Dbacks Draw 126,000 For Sunday Finale

A record crowd of 126,112 attended Sunday's season finale at Chase Field against the Dodgers, according to CEO/President Derrick Hall.

It is the largest Arizona crowd to witness a sporting event since the third round of the 2006 Phoenix Open at TPC, and the highest attended event ever at Chase Field, which reports a capacity for baseball of 48,295.


"Standing room", explained Hall. "It surprised even us."

The record throng in the half empty stadium enabled the Diamondbacks to barely escape another seasonal low water mark for paid attendance, in what has been a humiliating year on the field, in the stands, on the road, against left handed pitching, across local, national and international political controversies, and against batters.

"Thank goodness for large unconfirmed group sales" said Hall. "This proves we have momentum and are on the right track. Drawing less than 2 million, especially after the Yankees visit, would not have established this kind of momentum. We're very excited about these numbers. And proud"

Previously, the largest Chase Field crowd occured on December 30th, 1999 when 82,450 attended a Rod Parsley miracle and healing service.

Wallscrapers

Derrick Hall's getting hammered again, but in a monumental and potentially world changing turn of events, not by Diamondhacks. After dividing Dback fans with price walls, uniform walls and loyalty walls, our business school CEO has graduated to a less destructive field: knocking down outfield walls at The Lovely Morgan. Kids at azcentral.com, however, are up in arms:

Our 2001 champs didnt need a bigger field!

We need a new bullpen, not new dimensions!

Bob Loblaw.

Thanks to raw distance data at hittracker.com, I was able to derive some distinctions about the 169 home runs hit at Chase through August 26th.

HRs Hit By Diamondbacks: 79
HRs Hit By Opponents:90

Dback HRs of 400 ft or more: 47
Opponent HRs 400 ft or more: 44

Dback HRs 390 feet or less: 15
Opponent 390 feet or less : 30

Dback HRs 380 feet or less: 8
Opponent 380 feet or less: 15

I'd like more data before renting wrecking balls, but preliminary implications are pretty clear. The Dbacks dont hit as many wallscrapers as their pitchers yield and making a case we might net benefit from slightly larger field dimensions sounds reasonable. Presumably the club's resident Zhang or Ng has scoured over historical data, under the supervision of someone like Cullen Maxey, but in case they havent, the Diamondbacks should feel free to use our findings.

In Young and Upton, we also have fast outfielders who can presumably cover "extra" territory defensively. This is just a guess, but even with Brandon Allen in left, the projected marginal ad of a larger field probably favors the Dbacks over most visiting outfield troikas.

It's an idea worth exploring. Not as a substitute for upgrading the roster with $30-40M of suddenly available payroll. But to augment those anticipated improvements, with an eye towards competing in 2011. Breaking down walls is a good start.

What's Wrong With Legends Race?

Legends, l to r: Nomar, JT Snow, Jeff Suppan, Don Mattingly

There's the glaringly obvious - these oversized puppets barely resemble the Diamondbacks in question. The Matt Williams doll looks more like Mark Grace than the Grace version, and Gonzo's schnoz looks alarmingly like Nomar Garciaparra.

The bigger problem is that front office "hangers on" Grace and Williams were about as legendary as Robin Ventura and Al Oliver over their careers. For other teams. By the time they got to Phoenix, they werent even our best players. Exporting the idea they are Dback "Legends" looks provincial and undiscerning and degrades the sport-wide currency of the term. Not to mention the larger franchise contributions of Steve Finley and Curt Schilling.

This decidedly "B" heat that stumbles around during the fifth inning of each home game hardly celebrates our history. It demeans it, by calling attention to the fact that (other than Randy and arguably Gonzo), ours is an immature and understandably shallow superstar heritage.



The Dbacks Legends Race is loosely lifted from popular sausage and President sideline schtick in Milwaukee and DC and captures their generic silliness - but Derrick Hall complicated that by reaching for commercial payoffs with his choice of characters. He's not merely suggesting, inaccurately, that we're a baseball town with four legitimate legends. He's corrupted the very "legends" concept, by favoring and aggrandizing less than legendary figures with current front office associations.

Other cities' races are endearing and ours is so awkward because sausages and Presidents are genuine sources of regional pride - quite apart from baseball. These promos are overtly silly respites from the game - not a barely veiled front office ploy to reconstitute fan affiliations with past franchise glories.

What might have worked better?

Something playfully branding Arizona instead of trying too hard to rebrand a flailing franchise. A race to amuse fans rather than convert them. My idea is a rebrand of the state's historic 4 "C"s - a cowboy, cactus, coyote and feminine cougar, in the modern spirit of the term. Keep it clean for families, of course, but interplay with the cowboy could be entertaining.

Two objections arise. Many locals loathe the tired cactus coyote cliche. Those people are insecure losers. Milwaukee's sausages endure and endear because the local culture's poking a little fun at itself. Saguaros and cowboys are harmless cliches that bond fans and reflect a unique sense of place. Nobody wants to see a trendy foreclosure puppet or racing Intel plant.

Second, some big Mormon investor may object to a coquettish cougar. (In Arizona, it seems big Mormon investors are all over. In fact, the race would be more locally representative if the cowboy was replaced with a Mormon investor, but I digress). The key is to portray the cougar tactfully. Make her work on an innocent level, for kids, and let knowing adults enjoy the innuendo.

Dbacks Less Affordable

Axing non subscription TV games and Colangelo's dollar seats apparently didnt satisfy Paradise Valley residents, Ken Kendrick and Derrick Hall. Today, in answer to the harshest recession in memory, baseball's "most affordable" and self proclaimed fan friendliest front office jacked their cheapest Chase Field ticket yet another 60%.



That comes to eight smackers for deep corner nosebleeds; nine if you hazard the audacity to purchase your ticket on gameday. I know, I know. Eight or nine dollars, even in this economy, isnt much, right? One cant expect a professional franchise to give away seats for less than that.

A few points.

For most people, eight or nine dollars isnt much, but most people also have little regard for accomodations this far above the earth's crust. Folks who sit up there, in a half empty venue are, by definition, price sensitive.

Two, as Diamondhacks brought to the sporting public's attention several years ago, Phoenix Metro bears the lowest median personal income of any major league city.

Third, and most importantly, this isnt any franchise jacking up prices on those least able to afford it. It's the club which has aggressively and inaccurately marketed itself as the most affordable in the game, three years running.

