If I Owned a MLB Team

Last night I was talking on the phone with my friend Bill for the first time in a couple weeks and after catching up on what was new with each other, (him: chronically masturbating and playing Warcraft, me: chronically masturbating and playing Guitar Hero) and discussing at length the underrated ferociousness of honey badgers, the conversation turned to how we should try to purchase and ultimately run a Major League Baseball team. We discussed this for a short time and after our conversation ended I continued to think about how I would go about purchasing and operating a baseball team and, while laying in bed, I wished that I had some kind of forum where I could write down my ideas and publish them on the internet to share with others. That's when I remembered that I run and neglect a blog about the Detroit Tigers so I ceased writing my ownership ideas in an old notebook from my Torts class (whatever that is) that had been lying around my bedroom for a couple of years and decided to share them with you my readers... err... reader...err...the 35 Canadians who stumble across my website after doing a Google image search of Kate Beckinsale. Enjoy.

Step 1: Finding the Money: Obviously this is the biggest obstacle in my desire to own a team, because the last time I checked I didnt have $300 million dollars kicking around my bank account, unless some rich distant relative that I just made up right now and who I will call Count Cyrus von Fizzlebottom IV passes away and bequeaths me hundreds of millions of Deutsche Marks and scores of Nazi war memorabilia on the condition I spend the night in his haunted Hessian castle....let me check my bank account and see if this has happened......nope. Sorry that was stupid. Anyways if I'm lucky I have about $300 in my savings at any given moment, not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars in debt I've accrued over the past three years chasing a graduate degree in a field I have no desire to practice in, but thats a different story for a different place, namely a suicide note...but I digress. If all of my friends and I cobbled together our assets and formed some sort of investment group we could probably afford to purchase a used Buick Lesabre from one of our grandparents but we would still be several hundreds of millions of dollars shy of being able to purchase a major league team. Also I wouldn't want to share control of the team with my friends because they are mostly idiots and I secretly hate them all, and by secretly I really mean openly and aggressively. For example if a rival team offered my friend T.J. the March '98 issue of Playboy with Jamie Pressly, a 1994 purple Ford Taurus and 20 lbs of brown, dried out weed in exchange for our teams best player he would sign off on it in a heartbeat (although I think he would still be exponentially better than Randy Smith...zing) and I would have to take him to court and get an injunction to stop him every time this happened....I think....I might have to hire a lawyer to handle these kinds of legal matters. So how would I come up with the cash? Work hard? Hahahaha...Oh God no. Mine for gold in the Ozarks? Intriguing but no. I need to marry rich. I need to find a widowed multi-millionaire and woo her (that's what the kids call it today isnt it? Or do they still call it courting?) until she named me the sole beneficiary in her will just days before a tragic SCUBA diving vacation in the shark infested waters off the coast of South Africa. I figure that after this tragedy befalls me 3 or 4 different times I'll be able mourn my wives passing in a way that would honor their respective legacies. Namely purchasing a baseball team and having enough money left over to marry some hot 19 year old Italian supermodel who'll spend her days riding a jet ski in dead wife #2's swimming pool.

Step 2: What Team Should I Purchase?: I would probably have to purchase one of the lower valued franchises in baseball because I can only murder so many times before I arouse suspicion, likely from some private eye who I imagine looking like Spencer Tracy. Plus all the big market teams are worth way too much money which means I probably couldn't afford to purchase my beloved Tigers. Since I'm assuming I couldn't own the Tigers I would like to avoid having to compete against them because as an owner, my main objective would be making the playoffs every year but I would still like the Tigers to be successful so that conflict of interest cancels out the other teams in the A.L. Central like the Indians, White Sox, Royals and Twins. Tampa Bay and Florida seem like obvious choices when it comes to purchasing a team but a part of me wishes to own a team with a more storied tradition to go along with a disenchanted fan base and an owner reportedly looking to cash in on his team and getting the hell out of town. After looking over the major teams and evaluating these factors all signs point to the Pittsburgh Pirates as the team to buy. The Pirates according to this article are the third least valuable franchise in baseball with a price tag of $274 million, they havent had a winning season in 15 years. Despite their recent ineptitude the Pirates date back to 1882 have legendary players like Honus Wagner, Arky Vaughan, Roberto Clemente, John Candelaria and Kent Tekulve, sleeveless uniforms, some of the ugliest hats in history and 5 World Series Titles. Finally for years there have been rumors of the team being up for sale including hope that native son Mark Cuban would buy and turn around the team much like he did with the NBA's once equally putrid Dallas Mavericks. So relax Bucs fans because friendly and altruistic new owner Andrew Stout Esq. is here to salvage your franchise and keep the resurgent Pirates in town forever......or is he?

