On Saturday the San Diego Padres held their annual Fanfest.
We met for a special episode of Padres and Pints with Padres COO and President Tom Garfinkel to discuss Fanfest, 2012 promotions, and San Diego's craft brewing scene at PETCO Park.
Mr. Garfinkel also fielded the ridiculous set of questions that have come to be known as Rapid Fire.
Now have your say with the Rapid Fire Poll . . .
The questions began with the usual content: Breakfast.
Garfinkel is a good sport regarding the Breakfasttown talk and why he shouldn't he be, really? Breakfast is fairly awesome.
Tom made an interesting point regarding breakfast in San Diego. He said that he's never stood in line for dinner in San Diego but he sure has for breakfast. Well I've stood in lines for both but none are more epic than the queues coming out of my favorite breakfast places. Hear, hear, Breakfasttown U.S.A!
I'm going to combine the next two Rapid Fire questions into one since both revolved around breakfast dishes.
Clearly there are many other choices . . . perhaps, a skillet? The above four however, were the first to pop into my head. I apologize if the absence of your breakfast mainstays has left you feeling slighted.
Tom and I began to riff during Rapid Fire and I asked him about Breakfast destinations. I'll go on record as saying, I'm a moron for not originally asking it.
As President of the Padres Tom Garfinkel is required to toe a line of political correctness which made the next question a bit wasteful. But there's no reason you can't sound off. It's not an easy one . . .
And finally a college football question to round it off. Garfinkel is a Michigan guy and I'm a Notre Dame guy but I'll amend it slightly so as not to ruffle your delicate sensibilities.
I need to set the parameters for a Notre Dame/Michigan bet with Garfinkel. Hmmm . . .
At the El Cajon Brewing Company edition of Padres and Pints (Episode 2) Corey Brock of Padres.com was besieged by a set of carefully crafted questions. Now it's your turn . . . Originally we asked Corey the following: "You're on your way to Spring Training. Better music as you pass through Yuma: Band of Horses or Nickleback?"
This was a cheap-shot at Nickleback because that's the thing to do these days. And we all know the answer is Band of Horses. Let's amend the question slightly:
How dare you Canada. HOW. DARE. YOU.
Next we gave Corey the option of being an inanimate object belonging to a famous ballplayer:
A very difficult question. Dave Parker was cool but also a cokehead. Barry Bonds was (is) a jerk looking for a competitive advantage. It's a toss up.
How about an earring from a specific time and place versus a heroic mustache?
Jack Morris won his game. Don't we have to go with the 'stache?
Different weather conditions can often influence our choice of beverage:
To head for the mountains or not to . . .
The most important question came in the form of political news analysis and delivery:
Norah O'Donnell has a masters in International Studies from Georgetown. That's all I'm saying . . .
There's your rapid fire for this week. Stat tuned for the Port Brewing /Lost Abbey edition of rapid fire.
During the Kevin Towers administration under Sandy Alderson I had a source in the Padres front office. I also had a source during the Jed Hoyer Era. To call them sources would probably be inaccurate. A source is a person with whom a trusting relationship has been cultivated whereas I just happened to know someone with organizational ties who I could bug for a little information.
I'm not a news breaker or anything so I rarely ever wrote about what my sources shared. But now with a change in administration I feel as though Deep Throat has passed away, moving on to a better place.
And so I share the following Padres Marketing plan from 2011 . . . Buoyed by the mantra "Believe", the 2010 San Diego Padres went on one of the most improbable runs in recent memory. As Padres fans continued to believe throughout the summer the team went into a 10 game swoon in late August and never fully recovered, ultimately losing the NL West in game 162 to eventual World Series winners, the San Francisco Giants. The Padres lost yet somehow fans still Believed. It was a winning slogan.
Moving into the 2011 season the Padres marketing department needed a slogan that could build on both the notion of Belief but also cater to the idea that 2010 was not a fluke and that there was more that needed to be accomplished.
Padres marketing mavens presented the following: 2011 San Diego Padres: Going The Distance
This new concept would borrow from the band Cake's 1996 breakout hit "The Distance".
Inspired by the uncanny resemblance between Cake's John McCrea and Padres closer Heath Bell executives looked to directly incorporate this coincidence into the marketing plans for the 2011 Padres.
The Going The Distance slogan spoke to the concept of redemption, something that could spur fans to carry-over their support from 2010 while simultaneously pulling-in any disenfranchised fans through the use of a catchy pop-rock tune.
There was also the symbolism of 1996 that the marketing team wanted to utilize. With Cake's song from 1996 being played in heavy rotation at the park the Padres could use it as a springboard for recognizing the 15 year anniversary of the 1996 NL West Champion team. While the '84 and '98 teams get regular recognition the '96 team is often forgotten. But in the proper context '96 was a necessary catalyst for the 1998 team's birth which ultimately lead to the construction of PETCO Park. 1996 was finally going to get its proper time in the sun.
Going The Distance would replace Believe as the primary Padres slogan and fans would receive a heavy dose of Cake's song when the Padres took the field in the top of the first and also after wins, replacing Macy Gray's Beauty In The World.
Part of this marketing ploy would also include a concert in the park during the summer of 2011 featuring Cake. During this concert the resemblance of Heath Bell and John McCrea would be played-up when Bell joined McCrea and Cake on stage.
The idea seemed rather brilliant. It was brought to upper management in late 2010.
I understand that it was considered but ultimately rejected at the end of the first week in December of 2010. This date represented the trade of Adrian Gonzalez and what appeared to be a massive overhaul of the overachieving 2010 squad. The Padres would be retooling in 2011 and the promotion of playoff aspirations by a team that would be clearly less than the sum of their parts seemed like a disingenuous message to sell to fans.
There was also the complication of Heath Bell himself. Scheduled to be a free-agent at the end of 2011 the likelihood of him remaining a Padre past the July 31st trade deadline did not seem plausible. Centering a marketing campaign around the resemblance of Bell and McCrea would be catastrophic if Bell were traded at the deadline. This issue was ultimately of less concern as the front office did not project the Padres to compete during the 2011 season and Going The Distance seemed too far fetched of an idea.
The plan was scrapped. The tentative appearance by Cake was cancelled and Dierks Bentley played the August 20th, 2011 concert at the Park in the Park.
The idea was creative. The idea was fun. The idea, in hindsight, was an impossibility. The San Diego Padres as constructed at that time would have been far too big of a gamble for such a marketing scheme. Going The Distance was too ambitious. Or was it?
During the past three months I've written three scathing critiques of articles by locally based journalists. All writers will write an homage to suck here and there but when the piece has egregious factual errors that lead to deception amongst readers then comment must be put on the record. That is what I would like to think that I have done with the articles by Nick Canepa, Don Norcross, and Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton.
Were these articles the absolute worst written by professional journalists in San Diego during 2011? Likely not. But make no mistake, they were poorly constructed, riddled with errors, and completely "mailed-in" by their respective authors. And so I shall nominate them for worst of the year.
You can click the author's name above to go directly to the article or below you will find the links for the criticisms, which may be the easiest way to refresh your memory:
Or perhaps your memory is pristine and you need not go through such time consuming acts; then now is the time to get yourself to the polls. Decision 2011!
