Not a Fan of Ken Griffey Jr.

Ken Griffey, Jr.

Ken Griffey, Jr.

 

The Seattle Mariners will honor their best player of all-time tonight when they induct Ken Griffey Jr. in to the Mariner’s Hall of Fame. A precursor, no doubt, of Griffey’s ultimate first-ballot election into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown when he becomes eligible in 2016. Only a fool would argue that Griffey doesn’t belong in either Hall. And I certainly won’t be doing that. But at a time when the city of Seattle will once again bathe this man in all its love, all the love its ever felt for any personality, it’s important for me to express my dissatisfaction with Griffey, the man. I am not a fan.

 

Being a big-time sports fan I am certainly a fan of all that Griffey did on the field. His array of acrobatic outfield dives, slides, fence climbing catches could get him a Hall nomination alone. He was the best defensive outfielder in baseball through the 90s. His glorious swing made for 630 home runs, sixth on the Major League Baseball all-time list. Fourth All-time if you eliminate the cheaters…which we should. To me even more impressive is the fact that only 5 players (clean players) have hit as many as 600 career home runs and absolutely nobody is on the horizon to do it again. Sadly Griffey’s career included only three playoff appearances for his teams. And he never played in the World Series, surpassing Ernie Banks of Chicago Cub fame as the best player to never make it to the baseball players ultimate competition.

 

Yes, Griffey was an incredible talent. And he was also an incredible jerk. I’ve always been amazed how lovingly Seattle continues to embrace a man who twice gave the city his backside and his middle finger as he headed out of town. By contrast Alex Rodriguez was vilified the moment he signed the richest contract in baseball history to go to a team that had been to the playoffs two of the previous three years. A-Rod was booed lustily when he returned to Safeco Field as a Texas Ranger in 2001 (All this long preceding the revelation or even suspicion that A-Rod was a multiple time cheat and liar). But Griffey was practically given the keys to the city when he returned as a Cincinnati Red player for the first time in 2007. How quickly we forget that he forced his way out of Seattle demanding to be traded prior to the 2000 season; and then hamstringing the Mariner’s ability to trade for value by limiting what team he would accept being traded to only his hometown Cincinnati Reds.

 

Ken Griffey ---- This image was moved from Fil...

 

Griffey’s narcissism and ingratitude was demonstrated one final time with perhaps the most classless retirement of any Superstar athlete ever. Disgusted at having been benched in 2010 because of his pathetic .184 batting average with zero home runs and only 7 RBI, Griffey left town without a word. Not a goodbye to his teammates, a fair well to fans, a closing interview, nothing but his proverbial “bird”, and a curt statement sent to his longtime friend and boss Mariner President Chuck Armstrong.

 

Griffey’s narcissism was evident early on. As a lonely 19-year-old playing for the Bellingham Mariners he attempted suicide; a gesture mostly, but one in which the individual is demanding attention. As if the number one draft pick in the entire MLB Draft the previous June wasn’t getting enough attention. I am genuinely sorry he was sad and suicidal; knowing him as I do I never took it seriously.

 

Know him? Why yes, I do. As much as a local small-time reporter from over 20-years ago can know him. Which isn’t much. He wouldn’t allow it. In the 3 years I covered Griffey and the Mariners as a reporter for a radio station and for my own syndicated daily radio interview show he never once made himself available to my microphone. But that wasn’t unusual. Griffey almost never made himself available to any local reporter, only national reporters. I’m sympathetic to those who would claim support of Griffey’s stance of not talking to reporters and remaining “private” if it were true. But it’s not. He would talk to reporters. Just not local reporters. We were too little for him in his eyes. For the record I found his father to be a prick too. But that’s another story.

 

Griffey has friends who will tell you he was kind to children, and teammates and that he was fun-loving and a practical joker. I’m sure he was all of those things. But a Hall of Fame Person is someone kind to most-everyone not just the chosen few who adore you. Junior will go into the team Hall of Fame tonight and the bigger Hall in 3 years and he earned it. He just doesn’t get into my Hall.

