The SoapBoxers

The fisherman cast his line into the water and grabbed a cold beverage from the cooler.  He cracked open the beer and  took a sip.  Truly, there was nothing in this world that was better than fishing from the river bank on a lazy summer day.

“Hey, Slugger, look alive.”

Slugger McCoy shook himself away from his day dream.  He was the designated hitter in this game, and his mind tended to wander between at bats.  He really wished that he could play in the field and be more involved in the action.  Even better, he wished he was fishing from a river bank on a lazy summer day.

A few minutes later, McCoy was taking a practice swing and stepped into the batter’s box.  A fastball came flying toward him at 95 miles per hour.  Slugger took a mighty swing at the pitch.  The bat made solid contact with the ball, propelling the white sphere into the center field bleachers.  Slugger pumped his fist as he rounded first base.  When he reached home plate, he was buried under a pile of humanity, as his teammates congratulated him and celebrated the team’s first title in thirty years.

“Paging Dr.  McCoy.  Dr. J.B. McCoy, please call extension 182.”

Dr. J.B. McCoy shook himself awake from a cat nap in the doctor’s lounge.  He had just finished a marathon surgery and the page likely meant that he would be heading back into the OR and picking up the scalpel again.  McCoy enjoyed his job – the money was good, and knew that his work had saved the lives of countless patients over the years.  He was at the pinnacle of his profession.  Still, every now and then, he wished he could have been a bit better baseball player and been able to play in the major leagues.

When McCoy answered the page, he found out that he was needed for an emergency surgery.  There was no time to waste – he needed to report to the OR on the double.  “I can sleep when I’m dead,” he muttered.  McCoy quickly finished his coffee and headed toward the operating room to save another life.

Jack McCoy felt a tug on the line and was now completely awake.  He’d only had a couple of nibbles all day, but this one seemed like the real deal.  He and the fish renewed the timeless battle between fish and angler.  Over the years, Jack McCoy had quite often been on the winning side of the battle – but many other times had seen the fish escape to live another day.  This time, McCoy emerged as the victor, reeling in a five pound bass.

McCoy was enjoying his retirement – spending many lazy summer days fishing from the riverbank.  Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if he had followed his dream and gone to medical school instead of following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and becoming the third generation owner of the local hardware store.

The Florida Marlins seem to be in the news a lot this year.  Earlier in the year, All-Star shortstop Hanley Ramirez was benched after showing lack of hustle on a play.  Ramirez accidentally kicked a ball while fielded it, then allowed two runs to score as he ambled after the ball.  Ramirez then lashed out at manager Fredi Gonzalez, as if Ramirez was the victim.  After Roy Halladay’s pefect game, the Marlins announced that they would be selling unused tickets to the game (and there were many of them, as is the case with all Marlins home game) at face value – effectively killing the value of the tickets that had been purchased by die-hard fans who actually attended the game.

On Wednesday, the Fish fired manager Fredi Gonzalez in spite of the fact that the Marlins were actually still in contention – in spite of the ongoing efforts of ownership to trade good players whenever they get to the point of earning a large salary.  It’s not the first time that the Marlins have axed a manager who was producing solid on-field results.  In 2006, the Marlins had a payroll of just $14 million – lower than the salaries of several players, and 1/5 the payroll of most team.  Nonethleless, first time manager Joe Girardi led the team to a 78-84 record and kept them in contention for a playoff spot late into the season.  This was substantially better than anyone would have expected prior to the season, and Girardi was named National League Manager of the year.  By the time the award arrived on his doorstep, he had been fired.  Things worked out OK for Girardi, though.  He’s now the manager of the Yankees.

What got me riled up the most, however, was the news that the Marlins were bribing their fans to cast All-Star votes for the Marlins.  If you case 200 all-Marlin ballots, you get two free tickets to a Marlins game.  If you cast the most ballots, you get access to a suite at a Marlins game.  The Marlins say that other teams also make a push to have fans vote for their player, but Florida is much more aggressive than other teams.  I don’t even like the fact that people can easily vote 25 times online because of how it dilutes fan voting.  Having a team actively encourage ballot box stuffing makes me sick.  I wish Major League Baseball would step up and protect the integrity of the game.  If teams engage is this sort of activity, ban their players from the All-Star game for a year.  Maybe that would put sportsmanship back into the equation.