Just for fun, I putted around mlb.com to see if another ballclub charges less than eight dollars:

Cleveland $7 super value game

Detroit $5

Kansas City $7

LA Angels $5 (child only), same with Pitt $6 but child only

Yankees $5 Obstructed view bleacher

Oakland A's $2 Wednesdays + $1 dogs, includes Yanks, Red Sox

Seattle $7

Texas $6 adult, kids as low as $3

Atlanta $6 Premium $8

Cincinnati $5 incl premier, $7 regular bleachers

Colorado $4 Rockpile, incl Boston, premier, opening day

Houston $7, $1 children 14 and younger, dynamic pricing as well

San Diego $5 Park Pass

San Fran - dynamic pricing as low as $5

Washington $5 small section, day of game sales only

Essentially half of major league teams currently offer cheaper single game options than our self styled Arizona Altruists. Even the notoriously expensive Cubs sell $8 tickets at six designated "bronze" games, over at Wrigley. Maybe it's not outrageous for the Dbacks to charge eight dollars, however given the recession, oversupply of seats and local market history, I'd characterize an eight or nine dollar cover charge to gain entree to Chase Field as rather high. What's outrageous and cloying, it seems to me, is for the people behind such pricing to call themselves the most fan friendly front office - and to trumpet their "product" as the most affordable in the game.

The Show Must Go On

A fantastic weekend is in full swing and the town is abuzz. Tonight Miley Cirus gets serious at jobing.com arena, and the Patrick Swayze film festival muscles into the Valley Art. Fellas wont want to miss Sunday's high rise implosion over at Third and Earll. It'd be a crime to let a few freeway closures deprive you of all this town has to offer.

Speaking of crime (and implosions), the Diamondbacks' exercise their sense of humor this weekend, hosting "Fandemonium", Latin for "You're still here? Seriously?" The club's canned, slutty come-on, to mostly absentee season ticket holders, occurs in the middle of Padre exhibitions, emphatically confirming last place in the NL West.

See No Evil

Barely two years after ceasing to be a viable ballplayer, Eric Byrnes' eponymous TV show is suddenly going off the air. I dont know about anyone else, but now that I cant watch Byrnsie mumbling with his hat on backwards, sippin' a Starbucks, I'm not sure what to do with my time.

In related news, four months after being a viable major league team, the Diamondbacks arent on TV much either. The past few Saturdays have been radio games, granting visual respite from AJ Hinch's AAA rebuilding exercise and the oily accompaniment of Daron Sutton and Todd Walsh.

The game's not on TV tonight either. Instead, FSN is blasting Frank Caliendo's loud and uneven impressions, another tape of Joe Garagiola's ceremony that dominated Sunday's broadcast, Redheads pre-sell coverage, a never ending Todd Walsh indulgence with ticket broker Danny Zelisko, extended japery between Gracie and....wait a second. Is that Barry Zito? Oh, gosh. My mistake. There is a game being televised tonight. Sort of. Oh, and the game's tied in the seventh. Who knew?

Attendance @ The Lovely Morgan has dropped almost 5000 fans per evening since last year, one of the largest % and numerical drops in the sport, yet curiously the Dbacks' National League ranking remains eleventh (out of sixteen teams) - same as 2008.

Even with light rail and a summer of Phoenicians curtailing out of town vacation travel , this will be the fifth year in a row our team draws more on the road than at home, despite Chase Field's purported "lowest prices in baseball." Colangelo never made such claims, or massaged pricepoints to look better in industry TMR metrics. He just offered higher quality baseball at broadly lower prices, and drew more fans downtown than they did on the road - every single one of his seven years at the helm.

10:30pm -- The Dbackles just dropped tonight's 'contest' to the Giants. The loss puts Arizona four games south of San Diego, with eleven to go. After the game, AJ Hinch called it a night of poor execution and not winning baseball. More accurately, it's been a season of poor execution, with players acquired by JByrnes, developed and managed by Hinch.

Bob Melvin won 90 games and went to the 2007 NLCS with Doug Davis and Livan Hernandez as his #2 and 3, and a bunch of rookies and journeymen in the field. He got fired, presumably, for finishing two games off the pace in 2008, and falling 4.5 back of the wildcard in May of this year. Derrick Hall termed this five months 'gross underperformance'.

In his five months, AJ Hinch has rocketed out of contention faster and farther than anyone imagined, far worse than Melvin ever did with this rough core of players. As the brass defends AJ's hire under these circumstances, making excuses for AJ when they made mincemeat of Melvin, one can hardly escape what unprincipled phonies run our newly entrenched, last place Arizona Diamondbacks.

Dbacks Toast All-Sear Game

Driving a Mini Cooper drunk, without a seatbelt. New Coke. Dating Brian Giles. Bad ideas, right? Well, add the 2011 MLB All Star Game to the list of "accidents" waiting to happen. They want to play it in Phoenix.

In July.

Who is this unpromising boondoggle for, anyway?

Hosting and roasting baseball's annual ode to the solstice in North America's hottest city only serves to indelibly singe the Valley as the uncoolest hotspot in the world. What can you reasonably do in Phoenix in July? Swim for eighteen minutes, until the SPF70 washes away? You cant golf or play tennis, and people dont hike or bike or jog, outside of a few fools and survivalists. Sneak a pee behind a bush and it turns to steam right out of your dick. Sonoran rocket vapor we call it. Peed or not, visiting MLB partiers wont venture outside between their normally conscious hours of 10AM and midnight. They're here to have fun, not survive.

Movers and shakers will instead be trapped in hotel rooms, shuttled to air conditioned restaurants and the civic center adjacent to The Lovely Morgan, muttering about the hellhole Selig dragged them to - as they inevitably cross melting Jefferson St to the stadium on foot. Hopefully Mrs. Trump's heels wont get stuck in the bubbly asphalt.

Apparently it's not a sufficient weather windfall for Phoenix ballfans to reap the dual benefit of hosting fourteen spring teams as well as the Arizona Fall League - by sole virtue of our contrary climatological calendar. Now, our fair and unseasonably hot denizens "deserve" the unique opportunity to showcase our most inhospitable weather imaginable.

Rockland, Maine hosts the globe's premier lobster festival each July, but you dont hear Mainiacs demanding to fete the world in February at some sub zero Chilly Willy Frozen Claw Fest. It's preposterous. Inhuman. These events are supposed to be fun. They're supposed to be goddam pleasant.



Of course, All Star Weekend has precious little to do with fans - by and large they dont want the game in our midsummer Hades. The players dont want it here. Even the host city, which stands to fill some off season hotel rooms, will be challenged to avoid a searing long term hit to its carefully cultivated "Valley of the Sun" brand.

