Our Favorite Rainier 2008: You Will Decide! Matt Tuiasosopo
4 comments Posted by frinklin at 10:33 AMDuring the inaugural season of No Rhubarb! we faithfully followed the exploits of Our Favorite Rainier, outfielder Adam Jones. Jones is in Baltimore now, on his way to what we firmly believe will be a long and excellent career. The title of Our Favorite Rainier cannot stay vacant though, and we will take the next few days to find our new favorite. This year we will let you, the reader chime in on the subject. No Rhubarb! will present the case of several players and then let you vote who you think is Our Favorite Rainier. After which we will almost certainly ignore the results and just name whomever we want anyway.
First up: Matt Tuiasosopo!
The Mariners first draft pick (3rd Round) in the 2004 First-Year Player Draft, Tuiasosopo hails from an almost ridiculously athletic family. Father Manu was a first round draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks. Sister Leslie played volleyball with the UW Huskies and trained with the US National Team. Brothers Marques - merely the best quarterback in UW history - and Zach both played in the NFL last season. Matt was a high-school star in both baseball and football, and turned down the chance to follow in Marques' footsteps to sign with the Mariners. Originally signed as a shortstop, but moved to third soon after, Tui 2 has been aggressively pushed through the system and should land in Tacoma at 21. Tuiasosopo is widely considered one of the ten best prospects in the Mariner system. Baseball America, Armchair GM and SportsCity all list Tui in the Mariners top ten, and Minor League News called him the 36th best prospect in baseball.
Three Reasons Matt Tuiasosopo is Our Favorite Rainier
1-High-ceiling power-hitting thirdbasemen are cool
2- Mike Curto likes him
3-Fun to say "Tuiasosopo".
Three Reasons Matt Tuiasosopo is NOT Our Favorite Rainier
1-Not yet technically a Rainier. No reason to name "Our Favorite Diamond Jack"
2-Prone to slow starts. Upon first making the Double-A San Antonio in 2006, Tui hit an anemic .185/.259/.218.
3-Very difficult to spell "Tuiasosopo"
Photos Courtesy of the Seattle Mariners and Whiteyball
The Sweet Sixteen starts on Thursday afternoon, and what better time to check out the standings of the First Annual Feed Tacoma Bracket Challenge. Automagic has hit on 36 of 48 and has a slim two point lead over No Rhubarb!, PSP, and Cole's Lousy Picks. Can Automagic stay ahead? We'll check up again after the Final Four is finalized on Sunday.
It is officially spring. It is time to get ready for baseball. First in a series of videos to get you in the mood is Conan O'Brien trying out old-time baseball.
Mike Curto has been sent to blog his trip to spring training. While on one hand this is indescribably cool - Curto is simply the best announcer working in the minor leagues and a first rate baseball mind - we are slightly nervous that the team might be moving in on our turf. If Curto starts making lousy jokes and comparing mascots to demons, then we might get nervous.
Until then we will certainly enjoy Curto's writing.
Just no mascot jokes, okay?
And Rainiers? The next time you want to spend someone to blog spring training, maybe you wanna drop me a line?
After the first round, it is pretty clear that we here at Feed Tacoma are not sports geniuses. No big dead for most, except those who happen to be running a sports blog.
Ahem.
At the close of the first round, we have six entries tied for first. PSP, Cole's Lousy Picks, No Rhubarb!, Automagic, Bracket Buster and Frinklin all come in with 24 points. At the other end of the spectrum we find Shot in the Dark, the entry from Feed Tacoma Overlord Kevin Freitas. Cheer up Kev, you're only eight points behind your better half.
Update: There are many fine places on the net covering the NCAA tournament, but we are really rather fond of Hemingway's take.
The Rainiers recently debuted a new alternate logo. We had seen only the logo itself, no physical thing sporting said new logo. Stuff with the new logo is available at the Cheney Stadium gift shop.
Clearly a field trip was needed.
We were lucky enough to get a few moments with Kacy Roe, Merchandising Manager of the club and designer of the new uniform. According to Kacy, this new uniform will be less "alternate" than originally thought. Tacoma's hometown nine will sport these every home game Thursdays through Sunday. Reaction to the new look has been almost uniformly (ha-ha) positive, though some people do note the missing local touches. We think the new jersey will help alleviate that.
We approve. The red hearkens back to the old Seattle Rainiers, and the front script is both slightly more substantial and straighter across the chest than the standard home uniform. We're less sold on the sleeves, which - it's difficult to see in this photo - feature the red split by a continuation of the blue. A little overdone, but that is a minor quibble. We love the front number, plus the player names will be across the back, a rarity among minor league teams. Other then the intrusive but unfortunately standard manufacturer logo, the new jersey is free and clean of obtrusive patches and logo. If you want one of your own, it will be the same as a game jersey: no replicas here.
As one might expect the new logo is available on a variety of caps.
The ingenious flexi-fit cap, available in both blue and red.
No,this is not Rhubarb's head mounted on the wall. This is a hat. Apparently people are willing to pay for such things.