 

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August 9, 2013
Categories: Sports, Washington State . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Not a Fan of Ken Griffey Jr.

Racism? You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

English: Oprah Winfrey at the White House for ...

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey made her first public statement about the Trayvon Martin verdict yesterday. When I heard it I was extremely disappointed in this icon of American TV. I felt she had betrayed her better intelligence in favor of a bias one-sided argument that I didn’t understand. Then, I took a journey back to my young adult years and remembered one of my all time favorite phrases. You don’t know what you don’t know.

The Queen of daytime TV talk shows said that she saw the Trayvon Martin case as being synonymous with Emmett Tillman.  Tillman was a 14-year-old black boy who was murdered in 1955 by a pair of racist white assholes who took offense to the precocious boy whistling at a white woman. His death was not justifiable then, now or ever. It was abhorrent and it was one of the ignition switches to the Civil Rights Movement. A movement that thankfully changed this country for the better, for everyone, and made it so that racism was the exception and not the rule. But Trayvon Martin was killed because he attacked a man and was beating him up. It makes no difference whether you think George Zimmerman was right or wrong for following the Florida teen. The evidence showed the questionable following of the teen and the subsequent fight and shooting were essentially two different incidents. And while closely timed together; they were two different incidents. I couldn’t believe Oprah with all her demonstrated wisdom couldn’t see this.

Then I remembered, you don’t know what you don’t know.

In 1985 I was a student at the Ron Bailie School of Broadcast. This is where I met my wife of the past 26 years; my black beautiful wife. At the school we learned all kinds of aspects of radio broadcasting and some TV. We learned to write news copy, to announce news copy; to write commercials, and to be creative and bold in our voice work.

At the school in the commercial writing and producing segment of the curricula I had developed a fictional radio character I named, Bueno Mike. Bueno Mike was an English Explorer; not unlike David Livingstone of Stanley and Livingstone lore. Though he was exaggerated and a caricature. He was a joke.

We had fun at school. And we had fun playing with and inventing our characters…our commercial characters. I appreciated the help of my future wife and others at the school who seemed to be truly entertained by Bueno Mike and the various scenarios I put him in, in the radio spots I produced. But it all came to an end when I announced an idea and exposed that which I didn’t know.

I decided my Bueno Mike character needed an assistant, an aide, a sherpa. I decided Bueno Mike needed Sambo. My fictitious aide to my fictitious British Explorer would be a young boy of color and I would name him Sambo. I was thinking of the childhood story Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman, written in 1899, in which a smart Indian boy outwits some tigers and churns them into butter. I was also thinking of the now defunct restaurant chain of the same name which used the Little Black Sambo images in its promotion and restaurant decor.

English: No racism Lietuvių: Ne rasizmui

I wasn’t thinking of the term being racist, derogatory, or offensive to my future wife and other people of color. It was 1985 and I was 21 years old. I didn’t have a clue that the term, Sambo, was offensive in any way. When it was pointed out to me that it was, I thought how could it be, there was a Sambo’s restaurant on 116th St. in Bellevue my home town. I couldn’t understand. Needless to say, when I enthusiastically announced my plans to give Bueno Mike his little Sambo aide, my future wife was livid. She couldn’t believe I would be so insensitive and offensive. And she was angry. And she didn’t hide that anger. In turn I was angry because I couldn’t understand why she was so angry at me. And I became defensive.

