MichaelLortz.com/JordiScrubbings.com

(Originally posted on ScalpEm.com)

Wow. What a weekend. It’s great to be a Seminole again.

Here are a few thoughts I have after this rivalry weekend:

On the Gridiron:

• This wasn’t just a win, it was a reawakening. A reawakening of pride, not only in the football team, but in the university. For too long we had to stifle our ability to be loud and proud for fear that someone from another school would ruin our parade. But not anymore. I can wear my Seminole hat or my FSU shirt anywhere in the state with confidence.
• After the Clemson game, I could sense something different – a bit of momentum, if you will. Maybe it was the swelling of confidence. Confidence that carried through the Maryland game and then turned the Gators into roadkill.
• I’ve never been more tempted to drive the 4.5 hours from Tampa to Tallahassee to be part of a post-game celebration.
• Although it was a regular season game, 31-7 was probably one of the biggest wins since 2000.
• To the 100 or so recruits the announcers said were at the game, this isn’t your big brother’s Seminole team. It is not yet your fathers, however. But with your help it could be.

To the Hardwood:

• Although I would have liked to see the win, a close game against #16 is nothing to sneeze at.
• I hate the zone. And so does Leonard Hamilton’s offense.
• Chris Singleton may be turning into Al Thornton II, but he is not there yet. He is good, but not yet great. Great players don’t disappear against tough teams. I know it sounds cliche, but they find a way.
• I’m  not sure I like the formfitting basketball jerseys. They might look good on the players, but I hope they sell the non-formfitting kind. A form-fitting jersey might not look too flattering on me. (Yes, I know, if I hit the gym that wouldn’t be a problem. Trust me, that will be on my New Year’s resolution list.)
• Speaking of Singleton, I recently finished ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons “Book of Basketball”. In this book, Simmons coins a new stat called “stock” – blocks + steals. I bet dollars to donuts Chris Singleton leads the ACC in “stocks” this year.
• I like the phrase “dollars to donuts”. I should use it more often.
• Michael Snaer is an assassin. When he gets hot, he is NBAJamz video game good. He reminds me a bit of Isaiah Swann with his three-point ability. Right now and based only on the FSU-FL game, I think Snaer is better at swinging a game than Chris Singleton.
• Singleton reminds me of a Zach Randolph of the Memphis Grizzles type of player. You watch him score, but you don’t realize he has 20 points and 10 rebounds. He seems like a “quiet” scorer.

Finally, a nail-biting loss to #16 might be tough to take, but considering the a butt-stomping we gave on the football field, I had plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend.

I bet dollars to donuts you did too.

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

(This post isn’t about the minors, sorry. But it is, of course, about baseball.)

The most recent issue of Baseball Digest had an interesting feature on cycles. A few things struck me by surprise:

* There have been more no-hitters in Major League history than cycles, 268 to 266. There were six no-hitters in 2010 and only four cycles. I wonder if anyone has a graphic representation of no-hitters versus cycles. Have they ever been more than 10 apart?

* People called 2010 “The Year of the Pitcher”, yet there were four cycles. In 1968, the most famous “Year of the Pitcher”, only one batter hit for the cycle, Jim Fregosi. Ironically, Fregosi is best known for being traded for Nolan Ryan, the author of a record seven no-hitters.

* There are only two teams who have never had a player hit for the cycle: the San Diego Padres and the Florida Marlins. There are only two teams who have never had a player throw a no-hitter: the New York Mets and the San Diego Padres.

* The baseball media usually makes a big deal of former New York Mets who eventually threw no-hitters (Seaver, Ryan, Cone, Gooden, etc.), but did you know four ex-Padres eventually hit for the cycle? Kevin McReynolds (SD 1983-1986); Gary Matthews, Jr (SD 1999); Mark Kotsay (SD 2001-2003); and Jody Gerut (SD 2009) all hit for the cycle after leaving San Diego.

* To date, only two ex-Marlins eventually hit for the cycle: Greg Colbrunn, who played for the Fish from 1994 to 1996 and again, Mark Kotsay, who manned the outfield for the Marlins from 1997 to 2000.

Lastly, looking up no-hitters and cycles, for some reason the MLB website lists them in different formats. No-hitters are listed chronologically and cycles by team. I wonder why. Aren’t no-hitters more of a team effort than cycles? No teammate helps a player hit for the cycle, whereas eight other players help a pitcher attain a no-hitter.

Here is an oldie but a goodie for you to rock out to while you watch a Giant Snoopy float past your window. Try not to overdose on tryptophan.

