NSBB at the 2005 Convention

[burnt out cubbie fan]

Pictures!

 

It was pretty hard to get good pictures. My camera doesn't zoom too well, and when it does, the pictures are grainy. There are some nice shots of people's hair though... :lol:

It was next to impossible to take a good picture in that place. The lighting is just really messed up.

[Jon]

Meet Cubs Baseball Management (my notes aren't as detailed in this one):

 

Dusty: Happy for the new year and a new season.

 

I missed the reply to Mark Peel's question. He can fill in.

 

Dusty (my question): Recommended Groeschner and kinda feels weird about the change. Mark O'Neal was highly recommended from a lot of people. The trainer is the most valuable member of the organization. So far, he has heard nothing but positives about Mark. He's a very valuable guy to have around.

 

Hendry: Haggerty was not very capable of helping the big league club. They needed open roster spots for addons. Sisco has been disappointing in the past year and a half.

 

Dusty: Too much emphasis is placed on pitch count. You have to take a pitcher to the limit to find out what that limit is. He doesn't keep track of pitchcounts himself. Larry does. He plays a game with himself to see how close he is. He doesn't keep close track.

 

Dusty: He defended Barrett over the incident with Houston. He said that Michael was the "most mild-mannered, Christian man in the world." Something happened between him and Houston when he was with Montreal and he hasn't forgotten. He really wants to beat Oswalt.

 

Hendry: No problems in the Z negotiations. They're going to follow the same plan with A-Ram that they did with Kerry and Lee last year.

 

Dusty: Only giving 1 IP per reliever ties down his hands. There aren't as many guys in the pool in case of injury.

 

Hendry: There is no # of wins from Maddux that makes his deal worth it. He's good for 15 wins a year. They were fortunate to get him. The week before Greg signed, he really didn't think they were going to get him. You have to just stay on top of everything and keep at it. Maddux can do it for two more years.

 

Dusty: In response to a question from a little kid that drew a lot of laughter, some of the players today are bad examples on kids when they swing the bat and don't run right away. He said he saw his son imitating Bonds the other day. While he likes the swing, he didn't like to see his son not run right away. You won't see too much more of that from the Cubs this year.

 

Hendry: Wouldn't call Kelton a disappointment but is miffed that he's not a big league hitter yet. He had an outstanding winter and will compete in camp. He's out of options and you can't count him out. They have one of the top five or six farm systems in baseball. They have such a bulk of quality pitching. Pie is the "prototypical leadoff hitter." He plays with guys from the big leagues during the winter and has done really well. Praised Dope and called him a "special player." He's high on Richard Lewis as well as Harvey.

 

Dusty: "I don't whine." He doesn't like guys who complain. He's going to nip it in the bud during Spring Training. He's never had a team with that reputation before. The team doesn't like it, either. They know about the reputation.

 

Hendry: Rule 5 is a gamble. You can't remove someone from the 40-man roster until mid-March and doesn't want to expose those players to waivers. Leicester was up because he couldn't add anyone else to the 40-man roster last year and did a great job.

 

Dusty: You can't bring the bad stuff from the past to the future or you'll just be stuck in the past. If the season started now, Rusch would be the #5 starter. Guys can look great in the spring but it's different when you get to a stadium that has a third deck.

 

Hendry: There aren't many prototypical leadoff hitters in the game. Look at the Yankees when they lost to the Marlins in the WS. They had Jeter leading off one day. He's hoping Pie can be that guy for the Cubs. Corey ran out of gas last year after surgery. Those leadoff hitters are hard to find.

 

Hendry: Maggs is a "great, great player" but he had a tough injury. The Cubs doctors have talked with his doctors but he has yet to have a workout. He just has to stay on top of the situation.

 

Dusty: He has to talk to Sammy in person. No business over the phone. He's going to give Sammy the opportunity as he does with everyone else. He needs to put Sammy in a situation where he can succeed. He has to take responsibility for himself. He knows that he's too patient with players for the fans. He's even too patient for himself sometimes, but he has to keep looking at the big picture.

