AirHogs – Page 3 – Unfiltered Thoughts

Magic Number? One

The AirHogs have the second game of a double-header ahead, and Shreveport dropped the second game of their double-header today, so a win will clinch the Southern Division championship for Grand Prairie.

There’s plenty of time left in the season to win, but getting it done this early would be an impressive feat. The two other divisions are still close, but the AirHogs have dominated the South.

Go AirHogs!

Update: After dropping the first game of the double-header, the AirHogs won the second in the bottom of the seventh (the virtual bottom of the ninth) when Chris McMurray laid down a bunt that passed over the pitcher’s glove, scoring Jake Taylor. Final? 6-5 AirHogs. Updated Magic Number? Zero! Grand Prairie AirHogs – 2011 Southern Division Champions!

Random (Again)

With the heat wave we’re under, the stream of consciousness is almost dry, but here’s some thoughts from the past week.

First, thank you to whomever first said “The heat hasn’t been this bad in Dallas since the NBA playoffs.” It’s not baseball, but it will annoy a few people I know from Miami.

Random fact – The starting pitcher chooses his team’s uniform for the game. We were actually told this about a month ago when my wife was sewing names on jerseys and asked which color jerseys needed to be done first. She was told, “We don’t know.” Apparently, the team doesn’t know until just before game time every day. I had just been alternating caps (red and black) at the beginning of the season, but it evidently was pure chance that I was usually wearing the same as the team. In fact, I was told most of the players don’t like the red hat. Who knew?

I asked one of the pitchers I know this week and he verified it. Since he’s not an AirHog this season (yet), it’s not just a Grand Prairie tradition. I always assumed there were home and away jerseys, but apparently, there are uniforms and the pitcher picks one (except on special jersey nights.)

The reason I brought this up is that Dallas has now had 33 days of 100+ temperatures this summer. The first pitcher who declares “shorts and t-shirts” as the uniform will be a hero for his team.

This also means Amarillo must only have one uniform because I can’t believe every one of their pitchers would choose that god-awful yellow jersey with the road-stripe pants every freakin’ night.

Random thought – I will never talk about someone’s hitting again, since it might affect the team’s won-lost record immediately after I publish it. I assumed it would have no effect, since about three people read this, and one of them is me, but I should have known. My apologies.

Random thought – I still haven’t decided when you can start talking about a magic number. I think once it’s 10 or below you can start talking about it. Of course, to know if you can talk about it, you have to calculate it, so if you figure it out [for the American Association, it’s 101 – (first place team’s wins) – (second place team’s losses)], and it’s more than ten, just keep it to yourself.

Random Thought – We had an old fart (I can say that – I’m one) umpire the other night and everyone seemed to agree with his calls at the plate, at least a much higher percentage than normal. The differences between him and other umps? He was older. He seemed more experienced. Most importantly, he made the call. You’re out. It’s a strike. Sit down. Shut up. If all the umpires had the same confidence level when making a call, there would be less hated umpires in the league. Maybe.

Random Thought – It’s 112 degrees in my back yard and almost time to head to QTP. I wonder how the players would feel about naked spectators?

Statistically Significant

Earlier this week, I mentioned the AirHogs’ second baseman, David Espinosa, had dyed his hair and beard and created a FauxHawk just to change things up. Apparently, it’s working, even if the FauxHawk has recently collapsed.

Prior to his video-documented Just for Men treatment, David had hit 2 HRs in 259 at-bats. (He is leading the league in walks, so he tends to get on base without bothering to connect – he draws a walk every fourth plate appearance.) This week, he dyed his beard and hit 3 HRs in his next thirteen at-bats, including two in one game last night. How do we determine if the beard caused the home runs?

Prior to the beard and FauxHawk, David would hit a home run on average once every 130 plate appearances, if you simply divide his at-bats by home runs. After the beard, it is every 54 at-bats. This is the AB/HR rating in Sabermetrics, so I’m not the first one to consider this statistic important enough to calculate.