An older black woman named Shirley was a member of our broadcast school class. She worked as a bartender. She was a fun, and wily old woman.  She said she was going to the broadcast school to complete some unfinished schooling from her youth. She had no hope or expectation that it would turn into any kind of career. If it weren’t for her my wife and I may never have been married. She heard all the ruckus between my future wife and myself. When we turned to her for her point of view she gently laughed…at me mostly (I think)…and kindly, calmly pointed out to my lovely girlfriend that I meant no harm and that Sambo was very commonly used even though it was offensive and always had been. Sambo as a fictional character depicting people of color in a subservient, or slave position dates back to the 18th century. Sambo was a character in Vanity Fair of 1847 by Thackeray and in Harriet Beacher Stowe‘s Uncle Tom‘s Cabin in 1852. But I swear I didn’t know any of this at the time.

Sambo's Sign

Sambo’s Sign

Twenty-eight years later it seems incredible to you, the reader, and even to me the author, that I was oblivious to the fact that Sambo was offensive to black people. But how many of you knew there were over 11-hundred Sambo’s restaurants in the United States that didn’t close there doors until 1983? Many of those restaurant locations were sold to another restaurant chain known as Denny’s.

You don’t know what you don’t know. And when it comes to race in this country; I think it’s abundantly evident we don’t know much.

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August 6, 2013
Categories: National Politics . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Racism? You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

The Best Time to Post on Facebook and other Social Media

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

If engaged in a business using Social Media to help market your business, products or services its important to know the best times to make posts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media sites. The best times would be the times when most people are likely to see your posts. Other marketers break it down to declare that the best times are the times when most Interactions take place. Interactions (On Facebook, for instance) would be Likes, Comments or Shares. It’s good to have interactions with your Friends, Likes, Followers, Fans, Subscribers, etc. But a lot of them are Social Media voyeurs. They choose not to interact, or don’t know how to do so.

We own and operate Total Broadcasting Service; which is an audio and video production company that provides content for Social Media Marketing. In studying the Facebook and YouTube channels we manage we’ve determined the following:

Worst Days of the Week to Post on Facebook- 

It’s not even close. Monday and Tuesday have the least number of fans and followers on Facebook, with Monday slightly worst. Interestingly, Tuesdays are not so bad on YouTube.

In rating the worst day for Monday proved worst for 50% of our customers business profile pages. Tuesday was worst for 46% of them. And in nearly every case if Monday was their worst day Tuesday was second worst, and vice versa.

Sunday was the third worst day.

Best Days of the Week to Post on Facebook-

This was not nearly as definitive as determining the worst days. But Wednesday appeared best for more customers than any other day. 32% of Total Broadcasting customers were best on Wednesday. Friday was also good with a percentage of 25%. Thursday and Saturdays were the strongest days for 14% of our customers.

In advising our clients we will be telling them to keep an eye on their Facebook Insights data for changing information, but for now plan your best and most important posts for Wednesday first, and Thursday thru Saturday in equal emphasis.

Worst Time of any Day to Post on Facebook-

We would not have needed data to guess this information correctly. You probably wouldn’t either. In each customer’s case the fewest number of online Friends occurred in the middle of the night from 9pm-6am Pacific. Not hard to figure out why.

Yet, strangely a lot of national brands have not caught on to this fact and have programmed their auto-posts to appear on your Walls early in the A-M hours. Presumably their hoping to greet you when you wake with their ads. We would not advise our clients to do likewise.

Best Time of Day to Post on Facebook-

There are two ways to look at answering this. Either one could work for you.

First, post in the morning between 7am-9am. While this is the time frame in which fewest people are on-line (other than over-night) the benefit is that your post will be on the Walls of your fans all throughout the day. So, therefore, even evening Facebook surfers will scroll through their Wall and eventually come across your post.

Still, we recommend posting onto Facebook when the most people are on-line. Among our clients the late afternoon between 2pm-6pm and 6pm-9pm are equally busy online. As such posting at any time from 2pm-6pm would be best. Late afternoon versus early evening using the same argument by those proponents of early morning posting.

All Total Broadcasting Service customers surveyed operate businesses on the West Coast of the United States in the Pacific time zone. Data used to formulate this information comes from Facebook Insights during a recent 1-week period in July 2013.

