USSM event, book club, etc.

The USS Mariner event today was pretty fun. We were meeting in the Safeco Field media room, which I'd never seen before, so that was cool. In four hours there, we basically had one hour of Bavasi speaking, then a ten-minute break, and then 2.5 hours of mostly Dave and Derek speaking, with some Jeff Shaw comedy mixed in before he took off, and every now and then they'd force Jason to say something.

Bill Bavasi knows his audiences, and was both candid and entertaining as appropriate. I believe we're not supposed to repeat what he said, so I'm not going to. I didn't really take notes anyway. It was informative and just plain cool, that he'd pretty much just come talk to a whole bunch of random fans at a blog meet.

Dave informed us about lots of prospects and other parts of the farm system and his observations of Joe Borchard, and why Chris Snelling Doyle better end up playing again soon lest he decide to set some new world record for hitting ping-pong balls against a wall. Derek was his usual sarcastic but brilliantly funny self when talking about anything from the history of the 5-man rotation to the fact that scouting director Bob Fontaine is so awesome that if said we were drafting an alien from outer space, he'd go, "Okay, Bob". Jeff managed to work in a reference to Siegfried and Roy and regaled us in stories about roadtrips involving 72 oz steaks (it really did have to do with baseball, I swear). Jason would have told us how to make beef tartare, only it turns out that's not part of his regular duty at Canlis. (Doh!)

Unfortunately, by the time they were done speaking, it was almost time to get kicked out of the room, so there wasn't much mingling time at the end. It was great to talk to those of you who I did get to meet, though, and to those I didn't, I hope we get to chat sometime in the future!

Dave was awesome enough to let me come up to the front of the room and promote the Baseball Book Club for a few minutes, although I am lousy at public speaking, so if you found your way here after asking, "Hey, who was that weird chick in the Vote for Felix shirt at the meet talking about a book club?", well, here are the details (from the last post about book club):

We'll be meeting in the downstairs cafe at the Elliott Bay Book Company. The first two meetings and books are:

Saturday April 8th, 4pm - Out of Left Field by Art Thiel

Saturday May 6th, 4pm - Baseball Between the Numbers by Baseball Prospectus writers, edited by Jonah Keri

That first one is this coming Saturday, so even if you haven't read Out Of Left Field, but would like to come find out more, and have input into the future books we'll be covering, please do join us. Bring a friend, if you have friends who read baseball books too.

I'm hoping we'll meet once a month, the first Saturday of each month where there is a Mariners home game, 2 hours before game time. The book store is a few blocks from Safeco, so in theory, we can meet, discuss books, come up with future books to read, get the store to order more copies of whatever if necessary, and then take in a Mariners game afterwards if people want.

Yay for Opening Day tomorrow! Let's go Mariners!