2007 MLB Playoffs Thread

[molson]

And another thing, I really hate that they're referred to as the "Rox".

America, that's reason enough to root for the Red Sox.

[Young Drachma]

That's hilarious.

Seriously, they've botched to the nth degree.

http://www.kktv.com/home/headlines/10717346.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/search/...min&maxAsk=max

It's hilarious how badly they've done this and yet, I'm not surprised given the other silly things this team does to screen talent that comes into the ballclub.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by molson

And another thing, I really hate that they're referred to as the "Rox".

America, that's reason enough to root for the Red Sox.

I don't mind that part. I do hate the towels though.

And I love Boston a lot more than I love Denver. It's too bad they're part of the evil empire that controls baseball and were responsible for allowing Jeffrey Loria to control another baseball team and the demise of the Montreal Expos.

I mean, other than that..they're just the apple pie of my baseball eye.

Oh and they're the reason the Blue Jays get no headway in the AL East.

But I hate them less the Yankees. That has to count for something.

I'll root for history to play out and the Rockies to take it all. I just don't feel like this series has enough personalities to last as an epic. I feel like it'll be a lot like '03 was. And we'll see some of these kids in purple suiting up in pinstripes in the near future. And I don't mean the Rockies pinstripes, either.

[SirFozzie]

No wakefield for the Sox in the World Series, he was left off the roster due to shoulder issues. Sad to see.

Probably going to be either Lester or Beckett on short rest in game 4.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by GreenMonster

From Bill Simmons column:

Ponder this: as of one hour ago, no matter what either man does for the rest of his career or what they've done previously, J.D. Drew is now and forever more beloved in Boston than A-Rod will ever be in any city. Congratulations to Theo on the genius free-agent pickup. Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

Sorry that cracked me up..

I think hitting into the inning-ending double-play with the bases loaded in game 7 brought that opinion back down to earth.

[Young Drachma]

But he couldn't have pitched in Colorado anyway. That knuckleball would get clobbered at Coors.

[MikeVic]

I like Schilling and respect Beckett. But it would be nice to see a new team win. I also don't like the Yankees and Red Sox because the Jays compete with them, but I hate the Red Sox less.

The Rockies winning would be a nice story.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GreenMonster

Sorry that cracked me up..

I thought his description of Manny in the outfield earlier in the column was actually funnier.

...The truth is, you should always send the runner from second simply because Manny always takes his sweet time jogging over, bending down, picking up the ball and throwing it (regardless of the situation). I know this because I've watched Manny play left field at Fenway for the past seven years. It's not that he's loafing, it's that he only has one speed in which he does every single thing, and it doesn't matter if he's running after a rolling baseball, running toward home plate after a walkoff homer, running into traffic to save one of his kids, or running from a building that's about to blow up.
He has one speed, that's it. He's almost like Michael Myers in this respect.

[molson]

My friend in Denver actually scored a bunch of WS tickets this afternoon on the online system.

The funny thing is, once he got in, he was allowed to just buy tickets for all three games, at a leisurely pace. He got 8 tickets scattered across the 3 games.

[Young Drachma]

Funny! Good for him, though.

[molson]

Of course now he's playing around on stubhub, and says he's tempted to just unload them because they're going for $1,000+ in the section he got.

I emailed back, no guilt from me, but you're buying the beer from now on if you cash in $8k or whatever.

[Young Drachma]

I don't blame people for taking advantage of the system, I blame the team for letting it get that way. The buzz around the web is there are a lot of pissed off people.

This team isn't the Red Sox or the Broncos, they can't afford the ill will. Not that they're going anyplace. Just saying.

[rkmsuf]

could they start the world series games any f-ing later?

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

could they start the world series games any f-ing later?

Yes. Quite easily.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Sadly, I think the Red Sox are going roll over the Rockies. I know the Rockies were the hottest team in baseball in the last month, going an incredible 21-22(?) or something like that. I have a feeling the 9 day layoff will have totally stopped whatever roll they were on.

Between that and the fact that the Red Sox have more talent, I think we are looking at a sweep here.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Yes. Quite easily.

I guess they could.