Step 3: Relocation?: A part of me wants to be evil. I always thought that if I were given a lot of money or a superpower I would use it for maleficent purposes. For example if I were insanely wealthy I would act like a Bond villain and live on a big island that featured a large mountain in the shape of a skull. I would wear a monocle, smoke long thin cigarettes and hold the world hostage with Cold-War era nuclear weapons I had commissioned from broke Russian scientists who were subsequently dissolved in a vat of hydrochloric acid...and I would have henchmen, lots of henchmen.....what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, being an evil team owner. So what's my plan for evil? The threat of relocation to Montreal. I know Pittsburgh just spent hundreds of million in building a beautiful new baseball stadium and have continually supported a team that hasnt won a title since '79 nor had a winning season in 15 years but as much as I admire progressive team owners like Cuban a large part of me wants to be seen as the Art Modell of baseball. The evil man wearing a trenchcoat and proudly hoisting a World Series trophy in front of thousands of apathetic French-Canadians, possibly the most insufferable group of people on the planet, during a victory parade down rue Sainte-Catharine while disgruntled Bucs fans curse my name. Why would I chose Montreal, a city that has already failed as a viable baseball market and was so clueless they still might not be aware that the Expos left for Washington 3 seasons ago? Because I love the city and I loved the Expos who were my adopted National League team when I was young. Four years ago my sister and I drove all the way to Montreal for the sole purpose of checking out an Expos game before the team was supposedly going to be contracted and it was like a ballpark experience unlike any other I had before or since. Of the 5,000 people in attendance that day, my sister and I were the only two who weren't chain smoking. Even the lady who made my nachos had to set down her cigarette before getting my cheese. Olympic Stadium was/is a monstrosity that served not only as a baseball stadium but also a giant semi-truck parking lot and a dirtbike track plus it has those badass Maple Leaf painted foul poles that extend all the way to the ceiling. The players came up to bat to the sounds of French techno music and the fanbase was made up of indifferent fans who were more excited about the Habs starting training camp in a month than anything happening on the field. In spite of all of this unless Pittsburgh is going to give a new publicly financed stadium or some sweet tax breaks I'm moving the Bucs from the Allegheny to the St. Lawrence AND I'm taking Kent Tekulve's glasses with me.

Step 4: Assembling a Staff: I would give myself the titles of owner, president, G.M., and CEO of erotic sales for Les Nouveau Expos de Montreal (I'm sure I butchered that French translation but my four years of high school French consisted of sleeping in class, drawing penises in the churchy girls notebook and looking up words like "cock" in the dictionary, which translates to "le cocque"). I would also manage the team Connie Mack style, sitting on a wooden stool in the dugout wearing a three piece suit with a pocket watch which of course would be covered by a satin warm-up jacket. I would also steal Mack's or John McGraw's nickname and make it French so the papers would refer to me as Le Grand Tacticien or Le Petit Napoleon (once again I apologize for my French this is all a rough translation but French Canadians speak retard French anyways so they wouldn't even notice....phonies). My friend Bill would be the assistant G.M. and bench coach because he took a class in statistics while he was in grad school and could understand, explain to me using sock puppets and use all of the metrics available for player evaluation, making him drastically more qualified than someone like Kenny Williams. Mickey Tettleton would be the bullpen coach and roving minor league catching instructor as well as the highest salaried and most handsome coach on the team. My aforementioned friend T.J. would be my pitching coach because he knows how to throw a knuckleball and just about every other off-speed/junk pitch known to man, plus he's fat, he curses a lot and he says a lot of bizarre things so the media would love his quirkiness. He would be like a young Don Zimmer with an addiction to karaoke, Three-Six Mafia albums and weed. My hitting coach would be Rob Deer just so hipster baseball fans in faded vintage Rusty Staub t-shirt jerseys would choke to death on the irony. I would hire former Expo legend (and I'm using the term legend loosely here) Tim Wallach as the third base coach to rekindle local interest in the team and I would hire current Tigers first base coach and former Pirates star Andy Van Slyke as the first base coach just to twist the knife for Bucs fans (Sorry, I personally don't have a problem with Bucs fans, in fact having gone through over a decade of losing seasons as a Tigers fan including the worst single season in American League history I empathize with them).