Maybe this would be a good time to start discussion contraction again?

THE RESIN BAG

Two of the most dominant pitchers in baseball toed the rubber on Wednesday night.  Stephen Strasburg face another cupcake team when he took the mound  against the Royals (having faced the woeful Pirates and Indians and the mediocre White Sox in his first three games).  Strasburg struck out nine and walked none, but did allow nine hits (all singles) in six innings of work, allowing just one run.  However, Brian Bannister of the Royals combined with the bullpen for a shutout, giving the Roayls a 1-0 win.

Ubaldo Jimenez was in search of his 14th win when he faced the Red Sox.  Jimenez was rocking and rolling early in the game, but ran into trouble in the sixth inning.  A flare down the right field line by Marco Scutaro put the Sox ahead 6-5 and sent Jimenez to the showers (actually, to the bench, where he watched the rest of the game).  It was by far the worst game of the year, statistically.  In spite of that, my friend Lazy Man at Lazy Man and Money came away impressed with Jimenez.  The Rockies took Jimenez off the hook by rallying against Papelbon in the ninth.  Homers by Ian “Stewie” Stewart and Jason “Jason” Giambi sent Colorado fans home happy with an 8-6 win.  The Rockies go for the sweep tonight when they send Jason Hammel to the mound to face off against Daisuke Matsuzaka.

I’m not much of a soccer fan, but I was following the ESPN Gamecast of the USA game against Algeria yesterday.  I had discussed various scenarios with occasional contributor Fulton Christopher, and when England went up 1-0 against Slovenia, we knew that the US was going to need a win to advance.  A surge of pride went through me when the news of Landon Donovan’s late goal splashed across the screen.

Across the pond at Wimbledon, news of Roger Federer’s near defeat at the hands of Allejando Falla in the first round was the buzz on the first day of the tournament  .  Down two sets, Federer rallied to beat the Colombian in five sets.  The tournament’s top seed struggled again in the second round, with Serbian Ilija Bozoljac taking R-Feds to four sets. 

On Wednesday, the big news was the match between American John Isner and Nicolas Mahut of France.  The match actually began on Tuesday.  It was suspended because of darkness and was resumed on Wednesday.  They played the entire day on Wednesday before the match was once again suspended because of darkness.  At the end of the day, they were tied 59-59 in the fifth set.  For those who don’t follow tennis, you typically play to 6.  The match is demolishing many records, and the length is unfathomable to everyone.  Matches simply don’t last this long, ever.

It will be interesting to see how the winner fares in the next round.  Conventional wisdom would be that they’ll be easy prey for an opponent – but only time will tell.  Both players are also playing doubles, and will play their first round doubles matches shortly after their singles match is completely – assuming that it doesn’t continue until the end of time.

I love technology as much as the next person.  Yet, when it comes time to pick a cell phone, I always end up with the model that has the fewest features.  No “smart phone” for me.  Why?

• Price – Those extra features cost money.  You pay more for the phone, and you pay more for data plans.  Honestly, I don’t spend a lot of “quality time” with my phone, so it’s really not worth the extra cost.  Seriously, I can wait until I get home to check Facebook.
• Battery life – Those extra features also drain the battery.  My current phone will last about five days between charges.  Honestly, I’d sacrifice some features of the phone if I could squeeze an extra day or two out of the battery.

So, what do I look for in a cell phone, then?

• Battery life – As mentioned above, I’m always concerned about battery life.  That’s the second thing I look for in the details about a phone (price being first).  If the battery life isn’t at least 100 hours on standby, I won’t consider the phone.
• Incoming text messages – This is a pretty standard feature any more, but that wasn’t always the case in the past.  I keep up with sports and a few other things via 4Info’s free text messages.
• A card game – Every now and then, I do find myself with time to kill and nothing but my cell phone to entertain me.  Blackjack is my favorite of the card games, but Poker works pretty well, too.  My current phone has a demo of a poker game.  It lets me play two hands before quitting.  That’s good enough for me, since I rarely play more than a half dozen hands at a time.  Despite not being an expert player, I somehow turned by starting bankroll of $1500 into $20,000.  I suspect that the computer players are really bad.
• No flip phone – I absolutely hate flip phones.  I much prefer the “candy bar” style.  For the better part of a decade, I used a few different Kyocera models.  My current carrier doesn’t carry Kyocera, so I have a Samsung A-737.  The Samsung is a slider, which I don’t like as much as the candy bar phones, but prefer to the flip phones.

