Wednesday, February 16, 2005
pitchers and catchers report to spring training today. all right in the world once again.
what have i learned today?
i had been cultivating a deviant mind. certain unnecessary activities led a large portion of my mind to a place i didn't want to be. i feel like i've been going through a period of mental cleansing, but i didn't want to admit it was really necessary. now i know it was, which is unfortunate. there are certain things i can't control, but that doesn't mean i have to give them free reign over me.
what have i learned today?
i had been cultivating a deviant mind. certain unnecessary activities led a large portion of my mind to a place i didn't want to be. i feel like i've been going through a period of mental cleansing, but i didn't want to admit it was really necessary. now i know it was, which is unfortunate. there are certain things i can't control, but that doesn't mean i have to give them free reign over me.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
valentines day is within sight. a holiday of polarization. for couples, it is us vs. everyone else, a time time to become closer however they can. it seems like a lot of people use money, lots of money. they drop cash in place of real feelings. which to them, i suppose turn into real feelings. it just seems like a shallow way to do things to me. anyone can buy something at a store.
for singles, it is me vs. everyone else. you get to see all of the couples in the world happy, or at least pretending to be. the painful part isn't how lonely you feel throughout the day, it is the fact that things are exactly the same for you. it is a holiday you can't participate in, leaving you thinking about how lonely you are EVERY day. it isn't one day, it is one day that forces you to look at all of the days before, and all the days you know that are coming afterwards. the worst part is knowing that it is your fault. being alone is a choice. the fact that i know that all of my complaints are completely hollow makes me even more bitter.
i just can't handle it. i have never had a real valentine, i don't even know why they are all so happy. why do i get so worked up over one day, one day that is the same as all the others anyways. meh, valentines day is always soon forgotten. 8 days later, there is always a holiday i can't be excluded from. even if i am celebrating alone, my birthday is always a celebration of me.
for singles, it is me vs. everyone else. you get to see all of the couples in the world happy, or at least pretending to be. the painful part isn't how lonely you feel throughout the day, it is the fact that things are exactly the same for you. it is a holiday you can't participate in, leaving you thinking about how lonely you are EVERY day. it isn't one day, it is one day that forces you to look at all of the days before, and all the days you know that are coming afterwards. the worst part is knowing that it is your fault. being alone is a choice. the fact that i know that all of my complaints are completely hollow makes me even more bitter.
i just can't handle it. i have never had a real valentine, i don't even know why they are all so happy. why do i get so worked up over one day, one day that is the same as all the others anyways. meh, valentines day is always soon forgotten. 8 days later, there is always a holiday i can't be excluded from. even if i am celebrating alone, my birthday is always a celebration of me.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
the wierdest part is, how could i tell someone all of this. who would believe me if i told them my dreams were coming back to life?
there is so much inside me i don't even have words for. how could i possibly tell someone? so it goes down here. the digital representation of me. because i know i will understand. someday i will come back here and read, and i will understand what the digital me was thinking.
because who else would believe me if i told them these dreams felt so real?
there is so much inside me i don't even have words for. how could i possibly tell someone? so it goes down here. the digital representation of me. because i know i will understand. someday i will come back here and read, and i will understand what the digital me was thinking.
because who else would believe me if i told them these dreams felt so real?
i always thought the fact that i was coming apart at the seams was proof that i was somehow above everyone else, like something was trying to force me away from the rest of the world. i always thought that god tested the strongest most often, and my constant inner turmoil was proof of that.
but now, it is almost like my life is already laid down in a path before my feet. like i know what is going to happen before it happens, so there is no longer any challenge. have i fallen from grace? or have i passed all my tests up to this point. what is next? is this just the calm before the storm, or just the beginning of a different life for me. am i really pulling things together, or has god just given up on me and given me a normal life as punishment?
it is a wierd situation reversal. not believing in god finally leads me to the more positive of two solutions, but i feel disappointed by the fact that i came to this conclusion. it is all very simple. even in my quest for simplification, god proves to be too simple of a conclusion. simplicity isn't that easy. there are many varied, powerful and conflicting forces at work in this world, such that true simplicity would leave the world to shred itself to pieces in a series of grand and chaotic cataclysmic events. if god is the only force, then i don't agree with him, and i will do everything in my power to prove to him that he controls us humans using flawed or out of date stereotypes.
but i don't think he is the only force. i think there is more. i think i have a place somewhere, not for good or for evil, but for myself. i'll realize that there are no choices, there is just the path i have to take. i can't do anything that is counter to who i am. false forks are just alternatives available in case i am someone else. trying to force myself down a path i don't belong is what is dangerous.
