“Welcome in”. This phrase has been bothering me.
Welcome in.
I don’t remember anyone saying “welcome in” when I was younger.
People said:
Hello.
Good morning.
How ya doing?
If you were somewhere with cowboy boots, peanuts strewn on the floor and at least one belt buckle large enough to interfere with airport security:
Howdy.
All perfectly serviceable greetings.
Then sometime about six or seven years ago, everybody apparently attended the same meeting and decided:
Welcome needed a preposition.
Welcome in.
In where?
I’m already in.
You waited until the automatic doors opened, I crossed the magical threshold, and now you’re giving me permission?
Timing seems important here.
Apparently “welcome in” isn’t actually new. There are examples going back to the 1800s, but the modern version really started creeping into restaurants and retail during the 2010s before spreading everywhere.
I missed the meeting.
Nobody says:
Goodbye out.
“Thanks for shopping. Goodbye out.”
Nobody answers the phone:
Hello on.
You don’t sit down at a restaurant and hear:
Good evening down.
Although Southwest Airlines could probably get away with:
Welcome aboard in. Sit anywhere down.
This is why I think we should go backward.
Howdy.
That’s a greeting.
It doesn’t need to know where I’m standing.
It doesn’t care whether I’m coming in, going out, sitting down, standing up or fleeing through an emergency exit because someone put a metal fork in the microwave.
Howdy.
Done.
Cowboys figured this out 150 years ago.
Somehow we’ve got artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and refrigerators connected to the internet, and we’re still adding unnecessary words to hello.
My Starbucks knows better.
I’ve been going to the same Starbucks basically every day for more than 15 years.
They don’t say:
“Welcome in.”
They yell:
“BENZO!”
That’s hospitality.
No directions required.
Norm didn’t walk into Cheers and have Sam Malone say:
“Welcome in, Norm.”
The entire bar yelled:
“NORM!”
We’ve solved this before.
Which brings me to gambling.
Because after the last three days, I’m willing to reconsider my position on unnecessary directional language.
We are:
1-8.
At this point, I don’t care where a win comes from.
I’ll welcome a win in.
I’ll welcome one over.
I’ll welcome one under.
I’ll welcome one through.
I’ll welcome a win crawling through the dog door at 3:17 in the morning carrying a note from its mother.
Just get the damn thing in here.
Yesterday’s Autopsy
We went:
0-3.
Again.
Okay.
This time, actually, again.
We removed baseball from the premises yesterday.
Put it on administrative leave.
Told it to spend Saturday thinking about what it had done.
Then we wandered into the NFL preseason and WNBA, looking for healthier relationships.
Apparently we have a type.
CLEVELAND -2.5 ❌
Buffalo 31, Cleveland 7.
Not close.
Not unlucky.
Not a bad bounce.
We got our ass kicked.
Our thesis was that Cleveland had more meaningful quarterback evaluation happening throughout the game.
Shedeur Sanders.
Deshaun Watson. (Cleveland is still feeling the painful tugs of this contract)
Dillon Gabriel.
Everybody had something to prove.
Turns out:
Having something to prove doesn’t mean you’re going to prove it.
We gave too much weight to Cleveland having three quarterbacks with incentive and not enough weight to whether the units around those quarterbacks were actually better than Buffalo’s.
That’s useful.
QB playing time does not equal QB advantage.
Bad handicap.
Notebook.
Move along.
PHILADELPHIA / NEW ENGLAND UNDER 36.5 ❌
Patriots 24, Eagles 21.
Total:
45.
Another under.
Another corpse.
Our reasoning sounded beautiful.
Joint practices.
Starters mostly sitting.
Backups.
Roster evaluation.
Guys desperately trying not to become insurance salesmen on Tuesday.
Under.
Except apparently nobody told the backup defenses.
Tanner McKee threw two touchdowns.
Tommy DeVito hit a 69-yard touchdown.
