Last series, Rangers at Mariners
Three games, all with a different reason to go:
Friday, October 1st (7:35): Ichiro! shows his appreciation for the fans by attempting to break the hits record. Also, the Mariners give away prizes.
“And the Pontiac Astrowagon goes to the fan in seat 0….0….0…..1. C. Montgomery Burns!”
“Yay!”
“Boooooo”
“And here come the pretzels!”
— Simpsons
I’ve had an ongoing debate with a friend of mine. He argues that by attendance, the prizes on this night and elsewhere are tilted to the masses in cheap seats.
I believe that the prizes are distributed more or less at random, but within certain restrictions. I’ve been to more games than I care to remember, and I’ve never seen the kind of random clumping you’d expect from a truly random distribution. It’s always section 328… section 112. Section 203… Section 115. Rarely are two prizes (like gift cards) given away to two people on the same deck.
So my opinion is that either they’re truly random orrrr they employ some kind of psuedo-random selection method, like:
– first giveaway random
– second giveaway random from all sections but the one that won
– third random giveaway from different *level* if the first two were the same
However, this kind of thing requires a lot of work and they’re probably better off just hitting the ‘randomize’ button again to get another result if it looks like people might be unhappy.
It’d be cool if the M’s gave Edgar something on fan appreciation night. I don’t know how you’d work that.
Saturday, October 2nd (5:35): Edgar Day. Gotta come out and cheer for Edgar. Check out Edgar’s journal on MLB.com, it’s… Edgar, for sure. Also check out the funny-and-distrubing Edgar mask.
Sunday, October 3rd: Souveneir night as Park and Meche match up. Edgar’s last game. Ichiro! sets the bar, hopefully, for future aspirants to history. The merciful end to a long, often hard-to-watch season (and not in the George Bush “I see on the TV screens how hard it is” sense, but that for much of this season there wasn’t much reason to watch the team, much less hope for the future) (thank you, I’d like to give a shout out to the comments thread that inspired that).
Or, if you prefer… Drese v Villone, Rogers v Moyer (who would have thought Rogers would be having a more effective season? but that’s a topic for that day’s game thread), and Park v Meche.
Comments
14 Responses to “Last series, Rangers at Mariners”
“Out of gratitude for everything you have done for the team and the city, Edgar, Chuck and I would like to present you with this ferocious mammalian likeness…”
No, it’s NEVER Section 328. It’s always 326. Or 329. But never 328.
OK, it was 328 a couple of weeks ago when they moved an elderly couple out of the seats right behind us down to the Commissioner’s Box. And I think a row won beef jerky a couple of years ago. But that’s it.
In other, only slightly related news, it looks like Neyer is taking more potshots at Ichiro in his ESPN.com column today. What with all the drama in the final weekend of the season, you’d think he’d have something else to write about besides how much he dislikes Ichiro’s style of play. Or hey — maybe he could celebrate Ichiro for what he is, instead of constantly harping on him for what he’s not. But I guess that would be too much of a challenge.
Nerd mode ON:
Whitey Ford on the field now, pleading for some kind of sanity!
This is a black day for baseball.
Nerd mode OFF.
Best.
Does anyone know why we have to watch Villone rather than Baek today?
I’m not the biggest Baek fan, but Villone? On fan appreciation night, no less? I’m not feeling very appreciated…
Baek has been experiencing pain in his arm for the past week. Shutting him down was absolutely the right move.
Letting him throw 116 pitches with arm pain, however…
On Saturday, Edgar Day, Rogers on the mound –
Edgar’s career in 50 AB’s vs Mr. Rogers is: .360/.500/.560
Wouldn’t a couple of homeruns be nice?
Someone somewhere suggested that Ichiro should hit a home run for his 258th. I now think it’s possible. He can get a hit in his first at bat and then swing for the fences for the remaining 3 games. I don’t really care if he gets 263 or 258, but a home run for 258 would be cool.
DMZ,
You’re right about the cheap seats winning give aways. But again pay attention that there will be at least one winner from the luxury box suites and/or club seats. A crusty old woman (who reminds me now of one of Marge’s sisters) pointed this out to me in the Kingdome and right after she said it a winner was announced from one of those miniscule Dome luxury boxes (where they couldn’t even see fly balls being located so far back in the 100 level).
It must be along the lines of a “hey those boxes are expensive but they win stuff too” teaser to market those seats for next year’s tire kickers.
Most cruel giveaway I seen recently was at Cheney Stadium about 3 years ago when the Toyota Tacoma trucks came out. They selected at random some contestants for the opportunity to win the truck for a month, IIRC. All they had to do was dive into a wading pool placed in the back of the truck which was filled with Nalley’s Chilli and then fight over the truck keys. This was about the 7th inning and it was probably around 50 degrees. I think it was inspired by the scene in the Peter Sellers movie Magic Christian where he threw cash into a pool filled with sewage and then he had businessmen jump in and fight over the money.
“Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt.”
just so i understand you correctly: you get randomly selected to wrestle in chili for a pair of keys, which once grabbed, give you a toyota tacoma.
that you give back at the end of the month?!?
and also.. .what does IIRC mean?
“Baek has been experiencing pain in his arm for the past week. Shutting him down was absolutely the right move.”–Comment by Dave — 10/1/2004 @ 12:25 pm
Dave, do you know the specifics? I’ve seen everything from elbow to biceps to shoulder over the last two weeks….
IIRC = If I recall correctly
I believe they were selectom randomly or entered a drawing to get selected to jump into the vat of chilli. I know they had their backs turned, the guy threw the keys into the pool of chilli and off they went.
I think they got the truck for a month or the season. Either way not quite the Oprah giveaway. But it was definitely disgusting. Part of the charm of the minor leagues is they aren’t always PC like MLB.
Maybe a fulltime Rainier fan can produce some more details.
It’s always been my assumption that the giveaways are not truly random. I’ve just always figured that each level has its own pool, since it is the case that any given set of giveaways always seem to go to different levels. Maybe I’ll write the sections in my scorecard tonight for all the junk that gets handed out.