I’m frugal when it comes to my cell phone.  Here are a few more money saving tips.

• Check for discounts – Nearly every national carrier provides discounts for my company’s empoyees.  The lone holdout seems to be US Cellular.  I actually prefer US Cellular’s service, but withouth the discount, they are a bit more expensive than most other companies.
• Record your own ring tones – A lot of money is spent on downloaded ring tones every year.  But with the right software, you can easily record your own ring tones.  Take an MP3 and use something like Audacity to take out the best chunk of the song and use it as a ring tone.  I have a rather extensive collection of MP3 (legally obtained from my own CDs) and have created quite a few ringtones.  Currently, my ringtone is Runaway by Love and Theft, and my morning alarm is 1969 by Keith Stegall.  In the past, I’ve used Hello, Goodbye from The Beatles, for obvious reasons.
• Buy accessories online – Whether it is a car charger or a carrying case (a holster, in my case), I buy accessories online.  You pay a fraction of the cost for an identical item.

The year was 1999 and I was living in Illinois.  My parents came up for a weekend visit.  At the time, I was driving a 1988 Ford Taurus.  Among its many positive features was the fact that it was paid off in full.  I had poured a bit of money into it over the few years I owned it, but it had been a pretty reliable car.  It had about 130,000 miles on it, but I liked it.

On this particular weekend, Dad noticed that the car seemed to not be driving very smoothly and asked when I had last replaced the spark plugs.  That would be never.  When it comes to cars, I pump gas and check the fluids and air pressure.  That’s about the extent of it.  Dad didn’t want me spending a lot of money getting the plugs replaced, so he decided to do it himself.

It was raining that weekend, and I didn’t have covered parking, so we sought a covered space for the job.  A municipal parking garage fit the bill.  It would keep us dry, even if the lighting was pretty bad.  Actually, since we parked near an exterior wall to maximize the available light, it didn’t even keep us completely dry.  It wasn’t the greatest environment for the job, but Dad persevered and got the plugs changed, with some (but not much) help from me.  He was 76 at the time; I was an able-bodied (but mechanically challenged) 24 year old.  The Taurus was back in tip top shape.

The very next weekend, I headed back to Iowa to visit some friends.  As I came around a curve on westbound I-74, I encountered another group of friends – a small herd of deer gathered on the interstate.  I managed to elude all but one of the deer.  Although the car was still mechanically sound, the amount of body damage rendered it a total loss. 

The time and effort my dad spent replacing the plugs was completely wasted – but it was never forgotten.

If you wish, share a memory of your own father.

Yesterday’s story, In Defense of Art, features a main character who defends her artwork from a critical colleague.  Today, I’ll break down the creative process involved in writing the story.  Spoiler alert: I’m going to talk about the entire story, including the ending.  So if you haven’t read the story, you might want to read it first.

As is often the case, the end of the story came to my first.  In the end, the heroine’s revolver twice lands on empty chambers before finally hitting a live one, allowing her to kill the antagonist.  Why the first two failures?  To build suspense, of course – and to allow the attacker to show himself as even more of a jerk.

After composing the final scene mentally, I ran into a block that lasted for a few days.  What could be important enough to force the main character to respond with deadly force?  An attempted sexual assault was a possibility, but I’ve been thinking an awful lot about The Cell Window lately, and just didn’t want to go in that direction again.  (Don’t have a copy of The Cell Window yet?  You can buy the audio book or print version – which contains many other stories – at the Hyrax Publications Store.)

I considered having the main character be a zoo keeper who stumbled across someone killing ducks by throwing rocks at them (which, unfortunately, happened in this area a few years ago), but I didn’t think it was very realistic that a zoo keeper would be packing heat.  Eventually, I settled on the main character being an artist who operates her own gallery.