So, why schedule this real life accident waiting to happen? Because real life doesnt matter to the people who stand to benefit - the people who operate baseball. It's perception that sustains year-to-year revenue and that will be manipulated easily enough by MLB's corporate broadcast partners, contracted to make even Phoenix in July look cool. The host city will be described as hospitable, regardless of Mother Nature's longstanding objection. If it takes ESPN all weekend, they'll nail an aerial shot of a light rail tram gliding by Chase Field - and a few hardy riders actually using it that time of year.

Chris Berman will hyperventilate over a tedious, one dimensional BP contest that I can vouch is surprisingly dull in person, and the marquee exhibition itself will be strategically interrupted midgame by some award contrivance, because TV ratings dwindle once this propped up "All-Faux" game actually starts.

Baseball goes to great lengths to fabricate its own reality, whether denying rampant, criminal drug use for decades or shielding accurate financials from regulators. The CEO of this culture of deception is Bud Selig, and a favored protege happens to be Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall. Hall has been begging Uncle Al for this All Star tryout for years. Not only will ASG rights sweeten Arizona's embarrassingly slow moving season ticket packages, but a well manipulated show of this stature - against the odds of low expectations - would be the crown jewel of Hall's formidable public relations career, possibly cementing him as Selig's replacement.

The All Star Game in Phoenix exposes baseball's contempt for paying fans and the city's welfare is a secondary consideration, at best. This is mostly the patronage of an old boss passing the torch. A quid pro quo between MLB and a finally subordinate franchise that dutifully agreed to stop driving up player salaries. Do that, said Selig, and we'll eventually toss you an All Star Game, come hell or high water.



As the monsoon approaches, MLB's "guests" may be treated to both.



***************

Song of the Day -Drop It Like It's Hot (Snoop Dogg)

[originally posted 2/6 - edited 4/11 to reflect MLB's announcement]

More Than A Feeling

From time to time, you may have noticed I have a harsh word for the Diamondbacks. There were the usual dozen or so things wrong at last night's game, and we'll touch on one or two in the photo captions below, but despite the loss and lethargic offense, we actually had a good time - thanks to the most positive stadium development since the 2004 arrival of new management.



They opened the roof. Well, wait, that's not the new thing. That's just a good old standby. They said indoor temp was 76', which it wasnt, not unless their thermometer was rubbing a waffle cone. More like 81, but pleasant enough out of the sun.



Notice how much lighter the park is with an open lid. This was first pitch, and some more folks straggled in. Not a lot more. Anounced gate was 26.6. We estimated 22-24. Maybe they counted ST no-shows, or are just bullshitting again. Click on the expanded pic to really eyeball all the lower deck empties.



Here's what six dollars got me. An upper deck sightline through a lucite block, conveniently lodged to obscure home plate and first base. These are Hall's relentlessly promoted $5 seats, which actually go for $6 to $14. We paid six, lower than most. (The old owner charged a buck)



This picture doesnt convey how high we were above the Rockies' pen. I got me some first row acrophobia, so initiated a mental health "upgrade"....for medicinal purposes, you understand.



This is Darryl, the valley's most famous ballpark vendor, toting his specialty - Lemonade - Lahk GRANDma used to make. You KNOW you want it!



Ok, here's the good stuff. After a year of yakking about theoretical values that often amounted to a fruitless scavenger hunt, Derrick finally got the goddam signs up. They are visible, bold even, and absolutely everywhere - far exceeding my jaded expectations. The message around the concourse used to be "All our food's expensive. Get used to it". The new message is, "Hey look. We really want you to buy this cheap stuff. It's right here. And here. And here."

So, for the first time in a long time, we did. We bought two hot dogs, popcorn, and two comically small sodas - for $7.50. The value is a fraction of what the Padres offer in terms of size, quality and price, but I dont want to dwell on that now. I want to congratulate Derrick Hall and the Diamondbacks for starting to tangibly cater to cost-conscious fans instead of just talking about it.


I dont know how much they net off my $7.50 purchase - I cant imagine a whole lot. But that's hardly the bottom line. The important thing is these signs and feeding two people for eight bucks make me feel better. Not just about the food. About the ballpark. About my decision to come. About the Diamondbacks. About Derrick Hall. It makes me feel like they're on my side, or at least understand it more than they have the last four years.

For the first time in a long time, it makes me feel like coming to more of their games. These deeds - not talking points - encourage tangible reciprocation, and as any accountant (well, except for Tom Garfinkel) can confirm, amount to more than a feeling.

****************
Song of the Day - More Than a Feeling (Boston)

Full Of It

The Arizona Diamondbacks are unique in several respects, and one is they have a recent history of announcing sellouts where thousands of fans come dressed as green plastic chairs.

Today's opener was announced at 48, 799 and the tiny gap between that and the park's traditionally recognized capacity (49, 033) isnt the issue here. Close enough, in my book. Maybe Derrick Hall slightly reduced capacity by shuttering handicapped areas, club seats or set aside more square footage for his myriad Circles of Success. Who knows?

The issue is, from first pitch to last, there appeared to be not hundreds, but thousands and thousands of unoccupied seats in the top dozen or so rows of the stadium's top tier. The upper deck accomodates approximately 20,000 patrons, and if a quarter of that is empty, that's what, 5000 seats?

It wasnt easy to tell on television. FSN didnt pan the nosebleeds often, and when they did it was quick enough I almost didnt believe my eyes. Not after the Diamondbacks announced five days earlier that only 3000 unsold tickets remained. I dont see all that great and thought maybe the empty seats were imagined, where there were really only TV shadows. So I asked my Sedona Red-clad son, a 14 year old with perfect vision and no axe to grind against the current administration, and he thought there were more empties than me. About a third empty, he said, more like 7000 unexplained absences, just in the one deck.

It's understood people get up to eat, walk around and go to the bathroom, but it was always the same areas that appeared empty. The bottom decks werent constantly at numerical capacity either - no section ever is - but they certainly looked full to the naked eye throughout the game. There was something distinctly empty looking, both qualitatively and quantitatively, about these upper sections.

This comes on the heels of documented and unusual patterns of ticket availability online, that begged the question of artifical supply manipulation by the host club and/or MLB.

Diamondhacks welcomes alternative rational explanations for the "sellout" that save us the unpleasant task of calling these people liars. Knowledge trumps vitriol any old day. But from hollow marketing and merchandise rationales, to underlying price structure and curious ticket practices, this is a brain trust steeped in layers of deception. Their claims, in this case based on unverifiable, propietary data, simply should not be taken at face value any more.

