Some might say I’m getting silly now. Those people have a point.
Official Safeco Value Seats: View Box, $23/seat
Official Safeco Cheap Seats: Center Field Bleachers, $6/seat
Official Foul Ball Hitter: Mike Young
Official Reader of the U.S.S. Mariner in Adult Entertainment: Jennie J, who emailed us a photo so smoking hot we cannot, for safety reasons, open, much less look at
Official Daily Comic: Frazz
Official Safeco Beer: Large Fat Tire for $7.75. Few beers make this kind of investment seem worthwhile
Official Final Fantasy VII Character: Aerith
Official Pre-game Pizza Vendor: Sodo Pizza, $6/pie
Official Most Helpful Reader of the U.S.S. Mariner: Jeff Lubetkin
I was going to put up outside Kettle Corn and Hot Dog Vendor, but I forgot who the dudes in front of the Home Plate Parking Lot are. Jason’ll know. Jason knows everything. Now if someone could find Jason for me, that’d be super.
Jamie Moyer, for anyone who missed the World Series broadcast tonight, won the Roberto Clemente Award for 2003 in recognition of his work with the Moyer Foundation. Man, he’s cool.
Coming soon: Derek’s guide to Spring Training in Arizona.
NY media’s reporting that the Omar Minaya-Mets negotations have stalled as Omar refuses a power-sharing arrangement with interim GM Jim Duquette. I’m still hoping someone the M’s compete against hires Omar, but I’d settle for him not getting our job.
Of the officially mentioned candidates, I would love to see Ned Coletti get the job.
Speaking of me being in town, that actually isn’t too terribly far away. I’m coming back to the great northwest for Christmas, and we’re going to attempt to have a big USSM get together, likely the weekend of December 20th-21st. If you’ve ever been to a BP pizza feed, you basically get the idea. For some reasonably small amount of money, we’ll find a gathering hole and spend several hours talking baseball, and specifically, the Mariners. We’ll do our best to get lots of cool people to show up, and we’ll invite Derek too. No, seriously, you’ll like live-and-in-person Derek even more than you like blogging-and-writing Derek. And Jason and I will be there too, doing whatever it is we do.
Now, here’s where you come in. We’re three busy folks, and there are few things in life less fun than organizing, planning, and administrating large group functions. So, here is what we’re hoping for:
1. Someone to volunteer to do the legwork of finding a suitable gathering spot, making the reservations, confirming the RSVP’s, and generally being our USSM-feed lacky. If you have a phone, some free time, and an interest in seeing this come about, you will be dutifully honored at the feed. I’m sure we can even pitch in and get you a Rich Amaral jersey as a token of our appreciation.
2. People who are interested in attending should email us with the subject of “Feed Information”. Include in the email how many people you would be interested in bringing with you. When we get a general idea of whether we need to find a place to seat 20 or 200, we’ll put our lacky on the task. We’ll compile a mailing list with everyone who expresses interest in going, and email you (and, of course, post it here) with further information. Emailing us does not construe a commitment to go, so if you think you may want to come, drop us a line. We’d rather have a big room with lots of space than a tiny room and try to cram all the last minute people in.
3. Invite cool people to come, then get them to email us as well. These things are a lot of fun, especially when you get to meet a bunch of good folk. The more good folk, the better.
So, basically, the point of this is for you to email us so that this thing can happen. We’ll enjoy it, you’ll enjoy, and hey, maybe Pat Gillick will even show up to say thanks for all the great things we’ve said about him over the years.
Two quick bits:
1) I’m opposed to a ‘donation box’ or similar thing. I just don’t want to do it.
2) Checking the USS Mariner email queue at lunch, I noticed MSN is pushing an article on ‘5 Reasons to Read Your Horoscope’. It included this gem after a paragraph about how they’re carefully crafted to offer advice to all: “As a result, there is almost always a grain of truth in the daily horoscope, which readers can make use of if they so choose.” There are grains of truth everywhere, if you want to look at it that way. I’ve no tolerance for this kind of hooey, and trying to pass it off as entertainment only makes me angrier. I can type this because science and happy coincidence have combined over the years to produce laptops, and global networks, and electronic publishing tools that allow me to write something and Jeffrey Wood in France to email us about it. All of this is from the application of the scientific method, and to…arrrgghhhh!