maybe that is it. maybe i just forced myself so far off of my path that it took me until now to retrace my steps. maybe things are easy because i'm on the right track. that is the conclusion i am coming to more and more now. things make sense because they are supposed to make sense if they are correct. its not god, or a lack thereof. it is me, finally starting to pull itself together. all the inner turmoil, the headaches, the anxiety, the doubt and self-loathing, it was all just a sort of delayed mental and spiritual puberty. maybe i am finally catching up to the body that had wandered away, down a dark path it could not free itself from. i had to sieze things back for myself. i see signs of it all around me, in the back of my mind, tempting me, calling to me, trying to lure me away when my attention wanders. i can hear it talking to me sometimes, but i try to drown it out. drown it out with nothing, or something harmless.
the real battle is in my sleep. i used to have dreams all the time. as time went on, i lost them. they were occasional at best, and usually so uneventful i couldn't remember them. lately, i have been having dreams every night. multiple dreams. recurring dreams from my past, and new ones. dreams that start as nightmares. i am in a situation i don't understand. everything seems normal, but i know i'm not. i find myself in familiar places, places i never thought were real. places from my past, all the places i had convinced myself didn't exist because they are from memories i know aren't real. there are towns, buildings, cities based loosly on real places, but so different. but when i am in my dreams, i know all about them. i've been there before. i know how to get places. but i know something is wrong. because something is always wrong. usually, i just ran. i ran until my body would resist, and it wouldn't stay upright. i used to run on all fours, with my vision flickering in and out, fighting with everything i had because i knew something bad was coming, but i didn't know what it was. for nights in a row, bordering on weeks in a row now, i have stayed with it. i haven't run, unless i had too. i have been trying to win.
the last few nights i have been having this one dream. it started with people coming to kill me. people i didn't know. they were all after me. other people thought i was nuts. some of these other people tried to kill me after i mentioned it. eventually, things got out of control, and half of the population went nuts. i grabbed the people around me, and ran. i found the weapons i knew i had from a previous dream. i fought back. i protected the people i was with. last night, i think i beat them all. i had been fighting for three nights in a row now, i had killed so many of them and they had killed so many other people, that i was one of the last targets. i took the person with me, a girl who had been with me for what seemed like days, and ran one more time, to a place, to the dream version of the apartment building i live in now. i had seen it before, when i lived at my old place, but i didn't recognize it before. i always thought it was some sort of hotel i was staying at in my dream; i stay in a lot of different hotels or college dorms in different towns in my dreams. but last night i recognized it. i knew where i was. i knew this place was the only place i would be safe and stand a chance. it was MY home, my place in the world, the place i knew better than anyone and stood the best chance of survival.
i found my last two boxes of ammunition, and this crazy soul bomb me and one of my buddies had been working on as a last ditch effort. we had been trying to find a way to lure the person behind it all out into the open. i knew there was someone behind it all, and i knew it was a real living person. they had to be real, because they knew everything we were trying to do, they were one step ahead of us. nothing like the mindless creatures they sent after us. i give the girl two of my guns and half the ammunition. i kill the last of the people coming after us, and see two figures walking down the sidewalk towards me. i knew it was them. the people behind us. i fire shots at them in the distance before they can recognize it is me. they stop, and fire back, and i run away around the building towards my room (which is strangely on the bottom floor on the other side of the building it usually is. there are a lot of strange differences between the dream version of this building and the real version). i break through the window, and inside. i know where they are going to come. they know where i have hidden the bomb, and i know they know it. i put the girl in a room away from it all, a nondiscript room on a different floor from where all the action is going to be. i try to make it look as normal as possible so no one will be able to find her and she will be safe. i tell her to wait for me. i go and i hide the bomb across the hall from where it is hidden now to throw them off the track.
up to this point i have kept myself hidden. i have used stealth and misdirection. i have been as silent and as invisible as possible, sticking to shadows, slipping behind piles of wreckage. at this point, i know my buddy is there. the only other person besides the girl and myself i know is alive. i know he is close. i step out of the shadows, and into the middle of the hallway. i let my presense be known to anyone who can see it. i hear footsteps coming towards me. i walk down the hallway and slip into one of the open doorways until someone can see me, my gun pointed towards the entrance, on the same side of the door jam as the person is coming from. i know it is one of them, one of the two figures who was walking towards me. not the one in charge, but the other one, still one of them. i hear him come to my doorway. as he approaches, he stops, and i know why. i know my friend is on the other side, and has just confronted him face to face, unthinkable before this moment because this man is so powerful. it is enough to turn him around. i know the evil man is smiling, enjoying the prospect of killing my friend. that is when i rotate through the doorway, and shoot the bad guy in the head. my friend is smiling at me, unafraid. he knew i was there, and that it would be ok.
