Swing For Your Seats Recap - Gabe Kapler Is A Zilch

When I was a kid growing up in San Diego, I had two wishes.  To get a Benny Santiago autograph at a game, and to one day play on the field as a Padre.  Neither of those happened.  At a 3rd grade birthday party to a game vs. the Reds, Benny Santiago feigned interest at the group of 8 years olds, took our Sharpie as if he was going to sign a ball for us, had a hearty chortle, then walked away with our Sharpie.  What a prick.  My baseball career was pretty much tapped out by high school as I could not hit a breaking ball, and I couldn't throw a breaking ball for a strike as a pitcher.  So to all the kids out there, dreams don't come true.

When the Padres offered their ingenious Swing for the Seats promotion, I jumped at the opportunity.  After all, how many chances do you get to take a cut in a Major League park.  I've already got season tickets.  I mean MEMBERSHIP.  So I didn't care about winning a pair of crappy upper deck season tickets (come on Wayne Partello, at least offer an Omni Premier Club seat since no one was going to win anyways).  My slot was between 12 and 2.  With wife and newborn baby in tow, we headed in only to run into two very large African American men and one super jacked white dude with people asking to take pictures with one of them.  As a professional journalist for Padres Jagoff, I asked the usher who they were.  And then I realized, it was Donovan McNabb, the guy from the Campbell's Soup commercials!  What a thrill!  I got a picture with the soup spokesman and totally ignored the other two (NFL offensive lineman Ephraim Salaam and former Major Leaguer Gabe Kapler).  We headed inside and were guided through the Lexus Dugout Club to the field where we got in line to take our cuts.  The talk of the line was Donovan McNabb (they must have really liked soup!), who I guess was going to take some swings for a Fox Sports 1 special.  After waiting in the sun for about 20 minutes, the Padres cut off the line of potential season ticket customers and sent up McNabb.  He proceeded to whiff on 20 straight pitches and embarass himself.  Luckily, he's a jovial guy and laughed it off.  NFL offensive lineman and I think local, Ephraim Salaam, took about 10 cuts and managed to hit a liner to first and a grounder back to the pitcher.  It should be noted that over the 20 minutes I'd waited up to then, only 1 person had made contact with a grounder to the pitcher.  My guess is that Fox Sports 1 wanted to do a wacky bit where the big NFL guys whiff or hit a few weak grounders, where the producer will then cut to EX MAJOR LEAGUER Gabe Kapler and watch him hit some bombs and show those dumb football players what REAL athletes can do.  So Gabe Kapler came up and took about 15 minutes of batting practice.  Why 15 minutes you ask?  Because Kapler was unable to hit a single home run so they just kept him out there hoping he would to make the eventual segment a success.  He did manage to pop up a ton of balls straight up into the cage, Willie Mays Hayes style, but without the punitive pushups.  He hit one decent line drive about 10 feet from the warning track, and hit a blooper to left.  Other than that, he was abysmal.  He kept stopping the pitches and demanding that the Padres employee manning the pitching machine make minute adjustments to really get a pitch in his wheelhouse.  And then he'd pop it up foul.  After the grumbling in line got to a fever pitch about the Padres letting Gabe Kapler ruin the schedule for everyone due to his immense failings, they finally ended it and pulled him out, all without a home run.  It should be noted that as we all know now, no one hit a home run for the promotion.  It should also be noted that a bonafide Major Leaguer was also unable to hit one.  This means that all of our hitting can now be considered Major League caliber as measured against Gabe Kapler.

Anyways, after another 20 minutes of waiting, I got called.  They had some Padres employees doing announcements, so not only did we get to hit, we had our names called on the PA system.  Decked out in boardshorts and flip flops, all I wanted to do was make contact and hear the crack of the bat.  To that point, even making contact was rare.  I took the first pitch and realized it was a bit slower than the 70 mph pitches I practiced on at the JP Longball batting cages.  On the second, I took a fierce cut and hit a sharp liner to the 3rd base/SS hole.  I like to think it would have made it to the hole, but really, that's only realistic when you imagine Alexi Amarista playing shortstop.  But I really did it, got a crack of the bat.  Fox KSWB news lady interviewed me afterwards, checked out the wounds on my hands from not wearing batting gloves when I went to the batting cages, and asked me how I did it. 