Not when history tells us otherwise.

Not when our eyes tell us different.

Unavailable

Less than 48 hrs from real ball and Monday's Chase extravaganza's looking closer to a sellout at dbacks.com. Today they say there are no bleacher seats available, less than three days after offering four stubs together in the tenth row, about two thirds of the way down.

Wow. Those bleacher seats sure filled up fast, huh? Maybe that happens when thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of Infield Reserve seats in the same price point are mysteriously "unavailable" for 36 hours online. We detailed this curiosity three days ago.

And hey, guess what. Now that bleachers are "unavailable", you can get half a dozen seats togther in the twelfth row of the previously unavailable 18K seat, 40 row Infield Reserve! But wait, it gets better. For days now, poor saps saving up for a pair of the worst seats in the house (OF Reserve) have been offered just that -Row 40, Row 38. Yet just now, for giggles, I requested a dozen OF Reserve seats together - and got em in Row 25!

Let's review what's happening. For at least several weeks, the Diamondbacks have systematically rerouted online shoppers from requested sections that subsequently indicated what appears to be fairly widespread availability. We have documented this in the two largest upper deck pricepoints, Infield and Outfield Reserve, and are monitoring the currently "unavailable" bleacher area in anticipation of similar developments.

We can think of two explanations for this on-again, off-again status. Either this is a strategic ruse by the Diamondbacks, or secondary sellers (brokers, concierges, etc) are contractually dumping unsold seats back to the club. In either case, our initial concern this was an isolated computer anomaly no longer applies. The problem with the secondary seller argument is that the abruptly frozen sections are upper deck, hardly the currency of resort concierges, and it's typically midrow seats that suddenly 'become available' - not low row, higher markup locations normally favored by scalpers and brokers.

If this is a strategy, why would the Diamondbacks employ it? Artificially reducing seat supply (or the supply of any commodity) increases the equilibrium trigger price for a given level of demand. Surfers looking for Opener tickets typically dont opt out when the system implies uppers are gone - not when the system reroutes them to other comparably priced sections. It creates an illusion that tickets are harder to come by, and a false sense of urgency to scoop up what's available before it's too late. This tends to drive up the price people are willing to pay for a given location. ( Keep in mind, our front office has expressed interest in artifically (albeit publicly) reducing seat supply, flirting with construction of a wall circling midway around the upper deck.

The rerouted sections appear, for the most part, to be comparably priced, so this doesnt appear to be an obvious money grab. But what else do the rerouted areas have in common? For one thing, they're more visible on television. Despite being a much larger section, IF Reserve is more easily hidden from game action cameras. Bleacher and OF Reserve vacancies are often picked up by first and third base wells and shots from behind home plate. Most shots from centerfield, focused on pitcher and batter, are too tight to catch much of the upper deck in foul territory - especially if camera operators are instructed not to.

At the very least, whether this curious practice is a cynical strategy or a secondary dump, it's evident many of the Diamondbacks' most cost sensitive customers have been systematically offered and sold seats of lesser utility (to them) by ordering their tickets farther in advance. They are effectively penalized for planning and prioritizing their ticket purchases. While this may not violate any law, it would certainly seem to fall short of many fans expectations of disclosure and fairness when they go online to purchase event tickets.

If the Diamondbacks are denying available seat locations to unknowing customers, merely to create a false sense of dwindling supply, or to look better on TV, then they have breached a longstanding trust between buyer and seller, between fan and ballclub, and between ethical men. Virtual seats arent the only thing that can be made unavailable by the click of a mouse.

Fans can be "unavailable" too.

Sellout

Less then five days to pro ball and it doesnt look like our Dream Team will sellout their opener. It's hard to definitively tell, because MLB's software doesnt let one probe each section's availability - it just spits out seat numbers within a general price level, without much of an explanation.



The old software, god bless it, did let customers visually surf thru every stadium section, but I bring it up mostly because I've been monitoring Chase availability over the past couple weeks and wanted to share some curious findings.

Two weeks ago, I clicked on "Infield Reserve", which comprises 70% of the upper deck and is the biggest area, by far, in the park, and got the following response over a 36 hour span:


The number of seats you requested in Infield Reserve was not found. However, seats were found in Outfield Reserve....


MLB software not only guided me to the Outfield Reserve - it kicked me all the way up to Section 303 Row 40, which is the top row of the stadium by the foul pole. Uecker seats, basically.


Ordinarily, this would be good news, as it implies a virtual sellout for the home team, however, bleacher seats (which go for the same price as my first option) arent even a third sold - as evidenced by my online offer in the eleventh row of Section 105. I can also get a Club Seat on Opening Day. And not just any club seat.

Club seats in the front row.

Think about that. Three weeks before the Opener, front row club seats are available. You can get bleacher seats ten or twelve rows up, no problem. Yet dbacks.com wont present a pair anywhere in the vast upper Infield Reserve for purchase. Not even Row 40, with your mohawk massaging the roof.

MLB doesnt say Infield Reserve is "Sold Out". That would be fraud, I imagine. It says "tickets are not available in the quantity requested. In my case, codependent harlot that I am, that "quantity" would be an adjacent pair. Are we to believe Phoenicians scooped up among the worst ten thousand seats in favor of front row club seats for $10 more? Or for identical cost, selected upper deck nosebleeds en masse, rather than tenth row bleacher seats within naked sight of the earth's crust?

Fast forward a couple weeks. Can I procure seats in the previously off limits area? Heck, yes. Try 317 (that's directly behind home plate, for you out of towners). Yesterday Row 10, today row 14. (Upper sections have between 33 and 40 rows, so these are some of the best seats on the entire level). I can still get four bleacher seats in the tenth row, club seats in the closest section to home plate within each price point - less than five days from The Show.

Armed with this information, I heard a corker of an April Fool's joke today. CEO Derrick Hall was "interviewed" on radio and the host, KTAR's John Gambadoro, shamelessly spoonfed him this line:

I understand there are limited tickets available

That's right Johnny, and Chrysler has a limited number of cars for sale. If you act now!

Hall coyly confirmed "some" seats were available and reassured listeners they were "good seats, too!" Well, the second part's true - it appears you can sit most anywhere in this 48K seat venue on April 6th, for Hall's price. But the first part, the little symbiotic ruse on the southwest's most powerful radio station was more than an April Fool's joke.



Gambo's supposed to be some confrontational New Yorker, but his matter-of-fact willingness to setup and further the illusion the Dbacks opener is some kind of hot ticket around town is evidence of a more longstanding joke: the notion that Phoenix has an independent sports media worth a hoot.

