The Project
Over the last few months, I’ve hinted at a project that was a bit time consuming for me, but would result in something pretty awesome for Mariner fans in the spring. I officially announced this on Saturday at the USSM/LL event, but here’s the scoop for everyone who was not there.
We have partnered with Maple Street Press, a publishing company out of Massachusetts, to produce a 2010 Mariner Annual. It’s going to be 128 pages of ad free, Mariner specific goodness. Their production team is terrific, running full color, aesthetically pleasing productions that are of the highest quality. The images in the magazine come from Getty, and the entire thing comes off as a top flight press product. To give you an idea of the content that will be in this magazine:
Larry Stone: An In Depth Interview With Don Wakamatsu About Baseball Strategy.
Art Thiel: Griffey’s Return To Seattle
Jonah Keri: How Lou Gorman Built The 1977 Mariners
Geoff Baker: The Franchise Turnaround
Shannon Drayer: Ryan Rowland-Smith’s Road To The Bigs
Jeff Sullivan: The Actual Value Of Defense and Chone Figgins Is Better Than You Think
Vince Gennaro: The Secondary Value Of Defense
Dave Allen: Pitch F/x Tackles Cliff Lee
Matthew Carruth: Effects of Safeco’s Asymmetry
Derek Zumsteg: Edgar Belongs In Cooperstown and Ichiro Just Doesn’t Age
Jay Yencich: Top 10 Prospects
Jason Churchill: Dustin Ackley’s Future
Jon Shields: Catcher Of The Future (Adam Moore)
Dave Cameron: The Maturation Of Felix Hernandez
Essentially, the entire blogosphere has collaborated on this project, giving us 16 articles ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 words apiece. I hired the best baseball writers I could find, and they turned in terrific, interesting pieces on everything from the minors to how the team got started. We cover a broad spectrum of topics, and the hope is that the magazine will appeal to all Mariner fans. There’s certainly statistical analysis in there, but Jonah’s piece on Gorman and Thiel’s piece on Griffey will be enjoyed by any long time fan of the team. Shannon’s piece on Hyphen is just good reading, regardless of what kind of fan you are. And Larry’s interview with Wak is tremendous.
I’m really proud of the whole thing. It’s going to be awesome. It will be on sale at the beginning of March at local bookstores and retail outlets that sell magazines (as well as online through Maple Street’s website for those out-of-towners who want a copy), and it’s the best $12.99 you will spend this spring. It’s the blogosphere in print, previewing the 2010 team and looking at where we’ve come from. It’s going to be tremendous.
This is completely awesome. Absolutely love you guys and thank you so so much for all the work that went into this. I’ll be ordering a copy or two (one of the unfortunate out-of-towners) as soon as I can. Can’t say thanks enough guys.
Awesome! I’m definitely ordering this.
It looks like this isnt up yet on the Maple Street Press site. When will this be available for order?
Geez, get a room!
OK, give it up–whose picture is on the cover?
It’s even more riotous that it was posted on your M’s blog.
After reading some of these posts, I think it should be Dave. 🙂
Yes, we get it, you think people are overly effusive and find that humorous.
Sweet!….I’ll buy one.
Tango linked to the article about the Project, which undoubtedly caused every serious fan of sabermetrics to go, “Why can’t I get one of these for my team??????”
But please note the comment by NaOH at no. 6. Obviously a different model, each with its pluses and minuses. Given this content, I’ll be quite happy with hard copy.
MLB-licensed merchandise aside, what control do the Mariners have of vendors who aren’t on Safeco property? That gauntlet of vendors along Qwest field on the way to the stadium must be licensed by the city (and obviously aren’t licensed to sell things like alcohol and cigars) but if one of them wanted to hawk a random book do the M’s have any say in that?
It’s probably moot though — I don’t know how big of a print run is planned, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this thing is sold out by opening day. Though maybe Maple is set up to do reprints if sales go well.
I dunno about how much control of selling print material they might have, but I do know they can’t quite shut down strip clubs.
Looking forward to being able to get the 2010 Mariners Annual.
This is great, congrats!
I’m following the Mariners over from Japan, and it wasn’t quite clear on the Maple Street Press website if they shipped overseas or not. Will the 2010 Mariners Annual be available for overseas customers via Maple Street Press?
Why do you think PBS stations offer premiums (DVDs/CDs/books) during pledge drives the way they do?
You could always just buy the schwag from amazon.com and send the station a direct donation.
awe-some. really looking forward to it.
Awesome! I’m thinking of buying several of these and using them as “witnessing tracts” for my non sabermetric buddies who are M fans. Perhaps having a hard copy of it will give the sabermetric viewpoint some cred and lead to them “seeing the light”.
I like the visual of you going door to door, knocking politely, and offering your tracts.
Actually the humorous part is that they are stating it on the interwebs.
That should read “Stating how hard it is to get information.” And making that statement on the interwebs. That is where the humor is.
Edit button wouldn’t let me edit.
Does Maple Street Press hate Seattle? From the listing on the website:
Gotta love copy and paste… 🙂
“Good day Sir or Madam, do you have a couple of minutes to talk to me about my religion, Zduriencikism?”
Tried to order but was not able to. Seems like the link was broken.
Yes, the “get a customer base by giving the first issue away for free” model is appropriate for some, but I’d have to think that thanks to USSMariner, this Mariners Annual has a built-in audience. Not an audience big enough to make it a mass market success (initially at least), but we’re talking about a niche publication anyway.
Basically instead of giving away the first issue for free, their model is “sell the first issue to hardcore blogosphere fans for $12.99”. If it becomes a raging success there, mass market forays could follow.
There may be a good amount of commercial potential with this, the tricky question is how far to go with it. Dave and Derek could sell more tickets and at an even higher price and still sell out the USSMariner meetups. Should that be priced at cost, or should they collect some revenue from it (and if so, would the Mariners want a piece)? Plus there’s USSMariner.com itself, which is still free. A lot of choices and different possible models to follow.
Downloadable online copy please for those abroad. Sounds a great book.
The annual is distributed by a magazine distributor, not a book distributor, so people living in the northwest should be able to find it at newsstands and B&Ns and Borders. For those outside the Northwest, the only way to get it is through the Maple Street Press website; it will not be available at Amazon.
It is available for purchase from overseas. Over at LL, several readers from ’round the world have already reported no problem in ordering it.