Bull Durham, The Musical

by A.J. Coltrane

Here at CSE we love Bull Durham enough that we have multiple pets named for characters in the movie.

The next (and first) CSE road trip to New York will need to include Bull Durham, The Musical:

…Bull Durham, the iconic 1988 comedy from Minor Leaguer-turned-Hollywood director Ron Shelton, is being made into a musical. The production, adapted for the stage by Shelton, is set to premiere at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre in September 2014 in advance of a Broadway run.

The link includes an interview with Ron Shelton.

Next on the road trip docket — Harry Potter On Ice!

Actually, no. I’m not travelling to New York to see that when it happens.

The NFL Fan Base

By Blaidd Drwg

A few weeks ago, Annie S. nephew tried to convince me that Seahawks fans are as loyal and supportive of their team as anyone else. He is young (under 25), so his memory doesn’t go too far back into history. I didn’t buy his argument.

I moved to Seattle in 2003 and got the opportunity to see my beloved Steelers in Seattle in November. I bought a ticket through the Seahawks website about 2 weeks before the game and there were a good number of seats available, so I had my pick. I took a bus down to Pioneer Square and walked to the stadium and virtually everyone I saw was clad in black and gold – not a single Seahawks jersey in sight. At the game, I would say there were probably 15-20 thousand Steelers fans, removing most of the home field advantage.

You may want to argue that this was an isolated incident, but it wasn’t. I did a bit of digging and found some interesting tidbits:

From the 2/14/2002 Seattle-PI:

State House members sent Seattle football fans a sweet Valentine: they passed a bill yesterday to end NFL blackouts of Seahawks games.

…

None of the Seahawks’ 2001-02 home games, played in Husky Stadium, sold out. Only one of those games was televised, Sept. 23 vs. the Eagles, because the NFL waived the blackout rule for the week following the disruption of the schedule due to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Hawks received so little fan support in the early 2000’s that the state legislature tried to actually do something about it.

I thought this one was more interesting

From the 1/5/2005 Seattle-PI:

By CLARE FARNSWORTH
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

KIRKLAND — The Seahawks were granted a 24-hour extension today on the NFL’s blackout deadline because 5,000 tickets remain for Saturday’s playoff game against the St. Louis Rams at Qwest Field.

The league specifies that games must be sold out 72 hours in advance to avoid being blacked out on local television. The Seahawks were granted the extension because of the short turnaround from Sunday’s game, when the Seahawks beat the Atlanta Falcons to clinch the NFC West championship and home game in the first round of the playoffs — the first in Seattle since 1999.

The team has sold 61,000 tickets since Sunday, but must either sell the remaining tickets or have a sellout guaranteed by a sponsor by 1:30 p.m. Thursday for the game to be televised in the greater Seattle area.

Yep – the Seahawks almost failed to sell out a playoff game. They managed to avert the blackout, but just barely:

The playoff game was in danger of being blacked out in the Seattle area because about 6,000 tickets remained yesterday, but the NFL extended its deadline 24 hours. By Thursday afternoon, less than 1,000 tickets remained a sellout by NFL standards.

About 66,000 tickets were purchased over a 72-hour span, giving the Seahawks 16 consecutive home sellouts. Seattle’s record over that span, the team’s longest string of sellouts since 1992, is 12-3.

That doesn’t seem like great fan support and I am sure it will swing that way again once the team is no longer good in a couple of years. History doesn’t suggest that fans will support the Seahawks during a prolonged lousy streak.

Oh and about the “12^th Man” being the supposed best in the NFL. Go to a Steelers or Packers or Bears game and see how rabid their fans are. They make the Seahawks fans look like amateurs. Besides, the Seahawks were so unoriginal with coming up with the 12^th man thing that they stole it from the Texas A&M, who coined the term back in… wait for it… 1922.

What’s in a Name?

By Blaidd Drwg

As if one Wonderful Monds wasn't enough (love the afro) — As if one Wonderful Monds wasn’t enough (love the afro)

Ha Ha Clinton-Dix.I think this gets my vote for the worst name in sports. His actual first name is Ha’Sean, according to Wikipedia, which is bad enough, but why the hell would you go by ‘Ha Ha’? I am not even going to touch his last name.