 

 

 

And heard from Ron Santo: They never really considered switching over to the TV side. He has a radio face, after all. And since most people just turn down their TVs anyways, they wanted to stay on WGN Radio.

[Jon]

Well, I think Jon is going to cover pretty much everything I had to say since, probably more accurately too since he was sitting there with a notebook the whole time.

 

A few notes though. First, Jon you were right about the whole not for women only section. There were a couple of humorous questions but for the most part it was stupid stuff like what is your bedroom like and do you shave your back or chest. One of the funny questions was when they asked if you could have any body part from a teammate, who it would be and which part. So Dempster says that he would just take Kyle Farnsworth's body. To which they ask if he would want his arm. Dempster responds that he is fine with his, thank you very much. :lol:

 

I also caught the tail end of the pitchers and catchers event. I thought it was pretty funny when a kid asked Barrett what he says to Zambrano when he goes to the mound since most of the time Carlos is pretty crazy out there. Barrett responds that most of they time he doesn't even know what he is going to say. That Carlos is usually pretty animated when he is on the mound but that he really grew up during the year. At the beginning of the year he would just go out there yelling at him. He would talk to him in Spanish since he knows some. Apparently, one time he actually just went out to the mound cursing at Zambrano in Spanish. After a while he realized that Carlos is alot bigger than he is so he stopped doing that. Barrett said that by the end of the year he really didn't have to yell at him anymore.

 

Also, Carlos did show up by the end of the day at least because he was at the kids only press conference.

Ha. Dempster is a real character. I'm going to listen to that session when they put it up on WGNRadio.com.

 

That's Z for you. I'd love to hear Barrett swearing at him in Spanish sometime. I'm glad he was able to make it. With the weather, I'm actually a little surprised.

 

Oh, I think I forgot to designate which where Mark_R's questions. Hopefully he can do that later.

[Mizzou]

I just wanted to take the time to thank everyone for posting their recaps.

 

So... thanks!

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Jon,

 

Thanks for the detailed recaps. Makes me feel like I was really there. Excellent job.

[Jon]

Sorry to hear about the autograph line, Jessica. They did a slightly better job with them this year by putting all of the populer players in one or two lines and all of the non-popular players in two other lines. That way, if you miss one guy, you can stay in that line for another good player. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with Barrett.

 

I saw him going from one event to another and he had about 40 people following him, trying to get autographs. He's a pretty popular guy now.

[Roast]

Hey jessica....

 

I shook barretts handed and he signed a baseball for me.

 

:D

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Hey jessica....

 

I shook barretts handed and he signed a baseball for me.

 

:D

 

Jessica,

 

I've had some luck getting Barrett's auto, so when I go to Houston to see the Cubs this year, I'll try to get one for you.

[Mark_R]

Jon, this one was in response to my question about how Hendry said he wouldn't sacrifice a game in May for the rest of the season/career with these guys, and then I brought up the issue of unnecessarily high pitch counts with correlation in pitching:

 

Dusty: Too much emphasis is placed on pitch count. You have to take a pitcher to the limit to find out what that limit is. He doesn't keep track of pitchcounts himself. Larry does. He plays a game with himself to see how close he is. He doesn't keep close track.

 

I'll edit as I find my responses. Tremendously detailed notes Jon. Like I'd seen all day, just not scribble that I couldn't read.

 

Burnt out, good to see you there, even if it was for a good minute or so.

[Jon]

Jon, this one was in response to my question about how Hendry said he wouldn't sacrifice a game in May for the rest of the season/career with these guys, and then I brought up the issue of unnecessarily high pitch counts with correlation in pitching:

 

Dusty: Too much emphasis is placed on pitch count. You have to take a pitcher to the limit to find out what that limit is. He doesn't keep track of pitchcounts himself. Larry does. He plays a game with himself to see how close he is. He doesn't keep close track.

 

I'll edit as I find my responses. Tremendously detailed notes Jon. Like I'd seen all day, just not scribble that I couldn't read.