On that note... More pictures available at our rather unimpressive Flickr page. The Cheney Stadium gift shop is still under the off-season schedule, so it's only open from 10-2 on Thursdays. Maybe this needs to be our next Feed Tacoma outing.
More than a dozen hardy souls have signed up for the Feed Tacoma Bracket Challenge. The brackets lock at 9AM tomorrow morning, so if you haven't signed up, ya'll better hurry.
Thanks to an idea kicked around at this morning's Feed Tacoma Feed at PSP, the Feed Tacoma Bracket Challenge is ON! We are hosted at Yahoo! Sports (ESPN is easier, but so overloaded the Fantasy system has crashed). It's easy to join, just:
1-Head over to Yahoo! Sports Tourney Pick 'em 08.
2-Log in with your Yahoo log-in (We figure everybody in Tacoma is on Flickr and they use the same thing)
3-Select "Join A Group"
4-The Group Number is 161419, Password is "rhubarb"
5-Fill out your brackets
6-Laugh and/or cry at your results
Hurry, the brackets lock at tip-off Thursday morning.
Oh, if you win? No Rhubarb! will treat you to one of the following: Hot Dog and a beverage at The Red Hot, coffee and scone at Satellite, or cupcakes at Hello, Cupcake.
Good Luck!*
*Luck not applicable to anyone who isn't me.
We were expecting the new logo to be splashed all over the official team site today, but well... no such luck. The team added the alt logo, but only as a small button leading to the ticket page. Nothing yet available from the online store, but we may have to make a trip to Cheney on Thursday to check stuff out. To tide you over, the new logo is here, and the Biz Buzz posted a shot of Aaron Artman sporting the alt-cap nearly two weeks ago. Perhaps we should pay more attention.
And hey, if you're here from Uniwatch, welcome! We are damn near obsessive about logos and uniforms ourselves.
On first glance, we're not sure. The logo itself is striking, but nothing about the look says anything "Tacoma". Red, white and blue with a star motif doesn't seem particularly Northwest, either.
We don't doubt this new look will fly off the shelves though. And despite our initial lukewarmness, we'll almost certainly sport a cap or something soon enough. We here at NR are total whores for such things.
Update: We're told that the star is meant to mimic the Mariners' compass-rose look. Not quite sold on that either. Due to the color scheme, we keep seeing the Texas Rangers. In fact, if you squint, you can sure see how the new Rainier logo would be an outcropping of this old Rangers logo.
We're not entirely sure if this entry qualifies for this "honor" quite yet. The Williamsport Crosscutters, Single-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies, have a brand-spanking new mascot. The old mascot, a fairly dull, oddly bear-ish lumberjack named Rusty Roughcut, left the team to join the professional lumberjack circuit.
Of course he did.
Anyway, the Cutters have a new mascot, an odd blue and green creation that is currently nameless. Well, originally he was given the oh-so-original moniker of "Bozo", but that is copyright protected. So, the franchise is running your standard Name the Mascot contest. All you have to do is top "Bozo", which can't be terribly difficult. What would you name this thing?
I would go for Leaf-Covered Nightmare, but that wouldn't fit on the back of his jersey.
We will totally post this sucker once again after his debut. And yes, the Crosscutters have taken the early lead for "Most Atrociously Bad Team Website" of 2008.
H/T to Ben.
Darren Rovell's Sports Biz Blog is holding a March Madness-style, 64-team tournament to decide the best logo in Minor League Baseball. And no, the Rainiers did not make the cut. A mistake I think, one that disregards Tacoma's classic, understated look. Well, classic and understated is certainly nowhere to be seen in this list. The top 4 seeds are: Montgomery Biscuits, Joliet Jackhammers, Connecticut Defenders, and the Modesto Nuts. Personally, I think that Joliet and Modesto are very weak number ones, but I love the Connecticut logo. Three of Tacoma's fellow Mariner affiliates made the cut, the West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx (#2 Seed), the Everett AquaSox (#10 Seed), and the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (#13 Seed)
No Rhubarb's favorite to win? The #3 seed Aiken Foxhounds. And the Timber Rattlers are a nice darkhorse pick. Voting started Monday and continues throughout the month.
Imagine you are Roger Clemens. A few months away from your 46 birthday, your long and storied career in baseball seems to be over. Despite a fine year with the New York Yankees, you've become persona non grata within the major leagues. So what do you do? Money isn't an object, you've made tens of millions, perhaps hundreds. You really don't have the personality to work on television, but you're desperate to stay within the game.
Well, do the Huntsville Stars have an offer for you. The Stars, named after the nearby Marshall Space Flight Center, recently reworked their logo and uniforms to incorporate a rocket theme. They've offered Clemens a job.
As the mascot.
According to Ben Hill's Biz Blog, the Stars want Roger Clemens – the best pitcher of his generation – to be a the secondary mascot. They already have Homer the Polecat as their primary mascot. But when Homer is indisposed, “Clemens, as 'Rocket', will dress as an astronaut and simply interact with fans and assist with on-field promotions”.
