NOTES FROM THE NAT: Vancouver Canadians news

If you’re going to update things, you might as well go the whole hog, eh?

In the last 24 hours here at Notes From The Nat, we’ve upgraded our database, our design, our server, our blogging software, our security, added some new features, changed URLs, and enjoyed a lot more Jolt Ultra (remember, kids, no more than 1.5 cans per day or your skin gets all itchy!) than most people are medically advised to.

Which is good. I mean, if you’re going to get your domain stolen, you might as well use it as motivation to make the site better, right? Tackle all the things on the to-do list in one fell swoop..

Benefits of the upgrades:

1. Faster page loads (about freaking time)
2. Cleaned up user and comments databases (so long, Viagraman, VioxxSeller12, and BigBoobs!)
3. Added a couple of nifty new features that you’ll dig a lot (for example, the funky image captions you can see on the last few posts)
4. Neat new design, complete with new C’s colours (yes, the buttons are pink - suck it up and be comfortable in your manliness)

Thankfully, because Wordpress is incredible content management software, not only were we able to make those changes without everything falling in on itself, not only were we able to run a search and replace on the database to change all mentions of the old URL to the new URL, but when we learned our database was actually sitting on a long-abandoned server, which we no longer had any back-end access to, and which should have, by rights, been deleted months ago (!), Wordpress was able to run a remote backup via the website admin page, thus saving three years of content from disappearing in a puff of logic.  Which it might yet still do, but at least if it does now, we have a copy of the dbase that we can reinstall and continue with.

It’s been a rough few days. Remind me never to travel to Armenia, at least not without a heavy bat in hand.

Things that got me through the last 24 hours:

1. The Juno Soundtrack. But only for a while - after three happy plays, it was dead to me.
2. Cloverfield. See it on the biggest screen you can find. It’s the monster movie that ends all monster movies.
3. Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. "I’ll make you fun-sized!"

Welcome to Notes From The Nat, version 4.0.

So here’s something fun.

Apparently my old Notes From The Nat email wasn’t going through properly, so I didn’t get a notice that my domain name was up for renewal, and (literally) the moment it became possible, some Armenian douchebag stole our domain name and parked it, presumably so he could hold it for ransom.

Which sucks.

So what do we do? Well, faced with the option of buying the name back (for ridiculous money) or just moving on to another URL, we decided to go with the moving option. And hey, why not make lemons out of lemonade by going with a newer, shorter domain - something we’d been planning for a while anyway.

So here it is - the new blog address: http://www.natnotes.com

The site will be up on the present URL until the internet’s DNS servers update (usually about 48 hours), so if it suddenly disappears, go to the new address.

Please excuse any downtime while we make the switch. And update your bookmarks accordingly.

Oh, and the new address has been registered for the next decade.

UPDATE: The switch over to the new domain went through WAY smoother than I could possibly have hoped. No broken links, no screwed up databases.

Now all we have to do is get word out to those linking to us, and update our search engine submissions… and advertising accounts… and email servers… I hate the internet.

UPDATE II: Oh. Looks like the HTML for all our images will need to be recoded, as it calls images from the old domain. Please excuse the lack of imagery while I try to automate that… not looking forward to editing over 1000 archived articles…

The old guard just keeps turning over; one-time Vancouver Canadians GM, Delany Dunn, has officially left the C’s as of last Friday.

I’m still trying to clarify the circumstances of his leaving the team, but after the big guy got married at home plate at the end of last season, you’d think he would have stuck around for a while. 

Soon as we have information to pass on, it’ll be passed on.

In the meantime, thanks for playing your part in many many enjoyable trips to the stadium over these last several years, DD. Wherever you’re headed next, hope you have as much fun as you had at the ballpark.

All of which begs the question… which of the Fred Hermann-era employees will be next to go? 

Nothing makes me happier than seeing a Canadians player (past or present) getting their 15 minutes of fame.  But in this case, I think it’s a little much.  Read the following from the Kane County Cougars:

Quite a buzz was created last week when the Kane County Cougars were mentioned during a popular TV reality show.

