Some things transcend sports. Like the ability to pay to be able to see sports.
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Posts Tagged ‘Unemployment’
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Among the many things that I know my grandkids will never know about…and I’m not even sure my kids will: answering machines. Yep, those things are going the way of the public pay phones, Border’s bookstores, leaded gas, the Montreal Expos, remembering only the last seven digits of someone’s phone number, and the Postal Service.
Remember the days when, as kids, we’d come home anxious to see if some person-or-other called us while we were out?
Nowadays, when we get a call on our cel phone, the reaction on our faces is something along the lines of:
Oh god, they left a message. Oh well, I don’t have to listen to it now. Maybe later, when I know I’ll forget. I’ll call back eventually, and ask them what they said. Heck, I wish I could do this in regular conversations with them. Just ignore them for hours before I respond, and then they’ll have so lost track of what they were saying that they’ll stop boring me.
Of course, the need for answering machines and voicemail are now also going away. More than a few people I know will get my voicemail, hang up, and then painfully text me a shortened text message with abbreviations and egregious grammatical crimes that takes them three times as long to type as saying it out loud into my voicemail.
I’m just waiting until the day that one of them uses Siri to dictate the text message to their phone, rather than just dictate it into the voicemail box they just hung up on. Just so the Irony circle can be complete.
Any season ticket holder can tell you how scary it is when they start to wonder if they can afford their season tickets for next year. It doesn’t matter that they could skip a year and pick them up the following season. They might miss that unexpected playoff run….but more importantly, they lose their seat.
I’ve been a season ticket holder with my father since 2000, and our seats are OUR seats, and not just because we’re charter seat members. They are home. Sure, I enjoy sitting all over the park at times (including one glorious day as a credentialed media member in the press box, and a weekend as the pitch-count scoreboard operator), but the important moments have all happened in our seats. Records and championships, with both friends and family.
I found I’m less attached to my car than I am to my Giants seats.
There are ways to join the 1%. This is definitely not one of them.
I have often endeavored to make every home game in a season. I’m not ashamed to admit that real life has never allowed that to happen with me. I don’t think there’s anyone in the 99% who could attend every game even if they can afford tickets to get to every game.
I admit it, when I was looking for a job during college, one of the main requirements for me was the ability to wear my ballcap. It was not that hard to find, back then.
These days, though, it’s surprising how many places you can’t wear them anymore. Not because places don’t like them…but because they don’t want to be perceived as endorsing whatever logo is on said hat. Or because they don’t want to be sued by whatever logo that is on said hat.
What a world we live in.
In happier news, The Lunatic Fringe has a little something coming that should make a lot of you happy. Keep your eyes open later this week for it!
Sometimes, you need a workout partner.
For those who wonder why there’s no response to the Angel Pagan trade…well, for two reasons.
A.) They traded Andres Torres for a younger version of himself, and threw in Ramon Ramirez…which is more about saving money. Steve Edlefsen is the guy who will replace Ramirez. In terms of the money saved, there’s something else coming….probably involving Keppinger, from what I’m hearing.
B.) This strip was already done.
We might follow up on this strip on Friday, and then respond about the entirety of the Winter Meetings on Monday.
Another day, another job refusal.
There are some things that one just should not have to suffer for a job. Wearing the color of your rivals, every day?
…
In the meantime, the San Francisco Giants released a promo picture of the Brian Wilson garden gnome, and it looks…
Sunglasses? Really?
And what is with that tan? That coloring is about as fake as the beard. Heck, it kind of almost looks like Sergio Romo if he went on the minor-league Pablo Sandoval diet.
Meh. I suppose it could be worse. It is a free giveaway. But it just looks so…cheap. Which Brian Wilson will not be in the near future. And, frankly, I liked our version of the Brian Wilson gnome so much better.
And…we wrap up Clark’s job search. If you’re new to the Lunatic Fringe, you can see the history of this by looking up the ‘Unemployment’ Tag. And, if you didn’t know, you can see the history of any of our tags by using the list to the right.
It’s almost time for spring training, so it’s time to wrap up the offseason.
It doesn’t surprise me too much that Manny Ramirez is coming back. He’s never been afraid of embarrassing himself, knowingly or otherwise. It also doesn’t surprise me that the Oakland A’s would sign him. For a while now, Oakland has subscribed to the theory of making splashes by signing past-their-prime vets. (Hey Billy! Sabean says thinks for taking that Hideki Matsui decision off his hands!)
What has been surprising is the number of sportswriters who are absolutely slobbering themselves saying what a great move this is.
Okay, it’s cheap. I get that. Everyone gets that. ’No risk’ is the oft-repeated phrase I’ve seen.
But these are guys who look at on-the-field and in-the-bankroll reasons. When it comes to Man-Ram, there’s a hell of a lot more to it than that. There’s the distraction, even in spring training, that he causes. There’s the bad habits he sets for younger players…like, oh, I don’t know, some kid from the Caribbean who’s never played in American ball before. If I’m Billy Beane, I keep Ramirez away from Cespedes like I’d keep Pat Burrell away from any female who I’m related to, have had a crush on, or even remotely have respect for. And I like Pat Burrell.
Also, for a team that tries to market itself as an alternative to everything Giants, bringing in the most flamboyant banned-substance user of our time isn’t going to do much to go against the stereotype* of the Giants.
But even then, if he makes the team (and who are we kidding, short of falling on his face, he’ll make the team because who else will in Oakland?), there’s the on-field performance. He’s 40-years old. He’s been away from the game for a long time, and he’ll be away from it for longer. And that’s just the offense. I hope the A’s have a pitching coach furiously teaching everyone to throw a sinker in case Manny starts demanding to play the field.
There is nothing good that will come of this for the A’s. I’d say the same thing about Manny, but frankly, he can go implode and go to whichever former-planet that Dennis Rodman is hanging out on.
Notably, the only sportswriter who isn’t in favor of this? The one writer who actually cares about the image of the A’s (if only because he so desperately wants them to be the ‘San Jose A’s'), Mark Purdy.
Oh, and by the way, if you’re the type of person who would draft Manny Ramirez to your fantasy team….you are heartily invited to come join our fantasy league on Yahoo! It’s called ‘Sabermetrics 4 the Casual Fan’, now with no password necessary!