Today’s Mariner news

DMZ · August 12, 2005 at 12:06 pm · Filed Under Mariners 

(as I sit around hoping someone’ll tell me Snelling’s okay)

So Reese isn’t even hanging out with the team anymore and isn’t expected to put on a M’s uniform again, ever. Bucky’s rehabbing and hitting.

Corey Brock examines the M’s pitching injuries in the News-Tribune.

John Hickey on Spiezio and — well, let him tell it:

There really isn’t a delicate way to phrase it, so let’s just blurt out the question:

Why is Scott Spiezio still a Mariner?

M’s tickets no longer scorching hot by Morosi in the PI is interesting but…

However, attendance has sagged so far from its summit in the not-so-distant past that it may spoil the team’s chance to turn a profit this season.

Come onnnnnnn. Morosi, though, examines this later in the same piece, and it becomes clearer that while that early sentence states that as fact, it’s all in the budgeting.

Without counting on similar boosters this season, the club established its 2005 budget with a projected attendance of 2.5 million. Aylward said the pace is now “at least” 2.6 million, which has left the organization “encouraged at the possibility of turning a profit.”

There’s a reason to attend — encourage the team about their chances of being profitable! Even though there’s really no question about their profitability.

All of that omits the real issue of how much money the team’s really hauling in, but — and I mean no offense to Morosi — I’ve long given up hope of having a local paper really call the team out on their accounting and profit/loss claims. The best I hope for is that (as Morosi does here) they make it clear that the numbers are all created and supplied by the team.

It also doesn’t raise the question of “attendance” versus “butts in seats” which aren’t the same, but it does look at other secondary indicators of popularity, like TV ratings, and examines the possibility of a drop-off.

Comments

68 Responses to “Today’s Mariner news”

  1. msb on August 12th, 2005 3:20 pm

    is that a faux warehouse in the outfield?

  2. msb on August 12th, 2005 3:23 pm

    #51– that would be querying a faux warehouse in the A’s park, not PNC. I got to see a scintillating Brewers vs Bucs game in my only visit to Three Rivers….

  3. dw on August 12th, 2005 3:25 pm

    is that a faux warehouse in the outfield?

    Better than that: That’s a hotel-restaurant-office complex masquerading as a warehouse.

  4. Pete on August 12th, 2005 4:04 pm

    KJR reports: Snelling to DL. No details. Worse than originally thought.

  5. LB on August 12th, 2005 4:06 pm

    #47: Virus Coliseum has outstanding access via BART. The station is right at the park.

  6. AK1984 on August 12th, 2005 4:15 pm

    “They’re changing players so much,” said Stacy Henry, a 17-year-old Seattle resident who attended Wednesday’s game with two friends. “They cut all my favorites, like Boone.

    “You get attached to a player, and he’s traded the next day. Now, all these new players are here. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know if they’re good.”

    I love hate Seattle fans.

  7. AK1984 on August 12th, 2005 4:17 pm

    Re. #56:

    Ugh, I meant to blockquote the citation in that post — oh well.

    Anyways, here’s the link: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/236372_attendance12.html

  8. urban shocker on August 12th, 2005 4:23 pm

    >So Reese isn’t even hanging out with the team anymore and isn’t expected to put on a M’s uniform again, ever.

  9. urban shocker on August 12th, 2005 4:26 pm

    >So Reese isn’t even hanging out with the team anymore and isn’t expected to put on a M’s uniform again, ever.

    Sorry about that. I have nothing against Reese, but when did he ever put on a a M’s uniform, except for picture day? 😉 Seriously though, I thought he might make it thru 20 games this year. That has to be one of the more interesting signings by the M’s of the past few years.

  10. goodbye baseball on August 12th, 2005 4:28 pm

    Guess it won’t be long before the Sexson-Beltre long ball commercial featuring Pokey’s ill-advised slide gets pulled.

    Maybe the only reson we signed Pokey was that commercial. Our front office’s investments at work ladies and gentlemen.

  11. Benjamin on August 12th, 2005 4:30 pm

    #38 & 56 – Leave the poor girl alone. She is 17. When I was 17, I thought that ‘Nique was the best player in the NBA.

    #54 – Crappy news on Doyle going to the DL. But perhaps this will help the M’s realize that they need a power hitting corner OF. Doyle seemed like Reed with a little more power. It would be nice for him to catch a break, however.

  12. Evan on August 12th, 2005 4:33 pm

    At Snelling’s price, Reed with a little more power is pretty good. He’s basically the best years of Randy Winn at 1/10th the cost – great value.

  13. Nick on August 12th, 2005 4:47 pm

    Confirming # 54…according to the game notes on MLB.com Snelling to DL, Reinstate Ryan Franklin

    http://presspass.mlb.com/pp_viewer.asp?d=24935

  14. Nick on August 12th, 2005 4:48 pm

    I Left out in #63 the “official reason” given for the DL move is “sprained Left Knee”

  15. AK1984 on August 12th, 2005 4:52 pm

    Uh, regarding the injury front, what exactly is the deal with Calvin “Greg Hibbard” Reese?

  16. msb on August 12th, 2005 5:36 pm

    #61–Benjamin said: “news on Doyle going to the DL. But perhaps this will help the M’s realize that they need a power hitting corner OF. ”

    they know, just ask Bavasi since spring….

  17. Bela Txadux on August 12th, 2005 8:44 pm

    I watched many games at Alameda County Stadium, a truly ugly park—but it does have excellent access via BART, and the trains were always packed even if attendence was tiny.

    The new stadium will be a block further from the BART station, and across a traffic arterial, which isn’t great, but perhaps not awful in and of itself if they put in a pedestrian bridge; you already have to cross one now. The ballpark design they show: those left field bleachers down the line are terrible, they don’t even face home base. The lower ones don’t look bad, but on the whole it looks like the architect is forcing a pre-determined design into the site footprint, sight-lines be damned. It’s just a mock-up, and there’s time to fix it, but it needs to be fixed.

    More to the point, I think its a major mistake to put another stadium in the same location. This is near the airport and a cluster of hotels around it, yes, but other than that it’s in a light industrial deadzone surrounded by one of the toughest slums in the Bay Area (with only Richmond being worse). It is out of the question that they will in any way improve attendance at that site, no matter what they do, so from the moment they break ground the team is locking itself into perpetual losses: just a crazy decision. They would be better off building in Fremont. They would be far better off wedging the stadium into the hills near the Tunnel; it would be a great view, walking distance from much of Berkeley and the Oakland Hills, and that much closer to their fanbase in the San Ramon valley, such as it is. They would be better off building _in_ the San Ramon Valley, for that matter, although it’s regularly 100+ degrees there in the summer. Building again in the mudflat wastelands of East Oakland is just, well, like giving up. Or like digging a hole, throwing your wallet and jewel case in, and filling the ditch again.

  18. Terry Benish on August 13th, 2005 1:18 pm

    RE: Brock article on Mariner pitching injuries.

    On first blush one wonders if Pedegana or Pelekoudas would actually be considered good sources to answer the questions. I can see Howard reading his morning News Tribune article and seeing attributions to those two how the Mariners have a problem in over incidence of injuries due to bad mechanics…his first reaction would be sever relations with the one and fire the other one, regardless of the truth in their statements.