I immediately began painting the painter in a positive light.  I softened her image by having her paintings be peaceful nature scenes, and gave her pink bunny slippers to wear.  The antagonist, on the other side, was an impressionist, and his fashion accessory was a maul.  I could have made this a sledge hammer (there’s not a great deal of difference between the two), but maul is a compact word, and also has a second meaning.  As a verb, maul means “to injure by a rough beating, shoving, or the like” according to dictionary.com.  This makes the weapon sounds more foreboding.

Now that I had the main plot of the story figured out, I needed to pick names for the characters.  Quite often, I’ll use the names of friends, especially for positive characters.  I have a new co-worker named Kailey, and she slid into the role of the artist.  The last name of Bell was picked because I like bells – they make nice noises.  A positive word for a positive character.

But what about the name of the antagonist.  Where did I come up with Sylvester?  Well, I have Warner Brothers to thank.  Yes, he is named after Sylvester the Cat, the perpetual tormenter of Tweety Bird.  Barnes is simply the twisted version of a public figure’s name.

Every now and then, you’ll see a news story about franchisees who are up in arms about being forced to sell a cheap burger at a loss.  The situation is typically something like this: the burger is being sold for 99 cents, but the cost is $1.15 when you account for ingredients, labor, rent, etc.

I’d feel sorry for the franchisees – if it wasn’t for the fact that they are wrong.

Let’s break the situation down a bit further.  Let’s say that the Kosmo Burger sells for $1.25.  The raw ingredients for the burger (meat, cheese, bun, etc) cost 50 cents, and fixed costs (such as rent) run $500 per month.

If we sell 1000 burgers per month:

Revenue = $1,250 (1.25 X 1000)
Variable costs (ingredients) = $500 (0.50 X 1000)
Fixed costs (rent, etc) = $500
Total costs = $1000
Total cost per burger = $1
Profit = $250

Let’s say that Kosmo Korporation’s executives force the franchisees to sell a “Junior Kosmo Burger” for 75 cents.  Ingredient costs are 40 cents.  The fixed costs remain at $500, but are now spread across the flagship Kosmo burger as well as the Junior Kosmo.  The restaurant sells 200 Junior Kosmo burgers for the month, in addition to the 1000 Kosmo burgers.  The numbers for the Junior Kosmo break down like this:

Revenue per burger = 75 cents
Variable costs = 0.40 per burger
Fixed costs per burger = 0.42  (500 / (1000 Kosmo Burgers + 200 Junior Kosmo Burgers))
Total costs per burger = 0.82
Loss per burger = 7 cents

That looks bad, but let’s look at the combined numbers for both burgers:

Kosmo Burger Revenue = $1250
Junior Kosmo revenue = $150 (0.75 X 200)
Kosmo Burger ingredient costs: $500
Junior Kosmo ingredient costs: $80 (0.40 X 200)
Fixed costs: $500
Total revenue: $1400
Total costs: $1080
Profit: $320

Wait a second.  Profits have jumped $70 from the example where we were selling just the Kosmo Burgers.  How did we add the unprofitable Junior Kosmo Burger into the mix and make more money?

The problem is that allocation of costs is an artificial construct used to estimate profitability.  It’s a quick and easy method to use to estimate profitability, but it doesn’t actually reflect the reality of the costs.  Really, the true cost structure is:

Costs = 500 + 0.50K + 0.40J

(K = Kosmo Burger.  J = Junior Kosmo Burger)

It is possible to make a profit by selling the Kosmo burger at any price higher than 50 cents and the Junior Kosmo burger for any price higher than 40 cents.  You simply need to hit a high enough volume of sales to offset the $500 of fixed costs.  You’re not going to go broke selling Junior Kosmo burgers at 75 cents.

A few related notes:

• The cost structure used in the example is artificially simplistic.  You will also have expenses like labor, which is a somewhat fixed cost.  Very few fixed costs are completely set in stone – they are simply fixed “within the relevant range”, to use the words of my Cost Accounting professor.  Even facilities costs will vary if you outgrow your location.  The labor costs will stay the same until productivity approaches 100%.  At that point, you’ll need to hire more staff.  But if your workers are only about 50% productive, there’s no marginal labor cost related to an increase in customers – as you’re currently making inefficient use of those employees.
• The low cost items can have an effect on profits if they cannibalize sales from existing products.  In our example, the Kosmo Burger has a gross margin (revenue – variable costs) of 75 cents, while the Junior Kosmo has a gross margin of 35 cents.  If I normally buy a Kosmo Burger but decide to buy a Junior Kosmo instead, the restaurant makes 40 cents less in gross margin.
• Many people who buy the cheap menu item will also buy a high profit item (such as a soft drink) as well.  Thus, it’s important to pay attention to the impact of the total purchase on the bottom line.

