Josh Kingsley
Just under a year ago I shared my time honored tradition of Boys of Summer. Quick catch up note/explanation: a group of Boston University rowers and absorbed me into the social circle and we hit a baseball city for a long weekend. Activities include meals, bars and a ballgame. This year we hit Tampa (actually spent most time in St. Pete), and the trip was last weekend. Tampa marked our 13th BOS, and our 15th ballpark. To quote Bon Jovi:
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“Whoooooaa, we’re halfway there.
WHHOOOOOOoooOOOOOOOAAAAAAA
Livin’ on a prayer, Livin’ on a prayer.”
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Key Tampa takeaways:
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- Adam is downright lethal at the planning side at this point
- We checked the food boxes in a big way
- I cannot recall a specific time I’ve even been hotter
- That was the best ball game of our entire series (Rays vs Orioles)
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This trip marked my 28th trip to a new, current ballpark. I need to redo the Rangers and Braves as they have new parks since my visit. My number is 26 or 28. I have some opinions about ballparks.
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Ballpark Review Central
Adam’s pre-event note called out the 50% mark for the campaign. He added this Men’s Health article to the posting, which seemed quite timely. The initial group always meets somewhere on a Thursday and sets tones for the weekend. I took that moment to review the list.
Quick Side Note
I’m a massive music fan. Always have been. In late high school/early college I consistently found myself in passionate debates (often degrading to insult matches) about music. Boy did I have strong opinions. Picture the guy at the party picking apart boy bands, corporate sell out rock, etc. and calling for fans of such music to get ear transplants. The current version of that hates modern country and overuse of auto-tune. I found myself in those debates because I looked for them. I lived for the music arguments in social situations. Telling someone their favorite bands and genres were wrong was a past time.
One day, something changed. In late 2002 I took a job as a wedding DJ. I immediately recognized a need to check my personal opinions at the door for the sake of customer service. If they want N’Sync and hip hop then that’s what I’m playing. Two weird things happened quickly. First, I started reapplying my knowledge to remove my opinions and become a catalog. I knew the hits a habitually avoided. The big change was a brain light bulb. I was doing a dance, floor packed, playing all the poppy stuff I avoided for years. My exact thought: if this music makes this many people this happy how is this bad? I assigned myself as wrong and became a student of music genres, artist catalogs and eras. The real weird part was becoming an actual fan of most of all this music.
Back to Ballparks
Why that side note? I still form strong opinions, but actively try to hold over the top stuff in check. Part of it is not wanting to be that guy. More of it is refusing to die on every dumb hill daily. In the grand scheme none of this really matters at all and it’s not worth getting my blood pressure up over it.
That Men’s Health list put me in one of those moods. I’m close to 200 college and pro level sporting venues, so I feel entitled to an opinion. I have no clue (not planning to find out either) who this author, Tim Newcomb is, but I suspect he’s a Chicago hater among other things. My intention was reading a stadium countdown close to most general thoughts, but my reality was rage. Let me recount my issues.
31
Right out of the gate he listed Oakland as the worst, 31st place. The ranking, last, is correct, but 31? I resisted skipping ahead for an explanation.
Major Red Flag
I roll out of Oakland expecting Tampa (Adam considers it worse than Oakland – more an that later), but see the White Sox. OK whoa. Guarantee Rate Field replaced Comiskey in the early 90s, and widely takes the role of last non-modern ballpark. This is true from my perspective. The White Sox are Chicago’s south side team and like the Cubs of the north reside on the red line. I love the Chicago el. The red line runs north and south through the loop, and the area around GRF is not the best. Possibly the least safe spot of the entire system. That train is safe during game time travel. All my trips to GRF approach Sox/35th from the north by downtown. I never stop at the 2-3 stations prior to the park and don’t suggest anyone else does either. The Sox stop has literally one thing: a ballpark.
That’s the gripe list about the park. The ballpark is nice: well maintained, well facilitated, etc. All the concession staff is pleasant. They have Chicago dogs and Italian beef on the menus. Sight lines are perfect. It is a perfectly fine place to watch a game, not the second worst spot in MLB. Only a Sox hater ranks this park this low.
