Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Dear Padres, Your Social Media Suc.... OH, DEAR GOD, NO!!!

Dear Padres,

I'd like to inform you that you kind of really suck at social media and informing fans in general. I know you're trying by having social media nights and integrating twitter into the broadcasts but it's all very lackluster to me. Now I follow a few other baseball accounts on both Twitter and Instagram and well they are so much better at this than you are. I can go days without catching a tweet from you but can go only a few hours without catching a tweet from say the Indians or Reds or someone working for those teams. I don't know if you're just a bunch of old guys who don't understand the concept of social media but are trying to be cool or  if you're playing up the whole San Diegan laid back vibe or what the deal is but I could totally do this for you. I'll even watch my potty mouth and save it for my personal account.

Now, that I've made you aware of your social media activity or lack thereof, fanfest. Fanfest is this Saturday and as of last night we still have no idea what players will be there to sign autographs, do the forums or clinics or anything like that. How are we as fans supposed to decide if we want to go if we don't even know if our favorite players will be there?! Also, it's kind of a clusterfuck. I haven't gone the last two years for various reasons. One of those reasons being the whole clusterfucky thing. I feel like it could definitely be organized better. You want to take a picture with your friends in the dugout?? Good luck finding the space to do it. You're wearing sandals on the field, like a normal San Diegan, and want to make your way to the grass so people will stop kicking dirt up on your feet?? HA, not happening. Obviously, people are going to be in your way no matter if you're at fanfest or anywhere with a crowd. The only difference is, fanfest is an independent variable. Also, the "tour" thing is hardly a tour. I'm 99% sure the definition of a tourist is someone who stops and takes pictures like they've never encountered something before. Yeah, you totally can't do that during the "tour". The first and only time I took the tour, I was excited to see/imagine what goes on underneath our seats at every given moment while at Petco. Instead, we had a quick walk-through and if you did try to take a picture, there was a good chance it was going to come out blurry and you weren't going to have time to retake it.




Breaking News!! 
As was reported on twitter, my poor Luebke is heading to a second Tommy John surgery. We all know how I feel about the training staff and how I feel about Luebke. So clearly, I should have been the one rehabbing him and this wouldn't have happened. Luckily for Cory, he signed an extension before his elbow died but that only keeps him here until 2015 with options for 2016 and 2017. I hope to God that this second surgery will take and he will come back like Henry Rowengartner. Except ya know, the elbow instead of the shoulder.

Between knowing how athletes are and knowing a little something myself about rehabbing from surgery, not TJ but a surgery nonetheless, I personally feel like Cory's rehab was started before his elbow was ready. And I believe that was made apparent by his first setback and numerous ones after. I've probably tweeted it before especially after his first setback so I won't get into it here. Obviously, now with a second surgery looming, I really believe that. We know athletes are stubborn and hate being away from their sport and to be out for so long with an injury is devastating. No doubt Cory and the Padres wanted him to rehab as soon as possible but sometimes, after you think you're ready to begin your rehab assignment, you have to wait a little longer. In my experience, it took me, I want to say, 7?? years before I was ready to get back into gymnastics after surgery. Clearly, it's going to depend on the individual person, how fast their body heals and whether or not they are mentally prepared for the pain to come. Granted my surgery was a much bigger surgery than Tommy John and dealt with a significantly larger portion of the body than an elbow.

I'm not going to be completely unreasonable and think it's solely the training staffs fault. There is the chance that Cory had the unfortunate luck to be in the 10-ish% who's surgery isn't successful. Given all the injuries the Padres have had the last few seasons I do lean more towards the training staff but again, I'm not completely unreasonable and do understand that Cory could have just been unlucky. It's all just speculation.


Now to get back to my letter to the Padres...

There are obviously opportunities where you can go and have a real tour of the entire stadium but to announce a quick walk-through as a tour is just rude. As far as the autographs portion of fanfest goes, unless you are fortunate enough to have season tickets to get in super early or sign up to get in early, you're most likely not going to get autographs from the players you want. At least that's how it was when I went. The whole set times thing is both good and bad. Not every person that goes to fanfest is going to want to spend the entire day downtown waiting for their allotted time to get a players autograph, especially if it's not the player they were hoping to see. Plus there's that whole having a life outside of baseball thing. Then there are some who collect autographs and want everyone's but you were only allowed to get one voucher, or so I remember. Personally autographs are weird and I'd rather have a picture with the player but still. You have to hope you get there in time to get your favorite. The set times are a great attempt at organization but seem to have more flaws for fans. I have yet to decide whether or not I want to go to fanfest. I will probably decide not to go and then see everyone's tweets and regret that decision until I finally remember how clusterfucky my last experience was.