 

Burnt out, good to see you there, even if it was for a good minute or so.

Not having written down the questions, I couldn't figure out which one's you asked. And yeah, I was able to make out everything that I wrote. Truly a miracle.

 

Bah. I forgot to mention that Burnt spotted me and we talked briefly. OldStyle also spotted my NSBB t-shirt at Coaches' Corner and we said high.

[Tim]

Jon, this one was in response to my question about how Hendry said he wouldn't sacrifice a game in May for the rest of the season/career with these guys, and then I brought up the issue of unnecessarily high pitch counts with correlation in pitching:

 

Dusty: Too much emphasis is placed on pitch count. You have to take a pitcher to the limit to find out what that limit is. He doesn't keep track of pitchcounts himself. Larry does. He plays a game with himself to see how close he is. He doesn't keep close track.

 

I'll edit as I find my responses. Tremendously detailed notes Jon. Like I'd seen all day, just not scribble that I couldn't read.

 

Burnt out, good to see you there, even if it was for a good minute or so.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my seven year old son the other day. I had gotten him a box of these cool bendable pencils and found him in a room with all of them broken -- except for the one he was currently bending in his hands. I tried my hardest to be patient and asked him why he was kept bending the pencils until they broke. He said that the whole reason to have bendable pencils was to bend them. I couldn't really argue that point, but I asked him why he kept breaking them. He asked me how else he could find out how far they would bend unless he broke them.

 

Of course, then he had a box full of broken pencils that wouldn't bend anymore. But at least he knew how far they'd bend before they broke.

Edited January 23, 2005 by Tim

[Tim]

Bah. I forgot to mention that Burnt spotted me and we talked briefly. OldStyle also spotted my NSBB t-shirt at Coaches' Corner and we said high.

Did anyone ask about the shirt or should I skip that marketing expense next year?

[Roast]

Bah. I forgot to mention that Burnt spotted me and we talked briefly. OldStyle also spotted my NSBB t-shirt at Coaches' Corner and we said high.

Did anyone ask about the shirt or should I skip that marketing expense next year?

 

No-one asked about mine at the caravan, however, that is a much smaller crowd....

[Mark_R]

Exactly, Dusty cited his history of only two guys going down with injuries, but I feel that's more of a luck factor than anything. When he's continuously overworking guys, and when its a 10-1 game and our studs are still pitching, he should be slapped in the face, one of them is bound for injury. Also with Mark's and Kerry's injuries last season, no one really knows how much is attributed to Dusty's overwork early in the season in Kerry's situation and down the stretch in 2003.

 

I'll give a more (well, less than Jon's) in depth rundown sometime this evening.

[Jon]

Bah. I forgot to mention that Burnt spotted me and we talked briefly. OldStyle also spotted my NSBB t-shirt at Coaches' Corner and we said high.

Did anyone ask about the shirt or should I skip that marketing expense next year?

Nobody asked about it, no. I couldn't say how many people actually paid attention to it when I was walking around.

 

Of course, Hendry saw the address twice...

 

I won't even begin to try to comment on some of the things that Dusty, Hendry, and the rest said. I'm pooped.

[Tim]

Bah. I forgot to mention that Burnt spotted me and we talked briefly. OldStyle also spotted my NSBB t-shirt at Coaches' Corner and we said high.

Did anyone ask about the shirt or should I skip that marketing expense next year?

Nobody asked about it, no. I couldn't say how many people actually paid attention to it when I was walking around.

 

Of course, Hendry saw the address twice...

 

I won't even begin to try to comment on some of the things that Dusty, Hendry, and the rest said. I'm pooped.

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like next year I'll spend that $200 on something else.

 

Get some rest, there's plenty of time to talk about all this stuff. :D

[barrettismyidol]

Jessica,

 

I've had some luck getting Barrett's auto, so when I go to Houston to see the Cubs this year, I'll try to get one for you.

 

Wow, thanks a ton Vance!

 

Hey jessica....

 

I shook barretts handed and he signed a baseball for me.

