Spring Training 2014

[Guest d'Kong76]

According to SNY, Sugarp, er I mean David,
has already reported for duty ...

[Ceetar]

yes yes, but has Molly?

[ashie62]

This sounds bad but I can't imagine too any veterans are thrilled with their wives coming to FL also...

[Edgy MD]

Wives go to Florida all the time.

[Guest themetfairy]

I specifically recall that Joe McEwing and his wife Julia often had David Wright over for dinners during spring training. When Joe was traded, David lamented about where he would eat.

[Vic Sage]

at this point, anywhere he wants to... you go, Captain America, and lead by example as you always have.

[G-Fafif]

What's it mean, from a technical standpoint, to have the Mets invite a player to Spring Training? I knew but I didn't know. So I asked.

[ashie62]

G-Fafif wrote: What's it mean, from a technical standpoint, to have the Mets invite a player to Spring Training? I knew but I didn't know. So I asked.

So you get $140 a week from the team and you are own your own hotels and all....

[Frayed Knot]

Story over at MLB.com about a few hundred souls gathering near Fenway at the crack of dawn on a recent and obviously cold morning in order to watch them pack up the team's gear in a truck for its upcoming south-bound journey.

Why do I get the opinion that if this were a football story that ESPN would,
a) televise it
and
use it as proof of football's never-ending hold over the country

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: Why do I get the opinion that if this were a football story that ESPN would, a) televise it and use it as proof of football's never-ending hold over the country

Because you've watched ESPN. That's why.

Later

[TransMonk]

MFS62 wrote: Because you've watched ESPN. That's why.

This. I'm of the opinion that ESPN (and their broadcasting empire) is more about misinformation than FOX News is.

Unless they are televising an actual game, I have no use for them. They have an agenda that makes them money and they push it even if it is not relevant or the whole truth about a story.

[Frayed Knot]

I don't even think they're about misinformation so much as they've developed a skewed view simply by living in a world where they only talk to their own kind.
Just the other day ESPN's two draft specialists came out with their (three months early) draft predictions, a story which in turn led off that night's SportsCenter broadcast. But as if that in itself isn't bad enough, the kicker comes the next day when one of their talking heads cited the draft predictions as the lead story as a testament to how much football had totally taken over the landscape -- as if the whole thing wasn't an ESPN-created story in the first place.

It's like: we here in Bristol talk about football so much because it's so popular. How do we know it's so popular? Well it must be because look how much we talk about it!!

[Edgy MD]

ESPN, at the same time, has never been more successful. Despite the range of alternatives that folks have now that they didn't have when ESPN was building themselves in the eighties --- particularly the availability of regional sports networks as televised wallpaper for sports fans, and league-affiliated networks, too --- competitor after "competitor" has failed to put a dent in their hegemony*.

They may be a monster, but their our monster.

*Sorry, can't stop using this word. Please slap me if I use it again.

[Frayed Knot]

I heard just in the last few days that something like 42% of the profits of Disney Corp are via ESPN

Both FOX & NBC have launched or acquired cable sports networks in the last year so there's at least there's the hint of real competition. Not that either is anywhere close to knocking the four-letter boys off their perch anytime soon, but if one or both are able to simply achieve the cable equivalent of sharing a tiny amount of shelf space with the existing distributer who owns both Coke & Pepsi, it'll be a start.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Frayed Knot wrote: a few hundred souls gathering near Fenway at the crack of dawn on a recent and obviously cold morning in order to watch them pack up the team's gear in a truck for its upcoming south-bound journey.

One of my Sawx fb friends wishes everyone Happy Truck
Day ... people who are fanatic over a baseball team are
very weird.

[Lefty Specialist]

Now THAT's an engaged fan base. The Met truck probably slipped out in the dead of night with Jay Horwitz at the wheel.

[Ceetar]

I'm sure if the Mets invited the public to the truck loading instead of just media it'd be swarmed too.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm sure the Mets would get the same "few hundred" people that the Red Sox got. That's really not all that impressive a number. I bet just about any team, even the Oakland A's, has a few hundred rabid fans who live close enough to the stadium to be motivated to come commemorate this little milestone.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The first day of Spring Training after a team wins the World Series tends to be a bit more of an event than it is in other years... y'know, if I remember correctly.