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Chicks Dig The Long Ball

Thomas King and Mike Merrill went to PGE Park to watch the Triple-A Home Run Derby. Thomas is a long-time baseball fan who is new to the Beavers and Mike is a recent convert to baseball and a budding Beavers fan.

Mike: How does Home Run Derby work? I understand they are trying to jack dongers, but what are the rules to the game?

Thomas: You’re right about the Dongers, Mike. Batters approach the plate in reverse order of their regular season home run totals and attempt to mash as many Dongers as possible against the batting practice pitcher of their choice.

Mike: So the Home Run Derby participants are those with a proven history of jacking dongers?

Thomas: History has proven that in order to produce Dongers in the Derby, one should select from dong-hitters of the recent past.

Mike: But what if jacking a donger isn’t the right choice in a game. A player might not jack a donger in regular season, and then not get to be in the HRD.

Thomas: Many MLB fans hate to see their stars participate in the Derby for that very reason. Some players return the second half with their swings altered, their shoulders injured, &c. after participating in the Derby. A line drive hitter, such as the prep-star Sid Jenson (zero HR during the Derby), has to alter his swing to get the necessary lift.

Mike: The Triple-A HRD seems to be trying to attempt a little artificial drama with the two teams aspect. Is that a normal part of any Home Run Derby? Or is that just a way to get people to cheer?

Thomas: The MLB HRD also pits two leagues against each other: the National and American. Each league is represented by four players. The results have zero bearing on anything whatsoever. In the bigs, the home crowd wants 500-foot bombs. Last night we saw a maximum flight of 438 feet, with prep star Kevin Taylor mashing an impressive 432-foot bomb off the Mac in right field. Free sliders for all!

Mike: Kevin Taylor stole the show! It’s too bad he choked so hard in round two.

Thomas: I especially enjoyed how the Oregonian fomented a feud between the two prep stars by using the following sub-heading in the Sport section yesterday: “Jensen says he could beat Taylor.” Then Taylor comes out and jacks eight dongers to Jensen’s, heh, nil.

Mike: This was my first Home Run Derby, and I was initially surprised by the number of people attending, and then later surprised by how fun it was.

Thomas: What surprised you about the entertainment level?

Mike: As I understand baseball it is a low simmer that will occasionally yield an explosion of excitement. HRD seems to inverse that with a flood of dongers.

Thomas: So as a newcomer to the joys of baseball, how do you see the Portland Beavers drumming up excitement in a town where people didn’t grow up with the game?

Mike: I’m sure the effect that the Beavers can have is limited, but I wonder if they even have a plan for spreading the love of the game. It seems like they waste a lot of effort in silly things like “80’s Night” and “Doggy Days.”

Thomas: I absolutely love baseball, a fact that’s entirely due to attending games with my dad. The complete cliche. But as an adult, I have no idea how new fans could be folded into the sport. It requires a tremendous appreciation for the rules. I mean, I can read a box score from a game I didn’t watch and piece together the action.

Mike: Oh god… the stats. I love them so much and I understand NONE of them. Baseball is for nerds.

Thomas: Read correctly, the box score is like a logic puzzle.

Mike: The Beavers should go after nerds! Set aside one of the box seats and fill it with various math classes. From elementary to college. Get some smart baseball heads in there to explain various stats and things.

Thomas: Agreed! Nerds who love beer! You had your browser up the entire game, digging for interesting information. Tell us what you discovered about the average minor league player salary…

Mike: A sidenote: Baseball is better when you have the internet! As far I could tell, a Triple-A–First year salary is $2,150/month (via AllExperts).

Thomas: And to add insult to injury, the per diem during road trips is a measly $20. Quiz: cobble together three meals for a 200-pound adult male under $20, without relying on fast food.

Mike: Ouch.

Thomas: I learned something else about the economics and structure of minor league baseball today, Mike. Want to know what I learned?

Mike: Yes. I find the economic structure of minor leage baseball incredibly fascinating. (Please note there is no sarcasm in this sentence.)