The Best Days and Times to Post on Social Media According to National Data-

Look hard enough and you’ll find conflicting data online. We came across blogs referencing studies that said Wednesday was the absolute worst day to post. We found more studies and ones we found more credible stating that Wednesday was best.

The chart below gives very specific recommendations for all the major Social Media sites. Click on it to see a larger clearer version.

Best times to post

What you’ll find it says is not too dissimilar from our findings in studying Total Broadcasting Service customers. It says:

Best time to post on Facebook? Wednesday at 3pm.

Worst time? Overnights and weekends.

Best time to Tweet on Twitter? Monday-Thursday 1pm-3pm.

Worst Tweet times? After 3pm Fridays.

Best time to post on LinkedIn? Just before or just after normal work hours; 7am-9am or 5-6pm.

Worst? Mondays and Fridays.

Best time to Pin on Pinterest? Interestingly, Saturday mornings and evenings from 8pm-1am.

Worst time for Pinterest? Late afternoons 5pm-7pm.

The chart also mentions Google+, and while I know they have a significant membership it’s not unlike a forced Labor Camp. You are only on Google+ because Google makes you have an account when you want an account on YouTube or Gmail. There is still no one playing on Google+. So who cares.

How Much Should You Post?

On Twitter there is virtually no penalty for over posting. Have at it. Tweet yourself to death.

But on Facebook there are definite penalties for posting too often. Your Fans will stop being your fans. They’ll stop paying attention, they may unlike you. They may just Hide you.

Various data sites calculate that 2-posts per day is optimum. Once you post 3 times or more the amount of interactions in the form of Likes, Comments, and Shares starts to drop off.

Use this information to your benefit and you will find Social Media terrific for staying in touch with customers and finding new ones, or more specifically, making it possible for them to find you. Above all, as we like to say with regard to our posting live by this rule…ALWAYS BE INTERESTING! Boring sucks.

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August 2, 2013
Categories: Business, Washington State . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: 3 Comments

Can the Mariners Become Relevant?

The Mariner Moose, mascot of the Seattle Mariners.

The Seattle Mariner‘s 2nd half to the 2013 Major League Baseball season commences this evening and the hope of the team becoming relevant still exists. And since my hope and prayer at the start of the season was that this long time cellar dweller would remain relevant until the time that the Seahawk season got underway, I remain hopeful.

Prior to this week’s MLB All-Star break the Mariner’s had their first 3-game series sweep of the season against the Los Angeles Angels, and had gone 8-5 over the previous 13 games against some tough competition including Boston, Texas, and Cincinnati; all playoff contending teams. What makes this short stretch of winning noteworthy is that it coincides directly with the recent call-ups of promising rookies, and improved performance from other young players. With the expected return of some valuable veteran pieces of the team in the next 1-3 weeks, and a much more favorable schedule than was the start of the season, Seattle has realistic hopes of a .500 season or as mentioned earlier…staying relevant before the NFL season completely wipes them from the consciousness of every Puget Sound sports fan.

Seattle Mariners

Seattle currently starts 3 pure rookies in the regular every-day lineup; all of whom have joined the team in the past 6 weeks. Nick Franklin first, followed by Mike Zunino, and finally Brad Miller have all made the team better in spite of their inexperience. It matters not if these three are or become All-Stars or perform up to the high expectations each one possesses. At least not at this point. What matter’s is they perform better than who preceded them in their positions and they make the team better. That they are doing…not that it was a high bar to leap.

Franklin took the place of Dustin Ackley at 2nd base. His solid defense has been comparable to Ackley, which surprises some. Not surprising is how Franklin’s bat has become a tremendous boost compared to the increasingly ineffective Ackley. Franklin, currently hitting .268, with 6 HRs and a .788 OPS (On base-plus-Slugging percentage), is a huge leap from where Ackley sat (.205, 1, .522 currently)  when he was sent to Triple A Tacoma to learn how to hit again in late May. Whether Franklin can continue is unknown. But he can almost assuredly do better than what his predecessor performed over the past 1 1/2 years.