Sabermetrically, his AB/HR rating was 129.5 before Black Beard, and his new rating is 54.4. (The best current AB/HR rating on the team is 28, the lowest is 227.) While he only passed one person in the team rankings, he is much closer to some of the power hitters (a rather arbitrary term) on the team, at least by this ranking.

Ironically, my degree is in computer science and applied statistics, so I should be able to compute exactly how much of a change this is and how statistically significant this should be considered. Unfortunately, my degree is from 1982, so I don’t remember squat about statistics.

Still, from one home run every 130 plate appearances to one every 54 begs the question – what else is there to dye?

Hairy Moments

Sometimes, a team has a slump. It’s usually a number of unfortunate occurrences simultaneously. Luckily, there is a time-proven method to busting a slump.

All you do is change things up. The beauty of that statement is that “things” can be almost anything. However, it usually is follicle-related for some reason.

Last year, our (former) manager Pete Incaviglia had a rather impressive mustache and the promotions staff decided to hold Mustache Monday in its honor. Have a mustache, get a half-price ticket (I think – I have season tickets, so it didn’t really apply, although it was a good excuse to stop shaving for a month.) The AirHogs were in a slump coming up on the fated day, so Pete shaved his mustache off the day before Mustache Monday. I remember my wife asking “Why would he do that?” I said “Gotta change things up.” I was never really sure what that meant, but I had heard it at the ballpark a lot. Just before the Mustache Monday game started, my wife asked Pete, “Why did you shave?” He said “Gotta change things up.”

This year, it’s not shaving. The team is dying. Well, one of the team, anyway. We will soon have a second baseman with a jet black Fauxhawk. I know this because there is a series of videos documenting the preparation on Facebook. Ah, technology. (RIP Flip cameras.) You know what the posting before the videos says? “Gotta change things up.”

Maybe I should put the mustache back on. Gotta change things up.

[Update: Black Beard is 1-0. Apparently, a FauxHawk can hit a home run.]

You’re Outta Here!

There is an art to being thrown out of a baseball game. Before I started watching a lot of games at the park, I always thought it was pretty much the same – the umpire made a call, the manager came rushing out of the dugout to argue it, he got tossed. Now, I realize the real action is after the ejection, not before. First, the ejectee has a chance to make his case to remain in the game. This is usually replaced by a few choice comments about the umpire’s eyesight, upbringing or other attributes. Then, there is the walk of shame – at QTP, it’s all the way down the third base line, into the outfield to the far corner of the field to the gate to the clubhouse.

This walk can take quite a long time. Former AirHogs manager Pete Incaviglia would take a tremendous amount of time. It was his evening constitutional. Then, Pete would get so distracted thinking about what he had done (and I’m sure feeling remorse) that he would often leave the gate open. Unfortunately, the game could not proceed until the gate was closed. The umpires would tell the nearest AirHog to close the gate, but the players work for the manager, not the umpire. Eventually, someone would close the gate. Eventually.

There are actually rules about when someone can get tossed – theoretically, you can say anything about the call (“that was a horseshit call”, but not about the umpire (“you’re a horseshit ump.”) Ultimately, it’s the umpire’s decision, so like many decisions, ejections will be questioned, as in a couple of cases below.

Here are the three tosses from the past week and a half or so, two of which were in the same game –

Ricky VanAsselberg, AirHogs manager. The plate umpire had a strike zone that moved more than a popcorn kernel in hot oil. The batters were swinging in defense, and our pitcher was getting really flustered. Ricky headed to the mound to calm the pitcher down. After the usual pause, the home plate umpire waddled up to the mound to break it up. Ricky kept talking. Then, Ricky started discussing something with the umpire. Then, the hook. I’ve meant to ask Ricky what he said, but I’m sure it was something about if the umpire knew how to keep a strike zone consistent, Ricky wouldn’t be out there wasting time trying to calm down his pitcher. I’m sure it was reasoned and polite. Although, he did get ejected, so I’m pretty sure the term “horseshit” was used somewhere in the calm and reasoned discussion.