Oh, and he is apparently an NFL prospect. Could you see Roger Goodell going up to the podium and announcing, “With the 23^rd pick in the 2015 NFL draft, the Green Bay Packers select Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, saftey, from the Alabama Crimson Tide,” with a straight face?

Wonderful Terrific Monds (either I or II) he is not. I bet you had no idea that there were 2 guys named Wonderful Terriffic Monds (The father played football and the son baseball).

Edit – I stand corrected, there were actually 3 Wonderful Terriffic Monds. It appears that the football Monds was actually WTM II and the baseball Monds is WTM III.

A Couple Of Ancient Mariner Emails, Or, Ichiro Then And Now

by A.J. Coltrane

Before the CSE I’d bulk email friends with thoughts about sports. Here are two Ichiro-centric emails from the early oughts. (Ichiro’s rookie year was 2001.) The first email is dated April 1, 2002:

There’s a cool website that uses Bill James’ similarity scores to compare players. Basically the more statistically similar two players are, the higher the score. Max is 1000, anything over 900 is high.

For fun, I ran I similarity score lookup on Ichiro. The interesting thing that came up was that the most 10 similar players to Ichiro had careers that started between 1884 and 1924. Very odd. Most of them had short careers too, although I don’t think that means anything.

These are almost all players of the “dead ball” era. The baseballs of the time were soggy and gray, and they never put a new one in play. Guys would spit tobacco juice on the ball to make it harder to see. Pitchers weren’t afraid to walk anyone, because the ball wasn’t going far anyway.

Now look at what Ichiro does offensively: great batting average (.350), great speed (56 SB), no power (8 HR), no walks (692 AB, about 20 unintentional walks).

The 10 most similar players:
Roy Carlyle (944)
Fred Nicholson (934)
Showboat Fisher (934)
Pete Scott (927)
Dick Cox (927)
John Sullivan (923)
Harry Moore (922)
Joe Knight (919)
Maurice Archdeacon (915)
Juan Pierre (914)

A bunch of nobodies. Personally, Ichiro reminds me most of Rod Carew… a career .328 hitter, who has Hall of Famers for 7 of his 10 “comps”, along with Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn, who aren’t eligible yet. We’ll see how it plays out.

The “cool website” was baseball-reference.com, back when that was a new thing. The text above looks maybe I had a clue. Ichiro’s current career batting average is .319, and his top four comps are Kenny Lofton, Lloyd Waner, Richie Ashburn, and Willie McGee. Two HOFers, a fringe HOF, and another guy who had a high peak but falls short of the Hall.

Maybe I should have stopped when I was ahead (May 4, 2003):

He hit .350 as a rookie, establishing himself as a superstar (American League average is .275, meaning that on average 27.5% of At Bats result in hits). He hit .321 last season, including .281 after the All-Star break (which is loosely the halfway point of the season). Ichiro is currently hitting .250 this season.

There have finally been a number of articles over the last few days about his lack of hitting. The local media seems to be pretty evenly split between:

a) “Something’s wrong, he’s in a slump, he’ll snap out of it.” and

b) “The league finally caught up to him.”

I’m taking “b”. When he came into the league conventional wisdom was that he’d be a career .270 hitter or so. He has no power and never takes a walk, so his batting average is very “empty”. If he hits .270 the only thing that will keep him in the league is his defense, as he doesn’t do anything else well.

I’m figuring career .285, tops.

Whiff! Good defense + great speed resulting in a bunch of infield hits = long career. Really, right now he’s about where I figured he’d be for the bulk of his career — he just had to turn 40 to get there.

I should have stuck with the first impression.

More on the Mariners…Now With Expert Opionions

By Blaidd Drwg

The Mrs. accuses me of being too negative about the Mariners. Yet, every year I make a prediction about their win total, I am either pretty much spot on or slightly optimistic about the team in hindsight. Since I don’t really care about the team, my predictions are analytical based on stats rather than emotions, so when I say that the Mariners are a 75 win team, that is what the stats tell me, not what my gut does.