this is what has been happening lately. in one of my other dreams, a dream in which i was a part of an evil gang who loosely controlled monsters made of energy. about a week ago when i was thrown into it again, i thought about running again, but then i realized that i had infiltrated this gang somehow. i felt out of place, but no one questioned my presence at all. i saw these people, and these monsters in the times they weren't killing, in this crappy little hole in the sewers beneath this snowy hotel resort town. i watched, and i knew what i had to do. it was up to me. everything was up to me. i was the only one who could stop them. and as i watched, the monsters slowly revealed their weaknesses in front of me. and then it happened. they were luring people into the sewers so they could kill them. they all ran out. as they did, i killed the last one to leave when no one was there before slipping into the tunnels. i ran, and found the people first. i started leading them through the sewers. i knew one of the monsters was coming, so i sent the people off alone down a fork, and led the monster after me. but i was unafraid. the monster came screaming down the tunnel towards me, and passed me without a second glance. it was after the people, and it was used to me. i went back and found the people, who thought i had abandoned them, and started leading them towards the exit. when we got there, the same monster came towards us. now it knew, and it charged me. still, i was unafraid. i knew its weakness. as the last person escaped up the ladder, i stood alone in the tunnel, unafraid in the monsters path.
i can't pass these things off as coincidences. one night, maybe. but it has been days, weeks in a row where i have been dreaming everynight, and every scene is familiar. i have started going through what i remember about some of my worst dreams thinking about everything i know now about the surroundings so i won't be so afraid when their turn comes. i know i will visit all of these places i have dreamt about before, and constantly throughout my life and find out why i was there in the first place. i know i am not done with the zombie people, there is still the bomb i haven't seen go off yet, and the other mysterious person, but i have been victorious up to this point. i know i haven't killed all of the monsters in the sewer, but i know i will. it is like i am slowly going through my dreams and fufilling my purpose in each of them. their stories have progress, instead of ending with me blindly stumbling and groping my way through a scary place i don't recognize, running from some nameless terror.
something has changed in me. it can't be coincidence. these dreams are like memories of my past, of my past imagination. a lot of them never made sense to me, but they are coming more and more into focus now. these dreams feel as real to me as any other memory. i remember the places i go to from my past, because i have already been there in dreams in the past.
i remember a few dreams in particular, recurring dreams. one that started when i was 5 years old. i had this dream that i fell in love and got married, and even started loving this woman romantically when i was 5, before i understood what love was, or even what sexual desire was, but i know now what i was feeling in that dream. i had that dream, the same dream with a little bit added to the end for 11 days in a row. i remember because i counted. i haven't thought about counting the number of times it was since i was 5, but i remember for some reason. i don't remember the dream anymore, except the end. we were running, me and this woman. i don't know where we were going, but we were running.
where were we going? who is this girl? is it the same girl from the zombie dream? is that girl ok, locked in her room? i never got a chance to go back and find her before i woke up. come to think of it, a girl was the last person up out of the sewers while i was standing there. who is this girl, and do we ever meet again?
i don't know exactly what is happening to me, but i feel stronger today than i did yesterday because of what has been happening in my dreams.
but now, it is almost like my life is already laid down in a path before my feet. like i know what is going to happen before it happens, so there is no longer any challenge. have i fallen from grace? or have i passed all my tests up to this point. what is next? is this just the calm before the storm, or just the beginning of a different life for me. am i really pulling things together, or has god just given up on me and given me a normal life as punishment?
it is a wierd situation reversal. not believing in god finally leads me to the more positive of two solutions, but i feel disappointed by the fact that i came to this conclusion. it is all very simple. even in my quest for simplification, god proves to be too simple of a conclusion. simplicity isn't that easy. there are many varied, powerful and conflicting forces at work in this world, such that true simplicity would leave the world to shred itself to pieces in a series of grand and chaotic cataclysmic events. if god is the only force, then i don't agree with him, and i will do everything in my power to prove to him that he controls us humans using flawed or out of date stereotypes.
but i don't think he is the only force. i think there is more. i think i have a place somewhere, not for good or for evil, but for myself. i'll realize that there are no choices, there is just the path i have to take. i can't do anything that is counter to who i am. false forks are just alternatives available in case i am someone else. trying to force myself down a path i don't belong is what is dangerous.
maybe that is it. maybe i just forced myself so far off of my path that it took me until now to retrace my steps. maybe things are easy because i'm on the right track. that is the conclusion i am coming to more and more now. things make sense because they are supposed to make sense if they are correct. its not god, or a lack thereof. it is me, finally starting to pull itself together. all the inner turmoil, the headaches, the anxiety, the doubt and self-loathing, it was all just a sort of delayed mental and spiritual puberty. maybe i am finally catching up to the body that had wandered away, down a dark path it could not free itself from. i had to sieze things back for myself. i see signs of it all around me, in the back of my mind, tempting me, calling to me, trying to lure me away when my attention wanders. i can hear it talking to me sometimes, but i try to drown it out. drown it out with nothing, or something harmless.
the real battle is in my sleep. i used to have dreams all the time. as time went on, i lost them. they were occasional at best, and usually so uneventful i couldn't remember them. lately, i have been having dreams every night. multiple dreams. recurring dreams from my past, and new ones. dreams that start as nightmares. i am in a situation i don't understand. everything seems normal, but i know i'm not. i find myself in familiar places, places i never thought were real. places from my past, all the places i had convinced myself didn't exist because they are from memories i know aren't real. there are towns, buildings, cities based loosly on real places, but so different. but when i am in my dreams, i know all about them. i've been there before. i know how to get places. but i know something is wrong. because something is always wrong. usually, i just ran. i ran until my body would resist, and it wouldn't stay upright. i used to run on all fours, with my vision flickering in and out, fighting with everything i had because i knew something bad was coming, but i didn't know what it was. for nights in a row, bordering on weeks in a row now, i have stayed with it. i haven't run, unless i had too. i have been trying to win.
