the medication used to delay male puberty. The president of WPATH, Dr, “Marci” Bowers, has said on camera that so-called puberty blockers, which are used to chemically castrate sex offenders, chemically castrate the young boys who take them as well, leaving them incapable of arousal or orgasm.
For adult sex offenders, the process is reversible. For boys like Avery, the effects are permanent. He will never feel sexual attraction, or any of the experiences that accompany it. He is also completely sterile; he will never father a child, and his own childhood was spent in the national spotlight. The blockers he was given have also stunted his physical and mental development in irreversible ways. We know from the experiences of other “trans” children that he will never sexually mature - neither physically nor emotionally. All of these things were stolen from him, and he has said that transitioning “ruined my life.”
It’s high time that we stop pretending that children can make an informed decision to transition or take blockers, even if their doctors are honest about the risks and consequences — which most are not.
Blockers are not a pause button. They are not reversible. The intellectual deficits they cause will never repair themselves, and neither will the damage done to the child victim’s body, or to their emotional intelligence and maturity. This will, of course, make it easier to push them into transitioning; ie, to sell them hormones and provide surgical alterations.
Parents like Avery’s, who try to monetize their child’s struggles with gender identity, belong in prison, not on television, and so do the doctors and politicians who were complicit in his chemical castration and sterilization.
In April 1967, a 20-year-old farm boy from South Dakota did something that would change the Vietnam War—he fell off his ship.
Seaman Douglas Hegdahl was standing on the deck of the USS Canberra when the recoil from a five-inch gun knocked him overboard into the Gulf of Tonkin. He treaded water for five hours, then swam for seven more. When fishermen finally pulled him from the sea, they handed him to North Vietnamese forces.
The interrogators didn't believe his story. They thought he was a spy, a commando, someone important. They beat him and threw him into the Hanoi Hilton—the most notorious prison of the war.
But Hegdahl made a choice that would save hundreds of lives. He became "The Incredibly Stupid One."
He played up his country accent. He stared wide-eyed at things he'd never seen before. When they ordered him to write a confession, he claimed he couldn't read or write. The guards, used to illiterate peasants in their own country, believed him completely. They even assigned someone to teach him—who eventually gave up, convinced Hegdahl was hopeless.
What they didn't know was that Hegdahl had a photographic memory and the discipline of a soldier.
Because they thought he was harmless, the guards let him sweep the prison yards. He walked between cellblocks. He memorized the layout of the camp and the route into Hanoi. He even sabotaged enemy trucks by adding dirt to their fuel tanks.
But his real mission was gathering intelligence.
With the help of fellow prisoner Joe Crecca, Hegdahl set out to memorize something impossible: the names, ranks, Social Security numbers, and personal details of over 250 fellow American prisoners. How do you remember 250 names under torture, starvation, and the constant threat of death?
He used "Old MacDonald Had a Farm."
Every day, Hegdahl repeated the names to the tune of the children's song. Over and over. Names became melodies. Data became memory. While the guards laughed at the "stupid" American humming in the prison yard, he was conducting one of the most important intelligence operations of the war.
When North Vietnam offered early release as a propaganda tool, Hegdahl initially refused—prisoners had sworn an oath to leave together or not at all. But his commanding officer, Captain Dick Stratton, ordered him to go. "You're carrying the names," Stratton told him. "Their families need to know they're alive."
On August 5, 1969, Hegdahl walked out of the Hanoi Hilton.
When he returned to the United States, he recited every single name. Every rank. Every identifying detail. His memory transformed 250+ missing men into confirmed prisoners of war. At the Paris Peace Talks in 1970, he confronted North Vietnamese negotiators with firsthand accounts of torture—and the pressure he brought helped secure the eventual release of all American POWs.
That farm boy who "fell off a ship" had just freed an entire army.
Decades later, in 1998, Hegdahl stood before an audience of veterans and families at the Richard Nixon Library. Thirty years after his release, he stood and sang—to the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm"—the names of 256 men he'd memorized in captivity.
Not one name forgotten.
Sometimes the most dangerous people are the ones your enemy thinks are harmless. Sometimes genius wears the mask of stupidity. And sometimes, a child's lullaby becomes the most powerful weapon of all.
Ever know anyone that smart that could play that dumb for that long?
Amazing!
@GrantPaulsen What a joke this bullpen is! Look how many guys in the bullpen are home grown! Barely any! Rizzo did a HORRIBLE job of drafting relief arms!! This is on him