(Still confused about the math in the example and wondering how a 7 cent loss on the Junior Kosmo turned into an increase of $70 in profits?  It’s because we’re spreading the fixed costs over a broader base – the fixed cost allocation for the Kosmo Burger would also be brought down to 42 cents.  If you’re still off by $4, it’s due to rounding).

A quick note to the readers – you may begin seeing less content on the weekends.  Health-related issues and other life priorities have caused several writers to be unable to write on a regular basis.  The end result is that I have been writing up to 5 articles per week.  This can be a bit of a drain, and it is probably not viable long term, considering other projects underway and competing life priorities.  In the future, the weekend articles will be a bit less rigorous.  Most weekends are going to have a weekly recap on one of the days – a series of short blurbs about the news of the week.  The other day will feature a question of the week.  I’ll ask a question, give my answer, and solicit responses from readers.  On occasion, I’ll run a fiction story in place of one of these articles.  It might sound a bit counter-intuitive, but many times I can write a fiction piece faster than a non-fiction article of comparable length.

So, without further ado, comments on the news of the week:

Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the disappearance and presumed murder of US teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005, confessed to the beating death of 21 year old Stephany Flores in Peru.  Flores’ body was found in a hotel room in Peru with indications that she had been beaten to death.  If police had been able to find more evidence to tie him to Holloway’s appearance, Flores would still be alive today.  After van der Sloot’s arrest, it was revealed that the FBI had been investigating him for an plot to extort money from Natalee Holloway’s mother.  Van der Sloot claimed to have information about the location of Natalee’s body.  My hope is that the Peruvian justice system will mete out a swift and severe punishment.

I recently stumbled across an email from March of 2009 suggesting that Ford might be a good stock to buy.  The gist of my argument was that Ford’s domestic competitors were in dire straits, and that Ford would be able to swoop in and steal market share, especially from folks who are adamant about buying American.  On the day the email was sent, Ford stock closed at $2.76 per share.  At the close of the day on Wednesday, the share price was at $11.28 – more than 4 times the March 2009 level.  It’s pretty rare that I give stock tips (particularly since I’m a big fan of diversified portfolios), but I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t take my own advice.

Another stock that might be a good buy right now?  BP.  In the last couple of months, the share price has been sliced in half.  Yes, the cleanup will be costly and the lawsuits will be numerous.  However, bear in mind that this is a company with $100 in equity (not assets, but actual equity).  Even after shelling out a hefty amount of money related to the cleanup, BP should emerge on solid financial footing.  Even a post-tax cost of $30 billion (containment, cleanup, and compensation to affected parties) would leave them with net assets of $70 billion – and most independent projection are pegging the cost at less than half this amount.  The stock currently has a PE ratio of 6 – and they pay substantial dividends.  Of course, this ignores all ethical and environmental concerns – obviously, you may choose to ignore BP stock for this reason.  I’m not defending BP – I’m just suggesting that from a pure financial sense, the investment might make sense.  Note: I am not a financial advisor.  This tip is provided for entertainment value only.  Invest at your own risk – I am not liable to losses that may result from investments in BP stock.

Stephen Strasburg lived up to the hype on Tuesday night, striking out fourteen batters and allowing just four hits against the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Strasburg and two relievers combined to strike out 17 Pirates.  On the flip side, Pirates pitchers recorded just a single strikeout in the game.  Strasburg faces off againt the Indians at noon today.

Ubaldo Jimenez struggled a bit with command of his pitches during rainy weather on Friday night, allowing 5 hits, 5 walks, and 3 runs through 6 innings.  It was good enough to allow Jimenez to notch his 12th win of the season.  Jimenez typically pitches into the 7th inning, but this game was called because of rain after six innings.  Ubaldo is 12-1 through his first 13 starts, with a 1.16 ERA.

