Tuesday, October 20, 2009

 

Bobby D's Blog - Grand Poobah of Baseball

 



We all sit in bars and say what we would change about our favorite things in life or not so favorite things that I guess if we changed them they would be our favorite. Did that last sentence make sense? Oh well – who cares, again my site and I can do as I please. So if I was anointed Grand Poobah of MLB what would I change? In no particular order here is my list:

• I would allow players to take performing enhancing drugs with a few caveats. They would have to wear a big “P” on the front of their uniforms telling the world that they take PED’s. Kind of like the MLB version of the Scarlet Letter. 10% of their salary would have to go to drug treatment programs. They would have to do public service announcements denouncing drugs and the big one – all of their stats while wearing the “P” can not be calculated in historical records. Oh and this one little rule – if you are caught taking PED’s and not wearing the “P” you are banned from baseball for life – Pete Rose style.

• Speaking of Pete Rose – sir you will be officially reinstated to baseball day one of my Poobahship. This way the sports writers can now vote on the merits of your potential enshrinement to the hall of fame – heck all of your stuff is in there, you might as well be too.

• Massive revenue sharing will begin to assist the small market teams to be able to compete with the big boys – example, see the NFL

• Once revenue sharing is in place a hard salary cap would be put into place but also a hard salary minimum. With revenue sharing and a salary minimum, teams like the Pirates and Indians wouldn’t be having their annual July summer clearance sale on rising stars – see Nate McClouth, Cliff Lee and last year CC Sabithia.

• The players union should go along with that plan as long as the average team salary remained constant as it is today. Also with a better team to watch, fans of also ran teams like the Pirates may actually start going to games.

• I would ask the teams to raise beer prices but in turn lower prices on all other concessions to make it affordable for a family of 4 to go to a game.

• Speaking of affordability – all teams would have to have 15% of their seats for Monday – Thursday games be priced under $5 if those games were not presold at 75% capacity 1 week from said game. Basically this is to incent teams to get more families to attend a game and build a fan base with kids. Teams such as the Red Sox, Yankees and Cubs who are sold out in advance would be exempt from this rule.

• Instant replay similar to the NFL would be put into place. Managers would have 2 challenges during the game. Calls involving balls and strikes would not be open to challenge.

• All Saturday World Series games would start at 6:00 pm EST. Also game 7, if needed, would be scheduled on a Sunday with a 7:00 pm EST start time. East coast bias I know – but 70% of the population lives east of Denver. Time to cater to us baby.

• The Saturday 1 pm to 7 pm Fox owns all the games so they are blacked out from being televised would be eliminated. One week prior to Saturday - Fox would pick a few games that would be shown nationally and the rest could be shown to the fans of those teams on their normal station – such as NESN for the Sox. Here is my example – 3 years ago the Cubs were playing at 2:20 pm on a Saturday. Fox was not showing the game at all – even in Chicago- but because they “owned” the rights to the game nobody else could show it. This game was the game that the Cubs clinched the NL Central. All Cubs fans that were not at the game could not see the game. Thanks Fox.

• I would move the Houston Astros into the AL West Division. This would give all divisions 5 teams per division and set up the natural rival with the Rangers.

• The team in each league with the best record gets to pick who they want to play in the first round of the playoffs. This gives more incentive to have the best overall record plus make it an interesting first round knowing that the 1 team picked the other because they figured they could beat them. In 2008 the Cubs had the best NL record and had to play the Dodgers which were a bad matchup for them. If they could have chosen the team – I would think the Brewers were a better matchup since the Cubs owned them during the regular season.

• Steve Bartman would be allowed back into Wrigley Field to throw out the first pitch at a game. Moises Alou of course would be the player brought in to catch the pitch – with a goat standing behind Alou acting as the umpire.

• The first year of my Poobahdom – the Cubs get a bye into the World Series with a 3 games to 0 lead in the series. Knowing the Cubs history – we lose anyway.

I guess that’s a good start. I will update the list as the off season progresses with suggestions from you – my loyal readers (all 2 of you). Next week I will begin to blog about the top memorable moments from this past baseball season. Being at the game to take the picture attached to this blog ranks up there somewhere. So for now this is so long and good bye from Newburyport, MA where I have finally moved into a new place – 1 mile from a strip of really great pubs, all on the street that I live on. So easy to get home – walk out of the pub, hang a right and stumble home and if I get to the traffic rotary I have gone too far.