Explanation
Why 31 parks? Well, this guy found it fit to list both the old and new Rangers ballparks next to each other at 24th and 25th. The order doesn’t matter because the paragraphs are essentially the same.
The True North
My next major gripe saw the Blue Jays listed at 19th. That place is old, and the field is a piece of carpet over concrete. I took a tour scouting BOS7. Their luxury boxes are about as nice as the average college dorm room. I rank this place later.
My Crew
The Brewers landed 17th. That park is nothing majorly special, but it’s a bit less middling than that. I admit bias, and most likely gloss over without the other transgressions.
Pure Liable
The Colorado Rockies’ Coors field has one of the absolute best views in all of sports. A seat along the first base line for an evening game paints a sunset over the Rocky Mountains. I’m not sure anything short of the seating crumbling below you drops that view in that park to 14th. I’m seething.
East Coast Bias
New Yankee Stadium, the place most baseball fans hate, came in #10. The 27 titles stretch across the wall atop level one behind home plate. It’s both cool and the only interesting part of that park. Remove the team and that place plummets to mediocrity.
The Sacrilegious
Wrigley Field at #9. Seriously, what is this dude’s beef with Chicago? Is it based on dislike for actual Italian beef? He then follows by naming Busch in StL #8. At this point I am hate reading to finish.
One Final Slight
Dodger Stadium comes in second. I enjoy games there, but this park has issues. First, largest piece of parking lot I’ve probably ever seen. Awesome tailgates? No, not allowed. The real reason is too much risk of violence, which adds to the family friendly vibe. The good news is beers are as expensive as possible. Last trip was 7ish years ago and a Coors Light draft was $13.50. Not sure I want to see current prices. The seats are bleacher in most spots. I like bleachers. What I don’t like is 50 seat wide rows. Sitting in seat #25 is interesting. Dodger Stadium is top 10 no doubt, but #2 no way.
Final Stances
My top baseball parks is effectively a group. The best four are Red Sox and Cubs for history, Pirates and Giants for modern beauty. I don’t think there is a wrong order as it’s all preference. The next two are Orioles and Rockies. After that it’s really a big mass of nice places to watch a game that do small things to appeal to certain tastes. Places like Dodgers and Royals have ambiances and touches that scream top 10, but really 21/30 are simply solid, nice places. Some notes as I present my list: I prefer West > East Coast, am a Rockies fan and mountain lover, and Midwest –> all.
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- Giants
- Cubs
- Pirates
- Red Sox
- Rockies
- Orioles
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That’s my top six. My bottom three in order: Blue Jays (old), Rays (old, ugly), A’s (old, ugly, smells like a sewer, mean people run the place). Adam lobbied me hard before the weekend that the Rays ballpark is worst. The Rays ballpark is clean, air conditioned, and they people working wanted to be there. Oakland was none of these things.
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Some CHIEFS Football
I worked the Arrowhead Kingdom social pages this week for some fellow fan takes. Camp opens the door for all kinds of narratives and storylines, so… plenty to address.
The Running Back Position
This is more NFL news than CHIEFS news, so I’ll start here. The RB position holds little contract value in the current NFL. There really isn’t a better way to put that. Contract amounts and guarantees have sunk to the point that the league’s top players hosted a Zoom to discuss the state of the position. Austin Ekeler organized and hosted, and all the big names joined. The most notable were Josh Jacobs and Saquon Barkley. Barkley’s saga resolved… for this season, but Jacob’s is raging. Both players led their respective offenses, put notable stats vs league peers, but failed to secure new long term contracts this offseason and received the franchise tag. Barkley negotiated additional money and guarantees for a 1-year deal. Jacobs is a camp holdout with no sign of resolution. I see him a threat to Le’Veon Bell this thing and sit the season.
That move did nothing for Bell football career wise, but he certainly got his money. Maybe that was the goal. It sucked to see that be his choices. I wrote about the FB position recently in crime noir fashion. My main point was the death of the position. Running back isn’t dying, but it is defocusing. The general consensus among NFL fans and analysts is feeling for the players’ situation, but acknowledging a change in NFL offensive approach validating the position’s valuation (12:53).