Iowa State’s Lisa Koll (the best athlete you’ve never heard of?) won the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters at the NCAA track meet.  Koll became the fifth fourth woman to ever achieve this historic double.  She conserved her energy in the 10K on Wednesday night, and it paid off in the 5K, as she ran away from the field – winning by 30 seconds (an enormous margin) in the 11th fastest time by a collegiate woman.  Koll will be signing with a shoe company soon, and will be setting her sights on the 2012 Olympics.

When Betty arrived at her husband’s grave for her weekly visit, she was stunned at what she saw.  Next to Henry’s grave was another stone.  Someone named Eli Hart had been buried in her plot!  She and Henry had purchased the dual plot decades ago, with the plan to place two small marble stones atop the graves instead of a massive dual headstones that some folks seemed to prefer these days.

It seemed that those idiots at the cemetery had messed up some paperwork and this Eli fellow was buried in her plot!  Betty was mad  enough to spit nails.  The plots had cost them a pretty penny, and the funeral home had charged a small fortune for Henry’s funeral three years ago.  She wouldn’t begrudge them the money if they would do a competent job.  Who had ever heard of burying someone in the wrong spot?  Betty was going to storm into the funeral home the first thing Monday morning and raise holy hell with Samuel Clinton.  This Eli Hart fellow was going to have to be dug up and moved somewhere else.  After 50 years of marriage, Betty was damned if death was going to separate her from Henry.

Betty took a moment to regain her composure before beginning her time with Henry.  She decided that he didn’t need to be bothered with this nonsense about the grave mixup, so she didn’t bother to mention it to him.  Betty caught Henry up with all of the news in their family.  Their son David had finally been made a partner in his CPA firm – after many years of having the company drag their feet.  David and Amy’s daughter Melinda would begin her residency soon.  Melinda was going to make a great doctor some day.

Their youngest grandchild, Preston, was six months old and changing before her very eyes!  He was a happy baby, always laughing.  Betty remembered when his mother was the same age.  The smallest thing could set off Sarah into a half hour laughing fit.

The Cubs were off to a rough start again this year.  She hated to be the bearer of this bad news, but she also knew that Henry would want to know about his beloved Cubbies.  He had been the eternal optimist, always saying that “next year” would be their year.

Betty felt herself begin to get tired and knew that she had to wrap up the visit.  She said her goodbyes to Henry and prepared to leave.

The following day, two cemetery employees were performing routine maintenance at the cemetery.

“Jeff, take a look at that stone.  Grass clods from the mower are obscuring half the name.  Fix that, will you?”

The other man knelt in front of the stone and cleaned away the grass clods to reveal the name ELIzabetH ARThur.  As he glanced at the grave site, he was surprised at how rough it still looked.

“Betty has been dead for almost a year now.  Shouldn’t the ground be settled by now, Terry?”

“Maybe she rises from the dead each night and returns to her grave before the break of dawn.  That’s probably why the site appears to be disturbed, Jeffrey.”  Terry laughed at the absurdity of his response.

Marina pursed her lips and applied just the right amount of lipstick.  She took a long look at herself in the mirror.  She was wearing an absolutely stunning little black dress and had spent hours getting her hair and makeup just right.  She was ready for her big date.

Marina was going to be meeting her boyfriend for the first time in real life.  She had meet SportzNut99 several months ago on a blog devoted to their hometown Cardinals.  Marina – also known as CutiePie14 – had thought that his comments were smart and funny, and they quickly became friends.

They soon began conversing via instant messaging, beginning with innocent chats about sports before evolving into rather serious flirting.  Before long, love was in the air.  In a playful effort to keep some mystery in their relationship, they kept some personal details private.  Marina had no idea what this guy looked like.  In fact, she didn’t even know his real name – he was just SportzNut99.

At last, they had decided that this night could wait no longer.  They would finally meet in person and have their first official date.  They had talked about the date during their last online chat.

SportzNut99: How will we find each other?

CutiePie14:  Let’s play hide and seek.  I’ll hide and you seek.

SportzNut99: Sounds like … fun.  You’re definitely worth the hunt.

