Navigators Exciting New Initiatives

Hey y'all - I'm checking in with some exciting news from the Navigators.

We are looking into doing something that the Spirit should have done: creating a section for diehard fans who want to be loud and supportive of the Navigators. We are trying to come up with a name for the section now and figure out exactly how it's going to work, but the general idea is to create one centralized place where people are encouraged to be loud, heckle the opposition, and cheer on the Navigators to victory. We are trying to recruit local students and other enthusiastic fans to join us. If you are interested in this idea, please let me know by commenting here or emailing me at gravellj@bc.edu.

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Since we believe that fan interaction is the most important element to success, I am setting up an AOL IM name tomorrow where anyone can contact me to ask questions about the Navigators. If you have questions or comments for the owner, the general manager, the ticket office, etc., I can pass them along to the appropriate party. The IM name will probably be "NSNAVS," depending on availability. I will post tomorrow when I set it up officially.

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Exciting news: on June 14, the Navigators will be playing against the United States National Team as they gear up for the 2008 Olympic Games in China. You do NOT want to miss this one.

Also, I can't make any promises, but it looks like opening night on Saturday, June 7 will also be a fireworks night. I'll post when I know for sure.

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As you can tell, I "sold out" by putting an ad on this page. I'm a college student so I'll take whatever little bit of income I can get. Please support our sponsor. It's an exciting web forum called 'We're Doing Just Fine' - a site dedicated to sharing upbeat, positive stories.

Spirit Lose Heartbreaker; More Nails Lost

The blog's regular conntributor Joe is having trouble getting home at the moment...but is on his way home after a heartbreaking 9-6 loss against the Jackals of the Sewer State. He asked me to write up the report tonight.....but I'd like to get some sleep so I'm gonna cheat and put up the recap from the official North Shore Spirit website and add a few side-thoughts:

By Reid Cargan,SPIRIT Baseball Writer
LYNN,MA (SV)
"Sandy Madera hit a grand slam off Derek Drage to cap off a seven run ninth inning as the Jackals storm back from four runs down to shock the Spirit 9-6 Tuesday night at Fraser field in game one of their series.

It was a battle of the lefties for the first four innings as Luis Arroyo and Josh Brey held their counterparts scoreless. Then with two outs in the top of the fifth, Joe Mihalics singles and promptly stole second. Clay Kuklick hit what appeared to be the final out, but the fly ball tipped of Mike Torres’ glove and dropped in allowing Mihalics to score. New Jersey took further advantage of the error by scoring another run in the frame on a Francisco Leandro base hit to up the score to 2-0.

The Spirit struck for five in the sixth inning to overtake the Jackals. Mike Torres and Luis Lopez both with 2 RBI’s in the frame on a single and double respectively. Jerson Perez chipped in an RBI single as well that scored Lopez from second. The Spirit bullpen cruised through the seventh and eighth innings before Donny Langdon and Jamie Baker imploded in the ninth inning, all culminating in the Madera slam. New Jersey banged out five hits with two walks in the frame. The Jackals gave the Spirit a taste of their own medicine after the Spirit had strung together a few come from behind victories as of late.

Kyle George (2-3) picks up the win in relief, with newcomer Tom Atlee picking up his first save as a member of the Jackals. Drage takes the loss, moving his record to 3-4 on the season.

The two teams lock up again Wednesday night at 7:05. Gary Galvez will oppose Kevin Ool."


NOW...for my mini-rant and thoughts (I know Joe would've loved to do this in the main post XD):
First off may I start by askign the following questions.....Why can;t we seem to win at home,especially latye in the season? AND Why do we always have closer problems late in the season? NOW-we move on....

**Luis Arroyo did phneominal in his outing. His pitching line was 6 innings pitched with 4 hits and 2 un-earned runs (an E7) while stiking out 1 and walking 2.
** I liked the idea of,after Arroyo left,trying to use one pitcher per inning.....worked to a point ;]
** Fraser Field is porbably the only place that can go from active in the 6th to being a carbon copy of Pine Grove Cemetary when sound is NEEDED!!!! UGH!
** I hate how an usher told us to quiet down and then said "It';s only the Spirit" when we were cheering in the 9th....LIKE REAL FANS DO!
** Carl Schaefer is sick!!! He has some VERY good stuff. Maybe we should've kept him in a little later...
** Derek Gange shouldn't have gone in THAT late in the game (the 9th inning).....he's been bad lately,and doing that was suicide. Next time put him in earlier......this isn't helping him or the team at this point.
** Walking Fransisco Leandro (who?) to get to Sandy Madera (top league hitter) was a HORRIBLE discission! ALL of us agreed.....cause then what happened? BOOM! Grand Salami....just like Joe predicted and everyone thought might happpen.
** Why leave in Drage after doign badly and then giving up a grand slam?! Vic....stop being like JK,it's giving us heart problems.
** Vic.......make Carl Schaefer the closer--NOW! ^_^

ALSO: The press box is amazing....thank you guys for the Can-Am updates (they're important now) and thanks Pat for the enthusiastic Josue Lopez intro,you sound remotely like a Spanish soccer announcer subsituting Josue for GOOOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!! XD Can we do that every night? ;-]



NOW.....comment away!

