Red carpet? For me?

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"Red carpet? For me? "

sweet suite seat

wooooooooo pig!

Dear MLB...

Dear Major League Baseball,

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My team, the KC Royals, haven't been any good since the 80's. Hold on now, I don't blame you, the best decisions haven't really been made in this town to create a small market powerhouse like the Twins often are, but... unless you're going to figure out how to give us some better parity like they've discovered in the NFL (for some reason my Chiefs seem to be exempt from such luxury, but that's another post), then we've prepared a plan of action that will bring more life to teams that are on the verge of being mathematically eliminated from post-season play.

1. As soon as a team is mathematically eliminated, tickets to the remaining games are either free or $5 a pop for any available seat in the stadium. First come, first-served. Get fans in the gate, let them spend their dough on concessions and souvenirs, build loyalty.

2. Reimburse season ticket holders with concession vouchers or a discount on next season's games based on the number of "free" games that occurred. Remember, it costs more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain one. If you have a losing season (or 20), think "retention."

3. Require all of your players to sign autographs before every "free" game. Get fans to the park early, reap more from concessions. Duh. But, it also creates a personal connection between the fan and the player, an emotional connection that draws them to make the logical conclusion to come back to the park to see their new friend.

Now, when a team is on the verge of being mathematically eliminated, I realize that the home towns might actually BOO if they stave off elimination. In order to combat that good-natured ribbing...

4. Create sponsor-based incentives when the team avoids being eliminated. For instance, let's say my Royals are 18 games out of the Wild Card and 20 games out of first place in their division, with a loss, they'd be eliminated making, say, the last home games of the 17 left in the season "free." Should they WIN, then get McDonald's to give a free sundae with a ticket stub from that game to people on their way home. Or, if they WIN, then give out grab bags of all the left-over free souvenir crap that didn't get handed out during the season. This gets people to the park to see what will happen before the team is actually eliminated. It's a win-win situation for the community, either you get free crap or you can come back to the next home game for free.

FREEMIUM business model, dudes. For those that don't know, that means you give away something for free and then promote paid upgrades (like get in the park for free and then expect people to pay for concessions).

It's a HOME RUN.

Sincerely,
B & Pops

Is it about playing or winning?

I spent some much-needed time with family this past weekend; kid time is always good time... well, once you figure out how to get them to stop fighting over you.

My nephew is playing baseball this summer and his team has been doing very well. I'd planned to see him play on Friday night, but the other team didn't have enough players and had to forfeit. It dawned on me to ask, "Would you rather play and potentially lose or not play and win by forfeit?"

"Win by forfeit," he said.

"But you don't get to play," I clarified.

"But we win, right?" he replied.

He was right, they do win and I was right, they don't get to play. I remember when my Grandpa used to tell me about packing a sack lunch in the morning and walking to the baseball field. If two guys were there, then they'd play hot box. With three guys they could play Over the Line and, with more guys, they'd eventually be able to field full teams and play ball until they had to scamper home before dark.

PLAY ball, not WIN ball.

Why has our culture, maybe even the world, placed so much emphasis on the competition and not the activity? My phone is better than yours. My musical tastes are so much more interesting than yours. My life is better than yours. My car is cooler than yours. All of this points to some objective panel out there that determines what really matters in the world, when we all know that no such panel exists. Comparing phones or musical interests has nothing to do with some objective evaluation, your phone works for you and my phone works for me.

End of story.

In competition there are always winners and losers. If we make everything in life about a competition, then we'll always have winners and losers. Someone will win in a relationship and someone will lose. Someone will be a loser. Do you really want to spend all of your time in a relationship trying to beat your partner? No, I don't either. We have to accept that we will have differences between us and it doesn't make one trait better than the other.

I want to feel lucky that I've found love, not that I've won it be knocking over some milk bottles at a carnival. I want to be in a relationship where we work out problems together, not compete to see who can figure out the answer first. Or worse, play the "he said, she said" game everyday because we aren't able to communicate in the first place and someone needs to win.

I don't want to live in a world where I feel lucky that I won by forfeit; I want to feel lucky that had the opportunity to play.

What about you?

thurs afternoon ballgame! woot!

Padres, Angels, Dodgers, Giants, A's, Mariners, Dbacks (no game), Rockies, Rangers, Royals, Cards (old), Brewers (old), Cubs, Twins, Nationals... White Sox. Check. I've now visited 14 of the current MLB parks. Looking to tick off the new Yankees and Mets stadiums later this summer.

The New "K"

Attended my first game at The New "K" last night. For those that aren't in the KC area or don't follow the new stadium trend. K stands for Kauffman, more specifically Ewing Kauffman, who was the long-time owner of the Royals back in the day when they were good.

A few years ago, Kansas City voted to renovate our existing stadiums instead of build new ones. Arrowhead and Kauffman were designed well from the get-go. In fact, the Royals stadium was one of the first where the seats were all angled toward the action. And Arrowhead, as you may know, has been one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL from day one. Their needs were more on the exterior than the interior: bathrooms, concourses and concessions.

So, let's evaluate it for those particular upgrades...

BATHROOMS: This is a tough one for me to evaluate because I was on the club level. However, there were bathroom attendants standing outside of the mens' and womens' areas that seemed to clean the rooms at least once during the game. My biggest concern was that they've screwed up the design by pulling out all of the troughs and inserting individual urinals. Face it dudes, when you run to the john between innings after 3 or 4 beers, you don't mind going elbow-to-elbow to avoid standing in a long line. They've screwed this up at many stadiums around the country and the "K" seems to be the latest. BATHROOM GRADE: C.

CONCOURSE: The concourses around the stadium used to be really narrow; it was like trying to make headway on the floor of a U2 concert or like trying to swim upstream in both directions. They've done a fantastic job of opening up the width of the concourses so that it's easier to get around and the lines at the concessions no longer impact movement. PLUS, you can now walk all the way around the stadium, which was never the case until this year. CONCOURSE GRADE: A.

CONCESSIONS: Big fat effing FAIL. That's all there is to it. 1). You can't even get popcorn, nachos or a pretzel on the Club Level. You have to walk up or down to another level. We showed up super early for the giveaway, so I had a couple of courses. 2). Every single effing thing I had was lukewarm and soggy. BLECHT. Fries, hot dog, pretzel and onion rings... my aunt said her cheese steak was cold, too. CONCESSIONS: F-.

I'll be back out at the park on Tuesday night and will spend some time in the outfield areas. I've seen about nineteen of the stadiums around the league and most of them have included these SRO area in the outfield that are pretty entertaining.

Aside from sh1tty concessions, I dig my new "K!"

Cubs Magic # = 4

Say no more... well, delay your hockey beard and keep your goat on a leash.