Thomas: It turns out the General Manager of a minor league team has absolutely no infulence over his team’s roster. He’s totally at the whim of the major league squad, which has a 40-man roster and only 25 active major leaguers. That means 15 players on the AAA team, minus those on the disabled list, are ready to be pulled up to the majors at any time. Also, the MLB team pays the salaries, uniforms, coaches, bats, balls, &c. of the affiliate.

Mike: So Merritt Paulson “owns” the Beavers, but has no ability to make a better team… that seems like a really bad investment. No one is going to want to buy tickets or merch on a team that can’t improve.

Thomas: And get this. The two teams (AAA and MLB) can cut off ties at two- or four-year intervals. So there’s no guarantee that the Beavers will be a Padres affiliate in the future. It boggles the mind.

Mike: We’re straying from the original topic, but we should make a note to return to this subject in the future.

Thomas: So who won the thing, anyway?

Mike: Portland Beaver’s own Chad Huffman. He jacked a total of 15 Dongers over the course of the three rounds.

Thomas: To my eyes, he was the best player out there. During the Derby we talked about the Limbo in which those mid-thirties Triple-A players must live in. The average age of the non-prep Derby contestants was 28, which doesn’t exactly satisfy MLB’s current appetite for youth. But Huffman, at 24 years, is a decent bet to make the big club before long.

Mike: That’s actually another reason why you can’t be a fan of a minor league team. All your best players get taken up into the clouds of MLB.

Thomas: So how does our good friend Carson remain so faithful, year in and year out?

Mike: I imagine he has the whole of all baseball* in his mind as he watches these games. He sees things that I can’t see. He is comparing the stats on a player to a thousand other players throughout history. He sees the context of the Beavers as a small cog in the giant machine of baseball.

Thomas: Let’s get hypothetical: imagine that you were placed in charge of marketing the Beavers, starting with next year’s squad. What’s the first thing you would do to attract the Portland audience (and, for fun, what’s the first thing you’d do to attract yourself)?

Mike: I’d put the marketing money into creating lectures and intellectual events about baseball as a whole, using the Beavers as an example. As you said, you got sucked in by talking about baseball.

Thomas: So you’re selling the sport, not the stars or the mainstays of the club?

Mike: Exactly, but I’m not even promoting the sport. I’m promoting the thinking about the sport.

Thomas: I like that approach. But what about the kids? Do you still want fathers and sons coming out to the yard?

Mike: I think that will happen on its own. Dad’s will always drag their kids to boring sporting events (Sorry Dad!).

Thomas: Mike, we saw a total of 49 Dongers during the course of the Derby. They were crashing off busses, cascading down the facade of the Mac, tearing off branches in the trees lining 18th street. Did you leave with an increased appreciation of the sport, or do you remain skeptical?

Mike: The 9275 people that came to watch the Derby prove that Portland has a baseball audience. There are so many Beavers games, and the result of those games have little impact on the team year after year. Maybe this isn’t a Beavers problem, but just a minor league team problem?

Thomas: You’re probably right about the minor league problem. It’s hard for people to remain interested in teams without the expectation that their favorites will remain on the field. But I like your idea to promote the intellectualization of baseball.

As a baseball fan, I’m excited to watch a full game. Despite my not knowing the regular third baseman, I can still appreciate a really beautiful double play or the nuance of the hit-and-run. I mean, we’re talking baseball being played by some of the best players on earth. I’d like to bring my girlfriend to the game and talk about advancing the runner with no outs and a man on second, or why a double-switch makes sense at a certain juncture. Man, I’m getting excited about my next Beavers game just thinking about it…

Hey, thanks for securing that media credential for me, Mike. As Rich Burk said in his opening remarks, everybody—especially the ladies—loves the long ball.

*One time I went to Carson’s house and he showed me this computer game he plays online. It’s a baseball simulator where you manage a major league team, and all the minor league teams under you. But instead of being based on real teams, it’s all fictional. The players have stats, but the games are all simulated according their fictional attributes. It was an entire giant virtual universe of baseball players.

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