PS: The Utica region of "Who's Now" will be forthcoming (AKA: This week)

Utterly insane

Edit/update: I don't want to bump this story from the top spot but I do want to mention tonight's CanAm game... the Cutters beat the Pride 5-4 on a walkoff wild pitch in the 10th. Jeeeeeeez.

In late July of 2005, when I hadn't received any of the merchandise and special opportunities with my season ticket package that I was supposed to get in April [some of which NEVER wound up coming], my mother urged me to contact the Better Business Bureau and press the issue. I didn't, however, because I thought (and still think) that the relationship between a sports team and a fan is different from a typical business-consumer relationship - it's one of mutual passion, respect and dedication. Unfortunately, I've come to learn over these five seasons that respect and dedication is not a two-way street with the Spirit organization.

I'm glad I wasn't at the game yesterday (which in and of itself speaks volumes -- I used to be pissed whenever I'd miss a game), because if I was, I would have been followed and harassed by Spirit staff solely because they know who I am and I am always there.

I will repeat what I said last night in the chat: If Nick and the Spirit want Fraser to be a morgue with no fan support, that's their decision and that's OK. It's a dumb decision, and one that's destined to fail, but it's theirs, so whatever.

But that is an entirely separate issue from following around and harrassing repeated paying customers and treating them like criminals or hooligans - especially since none of us have ever caused trouble at any game, at home or on the road.

What especially troubles me is that security was hovering around ERNIE.... ERNIE!!!!! Seriously, what would/could Ernie do? Is that how the Spirit treat an elder member of our community who has spent god knows how much money and time coming to see the Spirit over these past 5 seasons?

And all of this was done while Eddie "Triple Whopper" Lantigua and his band of Capitales got the VIP treatment that season ticket holders are supposed to get but never do.

The fact of the matter is that we are not the only people who are sick of the way the Spirit run their organization. If I had a dime for every time I heard someone say "I would have renewed my season tickets if I received even one call from the Spirit over the off-season," I would have... well... 40 cents, because I've heard that from four separate ex-season ticket holders. I'd imagine that they are not the only ones.

I have traveled on the road MANY times to see the Spirit play and not ONCE have I EVER been acknowledged or thanked by "The Big Boss," nor have we been acknowledged by the minions without going up and initiating conversation at them. I think the idea is that we are supposed to bow down and be thankful to the benevolent boss for bringing the team into existence, and that gratitude isn't a two way street.

The issue seems pretty clear to me. In the business world, "The Lopardo Way" 'was always successful. He never had to listen to anybody and he could hire mindless minions to do his work for him. But in this business you can't be cold and ruthless and impersonal. And in this business, 'the way things are done' has failed. The team has failed to win a Can Am title and attendance has never reached a solid level (and god knows where it would be this year without Slugger's reading freebies). The disrespect of the fans isn't helping things. And the jettisoning of quality employees like the Seguin brothers hasn't helped either, but I'm sure that they didn't fall in line and perhaps they forgot to Heil.

It's not just us. Last season someone was thrown out for not standing up during God Bless America, which is not, for the record, our national anthem. Again, if that's the way the Spirit want to run their organization, more power to them, but it's bound to fail. And in fact, if rumors are to be believed, it IS failing and Nick is bailing out before the season is even over. It seems to me like the only reason Nick didn't take his ball and go home after last season is that doing so would be admitting the failure of "his way or the highway." But it looks like it's about to be the highway (for them, not for us, because I can assure you, we will be in Worcester or Nashua next summer if/when the Spirit fold... there is no shortage of baseball in New England).

The Spirit have never been receptive toward ideas that could increase fan connection and passion. I emailed them before the 2005 season about sanctioning a semi-independent fan club, and I got an email back saying, basically, "not interested." I have gotten the same response when I've requested that the Spirit set up a message forum, or link to ours, or NEFANs, so that fans can develop a connection and talk about the games. Nope, not interested.

Why not? I'm guessing it's because someone might say something that's not 100% positive and worshipful. That's certainly part of the reason why we get the disrespect we do. Despite our constant displays of respect and dedication to the team, sometimes, on the blog, we call a spade a spade.

I'm calling a spade a spade here - the treatment received by fans yesterday was absolutely despicable.

Like I said, not wanting people to be vocal is one thing, but being the Fun Police is an entirely different issue. But beyond that, having actual security shadowing people who have not caused problems in 5 years is simply uncalled for.

Perhaps they should get security to surround the idiot parents who let their kids run amok through the aisles and constantly run in to people.

3 years ago a kid crawled on to the dugout and stayed up there for 5 minutes. Finally, despite the fact that I knew I would probably get kicked out for going on the dugout, I went up there and got the kid down.

I got no thank you from the moron parents or from the idiot usher despite the fact that I did his job.

But at Fraser Field, I'm used to being treated in an ungrateful way, so it didn't really bother me.