Hall went on:

"I can predict a sellout but we're not quite there yet".

I can predict world harmony and a Diamondbacks World Series...but we're not quite there yet either. The truth is, nobody needs to "predict" a sellout here.

That's already happened.

Jumping Through Hoops

By most accounts, Saturday's Diamondback FanFest was a soaring success. Of course, most accounts in this town are supplied by MLB and its enablers. The club finally allowed non-paying fans onto the sacred green, a source of more stadium cheers than on a typical gameday. Steve Gilbert asserted attendance exceeding 10,000 inside The Lovely Morgan, bolstered by balmy weather.

To hear Gilbert tell it, the event defied odds and heralds some sort of grass roots Dback renaissance:

The attendance was especially impressive considering it was less than a week ago that the Cardinals played in the Super Bowl, and in just over a week, the NBA All-Star Game will take place across the street at U.S. Airways Arena. In other words, there is a lot of competition for sports fans in the Valley.

Let's get this straight. The Super Bowl in Tampa, that few Arizonans attended, hurt the gate at a free baseball fan fest back in Phoenix? A week later? Maybe Steve's trying to say there'd be 20-25000 fans in line for Miguel Montero's autograph, were it not for that gosh durn Super Bowl. Of course, most journalists would figure this type of cross-franchise contention might apply to events on the same day or weekend, and dismiss wallet competition entirely for a free event. Not Steve!

For diversification, Steve weighs in with the usual, ponderous suspects:

"That's what we've been talking about," [Derrick] Hall said. "There is a bond forming between our fans and players that is special and unique."

"I think this was, by far, our best Fan Fest to date," Hall said. "The reaction we received from the fans was overwhelmingly
positive."

That's more or less what he said two years ago about the rebranded unis, when sentiment ran 80/20 against in The Arizona Republic.

Speaking of jumping through hoops, just up the street, untold thousands paid $10 a head to watch hoop dancing on the lawn of Central Avenue's Heard Museum. Last week, almost half a million treked to a Scottsdale golf tournament - the world's best attended. It's hardly a chore enticing large numbers of Phoenicians outside this time of year. I could put a sign out on my cross street this Saturday and sell ramen from my driveway - and a thousand people could show. It's no big deal. Phoenix is the Shanghai of the Southwest.

I read up on Fan Fest on the local boards, and best I can tell it was full of FSN and Diamondback employees and their kids, and maybe a few homeless people wandering the neighborhood. Nothing wrong with that. Kids had a good time. But does the turnout represent a spike in genuine interest, or just a place to go, for free, on a beautiful day? Remember, the hoop dancing was $10, and enjoyed a similar all day turnout.

A final gem from Derrick Hall's copyboy:

The D-backs, who have gotten a little more than an 80 percent renewal from season-ticket holders, started selling mini season-ticket plans on Saturday. Individual game tickets go on sale on March 7.

The 80%+ renewal means that the ST base is as low as it's ever been, a clear indictment of the economy, but also, perhaps, of a cynical, regressively structured ticket pricing model that's finally run its course. More importantly, "a little over 80%" may also suggest that the 84% ST retention rate reported just last week in USA Today may actually be declining.

Huh? I thought season tickets are existing accounts, that only count as "renewed" when paid in full for 2009. So, when all the ST accounts are due payable, you count up the renewals and the opt outs and announce a resulting "retention or renewal rate". It's really more a figure than a "rate". How can it move up or down significantly within a particular season - more specifically, how can it reasonably slide a couple percentage points in less than a week, if season accounts are payable at roughly the same time?

Did Derrick disseminate artificially high retention rates on the rather gaudy presumption that last year's accounts were "renewed" by default.... until they actually went belly up? If so, the season ticket "base" could decline even further than previously reported. I'm at a loss to otherwise explain a renewal figure more volatile than the Dow Industrials.

Aces and Owners of Diamonds

As Phoenician's football blood pressure spurts into Cardiac arrest, it turns out the Dbacks may boast the biggest "card-iac" around. General partner Earl "Ken" Kendrick.

Back in 2007, in a transaction that somehow eluded Diamondhacks' phalanx of electron microphones and numerous large antennae, our own Earl of Penury surreptitiously purchased the most expensive baseball card in the world! That's right, for basically the same blow ($2.8M) he played chicken with hometown flesh and blood icon, Randy Johnson, Ken-du snagged the actual player of his dreams - a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner cardboard cutout.

Who can blame him, really? The legendary Wagner boasts superior range to any Dback infielder, a front office sore point given The Flying Dutchman's been encased in PSA plastic for much of the century. In addition, club brass has hinted at building a baseball museum for a couple years now, inside The Lovely Morgan, beyond her hazel green batter's eye. This Wagner T206, baseball's most valued shard of memorablia, celebrating its centennial no less, would instantly be the museum's centerpiece. Even I'd like to stand in the same room and gawk at the hobby's allegedly clear cut Mona Lisa.

On the other hand, such cardboard ostentation might not "play well" - much like the remnants of Kendrick's second division roster. A fabulously wealthy owner, perceived (rightly or wrongly) as a personnel penny pincher, flaunting his $2.8M baseball card before MLB's lowest income fan base, in the midst of what is looking more and more like a bona fide depression.

The Lovely Morgan

Let's start something. Effective today, I'm calling the Dbacks' home park on Jefferson something other than what the latest multimillion dollar naming rights contract expects me to call it.


We're paying customers - and taxpayers. We not only pay the club's day to day bills, but indeed, paid for most of this stadium's construction. Why wouldnt we call the park anything we please?

It seems to me we're little more than lemmings, each time we dutifully ingest the corporate naming convention of an edifice we not only frequent, but actually financed. It's not so much the corporate appellation that bothers me, as it is the relative impermance of these conventions.

The bank or telecom, or whatever, pays for the rights, and that's fair - but passionate, deep rooted connections between a city and its ballteam can be trivialized by such ephemeral, short term business accords. The Diamondbacks are barely a decade old and we're already on our second stadium name. The way financial institutions collapse, merge and reinvent themselves nowadays, a third brand could easily be right around the corner. This seems inappropriate and counterproductive for a sport billing storied intergenerational appeal.

I say enough of that! Let's get behind a name that's fun, respectful of existing contracts, and permanent - reflecting the lasting connection between fans and the team. Here's my pitch:

Chase Bank & JP Morgan merged several years ago. Since Bank One Ballpark was renamed Chase Field, various wits have suggested "The Morg" (short for JP Morgan) as a sardonic snapshot of our venue's atmospherics. Hilarious name, but probably too cynical for diehard fans.

