MLB 2018

[Grampa]

More coverage coming from the reporters about starting rotations and moves.

It's getting closer.

Here is a story to start: The ownership of the Dodgers (Guggenheim) has raised to cheapest nose-bleed seat from $505 to $829 to $2,649.

The Dodgers were captivating this year and the made it to the WS. They didn't win it.

The ownership knows (thinks?) that if they lose these long-time fans in the nose-bleeds that someone will buy the tickets.

But what if the Dodgers start losing?





Column

Dodgers test fans' loyalty with steep increases for season tickets even in the cheap seats


Bill Snoberger and Mary Jones have plenty of Dodgers memorabilia at their home, but each season it becomes a more difficult choice to renew their season tickets. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)



Bill PlaschkeContact Reporter


The clock struck 11:25 p.m. Time was growing short. A lifetime of Dodger love was being tested.

Bill Snoberger and fiancee Mary Jones were trying to figure out whether a 45% price increase over two years for two season tickets in the outer reaches of Dodger Stadium was worth it.

They sit in the top deck. It’s the cheapest section in the building. It’s steep and uncovered and so, so far away. Yet this winter the Dodgers reached all the way up there and slugged them in the gut, the total cost of the tickets is now $2,649, or $820 more than two seasons ago, $505 more than last year.

This sort of increase usually hits the corporate types. Snoberger and Jones never thought this would be happening to people in the cheap seats.

On that late-December evening they had until midnight to renew the tickets under the five-payment plan, which is the only way they could afford them. But for the first time in the dozen years they’ve held the tickets, they couldn’t decide whether it was worth it.
“I was like, ‘We can’t do it … we have to do it … we can’t do it,’’’ said Snoberger, 60, a sales manager for a company that builds bowling centers.

The clock struck 11:30. The website was up. Their fingers were poised. The debate raged.
The top deck is their home. The folks who sit around them are like family. They attended more than 70 regular-season games last year. They stay until the end of each game. Just strain your neck and look up there in the ninth inning. They’re there. They’re always there.

Yet this is their biggest expense every year, and it just keeps getting more expensive. Like most in their section, they’re not the kind of folks who can keep shelling it out. Already they save money by parking outside the stadium and bringing in their own Subway sandwiches. How many more costs can they cut to watch the games before they have to cut out the actual games?

“This is the bulk of what we spend our money on, and it just keeps going up,’’ said Snoberger. “The Dodgers keep doing this to the people who can least afford it, and at some point .… ”
The clock struck 11:35. It was getting too close for comfort. Jones finally told Snoberger it was now or never.

“Do you want to do it?” she said. “Do you really want to do it?’’
::

It’s one of new truths of being a fan of a richly paid, championship-contending team playing in a historic stadium.

Just because you sit in the nosebleed seats doesn’t mean the Dodgers can’t bleed you some more, and they will, and short of walking away, there’s nothing you can do but stuff some cotton in it.

“Every year we think, what are we going to do?’’ asked Snoberger. “If we don’t re-up, there’s just going to be somebody else taking our place and sitting in our seats. The Dodgers know they can raise these prices and somebody will pay them.’’

Snoberger knows what some of you are thinking. He doesn’t have to attend 70 games to be a Dodger fan. He can always watch from home on television.

Guggenheim has done a lot of great things. ... But when it comes to ticket prices and television, they really seem to have forgotten their fans.— Mary Jones



Mary Jones and Bill Snoberger have a helpful reminder about which way to travel to Dodger Stadium. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)



Um, no, he can’t. He has DirecTV. Like more than half of Los Angeles households, his provider doesn’t carry the Dodgers’ channel. The Dodgers literally have him both coming and going.

“It’s like being in love with a beautiful girl who I think loves me,’’ said Snoberger. “But after
many years of being kicked in the gut, I finally had an epiphany that she really doesn’t love me.’’

For the record, the average price of one ticket for one game in Dodger Stadium’s top deck is about $16, about the cost of a movie, and far cheaper than many other of sports’ cheap seats in town.

“We understand the fan’s plight, but the Dodger ticket is still a good entertainment value compared to movies and other sports,’’ said a Dodger spokesman.
Also for the record, the Dodgers have been raising prices in every section, not just the top deck, and cite it as the cost of doing business that includes a $200-million renovation and a high-priced World Series team.

“But they didn’t win the World Series, right?” reminded Jones. “I can’t imagine how much prices would have gone up if they had.”

What fuels the top deck folks’ frustration is the notion that, by shoving them toward the door, the Dodgers are messing with the hard-core base upon which the brand was built.
On the door of Snoberger’s Glendale apartment is an arrow pointing to Dodger Stadium. On the ground beneath it sits a Dodgers welcome mat.