 

:D

 

Michael doesn't know it yet, but one day we're going out on a secret date. :P

 

Sorry to hear about the autograph line, Jessica. They did a slightly better job with them this year by putting all of the populer players in one or two lines and all of the non-popular players in two other lines. That way, if you miss one guy, you can stay in that line for another good player. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with Barrett.

 

I saw him going from one event to another and he had about 40 people following him, trying to get autographs. He's a pretty popular guy now.

 

I noticed that, and it seemed good. I think the lines would've moved a lot faster if people didn't try to take 10 zillion pictures and get more then one thing signed. But for the most part the ushers did a good job, at least in the Kerry Wood line.

 

Yeah, he walked from the Vineline booth to a ramp next to one of the exhibits, and tons of people followed him. Security was having a hard time keeping them back so he had to move up the ramp so he didn't get mobbed. As soon as people figured out what was happening they ran to the ramp and all the sudden there had to be 30 people trying to hand him stuff as he walked up.

[Jon]

I noticed that, and it seemed good. I think the lines would've moved a lot faster if people didn't try to take 10 zillion pictures and get more then one thing signed. But for the most part the ushers did a good job, at least in the Kerry Wood line.

 

Yeah, he walked from the Vineline booth to a ramp next to one of the exhibits, and tons of people followed him. Security was having a hard time keeping them back so he had to move up the ramp so he didn't get mobbed. As soon as people figured out what was happening they ran to the ramp and all the sudden there had to be 30 people trying to hand him stuff as he walked up.

Pictures? Now that's a problem. They didn't let anyone wait to take pictures with players in autograph lines last year. That really holds up a line. And they also made sure that each person only asked to have one item signed. That sucks. Then again, that may have been Michael's choice. I'm glad you were able to meet Kerry, at least.

 

And I will, Tim...once I get some more homework done.

Edited January 23, 2005 by Jon

[barrettismyidol]

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like next year I'll spend that $200 on something else.

 

Get some rest, there's plenty of time to talk about all this stuff. :D

 

You should try to get someone really, really tall to wear a shirt next year. I'm not sure where you could find this person, but if you could, I bet people would notice. :lol:

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Jessica,

 

I've had some luck getting Barrett's auto, so when I go to Houston to see the Cubs this year, I'll try to get one for you.

 

Wow, thanks a ton Vance!

 

No problem. No guarantees, but he was pretty easy to get in Houston last year. If I can get him again, I'll hook you up. Would you prefer a ball or card signed?

[Chris]

With my line of work, we're always trying to come up with ways to get exposure in the community. When we built our website, we wanted to get as much exposure as possible. With that being said, it was put in newspapers and on various other things in the community.

 

One way that we got exposure in the community was cheapest and most basic ways possible to do it: Small business cards that simply said what the site was and what the address was. They were cheap to print and easy to carry. In addition, they were easy to give out.

 

With that being said, how about coming up with a business card styled card with the name of the site, a brief description and the address? We could then give them to posters that are at Cub games. They could simply give them out and see what happens. It would be inexpensive and could be quite productive. It's worked pretty good for us.

[Mark_R]

Just got back from the convention about 2 hours ago, here's my itinerary from the day, along with numerous observations.

 

Arrived at the Dusty and Jim session at around 8:30 this morning and toured around looking for Serena since I knew that Jon wouldn't be there until 9 due to some transportation issue. I couldn't spot them so I pulled up a seat on the far right aisle. As I took my seat, I noted all the press around me, The Score's George Ofman, Daily Herald's Bruce Miles, and many others prepping their tape recordings. As the session started, I recall them laying down ground rules about not asking them questions they've heard hundreds of thousands of times or something along those lines which I felt was necessary. The questions were pretty decent (See Jon's summary for more) but Dusty's usual spin job and Hendry's lack of coming forth with the honest truth (not that I ever expected him to tip his hand) on some potential issues was a tad annoying (even if I understand the reasoning behind it). I was glad that Jim was asked a question about Haggerty and Sisco and honestly, his answer gave me more hope than anything that I had read here about us getting them back. I was aware of the struggles and injuries they'd suffered respectably, but wasn't positive of the actual extent of them.

