Latest news with #Sandlin


Edmonton Journal
20-06-2025
- Sport
- Edmonton Journal
Blue Jays make pair of minor moves fully aware bigger decisions await
Article content The Blue Jays added depth to their outfield, while bolstering their bullpen in what must be viewed as the beginning for some kind of major move to be engineered down the road. So much of what will be done to cement the Jays as playoff contenders is all dependent on health. Article content Health was the reason why Nathan Lukes and reliever Nick Sandlin were unavailable, but each is back after being reinstated from the injured list Friday. Article content Both were active for Friday night's series opener against the visiting Chicago White Sox. The bigger picture involves the July 31 trade deadline and how the Blue Jays are positioned in the weeks leading up to a time when a deal of consequence might be enough to push the team over the line. With Lukes back, the team's outfield becomes a bit crowded. With Sandlin's return, it could spell the end for Chad Green, who has not acquitted himself when called upon. Veteran reliever Erik Swanson was DFA'd by the club, a move many had expected given his struggles. It's an interesting time for the Blue Jays, who have played well, with the interest surrounding the ball club only to intensify as they remain in the hunt for a wild-card spot with hopes of catching the AL-leading New York Yankees, who have slipped a bit atop their perch. The Bronx Bombers will be in town later in the month with a return visit to Rogers Centre on tap next month. Article content Sandlin, who was sideline with a lat strain, hasn't pitched since late April. Of all the moves GM Ross Atkins made this past off-season, Sandlin's acquisition from Cleveland flew under the radar. When he was healthy and able to pitch, Sandlin did well. In fact, most of the moves made by Atkins have turned out well for the Blue Jays. One can quibble with the signing of Anthony Santander (shoulder), but no one was complaining when the Jays acquired a power bat to address the team's glaring need for a thumper. For the record, Santander has yet to resume hitting. Lukes has been a pleasant surprise. To make room for Lukes and Sandlin, the Jays optioned outfielder Will Robertson and LHP Justin Bruihl. Once Daulton Varsho returns from his hamstring injury, making room for him will not be an issue. Article content Another injured player expected to back sooner than later is reliever Yimi Garcia. As for Bowden Francis, the struggling starter had a cortisone injection and isn't expected to throw for a few days. Perhaps the biggest domino is veteran starter Max Scherzer, who hurt his thumb in his Blue Jays debut way back in the season-series opener against the visiting Baltimore Orioles. In terms of progress, it's been going well for the right-hander, but until he's on the mound in a big-league game no one is sure what the future holds. Scherzer is scheduled to throw a bullpen session Saturday. Barring a setback, Scherzer is likely to make a start next week when the Jays are in Cleveland. RECOMMENDED VIDEO Article content Latest National Stories
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Red Sox prospect (up to 99 mph in 7 shutout innings) wins league's Pitcher of Week
Boston Red Sox prospect David Sandlin was named the Eastern League Pitcher of the Week. The 24-year-old's fastball was between 95-99 mph during his seven shutout innings for Double-A Portland against Altoona on Thursday. He allowed three hits and one walk while striking out eight. Advertisement It was registered as a complete game shutout because the game went only 7 innings as part of a doubleheader that day. Sandlin has thrown 12 scoreless innings over his past two outings, giving up eight hits and one walk while striking out 14. The Red Sox acquired the fireballer — who topped out at 100.4 mph last season — from the Royals in February 2024 for right-handed reliever John Schreiber. Baseball America ranked Sandlin the Red Sox' No. 7 prospect entering 2025 and their No. 2 pitching prospect behind righty Luis Perales. MassLive ranked Sandlin No. 7 on its Top 25 Red Sox prospect list entering 2025. More On Red Sox Prospects Read the original article on MassLive.

Business Insider
11-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
A YouTuber challenged himself to make a grill scrubber entirely in the US. It costs $75 — and it immediately sold out.