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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

 

Bobby D's Blog - ALDS Game 3

 



Just like that the baseball season was over yesterday for the Red Sox. You play 162 games over the course of 26 weeks and in 4 days it is over. Two years in a row now I am left holding tickets to a game 4 of a division playoff series – only the game will not be played.

Last season I was in LA for game 3 of the NLDS to see my beloved Cubs swept out of the playoffs by the Dodgers. Yesterday Just Jill (JJ) and I had tickets to game 3 of the ALDS at Fenway. We also won the lottery to buy tickets for game 4 so we were psyched going into the playoffs that we would get to 2 playoff games. We even joked that we were rooting for the Sox to lose 1 game in Anaheim to ensure we got to both games at Fenway. Who knew that we would have to root for 1 Sox victory to get to a game 4? Well we all know what happened – the Red Sox snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. And here I am 2 years in a row holding a ticket for a game that will never be played. Even worse for JJ – she won the lottery to buy tickets for the ALCS at Fenway, game 5 – more tickets that will go unused.

Here are some observations from the game yesterday and other playoff notes:

• When the Sox were walking Torii Hunter to get to Vladimir Guerrero in the 9th – JJ said “I want to go on record as saying I do not agree with this move”- turns out JJ was right. Too bad JJ couldn’t have texted Tito and told him he was making a bad move

• Speaking of Heidi Watney of NESN, she is just as hot in person as she is on TV

• Sunday noon start times for a playoff game suck. The ballpark was only half full when they did the pregame ceremonies and as hard as this is to believe, it really is hard to start drinking beer at 11 am on a cool fall day in the Bean

• Come to think of it – MLB gave the Sox fans the royal screwgie this year. The 2 games in Anaheim started at 9:37 EST. If there would have been a game 4 – it was scheduled to start at 8:37 EST.

• It was snowing and 37 in Minnesota on Monday – just saying because next year will be outdoor baseball in Minnesota at new Target Field

• October 11, 2009 will forever be known as “WTF” day in Boston for their sports fans according to JJ. First the Sox blow a 5 – 1 lead in the 8th and the Pats lose a 17 – 3 lead and lose to the Broncos in Overtime. When the day was over it left Boston fans saying ‘WTF”

• Moon rock, moon rock, moon rock…You can tell I have been watching too much playoff baseball on TBS – very funny.

• How can an umpire whose only job it is is to call a ball foul or fair down the left field line - blow said call when he is standing 10 feet from said ball?

• Counting down to the release of Bill Simmons’ “Book of Basketball” on October 20th

• New drinking game – take a drink every time Skip Carrey says “Fisted” as in that batter got fisted with that pitch. Trust me you will be blitzed by the 5th inning

• It was so quiet in Fenway after the Sox lost on Sunday you could hear a mosquito fart from 200 feet – now that’s quiet

• Best text from Sunday was from JJ after the Sox and Pats debacle – “At least the Celtics won” – now that was spoken like a Chicagoan

• Quick who is the Phoenix Mercury and what did they just accomplish?

• How great is the show Flash Forward on ABC!!!

• Stealing a line from PTI’s Tony Kornheiser – what is the worst holiday in St. Louis? Matt of course.

• Could it be any worse – Cubs file for bankruptcy. Now it really is a legal maneuver for the new owner of the Cubs to be absolved of any debt that the Tribune Co. has – but still all we saw yesterday was “Cubs file for Bankruptcy”.

• Funniest moment (now) from the game on Sunday was when I spilled some beer down the neck of the guy sitting in front of me. At the moment not all that funny – but now I get the giggles when I think of it.

• Not as hot as you JJ – whew, kick save and a beauty

• I just got tickets to game 6 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium if necessary – which means if I have tickets it won’t be necessary

• So with that said here are my LCS predictions - Yankees in 6 over the Angels and Dodgers in 7 over the Phillies

Well that would be all for today – next week will be my first ever blog listing “What I would do if I was the Grand Poobah of baseball and could change anything about the game of baseball”. If you have any ideas you would like included please send me an email. So for now this is so long and good bye and please remember – you can’t spell poop without the O’s. Sorry bad Baltimore humor.

