Better Stadiums & Beer Gardens (13-12)

Dear Ken Macha,

You must be feeling like a bankruptcy attorney in Detroit, Ken. Everything might not be going well around you, but somehow you’re making a killing off of it. You finished the 7-game home stand with a 5-2 record, in spite of an apparently right call on Friday and potential fisticuffs throughout the series against the Pirates. Your pitching has kept you in games, except when the bullpen surprisingly fails to hold a lead. Your offense is thriving, except that your base runners are caught stealing all the time and J.J. Hardy is describing his struggles at the plate like a bad acid trip.     Nevertheless, you’ve steered the Brewers to a winning record in April.  Bravo to you, Ken.

Yet there are a few areas where I feel the team could benefit.  If we’re going to win games, we might as well win them in style, amiright? .   So here are three suggestions based on my experience at the games on Tuesday and Thursday night.  Maybe you can pass them along during one of your stadium operations pow-wows.

1) Make Prince Fielder bring back “Moments In Love” as his entrance song

Have you ever listened to the Quiet Storm on V100, Ken?  I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you haven’t, but if you’re a Brewer fan that’s not from Brookfield then you know that the intro jam to Quiet Storm used to be Prince’s entrance song.  “Moments In Love” by Art of Noise was the greatest entrance song ever, until Prince had to ruin things by using that crappy THX intro or the current air raid siren (get it? he’s dropping bombs!).  Don’t just trust me, Ken; take a look at Prince’s numbers and watch how they’ve plummeted since he dropped “Moments In Love.”  You can even tell the Miller Park audio crew that it was your idea.

2) Make Jason Kendall use another picture for his at-bat image.

Kendall really conveys his tough-as-balls demeanor via his entrance song — something by Pantera, I think, but I really couldn’t tell ya — and his entirely creepy image on the videotron.   Have you looked at it, Ken?  He looks like he eats babies. The Brewers are supposed to be family friendly.  There’s an entire section in the upper deck where people can’t drink alcohol so kids feel safe.  Well, I hope those tikes’ are kept away from the parking lots, concession stands and the scoreboard when Kendall is at bat.   Maybe you could take your Minolta and surprise Jason while he’s doing something around the clubhouse that doesn’t involve being eerily focused.   Even this picture would be an improvement:

Found at The Jason Kendall Connection! — a preserved, 1999 Geocities fan page for Jason Kendall

3) Tweak Trevor Time

Imagine you’re the scoreboard operator, Ken, and you need to really pump up fans for Trevor Hoffman’s high-leverage save situations.   The audio guy has it easy — Hoffman mailed him his Back In Black cassette — but you have quite the task: to come up with a graphic that screams … Trevor Time?   Really?  I understand that it’s not your fault, imaginary scoreboard operator Ken — someone in Padres’ corporate was the ad wizard behind “Trevor Time” — but if you have to use “Trevor Time” could you at least put up a graphic that’s going to scare someone?

An animated bell, CGI smoke effects barely obscuring Trevor’s spooky eyes?  For Trevor Time? Really? You get to use one of the best songs out there for a closer (Electric Avenue by Eddie Grant is the best) and there’s nary a strobe effect, digital flame or crazy picture of Jason Kendall to be found. Come on, imaginary scoreboard operator Ken! You can most certainly do better than that!

I hope you can help get these changes implemented, Ken.  They may seem like small beans right now, but do you want to look back on this letter at the end of September and wonder what could have been had you only listened to my advice?

Best Regards,

Rob Vosters