A really nice grill brush will cost you about $25 at your local big box store, but YouTuber Destin Sandlin is betting he can get customers to shell out three times that amount for a Made-in-America version. Sandlin traces his passion for US manufacturing to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when he was bothered by the lack of American-made essential goods. "Everybody wanted N95 masks and face shields, and they couldn't get it," he said in a recent YouTube video. "This revealed to me how anemic our manufacturing capacity in America has become, because I was waiting on some billionaire to come save us, and it didn't happen." So began a yearslong deep dive into the challenges of making products in the US, which Sandlin documented for his series on YouTube called "Smarter Every Day." After working with John Youngblood, the owner of a local specialty grill accessories company, Sandlin got excited about the idea of developing a better scrubber. Sandlin and Youngblood wanted to produce it in the US with as many domestically sourced components as possible, and sell it at a retail price. In a video that went live Sunday and has since amassed more than 2 million views, Sandlin shares why he decided to get serious about US manufacturing, explains how he navigated the design process, and makes a sales pitch for viewers to buy it for themselves. On Tuesday, Youngblood told Business Insider the $75 scrubber has sold through its initial production run of several thousand units within a day, and his company is now taking pre-orders. "We're going to have a backlog for a while," Youngblood said. Most grill brushes are meant to be thrown away. This one isn't. Many lower-cost grill brushes aren't typically designed to last more than a year of use — grill-maker Weber recommends changing them after each grilling season. Another problem is that the bristles have been known to come off and can end up in grilled food. Sandlin and Youngblood found that welded chain mail — like the material of a medieval knight's armor — was highly effective at cleaning grill grates without breaking. There was one problem: "We could only find it in China." After a few tries, the team managed to find a US supplier who could make about 2,000 units a month and a supplier in India to augment the rest. Attaching the chain mail to a handle proved to be another adventure. Sandlin said the average one-inch industrial bolt costs around 9 cents when imported, but that jumps to 38 cents for versions made in the US. "Most machine shops I talked to directly, they said, 'Yeah, we can't even get the material for the price of the finished bolts that you're getting from a foreign supplier,'" Sandlin said. Then there was the process of making injection-molded parts to provide support and flexibility, which required machining custom tools and dies (the metal forms that shape a material) for shops to use in production. "This is the moment where this whole experiment came into focus for me," Sandlin said. "I realized at that moment we're screwed." American manufacturing has exported the smart part of making stuff The reason for Sandlin's pessimism is that many of the shops he spoke with send tool and die design files to China to be made and imported for use in US production lines. "I don't want my intellectual property in China, I want to make it here," he said. "And they said, 'Good luck.'" The problem illuminated by this episode goes far beyond a seemingly simple grilling accessory. "We're screwed as a nation if we can't do the intelligent work of tool and die: making the tools that make the things," Sandlin said. "We have flipped it. We are now to the point where the smart stuff is done somewhere else." Sandlin and Youngblood eventually found US suppliers for all of their custom components. They're working to get every piece sourced here. The video shows two instances where Sandlin was surprised by the apparent country of origin being different from what he says he was led to believe: The first batch of knobs arrived in packaging stating they were made in Costa Rica rather than the US. Several boxes of chain mail (ostensibly from India) had markings that suggested they were instead from China. "I'm shocked," Sandlin said. "It's pretty weird to set out to try to make a thing completely in America and to find out towards the end of the process that you made something in China anyways." Sandlin says he's not interested in having America be the dominant world player — he wants more opportunities for people here to have good jobs that allow them to take care of their communities. "If you are ever, ever in a position to make a decision about where your thing is manufactured, take a second and consider making a little less profit, maybe in order to invest in your local community," he said.

Business Insider
11-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
A YouTuber created a $75 grill scrubber to experience the challenges of making stuff in the US — and it sold out
A really nice grill brush will cost you about $25 at your local big box store, but YouTuber Dustin Sandlin is betting he can get customers to shell out three times that amount for a Made-in-America version. Sandlin traces his passion for US manufacturing to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when he was bothered by the lack of American-made essential goods. "Everybody wanted N95 masks and face shields, and they couldn't get it," he said in a recent YouTube video. "This revealed to me how anemic our manufacturing capacity in America has become, because I was waiting on some billionaire to come save us, and it didn't happen." So began a yearslong deep dive into the challenges of making products in the US, which Sandlin documented for his series on YouTube called "Smarter Every Day." After working with John Youngblood, the owner of a local specialty grill accessories company, Sandlin got excited about the idea of developing a better scrubber. Sandlin and Youngblood wanted to produce it in the US with as many domestically sourced components as possible, and sell it at a retail price. In a video that went live Sunday and has since amassed more than 2 million views, Sandlin shares why he decided to get serious about US manufacturing, explains how he navigated the design process, and makes a sales pitch for viewers to buy it for themselves. On Tuesday, Youngblood told Business Insider the $75 scrubber has sold through its initial production run of several thousand units