CutiePie14: You should be looking for a hot brunette in a sexy little black dress.

Marina took a last glance in the mirror before heading out the door.  The butterflies were starting to flutter, but she knew that a drink would calm them down.

A few minutes later, Marina entered The Den.  As she made her way toward the bar, she felt the eyes of every man in the bar following her.  It seemed that her assessment of this outfit was spot on – it was the perfect dress for her first date with SportzNut99.

“Marina,” yelled Mick from the other side of the bar, “you are looking hot, babe.  What can I get for you?”

“Double Dewars, on the rocks.”

“That’s my kind of girl,” replied the bartender.

Mick quickly brought the drink and added it to her tab.  Marina took a quick glup of the scotch in an attempt to gain some liquid courage.  First dates always made her look so nervous.

Marina grabbed what was left of the drink and found a nice, secluded table far from the front door of the bar.  SportzNut99 was going to have to make an effort to find her – Marina was going to play at least a little bit hard to get.

Marina wondered what SportzNutz would be like.  She was caught up in her daydreaming and didn’t hear the footsteps as the man stopped behind her.

“Hey baby, guess who?” came a voice from behind her, as hands quickly covered her eyes.

It took a half second for Marina to recognize the voice.

“Michael?” she exclaimed, as she jumped up and spun around to face her equally stunned brother.

Taylor Teagarden, a catcher for the Texas Rangers, was 4th in the voting for American League catcher in numbers that were released on June 7th. In 10 games this year, Teagarden has 4 walks … and 1 hit. That sole hit – a ground ball in the 3rd inning of an April 24th loss to the Tigers – didn’t save his job. He was demoted to the minors and is currently working behind the plate in AA Frisco. Teagarden’s .037 batting average apparently endeared him to a lot of fans, though – his vote total of 247,248 was nearly 60,000 more votes than Mike Napoli of the Angels had received. Napoli has 40 times as many hits as Teagarden. I’m sure Teagarden is a great guy, but he’s not having an All-Star caliber year by any stretch of the imagination.

While I love the All-Star game and enjoy having the fans vote for the starters, there are some flaws in the system.

• The voting starts too early. Fans can begin voting for the All Star Game in late April. That would be the equivalent of voting for the NFL Pro Bowl after week 2 of the NFL season. It’s far to early see a fair sample size from players. This is particularly harsh on players who tend to start slowly. David Ortiz of the Red Sox had an absolutely horrible April before bouncing back with a fantastic May.  Maybe start the voting at the All Star break.
• The ballot is static. You’ll always see names on the ballot that don’t belong there (such as Teagarden). Once MLB sets the ballot, they don’t change it, even if a different player emerges as the starter for that team. Want to vote for the new guy? You’ll need to write him in.
• The ease of multiple ballots renders the process meaningless. You can cast 25 ballots per email address, and MLB makes it very simply to duplicate your ballot. I can very easily spawn new email addresses, and could vote thousands of times in the course of a day, if I wanted to. But what’s the point? Where does this cross the line from “fan” to “person who is trying to game the system”? Granted, ballot box stuffing goes back a long time, but this makes it even easier. It would be nice if voting was a bit more limited.
• Too much “homer” voting. Certainly fans should vote for their favorite players … if they are having a reasonably good year. Really, though, don’t vote for Teagarden just because you’re a Rangers fan or Ken Griffey Jr. (3rd in DH voting ahead of the aforementioned Ortiz) just because you remember The Kid being a stud in the ’90s. Seriously, Griffey was hitting .184 when he retired. I’ll return the favor by not voting for Dexter Fowler (demoted by the Rockies earlier in the month).
• The rosters are too big. In an effort to make nearly everyone an All-Star, rosters have been expanded to 34 players for each league. In a regular baseball game, rosters are 25 players. The unwieldly size makes life difficult for the managers, as they try to wedge as many players into the game as possible.
• The rule that each team must have a representative. Honestly, a lot of teams have sucky players by choice. Pittsburgh Pirates, I’m looking at you. Why reward player simply because a team’s bad personnel decisions have made him the best of a group of mediocre players? Sorry, but the tallest sunflower is not a redwood, even if it’s the tallest sunflower in the field.