Antagonizing the umpire – Ricky stormed off towards home plate, and kicked dirt all over it. It was covered. This I find pretty funny, but it’s been done before. Then, he headed to the dugout to dump his equipment and put someone else in charge, since he was leaving. While this was happening, the umpire brushed off home plate.

Umpire’s Fatal Error – Home plate is between the dugout and the walk of shame. So, Ricky covered home plate in dirt. Again. His catcher was snickering as the umpire bent down to clean it off. Again. That was hilarious.

Mike Conroy, Wichita Wingnuts outfielder. Mike played with the AirHogs before, so I’ve met him a few times. He’s a very passionate guy, so you just stay out of the way, expect the usual outburst every now and then, and nobody will get hurt. He was up to bat, took a third strike, and dropped an F-bomb. It was “slightly” loud, since I could hear it from my seat by the first base dugout. Here’s the interesting part – he wasn’t actually challenging the call. He wasn’t even upset at the umpire, he was upset at himself. Then, the hook. WTF? What is he getting thrown out about?

Antagonizing the umpire – If you tell Mike Conroy “You’re outta here!”, I’m pretty sure he hears “Please tell me how you feel about my officiating, since you are now out of the game and can speak freely. Also, if you have any questions about the legitimacy of my birth or my mother’s alleged former hourly occupation, please feel free to discuss those as well.”

Umpire’s Fatal Error – After Mike discussed the call to his satisfaction and was storming towards the dugout, the umpire called for three more balls. He was signaling the bat boy, but Mike was happy to oblige. A handful of baseballs came raining out of the dugout. As Mike headed down the walk of shame, the bat boy was trying to gather them all up, and was having problems because he was laughing. If you can make someone laugh after causing them work, that’s a pretty good ejection.

Brian Rose, Wichita Bench Coach – I would have never known why Brian was thrown out, but we had lunch with him the next day, and it was being discussed, so I have the quote. Brian is the last person I would have expected being thrown out of a ball game. He’s a bench coach – the voice of reason. Brian’s a calm guy. (He was the AirHogs’ bench coach before he moved to Wichita, so we’ve watched him on the field.) Still, a player had a called third strike (in the same game that had seen Mike tossed a few innings earlier), and the player questioned the call briefly, and then returned to the dugout. So, that was that, until the hook appeared. At first, I didn’t know who had been ejected. It turns out Brian had asked a very innocent question – “How many more of those are you going to get wrong?” Apparently, the umpire took offense. Ironically, this is probably a legitimate ejection, since Brian was questioning the umpire. (He was not alone in this, but you can’t do it out loud if you’re in uniform.)

Antagonizing the umpire – After he was ejected, I really don’t think Brian was antagonizing the umpire as much as blowing off steam after having the same crappy officiating for six days. If you are the bench manager of a team, living on the road while battling cancer (visit Brian’s page for more info), I really don’t think you need a 19-year old working home plate, especially when he’s apologized for blowing calls before. It’s bad for your stress levels. That said, I believe Brian heard basically the same quote as Mike when he was ejected, “Say, since you’re leaving us, what do you think of my officiating? Do you have any constructive criticism for me?”

Umpire’s Fatal Error – You ejected Brian? He’s the one person keeping managers from killing you in the parking lot. That is not going to win you many karma points, dude.

Halfway there

The AirHogs are 34-16 at the halfway point. Since the season was extended to 100 games this year, there is no All-Star game, so the regular season continues.

If we were still playing a split season, the AirHogs would be in the playoffs, since they are dominating their division. (They have the best record in the league.) Without the split, they have to keep it up – which I think is a better situation. In the past, winning the first half seemed to take a lot of the fire out of a team.

So, the summer is half-over and the season is half-over. It’s time to get through another fifty games and into the playoffs.

We Win!

The AirHogs beat the Captains tonight, 3-1, so the teams split the four-game series. The AirHogs are in first place in the division by six and a half games, with Shreveport in second. It’s interesting that on the way home, I realized that I wasn’t happy or elated by the win, I was relieved. That’s how bad this umpiring crew has been. (Yes, I’m bitter.)