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Step 5: Atmosphere: My first order of business as owner would be to bring back the bullpen car. I would want this car to be as authentic to the bullpen car era as possible, so it would have to be a bumper car like on Bases Loaded for NES or a 1983 AMC Eagle painted red, white and blue, either way it doesn't matter. My second order of business would be a mandate that all of my players, in a show of team unity and for my own amusement, grow big bushy mountain man beards like Bill Lee circa 1979. Anyone who couldn't grow a beard would be immediately put on waivers or demoted outright to the teams new AAA club in Flint. I'm looking at you Jack Wilson. Fan giveaways would consist of Al Oliver bobbleheads, Bill Gullickson maple syrup dispensers and on what would undoubtedly be the only sellouts of the year Ellis Valentine ashtrays and free packs of Player Navy Cut cigarettes (Are these jokes about smoking French-Canadians and references to old Expos tiresome yet, because I have more......o.k. even I'm tired of them). Finally every team needs a celebrity fan. Someone like Jeff Daniels for the Tigers (ugh), Bob Seger and Kid Rock for the Pistons and ummmmm........that one guy who sings the fight songs for the Lions I guess. So whose the mystery celebrity fan? Only Andrew's favorite Canadian star that keeps me up until all hours of the morning in hopes of catching just a fleeting glimpse of them on T.V. Alan Thicke. Wait, wait...I mean Avril Lavigne. (If you think that last sentence was a complete throw-away to run a gratuitous photo of Avril Lavigne then you know me to well.)

Avril Lavigne

This post is long, so you might want to get some snacks........Thousands of Years Ago.....

This post is going to be a departure from the central theme of this site, which, if you are new to these parts is mostly about the joys of scrapbooking. Wait, wait, that's not right, I meant to say sports, I get my two hobbies mixed up sometimes, but who doesn't. Anyways, this post is dedicated to all those guys out there who used to argue in vain with their friends over the merits of Avril Lavigne's pulchritudinous, (thank you, Word of the Day calendar, wow that really is pretentious sounding though.......fuck it, it stays in). I've found myself in this position a few times and it's a very unenviable one (not as bad as being robbed at knife-point in an alley, but I digress), but before I go on any farther I feel as though I should provide a bit of context to the situation I'm talking about.

In the winter of 1998 I was a 15 year old sophomore in high school who essentially did nothing but hang out with my friend Kevin who was a year older than me, had a license to drive and a means of transportation that did not involve my mom and her minivan. You would think this would open up a world of possibilities and adventures, but you would be wrong, and don't you readers ever tire of being wrong. I mean, like every time I write, you guys make the most egregious presumptions and I have to take time out of writing to correct you.......(wait don't insult the readers Andrew, play nice until Operation Putsch is over.....it's all coming together). See, I come from a little town called Clio, where there isn't shit to do, especially for anyone under the age of.......well of any age I guess. I'm being completely honest when I say there hasn't been a worthwhile activity in that town since the donut shop that carried the arcade version of Mortal Kombat II closed about ten years ago.

Regardless, Kevin and I would drive around on most Friday nights for a few hours alternating stopping by:

1: Parties thrown by preppy kids that consisted of drinking their parents Seagram's with 2 liters of flat 7 Up and playing euchre with three guys who were distracted by trying to hit on the only girl at the party that would let them feel her up. This really sounds more like an exciting night at a retirement home than a high school party but our options were limited and it was pretty much equal too.....

2: Bonfires thrown by whitetrash kids in a field or by a barn, with most of the kids wearing ICP or Metallica shirts and getting drunk on MD 20/20 or Natural Light before everything culminated in a fist fight between some even more white trash kid from two towns over who would get wrecked by some fatass football player.

The problem was Kevin and I didn't really fit into either of these groups because we were way to cool for the preppy crowd, (even though Kevin tried to fit in by buying a whole wardrobe from Nautica, which just led to endless and justified ridicule on my behalf) and we were way to fucking handsome to be hanging out with the burnouts by the bonfire, so we would often choose option.....

#3: Which consisted of going over to my friend Josh's house and playing Goldeneye 64 on his big screen for about 5 hours, where I was unstoppable as Jaws packing the automatic shotgun and wasting anyone trying to get the body armor in the Temple level........wow that sounded pathetic.

One Friday following another "Slaughter at the hands of Jaws", Kevin and I returned to my house and turned on MTV just as they started to play a video that would alter the course of our adolescence, "...Baby One More Time". I remember we stood and watched the video in complete silence and wondered if we would ever witness something like this again. Little did we know this was the beginning of a wave of pop stars, (Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore, etc) similar to our age and all of whom exposed the girls we went to high school with as complete dogs, (sorry Karrie Brooks).

However I was always kind of indifferent to this first set of pop stars and a few years later during a game of R.B.I. with Kevin I mentioned this belief as an offhand comment. He immediately paused the game and burned a hole in the back of my head with his stare, culminating in this exchange:

Kevin: "Are you serious?"