“It’s crazy how much everybody in our section just loves the Dodgers,” he said.
Sitting near them have been Angela and Joey Alvarez, who bought season tickets five years ago when Joey started attending 30 games a year despite having to drive in from Riverside. When the Alvarezes were married in May, four fellow top deck fans attended. The groomsmen were all given bobbleheads of themselves. Their house includes a Dodgers-themed man cave.

“A lot of us go way out of our way to be season ticketholders,’’ said Angela. “But every year, it becomes a bigger financial decision.”

OK, asking them the same question posed to Snoberger, can’t you folks just watch them from home?

“Nope,” she said. “We don’t get them on TV either.’’



Their top deck neighborhood is a bunch of folks in the same cloud, loving the Dodgers, looking for the best deal; folks such as Mr. Hernandez, and Carlo, and Carlo’s mom, who is related to Joe DiMaggio, and Allen, and Crazy Loco Guy.

They show up early to gaze at the mountains. They sign up to be designated drivers so they can receive a free soda. They mourn all the empty seats purchased by ticket brokers who can’t resell them, because that means they won’t be able to resell any of their tickets.

They count the number of fan appreciation gifts that land in their section (not many). They cringed a bit when the Dodgers honored their loyalty this year with a single Dodgers mug for every ticket account.
“We have two seats, and got one mug,’’ said Angela Alvarez. “How hard would it have been to give us two mugs?’’

They love David Kirkpatrick, the Dodgers’ director of season ticket sales, because, according to Snoberger, “He makes sure we’re OK, he actually cares.’’
The Dodgers ownership, though? They have their doubts about them, doubts that should concern the Guggenheim folks if their baseball team ever stops winning. If they lose their base, they lose this town, just ask Frank McCourt.

“Guggenheim has done a lot of great things, the stadium is nicer, the Wi-Fi is better, the customer service people are really nice, it’s a really nice place to go,’’ said Jones. “But when it comes to ticket prices and television, they really seem to have forgotten their fans.’’
But the top deck folks don’t forget about them. Many of them will be back in their sky blue chairs for opening day March 29 against the San Francisco Giants, their loyalty unwavering for a team that hasn’t won a title in 29 years.

This includes Snoberger and Jones, who will be loaded down in Dodgers gear and Subway sandwiches and endless hope, sitting as always in Section 5, Row K, Seats 5 and 6.
Shortly before midnight on that late December day they renewed their season tickets. Of course they did.

Dodgers test fans' loyalty with steep increases for season tickets even in the cheap seats - LA Times

[aging one]

Fcuk the Dodgers I hope nobody goes...

[Grampa]

Fcuk the Dodgers I hope nobody goes...

I agree.

F*ck them.

[Grampa]

The Cleveland Indians will drop their logo of "Chief Wahoo" after the 2018 season.

Indians removing Chief Wahoo logo from uniforms

• By TOM WITHERS, AP SPORTS WRITER

CLEVELAND — Jan 29, 2018

The Associated Press

An Cleveland Indians' Francisco Lindor jersey with the Chief Wahoo logo hangs at the Cleveland Indians team shop, Monday, Jan. 29, 2018, in Cleveland. Divisive and hotly debated, the Chief Wahoo logo is being removed from the Cleveland Indians' uniform next year. The polarizing mascot is coming off the team's jersey sleeves and caps starting in the 2019 season. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)



The Cleveland Indians are dropping the Chief Wahoo logo from their uniforms next year after decades of protests and complaints that the grinning, red-faced caricature used in one version or another since 1947 is racist.

The move, announced Monday, came after protracted discussions between team owner Paul Dolan and baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

The cartoonish image of a big-toothed American Indian with a scarlet face and a single feather in his headdress will come off the team's sleeves and caps starting with the 2019 season, when Cleveland will host the All-Star Game.

"Major League Baseball is committed to building a culture of diversity and inclusion throughout the game," Manfred said in a statement. He said the logo "is no longer appropriate for on-field use."
The decision is unlikely to quell complaints from Native American organizations and others who see the symbol — and the team's very name — as insensitive. The Indians will continue to wear the Wahoo logo in 2018, and even after it is gone from the uniform, the club will sell merchandise featuring the mascot in the Cleveland area.

"I'm elated," Philip Yenyo, executive director of the American Indian Movement of Ohio, said of the decision to remove Wahoo from uniforms. "But at the same time, I think it should be this year. I don't understand why they're drawing this out. It doesn't make any sense to me, unless they want to continue to make what's basically blood money."