 

I got up and asked my question which I noted before. Dusty still scares me badly with regards to his pitching staff's overwork despite his general manager saying they wouldn't sacrifice a player's season/career for the sake of a season. I wish Jim had addressed that point in response to Dusty's response. But I digress.

 

Thereafter I saw Burnt out Cubbie Fan who recognized Jon and his NSBB shirt. Good to see an NSBB'er there.

 

Then went up to the Coaches meeting where I met up with Jon, Mark Peel, and his friend Rich. Discussed Cubs issues for awhile with all, and it was interesting (yet after the fact, not shocking) to see MLP have his Baseball America Prospect book on hand ;)

 

Coaches meeting was a little disjointed as hitting questions were more geared towards Sarge Mathews than Gene Clines which was pretty unsettling as it didn't seem like the crowd was aware we had a new hitting coach up there.

 

No love for Porky.

 

MLP asked Dusty about the change in Sosa's stance and distance from the plate, and not shockingly, I was dissatisfied with Dusty's answer. He used one of his ridiculous analogies "well, you don't walk the same way you did five years ago." The issue for me more on what was planned to rectify Sosa's problems at the plate and as MLP pointed out on the crouch that Sammy used to have that made him see that balls were BALLS and that things in the zone were actually there. The upright stance seemd to cause a lot of problems and I didn't hear an actual suggestion from Dusty how the problem would be resolved instead of his usual bag of excuses.

 

Good thing that Dusty is funny most of the time. I found myself laughing with and at him a lot.

 

Thereafter, I went to the dreadfully titled "Baseball Renaissance" session. I honestly expected this to be a tremendous bore, but it was incredibly fascinating and Andy MacPhail did a wonderful job answering questions. Had a good reaction to MLP's question that hopefully he'll get a chance to explain. Got my question in about how the revenue from the concerts and the ads behind home plate will factor into the budget of the team. Mac proclaimed that the first question he put down on his pad in terms of anticipation of being asked (that's probably poorly worded) so that was flattering. Apparently, 30 cents per dollar will go into the team's budget which is an acceptable amount to add a final piece at the deadline every season if true.

 

After doing a lot of laughing at those bidding insane amounts on a game used Z jersey, eating, and buying some last minute photos, headed to the "Kids" whatever they called it. Lots of typical kids questions. Kids seemed to love it which is awesome. Carlos making it there in time was a pleasant surprise.

 

Then went up to meet MLP and Rich at the "History of the Convention" session with McDonough and Jay Blunk. Very interesting how they began and some really funny tales about how they sold Harry on the original concept of the Convention. I really liked how they were taking suggestions on what to do to improve the Convention. And while they shrugged off a few suggestions such as extending Sunday's sessions to later (a facet I agree with McDonough on, I'm exhausted after these days) they actually seemed genuinely interested in most of the suggestions.

 

All in all, it was a great time today and met some awesome people from the site over the weekend.

 

Mark and Rich, thank you for allowing me to enjoy the sessions with you gentlemen, great to meet both of you and learn a lot in the short time I was with both of you.

[Chris]

Mark, good report.

 

What were some of the selling prices at the auction?

[Jon]

Mark, good report.

 

What were some of the selling prices at the auction?

When we were there, a game worn Sosa jersey from 2004 went for an even $1,000. Apparently that was down about $400 from last year.

 

I must have missed the 30 cents per dollar statement from MacPhail.

 

It was good talking to you today, Mark. I'll try to catch you at a game this year.

[Chris]

Thanks for the info. That's not really that bad for a game worn Sosa jersey.

 

The Cubs do not have a great authentication process. Their authentication involves the item with a basic photocopied letter of authenticity. They write in what the item is and they do not attach anything to the item being sold (no hologram, ID, etc). With that being said, it's a scary thing to buy. Granted, you can always get another group to authenticate it.