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Wednesday, October 7, 2009

 

Bobby D's Blog - Quest Pointers

 



Do you work? You must be rich? How do you get tickets for games? How did you come up with the schedule? These are some of the most asked questions from folks I have gotten as I have been completing my ballpark Quest this summer. So without further ado let me answer these questions and also give pointers to folks who may be reading this saying “I want to do that”

1. Do you work? Yes I do and during the Quest I only used 8 vacation days. The key to the Quest for me was opportunity and linking ballparks geographically where I could. Simple math is the baseball season lasts 26 weeks – so that is 52 weekend days plus the 3 summer holidays. 55 non-working days to get to 30 ballparks.

2. You must be rich? No I am not rich. Here are a few secrets to keeping the cost down. The first is easy – link the ballparks geographically. That way you can knock off a few ballparks with just one flight. An example is getting a 3 day weekend with both LA teams and San Diego home. One flight = 3 ballparks. Use priceline.com for hotels and rental cars. The hint with Priceline is getting hotels near airports on weekends. These hotels are primarily business hotels and are empty on weekends. I usually check the rack rate online for a Courtyard near an airport and bid 35% of that rate. I usually get a 3 star hotel for about $35 to $40 a night. For rental cars – midsize for $15 a day is usually a winning bid. And do not be afraid of using the “Name your own price” feature on Priceline. I do that all the time and always get a quality hotel and rental car – even got a Corvette in Phoenix for $35 a day. Trust me – once you start using Priceline you will get addicted.

3. How do you get tickets for games? Other than Wrigley and Fenway tickets to ballparks are easy to get. Since I did most of the games by myself getting a single ticket is easy. Look for people with extras at the ballpark – many will give them to you especially if you play up the fact you are doing all 30 ballparks in one season. People want to be apart of something cool like this. The cheap seats are not a bad option either. In Colorado I bought the Rock Pile section for $4. Since Coors Field is an open concourse ballpark I walked around and actually stood for most of the game just behind the field boxes. I did the same in Toronto - $9 for an upper deck ticket. If you want better seats look on Stubhub or eBay and you can get good seats cheaply the closer you get to the game.

4. How did you come up with the schedule? The schedule is the key to keeping costs down and the sooner you have the schedule set the cheaper you can find airfare. Look to link as many ballparks on weekends geographically. Here are a few hints when making out the schedule:

a. Home stands usually end on a Sunday – this is a perfect way to get a 3rd team into a 3 day weekend with only one flight.

b. DC, Baltimore and Philly, the 2 LA’s and San Diego, the 2 NY’s and Boston and Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit – 12 ballparks and only 4 flights

c. San Fran and Oakland are a natural to link– real cheap flight from SF to Seattle on United or Alaska Air ($49) if you wanted to add a 3rd ballpark to a weekend

d. A nice 4 day weekend is Minnesota then cheap flight ($49) on Delta to Milwaukee and catch the Brewers, Chicago is only a 1.5 hour drive from Milwaukee and catch the 2 Chicago’s.

e. Do St. Louis and KC on the same weekend. Not much to see in these cities plus Southwest ($59) has a cheap flight from KC to St. Louis.

f. Others to link depending on money and where you live are Texas and Houston and Florida and Tampa Bay. Flights connecting the 2 (not so bad cost wise) or driving the 3 to 4 hours are an option.

g. If you are fortunate to be able to schedule all of those on long weekends especially holiday weekends then you have 25 down with only 5 to go. And if it really worked well you might have only had to use 3 vacation days from work.

h. The other 5 ballparks you just pick off when you can. Arizona is an easy one since Sky Harbor Airport is about 5 miles to Chase Field and it is US Airways main hub. Colorado is not bad either as Denver is United’s hub. Coors Field is about 30 minutes from the airport. Atlanta is another easy one since it is Delta’s hub and about 20 minutes to the TED.

i. That leaves Cincinnati and Toronto. Both of those airports the flights seem expensive. For Cincy it is cheaper to fly into Columbus and drive the 2 hours. For Toronto, Buffalo is the better choice and drive the 1.5 hours (depending on customs).

j. If you want to rent a car from point A and return to point B check on the one way rental fee. Most times it is cheaper to take a puddle jumper than drive. An example of this is KC to St. Louis. To rent in KC and return in St. Louis was over $250 for a two day rental vs. renting and returning in KC and flying to St. Louis and renting in St. Louis all for $120.

5. A good website to use to compare airfare is kayak.com. They link into all the airlines websites and other discount sites. They also have cool tools to filter flights based on a wide variety of criteria. Hotels are also on kayak.com and if you don’t want to go the Priceline route this is a good tool. One thing about kayak.com – they do not list Southwest Airlines rates so you need to do that separately.