On the tail end of an interminable online flame war touching on this very topic, it came to my attention that a young lady named Morgan, the daughter-in-law of a certifiable Dbacks fan, apparently answers to the unusual but charming appellation, "The Lovely Morgan" - at least within her extended family.

Why not associate our precious park with a virtuous young woman, like they do for ships -or cool intangibles like 'liberty' and 'nature'? A woman with the same name as the bank holding company plastering its logo on the rafters for return on investment?

I have always loved the stadium. The welcoming brick plaza. The uniquely Arizonan rotunda. Inside, the mammoth green trusses, and breathtaking aperture of the roof, where telescoping steel beams evoke a delicate Chinese paper fan. The wide lower concourse circumscribing the entire playing green, beautiful sightlines within, and magical views of desert mountains from the upper deck.

Our ballpark is a beautiful, virtuous thing, like a lady.


















The Lovely Morgan
************
Song of the Day - That's Not My Name (Ting Tings)

There You Go Again

When we got home after Saturday night's game, we parked the car, parked ourselves on the sofa and, even more predictably, Derrick Hall parked himself on the FSN postgame show. It cracks me up when he dutifully thanks nervous underlings, like Mark McClune, for "inviting" him onto this hour long Diamondbacks commercial masquerading as an analysis segment - like Derrick's a guest by virtue of anything other than the fact he runs the place. After losing four in a row with more paltry homestand attendance numbers (through Friday, anyway), Hall appeared eager to pounce into the booth at the first wisp of good news in a week - a Dbacks' victory -to inflate flagging public confidence, with his confidence game.

The Dbacks had been freefalling against the weakest overall schedule in all of baseball, and with Webb facing the NL's worst offense and some kid named Bergmann - let's face it - they really needed the win. But to listen to Derrick (and local fans have little choice in the matter), everything's wonderful or soon will be. His team (the one with the sub .500 RPI) is great and incredibly exciting. Every aspect of the Chase Field experience is "great", although customers - the people even Hall would publicly concede matter most - beg to differ. Indeed, several fans near me last night in Sec. 133 complained about various aspects of Hall's dumbed down assault on the game experience.

Derrick even abandoned laments about lagging season ticket sales to suddenly assert they're fantastic, which likely represents a manipulation of terms more than a particularly meaningful increase in sales. He hinted the current base is almost 16000 - "up from 12000 a year ago" - yet a year ago he claimed the base was 14000 - I know, because we discussed this subject in a 2007 online chat. He quoted the 14K figure all over town back then. Well, sometime this spring, after that record breaking 94% ST retention he likes to brag about, it turns out the 2007 base was more like 12000.

Well, la di da.

This is the kind of creative accounting that positions Congressional spending increases as "cuts" and gave us the quarter million "trained" Iraqi police three years ago who ended war as we know it - but Hall gets away with his shenanagans because this isnt life and death after all - it's only baseball (a $6B enterprise with fiercely private books and publicly financed stadiums). The solemn visage of Don Rumsfeld or Ted Kennedy isn't required here - just a boyish looking Team President with years of high level executive experience, grinning like an oblivious greeter at Wal-Mart.

He tried to plant the perception that the season ticket base grew by almost 4000 (30+%) since last year, which is either true or false depending on how one defines "season tickets". If you define them (as 99% of the public does) as full season packages, Hall's claim is laughably false, as evidenced by individual game crowds this year barely eking over historical franchise lows. An Astros game in April failed to draw twenty thousand; the Giants barely drew 21 last Thursday - figures incompatible with an influx of four thousand new season ticket holders.

So, this "four thousand" (or is it two thousand, I forget?), evidently includes the morass of partial packages which is just how Derrick Hall likes it. Why? Because it's confusing as hell and he can fashion unlike numbers into misleading impressions without ever defining his terms. And dont think he doesnt know it. In the same 2007 online chat, my request for a breakdown of full and partial packages was deftly and cheerfully sidestepped. It's powerful information he doesnt want to give up.

Instead, Hall prefers to implicitly (and obtusely) define "season tickets" one way, hoping to spark a buzz amongst a public that defines the term entirely differently (and more accurately). Not long ago, I purchased a ten pack for about $150. For all I know, I'm one of his new 4000 season ticket holders, which would be downright amusing were it not for the fact that I enjoy none of the discounts or privileges associated with that designation.

Saturday Night Impressions

Sat in Tracy's seats beyond third base on Saturday night, and after enduring her capricious shipping and handling charges* and intransigent return policy**, we managed to have a good time at the game. At most ballgames, my first connection is with other fans situated around me, but Tracy's seats, like Bob Eucker's, are in the front row! From there, one's primary connection is with the green panorama almost on top of you and the lifesize players gliding upon it. It's easy to forget you're part of the larger crowd. The wave goes by, for example, and you barely notice - because it's all behind you. The game and player movements capture your entire visual spectrum and complete attention.

Well, except for Mike and Vanessa, my in-house hosts. Not even the front row can save me from their commercial assault every half inning. It's an understatement to say I dislike these segments; it might even be an understatement to say I really hate them. The crass marketing scripts are really more suited to used car ads blaring on rock radio, and the shrill, cheerleaderiness of both principals is so off-putting, so out of place at a ballpark, I actually wish the segment voice overs were done by the stadium PA man - a rather sing song-y embarrassment in his own right.

How bad is it? Fans, Romans, countrymen - lend me your ears. Please. Imagine you're in your home away from home. For Paul, it's good ole Shea. For Russell, Old Bailey (old "Nat" Bailey, that is). Now, imagine a chick with a really grating voice and a fat pasty white guy, both miked, who audibly take over the ballpark every single half inning to hard sell something. In one segment, they'll yelp about how T-shirts are on sale at the Team Shop for, like, $14 or something. Hurry! While supplies last! kind of garbage. Like if I wanted a T-shirt, I couldnt just walk over to the Team Shop on my own initiative, or bodyblock nearby patrons to the ground and capture a bundled shirt from one of the pretty's garment bazookas.