"The Real Housewives of Orange County" is a reality program on the
Bravo network. The son of one of the housewives is Shane Keough, who
happens to play professionally in the Oakland system.

Shane, who was drafted by the A’s in 2005, played for short-season Vancouver last summer. Since last week’s show aired, several interested fans have inquired
over the chances of Shane coming to Kane County this season.

For now, there has been no official word of Shane coming to Elfstrom Stadium in 2008 — although it could certainly happen.

As is the case with all Major League teams and their respective farm
systems, Opening Day rosters throughout all levels of an organization
will not become official until mid-to-late March.

Stay tuned to future issues for any late-breaking news on a potential Shane Keough sighting at Elfstrom Stadium in 2008…

OK, let me recap.  We’re going to have to stay tuned to see if Shane Keough, the OF that hit .214 in 187 at-bats, sells tickets for one of the best selling franchises in Minor League Baseball?  I thought Andy Seymour (for the C’s) was the man with the ‘wacky’ promotions?  Since when is Kane County getting in on the action?

Wait, here’s the best part.  Because, in the Real Housewives season finale, the Cougars were mentioned as Shane’s future team, on the Yahoo questions site, there are actually people fighting about why he isn’t on Kane County’s roster yet. 

Now, I haven’t seen this particular episode (the new season hasn’t aired in Canada yet), but if the people on Yahoo are right, and Shane mentioned he plays for the Kane County Cougars, he may be getting way ahead of himself (when JD Pruitt is about to get written about on MLB.com, that tells you something).  It’s not that we dislike Shane in any way  (at all) because we know he’s a great guy, but perhaps he’s getting a little ahead of himself.  What happens if you don’t make the Cougars? What happens if he goes to Stockton, or come back to Vancouver? A lot of disappointed fans, that’s what. 

One more quick note.  On his mother, Jeana Keough’s blog, fans are commenting about how they are so excited to see Shane next summer in Geneva, IL.  One lady wrote that when Jeana visits Shane (in KC), dinner at a local Mexican Restaurant will be free.  Another states that she can be a surrogate parent for Shane, making sure he doesn’t get into trouble.  Hey, how about the one where a lady bought season tickets for her whole family, just to watch Shane play?

How I love the internet…

We’ve been talking about it for some time, and it’s finally here. The Vancouver Canadians have a new logo, and they gathered the press at the BC Sports Hall of Fame yesterday to demonstrate how proud they are of it.

And the media, they did flock.

The new look is a reconstruction of the awful logo the team used until 2007, with the old "C" now morphing into a "C’s", and the baseball image moving into the center of the image.

Also apparent is that the team colours are now red and white - gone forever is the old ‘Molson blue’, which will mean the ‘lucky’ road jersey will also head for the trash heap.

From Lyndon Little’s piece in today’s Vancouver Sun: 

"It was a major process," explained Kerr Thursday at an unveiling of the new team crest. "The whole thing took from between six to nine months." [...] "The first three logos we submitted to Major League Baseball were rejected," said Kerr, the managing partner of Lignum Forest Products and chairman of Lignum Investments. "One of the stylized letter ‘C’ logos we submitted
apparently MLB felt too closely resembled the ‘C’ of the old Cincinnati Red Legs (considered baseball’s original majorleague team). The other, although we didn’t agree, was felt to be too close to the current ‘C’ used by the Chicago Cubs."

It’s certainly an improvement over the last logo. And the logo before that. And the one before that. Thinking about it, it’s probably the best logo the team has had.

But if I’m honest, the Vancouver Giants still have the best sports logo in town - by a mile.

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C’s fans that came out to The Nat in season ‘04 will remember fondly the name of Mike McGirr [seen left], who lit up the Northwest League with a season that ended with a 5-0, 0.66 record after 7 starts. 