I did answer a couple emails though.
Actually, three bits:
3) None of this should be taken to imply we’re doing this for money, only that for as much time, effort, and $ we put into it, it’d be nice if we broke even, and even better if we could have a nice dinner next time David’s in town. That’s all — we didn’t start this to cash in, and if it’s that much of an issue, I’d rather just eat the money than have this be a hassle.
I’ve gotten word that, by the end of the day, the Mariners will have interviewed at least five candidates. Everyone knows about Mike Port, Omar Minaya, and Benny Looper. Also interviewing are Detroit assistant GM Al Avila (because anyone who can help build a 43 win team should get a promotion!) and San Francisco assistant GM Ned Coletti. Lee Pelekoudas should interview later this week.
Also, the Billy Beane rumors are picking up some steam. I’m still not buying it, but I can’t ignore the fact that several different sources are claiming he’s going to talk to Howard Lincoln about the position.
Official Rules of Baseball — the M’s actually did this as a give-away a few years back at the Kingdome, around 1996 or so (sponsored by Eagle, maybe?). I always thought it was a darned cool thing to give out, and still have my copy around somewhere. Yeah, it can be out of date in places, but for the most part things are the same.
Also, it is my belief that the knits and delicates setting on clothes dryers actually, using space technology, super-saturates clothing so that it becomes even wetter than it when taken out of the washer.
Many people write in and ask if we have books we recommend. I’m going to write this up as a nice side page at some point, but here’s the off-season reading list. I go through a lot of baseball books and here are the ones I think everyone (or almost everyone) should read. There will be, needless to say, no Bill James books on this list.
First on the list: Earl Weaver on Strategy, by Earl Weaver and Terry Pluto. One of my favorite books. Weaver was one of the smartest managers to sit on a bench, and despite his reputation, one of the most adaptable: he won with speed, without it, with power, with slap hitters, he won and won and kept winning. There are very few things in this book that have proven unsupported by evidence — people quote Weaver not because he’s Weaver, but because he’s Weaver and he’s right. Warning: may make watching games with some managers almost painful.
The Science of Hitting by Ted Williams, John Underwood. What a great book.
I wanted to offer one of Johnny Bench’s autobiographies, but they’re all out of print. He also wrote “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Baseball” with Larry Burke, and while that’s out of print too, it’s available. Note that Bench wrote the Idiot’s Guide and Joe Morgan wrote the Baseball for Dummies (okay, funny side-side note: the customer reviews, which generally like Morgan’s book, include “Joe Morgan is probably one of the more astute baseball minds there is today. For the true baseball fan, his analysis is usually right on the mark and insightful.” Umm… no.) which means that Reds alumni control the entry-level book market.
Gotta have it: Official Rules of Baseball. They’re out of date, but that’s really baseball’s problem (they’ve got references to the league presidents, for instance, and those are gone). This is invaluable stuff: I’m surprised how often I end up looking something up to answer reader mail (and now you can do your own homework! yay!). Since the rules really haven’t changed in the last decade, if you can find one of these used at your local second-hand bookstore that’s around or after, say, 1996, you’ll be fine.
And more to come. Maybe I’ll even write up Mike Port if I get motivated.
These are referal links to Amazon. No pressure, but I was thinking that it’d be cool if we made enough money to off-set some of what we shell out to keep this thing ad-free. Anyone who knows how the three of us can make actual cash money writing about the M’s should feel free to drop us a line (and before you ask, I’ve tried asking the local dailies if they were interested in content and didn’t get anywhere).
So far, ideas have included:
– newsletter/magazine for M’s fans (can’t do it, too much work, involves selling advertising or charging money and dealing with printing unless we go to Kinko’s or something, unsure market… but maybe….)
– Derek’s amazingly good baseball betting advice marketed as phone line
– ransom notes
That’s about it.
The P-I is reporting that Montreal’s Omar Minaya will interview with the Ms in the next week, bringing the total to two “official” candidates. With any luck, the other 4-6 will be fished out this week.