From Cincinnati.com: Wrigley has Reds green with ivy
Going to Wrigley is about seeing your Cubbies win, but only tangentially. It’s more about the neighborhood, the Old Style, the ivy, the bleachers, Waveland, Sheffield, celebs singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” day games, sunshine, the lake, Harry Caray’s ghost, memories of Sammy and The Hawk and Ernie Banks. Let’s drink two. At least.
This is exactly the atmosphere the Reds have to cultivate to succeed. Because here is a hard truth in Baseball Town: The game’s not enough anymore.
I don’t think I’ve disagreed with a Paul Daugherty column more.
If you look at things statistically, winning is by far the biggest factor in attendance.
Reds Attendance/Record
Year Attendance Attendance/Game Wins/Losses
1998 1,793,649 22,144 77-85
1999 2,061,324 25,292 96-67
2000 2,577,371 31,624 85-77
2001 1,879,757 23,794 66-96
You can see how the attendance grew in 1999 when the Reds had a winning team. The next year’s attendance is higher because people were excited about the Reds again. But, when the Reds started losing again in 2001, attendance dropped.
It’s like that for all teams. You can see the pattern with the White Sox and even the Cubs. Right now Cubs attendance is strong because of their playoff run in 2003. The atmosphere may slow attrition due to losing, but it still happens. In their really bad years in the 1990’s, the Cubs drew less than 2 million people.
Daugherty compares the Reds with the Bengals, but the Bengals have gone to the playoffs in recently. That’s why attendance is strong. But if the Bengals lose for a couple of more seasons, I expect sell-outs to end there too.
The basic thing is- winning cures everything!
From CNN.com: Martha Stewart’s dog dies
The 60-pound chow, whose full name was Kublai Khan Paw Paw Chow Chow Chow, was almost 13.
That’s a dumb dumb dumb name for a dog.
From CNN.com: ‘X-Files’ movie title revealed
“I Want to Believe” comes 10 years after the first film and six years after the finale of the series, whose opening credits for much of its nine-year run featured the catch-phrase “the truth is out there.”
Is there an audience for X-Files? I loved the show for several seasons, but then I remember losing interest. And with the first movie being a stinker, I’m surprised that X-Files is returning on the big screen.
From CNN.com: Users petition to keep Windows XP
Fans of the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves in June have papered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently. They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft’s latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews.
It’s pretty sad when you have customers that trumpet a six year old version of your software and claim that it’s superior to your latest and greatest. Way to go Microsoft!
NYTimes.com: Standing by His Woman
“He can’t compute that he’s not the new kid on the block,” said a former Clinton adviser. “It’s about his mortality — and immortality. He needs her to win because if she doesn’t become president, he goes down as a minor president. If she wins, it’s the Adamses and the Roosevelts and the Clintons.”
Is it more about legacy for Bill? Interesting.
From ESPN.com: Yankees will donate once-buried Red Sox jersey to Boston-area charity
A construction worker’s bid to curse the New York Yankees by planting a Boston Red Sox jersey in their new stadium was foiled Sunday when the home team removed the offending shirt from its burial spot.
After locating the shirt in a service corridor behind what will be a restaurant in the new Yankee Stadium, construction workers jackhammered through the concrete Sunday and pulled it out.
It took about five hours of drilling Saturday to locate the shirt under 2 feet of concrete, he said.
I don’t think they would have bothered if it were something else, like the body of Jimmy Hoffa. But the Red Sox jersey has got to go!
From CNN.com: Travel writer tells newspaper he plagiarized, dealt drugs
Thomas Kohnstamm, who has written a book on his misadventures, also said he didn’t travel to Colombia to write the guidebook on the country because “they didn’t pay me enough,” The Daily Telegraph reported.
“I wrote the book in San Francisco [California],” he is quoted as saying in the Telegraph. “I got the information from a chick I was dating — an intern in the Colombian Consulate.”
I almost bought this book! I’ve been interested in traveling to Colombia for a while and the Lonely Planet guide book served us pretty well on the New Zealand trip that I was on.
It also says in the story that Lonely Planet didn’t pay enough so he dealt drugs on the side to get by.
As I was driving to work, I noticed on the video screen billboard that the Cincinnati Reds are now offering “all you can eat” seats for Reds games.
From the Cincinnati Reds website
The AYCE seats include unlimited ballpark fare – hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts and Pepsi products – all for one low price!
A seat in the AYCE section is $30.00. With a Pepsi and a hot dog each at $4.00, and a mezzanine seat at $22.00, you’ll save money if you want to eat more than one hot dog and a Pepsi.
But there are a couple of downsides:
1. Hot Dogs at Great American Ballpark are pretty terrible- totally flavorless. They’re not even worth a dollar on the “dollar dog” days.
2. Sitting with and watching people that have no respect for their bodies stuffing themselves with ballpark food.
Alcohol is not included.
