An Open Letter to Charlie Eshbach

Dear Charlie:

Your Sea Dogs lost another home game last night, their fifth in a row, and now they are sitting in third place in the EL North, 1.5 games behind first place New Hampshire and trailing Trenton by 1 game for second place. According to my calculations, the Sea Dogs are now 20-23 at home this season, which (according to MaineToday.com) is second worst in the EL.

You know all of this, of course. But what you may not know (unless you are a regular visit to this Blog) is that I have been working for a baseball consulting firm this season, and have attended many games at Hadlock field. I don't have my records in front of me at the moment, but I would estimate that I have attended about 25 games this season, in which the Sea Dogs have something like a 7-18 record. If the team were even close to .500, say 12-13 in those games, they would still be in first by 3.5 games. The Sea Dogs are much better at home (about 13-5) when I am not in attendance. Also, I was scheduled to work many of the games that were rained out, as well as a lot of the games that were played in such poor weather that in-game attendance was much lower than expected. I am starting to believe that my presence is bringing the team down.

Charlie, I get paid about $25/game by the consulting firm (note to the IRS - it's actually far, far less than this amount. I'm negotiating here). By the end of the season, I will have earned close to $1,000 (note to IRS - still negotiating, telling a little white lie!) in this gig. Here is my proposal to you: NEXT season, if the Portland Sea Dogs are willing to pay me $1,000, I will not renew my affiliation with the consulting firm. Instead, I will stay home and let the top Red Sox prospects play to their fullest potential. August of this season can be bought out as well, for how about $250. I think it's fair to say that any playoff revenues that may be in jeopardy by my continuing attendance at Hadlock Field would far exceed the cost for the Sea Dogs to keep me away. If you are interested in my proposal, please comment here and I will get in touch with you at the Sea Dogs front office to finalize the details.

Thanks for considering my proposal.

Joe

Scorer's Notes:

• The game was delayed by an hour due to thunderstorms and downpours. Once the rain passed, it was a pleasant Portland evening, warm enough for shorts but with a nice cooling fog by the end of the night. The crowd was a lot more excited and sociable than I am used to seeing, maybe the result of an extra hours worth of beer consumption.
• Buddy Dave and I were joined by our very close friends Ken and Dennis, one of whom is"back home" from Arizona for a week. Hanging out and catching up certainly made the rain delay go by faster. We had a great time.
• Cole Hamels got the start for the Reading Phillies. The result was a mixed bag - he walked five batters in six innings, but only allowed two hits with 5 K's. He was behind in the count all night, but managed to survive. Hamels was throwing in the low-90's, topping out at 92 mph, and mixing in breaking pitches that he didn't throw consistently for strikes. He's a lefty whose repertoire is very similar to Jon Lester's, though Hamels is quite a bit more raw at this point (my expert opinion, after seeing him throw 112 pitches). As I stated in the Phillies preview, I suspect that this may have to due with rust, as he's missed quite a bit of time to injury the last couple of seasons.
• Sea Dogs manager Todd Claus and DH Alberto Concepcion were tossed in consecutive innings for arguing balls and strikes. The unexpected part of these events is that they were arguing in opposite directions. Claus got into it with the home plate umpire because he thought his pitchers (Mr. Hyde and Denney Tomori) were getting squeezed. In the next inning, Concepcion watched three consecutive "ball fours" cross the plate in striking out. Coming out to warm up the pitcher before the 7th (he is the normal starting catcher), Concepcion instead chose to argue about the large strike zone, resuliting in his own ejection.
• The game featured 14 hits, 13 walks and 20 strikeouts. The Sea Dogs went the entire second inning with fewer than five swings at Hamels' offerings.
• Other Phillies prospects: Michael Bourn was 0-5 with 3 K's, but showed his great speed in running out a couple of ground balls. Chris Roberson was 2-3 with a nail-in-the-coffin two-run homer in the top of the 9th. Triple Crown candidated Randy Ruiz had a double and two walks on the evening.
• If you are ever trying to avoid detection by the police, my suggestion is that you enter a game at Hadlock as a defensive substitution. The PA announcer certainly won't betray your location.
• And to that crowd of drunk people who didn't really have tickets to those seats they were occupying in section 108: sit the hell down, we're trying to watch a game here!