a pair of recent stories:

1) there's this company, formerly called howe sports, now called howe sportsdata (and somehow affiliated with wire service sportsticker, although i've not figured out how) that - forever - did all of the stats for minor league baseball. like, we've got 'final reports' from the illinois-indiana-iowa league from 1947, compiled by howe sports.

anyway, minor league baseball signed a stats contract with a new company, the sports network, this past offseason. the sports network, a recently-formed company formed by computer geeks, provides neat things like inning-by-inning scoring updates and box scores made available online within minutes of a game. (with howe, they weren't publicly avaialble, and they weren't available to people in the business until about 2 a.m. central. howe probably was a bit behind on technology.)

well, the sports network, run by computer geeks, isn't real good at interpersonal communication. they're crass and rude and generally arrogant when you have a request or a question via telephone. they also encourage that you send them emails with questions or roster updates and the like, rather than using a phone and actually talking to somebody.

(howe was very friendly. and helpful. you always got the answer you needed.)

apparently, they've been flooded with requests with phrases like "here's an updated scoring file from last night's game. our scorer erroneously credited two at-bats to player a, when player b had already entered the game. please email me to confirm that you've updated the change. thanks much."

being run by computer geeks, they don't really understand why people would need a confirmation email. so now, whenever a release or roster update or game recap or stats update is sent to them (and every game recap and roster update is emailed to them, per their request), you now get an immediate email that says "autoreply: the sports network has received your request and is addressing the problem."

seems to defeat the purpose of a 'confirmation email,' i'd think.

geeks.

2) the press box at our stadium is a construction abomination. the window doesn't stretch all the way to the desk (there are about eight inches of steel between the top of your counter and the beginning of the actual transparent window), meaning that a broadcaster needs an elevated chair to see home plate.

a recent club in town (and now the current one) has two broadcasters, meaning that we've needed to provide the opposing radio booth with an extra chair. i provided them *my* cushy office chair, which has the ability to be raised and lowered, and took an alternate junkier one for my own office use.

apparently, my boss is a bit set off by the fact that i've provided one of our high-quality (read: probably $25-$35) office chairs, instead of, like, a rock-hard folding chair. he sent an intern up yesterday to repo the nice chair. fortunately, i was in the booth, explained that a) a broadcaster can't see using a folding chair and b) anyway, it's my goddamn chair, and, being a good host, i've elected to give my colleague use of it.

so greg the intern, who is a super dude, explained this to the boss. and, after our game today, the boss confronted me. according to the boss, "i'm concerned that those radio guys won't treat the chairs real well."

what i wanted to say was, "these people are adults. they're mature and got this job over a whole lot of candidates. i can vouch for their responsibility. we've got stoned interns. stoned interns that don't give a crap about the relative success or failure of the team. i think the adults probably treat their chairs better." what i said was "mhlkadfoi3idlkasdflkjw," which is to say, i nodded a bit and mumbled a bit.

new team exits town tuesday afternoon. i'm not sure what i'll do with the extra chair.

3) i just saw ben affleck get interviewed during the yankees-red sox game. if i'm a red sox fan, i'm eternally embarrassed that this guy is 'our voice.' besides dropping in things like 'a-rod's gotten weak hits' and 'this seat (next to the dugout, which is where steinbrenner sits when he's at the yankees game at fenway) just stinks of the evil empire,' he also called the umpires 'the refs.'

he's a real dumbass turd and, from what i can tell, hasn't made a good movie since his first one.

4) an upcoming wednesday off day could bring a day trip to comiskey park. perhaps even a day-and-a-half trip.