the last few nights i have been having this one dream. it started with people coming to kill me. people i didn't know. they were all after me. other people thought i was nuts. some of these other people tried to kill me after i mentioned it. eventually, things got out of control, and half of the population went nuts. i grabbed the people around me, and ran. i found the weapons i knew i had from a previous dream. i fought back. i protected the people i was with. last night, i think i beat them all. i had been fighting for three nights in a row now, i had killed so many of them and they had killed so many other people, that i was one of the last targets. i took the person with me, a girl who had been with me for what seemed like days, and ran one more time, to a place, to the dream version of the apartment building i live in now. i had seen it before, when i lived at my old place, but i didn't recognize it before. i always thought it was some sort of hotel i was staying at in my dream; i stay in a lot of different hotels or college dorms in different towns in my dreams. but last night i recognized it. i knew where i was. i knew this place was the only place i would be safe and stand a chance. it was MY home, my place in the world, the place i knew better than anyone and stood the best chance of survival.
i found my last two boxes of ammunition, and this crazy soul bomb me and one of my buddies had been working on as a last ditch effort. we had been trying to find a way to lure the person behind it all out into the open. i knew there was someone behind it all, and i knew it was a real living person. they had to be real, because they knew everything we were trying to do, they were one step ahead of us. nothing like the mindless creatures they sent after us. i give the girl two of my guns and half the ammunition. i kill the last of the people coming after us, and see two figures walking down the sidewalk towards me. i knew it was them. the people behind us. i fire shots at them in the distance before they can recognize it is me. they stop, and fire back, and i run away around the building towards my room (which is strangely on the bottom floor on the other side of the building it usually is. there are a lot of strange differences between the dream version of this building and the real version). i break through the window, and inside. i know where they are going to come. they know where i have hidden the bomb, and i know they know it. i put the girl in a room away from it all, a nondiscript room on a different floor from where all the action is going to be. i try to make it look as normal as possible so no one will be able to find her and she will be safe. i tell her to wait for me. i go and i hide the bomb across the hall from where it is hidden now to throw them off the track.
up to this point i have kept myself hidden. i have used stealth and misdirection. i have been as silent and as invisible as possible, sticking to shadows, slipping behind piles of wreckage. at this point, i know my buddy is there. the only other person besides the girl and myself i know is alive. i know he is close. i step out of the shadows, and into the middle of the hallway. i let my presense be known to anyone who can see it. i hear footsteps coming towards me. i walk down the hallway and slip into one of the open doorways until someone can see me, my gun pointed towards the entrance, on the same side of the door jam as the person is coming from. i know it is one of them, one of the two figures who was walking towards me. not the one in charge, but the other one, still one of them. i hear him come to my doorway. as he approaches, he stops, and i know why. i know my friend is on the other side, and has just confronted him face to face, unthinkable before this moment because this man is so powerful. it is enough to turn him around. i know the evil man is smiling, enjoying the prospect of killing my friend. that is when i rotate through the doorway, and shoot the bad guy in the head. my friend is smiling at me, unafraid. he knew i was there, and that it would be ok.
this is what has been happening lately. in one of my other dreams, a dream in which i was a part of an evil gang who loosely controlled monsters made of energy. about a week ago when i was thrown into it again, i thought about running again, but then i realized that i had infiltrated this gang somehow. i felt out of place, but no one questioned my presence at all. i saw these people, and these monsters in the times they weren't killing, in this crappy little hole in the sewers beneath this snowy hotel resort town. i watched, and i knew what i had to do. it was up to me. everything was up to me. i was the only one who could stop them. and as i watched, the monsters slowly revealed their weaknesses in front of me. and then it happened. they were luring people into the sewers so they could kill them. they all ran out. as they did, i killed the last one to leave when no one was there before slipping into the tunnels. i ran, and found the people first. i started leading them through the sewers. i knew one of the monsters was coming, so i sent the people off alone down a fork, and led the monster after me. but i was unafraid. the monster came screaming down the tunnel towards me, and passed me without a second glance. it was after the people, and it was used to me. i went back and found the people, who thought i had abandoned them, and started leading them towards the exit. when we got there, the same monster came towards us. now it knew, and it charged me. still, i was unafraid. i knew its weakness. as the last person escaped up the ladder, i stood alone in the tunnel, unafraid in the monsters path.
