Tag Archives: baseball

Sep 15

Yet another September to (not) remember

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As a long-suffering Mets and Jets fan, I'm agonizing through yet another painful month of  MetstoJetsFrame September. But, as a communications professional, I'm fascinated by the starkly different communications strategies taken by each squad.

Let's begin with the hapless Metropolitans. After three or four seasons in a row in which they claimed to be the National League's best team (but weren't), the 2010 Mets' communications plan was decidedly low key.  I distinctly recall outfielder Jeff Francoeur being quoted during Spring Training and saying something to the effect, “We really like the balance on this team. And, we also really like being underestimated by the experts. Some are even saying we'll finish as low as fourth place. Ha. We'll see,” he said with a smile. Well, guess what? The Mets are indeed mired in fourth place and Francouer is gone with the wind, having been traded to the Texas Rangers.

Now, let's turn to the hapless Jets. Led by head coach Rex Ryan and coming off a surprising run to the AFC championship game last season, the Jets have been bold and brash, predicting nothing less than a Super Bowl victory. Their trash-talking swagger was brilliantly captured by HBO's 'Hard Knocks' series and further exacerbated by countless articles quoting Ryan and others as saying that anything less than a Super Bowl win would be considered a failure.

Well, the offense failed badly in Monday night's season opener and the brashness and bravado went darker than a coal mine collapse in Chile. Further undermining the 'image' of these new, Super Bowl-bound Jets was a weekend story about player harassment of a female Mexican sportscaster.

It seems to me a communication strategy should be based upon facts and results, not projections of what might be. We sometimes come to verbal blows with clients in media training sessions over this very issue. They want to talk about soon being masters of the universe in their particular field. We push back, knowing a jaded media will laugh at such hyperbole.

It's a shame sports teams don't provide better counseling to coaches and players about messaging that sets false expectations. Naturally, there's a need to generate fan excitement and sell tickets but, at least with the Mets and Jets, the communications strategies seem to always parallel the end result. Whether it's a “…You just wait and see” or “…We're on a one-way ride to the Super Bowl,” neither team seems able to deliver on its communications strategy (or win a championship, for that matter).

May 17

Why am I not surprised?

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Mets_logo However anemic their
offense, defense and pitching may be, the New York Mets do lead the major
leagues in one key category: the single steepest decline in season-to-season,
per game attendance. And I, for one, am not in the least
bit surprised.

On average, the Mets
attract no fewer than 6,852 less fans per game than last season. That's enough
to populate a major city in Wyoming or South Dakota. And, I'm proud to say I am
one of those 6,852.

I've decided that, despite
a brand new field and a team that, for once, actually hustles, I will not set
foot in CitiField. In fact, I will not park my frame in a Mets seat until Omar
Minaya is thrown out for impersonating a general manager.

Minaya has done to the
Mets what the management teams of Toyota, BP and Bear Stearns did to those
once-proud institutions. In a period of just four years, Minaya has taken a
World Series caliber team and slowly, but, surely, decimated it. He's let great
free agent talent slip away while signing such $18 million losers such as Ollie
Perez. He's watched his pitching corps deteriorate season after season while
arch rivals like the Phillies and Yankees enrichen their respective staffs.
He's clung to overpaid and oft-injured malcontents such as Beltran, Reyes and
Wright instead of trading one or all for some real major leaguers.

The Mets are a team in
tatters. And, as long as Omar Minaya remains at the helm, I'll stand fast with
my fellow 6,852 disenchanted brethren and boycott the ballpark.

It was in 1973 that legendary Mets reliever Tug McGraw rallied his team
and Mets fans alike with his 'Ya gotta believe!' battle cry. I'll begin
believing again when a new general manager takes the helm.

Nov 30

The uniforms aren’t the problem

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Guest Post by Isaac Farbowitz

November 30 - AT 5-20 SeaverMetsUniform “The New York Mets today announced they will wear a new pinstripe home uniform next season inspired by the early years of the franchise. The design combines new and old elements of Mets uniforms. The Mets created the retro uniform following research and positive responses to the jerseys the 1969 World Champion Mets wore during their 40th anniversary celebration in August.”

So reads a “News Flash” email I just received from my beloved NY Metropolitans. If you want to find an organization that is simply lost and spending its time and dollars in the wrong places look no further. The Mets just came off a miserable season, made all the more difficult for Mets fans as we watched the hated Evil Empire from the Bronx being paraded down the Canyon of Heroes after winning number 27. 