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Nick Wright highlighted a fact on his show: this is a hard cap league, the teams still spend the money, but it’s shifting to places like WR. He went on to compare it to the extinction of the 7′ space filler that used to get $10M a year in the NBA. It quite making sense when the 5/center position went away.
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Potential Outcomes and Solutions
The RB position version of the NBA reference is committees and passing increase. Coaches like Andy Reid paved the way for players like Christian McCaffrey, one of if not THE, RB getting serious money. Run CMC is a slot WR who lines up in the backfield a takes some handoffs. That’s the NFL’s version of Giannis being 7′ but playing point guard and shooting 3’s. The best NFL lead backs are CMC, Henry, Chubb, Barkley, maybe Taylor, and little else to add to that list. Majority of NFL teams run a shared backfield. Teams simply cannot pay old prices/cap %. Where do we go?
The second biggest issue, after pass focus, is RB career length. They take a beating, which shortens careers. A 30+ RB is a dinosaur. The unfortunate part of this equation is RB spend 50-75% of their prime physical years in college and rookie deal playing time. Today we can argue NIL money in college, but that is incredibly recent. The only argument for rookie pay scale is “all athletes make too much and they should just be happy,” which I will not make. A potential solution includes new contract rules for for the position shortening rookie deal terms and excluding them from franchise tags. This requires the Zoom crew to essentially unionize the position. That’s a slippery slope, but also feels like the right idea. Maybe the slip in the slope is a new structure handling positions differently, and maybe that’s a good thing.
Thanks to Chris W and Tyson T for the engagement on this topic.
The Next Breakout WR
My position is clear: Travis Kelce is WR1 in this offense, but we need a leader on the outside edges of the offense. JuJu was that last season, but he plays for the Patriots now. Who steps up this year? Toney was the immediate answer with caveat commentary about health. Injuries are the rub with Toney. I know more than posed the question, got some comments and word released that Toney had knee surgery. The guy can’t win. His social photos in the gym show someone who works hard. Maybe he doesn’t stretch enough. Unfortunately, maybe he has bad genes and joints. The latter looks the answer and sucks more than if it’s the former. Players manage, not fix genes and joints. I knew a guy in high school who was a different pair of ankles away from a crack at D1 college sports, possibly more.
For Toney different knees potentially mean a Hall of Fame bust. The interactive commentary quickly went from 12 games to 50% to hopefully we see him in the playoffs. Toney and Coach Reid are talking motivation for a week upon return. I’m not sure anything good comes from that. The best path appears limited regular season snaps, pure focus on health, and additive playoff X factor type stuff. Camp narrative talks up Justyn Ross and Skyy Moore. Richie James getting mentions as well. MVS talk is minimal. I expect MVS and Moore to flirt with 1K yd seasons, and dream of Justyn Ross becoming that guy. The injury rub is real with him too.
Tons of AK engagement on this one.
Chris Jones Future
I don’t want to nauseate Laddie with my Jones talk, but here we are. My question here was concern level of holdout and commentary with these options:
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- Absolute horror – this HAS to get resolved quickly
- This makes me feel uneasy, but Trust Veach and team are on it and he signs soon
- I really hope he ends up signing, but am OK if the amount is too high and he’s traded
- If Veach thinks his demands are too high and trades him so be it – in Veach we trust
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It’s a mine field of answers. How did everyone respond? Well, 50% picked the fourth option and 42% the second. The positive is unprecedented faith in our front office, and belief they have a plan for any situation. It also looks like many feel prepared to hit the fifth stage of grief (acceptance) IF Jones moves on. I want option two, but will accept four. Maybe that means I’m really at number three.
A Jones extension turns this entire thing into a basic footnote in the CHIEFS/Jones history. That’s my hope.
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Editor’s Note: “Mine too.”
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Parting Shot
Tyreek Hill is at it again. He got into some altercation with a random person, who accused him of assault.
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The parties settled. Hill calls the incident a “boneheaded mistake.” He also went on some sort of record that he plans to enter Canton. Everybody knows that Tyreek. As a Dolphin. That, we did not know. I sense another boneheaded mistake coming…
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Josh Kingsley — ArrowheadOne and Arrowhead Kingdom
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