Me: (turning around), "Well yeah. I mean don't get me wrong I think they are all pretty cute, and I think Mandy Moore is really pretty, but collectively they just don't do anything for me. They remind me too much of all the snobby girls in high school that only date insurance salesmen and think they've made it big time because they are a teller at the credit union, you know..."

Kevin: "That is the stupidest shit I ever heard, and sounds just like something you would say. 'Oh blah blah, personality, blah'. Who cares if they are snobby, it's not like we're talking to them. All I know is as long as they dress like strippers and make hot videos, they could go home and throw bacon at fat girls with image low self esteen and it wouldn't make them any less hot. Jesus, Prof. Gaybody why don't you listen to your Backstreet Boy albums.......i cant believe I hang out with you."

Me: "Hey, asshole I own those Backstreet Boys albums for their artistic merits only o.k."

However, during the summer after my freshmen year at MSU in 2002 I finally found the pop princess to fill the void in my life that had remained empty during the first wave in the form of a bratty, little, faux-punk Canadian named Avril Lavigne. I called Kevin and told him about my celebrity crush and he was less than impressed saying, "Sure, she's cute, but you would like her. It's the safe pick. She's Greg Maddux compared to Jessica Simpson's Pedro, solid but never capable of greatness." (Kevin can be a pretty shortsighted sports fan). I tried to argue back, "She's as pretty as those other girls she just can't embrace the "hotness" because she's got some bullshit punk girl image to portray. Watch it will happen someday." But he wasn't listening. So now it's up to me to prove it to him, even if it is years after the fact and after he's almost certainly forgot about our conversation, with a selected video retrospective of Avril's career.......(Man that was a lot of context, I'm finally getting to the good part and no one stuck around......hello (echo).......hello (crickets)......shit.)

1: Complicated

This is the video that started my whole interest in Avril, even though it's totally lame and cliche as hell. I can see some young record executive sitting around trying to think of a proper way to promote his new talent and saying, "Hmm, what would rebelious teenagers do? (taps pen on desk), Got it! They go to the mall, hang out, and fuck with security guards in a comical manner before skateboarding. Travis you are brilliant!! Nobody's ever thought of this before, even though every teen movie from 1982 on has this exact same scenario in it, but hopefully no one will remember that." before burying his face in a mountain of cocaine and laughing hysterically. By the way my copyright professor would lower my grade a whole step if he saw all the blatant infringement occuring on my blog right now by posting these videos.....Yikes.

2: Sk8ter Boi


This song and video were/are terrible, but I would still watch it when it came on. For some reason I've always had a soft spot for punk rock girls. I've always been attracted to the pink hair, tattoos and bitchy attitude but unfortunately this interest is hardly ever reciprocated and the only girls who find me attractive are, uh, none of them. I'm going to go cry now.

3: Don't Tell Me

Wait.....who the hell is this guy? How long was this going to go on before you told me? Huh, Avril!!! Oh thats right Andrew, you're not really dating her. No need to get all worked up like tat, but that still doesnt explain whose wrists I just grabbed (nervous laughter as I adjust my necktie). This video had potential as it features Avril in her underwear breaking things, but if you listen closely it's a song about not being pressured into sex by your boyfriend. BOOOOOOO!, whoops, I mean what a great message for teenage girls who face this kind of peer pressure from their pushy boyfriends, (boo.)


4: Nobody's Home

This video gave me the false impression that the streets were filled with hot homeless Canadian teenagers. So I went out in search of them on the streets of Detroit and only came across agressive alcoholics with dementia, prostitutes who looked like extras from "The Exorcist" and a raging case of syphi...... cotton candy. Avril gets bonus points for the old-timey, sepia toned bullshit, because anyone who reads this site regularly knows I'm a sucker for 19th century style romance. Oh, Jesus that wasn't manly sounding at all. (Clears throat) "Excuse me, I'm going to go make a sandwich out of nails between barbwire bread, catch you on the flip side, pussies." Now thats manly.


5: Girlfriend

Finally. This video was five years in the making for me (well I had made it previously using Barbie dolls and my imagination but I'm talking about an official video), and I demand you watch it in its entirety or I will never speak to you again. This is my example of the perfect girl and the standard to which I will hold any and all future girlfriends, so if your thinking about dating me here's the template, do with it what you must. One final gripe though, how is it that all these guys I know have 2 or 3 girls chasing after them and trying to get them to break up with their girlfriends and me, Mr. Big Shot lawyer man is up until 3 A.M. updating a blog about Avril Lavigne......Wait I just answered my own question. My next question is to see if this bed sheet can hold 160 pounds. Thank you everyone for indulging me and if you made it this far I'll send you a check for a $100*.

*Offer not valid to anyone. ever.