Mychael Urban On Board

It is pleasing to hear that at least one local sports personality views coincide with Carpe HUNC. Today Mychael Urban says on 95.7 The Game that sports owners are billionaires and their purpose in sports is to finance championships (see Carpe HUNC of July 26, 2011) and that As' owner Lew “Boob” Wolff is not fulfilling this function. Too many in the media say that these teams must be run as a business, but they ignore the reality that ownership of a sports franchise, race horses, race cars, racing yachts, etc. are mostly for the massage of wealthy egos. The media must stop coddling these guys and hold their feet to the fire for lack of aggressiveness in putting a winning team on the field.
Giant's fans beware! With Tim Lincecum signing a two year deal and with no appreciable upgrade to the offense it looks like ownership is satisfied with one championship ring and may be willing to go the way of the As. If the Giants stay barely competitive, the turnstiles will keep turning for a couple of years and the owners will not have to invest in a top hitter. They may trade Lincecum next year near the deadline, dump the rest of his salary and continue to collect more money until the team finally declines. Bay area fans deserve better.

Athletics & Giants: A Cold Case

I was watching a late night re run of Cold Case. The victim was a disc jockey in 1958 who believed in rock and roll. He refused to accept payola, but pressure was put upon him to take bribes to play certain songs on the air. In one scene in which the record company representative was exerting his influence, the DJ told the guy that people like him take something that is true and good and turn it into tinsel (N.B. The ex-wife actually did it). In recent posts I have complained about marketing types for the Athletics and Giants who have taken something that is true and good (I know there are scandals in baseball) and ruined it. My specific complaint was either mindless or jinxing noise out of the stadium loudspeakers. Nice to see some art form comment on this also.

San Franciso Giants Jinx Themselves

In today's San Francisco Chronicle, Henry Schulman described the scene at last night's San Francisco Giants game versus the San Diego Padres. He said that before the game a Comcast promotion was broadcast in the stadium which loudly proclaimed, “'Will this be the night the Giants pop the Champagne corks?'” This was opposed to all baseball etiquette and certainly jinxed the team last night. I assume that whoever was in charge of the intra stadium broadcast was some sort of marketing type who tried to drum up phony enthusiasm. Over one hundred years of baseball tradition dictated against this. It sent a message to the fans and maybe even the players that the Giants were entitled to the Western Division Pennant. The Giants were facing a team with which they have had trouble all season. Instilled over confidence was a poor choice. I complained about the noise level at an Oakland Athletics game recently. This was just mindless, irritating blare. In this case, there was also really terrible content. Whoever devised that announcement and the Giants official that approved it should be hanged from the highest yardarm.