Since tomorrow starts a new series with Ft. Worth, hopefully, we’ll have a new officiating crew. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many crews in the area, so I’m sure we’ll recognize them. If nothing else, a change would be good, even if it is the equivalent of changing a dirty diaper for one that is merely wet.

My next project in my copious spare time is to learn how to become an umpire in the American Association. The procedures for affiliated and major league ball are on the MLB website, but the only mention of umpires on the American Association’s website is the email address for the director of umpires. I think I will drop him a short note, asking about the procedures and qualifications. Hopefully, if I’m polite, he’ll answer it when he gets through all of the hate mail and protests he must receive.

I must apologize for bitching about the umpires as much as I do, but after seeing AAA ball in Nashville and the Frontier League in Lake Erie (with a two-man crew), I have to say that many of the American Association umpires would not last in another league. Their indecision and their wrong decisions make you start to question every call. When I hear players yelling at them about the strike zone moving, and see someone thrown out at first because there was another out on the play that wasn’t called verbally so the defense threw to first for a force-out double-play, I started to realize that I may not be paranoid, they may actually be incompetent.

To me, this is unfair to the players and the fans. The players deserve to have a consistent strike zone and umpires that keep the game moving and officiate fairly. The fans deserve umpires that don’t interfere with the outcome by making bad calls.

The most distressing aspect to me is that the umpires often seem hesitant. This just builds distrust. You’re a freakin’ umpire – you cannot be second-guessed. There is no video replay. Just make the call and stand by it. If you can’t make the call with confidence, right or wrong, you need to find another profession.

Blind

Shreveport-Bossier Captains 4, AirHogs 3

I’ve calmed down enough to not say “A day that will life in infamy”, but I’m still pissed.

An umpire is not supposed to affect the outcome of a game, but Danny Hymel and the rest of the truly inept officiating crew at QTP tonight did just that. Hymel called an obviously foul ball fair, which gave Shreveport a two-run home run in the top of the ninth. They won the game by one run.

I was in the stands, watching the ball fly off towards the outfield, thinking “F*ck!”, and then I saw it turn foul and land far outside the foul pole. Whew. Then Danny called it fair. F*ck! Everyone with functional eyes protested, but the Three Blind Mice gathered together and discussed it, and I have never seen a call reversed, so the ruling stood. AirHogs lose.

It is disappointing to me that a game can be lost by an umpire unable to be in the proper position to see a ball go foul. This is the second time this week a foul ball has been judged fair, but this is the first one that lost a game and doubled our closer’s ERA.

After some of the bizarre calls last year, I really hoped that we might get some umpires that actually knew the rules and how to work a baseball game. Unfortunately, no.

The real pity is that the league’s umpiring crews must be local, as we see the same idiots again and again. It’s hard enough beating our opponents without having to put enough extra runs on the board to beat the umpires as well.

It’s interesting that the American Association website doesn’t say anything about requirements for being an umpire. I think I will ask, because now I’m actually interested in the procedure, assuming there is one. MLB and MiLB sites have detailed instructions on how to become an umpire, and the progression from minor league to major league. I guess in independent ball you just need a blue shirt.

Sold!

The El Paso Diablos announced new ownership yesterday – the Tigua Indian tribe which lives in and around the city are now the majority owners. The Diablos were a sister team to the AirHogs until the AirHogs were sold earlier this year, as both were owned by Ventura Sports Group. With the sale, Ventura goes from owning two teams to none in less than six months. Their website still shows both, and all the rest are “coming soon.”

Ventura will have an American Association expansion team in Laredo, TX starting next year, and Pete Incaviglia has been announced as manager.

I find it very interesting that a lot of the comments in the El Paso press about the sale echoed what was heard in Grand Prairie a few months back – team not doing well, attendance falling, stadium needs repairs.

If Ventura ever update their website (an unlikely proposition), I will be interested to see how this is actually declared a victory for them – which is how all sales will be spun by both sides.

The other parallel is that both the AirHogs and the Diablos now have “local ownership.” The AirHogs new owners live in Dallas (and own Shreveport and Amarillo teams – but field and team management are local or semi-local) and the Diablos owners are in El Paso and own other businesses there.