I'm not offering myself to help with fanfest like I did with the social media aspect because that is just too much. With all this said, I miss you so very much and don't want to wait any longer for the season to start. I love you with all of my little baseball heart and wish the best for you so please try to be better at these things so I can love you with all of my little baseball soul too.

Sincerely,
SanDiegoGirlie



I fully do not expect the Padres to actually see this. I was bored and this is the idea that popped into my head for a new blog post. If by some freak chance someone within the Padres does see this, yes I am serious about all of this. Maybe not so much the taking over their social media accounts part though. Then again it might be fun.

Ramblings of an Inconsistent Blogger

You all know that when I write, it's usually within a day or two of whatever's happening but I wrote this in the middle of the night a couple weeks ago and hadn't felt like reading it while being fully awake until now. Well, fully awake might be an understatement right now but I'm definitely more awake than I was when I wrote this. So here we go...

The Padres have been making some notable, for them, moves this off-season but none notable enough for me to really care about. I honestly couldn't tell you any of the moves we have made with the exception of the Logan Forsythe trade and even at that, I could only say it was a 5 for 2 kind of deal. The Padres of course being on the generous side and sending the 5 players to Tampa for 2. Now, I haven't looked up the stats on the guys we received because I don't even know their names but I do know both are pitchers (hooray!!) and one is a minor leaguer. Along with Logan, we sent Boxberger. Who as you remember was acquired in the Latos trade (that I still hate), leaving us with a broken catcher and an average 1B. Alonso is slowly growing on me but sometimes I swear I can play a better 1B than he can. Anyway, I don't remember who the other 3 players we sent are so, oops. I'm not saying this is a bad trade but it continues to make me questions the Padres trading abilities. Obviously they sign/trade for players under an assumption that they will remain healthy and or that their minor league numbers will translate into big league production and it will all work out but the Padres have some of the worst luck with this. I like that we are attempting to make moves, I just wish luck was on our side and that for once we wouldn't get the shitty end of the stick. I'm tired of being a sad Padres fan. Oh yeah, there was also the whole keeping Chase for another season thing. That was not my favorite move.

In other baseball news, my all time favorite baseball player not named Ken Caminiti is no longer dead. I'm pleased and saddened to announce that Grady Sizemore signed with the Boston Red Sox but you guys already knew that. If you recall, my second post ever on here was about why I thought the Padres should sign him. If you don't  recall you can find it here. There were talks that Grady was going to sign with the Reds and that pleased my little baseball heart. If he wasn't going to return to the Indians or sign with the Padres, at least he was going to be with a team that comes to Petco every season and at the very least is in the same vicinity as the Padres spring training facility. And then my little baseball heart was crushed when I saw the news that he signed a deal with the Red Sox. The Red Sox are one of my least favorite teams and I have no explanation for this but they are. To find out one of my all time favorite players signed with them almost made me want to cry. I even questioned whether or not crying was acceptable and then I remembered "there's no crying in baseball" and went on with my day.

As I mentioned in the attached post, Grady when healthy is beyond amazing. His accomplishments speak for him. However, as was mentioned, he is injury plagued. That mans love and passion for the game is stronger than his body. I had a brief conversation about Grady on twitter and said that I would trade Cam for Grady any day. Don't get me wrong, I like Cam but both are useless when playing through an injury but Grady when healthy, there are no words. Grady can get it. Now if Cam can stay healthy I'd be thrilled, still would prefer Grady but I'd be happy to settle for Cam. In a perfect world, the final sentence in my response to a comment would happen... "put a healthy Grady with Cam and we might not even need a third outfielder." Obviously, we'd need a third outfielder but with how much ground each man can cover when healthy, the third outfielder would more or less be backup in case the ball for some unknown reason gets by Cam and or Grady. At least that's how my mind is choosing to play out this scenario. Best of luck to Grady and fingers crossed he stays healthy.