PI, Paper of the People
Check out this double-team action:
The Answer Guy, first person in print willing to take up the issue, takes up the fight again:
Q: Joyce Rafferty of Seattle, responding to an item in last week’s column about the new bleachers on the Center Field Landing area of Safeco Field, comments, “People might want to know that those bleachers on the Center Field Landing are covering up a couple of sections of fan bricks at Safeco. It is covering up mine and that is upsetting to me. I have written the Public Facilities District about this matter and it is in the process of talking to the Mariners about this matter, although I haven’t heard back from them yet.”
AG: Kevin Callan, executive director of the public facilities district that overseas Safeco Field, confirms the receipt of Rafferty’s letter and has suggested she and others concerned about this matter might want to speak at the district’s quarterly meeting Monday at 4 p.m. at the Mariners’ Safeco Field offices on First Avenue. Callan says the team has assured him that, if the bleachers are retained next season, the covered fan bricks will be moved to another area of the ballpark. “There is no way that the team will get to keep the fan bricks covered with those bleachers,” Callan said. “We are not sticking our heads in the sand on this matter.”
“Um, I mean, not sticking our heads in the sand on this matter anymore.”
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
If that’s not good enough for you. John Levesque’s column today is “Brick by brick, fans taken for granted” and folks, if you want to see someone give it to the Mariners, and were left unsatiated by the Go2Guy’s weak attempts to talk to the team about beer prices, check this out, and please, set down any beverages you may be drinking
“Covering up the bricks was clearly a mistake on our part,” Armstrong said last night as he watched the Mariners suffer their 90th defeat of 2004. “There’s no excuse for it.”
No, that’s really in the article. You can go read it again. Has Chuck Armstrong ever admitted the team was wrong before, that they’d done something inexcusable? I don’t think he has.
And I don’t want to spoil the end of the article, but Levesque hammers the team at the end, oh, it’s a beautiful thing. Hits all the high points, notes the arrogance inherent in this act, the… just go check it out. It rules.
Now, I don’t know it was people’s emails to the PFD, or the PI, or anyone in particular that got us to this day, but I have to believe that getting the letters out and having one printed — particularly Ken Haselman’s, which ran in the Sunday Times-PI and noted his brick was covered — has made a huge difference. We’ve seen the Mariners write up a form letter to respond to complaints, Rebecca Hale’s made an official and probably annoyed statement to the press, and now the PFD’s up from their refreshing nap and looking into things.
I want to point out too that the PI has now run four different pieces on this, ranging from the first knowing jabs from the Answer Guy to Levesque’s eviscerating column today, and even if you credit the letter to the Times (and I don’t know who handles the content mix on Sundays, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt) they’ve run one, a reader letter.
I’m a happy dude today. Now we just have to get them pulled for next year.
Comments
11 Responses to “PI, Paper of the People”
Nice punches!
Levesque finally stopped trying to be cute with imagery and told the story with just one big one: the 101 bleachers are a metaphor for FO arrogance and absenteeisme. Good job.
Levesque does this well… maybe it’s because he’s always got a fall back in the TV section. I don’t really care what the reason is as long as he keeps doing it.
I’ll mention this. In “Shawshank Redemption” Tim Robbins’ character, Andy, writes a letter asking for more funds for a project. He keeps doing it until they finally send him the money and ask him to stop sending more…
After that he wrote two.
Keep it up, fans of the Mariners and/or baseball Seattle can be proud of.
Covering the bricks is bad, but it has taken emphasis away from the original issue – eliminating what many thought was one of the coolest features of the stadium, the “loitering area”, for the purpose of pure greed. Now watch, “brickgate” is going to end up being a convenient way for the M’s to save face (in their feeble minds) when they move the bricks and retain section 101 next year.
Great stuff, but I’m still concerned that they’re only going to “move the bricks to another area” and keep the stands where they are. It’s obviously the “brick” issue that has the M’s backpeddling, and not the “beer garden” issue, which to me is just as valid. I think more work will need to be done before this is resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
I was at the game last night… (I actually caught, or almost caught and picked up a line drive foul down the left field line by Vlad Guererro. Damn my hand hurts)…anyway there were FIVE people sitting in the center field stands. FIVE. That’s it.
You would think that at this point the M’s would be doing eveything they could to make the fans happy!
It looks to me like the M’s have lucked out with the brick issue. They can move them to another area with much pomp and circumstance, while the bleachers get a free pass and the beer garden lives on only in our memories. Levesque’s article is nice in that it goes after the M’s (especially the end), but I’m not sure it’s going to have the desired effect.
In response to a form email I received yesterday indicating that people “requested” the bleacher seats be installed, I requested that they put seats in both bullpens, dugouts and the on deck circle. Hey, if all it takes is a simple request you may as well shoot for the moon 🙂
That was almost a really nice catch, Trent – I saw that on TV. I’m amazed you didn’t fracture something; Vlad drilled that ball.
Thanks Evan. I am trying to get a hold of someone who taped or Tivo’d the game so I could see it myself. I think I would have had it if it hadn’t hit my ring finger. Talk about sharp pain! Haha.
You’d think that the Mariners would make more money with a beer garden (implying that people are buying beer at $6+ a pop) than bleacher seats.
No matter. At this point, I’m convinced that Mariners management are arrogant jerks, and I have little desire to give them any more of my money.