i can't pass these things off as coincidences. one night, maybe. but it has been days, weeks in a row where i have been dreaming everynight, and every scene is familiar. i have started going through what i remember about some of my worst dreams thinking about everything i know now about the surroundings so i won't be so afraid when their turn comes. i know i will visit all of these places i have dreamt about before, and constantly throughout my life and find out why i was there in the first place. i know i am not done with the zombie people, there is still the bomb i haven't seen go off yet, and the other mysterious person, but i have been victorious up to this point. i know i haven't killed all of the monsters in the sewer, but i know i will. it is like i am slowly going through my dreams and fufilling my purpose in each of them. their stories have progress, instead of ending with me blindly stumbling and groping my way through a scary place i don't recognize, running from some nameless terror.
something has changed in me. it can't be coincidence. these dreams are like memories of my past, of my past imagination. a lot of them never made sense to me, but they are coming more and more into focus now. these dreams feel as real to me as any other memory. i remember the places i go to from my past, because i have already been there in dreams in the past.
i remember a few dreams in particular, recurring dreams. one that started when i was 5 years old. i had this dream that i fell in love and got married, and even started loving this woman romantically when i was 5, before i understood what love was, or even what sexual desire was, but i know now what i was feeling in that dream. i had that dream, the same dream with a little bit added to the end for 11 days in a row. i remember because i counted. i haven't thought about counting the number of times it was since i was 5, but i remember for some reason. i don't remember the dream anymore, except the end. we were running, me and this woman. i don't know where we were going, but we were running.
where were we going? who is this girl? is it the same girl from the zombie dream? is that girl ok, locked in her room? i never got a chance to go back and find her before i woke up. come to think of it, a girl was the last person up out of the sewers while i was standing there. who is this girl, and do we ever meet again?
i don't know exactly what is happening to me, but i feel stronger today than i did yesterday because of what has been happening in my dreams.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
losing my mind, losing my mind dun dun losing my mind, losing my mind DUN DUN
good news is here. i ordered a cheap graphics card, so now my computer actually works. i will miss the green matrix lines that ran down my screen. that was kind of creepy actually, because they'd shift if i moved my mouse. but now, my computer is back. i finally have sound and video again.
i've been so detached from the world that it doesn't feel like any time has passed. it is all blurring together one day of glorious lazy bliss. i don't want it to end, but it needs to for the sake of my mental well being. other people are turning into mysterious afterthoughts in my daily routine. i know they are probably out there, but i can't really prove they exist, so there really isn't much use worrying about them. eventually i'll have to eject myself out of my comfortable little pod and rejoin them all, so i may as well ignore them while i can.
no offense to you if you actually are a real person, but i'm still going to have to ignore you too.
good news is here. i ordered a cheap graphics card, so now my computer actually works. i will miss the green matrix lines that ran down my screen. that was kind of creepy actually, because they'd shift if i moved my mouse. but now, my computer is back. i finally have sound and video again.
i've been so detached from the world that it doesn't feel like any time has passed. it is all blurring together one day of glorious lazy bliss. i don't want it to end, but it needs to for the sake of my mental well being. other people are turning into mysterious afterthoughts in my daily routine. i know they are probably out there, but i can't really prove they exist, so there really isn't much use worrying about them. eventually i'll have to eject myself out of my comfortable little pod and rejoin them all, so i may as well ignore them while i can.
no offense to you if you actually are a real person, but i'm still going to have to ignore you too.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
today, i talk about the mariners again.
these damn mariners. they win more games than anyone else in baseball, launch themselves into the top three in revenue in 2001, a trend that continues through 2002 and 2003 before the 2004 flop. so we are top three in revenue, yankees and redsox territory. but, for 3 years, the mariners do not make a single signficant free agent signing or trade. it was outright stupidity what happened. the reason the 2001 season happened is because we signed all of these regular joe veteran type guys to reasonable contracts, so we could have decent play from every position. they win 116 games. the management signs these aging guys to large contracts, and refuse to bump up payroll to sign new players to improve the team, choosing to pocket the extra money they are now making (and there was a lot of extra money coming in).
it is almost like they knew it was a fluke. they didn't know how to keep winning, so they unwittingly sabotaged themselves. they froze in the spotlight. they bunkered down and hoped the magic they didn't understand and couldn't control would strike again. they were betting on the fluke. finally, last year we hired a new general manager. it didn't matter who it was in my opinion. it was almost like we went 2 years without one, because nothing happened. no moves were made. we had no signings from teams other than our own. at least now we have someone willing to spend the money he is allocated.
this offseason. oh man, this offseason was great. it could have been scary, but it turned into a beautiful thing. first, let me make a plea to everyone who keeps track of the mariners. stop reading what the reporters write. they don't know what they are talking about. read the mariners blogs that are out there. they are good. in fact, they are so good that the pi has one of the bloggers writing columns for them now. the uss mariner (THE mariner blog) has one of its guys writing this column called 'off the wall'. if you see this in the paper, read it. then compare it to what the other mariners writers have to say. it is kind of funny. anyways, the uss mariner saved my offseason. they kept the world abreast of what is really going on in the mariners world. even better, i think the GM for the mariners reads the blogs, because he had comments and addressed topics straight out of this blog.