Zunino is much the same. His numbers of .230 Avg., 1 HRs, and .575 OPS are not lighting the world on fire, but, again, they represent a significant improvement over what was being posted by the team of catchers who preceded him Jesus Montero, Kelley Shoppach, and Jesus Sucre. And the is no contest when assessing last year’s top draft pick versus Montero, Shoppach, and Sucre’s defense. He is a pleasure to watch behind the plate. He blocks balls in the dirt, moves to stop wild pitches, and is such a threat to throw out base stealers Seattle is already seeing a measurable decline in stolen bases and attempted steals.

Brad Miller has been with the team the least amount of time. But we’ve been calling for him or Carlos Truinfel or Franklin to replace the no-stick Brendan Ryan since this time last year. Ryan’s defense is outstanding. But his complete and utter lack of any kind of offensive is not a liability this team can stand when so many others in their line-up have proven nearly as inept. Miller has done well in the 16 games he has played and over the next year is expected to improve, as are Franklin and Zunino.

Franklin like Zunino is a former first round draft choice. Miller is a 2nd round pick. Second year player Kyle Seager is the teams most dependable offensive force and was a 3rd round pick. Ackley, who now mans Center Field and is displaying modest improvement at the plate is also a former 1st round draft pick, as is 1st baseman Justin Smoak; though Smoak was a Texas Ranger’s draft choice. All of these guys are young. All were high draft picks. And at least for a short period recently are performing up to or close to their expectations.

Right Fielder Michael Saunders is another young guy who has raised his batting average 15-points over the past 10 games and seems to have finally found the stroke that made last year so successful for him. While still only averaging .225, his on-base-percentage of .303, base-stealing capabilities and above-average defense make him at-least serviceable. And like we wrote, he’s on an upswing. We’ll see.

I’ve not even mentioned the solid performances of Kendry Morales and Raul Ibanez all season, or of Smoak in the past 2 months. All three, along with Seager, have OPS of .800 or higher. The team can also count on the return to productivity of OF Michael Morse soon. When healthy he is a stud. Franklin Gutierrez is still expected to contribute. He could return by August.

The team’s bullpen could get a needed boost from the return to health of Steven Pryor, who just began a rehab assignment. Felix Hernandez and Isashi Iwakuma were All Stars. Joe Saunders has been mostly solid as the third starter; though he has had a couple of big blooper blowouts. But what team’s #3 pitcher hasn’t. And after a horrible start to the season Aaron Harang is proving to be a pretty good #4 starter. Again, a blooper here and there isn’t welcome but is also not uncommon for a team’s 4th starter. It’s the #5 starting position that remains a concern. Jeremy Bonderman was let go and rookie Erasimo Ramirez was shelled his first time out. I am not confident in Ramirez. Though the Mariners are. So we’ll see.

We’ll see? That sums up the rest of the Mariner’s season. I’m not a complete dreamer. I don’t expect them to be playoff contenders. But I do think they can get back to a .500 season and wet our appetite for the 2014 season. And at bare minimum, they should have relevancy in the minds of diehards like me until the presumed Super Bowl season of the Seattle Seahawks gets under-way. I like being optimistic. It beats the alternative.

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July 19, 2013
Categories: Sports, Washington State . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Can the Mariners Become Relevant?

Advice to My Black Son if He’s Being Followed

Since it continues to be asked in the past week in news interviews and during protests I thought I would share the advice I would give my son if he finds himself being followed while walking home from the store, like Trayvon Martin did.

GO HOME!

 

…or to the home of the nearest friend or relative. And to any parent who would advise their teen to turn and confront the follower I would say you are telling your kid to put themselves in potential danger versus doing what they were doing before detecting a follower.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

July 18, 2013
Categories: National Politics . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Advice to My Black Son if He’s Being Followed

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