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Baseball Cheerleaders Pt 2

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Back in November, I wrote about cheerleaders in baseball. As a red blooded normal American male, I find them nice to look at, but as a baseball fan, meh. Like crying, they don’t really belong in baseball, do they?

When I last wrote about this, it seems that when there are cheerleaders, it’s in Latin ball mostly. Turns out that’s not an exclusive thing south of the United States. I saw an article today talking about the cheerleaders for the Florida Marlins, The Mermaids. Heh. Given the community in the Miami area, it makes sense I suppose, but I can’t say I recall seeing them on TV. Not that I see a lot of Marlins home games, but you’d think they’d turn up somewhere.

What do you think of the concept of cheerleaders in baseball? A lot is written at places who write a lot better than I about what “baseball has become”. The game itself sometimes seems like a sideshow to all the other “stuff” that is going on in and around the park. A lot of teams have faux cheerleaders already – ushers that dance, groundscrew that dance, and the Rangers version of that, the “somethingorother six shooters” – girls that play games with the crowd, shoot t-shirts into the stands etc. They’re “fakey” cheerleaders.

When I was in Florida in March 2007 for spring training, the Phillies had Hooters girls (in full regalia) as ball girls. Ball girls are a bit different than an actual cheerleader, though. Makes you wonder at what point some major team will take the leap from all these “almost” cheerleaders to actual cheerleaders. I mean besides the Marlins.

Or heck, with JerryLand being built next door to our little ol’ ballpark, I wonder if we’ll be seeing the Cowboys cheerleaders at games now. I mean if you go to a Rangers game, which of these two pictures would you rather see live in person? It’s a harder question than you think. :)

It could be worse, though. It could still be “Rootin’ Tootin’ Ranger”. :)

Armando Galarraga to go to the Tigers

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According to this story on Monday evening, Armando Galarraga, who was the last part of the Soriano trade we still had a piece of, was being traded to the Detroit Tigers.
According to the story, we would receive outfield prospect Michael Hernandez. I don’t know much about this kid, that’s more Jamey’s bag, but given this was towards the back end of the designated for assignment period, it’s probably not a prospect that would get most Rangers fans jumping up and down.
I’m sure Jamey will have more on this one shortly.

Johnny Oates

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Was looking through some pictures I’ve collected, and ran across this one of Johnny Oates. It always makes me laugh. Looks like an overly enthusiastic call to the bullpen. :)

Nolan Ryan

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Lots of Rangers sites/blogs and newspapers have written about the possible return of Nolan Ryan to the Texas Rangers as president. It’s an office that has had much ridicule from fans in the know since Tom Schieffer departed as president of the Texas Rangers not long after Tom Hicks bought the team.
Since then it’s been a bunch of guys who didn’t seem to care much about baseball or the fans, they were mostly hockey guys thrust into the role (Jim Lites, anyone?) who were a victim of Tom Hicks’ attempt at synergy some years ago. He eventually (sorta) figured out that you can’t run a baseball team like a hockey team. The other “joke” I used to laugh at was the one president (forget his name at the moment) who would have a video clip on the (not so Jumbo) Jumbotron at the Ballpark talking about how he wanted the fans to contact him. Even went so far as to give his email address, and said that every email sent to him would get answered. Oh yeah, RIGHT! Way to lie to your customer base every single night. That did not help the perception of monolithic business in the front office.
So anyway, at the end of this past season, the team moved Jeff Cogen back over to the Stars President’s role (snicker – that further proves the hockey analogy), and the post has been left open. Any Rangers fan reading this site should already know that. Been a lot of talk about bring Nolan Ryan back in the role of President. It does raise an interesting role, the office of President has traditionally been one that was involved in biz only. The “baseball” side of things was kept separate. If Ryan comes back, I don’t think he’ll be some sort of dictator president, but it will be interesting to see how well he works with Jon Daniels. Of course, Ryan has owned two minor league baseball teams for awhile now, and that brings me to something I haven’t seen discussed much.
Ryan is the owner of the AAA Round Rock Express, and the AA Corpus Christi Hooks, both teams in the upper two levels of the Houston Astros minor league system. What I’ve always wondered was if this would be a conflict of interest. Could Ryan exist as being the president of one club, and an owner of two minor league franchises for another? I always figured if he took the Rangers President post, he’d have to divest himself of his Astros minor league holdings, or at least put ’em in trust for his kids, or something like that.
So I decided to pose the question to Maury Brown of the very informative site “The Biz of Baseball“. I figure he’d know, since he seems to know more about oddball baseball minutiae than almost anyone else I know. Here’s some relevant bits from an email exchange we had:

Joe: The Nolan Ryan story has been playing locally since late last week. It does raise a question. If he became President of the Rangers, wouldn’t he have to divest himself of his ownings of the two Astros minor league teams? I can’t see MLB allowing a team president to own minor league teams for another franchise.
Maury: Try this… The Red Sox (Fenway Sports Group) recently purchased the Salem Avalanche of the Carolina League. There’s more on that in this link. The Avalanche are an Astros minor league affiliate. Based upon that, it appears that Ryan would not have to divest himself of the Express or Corpus Christi Hooks.
Joe: So that’s a no then. :) I would think they would perceive that as conflict of interest.
Maury: One might say that, but it’s at the minor league level. MLB rules forbid owners from owning shares of more than one MLB team. Yet, at one point (a short period, mind you), John Henry owned parts of the Marlins, Yankees, and the Red Sox at the same time.

So it would seem that he wouldn’t have to, although I would have to imagine we’ll hear “conflict of interest” if he is hired as the Rangers President. With Sundberg being in the upper management team, and with a possible return of Nolan Ryan, it would help restore Hicks’ image a bit with the fans, I think. I always kind of felt those images of Hicks celebrating championships in 1998 & 1999 were kind of “riding the coattails of the previous regime” (much in the same way that Barry Switzer rode Jimmy Johnson’s coattails). I think a hiring of Ryan would be a good move, both from a baseball standpoint, and most CERTAINLY from a PR standpoint.
Still would like to see how the conflict issue I raise here would be officially dealt with.
Makes you wonder if “Nolan Ryan’s All Natural Tender Aged Beef” would be a Texas Rangers sponsor, too. Heh. :)
For no good reason, here’s that clip of Nolan Ryan & Robin Ventura. Thanks to Tim McMahon for the timing of his post referencing the clip right before I posted this. :)

What do you listen to?

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Do you spend a bunch of time listening to mp3’s on your computer, or on your iPod or something like that?
If you do, you might want to check out a service called “LastFM”. It’s a social network for music fans. You install a plugin on your machine, and it keeps track of what you’ve listened to lately, and gives you reports based on your listening trends, what your friends are listening to, etc, etc, etc. I use iTunes as my primary mp3 player, but there’s plugins for Winamp and Windows Media player, too. It’s quite cool – I’ve been doing this for about three years now, and have quite a playlist history. Check out my profile page here.
Anyway, I’ve started up a group for visitors to this site. As I JUST started it, there’s not much there, so I’m hoping to get some of you to join the group, as one needs 10 members before it will generate any playlists. I think it would be cool to see what some of the readers of this site listen to.
There’s more info about LastFM on the Wikipedia page for it, and on their own site, too.

Darnit. Seattle getting Bedard?

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That’s one thing I could always count on. Seattle not having great pitching to make them a real threat. Looks like that’s not happening – saw this story about the Orioles trading Eric Bedard to the Mariners.
Darnit.
The thing that bugs me the most is not that we didn’t get him, or even that he’s in a division rival, is the fresh round of emails we’ll see in the various newsletters published by the DMN and mlb.com about the Rangers. How many are we going to see that say “Why weren’t we in on that?” Sigh.

Alex Rodriguez

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Finally read a breakdown of some of the contract numbers for Alex Rodriguez’ new Yankees contract. Of most immediate importance to Rangers fans is how much we’re still paying the Yankees. I know a lot was made over us saving a ton of money with Alex opting out. He did do that, but we’re not totally off the hook.