6. If you want to post a website and blog like I do – there are many webhosting sites and the cost is not that bad. I use fatcow.com – the start up fee was $100 and it is $9.95 a month for hosting fees. There are other webhosting sites such as godaddy.com. Do a little research and it is easy to find a hosting site that will suit your needs.

7. Play up what you are doing. Make up a hat or shirt like I did. You will meet many wonderful people along the way and you will be astonished at how many people will share stories with you and want to be apart of what you are doing. Also make up a business card with your website to hand out. You will be surprised at the amount of hits your site will get.

I am sure I left out a bunch of pointers. If you have any questions or would like a little help in your Quest please drop me an email thru this site. I would be glad to help.

Since baseball playoffs are upon us I will give my picks. Feel free to comment with your picks.

Division Series:

Yankees over the Twins in 4 – I would go 3 games but I think the Twinkees will win one in the homer dome

Red Sox over the Angels in 4 – only because I have tickets to games 3 and 4 at Fenway and want the series to go 4.

Cardinals over the Dodgers in 5 – sorry Andy and Tony - Pitching, Pujols (pronounced Poo-holes) and La Russa - though it would be cool to see LA in the World Series, Torre back in NY or Manny back at Fenway.

Phillies over the Rockies in 4 – I am a wimp to not to pick the Phillies in 3.

League Championship Series:

Yankees over the Red Sox in 7 – because baseball is fixed and David Stern will make sure of it. Oh I am sorry, I have my baseball confused with the NBA. But who doesn’t want to see a game 7 with these 2 teams.

Cardinals over the Phillies in 6 – sorry Joey, Travis and Pedro – Pitching, Pujols (pronounced Poo-holes) and La Russa.

World Series:

Cardinals over the Yankees in 6 – The shocker, I am of the mindset that if my team, the Cubs, can’t win it all then I want the team that beat them to win it all. Then for the rest of my life I can say if we only would have made up the 10 games in the standings, not signed Milton Bradley, traded away Mark DeRosa, traded for Kevin Gregg and tinkered with the team that had the best record in the NL in 2008 – then we would have won it all. I know – demented Cub fan thinking here, but it has been 101 years and counting…

Wow long blog today. Everyone enjoy the 2009 MLB playoffs – this is the best time of the year with all 4 sports in action. So for now this is so long and good bye from rain soaked Boston where I am glad I just found out my cable has a DVR for all those late night playoff games.

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Thursday, October 1, 2009

 

Bobby D's Blog - Quest Day 181

 



Wow today is October 1st. Boy did the summer fly by. The MLB playoffs are just about set – Just Jill (JJ) and I were lucky to get tickets to the ALDS game 3 and 4 at Fenway. It’s funny because now I have JJ rooting for the Red Sox to lose one game of the ALDS so we get to see game 4. I know I am a month behind in blogging about my final game at CitiField – so here goes.

Back in July I had called the Mets group sales office and put a bunch of tickets on hold for the game on September 6th. The Mets were nice enough to hold the tickets until I got a firm number of people who were going to be able to attend. Since it was Labor Day weekend I knew this would be a tough weekend for people to get to the game. The final number of people attending was 16. So I give the Mets a call and the guy asks would you like a suite for the game. I was sure but we can’t afford the tickets to a suite. He says same price as the tickets you were going to get in the upper deck. Seems like JJ and some one else had contacted the Mets about my Quest and it being the final game. Very cool and many thanks go out to the Mets for doing this for us.

The tickets for the suite also allowed us to park in a VIP lot right next to CitiField and enter thru the VIP entrance to the park. Its funny when we got there we were all like little kids – VIP lot and VIP entrance. While we were waiting to enter the ballpark Alfonso Soriano walked by and it took a Red Sox fan, JJ, to spot him. The suite itself was sweet – it had a full kitchen with sofa and chairs, a 42” plasma on one wall hooked into DirecTV and another plasma on the adjacent wall. Our suite was even with first base just above the field level section – actually was a great view of the game. There were 12 padded seats outside of the suite with another 4 bar stools set up in the suite. We also were assigned a suite attendant, Larry, for the game. When we got into the suite Jill and Gayle started rummaging thru the cabinets and found some beer, wine and soda. We found out later that they were not for us – sorry Larry, we were all suite rookies.