Then the entire stadium gets to hear them squeal about Aquafina and Taco Bell and Gila River Casino and on and on. It's not enough, apparently, to have these ads plastered all over the stadium. Derrick Hall has decided that in addtion to that, the Dbacks' will further enable these incorporated purveyors of overpriced packaged water (plain and teeth rotting "sugar" varieties available), fatty foods and Indian gambling by literally yelling their sales pitches into the unappreciatve skulls of baseball fans at every conceivable opportunity. Unappreciative? There hasnt been a game all year I've attended where at least one person within earshot hasnt complained about this. Saturday was no different. I heard two complaints. Every conceivable opportunity? Well, there's technically eighteen half inning breaks from the middle of the first til the game's end, seventeen if you dont count the seventh inning stretch and "Take Me Out To The Ballgame". I lost count, but I think Mike and Vanessa were up at least thirteen or fourteen times.

The game was easily the fastest I've ever witnessed live, at 1:52, as well as the second fastest ever at BOB/Chase. There were thirteen hits but no pitching changes, no coaching visits to the mound on either side. I dont even remember a catcher walking out to the mound although it might've happened once. All four runs scored quickly on solo homers - there were no time consuming, nickel and dime rallies. Webb and Bergmann (8IP loss) both went the distance and neither issued a single walk. Mucho credit to notorious pitcher's ump, Angel Hernandez, behind the platter - I mean plate.

For the first time in memory, the roof was opened during the game, immediately after the third inning. I support the policy to open the roof midgame when feasible, but I did notice it took my eyes a minute or two to adjust to all the extra light as the Nats were batting in the top of the fourth. That could be a competitive bone of contention for visiting clubs going forward. It takes about four minutes to fully open and the panels were still telescoping into one another as Webb pitched in the fourth. Also, for the first time in memory, the roof opened sans the distinctive music specifically composed for the occasion back in 1998. Would you like to know why? I'll give you one guess. That's right. So we could listen to Mark and Vanessa instead.

There's no coarser example of how Derrick Hall has aggressively shifted fans' attention from the grandeur of the game's surroundings, in particular the elegant technology of this stadium's architecture, for just one more placement for cotton candy or Riviera pools or whatever it was. There were kids at that game who had never seen the roof open. It's not that the stupid ads distracted kids' attentions sufficiently to miss out on the roof. Hell, it's beautiful and one cant help but look up as periwinkle blue opens up over you, very slowly, like a blooming iris, showering upturned faces with the gentle light of early evening. But ads chattering away in the background send a terrible message, especially to kids. The message is that even though I think this roof is cool or important or beautiful, adults (those tall people in charge who I glean most of my knowledge of the world from) are not so subtly suggesting that the roof is not worthy of attention - it's just a utilitarian function to get over with, like taking a crap, while the all important ads drone on. The music was different. It called attention to the roof. Celebrated it, said "Stop what you're doing and check this out." There are more important things in the world, I imagine, but identifying and respecting beauty, and passing that sensibility on to the next generation, is up there in my book, and while it's unsurprising current Dback leadership is opposed to those values, it remains a disappointment.

I got my hand on a foul ball, but couldnt close the deal. Drew bounced a soft foul liner that bounced once or twice past third and I reached over the short wall pretty far to knock it down. I touched it twice but couldnt haul it in, so leftfielder Willie Harris came over and tossed it to the lady next to me, who in turn gave it to a young child. No one gave me a hard time in the stands over it - it wasnt like it bounced over the wall into my lap or anything, or maybe I'm too big and scary looking to get heckled - but from one who's played ball to anyone else who's played -I should've had it, and I was embarrassed and depressed about the flub. I've caught a couple balls at parks before, harder chances actually, but that was then. I havent played catch in years and my hands were like useless wooden paddles Saturday. My eyes are going. I guess I really didnt deserve to get it.

Not to go off on a huuuge tangent, but I was always good with the glove, everywhere as a kid, centerfield mostly as I got older. An aggresive ballhawk with soft hands, I caught everything I was supposed to and a few that I wasn't. That was the fun part, to be so far from home and track the ball off the bat before you could hear it, head steady on the balls of your feet, routing to dive as the audible crack gave way to delayed, far off cheers of an imminent gapper - met by a leap of faith and violent collision with earth, where time and pain stop, like an orgasm. A beat and a half of conscious silence, followed by a different roar, this time for the distant, sprawled defender with mud and ball, then some more distant chatter, silence on the long jog in, and finally, from the infield skin to the dugout, sustained applause from impressed strangers.

We all get older, but yesterday was kind of my moment - the epiphany - and, yeah, I'm kind of bummed out about it.

After the game, outgoing traffic east on Jefferson was pretty stuck. Not historically NLDS awful, just really slow because Jefferson is down to two lanes (it used to be four or five) ever since light rail construction. I voted for light rail and still hope it'll positively transform downtown, but disruption along the main routes has been more extensive and taken longer than I expected. To be honest - alot longer. My 77 year old mother lives in a Central Ave condo and has looked out her window at construction for years now. It's been hard to get in and out of the property for a while. An enthusiastic city girl at heart, she bought the condo largely because it was on the proposed line to begin with - it'd be nice if she ever gets to ride the damn thing.


* this is a joke
** so is this

Drumming Up Excitement

Entering last night's game, Giant catcher Bengie Molina was 14 for his last 20 with a homer and a few doubles, but the way Grace and Sutton went on and on about how dangerous he is illustrates a ) how far the Giants (and more generally, the NL West) have fallen, and b) how far Diamondback broadcasters are willing to go to fabricate drama to maintain ratings and advertising dollars.

Daron Sutton, in particular, is the unapologetic ringmaster for such profit driven sensationalism, as evidenced by his mawkish love affair with Doug Davis' long since eradicated cancer. The next time you hear Daron go on about how much he respects Doug Davis - and you wont have to wait long, I promise - ask yourself this. If you had recently been treated and asked friends and colleagues not to advertise your ordeal, and one of those colleagues did anyway, would that be a sign of respect? Or would it be a sign of something else, something more self interested?

Sutton prefaced his latest "tribute" by acknowledging, with that faux solemnity of his, that Davis doesnt want his cancer harped on let alone glorified, yet in his next breath, Sutton ignores the patient's concern by accomplishing both. By embellishing this already and relatively easily won cancer "fight", FOX whores like Jeannie Zelasco and Sutton profoundly disrespect Davis for their own purposes, and most sadly, trivialize countless victims of more serious cancers.

Zelasco, who clearly likes to talk about her own cancer experience, insisted before a national audience Saturday that Davis is a hero whether he likes it or not. Sutton echoed that sentiment Tuesday night. Since when does elective surgery most often described as "routine" and taking a post op pill make someone a "hero"? Evidently, when Jeannie Zelasco or Daron Sutton say it does. The most heroic thing about the matter of fact Doug Davis in all of this is that he's taken every opportunity to correct this willful misperception that he's some kind of suffering Job who tackled daunting odds here.