I never thought that “local” would be critical to team ownership, but it was mentioned in both sales as a positive. The El Paso press actually specifically mentioned that Ventura was from Wisconsin – and it reminded me of a Pace Picante sauce commercial long ago: “New York City???? Get a rope.”

Hopefully, the finances in El Paso aren’t in the same disarray the AirHogs apparently were, so the tribe can make it work. The Diablos do seem to have a relatively large, dedicated fan base, and very little competition in the area, so that will help. They also have the worst record in the division, which will make a negative difference eventually.

It will be interesting to see how long the “Wisconsin” company stays in Laredo. Since their website says they are owners (not any more, but coming soon), operators (“we put fans in stands”, except in Grand Prairie and El Paso) and developers (perhaps, it may be secret), they don’t seem to have a lot to do.

Some questions answered

On the field, the AirHogs look pretty good so far this season. They spent the weekend sweeping the defending champion Shreveport-Bossier Captains, and they are leading their division. So, for those of us worried about teams in the same division with the same owners, maybe it’s not that big an issue, but it’s still early in the season. It’s weird seeing the managers meet at the beginning of the game and realize they work for the same people. It’s a department meeting with the umpires.

From a personnel perspective, as one of the coaches said last night, “We have pitching.” (For some reason, everyone knows that pitching is critical to the game, and yet many teams still have mediocre pitching.)

Winning against Shreveport was a good start to the season (this was the second home stand) although having “Cajun Weekend” while they were here was a bit much for some of us. Our new manager (Ricky VanAsselberg) is their old manager, and he’s from Louisiana, but celebrating the opposing team (even if a coincidence) is just not cool. There are some of us who still remember the stolen base late in a game last year by one of our former players while we were getting blown out, which was a horseshit move. Pete Incaviglia was yelling at Ricky about respecting the game (that move does violate “the unwritten rules”), and now Ricky is our manager, so some of us are still trying to wrap our heads around the whole issue.

Off the field, the AirHogs are still deer in headlights, although it seems to be improving. It’s interesting to see that the new ownership apparently didn’t read any of the agreements made with the season ticket-holders by the old ownership. There are any number of promises made that either were ignored or are just now getting implemented. While I applaud them for trying to make things right, it would have been preferable to just do what the contracts said in the first place.

To me, it’s a bit like the old Van Halen “brown M&Ms” story – if you don’t know your season ticket-holders were promised free drink refills (and have no easy way to provide them), what truly critical part of the team financing or operation did you miss?

I have a feeling the old ownership managed to put quite a bit over on the new owners, and most of that was because the sale process dragged on so long. There were rumors of a sale last year, but the sale went through only a couple of weeks before the season started. In the meantime, the owners bought Pensacola and moved them to Amarillo.

I would love to see a business student do a paper on the team and its history, because they constantly seem to be skating on the edge, and I’m not sure I understand why. (It would make an interesting book, but I think you would find it difficult to get information from the insiders.) If you’re not making enough money, you’re either priced too low or you’re not bringing in enough people (marketing dollars misspent or underspent.) The corporate America solution would be to cut costs – say, pay the players less – but I don’t think that’s possible. So, the challenge should be to get butts in seats. The current solution seems to be discounted tickets (which tends to piss off those of us who paid full price in advance) and the new $40 all-you-can-eat seats in one of the suites. I’m hoping we don’t end up like the Stars and the Cowboys and the Mavericks, where the vastly over-priced seats for people who don’t pay attention to the game finance the team and the cheap seats are empty because eventually they get over-priced as well.

There is certainly competition – there are any number of baseball teams in the Metroplex, so it is a crowded market. However, the AirHogs are in an area that serves a good portion of Dallas and the MidCities – people who are probably unlikely to drive north to Frisco for affiliated ball, don’t want to drive to Ft Worth to see the Cats (same division as the AirHogs) and they’re priced below the Rangers for people who don’t want to pay big-league prices.

So, I’m hoping the new owners get their act together. The field management seems to have done a good job building the team, so now it’s time for the front office to catch up.

Go AirHogs!