All in all, it was a great promotion.  One more Gabe Kapler story.  So with Donovan McNabb there, pretty much every picture/autograph request was for Donovan, and totally ignored Ephraim Salaam and Gabe Kapler.  Finally, one girl asked for a picture with Gabe Kapler.  He said "OK, but let's go over here so no one else can see.  I don't want people to see and start lining up for photos".  After his horrific performance at bat, I can't see that as a problem. 

I hope the Padres keep up the push of innovative promotions like this.  I think it got people totally excited for Padres baseball.  They were offering a full batting practice session for anyone who signed up for a membership which I will now harass my ticket rep about so I too can get a BP session. 

At this point, the only thing more thrilling would be if stupid jerkface Benito Santiago would give me back my Sharpie.

Check Out What a Total Zilch Yasiel Puig Is

With Opening Night/Day/Whatever coming up tomorrow against the Dogers, it is only fair to remind the Padres Jagoff audience what a complete and total dick lick Yasiel Puig is, and how he should be considered Padres fans' #1 enemy.  Here he is riding a stupid tricycle like a total zilch.  I wish Alexi Amarista was there all ninja-like to stick a bat in the spokes.  For now, I think it's fair expect the Padres to win the Opening Night game by at least 200 runs. 

Conspiracy Theory - Padres, Time Warner and Fox Sports San Diego's Convenient Deal

I caught up on the past couple episodes of the fantastic Padres and Pints podcast yesterday on my run and thought the discussion of the new Time Warner/FSSD deal was fascinating.  It got me thinking about how the deal got done, and why it got done now.  After all, it's not like Tom Garfinkel and Jeff Moorad didn't want to sign a deal with Time Warner.  More subscribers equals more exposure to the team, and let's not forget that the Padres own 20% of FSSD, so more subscribers equals more profit for the team.  I'd seen Garfinkel on several occasions make the common sense argument that FSSD was asking for no more from Time Warner than what they agreed to with Cox, AT&T, DirecTV and Dish - that the asking price was by definition, the prevailing market rate for the network.  From what I heard, I don't think the team or the network (remember, they are one and the same ownership wise) was budging from that demand as it would be unfair to their other cable provider customers.  On the other hand, Time Warner thought this "prevailing market rate" was unreasonably high, hence their refusal to pay it and carry FSSD the past two seasons.  Classic stalemate.  So what changed?  And with nearly universal celebration over the deal, did the jubilation cover up the potential downsides of this deal?

Granted new ownership and management rolled into Petco with Mike Dee taking the reins.  Within a few months, the deal is struck and Time Warner now carries FSSD.  The press releases offered very little on the negotiation details, but it was stated that Time Warner signed a "reasonable" long term deal.  It should be noted that the deal that led to the creation of Fox Sports San Diego is promising the Padres what has been estimated to start at $28 million and escalate to about $75 million in the 20th and final year.  Here are my questions:

1. Does anyone really think Time Warner, after stiff-arming FSSD for 2 years, losing face with their customers that care about the Padres, and damaging their local brand just gave up on their demands on FSSD carriage at less than what Cox, DirecTV, etc. paid?

2.  After considering #1, it seems to fair to assume that either Time Warner is paying less than the other carriers, or the Padres sweetened the deal with some type of unannounced payment/benefit/consideration that made the deal worthwhile to Time Warner, yes?

3.  If Time Warner is paying less or receiving more than Cox, DirecTV, Dish, etc., then is it fair to assume that those partners will dig their heels in come renewal time for lower carriage rates?