Doug missed less time than had he been on the 60 day DL with a broken finger. Sure, cancer is scary and a psychological blow, but he also enjoyed a host of factors in his favor. He never endured chemo or traditional radiation treatment. And now he's cancer free. That's it! Nice story.

The cancer was obviously news. Davis missed time from his very public profession. But at this juncture, isnt his expressed desire that the media spotlight be turned down considerably instead of ratcheted up every single time he takes the mound not only understandable, but journalistically sound as well?

One can only imagine if this was Curt Schilling. Instead, we have the next best thing. Daron Sutton and his heartfelt "respect".

A less irksome example of Daron fabricating drama is Wednesday's unveiling of the long awaited Redheads promo, where a couple club level sections have been set aside for potentially rowdier "participant" fans - enticed by ticket discounts and various giveaways. Redheads shares components of a proposal I sent Derrick Hall a month or so ago, but is different in enough respects that I cant really take credit for it. My idea designated cheering sections with discounts and giveaways, but had nothing to do with Mark or Daron or, as I'm sure comes as no surprise here, the color red.

Beyond the initial attendance and vibe in those sections tonight, the bigger question is whether Redheads can not only sustain itself but actually increase utility - and ultimately attendance - elsewhere in the ballpark. Implementation specifics are unknown, but I think this type of promotion has that potential in Phoenix. Fans here, much like Cyndi Lauper, just wanna have fun. On a hot summer night, without spending too much money. The impressive response to Daron's previous requests for silly signs speak to that untapped desire. If done right, this could be the promotion to finally pop the lid off the pent up attendance barrel.

Sellout

It was fun to be part of a genuine sellout again, even if a good chunk of the 48804 came to root for the Tigers and listen to the postgame warbling of Trace Adkins. Genuine sellout? Well, the Dbacks have a habit of claiming sellouts when they're really not and I have the photographs to prove it. But this really was. You could tell twenty minutes before game time, before the season ticket loyalists staggered in, because most upper deck top rows were already full of folks. Another big draw like this, and Arizona could catapult out of the NL attendance cellar (excluding virtually non competitive markets like Pittsburgh, Miami and Cincinnati.)

Why, if Derrick Hall can charm Paul and Ringo into a reunion concert, maybe the Dbacks will finally draw more at home than on the road this year - something they havent done once since the ownership change, and accomplished every single year of the Colangelo regime.

One positive development might be the Advance Ticket window on the upper concourse - sporting healthy lines for the first time since...well, it's been years.

The cheesy PA guy chirped that it was a comfy 77' inside the ballpark at first pitch. Maybe it was 77 outside Blimpie's or Cold Stone's walk in, but it wasnt 77' where I was sitting. It was still comfortable in the shade, I just hate the constant sell, the incessant stretching and mangling of objective truth to create self serving impressions. On our right and behind us sat a half dozen young men, in jeans and dress shirts who spoke Spanish all night, which struck me as lyrical given I dont know the Spanish words for "tall, pompous gringo blocking my view with his head". They vamoosed just prior to the Trace Adkins concert.

On my left was a big fat white guy in a Sedona Red jersey draped over a purple Dbacks polo. I dont think fat people should categorically stay at home, but more frequent inhaling might be nice. Just any kind of effort to ensure their blubber doesnt consume 10-20% of my allotted personal space. Geez, I'm six four and can barely move in those seats, but always make pains to stay within the lines and not block people behind me.

The game was a dragged out (3:13) American League affair, that would've pushed four hours, had there been more than a smattering of hits. By mid game, Detroit starter Galaraga had chucked more balls than strikes and Scherzer reached 100 pitches by the fifth. But the Dbacks didnt record their second hit until the seventh, feathered by Montero into left center past a diving Granderson to make the score 3-2. The winning Tigers managed only six safeties themselves.

With just three hits, CoJack's physical error and Hudson's stunning mental gaffe on the popped up bunt, it was the kind of game the Sedona Reds probably should've lost 4 or 5 to 1, yet they were only an oomph away from Chris Snyder's warning track fly to right stealing the game in the ninth. Instead, Magglio Ordonez caught the ball, extending his errorless streak to 180 games, second longest in Tiger history behind Kaline (242). That's nice, but we also saw a fly with plenty of air fall just foul in the right field corner at Magglio's feet, a ball Justin Upton routinely snags. Just sayin'.

It was a lively crowd, not playoff lively, but lots of "Let's Go Dbacks" chants. The most enthusiastic cheers of the night, by far actually, were for Van Halen..er, I mean Eric Byrnes. He pinch hit in the seventh, and after his four lasers Friday it appeared Leyland wanted nothing to do with him. Eric figured he had walked on four pitches, tossing his bat after the fourth, and to the delight of the throng froze into a theatrical double take after the fifth and final pitch, before finally proceeding to first. The next time some narrowly focused sabermetric wannabe insists Byrnes isnt worth $10M, remember that stadium filled with laughter and those electric cheers and understand that Jeff Moorad (who was partly responsible for the bitter quality of Gonzo's departure) is in charge of a real business serving real customers, not some obsessed geek's online fantasy team.

In the ninth, Byrnes roped yet another liner to left that almost salvaged the game. He's very locked at the moment, like Gonzo in much of 2001- and it's a shame Bob Melvn didnt start him. It's totally hindsight, but I suspect Arizona likely would've won if the had.

Picked up a couple Chris Short Young bobbleheads, which in my mind look more like Will Smith or Morimoto. What do you think?





We sat through the beginning of the Trace Adkins concert, mostly to beat some traffic. Well after the stage was setup at first base and shortly after the music began, hordes of fans on the third base side abandoned their seats and headed for the exits (or perhaps to other seats). Derrick Hall marched onto the field from his third base box towards concert personnel, waving his arms very animatedly - I couldnt see his facial expression from my tenth row upper, but he appeared visibly upset. I assume there was a speaker problem. Our speakers were fine. The only sound problem we had was when the former pipe fitter from Louisiana actually started to sing. After a pair of songs, "I Got My Game on" and "Swing (Batter Swing)", we left before he could awkwardly shoehorn a third sports related title into his playlist.

Finally worked our way over to Fatburger, where a bun and patty costs $6.50. A double is $9.75, which is basically corpspeak for $10. Fries($3.75) and a drink ($3.50-$5) are both, of course, extra. We eschewed all that to split a cup of Frozen chocolate yogurt that was debatably "large" and undebatedly $5. It was the fifth inning and they were already out of vanilla. Must be tough keeping those exotic flavors in stock.