My wife probably hated this post last week where I thought that the Mariners prospects for making moves and signing someone like Cano were not as optimistic as some people. I wrote it before the rumors about David Price came up. I still don’t think that getting Cano and Price makes them a playoff team and I am not the only one. Here are some comments from 3 diehard Mariners fans who I absolutely respect the opinion of:

Scott Weber of Lookout Landing:

It’s that the Mariners simply are not in a position to make this kind of a splash, this many games out of a playoff spot. Especially when two other teams in their division are much stronger, and are also fortifying their clubs with moves that help them win now.

Dave Cameron of USS Mariner:

And I’m not convinced that David Price is the right guy, nor am I convinced that the 2014 Mariners are the right team, for this kind of trade to be worth doing.

David Schoenfield of ESPN.com:

You can’t trade Walker for Price and then not sign Cano. But that’s no guarantee. You could trade for Price tomorrow and then see Cano sign with another team in January. And how good would they make the Mariners? Maybe Price pushes this team to 75 wins. Maybe Cano pushes it to 80. Maybe the young guys play a little better and you win 85.

All 3 quotes came from Schoenfield’s piece last week on espn.com, it is worth the complete read. These 3 guys know a heck of a lot more about the Mariners than I do and they all feel the same way I do. What does that tell you about this team?

The Zapruder Spurs

by A.J. Coltrane

1. I used to own part of a Sonics season ticket package. At one time or another, I saw almost every great player of the last fifteen years play against the Sonics.

But never Shaquille O’Neal. Because Shaq almost never made the Portland/Seattle trip, usually citing a minor, probably ficticious, injury. It got to the point where I never requested the Lakers tickets. I’d go see LeBron instead, thanks.

2. Last year the Spurs kept Tim Duncan and other stars out of a game in Miami, which prompted a $250,000 fine from the league:

Popvich’s decision to send Duncan, Parker, Ginobili and Danny Greene home instead of having them play for the second game of a back-to-back Nov. 19 in Miami created a stir around the league. It was the finale of a six-game road trip, finishing with four games in five days. The Spurs did not give the NBA or Miami prior notice of the players’ absences, which led the NBA to fine San Antonio $250,000.

The Spurs have done stuff like that pretty much forever, just not at that scale. Naturally, some nitwit lawyer who purchased tickets on the secondary market decided to sue, though the lawsuit eventually was dismissed.

3. Curiously enough, the Spurs were scheduled to play a game in Mexico City on Wednesday. I’d say that was absolutely a case of NBA commissioner David Stern throwing his dick around. “Blow off a game in Miami? Great! Here’s one in Mexico!” I think it’s fair to say that neither the Spurs nor the Minnesota Timberwolves were very exited about the prospect.

Both teams *and* David Stern flew down to Mexico, but an electrical fire filled the arena with smoke and caused the game to be rescheduled for a later date in Minnesota.

That leaves a couple of ridiculous conspiracy angles.

I. The Spurs were somehow responsible for the fire:

No game in Mexico. The game was intended to further globalize NBA basketball, and a lot of that good press went to waste. Stern would be pissed about that. Plus, he wasted a plane flight down there and a day or two of his own time! All of that negotiation and preparation down the tubes! Nobody tells the Spurs what to do!

II. David Stern was somehow responsible for the fire:

David Stern makes the Spurs fly down to Mexico, then fly back having accomplished nothing. The game will be shoehorned later into the season when the Spurs will need the rest even more. David Stern always gets the last laugh!

—

And now, here’s the 2nd most famous Zapruder film of all time:

The Mariners and the Offseason

By Blaidd Drwg

I keep hearing that the Mariners are going to be a major player in the FA market this season. Here is where I think the Mariners have some major holes to fill to bring them to an 82-85 win team:

RF and LF (assuming that Dustin Ackley is their CF)

1B or DH (depending on where you play Smoak)

C (you need someone who can play almost every day in case Zunino proves 2013 was not a fluke)

SP (at least one back of the rotation guy)

RP (the bullpen needs help – too many guys imploded last year)

If you want to talk about being a playoff contender, they probably need to replace Smoak with someone better and they probably need 2 middle of the rotation guys in addition to 2 OF, a catcher and some bullpen help. I personally think they need to do more than that and that would be a ton of spending, so it isn’t going to happen.

