Dudes
DMZ · January 10, 2009 at 6:44 pm · Filed Under Mariners
That was ridiculous.
Again, huge thanks to Tony Blengino, Tom McNamara, Pedro Grifol, and Carmen Fusco (in order from the podium view) for being so generous with their time today, and for their thoughtful and interesting answers to all our questions.
And the Seattle Public Library for hosting.
As always, the event was a lot of fun. I paid very little attention to baseball last year. It was a combination of apathy, concern that giving money to the Mariners was like giving money to a particularly decrepit bum (Carlos Silva and Olde English malt liquor being equally bad for you) and having a one year old in the house. The new management has revived my interest, though, and I’m getting really excited about the new season.
Overall, I’d echo PatrickR’s comments above, which is that all four gentlemen came across as intelligent, knowledgeable people who seem to have a plan. They really do seem like a team, and a very competent one to boot. Pedro Grifol came across particularly well, he seems like a really sharp person. When combined with the savvy initial moves, it’s looking pretty sunny for the Mariners right now.
Enforcement? You were about to hurdle that podium and take out the guy with the computer till they said, “That’s Zach Tracy, he works for the Mariners.â€
The second Google hit for “Zach Tracy Mariners” is this thread. Already.
The recap is up.
DMZ,
It was awesome. Thank you for putting this on and every person involved. I feel like I learned a ton of stuff. I would love to stop everything I am doing and just spend a week with each of those guys and learn from them.
My mom even had a great time!
One suggestion: Next time can we please get a bathroom break.
No one ever wants to stop the party but it was really needed. The brain can only take in new information for so long without a break.
Anyways, looking forward to the next event and the coming season!
Thank you again!
One thing to note in the future is that it might be wise to restrict notepads going in and out. I know that you’d think that people wouldn’t be taking a HUGE amount of notes but a lady not too far from where I was sitting probably took a good ten pages or so. She was literally writing everything down. I mean, I want to remember this experience but based on that whole “keeping it in the room” expectation, I’m a bit apprehensive of what somebody plans on doing with that amount of notes.
I’m disappointed to hear that, but all that’s expected of us (I think) is a good faith effort to not have stuff get printed or posted in great detail somewhere.
I don’t foresee us frisking people for notepads at future events, or anything like that.
I guess you’re right about that, Jeff. Frisking people for notepads seems a bit Orwellian. At the same time, the hardcore note-taking definitely piqued my curiosity as to its intent.
And since I didn’t mention it before, this event was freakin’ amazing. Thanks!
It wouldn’t just be notepads. There was a guy in front of me who was browsing USSM on his iPhone while this was going on. He didn’t post anything, but he obviously could have. Worse than any of that would be recording devices — deniability is easy until somebody can play back the words in your own voice — and short of frisking people there’s no way to eliminate that either.
I think the folks involved understand that a certain amount of leakage is going to occur, and they’ve been around long enough to keep from saying anything damaging or controversial. Which is unfortunate for us, because I’m sure behind closed doors you’d hear all sorts of fantastic stuff, but that’s just the nature of the beast. As it is, even within the boundaries of what they can safely talk about, the result is fascinating and well worth doing (and I hope worth their time, too).
Long time reader. First time post.
I was amazed at the time invested by the Mariner staff. All four hung around after the event to talk one on one. I walked away feeling these were “baseball people” who had a long enough leash to “do the right thing”.
I was also suprised at how lighthearted the affair was in the face of some serious discussion. Carmon Fusco took ribing particularly well. Derek and Jeff’s reiterating of audience questions was particularly humorous. At one point Derek let out an incredulous “Huh” in response to a comment from Tony Blengino. I almost fell out of my chair laughing.
The specific philosophies and process of the new management will become a matter of some discussion here and on Lookout Landing. But it will not recapture how truly enjoyable the event was.
– A Heartfelt Thanks!
Todd
It was amazing that four M’s front office people spent four hours talking baseball with a bunch of fanatics IN JANUARY. But you know, it was apparent from their comments that they are fanatics too. I’m sure they just really enjoyed talking about their passion with people who care as much as they do. Did they say/indicate/comment how they liked us? Just curious.
They enjoyed it