Check out this link that features many old political posters from Japan from World War II through the 1990s. Some of them are amazing.

Vintage Political Posters (via Pink Tentacle.com h/t Global Voices Online)

In case you missed it, or don’t follow the site, BusLeaguesBaseball.com recently published my 4-part interview with the President of Minor League Baseball, Mr. Pat O’Conner.

It is probably one of the best interviews I have ever conducted.

Part 1: Responsibilities of the President of Minor League Baseball

Part 2: The Economy and Minor League Baseball (and the Mexican League)

Part 3: How Minor League Baseball is using the Internet

Part 4: Pat O’Conner’s favorite league, memorable players, best ever promotion, and why he loves baseball

Please swing by and check them out .

One of more interesting local bloggers I have met in the past year is Clark J. Brooks. Clark is big on the Tampa blog scene. Not only does he know everyone, but he also writes for the SB Nation Tampa sports blog.

In the last month however, Clark has been taking some time off from his personal blog to write his first novel. He asked other local bloggers to volunteer their services to keep his blog fresh.

Yesterday was my day in the sun.

I wrote about one of my biggest complaints: my hatred of a certain type of “freetionary”.

Please go check it out.

Guest Blogger: Jordi Scrubbings – Ridiculously Inconsistent Trickle of Consciousness

Earlier this week, I wrote a post over at ScalpEm.com, my favorite FSU blog, detailing the good, the bad, and the emotional of my most recent trip to see the Seminoles.

Hint: there was a 55-yard game winning field goal. How could I not have a great time?

Observations from a trip to Doak – ScalpEm.com

Here is an editorial I wrote in the FSView and Florida Flambeau in May 2003, just before I graduated from college. My editor loved it and thought it was one of the most original pieces he had ever read. Responses varied from people that “got it” and thought it was hilarious, to people who said I was pathetic.

Four years ago, like many incoming Florida State students, I stood in line outside the FSU bookstore, waiting patiently to get my FSU ID card. After what seemed like hours, I finally got my picture taken and was handed my brand new, hi-tech ID card.

As I proudly left the ID Card Center, I slipped my new card into my wallet. There it joined the other inhabitants of my small, black leather billfold – my driver’s license, military ID card, ATM card, a couple of dollars, and a recently placed Trojan condom, which I thought wouldn’t be a bad idea to have on me. After all, Florida State University was just named the number one party school in the nation and its student body was, and still is, over 50-something percent female. It couldn’t hurt to be prepared.

In the days and weeks that followed, the condom made a home in my wallet. It befriended already established residents such as the ATM card, who every time it left brought back with it money – those transient presidential portraits who never seemed to stay more than a day or two. Money surely could never be called a “wallet fixture,” a title the condom hoped it too would never have.

When was its day in the sun, the condom quickly came to ask. There were nights, Fridays and Saturdays in particular, when it would get its hopes up. It would watch as the ATM card would get money before going to the club, the driver’s license was used to get in the establishment and the money would leave and never return once inside the club. The condom knew its role was in the closing act of a fortunate night that never seemed to arrive, the final runner in a relay race that never seemed to reach its last lap. Patiently, it awaited its baton, its imaginary arms outstretched.

Bad luck seemed to plague the provalactic. Its mere existence was cursed. Months turned to years as the condom recalled legends of unfortunate “rubbers,” as they were called in the early days, which had “dried up” and had to be discarded before ever being used. Its lack of use was not from lack of trying, the condom was told. But after the first dozen or so wrong phone numbers and several mismanaged dates, the condom started to count down the days to its expiration, like an inmate on death row awaiting execution.

Why was it here and not in the wallet of a more socially fortunate soul, the condom wondered. Others formed in Trojan factory, those with whom the condom had an almost brother-like bond, had long served their purpose, protecting their masters and dying on the frontline with honor and dignity. The condom tried hard not shed a tear of despair.

The only source of pride the condom had was in an unmistakable ring it was leaving on the outside of the wallet. A ring that if the condom was used quickly it would have never had the opportunity to make. A consolation prize in the losing game that was the condom’s depressing existence.

On May 2nd, 2003, the condom joined me as I walked across the graduation stage. With one flip of a tassel, I became an alumnus and the condom, with its four-year birthday quickly approaching, was now an institution in my wallet. It had seen many changes sweep the wallet landscape and survived them all. My driver’s license had been replaced twice, ATM cards had changed banks, military ID card expired and even my shiny new FSU ID card had fallen apart, only to be replaced with a newer, more hi-tech card.