I write this because of the flurry of activity that has occurred over the last week. The A’s have made trades to bolster their team and so have the Rangers. The Yankees have signed the best catcher and OF on the market and appear to still be in the running for Cano. The Tigers are making themselves better through trades and signings. The Mariners? Well, they did sign Willie Bloomquist. Are you excited yet?

I keep hearing the Mariners are the front runners for Robinson Cano. He tried to play chicken with the Yankees and the Yankees wouldn’t budge, so his agent, Jay-Z, decided to pull a Scott Boras move and get a bidding war for Cano’s services going, hence the Mariners involvement. The M’s are a team with just 2 players under contract (Iwakuma and Felix) and a bunch of guys who are arbitration eligible/under team control. If the M’s don’t go out and spend any money on FA’s this season, their payroll will be in the 45-50 million dollar range. Based on that, the M’s could afford to overpay Cano in the 25-27 million dollar range just to get him to sign.

With the M’s offer, Jay-Z goes back to the Yankees and says, “See, there is a team willing to pay my client 27 million per for 8 years, but he really wants to stay in NY. If you do 25 million per for 7 years with an option, we can call be happy.” Unless the Rangers step in, I would put money on Cano signing for 7 years/175 million with the Yankees.

There are a couple of reasons why signing Cano makes no sense, especially for 8 years:

You have now committed 50+ million dollars on 2 players through 2019. That is a ton of payroll on two guys considering one is a pitcher and the other will be in his late 30’s.
Signing Cano to that contract would basically mean he is untradeable. You now have to hope that his batting numbers don’t fall into a black hole in Safeco, or that he becomes unhappy if the team is not competitive.
You have no place to play him. I don’t think you can put him at DH, so that means you have to find a new position for Nick Franklin, unless you put Cano at 1B and move Smoak to DH.
Your team is going to get really expensive over the next 3 seasons. All of the guys under team control will get bumps due to arbitration and the arbitration eligible guys will get huge bumps from free agency. As deep as the M’s farm system is, it can’t replace the entire roster, so you are probably looking at adding 40-50 million to your payroll in the next few seasons, assuming that you keep all of the important guys.
You are going to have to sign or replace Iwakuma. He is on the last year of his contract in 2014 and you are probably going to be paying him in the 15-17 million per range unless he implodes this season. The M’s hold an option on him for 2015, but I expect that the contract will get extended sometime this season and void the team option.
When was the last time a mega deal free agent worked out for the team that signed him?

Cano makes sense if you are close to being a perennial contender. The Mariners are not. I suspect what happens in the next few months is the M’s sign Nelson Cruz, resign Kendrys Morales, a couple of replacement level guys for the bench , a scrap heap starter and a couple of fungible relief guys and plod their way to another 77-81 win season, hoping that all of the kids become superstars.

And folks wonder why I gave up my season tickets.

Blaidd Drwg’s Annual HOF Rant

By Blaidd Drwg

Hall of Fame ballots were sent out the other day and this may be the most stacked ballot in the history of the HOF voting, with no less than 8 legitimate HOFers (steroid argument aside) on the ballot and I would argue of the 36 guys who are on the ballot, at 10 of them deserve to be in the Hall, no questions asked. My list:

Greg Maddux

Tom Glavine

Frank Thomas

Barry Bonds

Roger Clemens

Mark McGwire

Craig Biggio

Jeff Bagwell

Rafael Palmiero

Mike Piazza

Considering I doubt that the BBWAA can pull its head out of its ass, I think that we see Biggio, Maddux and Glavine this year get elected, but that is it. The guys who are hurt most by the stupidity of the BBWAA are the fringe guys like Alan Trammell, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina. These guys are not going to get as much support as they should, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them ends up dropping off the ballot.

Speaking of which, this is thankfully the last year we have to hear about the Jack Morris as HOFer argument. I have expressed my feelings about that in the past, so it is time again to play spot the HOFer. Which one of these guys would you vote for/suggest is a HOF pitcher?

