Thursday, February 12, 2004
LE-WRESQUING CREW
John Levesque absolutely kills me with today's piece. Right up there with the ol' registering-dead-people's-names-as-voters strategy from the days of yore in Chicago, the Mariners themselves hire a 17-year postmortem man as a "special front office consultant."
In a slightly veiled, but somewhat uniquely-spun fashion, Levesque gets in some dry hacks against almost everything that is wrong in Marinerland and a lot of the things being bitched about...
-- front office and fans wanting to live in the past (you know, the one guy that'll say "I've seen them suck for 16 years and now they put this team out there every year and win 90 games, so I'm not complaining" even though, as most readers reading this site probably know, expectations have been raised in the eight seasons that have passed since 1995. Or, every time Rick Rizzs mentions the 1995 or 2001 runs. Over and over and f*%&ing over again. If the Fred Hutchinson Center really wanted to rake in, they'd put a counter on every time Rizzs mentioned those two years of Mariner past. At least then it would be constructive if $200 went into the Center with every reference.)
-- "the days of being an automatic contender are numbered"
A no-brainer. The Mariners just need way too many things to right in order to return to the playoffs. Instead of getting guys that will just do their jobs and do what they're normally capable of doing, the Mariners have made it so that too many guys will have to have career years or stand on their heads for this team to actually do anything.
-- "...as good as we think they have been recently, they've finished third in a four-team division three years out of the past six."
Nice shot, John. Really nice shot. The Mariners don't look so great after that stat, do they? Can the optimists spin that one?
-- "it's important for Mariners fans to recognize the value of...the joy of taking the family to a ballgame regardless of the outcome. And...walking up to the ticket booth on game day and being able to get good seats"
As outlandish as this article is, there's that part of me that thinks this might actually be going on. This is more rational than any attempt from the front office to justify anything that's gone on this offseason.
There's a couple other goodies in the article, but really, I have to study more for my test that's in less than 90 minutes, so I gotta get to steppin'.
[Edit ~9:45a -- added S to the title. I realized it before I left for my test. It uses Levesque's name a little better.]
[Edit ~9:50a -- added the "constructive" note for what the Hutch center should do to up their funding.]
In a slightly veiled, but somewhat uniquely-spun fashion, Levesque gets in some dry hacks against almost everything that is wrong in Marinerland and a lot of the things being bitched about...
-- front office and fans wanting to live in the past (you know, the one guy that'll say "I've seen them suck for 16 years and now they put this team out there every year and win 90 games, so I'm not complaining" even though, as most readers reading this site probably know, expectations have been raised in the eight seasons that have passed since 1995. Or, every time Rick Rizzs mentions the 1995 or 2001 runs. Over and over and f*%&ing over again. If the Fred Hutchinson Center really wanted to rake in, they'd put a counter on every time Rizzs mentioned those two years of Mariner past. At least then it would be constructive if $200 went into the Center with every reference.)
-- "the days of being an automatic contender are numbered"
A no-brainer. The Mariners just need way too many things to right in order to return to the playoffs. Instead of getting guys that will just do their jobs and do what they're normally capable of doing, the Mariners have made it so that too many guys will have to have career years or stand on their heads for this team to actually do anything.
-- "...as good as we think they have been recently, they've finished third in a four-team division three years out of the past six."
Nice shot, John. Really nice shot. The Mariners don't look so great after that stat, do they? Can the optimists spin that one?
-- "it's important for Mariners fans to recognize the value of...the joy of taking the family to a ballgame regardless of the outcome. And...walking up to the ticket booth on game day and being able to get good seats"
As outlandish as this article is, there's that part of me that thinks this might actually be going on. This is more rational than any attempt from the front office to justify anything that's gone on this offseason.
There's a couple other goodies in the article, but really, I have to study more for my test that's in less than 90 minutes, so I gotta get to steppin'.
[Edit ~9:45a -- added S to the title. I realized it before I left for my test. It uses Levesque's name a little better.]
[Edit ~9:50a -- added the "constructive" note for what the Hutch center should do to up their funding.]
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