Thank goodness the condom has two more years left until its expiration. Two more years of keeping hope alive.

Picture from this Sexual Health site.

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

A few weeks ago, Bus Leagues Baseball had the privilege of sitting down with the President of Minor League Baseball, Mr. Pat O’Conner, at Minor League Baseball Headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida. Mr. O’Conner was gracious enough to answer all of our questions and talk with us for nearly an hour.

This is Part 4 of our 4-part interview. Part 1 was Monday. Part 2 was on Tuesday, and Part 3 was featured on Wednesday.

An Interview with Pat O’Conner – President of Minor League Baseball

Bus Leagues: Before I go, I have a few miscellaneous questions. First, do you have a favorite league to visit during the year?

O’Conner: That is like asking a father which one of his kids he loves best.

There are two or three things that go on my calendar in January with respect to blocking time. I am huge fan of what we call our “marquee events”, which are the Triple-A All-Star Game and the Triple-A Championship Game. As long as I am able, and as long as there no unavoidable conflict, I think those are marquee events. We are not shy about telling Triple-A baseball that we think those are marquee events for all of Minor League Baseball. So I like to go to those.

Earlier, Steve (Densa – Media Relations Director) mentioned the “Appy League” tour. This is the purest form of baseball in the Minor Leagues. It is the Appalachian League and it is ten teams. All the teams are by the Major Leagues but owned by local, mostly not for profit, booster clubs and groups. I’ll go in and call the league president and say I can be there Thursday, I gotta leave Monday morning and that’s it. He takes care of the rest. It’s really great. We go and there are booster club picnics and we meet people. It is just the purest form of professional baseball. It is where kids go – literally kids 18, 19, 20 years old – to be indoctrinated into professional baseball. So that is a very special trip for me.

Outside of that, what I have found after almost three years is that getting there is getting increasing difficult, to travel 200-plus days. But being there is just as much fun as it ever was. So you work through getting there.

When I go to a game, I’ll do all the media that they need me to do, I’ll sit with the owners for a while, and then I come up missing for 20-30 minutes and I walk the ballpark. One, I want to see the ballpark through my eyes and two, I want to see the fans. It kinda validates what we do. So I think that within a favorite places, my favorite part of every trip is being in the ballpark and being with the fans, being with the players, and getting to know them, as well as saying hi to the staff and meeting them.

When I go to a city and I talk to an owner, there are two questions I’ll ask: one, I want to know what you’re biggest worry is everyday and two, what can we do for you? And from there, it takes care of itself.

Bus Leagues: You mentioned meeting the players. Is there a player – whether he made to the Majors or not – who really stood out to you?

O’Conner: Well, when I was in the Texas League in 1983, we had a shortstop, a 20-year old (ed. 19) Venezuelan named Ozzie Guillen. And every day they were home, Ozzie would spend 15 to 20 minutes in my office sitting right across my desk just like you are. And we would talk about anything and everything. And he did that every day. He went home that winter, worked with Luis Aparicio, came back, was traded to the White Sox, and the rest was history.

That’s something I will never forget.

I learned to eat payaya from Joaquin Andujar. He was on an injury rehab in Kissimmee and he said, “Have you ever had payaya?” I told him I didn’t know what it was. So he brought me some. Just little things like that.

I’ve got those stories. Some of them are funny. Some of them I don’t want to repeat, but they are all part of it.

When I ran a ballclub, I went into the manager’s office before and after every game. I’d ask, “what do you need?” and “what do you want to do?”. I would tell them before the first game of the season, “I am not going to question what you do, but I might come and ask you why you did it.”. So I can learn. Things like that.

I had a pitching coach when I was in Kissimmee named Jack Billingham. He lives over in New Symrna now with his wife. Just a quality guy. When you are there seven years together you form some special bonds.

Sal Butera was a manager of mine for years. Rick Sweet was a one year manager of mine. When I saw Sweet and he finished his second or third year in Louisville, he’ll come up, we’ll give our bear hug to each other, and he will say to whoever is in the room, “This is the best GM I ever had.”.

You don’t do this for 30 years and not have those kind of stories. Which one is my favorite depends on what mood I am in when you ask, I suppose.

Bus Leagues: What are some of your favorite promotions, either of this year or of the past?