Okay, I'll fly my ass down to Alabama if it means seeing Roger Clemens – the famously intemperate Clemens – dressed up as an astronaut. Can Tacoma match this? Maybe once Randy Johnson retires we can dress him up as a mountain?
The good news? Jerry Crasnick of ESPN takes a look at prospects playing in the Cactus League and mentions Tacoma Rainier (and possible Favorite Rainier) Wlad Balentien, saying that he might have a "higher upside" than the departed Adam Jones.
The Bad news? The column also includes this gem:
"He's got ability,'' the scout said. "But with some of his actions, it's like he's playing at the game -- he's not playing in the game. It's a 'look at me' kind of thing.''
Suffice to say, this is not something that should warm the heart of a Mariner or Rainier fan. We here at No Rhubarb! believe that the emotional side of sports (he's a gamer or a leader or whatever the hell else you can come with) is almost always overrated, but there sure seems some truth in this. Watch Wlad and it's pretty obvious he likes to show off. He preens a bit, especially after he hits a dinger.
Of course, the more homers he hits, the less it matters.
Last week, as part of his semi-regular Mailbag feature, Bill Simmons, the ESPN Sports Guy invited SuperSonics fans to write in, to vent, to scream, and to generally raise hell about the NBA's seemingly inevitable move away from the Emerald City. The result was the longest piece to ever run under Simmons' byline. The final product was 15,000 words, 15,000 words of heartache and rage, opened by Roger Angell's classic summing up of what it means to be a fan:
It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.
Simmmon's piece is a worthwhile read. Angry, aching, often ridiculous and always heartfelt.
Dave Niehaus today celebrated his 73rd birthday today by winning the 2008 Ford C. Frick Award, and with it enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Niehaus has been the the Mariners' primary broadcaster for the entire lifetime of the franchise. He is the voice of the Mariners, and the first thing that many M fans think of when asked about the team.
Like many of us from the Pacific Northwest, I grew up with Dave Niehaus. He taught me to be a baseball fan. I spent many a day and night with my dog, my walkman and some very, very bad baseball. Neihaus is a storyteller of the first degree, and it is his voice I hear in my head whenever I watch a baseball game.
And if you don't catch the reference in the title to this post, you're not a fan.
What the hell?
Being a fan of a minor league franchise is never easy. The teams exist only to feed the major league club's need for players, be they up and coming stars or replaceable spare parts. While we minor league fans love our boys, we also know they can be gone tomorrow. It's just a bit easier for fans of the Rainiers, since Tacoma's best should graduate to the Mariners, just a slow and traffic-filled drive up the highway to Seattle. Alex Rodriguez went from Tacoma to Seattle, so did Felix Hernandez. Adam Jones should have been the same.
But he isn't. Adam Jones, Our Favorite Rainier, will suit up for the Baltimore Orioles next season. He was the prime prospect sent to Baltimore for starting pitcher Erik Bedard. The Mariners sent Jones, reliever George Sherril, and three prospects (Kameron Mickolio – another NR favorite - ,Chris Tillman and Tony Butler) to the Orioles for Bedard. And that just sucks
Don't get us wrong, Erik Bedard is a very fine pitcher. He led the AL in strikeouts with 221 and won 13 games for a terrible Baltimore team. He'll pair with King Felix to form a dynamite one-two punch at the top of the rotation. But Jones ain't so slouch either. The best position player prospect the Mariners have developed since Alex Rodriguez (Ichiro don't count), Jones is a power/speed combination at a prime defensive position. Jones was expected to upgrade an outfield that is looking disturbingly old (Raul Ibanez), property of the Royals (Jose Guillen) and injury-prone Brad Wikerson. Plus, while Bedard is a free agent after the 2009 season, Jones will belong to the Orioles for the next six years.
The biggest drawback of this trade is that it misjudges how close the Mariners are to contending. Yes, the Mariners won 88 games last season, but they did that despite being outscored and featuring near dead zones at first, second and DH. This is not a team one pitcher away from the playoffs. This is a team that should be concentrating on young, cheap talent. You know, like Adam Jones.
While we here at No Rhubarb! are somewhat dormant during the off-season, patiently waiting for Spring Training and the orgy of aging white guy reminisces that entails, we are also blogging America's most important game: politics. Along with an old friend, we have begun to blog at Electoral College Dropouts, and we promise to bring to the 2008 presidential election the same utter lack of knowledge and research you find here. Enjoy.
No, please, do come visit.
Huh... somebody needs a new demon goat creature. The Rainiers are looking for a new demon-spawn Rhubarb. Apparently the last person to fill the costume was either tired of the goofy-yet-utterly-terrifying antics or God has finally hit the SMITE button and is ridding the world of these glassy-eyed monsters.
So, hey, why don't you try out?
Thanks to Zastica for pointing this out.
In answer to the almost-inevitable question: No, no, no... a thousand times no.