here is what i think. presented with the reality of this offseason, bill bavasi was an artist. this is based on the assumption that adrian beltre was his #1 target all along, and carlos delgado and richie sexson were interchangable pieces in his mind. the thought of signing both of those players was a back-up plan he made public to put pressure on scott boras, beltres agent. everyone knew beltre was a fit for the mariners. no one thought the mariners would go through with it. bill bavasi used this too his advantage. he played it cool with beltre. he showed up to the winter meetings and waited for scott boras to contact him while making a huge public display of courting Sexson AND Delgado, when he was really after only one of them. he let the dodgers take the brunt of the boras evil. the boras evil that convinced the rangers to spend $252 million on A-rod, and just convinced the poor tigers to sign Magglio ordonez to a deal that could potentially reach $105 million. the mariners kept their big bid a secret. the dodgers were the only team making a serious move on beltre at the time, although the mariners were showing interest. so while boras was trying to squeeze 7 years out of the dodgers, the mariners kept up their story by vocally courting delgado and sexson simutaniously. they had a story out from hargrove about how sexson could play left field, they had everything.
then it hits. delgado took himself out of the race. other teams saw the mariners were going to get him, and his agent decides to push for the $20 million he made last year. almost a smart move on his part. the mariners sign sexson. they were going to have to over pay for one of these two, because they were both such sought after commodities. EVERYONE was after one of them. we knew we could always have sexson. he turned down $40 million from the diamondbacks, so we knew we would have to go higher than that. then the troy glaus thing happened, and it was just a matter of time. we had to pay $50 million to get him, or else someone else would have. so it hits at the winter meetings. you could hear the buzz about it hit the blogs before it was announced, it was an awesome day. the mariners come out with a bid 5 million higher than anyone had expected, and sexson gladly signed to the team he was going to sign with anyways. people call it a terrible deal because of the injury risk, but it was all a part of the overall strategy, which was to get beltre whatever it took. it was the money they had to pay for the timing of the thing.
so, here we are. the dodgers think they have time, but they are dragging their feet. boras has talked them into the 7th year. the offer they have on the table is something like 7 years $70 million dollars. they were fully intending to go higher, i'm sure. then the mariners call. they drop the bomb. they up their offer to 5 years at $13.5M a year it blows their other offers out of the water. they offer a $17M dollar signing bonus. they have just inked sexson, and they say this is our offer. take it, or we offer it to delgado tomorrow. boras panics. no way in hell were the dodgers going to go to 7 years $95M in a day like that. so they take it. it is a great deal for beltre. it is a great deal for the fans. in less than 24 hours, we get it worked out. other teams would have paid more. see magglio ordonez.
that is what i will remember about this season. scott boras, the man behind the worst contracts in the world was beaten into a fair contract at the height of the winter meetings by the MARINERS. it was brilliant. it was straight out of the world series of poker. we slowplayed him, then went all in and got him to fold. that day eventually will be the best 24 hour period in my long time love affair with the mariners. i loved them when the sucked. i worshipped them when they were good. i was disappointed when they sucked again, because they shouldn't have, but i loved them. at the end of that day, i almost fell onto the floor. i did yell at the top of my lungs. i ran around my apartment cheering when i heard we signed adrian beltre. the sexson deal looks great to me in the context of that day. he could get injured. but he could play. you never know. i'm willing to at least give him the chance to earn his money.
howard lincoln, the president or owner or whatever he is, had an article in the papers early in the offseason that gave me hope for the future. he sounded embarassed, and willing to let the money be spent how it needed to be. the lights came on last year that he couldn't keep jacking all of the profits, because he was going to lose money. i hope he has learned his lesson after the way this offseason went. the mariners had the best signing of the whole damn thing. he let us make some big moves, one risky, one brilliant. at the recent fanfest, i hope howard lincoln realized that he had just done a great thing, and has sent his team in the right direction, even if it was kicking and screaming. in the past, fans have absolutely drilled the guy. he keeps a scrapbook of all the bad articles about him. he was one of the most hated men in seattle over these last few years, and especially trashed on by the blogging community. he makes a public appearance at the fanfest, taking questions from the crowd. it is a risky move on his part. i'm sure he was sweating.
first person to the podium doesn't have a question. it is a local blogger. this guy thanked howard lincoln and the mariners management for the great offseason. from what i hear from people who were there, lincoln looked suprised. i hope it hit him in the chest. he did the right thing, and the fans already appreciate it. it doesn't matter if the players flop, it is the fact that effort was made. a sincere effort to make the team better. he went on stage in front of the fans. i'm sure he expected to be grilled. he was facing his worst nightmare, his worst enemy. instead he gets public approval.
i hope the mariners compare this upcoming season to the torture of last season. i hope that the lessons the fans have learned were also learned by the people in charge. the fans in seattle are smart. we are smart, and we love baseball. you can't keep us quiet with fluff pieces in the local paper. last season was a turning point. the fan/ownership feud that had been brewing came to a head. it was a big "i told you so" from all the fans who were angry at the inactivity of the front office. last season should have never happened. it was embarassing. the town was silent. the mariners were a taboo subject. there was none of the electricty of the years before when we were good.