4.  If all other partners start negotiating the carrier fees lower and lower, then wouldn't the Padres receive less money from the deal via carrier fees, lower the value of their ownership stake in FSSD, and lower their expected income from the network in the out years starting now? 

5.  Did Mike Dee and current management have incentive to just make a deal to show that the new ownership group cared about the fans? 

I think it is somewhat likely that this Time Warner deal will lead to future contracts with the other cable/satellite providers to be negotiated lower, or to potentially turn into acrimonious, Time Warner-esque standoffs due to negotiations.  I don't care if the Padres don't turn as much of a profit as projected except for the fact that it has a very direct impact on their bottom line, and thus their payroll, and thus their ability to put a winning team on the field.  Obviously, I don't expect the Padres, Time Warner or FSSD to publicly disclose the proprietary details of the deal, but I'm not sure that getting Time Warner on board at any cost is good for the team's future, and I live in stupid Time Warner territory up here in Encinitas (of course I have made use of my proven techniques to get Padres games via iPad and MLB At Bat app)

Cut the cord? Here's how to bypass MLB.TV blackout restrictions and get the Padres games

So great news on the TV front for Padres fans this season, right?  Stupid jerkfaces Time Warner are finally carrying Fox Sports San Diego so all these new areas of the county can see the Padres games.  Unfortunately, this doesn't 100% solve the problem.  When I first moved back to San Diego two seasons ago, I moved back with only what would fit into my 2 seat convertible with no trunk.  So pretty much clothes, computer and XBox 360.  All of the rest of our stuff was staying in DC until we could get my wife's job transfer to here in place.  Wanting to keep the spartan living conditions thing going, I opted to get a 20 game season ticket package and MLB.TV instead of cable.  This sounds great, but then I realized that I'm in the home territory of the Padres.  That means all of the games are totally blacked out - THANKS SELIG.  So I started brainstorming.  There are all kinds of options online, mainly subscribing to a VPN or a proxy to change your IP address.  This is all well and good if you are accessing the games on a computer, but I've got an iPhone and an iPad that I wanted to use to send the games to my 60" TV via Apple TV.  With how locked down Apple has these devices, it's pretty impossible to use a VPN/proxy with the At Bat app.  Luckily, I found a simple solution that I will unveil to all of the MS Paint dong loving readers of this blog.

Here's the step by step:

1.  Jailbreak your device.  This is easy.  Like you literally just plug in your iPad or iPhone into the computer, go to http://evasi0n.com/, follow the instructions, and jailbreak your device.  It's so easy a cripple could do it.

2.  Open up Cydia.  Cydia is, of course, the app store for jailbreak apps that gets installed during the jailbreak process. 

3.  Search for Fake GPS.  So quick background on how the At Bat apps determine your location.  On your computer, MLB.tv is using your IP address to determine where you are when it spots that you're in Padres territory.  That's why a proxy server in, say, Massachusetts, tricks MLB.tv into thinking you are in Boston.  On the iPhone/iPad app, the At Bat app is using location data, or more specifically, your GPS location.  Luckily, the creators of Fake GPS (there are other apps you could try too, Location Spoofer, LocationHolic, FakeLocation, etc.) have made an app that with a simple tap on a map, will report that your location is elsewhere.  So the Padres are playing the Cardinals at home?  Just tap that you're in Florida (If you locate in the Cardinals territory in this example, the At Bat app will black you out thinking you are trying to watch your home Cardinals in your home in Missouri). 

4.  Give it a minute or so, then open At Bat and load your game. Voila!  Sometimes it would get finicky and I'd have to close the app completely and restart a few times, but I'd always get my game after a minute or so.  Other times, it works perfectly on the first try. 

5.  That's it.  Now for you cord cutters, you can just subscribe to MLB.TV Premium for $129 and get the full season of the Padres games on your TV (assuming you get the HDMI cable or Apple TV).