within a day, and his company is now taking pre-orders. "We're going to have a backlog for a while," Youngblood said. Most grill brushes are meant to be thrown away. This one isn't. Many lower-cost grill brushes aren't typically designed to last more than a year of use — grill-maker Weber recommends changing them after each grilling season. Another problem is that the bristles have been known to come off and can end up in grilled food. Sandlin and Youngblood found that welded chain mail — like the material of a medieval knight's armor — was highly effective at cleaning grill grates without breaking. There was one problem: "We could only find it in China." After a few tries, the team managed to find a US supplier who could make about 2,000 units a month and a supplier in India to augment the rest. Attaching the chain mail to a handle proved to be another adventure. Sandlin said the average one-inch industrial bolt costs around 9 cents when imported, but that jumps to 38 cents for versions made in the US. "Most machine shops I talked to directly, they said, 'Yeah, we can't even get the material for the price of the finished bolts that you're getting from a foreign supplier,'" Sandlin said. Then there was the process of making injection-molded parts to provide support and flexibility, which required machining custom tools and dies (the metal forms that shape a material) for shops to use in production. "This is the moment where this whole experiment came into focus for me," Sandlin said. "I realized at that moment we're screwed." American manufacturing has exported the smart part of making stuff The reason for Sandlin's pessimism is that many of the shops he spoke with send tool and die design files to China to be made and imported for use in US production lines. "I don't want my intellectual property in China, I want to make it here," he said. "And they said, 'Good luck.'" The problem illuminated by this episode goes far beyond a seemingly simple grilling accessory. "We're screwed as a nation if we can't do the intelligent work of tool and die: making the tools that make the things," Sandlin said. "We have flipped it. We are now to the point where the smart stuff is done somewhere else." Sandlin and Youngblood eventually found US suppliers for all of their custom components. They're working to get every piece sourced here. The video shows two instances where Sandlin was surprised by the apparent country of origin being different from what he says he was led to believe: The first batch of knobs arrived in packaging stating they were made in Costa Rica rather than the US. Several boxes of chain mail (ostensibly from India) had markings that suggested they were instead from China. "I'm shocked," Sandlin said. "It's pretty weird to set out to try to make a thing completely in America and to find out towards the end of the process that you made something in China anyways." Sandlin says he's not interested in having America be the dominant world player — he wants more opportunities for people here to have good jobs that allow them to take care of their communities. "If you are ever, ever in a position to make a decision about where your thing is manufactured, take a second and consider making a little less profit, maybe in order to invest in your local community," he said.

Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Filling Parks and Rec director opening next for council
Jun. 6—Parks and Recreation director is next on the lengthy list of job openings for the Decatur City Council to fill, and 73 people have applied for the position. Just this week, a new police chief took office and the council made an offer to a planning director candidate. City Council President Jacob Ladner said Wednesday that the priority for the next agenda is its midyear review of the fiscal 2025 budget, and then Parks and Recreation director is next. The City Council, which is responsible for hiring directors, is seeking to replace former Parks and Recreation director Jason Lake, who retired in February. In response to a request based on the state's Open Records Act, city Human Resource Director Richelle Sandlin released the applications for Parks and Recreation director and an email containing her recommendations to the council, Mayor Tab Bowling and Chief Financial Officer Kyle Demeester. In the email, she recommended the council interview five applicants: —William Collins, statewide trails coordinator, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Montgomery. He previously served as athletic programs director, city of Bessemer; director of parks program, Red Mountain Park; and athletics coordinator, city of Orange Beach. —Stephanie McLain, interim operations manager and Point Mallard Park superintendent; previously Point Mallard marketing and group sales after starting as aquatic facilities operator. —Joseph Rodecker, former recreation superintendent, Canton, Ohio; previously assistant parks and recreation director, Montgomery County, Tennessee; athletic division, Franklin, Tennessee; and assistant property manager, CNA. —Jerry Smith, director of parks and grounds, Boynton Beach, Florida; previously county parks director, Bexar County, Texas; and deputy director of parks and recreation, North Miami Beach, Florida. —Todd Strubhart, golf and street services, University City Parks, Illinois; previously director of Parks and Recreation, Godfrey, Illinois; recreation supervisor, Belleville, Illinois; managing partner, Midwest Team Training LLC; vice president of select sports operations, Belleville Select Youth Sports. Sandlin listed a second group of four applicants who she writes, "are minimally qualified and recommended for hold pending consideration of Group 1 candidates." She writes that a third group of 63 applicants "did not meet the minimum requirements for consideration and further review is not recommended." — DYS director The City Council is also looking for a new leader of Decatur Youth Services after Brandon Watkins resigned in March. Retired DYS Director Bruce Jones stepped in to run the department on a part-time basis. The city received 70 applications, but Sandlin has not made a recommendation on how the council should proceed. Ladner said that's OK with him. He said he prefers "to let Bruce guide us on how he wants to proceed," especially since the department seems to be running smoothly. Jones has indicated he's willing to work with the city through November when a new council term begins. — or 256-340-2432