this season will be different, and i hope the management sees. the mariners will be good. the town will be buzzing again. there will be no more boos for the home team at safeco. they will look back at the season, and they will see adrian beltre in the sky above the stadium. they will have another chance next offseason to make the team better. that is all the fans really want, a chance. as long as the team makes an effort to make the team better, we will be happy and watch. sometimes good teams get beat, we realize that. but bad teams always lose, and we also realize that. we are willing to watch a good team lose, but we won't watch a bad team lose again. the mariners have $100M a season to spend. there is no excuse for a bad team.
these damn mariners. they win more games than anyone else in baseball, launch themselves into the top three in revenue in 2001, a trend that continues through 2002 and 2003 before the 2004 flop. so we are top three in revenue, yankees and redsox territory. but, for 3 years, the mariners do not make a single signficant free agent signing or trade. it was outright stupidity what happened. the reason the 2001 season happened is because we signed all of these regular joe veteran type guys to reasonable contracts, so we could have decent play from every position. they win 116 games. the management signs these aging guys to large contracts, and refuse to bump up payroll to sign new players to improve the team, choosing to pocket the extra money they are now making (and there was a lot of extra money coming in).
it is almost like they knew it was a fluke. they didn't know how to keep winning, so they unwittingly sabotaged themselves. they froze in the spotlight. they bunkered down and hoped the magic they didn't understand and couldn't control would strike again. they were betting on the fluke. finally, last year we hired a new general manager. it didn't matter who it was in my opinion. it was almost like we went 2 years without one, because nothing happened. no moves were made. we had no signings from teams other than our own. at least now we have someone willing to spend the money he is allocated.
this offseason. oh man, this offseason was great. it could have been scary, but it turned into a beautiful thing. first, let me make a plea to everyone who keeps track of the mariners. stop reading what the reporters write. they don't know what they are talking about. read the mariners blogs that are out there. they are good. in fact, they are so good that the pi has one of the bloggers writing columns for them now. the uss mariner (THE mariner blog) has one of its guys writing this column called 'off the wall'. if you see this in the paper, read it. then compare it to what the other mariners writers have to say. it is kind of funny. anyways, the uss mariner saved my offseason. they kept the world abreast of what is really going on in the mariners world. even better, i think the GM for the mariners reads the blogs, because he had comments and addressed topics straight out of this blog.
here is what i think. presented with the reality of this offseason, bill bavasi was an artist. this is based on the assumption that adrian beltre was his #1 target all along, and carlos delgado and richie sexson were interchangable pieces in his mind. the thought of signing both of those players was a back-up plan he made public to put pressure on scott boras, beltres agent. everyone knew beltre was a fit for the mariners. no one thought the mariners would go through with it. bill bavasi used this too his advantage. he played it cool with beltre. he showed up to the winter meetings and waited for scott boras to contact him while making a huge public display of courting Sexson AND Delgado, when he was really after only one of them. he let the dodgers take the brunt of the boras evil. the boras evil that convinced the rangers to spend $252 million on A-rod, and just convinced the poor tigers to sign Magglio ordonez to a deal that could potentially reach $105 million. the mariners kept their big bid a secret. the dodgers were the only team making a serious move on beltre at the time, although the mariners were showing interest. so while boras was trying to squeeze 7 years out of the dodgers, the mariners kept up their story by vocally courting delgado and sexson simutaniously. they had a story out from hargrove about how sexson could play left field, they had everything.
then it hits. delgado took himself out of the race. other teams saw the mariners were going to get him, and his agent decides to push for the $20 million he made last year. almost a smart move on his part. the mariners sign sexson. they were going to have to over pay for one of these two, because they were both such sought after commodities. EVERYONE was after one of them. we knew we could always have sexson. he turned down $40 million from the diamondbacks, so we knew we would have to go higher than that. then the troy glaus thing happened, and it was just a matter of time. we had to pay $50 million to get him, or else someone else would have. so it hits at the winter meetings. you could hear the buzz about it hit the blogs before it was announced, it was an awesome day. the mariners come out with a bid 5 million higher than anyone had expected, and sexson gladly signed to the team he was going to sign with anyways. people call it a terrible deal because of the injury risk, but it was all a part of the overall strategy, which was to get beltre whatever it took. it was the money they had to pay for the timing of the thing.
so, here we are. the dodgers think they have time, but they are dragging their feet. boras has talked them into the 7th year. the offer they have on the table is something like 7 years $70 million dollars. they were fully intending to go higher, i'm sure. then the mariners call. they drop the bomb. they up their offer to 5 years at $13.5M a year it blows their other offers out of the water. they offer a $17M dollar signing bonus. they have just inked sexson, and they say this is our offer. take it, or we offer it to delgado tomorrow. boras panics. no way in hell were the dodgers going to go to 7 years $95M in a day like that. so they take it. it is a great deal for beltre. it is a great deal for the fans. in less than 24 hours, we get it worked out. other teams would have paid more. see magglio ordonez.