He added: "Just make the leap already."

Yenyo and others have demanded that the team go further and drop "Indians" as its name: "If they don't get rid of the name, then you're still going to have fans going down there wearing headdresses and painted in redface."

Cleveland Indians dropping Chief Wahoo logo from uniforms - ABC News

[Grampa]

Goose rips Brian Cashman.

I still agree with Goose on his comment on Batista.

Goose Gossage calls Brian Cashman 'a f---ing a--h---' after not getting invite to New York Yankees spring training

[harrybarracuda]

Fuck me is the rounders starting already?

[Grampa]

Sadly, I'm a Mariner follower.

The team is making a profit and intentionally engineers mediocrity. For them, ss the season winds down, they will hopefully be within 10 games of Wild Card spot and the team can pretend to be competitive and fuel that line and lie.

.500 or less.

The longest playoff drought among all 4 major sports teams in the US.

[Grampa]

Here is another reason why GM Jerry DiPoto (and his never coached or managed before coming to the M's sidekick Servais) will never win.



Patterson: Dipoto needs to relax on all the Mariners trades

All the trades the Seattle GM has made hasn’t paid off in the standings.
Patterson: Dipoto needs to relax on all the Mariners trades

All the trades the Seattle GM has made hasn’t paid off in the standings.

• By Nick Patterson
• Monday, October 2, 2017

With the 2017 Major League Baseball season now complete, I’d like to extend the same piece of advice to Seattle Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto.

In the two years that Dipoto has been in charge the one thing he’s established is that he likes nothing more than a trade. Since he was hired in September of 2015 Dipoto has, according to Baseball-Reference.com, executed 47 trades involving 120 players. FanGraphs.com ran a story in January analyzing which general manager had made the most trades since Dipoto joined the Mariners, and Dipoto was first by a landslide. The people who print up Seattle’s rosters must be making a fortune on the constant updates.

But with Seattle’s offseason having arrived, I think the time has come for Dipoto to chill.

Dipoto has enacted a scorched-earth policy when it comes to trading. He’s been indiscriminate, trading with 18 of baseball’s other 29 teams (topped by six with the Tampa Bay Rays). There are 12 players.....

http://www.heraldnet.com/sports/patterson-dipoto-needs-to-relax-on-all-the-mariners-trades/

[Grampa]

The first ST game for the Mariners just started vs. the Padres.

It's begun.

[bsnub]

Opening day is here! Watching the Giants play the Dodgers. Joe Panik just took Kershaw deep. Glad to be watching baseball again a double header tonight on ESPN (or this morning for you guys). My Mariners vs the Indians next.

[aging one]

Joe Panik just took Kershaw deep.

Pizza/gramps is a drunk......

Just got the stream, thanks snub...

[bsnub]

Pizza/gramps is a drunk......

Of that there is no doubt.

Just got the stream, thanks snub...

You bet! Enjoy.

[buriramboy]

What is it with you Seppos and a bit of rain and stop play? Watching the Yankees v red Sox solely as had a bet +7.5 runs in total 6-0 bottom of the 5th and they cry off due to a bit of water. Wouldn't happen in rugby.

[buriramboy]

Thank fuk for that the Yankees finally hit the ball, bets a winner can go to bed now.

[aging one]

What is it with you Seppos and a bit of rain and stop play? Watching the Yankees v red Sox solely as had a bet +7.5 runs in total 6-0 bottom of the 5th and they cry off due to a bit of water. Wouldn't happen in rugby.

Think of trying to throw the ball at 150k per hour when it is wet, not safe for batters or pitchers. Baseball does have rain delays and sometimes cancellations. Hence the term rain check.

Just watched the Giants beat the Padres down in SD. Good game. My first one to watch of the year.

[bsnub]

^ Not only that but he compared baseball to rugby. WTF? Like there even comparable. Interestingly enough the sport that baseball has more in common with is cricket which does have rain stoppages. American Football the sport more like Rugby never stops for weather conditions short of a full on hurricane.

[buriramboy]

^ Not only that but he compared baseball to rugby. WTF? Like there even comparable. Interestingly enough the sport that baseball has more in common with is cricket which does have rain stoppages. American Football the sport more like Rugby never stops for weather conditions short of a full on hurricane.

I do realise you're a not very bright humourless seppo, but in future just for you I will put a smilie in my post just to make it obvious I'm taking the piss.

[bsnub]

but in future just for you I will put a smilie in my post to show that I am almost always a clueless fucktard

FTFY!

[uncle junior]

NL goes to the Braves this year.


Cricket has rain delays and a tea and crumpet breaks...gay

[uncle junior]

105 mph pitches