Scott Green's Blog

Click here for May 2010 newsletter

Maybe it’s me……….If I have the chance, and I can afford to play for a weekend in a Major League Park, complete with locker, lunch 4 games etc, I’d skip my league game one weekend and have an experience that I would remeber for the rest of my life…..would you skip a game from your league to play in an MLB Stadium with all the trimmings?

In 2 weeks patp will be in (hopefully) warm and sunny Bradenton at a new venue, Pirate City. It’s our first winter event, which also included a stay and play, with meals etc. We didn’t think the event was going to happen 6 or 7 weeks ago, but the Pirates, who have been great to deal with, agreed to waive the minimum amount of stay and plays, and we reduced the price for day trippers, so the event will now happen, and we’ll have 4 full teams for a first time venue. I have heard nothing but great things about place, in particular the lodgings and the food. We go to new places to keep it fresh and watch it grow. Some of my competitors unfortunately are stuck in the area’s they play, due to long term relationships with the fields or stadiums and their past history. We meanwhile have only one event we will always have and that is Palm Beach. Is it wrong for us to branch out to other area’s at different times of year? If you heard the bitching and moaning from some of the people I just mentioned, I am an infringer, a pariah, etc.

As most of you know, I am a die hard Cardinals fan. When I heard that Mark McGwire had agreed to take the position of hitting coach of the Cardinals, I knew we would have to listen to his side of the steroid story before the season began.  Most of it I believed, but please Mark, you have to know that steroids and HGH helped you achieve at the very least a good portion of your success. I have agrued that no pill or shot can make you hit a ball. But to rebound from injury so fully and to try and feel “normal” was an advantage that other players with the same problems and same length of schedule didn’t have………………..what do you think?

Sorry for the long break between blogs…………Why is it every time HOF elections come around there is always a controversy. The best second baseman of our era doesn’t get in because a couple of sportswriters need to punish him for an unexcetpable moment. One player does get in who in my opinion was a hell of a player, but NOT a Hall of Famer. Another pitcher with 287 wins and is 5th in all time strike outs just misses again……….did you know that the catcher with the most hits by a catcher, second in RBI’s, first in doubles, and was a switch hitter will never even make it to Cooperstwon unless he decides to bring his family there on a vacation…….that player is Ted Simmons. Anothert player who is in the same boat, although a miserable prick, still put up the numbers…Albert Belle. Look at Richie Allens numbers, Ken Boyer,and Ron Santo. All comparable to George Kells, Rabbit Maranville, Rick Ferrell. The real problem is, sportswriters elect the players. Not the people who should…..former players……………take away the vote now from selfish, ill informed “journalists”

Being a die hard Cardinals fan, and a national league fan in general (I hate the d.h.) I am still in awe of the greatest sports franchise in the world, the New York Yankees. The Yanks have always been my second team, and with their return to glory last night, and a another title for New York, you have to respect there accomplishments through the years. I know for many of you it is a love, hate relationship. They have never stopped trying to put a winner on the field every year. Yeah it means out spending everyone else. But the fact of the matter is they do spend to win. And all the luxury tax they pay to the other clubs, usually goes into the owners pockets, not the product.  New York demands a winner, and the Yankees always attempt to get them one. For me, it ain’t the Cardinals, but it’s the next best thing.  Now the long wait for pitchers and catchers to report……….

I recently returned from playing in a large tournamnet in Arizona. Our team consisted of 2 groups of  players. The group I was familiar with plays together every Sunday. The other group was from New England and were total strangers to me.  We were all good individual players, but collectively we stunk. We backed into the playoff round with a 2 and 4 record.  Now I have played with many teams and with many new faces, but this was one of the few times 2 groups formed one team. And to put it bluntly, it didn’t work. Why?

When I was a kid growing up in the 60’s, a pitcher winning 20 games was no big deal. Each league had 4 or 5, and some of them won as many as 25. McLain won 31 in 68, Gibson’s ERA that year was 1.12. Last night the only 2 pitchers in baseball with a shot at 20, fell short. Adam Wainwright left the game in the 6th, with a 6-1 lead, only to see a usually succesful bullpen come apart, and kill his chance. (Wainwright is still my choice as Cy Young) In the other league, C.C. Sabbathia got lit up in his chance for 20. Are the hitters that much better, are bullpens more important than they were in the 60’s and 70’s. Are the parks too small, or is the talent pool for pitching just not as good as it used to be? I can remember Cards and Dodgers doubleheaders where Gibson and Carlton would lose 1-0 to Koufax and Drysdale. Every team had 2 or 3 studs in the rotation. Now it’s an ace and anybody else.

In 1994 I started playing in tournaments in Cooperstown, usually in July. The town was certainly very busy with tourists, mostly middle aged men and women, going to the HOF, checking out the shops with over priced memorabilia, and standing in a line for a sandwich or a table in one of the few restaurants. 15 years later, I bring my own small group there in mid September, and the town has taken on a completely different feel. It has been heading this way the past few years, but this season in particular for me anyway, Cooperstown just didn’t appeal to me the way it used to. My favorite store “The National Pastime” where one could buy an oil painting of a Hall of Famer, or an old patty cake glove, or great authentic items from your favorite team, was closed, and had become an ice cream store. Like many of the stores in town, many have changed to accomodate the new demographic, youth baseball players and there young families. I decided years ago not to trek to Cooperstown in the summer to avoid the massive influx of Dreams Park players, and there families. Don’t misunderstand me, I am all for youth baseball, but it has taken this quaint town for the adult tourist and turned it into a a town with shlocky merchandise, metered parking, over crowding, unattainable lodging, and terrible service at the few good eateries. Even going up this past week, the eveidence of an understaffed town was very visible. After having perhaps the worst meal I have ever endured on Saturday night, at a restaurant I have been bringing business to for years and I am known at, I kept telling the guests at the table, “this is Cooperstown”. On Sunday morning . I strolled into one of the shops and had a long conversation with the owner about the changing face of this little hamlet. He told me he expected at least 3 or 4 more stores to go under this winter as the frivolous dollar becomes even more precious to consumers. The economy has hit this town hard, and the new demographic has changed it, enough so, that we will take a long look at coming back next year. I love Doubleday Field, the people who work there, and the same with Beaver Valley. But the rest of the place is leaving a big sour taste in my mouth. It just isn’t 1994 any longer.

One of my favorite events is happening this week. Our 4 day tournament in Historic Cooperstown, N.Y. If you are a hardcore fan and have never been there, you owe it to yourself to make the trek to get a major dose of baseball. I stopped going in the summer a few years ago, and have been going up only in September. The weather is still good, and the town is really quiet. No problem getting a table at a restaurant, parking at Doubleday Field, and a better rate for the hotels…..This trip will be very special for me, as I welcome most of my team mates from Southampton.  But especially, my dear friends, Bobby Hillier, Gerry Schweitzer and Kevin Connors. We sat around a kitchen table one night about 7 years ago and wrote down on the backs of paper plates the revenue that could be produced at events like these. Gerry and Bobby were my partners for a little while in the begining stages of PATP. They already had huge business interests, and we didn’t last long together. I haven’t seen nearly as much of them as I would have liked these past 4 or 5 years, but this long weekend will bring us back together in a atmosphere filled with baseball, humor, and I am not ashamed to say love. Throw Ed Berkich in the mix and no matter how bad we stink on the field, we will have more fun than most…………And isn’t this, what it is really all about?