If I were working in the Mets front office and I was looking to reconnect with fans, every dollar and resource would be spent trying to field a better team next year as well as trying to figure out why half of my team spent more time on the DL then they did on the field. I certainly wouldn’t have done “research” to come up with new uniforms which, by the way, look pretty similar to what they have worn for years. To think that even a dollar or a minute was spent on this “research” shows just how far removed from reality they Mets really are. 

It’s amazing to me that this idea for the new uniform even got past the first conversation among the front office. Wouldn’t someone have said “Hey guys, I don’t think our fans are that upset about how we dressed on the field last year.” Or, did some guy or gal from management say “This is a great idea- we may lose 90 games next year but at least we can look better doing it!”

I think the powers that be in Queens, NY need to take a hard look at what the real issues are and stop “Flushing” resources down the drain. I think Mets fans from near and far should send the Wilpons and crew a “news flash” letting them know that the uniforms are not the problem, and changing them won’t put more bodies in the seats or W’s in the win column. If this is the best the Mets can do to reconnect with their fans, I’ve got a feeling that the summer of 2010 will be spent much like the summer of 2009- looking forward to NFL Kickoff Weekend. On second thought, after watching the Same Old Jets implode again, I might spend the summer taking up a new hobby- walking on hot coals. 

Jul 09

Omar’s flawed logic

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July 9 - sports046 Mets General Manager Omar Minaya keeps telling fans the club's fortunes will improve once the 'good guys' return to the line-up. The good guys include such injured regulars as Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez and Carlos Delgado.

In the meantime, a ragtag bunch of minor leaguers impersonating as major leaguers have been playing. And, the word playing doesn't really do it justice. They haven't even been showing up. The team's record has nosedived as a squad once picked to contend for the pennant now finds itself vying with the hapless Washington Nationals for sole possession of the National League East's cellar.

Getting back to Minaya, his logic is flawed because the good guys won't make one iota of difference once they do suit up. Oh, they'll post some respectable offensive numbers and they'll go through the motions on the field, but Minaya has built a squad of individuals, not a team. They choked badly in two successive seasons, losing out to a less talented, but more motivated bunch of Phillies. And, they lack the intestinal fortitude needed to turn around this sorry excuse of a year.

Minaya and his current, rotten crop of Metsies need to be handed a one-way Metro card fare on the number 7 train heading west. It's time to blow up the model and, once again, start from scratch. Anything would be better than watching what purports to be a major league team botch yet another game.

Jun 11

This gives a whole new meaning to getting to second base

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Baseball’s latest ‘scandal’ would be hilarious if it weren’t so serious.  According to various sources, RogersViagra_2
Clemens and other major league ballplayers routinely pop Viagra for on- and off-the-field performance enhancement.

Not content with their existing surfeit of steroids, athletes are now apparently ingesting the fabled little blue pill as well. Yes, Viagara, the bedroom drug of choice for Baby Boomers has become quite the ‘hit’ in baseball locker rooms from coast to coast.

Looking at this latest revelation from an image standpoint, one wonders who has the ‘bigger’ challenge: ballplayers such as Clemens or the big pharma company, Pfizer, which markets Viagra? Certainly the latter can’t be faulted for any misuse of its product. And, today’s generation of ballplayers have become so ‘tagged’ with drug use and abuse that the Viagra revelation leaves me, well, deflated.

As a matter of fact, I think this particular news item will last about as long as the average dose of Viagra. The larger question is this: who knows what long-term damage the ballplayers are doing to their bodies and to our national pastime.

Feb 21

Pro basketball fouls out

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A new Harris poll of Americans shows a huge decline in pro basketball’s popularity. When asked to nameNba_3
their favorite sport, Americans chose pro football (30 percent), followed by baseball (15 percent) and college football (12 percent).

Pro basketball, which ranked third as recently as the late 1990s, is now an also ran. It garnered only four percent of the total, tying it with men’s college basketball and, ho hum, golf.

I’m not surprised by the results. Pro basketball is just plain awful. The season is endless. The games are boring. The players are one-on-one showboats. There’s very little teamwork and even less defense. Aside from that, it’s not bad.

The NBA model is broken and needs more than the next Michael Jordan to fix it. And, they’re paying the price with empty arenas and lower ratings.

I have to admit I never thought I’d see the day when Americans would rank basketball behind ice hockey, soccer and auto racing.   Hey, if nothing else, it may provide a co-branding opportunity. Maybe the NBA can strike a partnership deal with Ambien as a sure fire cure for insomnia?