There was deferred money from the original contract still due. Those payments appear to have been changed, and we are apparently still paying $3 million a year in 08, 09, & 10. The original deferred numbers show a lot more than that $9 million owed from years 2001-2007. The three opted out years from 08-10 of the original contract would tally up to the $9 million. There’s deferred money from the actual played contract years of 2001-2003 while in Texas. Got traded to New York, they renegotiated the contract, and there was a change in deferred money from 2004-2007, but we still were on the hook for deferred money from those years (NY had some, too). This money was originally scheduled to be paid starting in 2016, and running through 2022. I cannot imagine all that money (which according to my notes was $26 million) was replaced by the $9 mil I saw in the new contract. I can’t imagine we still have to pay the $9 million in deferred money (which was slated for years 2023-2025) anyway (now in 08-10, with interest no less). Can any of the sports writers in the area make sense of that? MY HEAD HURTS!

A little more easier to understand is his salary. $27m in 08, $32m in 09 & 10, $31m in 11, $29m in 12, $28m in 13, $25m in 14, $21m in 15, $20m in 16 & 17. Stupid numbers, but they seem pretty straightforward. Given the amount of total dollars involved, I can’t imagine some of THAT isn’t deferred too, but I don’t see any notes on that.

There’s a $10 million signing bonus. $2 million of that was paid at signing I believe (Dec 13, 07). The rest is broken down in $1 million increments due every January 15th from years 2009 through 2013. There’s a final $3 million payment in on Jan 15, 2014.

There’s a $30 million marketing bonus tied to home run milestones. There’s a $6 million bonus for each of the following career home run records:

  • 660 (Willie Mays)
  • 714 (Babe Ruth)
  • 755 (Hank Aaron)
  • 762 (Barry Bonds)
  • 763 (Barry Bonds)

Yeah, that’s right – he gets $12 million just for HR 762 & 763. Technically those last two are “tie current major league record, and break current major league record”. That’s Barry Bonds of course. It’s probably going to be 762 & 763 – I can’t imagine Bonds actually playing anywhere in 2008. He’s probably done.

Seriously, if there’s anyone with more detailed knowledge than me about the deferred money situation, I’d love to hear from you. Here’s my Arod page, where I have all the notes I’ve tried to keep since late in 2000 when we signed Arod originally. Thanks.

Doug Glanville on steroids

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I don’t write much about steroids in baseball, because to be honest, I’m sick and tired of hearing about it. Problem? Yeah. Do I want it gone? Yeah. Do I want to hear about it anymore? HELL NO!

Still, from time to time, one has to pay attention to it, and I ran across a great article by former Ranger Doug Glanville about steroids. Doug has a reputation of being one of the brightest players in baseball (well, retired now, but you get my point). Doug’s article from the New York Times this past Wednesday talks about his feelings on steroids, and why players do such a thing. It’s a great read, here’s a few quotes from it..

In 1998, I was the new kid in Philadelphia, battling Lenny Dysktra for the center field job. Five years later, I was mentoring another new kid, Marlon Byrd, so he could replace me. Faced with that rate of career atrophy, players are capable of rash, self-serving and often irresponsible decisions. Enter steroids.

There is a tipping point in a player’s career where he goes from chasing the dream to running from a nightmare. At that point, ambition is replaced with anxiety, passion is replaced with survival. It is a downhill run and it spares no one.
We’re scared of failure, aging, vulnerability, leaving too soon, being passed up – and in the quest to conquer these fears, we are inspired by those who do whatever it takes to rise above and beat these odds. We call it “drive” or “ambition”, but when doing “whatever it takes” leads us down the wrong road, it can erode our humanity. The game ends up playing us.

It’s an interesting thought, and could explain why some players never seem to give up the ghost. Growing up in Philadelphia when I did, the best pitcher we had for the longest time was Steve Carlton. “Lefty” as they called him came to Philly in 1972, and stayed a Phillie until 1986. At that point it was obvious he wasn’t what he had been before, but he was a prime example to me of not knowing when to stop. Glanville’s article talks about that a bit. After leaving Philly in mid season 86, Carlton was a Giant, a White Sox, an Indian, and a Twin, going into the 1988 season when he appeared in four games with the Twins (1 start, 3 relief appearances). Heard stories he tried Japanese ball after that. Anyway, some players don’t know when to stop, and that coupled with what Glanville says about this issue makes sense.

Give Doug’s article a read. Thanks to the Phillies blog “Balls, Sticks, & Stuff” for the link.