I'm just asking for a 7-7:30 first pitch. I don't ask for much.

[molson]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

could they start the world series games any f-ing later?

It's starting earlier than primetime in the Mountain Time Zone (listed as 6:00, first pitch closer to 6:30 or so).

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

I guess they could.


I'm just asking for a 7-7:30 first pitch. I don't ask for much.

No, you really don't. That's a very reasonably request.

I guess you could always look to move west into the Central or Mountain time zones.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by molson

It's starting earlier than primetime in the Mountain Time Zone (listed as 6:00, first pitch closer to 6:30 or so).

la dee freaking da

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

la dee freaking da

East Coast bias.

[molson]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

la dee freaking da

You know there's two teams in the World Series, right?

Red Sox fans are more likely to stay up past midnight anyway.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by molson

You know there's two teams in the World Series, right?

Red Sox fans are more likely to stay up past midnight anyway.

like I care


that arguement is balooney anyway. clev/boston was the same stupid start time.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

East Coast bias.

represent

[molson]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

like I care

that arguement is balooney anyway. clev/boston was the same stupid start time.

What's a reasonable start time?

6 PM East Coast? You really think it makes sense to start games at 3PM west coast time?

The games in Colorado this weekend are starting 6PM local time, just to conform to the East Coast needs.

[Big Fo]

I don't really have a rooting interest in this one, hopefully both teams play well and it goes six or seven games, as a neutral the last three World Series have all kinda sucked.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by molson

What's a reasonable start time?

6 PM East Coast? You really think it makes sense to start games at 3PM west coast time?

The games in Colorado this weekend are starting 6PM local time, just to conform to the East Coast needs.

as well they should

I already said 7-730 first pitch.

[molson]

My friend decided to sell all the extra tickets he scammed out of the Rockies online system, which will pay for me and him to go to games 3 and 4, with enough left over to blow on pre-game festivities.

He sold the extras for a total of about $4,500. I think it's insane to actually go to any of the games when he could have cleared close to $10k if he sold them all. But he's a little loopy in the head (He flew to Boston for the '04 World Series just be around the stadium when they won game 4 in St. Louis.).

[rkmsuf]

congrats on making all that money but this stuff really should be illegal.

think about how insane it is to only want tickets so that you can make a ton of money on them.

i guess if the demand is there then who is the idiot but something about the whole thing seems way out of whack.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

congrats on making all that money but this stuff really should be illegal.

think about how insane it is to only want tickets so that you can make a ton of money on them.

i guess if the demand is there then who is the idiot but something about the whole thing seems way out of whack.

Communist.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

congrats on making all that money but this stuff really should be illegal.

think about how insane it is to only want tickets so that you can make a ton of money on them.

QFT. It just makes it more expensive for those who actually want to attend the event.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Communist.

First they start the games too late and now they price you right out of them.


I'm subscribing to the Daily Worker.

[molson]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

congrats on making all that money but this stuff really should be illegal.

think about how insane it is to only want tickets so that you can make a ton of money on them.

i guess if the demand is there then who is the idiot but something about the whole thing seems way out of whack.

Agreed, there needs to be a better way.

My friend was definitely buying tickets for the purpose of going, and he is (he's a New England transplant in Denver and is a huge Red Sox fan), he just didn't expect that once he broke through the virtual waiting room, they'd let him buy seats for all three games. So he did.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

QFT. It just makes it more expensive for those who actually want to attend the event.

Patriots are the only team trying to crack down on this. They got something like 10,000 names from Stubhub and are trying revoke those people's season tickets if they sold on there. Said there are thousands of people waiting for season tickets so they should get them instead of people just having them to sell at a huge mark up. Technically the rule is supposed to be (at least in MA) that you can't sell tickets for more than 2 dollars above face value. And the Pats expressly state that you can only resell their tickets via the Pats designated website which limits the markup.

All kinds of court fighting going on but I hope the Pats win this one.

[Young Drachma]

That's the thing about it that bothered me. One of my friends was saying the same thing, that the team didn't know and it's their first time in the World Series blah blah blah..and I'm just like they're part of MLB and they could've gotten help, if they needed guidance or could've asked the other teams what they did.