	Regular	Season				Post	Season
	W-L	ERA	K/9	ERA+	WAR	W-L	IP	ERA
A	216-146	3.46	8.6	127	80.7	11-2	133.1	2.23
B	219-156	4.27	5.4	107	51.1	3-3	43.1	4.15
C	254-186	3.90	5.8	105	43.8	7-4	92.1	3.80
D	270-153	3.68	7.1	123	82.7	7-8	139.2	3.42

It is pretty obvious that players A and D were far and away better than the other 2 and A was very dominant in the post season (not that D was a slouch either). Player A is Curt Schilling, who received roughly half of the vote total as Jack Morris last year. Player D is Mike Mussina, who is on the ballot for the first time. Players B and C, forgetting the win total for the moment, look like they are roughly the same player. Player B? Kenny Rogers. Player C? Jack Morris. Still think Morris looks like a HOFer? Morris is arguably the 5^th best pitcher on the ballot this year and there is no way in hell he should get elected before Maddux, Glavine, Schilling or Mussina.

Bye Bye Chuck Armstrong

by A.J. Coltrane

Chuck Armstrong has retired from his position as President of the Mariners. I think there are more than a few fans who feel that the M’s leadership has been … lacking … for many, many years. They feel that the M’s have been more interested in profits than in putting a strongly competitive team on the field. The M’s have only won more than half of their games twice in the last ten years. Their record over that period is 718-902 (72-90 on an average year.) As a result, more than a few fans are happy to see him go.

I lean that way somewhat. It seems to me that over the last decade the M’s could have cared more about results and less about appearances. It felt a bit like that – so long as the attendance didn’t crater everything was cool with them. I think to some degree the glow of the new stadium, the residual goodwill from the 116 win season, and the “Ichiro Suzuki thing” made leadership complacent about improving the product on the field. (Cubs fans will accuse their team of much the same thing — that Wrigley Field is a money printing machine, and that historically their ownership has been content to cash the checks.) I’m fine with Armstrong leaving, though hopefully that replacement won’t be even worse. Turmoil can be a very bad thing…

—

I’ve been asked recently about both Sigi Schmid (Sounders) and Steve Sarkisian (UW football) and their futures in Seattle. “Is it time for so-and-so to go?” It looks like a lot of the two fan bases feel like the teams should be accomplishing more than they are.

One at a time:

Sigi Schmid — The Sounders have made the playoffs every year of their existence. Sigi has more wins than any other coach is MLS history. Who do people think the Sounders will replace him with that will be an improvement?

Steve Sarkisian — UW fans seem to believe that the Huskies are still relevant nationally and that they’re somehow entitled to winning teams. UW’s last championship was in 1991, which is well before any current recruits were born. From 2003-2008 the team failed to make a bowl game, compiling a record of 18-53. *That’s* what potential recruits are seeing when they consider destinations — and it takes a loooong time for that stink to wear off. Even in a best case scenario it’s 3-4 years before college football teams can go from bad to good, it takes that long for the new recruits to develop. Hey UW fans: You are aware that the Huskies have now lost ten straight games to Oregon, right? It’s a new era – the top three teams in the Pac 12 are Oregon, Stanford, and USC, and it’ll likely stay that way for a while.

So:

Playoffs every year for the Sounders? Great! I’ll take it!

Seven or eight wins and a bowl game every year for the Huskies, with the potential for even better results ahead? Awesome!

Sounders fans and Husky fans — Shut up and say thank you.

The Stink About The Patriots – Panthers Game

by A.J. Coltrane

Last night the Patriots lost to the Panthers, 20-24. New England had the ball on the Carolina 18 yard line. Tom Brady tried to throw a pass into the end zone as time expired. The officials threw a flag, then picked it up and declared the game over. All of the talking heads freaked out.

Had the penalty stood, the Patriots would have had one more play, either from the 13 (for defensive holding), or from the 1 (if it was pass interference).

What the talking heads didn’t say:

The line was Panthers -1. They covered. Had New England gotten another attempt and scored a touchdown it would have swung the cover to the Patriots.

And — The Over/Under was 46.5. The final game score was 44, so the “Under” won. Had the Patriots scored a touchdown it would have moved to the “Over”.

I’m going to guess that most of the money was on the Patriots and the Over. I don’t have anything concrete to base that on, other than people like betting the Patriots, and they like betting the Over… If I’m correct, the bookies and sportsbooks are very happy right now.