And our lovely little 36.5 went sailing past us.
We made another assumption that sounded logical:
Backups = Under.
Nope.
Backup offenses are playing backup defenses too.
And sometimes those defenses contain a guy who was selling extended warranties last Tuesday.
Bad assumption. Useful lesson.
INDIANA ML +125 ❌
New York 109, Indiana 102.
At least this one was competitive.
We had Indiana:
+2.5 -110
or
ML +125.
We took the moneyline.
Indiana lost by seven.
So before anyone starts blaming the wrapper:
The 2.5 would’ve lost too.
Thank you.
One less thing to autopsy.
New York simply closed better, and we may not have given enough weight to Leonie Fiebich returning to the lineup.
Wrong side.
Move along.
THE GIANT SCOREBOARD
Yesterday’s 0-3 brings us to:
ALL SPORTS: 1,025-1,056-7
And now:
LAST THREE DAYS: 1-8
Meanwhile, sitting quietly in the corner without creating any additional damage:
TENNIS: 0-1
Who the hell bets on tennis?
TODAY’S GRINDER
Today we changed the assignment.
We’re not looking for clever.
We’re not looking for sexy.
We’re not looking for the bet that makes somebody on Twitter say:
“Great value.”
I don’t want value.
I want somebody to win a damn game.
So we went hunting for boring favorites.
The kind of teams where you look at the price and make the same face you make when the mechanic tells you what a cabin air filter costs.
We found Cleveland.
Guardians this time.
Watson can’t screw with this one.
Not Browns.
Important distinction after yesterday.
Cleveland gets Colorado with Foster Griffin against Tomoyuki Sugano.
The Guardians are playing meaningful baseball.
Colorado has lost five straight.
The pitching numbers favor Cleveland.
Station gave us:
CLE ML -174.
Normally I’d start looking for a way to make that prettier.
Run line.
First five.
Something.
No.
We’ve spent several days demonstrating that Bertie and I are perfectly capable of identifying the correct team and then constructing a wrapper that makes it lose.
Today:
Win the baseball game.
That’s the wrapper.
Then we looked at the Aces.
Las Vegas against Toronto.
Aces moneyline:
-1408.
No.
That’s not juice.
That’s a car payment.
One upset and you need approximately fourteen successful basketball games just to get back to where you were before you had this terrible idea.
We moved along.
Then we found the Dodgers.
Blake Snell against what is essentially a Pittsburgh bullpen game.
Los Angeles has won five straight.
Pittsburgh hasn’t won yet on this road trip.
Station offered us:
Dodgers -2.5 +102.
Very tempting.
Then I remembered what we’re doing today.
The Dodgers could win 5-3 and we’d once again be sitting here tomorrow explaining how we picked the right baseball team and lost the bet.
Nope.
Moneyline:
-303.
Hideous.
Beautiful.
Hideously beautiful.
TODAY’S PICKS
⚾ CLEVELAND GUARDIANS ML -174
No run line.
No first five.
No interpretive dance.
Cleveland wins the baseball game.
That’s it.
⚾ LOS ANGELES DODGERS ML -303
Yes.
Minus three hundred and three.
I can hear you judging me.
I don’t care.
We had Dodgers -2.5 +102 sitting right there looking attractive.
Not today, Satan.
The assignment is not:
Win by three.
The assignment is:
Win.
Just win the damn baseball game.
That’s the whole card.
Two picks.
No third pick because there happens to be an empty chair.
No round-robin engineering project.
No clever wrappers.
No plus-money siren singing from a rock somewhere.
Two baseball teams.
Win.
That’s all I’m asking.
After three days of 1-8, I will welcome a victory through any available entrance.
Front door.
Back door.
Side door.
Dog door.
Loading dock.
Emergency exit.
Welcome in.
…
Okay.
Maybe I get it now.
This isn’t called Pick What I Pick.
It’s called Don’t Pick What I Pick.
Please wager accordingly.