O’Conner: I saw one this year that without a doubt moved me more I have been moved in the last thirty years. I was in Winston-Salem, and there are several clubs that do this, but I saw it in Winston-Salem. We are at the ballgame, and I am up in the suite with the owner and we just had a bite of lunch, and we were watching the game, and it was the third inning. I just happened to look down on the field and both teams were getting out of the dugout and standing on the foul lines. I was thinking that it was too early for “God Bless America” and I asked myself, “What are they doing?”.

Then they bring out this group from the home dugout and it has this little girl and she is obviously a cancer patient and her hair is all but gone. They make this announcement that with her is her treatment team from Wake Forest Medical College and that she is in fact in remission. And they talk about what she had been through and they recognize her parents and her brother and sister and her doctors and nurses and the treatment team. They play this music and the teams are on the lines watching this with the two managers at home plate.

Then this little girl runs down the first base line high-fiving the home team, jogs the bases, then goes down the third base line high-fiving the visiting team, and touches home plate. Now I walked away. I couldn’t stand it. It was the most moving emotional thing I had ever seen in my life.

She gets to home plate and in the meantime they had brought up an autographed bat and the two managers did a photo op, and then she goes off the field.

My first reaction as a purist was “What the hell are they stopping the game for?”. And I was all but in tears when she was done. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life. Absolutely.

And to see Class-A ballplayers who were obviously in to it, of course the ones that knew about it were obviously more so, but they all stood there, they all clapped while she was running, and they all gave her the high-five. To see anyone from 20-to-25 years old who you might envision not caring, or not understanding. It was the most amazing thing I had seen in 30 years. Without a doubt.

I used to think when I was in Vero Beach that the 100-foot long ice cream sundae was the coolest thing, you know? We’ve had the sumos and the other funny stuff. But I have to tell you, and maybe it is because of where I am in my life and my career, that that was the most amazing thing I had ever stood through in my entire life.

Bus Leauges: That is one of things I see. The players might not be there for very long, but the fans are. The communities are. And the families are. And they embrace the players for that year.

O’Conner: Exactly. I used to tell my players that from a management standpoint it’s not that I didn’t like them, it’s that I didn’t want to see them the next year. If they were there the next year, we didn’t do our job. Our job is to move them on.

The fans understand that. Sure they like the guy, but they are quite content with saying they knew him when he was here. Not, “I’ve known him for six years, he is a good friend of mine.” I want to see you when you come in to Atlanta and I can drive up there, or you come in as a visiting player to Tampa. Our fans understand that. When we do host families in some of our cities and we do those barbeques and picnics, those things last lifetimes. Those are friendships and relationships that last. I don’t what other sport or what other type of environment you can create those kind of lasting relationships.

Bus Leagues: My last question is: what do you love about baseball and what have you loved about it?

O’Conner: That there are 27 outs per side. It is very hard for me to sit and watch an entire baseball game. It’s not that I am not a fan. I am very much a fan of the game of baseball and the 27 outs per side. I can sit and watch a game.

Let me tell you a story: when we got into the umpire business in 1997, my world changed because I had to look at a ballgame differently. I used to watch games with umpire supervisors and they would say, “Did you see that?”.

I would say, “Yeah, he missed the cut-off man”.

They would reply with, “No, the umpire didn’t do this, that, or the other”.

But to sit and watch a baseball game is a work of art. To understand why he is holding his glove up to his mouth like that and the wheel play. The things you pick up after watching 2,000-plus baseball games in 30 years. It is especially difficult having gotten into the business in operations, it is difficult for me to sit there and watch a game because I never did that. I was always taught if you are going to run a ballpark, you have to be in the ballpark, and the only way to be in the ballpark is to move. So when I go to games with people, after three or four innings, chances are I am going to stretch my legs and take a walk.

But to go back to something you talked about with the fans. When I go out now, I’ll go and do the things I need and want to do. But I like to walk. Because there is that generational aspect. You will see kids, parents, and grandparents – sometimes in the same family unit – at these ballparks. And it validates everything we do. It makes every airplane flight worth it. And it makes every long day worth it when you see kids smiling, parents sharing quality time with their kids, and the seniors not being excluded. It’s a little Pollyannic but that’s part of our story, that’s part of our benefit to communities, and that’s part of our legacy.

(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)

A few weeks ago, Bus Leagues Baseball had the privilege of sitting down with the President of Minor League Baseball, Mr. Pat O’Conner, at Minor League Baseball Headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida. Mr. O’Conner was gracious enough to answer all of our questions and talk with us for nearly an hour.

This is Part 3 of our 4-part interview. Part 1 was Monday. Part 2 was on Tuesday, and Part 4 will be featured on Thursday.