McGirr, an 8th round draftee for the Oakland A’s from 2003, was enjoying his second spell with the Vancouver Canadians organization, having pitched decently but not outstandingly a year earlier (5-4, 4.66), but during that ‘04 season, as he chewed up hitters and won game after game, it looked like his time had come. As he moved up to Kane County, it looked for all intents and purposes as if he was headed up the ladder in leaps and bounds.

And then, like Keyser Soze… [poof!] He was gone.

Rumour had it that McGirr had an epiphany at the end of his second season, and decided that he had a better chance of making a considerable amount of money with his business degree than he did throwing fastballs.

Personally, I thought the kid was loco. But then, I’d curbstomp grandma for the chance to make the Majors.

Well, it turns out that Mike McGirr wasn’t done with baseball after all. In fact, he’s just beginning his ‘professional sports’ career.

McGrrrrrrrrr is the majority investor and CEO of Real Sports Investments, a company that pays minor leaguers an up-front cash amount (let’s say $50,000), in return for a percentage of their future Major League earnings (let’s say 5%). If the minor leaguer doesn’t make the bigs, they pocket a nice bonus. But if they do, McGirr’s company makes a nice return.

It’s an interesting concept, investing in the future of a real life professional athlete on the rise, but what’s most interesting about the business plan is, McGirr is selling shares of each athlete to folks like you and me, for $20 each.

Co-founder and Cleveland Indians AA minor league sidearm pitcher, Randy Newsom, explained the genesis of the business recently to Baseball Prospectus:

Minor leaguers can make as little as seven or eight thousand dollars a
year. Some have families to take care of, some have to take jobs right
away once the season is over to pay bills, and many of those that are a
little better off still can’t afford some of the things that could help
them reach the big leagues, like hiring a nutritionist or going to some
of those expensive training institutes. With that in mind, I wanted to
come up with a way that players could use their own upside earning
potential to try to help their financial situation in the present and
kind of lock in some of that earning potential, like insurance.

I
mentioned this to my friend and former teammate, Brian Pritz, and he
put me in contact with another former minor leaguer, our CEO and
majority owner Mike McGirr, who actually wrote a business plan at
Cornell Business School along these same lines. We started talking,
used his business plan as a model, worked some things out, and launched
RSI.

Right now, if you go to http://www.realsportsinvestments.com/, you can buy a share in Newsom, which is reportedly worth 0.0016% of his RSI contract.

If he makes the majors and earns over $1.25m over his career, you’re in profit. If he earns $20m in his life, you’ll increase your stake by 1500%. If he becomes a Barry Zito-like success story, you’ll be able to send the kids to college.

And if he doesn’t make the Majors? Well, it might be worth the $20 just to have the experience of ‘owning’ an athlete.

I’m in. 

We’ve said the words "Vancouver Canadians’ new GM" more times than we care to remember these past two years or so, because the position has been somewhat of a revolving door… and ’somewhat’ may be the biggest understatement since Marion Jones asked her dentist if she needed any work done.

First there was Dan Kilgras - the tassled loafer GM, who was eventually (according to unconfirmed reports) promoted to Team President to stop him from leaving.

Then there was Delany Dunn - the ‘doing the best with what we’re given’ GM, who was installed to run the team on a shoestring so Kilgras could concentrate on ad sales and sponsorships, until new owners came in with a big broom and let him concentrate on what he does best - the game day experience.

Then there was Aileen McManamon - the ‘bums on seats’ GM, who brought in the biggest crowd in ages for opening day last season, but badly miscalculated what it takes to feed such a crowd once they’re in the door, and was quickly shown same.

Then there was nobody, though Andy Dunn handled the job as a consultant for a while… but not really (shh, Immigration might be listening).

Then there was Andy Dunn - the ‘Major League experience’ GM, who would also be Team President, at least according to the info given to the press a few weeks ago.

And now there’s Andy Seymour [seen above] - the ‘fun is good’ GM, who has stepped into the GM spot that, apparently, Dunn didn’t want, nor actually agree to handle, despite what was said to the press… 

So who is Andy Seymour? Why, he’s the Vancouver Canadians’ new GM… and he’s not one to make short term plans, if his last gig is anything to go by.

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