This kind of slipped by yesterday, but the M’s hired Mike Aldrete as their new first base coach for next season. Aldrete replaces John Moses, who has been in the organization for 19 years (the last ten as a coach/instructor).
In the grand scheme of things, the first base coach probably has less actual influence on the game than anyone but, say, the bullpen catcher (but keep up the good work, Alan Wirtala). But honestly, what did Moses do to lose the job? And more importantly, how on earth did he lose his job when Dave Myers was able to keep his?
Ah, but there’s a catch. Aldrete managed for three years in the Diamondbacks system (Melvin) and began his playing career with the Giants (Melvin again). Turns out the two have been teammates — or at least in the same organization — off and on since age 15, and they were Pac-10 opponents in college (Melvin played at Cal, Aldrete at Stanford).
Basically, the M’s allowed the Box to bring in one of his cronies at the expense of a guy who has been with the M’s for nearly 20 years.
Jason and I have a comedy routine we do, and it’s gotten to the point where we break into it naturally while walking down the street. It’s about the standard sports cliches announcers use to describe matchups, and it’ll go like this:
We walk down Occidental from wherever we’ve been hiding out and you, the U.S.S. Mariner readers, have not been buying us drinks because you don’t recognize us, and see two street musicians playing close to each other, glaring back and forth between bars.
Jason: “There is no love lost between these two competitors.”
Derek: “These guys flat out do not like each other.”
Jason: “When these two musicians get together, you can throw out the sheet music, because anything can happen.”
This is adaptable to anything. When I go to the demolition derby at the Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, there are two guys who always enter the roll-over competition, and the announcers like to make it out like it’s a rivalry, so I’ll get into it there… anyway, you can imagine my amusement when I went to ESPN.com (“Working to make our pages less accessible and harder to load every day”) and found that their lead for the ALCS was
“There’s no love lost between the Yankees and Red Sox. Now there’s more at stake. The ALCS begins tonight (8 ET, FOX) with very little separating the two bitter rivals this season.”
Speaking of which — both CS games at the same time? Does Fox do this to amuse themselves?
“Bud Selig here.”
“Fox calling. Bud, we want you to schedule both games Wednesday at eight o’clock Eastern.”
“Both of them? But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Do it!”
“Yes, master.”
“And stand on one leg.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not doing it, we’re watching from the other building. Do it! And hop up and down.”
“Yes-I’m-hop-ping-now.”
“Good. Continue hopping for at least one hour. We’ll be watching.”
Ugh. I’m on vacation, my birthday’s coming up, and I’m sick. Onwards! Today’s nine U.S.S. Mariner Season Endorsements:
Official Pre-Game Food Spot: King Street Bar and Grill
Official Pre-Game Watering Hole to Watch Baseball: Slugger’s
Best Column About The Official Player: “So Long, Edgar“*
Official Prospect of the U.S.S. Mariner: Chris Snelling
Favorite Moment of 2003: Mike Cameron’s game-winning walk-off grand slam during U.S.S. Mariner group trip
to the park
Second Favorite Moment of 2003: Pat Gillick announces resignation.
Official U.S.S. Mariner Reader-in-Germany: Shane Lidman
Official U.S.S. Mariner Reader-in-France: Jeffrey Wood
Favorite Short Endorsement of the U.S.S. Mariner: “The blog of choice among discriminating Mariners fans,” Shannon Fears, Seattle PI
Coming up: local broadcaster and columnist endorsements, and much, much more.
* Dave and Jason endorsed this, I abstained