Sunday, February 14, 2010

NO. WE DON’T WANT CHARACTER RACES.

Matt Cerrone’s question over at MetsBlog (that he’s hearing that the Mets are “thinking” about having character races - so either they’re talking about and someone told him, or they told him so they could see what fan response would be) has me banging my head into the wall. This franchise keeps ignoring obvious ways to make the fans content and instead flails about seizing irrelevant, ridiculous ideas like character races. This is right up there with the “Sweet Caroline” debacle. You can argue it until you’re blue in the face, but that song has a strong association with Boston and continuing to play it at Citi Field, especially when it was met with constant loud booing that they could hear all the way in the press box, was just bullheaded. A source told me that the reason they doggedly insisted on playing it was because it was one of Jeff Wilpon’s favorite songs. (We also have him to blame for foisting Coldplay upon us).

The Mets keep making bumbling move after bumbling move, and the concept of a character race is just the latest in this reign of incompetence. Don’t get me wrong here - I love me some anthropomorphic characters. I tweet with @southpaw on a regular basis. I own a complete set of sausage dolls, not to mention a stuffed version of every mascot from almost every ballpark I’ve been to (and some I haven’t made it to yet!) The sausages make sense in Milwaukee. The presidents make perverse sense in DC, a new team trying to create new traditions. And while the sausage race is sponsored (they’re Klement sausages after all), I’ve been there. It’s not heavy-handed. It’s not the colossally moronic construction equipment race to Citi Field sponsored by Arpielle, aka “The Ugliest Sponsorship Billboard in the Most Prominent Placement In Any MLB Ballpark”.  The Arpielle situation clearly demonstrates that THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DO THIS. (And feel free to define “this” as anything you like.)

Although I do like the Kranepool Society’s idea of the Rat Race.

We are doing a big West Coast roadtrip this year that is going to hit all the parks except Seattle (a place we have been and will return to in future), so we’re doing a lot of research in preparation. this article about the changes in the in-game entertainment at Padres games was particularly interesting, and is something that the Mets could learn from - if they could be bothered to. They analyze, they listen, they try things.

That’s just the thing. All the Mets would have to do is what I do every day, which is sit online and read what all the other teams in MLB are doing. The Astros were doing a Valentine’s Day special with an evening ballpark tour and a photo on the field. Every team except the Yankees did some kind of fan fest or winter carnival.  Almost every team made a big deal (in some cases, like Boston, maybe too much of a big deal) about Truck Day.  There is no way on earth that I believe that people in the organization aren’t aware of what other teams are doing. Please do not bring up the Yankees as an example because they’re not - and even the Yankees offer tours of the goddamn ballpark. I realize that we are in New York and everyone else lives in a small hamlet unworthy of attention from the outside world. If you saw what they did in Los Angeles or San Francisco you would have to eat your words. Boston, who doesn’t have to do anything to attract fans, still tries hard to make the experience pleasant for fans. And Chicago just doesn’t have any of that nonsense at all, which, frankly, I enjoyed tremendously.

The Mets simply cannot be bothered to do anything. It’s why we don’t have Old Timer’s Day, it’s probably why we don’t have Banner Day. They do the minimum and then pull out ridiculous things like painting the stairwells blue and orange and consider having a freaking character race. They brought the Home Run Apple over but made the most artificial, character-less apple possible. People are not coming to the ballpark to watch the Presidents or the Sausages or the Pierogies run. We have Mr. Met - how about you do more with the mascot we already have and like?

We don’t need the Mets to do anything else. We need the team to win, or at least play baseball at a level that is tolerable to watch. If the team is winning, no one will care about the ugly scoreboard advertisements.  If the team is losing, nothing you do is going to make the fans happy. We want fair prices, we want a winning team, we want simple things like access to the field for BP and reasonable service charges on tickets, fairly priced concessions, security that makes us feel like welcome guests and not interlopers. Start with the basics before having a subway race across the field between innings.