that is what i will remember about this season. scott boras, the man behind the worst contracts in the world was beaten into a fair contract at the height of the winter meetings by the MARINERS. it was brilliant. it was straight out of the world series of poker. we slowplayed him, then went all in and got him to fold. that day eventually will be the best 24 hour period in my long time love affair with the mariners. i loved them when the sucked. i worshipped them when they were good. i was disappointed when they sucked again, because they shouldn't have, but i loved them. at the end of that day, i almost fell onto the floor. i did yell at the top of my lungs. i ran around my apartment cheering when i heard we signed adrian beltre. the sexson deal looks great to me in the context of that day. he could get injured. but he could play. you never know. i'm willing to at least give him the chance to earn his money.
howard lincoln, the president or owner or whatever he is, had an article in the papers early in the offseason that gave me hope for the future. he sounded embarassed, and willing to let the money be spent how it needed to be. the lights came on last year that he couldn't keep jacking all of the profits, because he was going to lose money. i hope he has learned his lesson after the way this offseason went. the mariners had the best signing of the whole damn thing. he let us make some big moves, one risky, one brilliant. at the recent fanfest, i hope howard lincoln realized that he had just done a great thing, and has sent his team in the right direction, even if it was kicking and screaming. in the past, fans have absolutely drilled the guy. he keeps a scrapbook of all the bad articles about him. he was one of the most hated men in seattle over these last few years, and especially trashed on by the blogging community. he makes a public appearance at the fanfest, taking questions from the crowd. it is a risky move on his part. i'm sure he was sweating.
first person to the podium doesn't have a question. it is a local blogger. this guy thanked howard lincoln and the mariners management for the great offseason. from what i hear from people who were there, lincoln looked suprised. i hope it hit him in the chest. he did the right thing, and the fans already appreciate it. it doesn't matter if the players flop, it is the fact that effort was made. a sincere effort to make the team better. he went on stage in front of the fans. i'm sure he expected to be grilled. he was facing his worst nightmare, his worst enemy. instead he gets public approval.
i hope the mariners compare this upcoming season to the torture of last season. i hope that the lessons the fans have learned were also learned by the people in charge. the fans in seattle are smart. we are smart, and we love baseball. you can't keep us quiet with fluff pieces in the local paper. last season was a turning point. the fan/ownership feud that had been brewing came to a head. it was a big "i told you so" from all the fans who were angry at the inactivity of the front office. last season should have never happened. it was embarassing. the town was silent. the mariners were a taboo subject. there was none of the electricty of the years before when we were good.
this season will be different, and i hope the management sees. the mariners will be good. the town will be buzzing again. there will be no more boos for the home team at safeco. they will look back at the season, and they will see adrian beltre in the sky above the stadium. they will have another chance next offseason to make the team better. that is all the fans really want, a chance. as long as the team makes an effort to make the team better, we will be happy and watch. sometimes good teams get beat, we realize that. but bad teams always lose, and we also realize that. we are willing to watch a good team lose, but we won't watch a bad team lose again. the mariners have $100M a season to spend. there is no excuse for a bad team.
Friday, February 04, 2005
so, i had an epiphany last night. actually, i had a few, but they were all related. I realized that i know all about the person i was, the things i've done wrong, and the what my opinions were in the past, but i know very little about what is different now, besides a general feeling that i am happier than i have ever been before.
the old me believed in nothing. he sucked. but the new me believe in himself. it was about 3am last night when i realized the only moment in life that could possibly matter is the last moment in your life. everything else leads up to that moment, and you have a choice to make. do you want to keep going, or do you want to die. can you hold your soul together, or do you fade away. until that moment, you won't know. all you can do is give yourself the best chance you can.
nothing else really seems important today. i am at ease. if i died right now, i think i would be able to hold myself together.
the old me believed in nothing. he sucked. but the new me believe in himself. it was about 3am last night when i realized the only moment in life that could possibly matter is the last moment in your life. everything else leads up to that moment, and you have a choice to make. do you want to keep going, or do you want to die. can you hold your soul together, or do you fade away. until that moment, you won't know. all you can do is give yourself the best chance you can.
nothing else really seems important today. i am at ease. if i died right now, i think i would be able to hold myself together.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
what have i learned today?
let go. memory is a form of time travel. time spent in the past is time stolen from the present. our time alive is not infinite, so spending time to relive time you have already spent is wasteful. wasting time will leave you unprepared for the future. so, let go.
and remember, in the future, there will be robots. be nice to your george foreman grill, or it might turn on you.
let go. memory is a form of time travel. time spent in the past is time stolen from the present. our time alive is not infinite, so spending time to relive time you have already spent is wasteful. wasting time will leave you unprepared for the future. so, let go.
and remember, in the future, there will be robots. be nice to your george foreman grill, or it might turn on you.