It's not rocket science.

I don't think you can stop scalpers and I'd rather not have government enforcing laws like that. If people want to pay, let them. The team has a responsibility to understand how to put tickets out there in ways to ensure that ordinary people can get tickets and those lotteries the other teams did seemed to be effective.

To me, the fact that no one team had this sort of ridiculous debacle makes it all the more glaring and so, I dunno...they need all of the goodwill they can get and it seems to me that they've pissed enough people off that winning it all might not even make the wound hurt less for people who are irate. But who knows.

[Young Drachma]

And the fact is, those tickets belong to the team and they provide the inherent value. So for someone else to try to benefit off of a scarce resource by trying to create secondary value, for the sole purpose of their gain injures consumers AND the originator of the scarce resource.

[rkmsuf]

The lottery is not effective at all. I know a couple people that won the lottery and were pleased as punch since it meant they could turn around and make a tidy profit. All that does is insanely increase the price of tickets across the board.

Most teams only care to a point...if at all. I mean think about it. The wealthier the people buying the tickets the more they are likely to spend at the ballpark.

Longterm thinking is probably not a strongsuit of most ownership.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

The lottery is not effective at all. I know a couple people that won the lottery and were pleased as punch since it meant they could turn around and make a tidy profit. All that does is insanely increase the price of tickets across the board.

Most teams only care to a point...if at all. I mean think about it. The wealthier the people buying the tickets the more they are likely to spend at the ballpark.

Longterm thinking is probably not a strongsuit of most ownership.

+1

But only selling online isn't close to be the fairest method. Like I said, you're never going to be able to shut out resellers of tickets.

Maybe it's just the years I've spent around the 'average' computer user lets me know that doing it ONLY online is silliness.

I did have one friend try to convince me that the fans in South Dakota who root for the Rockies wouldn't benefit from the tickets being sold at Coors. He seriously overvalues the "regional" support of the team outside of Colorado.

[Young Drachma]

http://tickets.listings.ebay.com/Eve...istingItemList
http://denver.craigslist.org/tix/
http://www.stubhub.com/world-series-...ries-billboard

Lots of folks are making a killing. I wonder if they'll sell all of 'em or not. You'd imagine they will...but...it'll be interesting to see how many empty seats are at Coors this weekend.

[rkmsuf]

team should just mark them up and sell them at those prices themselves

oddly there would be a huge outcry if they did yet people have no problem paying it to other "fans"

strange

[Young Drachma]

+1

[Young Drachma]

And even better, wait until game day and sell all of the ones left over at the "normal" value at the stadium just before the game.

But MLB sets the prices for World Series tickets. That's the problem. And now they're in bed with stubhub.

[rkmsuf]

have all the tickets be walk up

now that would be interesting

[MikeVic]

There should be some sold online-only, some at the stadium, some for a lottery, etc. People can choose which method they wanna try their luck with.

[molson]

I think there's only one way, and it has it's own drawbacks.

Tie every ticket to a specific person, like an airline does. Your ticket has your name on it, and you have to show ID at the gate.

I know this would cause a ton of issues (when someone legitmately wants to give up their ticket to a friend, etc).

The team would charge somewhat more for the tickets, to get closer to "market" value, and to cover the added expenses.

A team could double it's ticket prices and still be considered "fan friendly" for doing this.

[SirFozzie]

That's a huge way to start the World Series, Beckett striking out the side.

[Galaril]

Wow that was impressive three stikeouts. I feel alittle sorry for the Rockies at least for the time being. I hope that they make a series of it.

[Young Drachma]

Wow. They're getting rocked, but it's really early. I think they're just rusty and that they're not going to be shook by this. I think this is good for them, because they just have to get into a rhythm of some sort.

[Young Drachma]

That being said, they need more production out of the middle of the order if they want to win it all. The Rockies, I mean.

[molson]

Beckett's ridiculous right now.

No real pressure on the Rockies in game 1 though - they're huge underdogs for a variety of reason. The rest of the Sox staff can be had, but you have to keep the Sox from scoring in bunches.

[Young Drachma]

I hate that fucking wall.