An Interview with Pat O’Conner – President of Minor League Baseball

Bus Leagues: In your biography, it says that one of your priorities is to “deal with digital assets”. Is there a push to capitalize on the Web as a medium for Minor League Baseball, especially with the decline of the local newspaper industries? How is Minor League Baseball adapting to the change in multimedia?

O’Conner: It is critically important to our long-term success for a few reasons.

One, we cannot generate new revenue much more than we are doing now. When I talk about new revenue, I am talking about real growth, where we are capitalizing and operating at a fairly high capacity of our local markets. So the need and the desire for more revenue has to come from two ways: one, artificially from price increases in the current structure, which there is very much a ceiling for. And in this economy it is a very low ceiling. You just can’t raise ticket prices and concession prices and sponsors just can’t pay more. So if you want to have growth, you have to have what I call “real growth” and that comes from new sources.

So if you are operating within a certain capacity within your market, there are two things that we have done: one is that we are reasonably comfortable that we are not operating at maximum capacity, because we are not tapped into the diverse markets on the fringe of our mainstream within our team markets. The second is to get more of the pie. You have to make the pie bigger. So you have to expand your universe. And the internet allows you to expand your universe, to not only connect the dots between the 160 cities, but to go beyond the borders and go international and truly worldwide.

The Web is critically important for a second reason. In order to connect the dots, expand your universe, or operate outside of your current market, you have to go talk to people in ways they are currently talking. And that is digital and it is social media and it all of those wrapped up into one and it is ever changing. It is like The Blob from the old science fiction movies – it is never the same on any two days. The Web is our growth for the future, it is the communications mechanism for the current, let alone the future. There is no question about that.

So what we were able to do is to bundle the vast majority – 155 of our 160 clubs – and create, for lack of a better term, a baby BAM (Major League Baseball Advanced Media). We have BIRCO, the Baseball Internet Rights Company, doing the bundling. There is a power of one in that industry. The sum of 155 pales in comparison to the one of 155. You bundle every club and add up what they can do individually, it pales in comparison to what 155 can do together. So there is that synergy and that “power of one”. That is what we have been able to capture. We are getting our feet on the ground, but it is a very complicated business to deal in and it especially difficult because it changes constantly. We have a great partner in BAM where effectively all of professional baseball is under one engine, which creates tremendous synergy and horsepower.

I think it is future. You know, people go where they want to go. You can’t force people to buy what they don’t want, and you can’t talk to people who don’t talk back. So we can’t get into a situation where we are sending out media and it is falling into a big black hole. We have to go to where people are. And that is certainly digital.

Bus Leagues: One of the things I noticed is that in recent years all the minor league teams are under the umbrella of sites, whereas in years past, teams would have their own sites.

O’Conner: Yeah, you had to Google and find the sites. And you had to know who you were looking for. Now you can Google “Minor League Baseball” and it brings you right to MiLB.com. It is truly a full service web site. It has the reach to link into not only MLB.com, but also all of our affiliations and relationships. It really has centralized the ability to go to one place and access professional baseball.

Bus Leagues: I see teams also utilizing things like Facebook and Twitter to push their information.

O’Conner: Absolutely. And that is where if you have a solid base and you have a foundation that deals with the core issues, then these fingers can go out. Let’s face it, there are clubs in our 160 who don’t have the interest, the resources, or the capabilities to do some other things. But the way we are structured, it doesn’t hold back those who do. And in fact, there will be a residual benefit for those who can’t, won’t, or don’t just by the fact that others are. They will plow the fields and it will be easier for us to come in from behind and bring all of them into the fold. So it is a “better late than never”.

That was one of the biggest challenges in forming BIRCO and bundling our rights. Of 160 clubs, we had some that were truly in the dark ages from a technological stand point to others that were on the cutting edge. And what you don’t want to do is to bring down the leaders to bring up those trailing. So we’ve kinda been able to bring the group up through BIRCO and merchandising platforms and things we’ve done to offer to them while at the same time giving them as much flexibility as possible to operate their site from a local perspective.

Bus Leagues: What are some of the guidelines you have in regards to putting local perspective to the sites?

O’Conner: Well, it is a menu and an inventory where there are certain pages. Certain pages are reserved for BAM and national spots to deal with. It is all spelled out in the agreement. It is designed to allow for enough centralized inventory to drive the collective cost but not hamper them on their local ability to generate local inventory and to value-add locally. If you are doing something with a major sponsor and you want to value-add, you can still do that.

Part 4 tommorow!