Here are some of the highlights to the day:

I was very happy that Shawn’s best friend Kathy, her hubby Tom their kids Kate and Liam and her mom were able to attend the game. Along the way this summer I would get nice messages on facebook from Kathy and she was a huge supporter of the Quest. She says that the baseball parts of the blogs are boring for her but loves the Shawn stories. We were able to get the Yankee game on the TV’s in the suite which I found to be funny since we were at a live baseball game but paid equal attention to the Yankee game. During batting practice Tom took Liam and Kate to the outfield area and they were able to get a batting practice ball.

It was also great that thru facebook I have reconnected with my childhood friend Karen and her family. She was able to attend the game with her dad, my unofficial Uncle Bob, and her kids Joey and Victoria. This was Joey’s first MLB game which for me made it special being able to share that experience with him. The only problem is now he thinks sitting in a suite is the norm for going to a ballgame. Sorry Joey – the norm is upper deck nose bleed seats.

My nephew Aaron being there was very special. I took him to his first ever game way back in 1998. It was a Cub game and I guess I didn’t do my job as he has become a Yankee and White Sox fan. As a Cub fan I am ok with the Yankee part but the White Sox – come one Aaron. Actually our baseball adventures are not over yet – more on that in a bit.

My friends – well friends doesn’t do justice but it’s the only word I can come up with – Margaret and Ted drove up from a family function in Philly for the game. They took over the host duties when they got there hooking up with Larry to make sure we had food and more importantly beer, soda and water for the group. Ted being a Met fan enjoyed the new ballpark and the fact his Mets won a game. I have been friends with them for 17 years now and I can honestly say I wouldn’t be here right now without them. A thank you is not strong enough for all they have done.

During the season I have received many messages or texts from friends. There are 2 that stand out and both from Margaret. The first was way back in April when she sent an email that simply said “Wake up – it’s a Quest day”. Yes it was a Quest day and yes the day had a different feel to it. The second email was a reply to my Greetings from CitiField email. At each ballpark I take a picture and email it to Margaret, Mikey (the Commish) and JJ that simply says “Greetings from …”. Margaret replied to my email that said “what are we going to do now without the greetings from email?” Good question.

The final highlight to the day was dinner. JJ had to get back to Boston so we dropped her off at her hotel. I am so lucky to have JJ as a friend. A week after this game I was able to get her and her kids and her mom tickets to a Sox game. It would be her son Zachary’s first game and he is now spoiled as the seats were 11 rows behind home plate. Trust me Zach – those tickets at Fenway are next to impossible to get.

Shawn and my favorite Italian place is Que Pasta in Saddle Brook, NJ. As with most family run Italian places in NJ it is a BYOB place. They will open the bottle for you and provide wine glasses. I had been bragging all weekend to Gayle and Kevin about this place. They make all their pastas and sauces fresh each day and the meatballs are OMG amazing. We had a great time at dinner and finished off 3 bottles of wine between the 6 of us. What a fitting end to the Quest – dinner at Shawn and my favorite restaurant with great friends, new and old, and a family member I am so happy to have reconnected with.

So the Quest to see all 30 ballparks in 1 season has been accomplished and I have been asked what’s next? For fun I came up with a schedule to go to all 30 again next summer and I also came up with a schedule to break the Guinness World Record by seeing a full game at all 30 ballparks in 23 days. The current record is 24 days held by Chuck Booth. Am I going to do it – heck no but it is fun to fantasize about.

I am excited to be able to attend the ALDS at Fenway with JJ – it will be her first ever playoff game. I will be heading to Detroit at the end of December to catch a Bulls – Pistons game and the Bears – Lions game with my friends Jeff and Sarah. While in Michigan I will get over to see my buddy the Big O, his wife Melinda and meet his 1 year old son Matthew.

But next up is Tampa this weekend. A few weeks ago Aaron sent me a text that said if he got tickets for the Yankees – Rays game on October 3rd would I fly down to Tampa for the weekend. Well he got the tickets so I am flying down for the weekend. We will be 5 rows behind the Rays’ dugout. Maybe this is the start of a new Quest – one in which Aaron and I go to all 30 ballparks together over the coming years. Kind of cool to think that this new Quest started at CitiField on the day the other Quest came to an end.

I will keep this website going and will blog about stuff over the coming months. I also have a bunch of top ten things that I will blog about from this past summer. So keep checking back and keep those cards and letters coming. So for now this is so long and good bye where I can’t believe I have got JJ rooting for her beloved Red Sox to lose a game in the ALDS.

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