First of all, a happy and healthy New Year to SU’s intergalactic Jewish subscribers. SU made its Yankee Stadium debut last night in a family outing with long-time subscribers J. Levine and B. Levine. As is custom, tickets were purchased through StubHub which is always a great deal. However, Yankee Stadium no longer accepts paper tickets – you have to show your ticket on a mobile device.
Now, SU on its best days is technologically challenged. And having just transitioned from the Blackberry to an i-phone for work purposes (OK, so I am slow to change), pulling up the ticket on the i-phone was a challenge unto itself. But did you know that you have to take a screen shot of the StubHub ticket and then email it to whoever else is joining you for the game and coming on their own? And did you know that if you are not careful and don’t pick up the small series of numbers at the bottom of the ticket on your screen shot, that you can’t get into the stadium? If not, now you do. SU learned the hard way and is now well-acquainted with many members of the Yankees’ box office and ticket-taking staff. Let’s just say these were not pleasant interactions.
To quote Mad Dog, “bad job!” Shouldn’t you be trying to maximize the fan experience? Getting into the stadium became a long ordeal and with the rain, even more painful. SU says go back to paper tickets as an option. Somehow the airlines can manage this – why not the Yankees?
Interesting article from fivethirtyeight.com on how baseballs are being made.
MLB just set a new record for home runs in a season which is pretty amazing now that we are (allegedly) in the post PED era. While most pitchers seem to throw in the high 90s today (as witnessed last night as Paul Molitor felt the need to use 7 relievers because he could with the expanded rosters) which no doubt contributes to fly balls going out faster and further, you have to wonder why the sudden increase? This article makes the case that the way the balls are manufactured has something to do with it. SU is now looking for the article that compares PEDs this season to PEDs of past years.
Michael Kay says that if the Yankees don’t at least win the Wild Card game, this is a disappointing season. SU says no way. I projected 82 wins at the start of the season and as a long-time Yankee fan, this has been a very good year with a firm switch to the youth movement and great promise for the future. The Wild Card game is a crap shoot; you don’t define the season on one game. Thoughts?
Finally, Eli Manning is taking a beating this week. Check out this article below:
Look, when you are riding the post-Yankee game Metro-North train home at 12:30 am with no-one else in your car, you have time on your hands. We know long-time subscriber A. Grossman would agree with the article but SU says it’s overly harsh. Eli is better than what the stats show. What say you?
Sports Update Intergalactic 
I don’t need to read an article to comment on Eli…we know the offensive line stinks, but he’s been a mediocre QB for a full season and now two games of this season…Russell Wilson’s offensive line is terrible also, and he doesn’t have one WR that’s close to OBJ, and he’s been better than Eli recently…I also had no problem with McAdoo calling him out on that play clock violation; whether or not you agree with his decision to go for it, it’s the QB’s job to get the play off, and in all my years watching football, I’ve never seen that happen more than it does to Eli…to his credit, he knows how to step up and accept the blame, but he has to play better and if he has another bad year, the Giants may need to start alternate plans sooner rather than later.
+1 on the ticketing. I’ve had success with the screen shots but that’s a work around that shouldn’t be necessary in the days of social/digital media. You can share anything with anybody electronically. Why not tickets? What’s maddening is that this is a situation that must come up hundreds if not thousands of times every game? People always buy tickets for groups where some members of the group are not arriving at the same time. You should be able to buy with the stub hub app and then immediately share selected tickets with other members of your party. I can’t believe this feature doesn’t exist. The only explanation I’ve come up with is that the ticketing companies are waiting for the public to get used to the current annoying “system” and will later introduce a “feature” that allows you to share tickets for some additional fee.
I care little for Michael Kay’s opinions. Obviously the Yankees would be disappointed to loose a wild card game but you cannot define a baseball season by one game. Michael Kay knows this. But he has a lot of airtime to fill.
Regarding Eli, he’s firmly in the downside of his career (a career that has been up and down anyway) but he’s still serviceable and shouldn’t be the one to carry the load on a team that allegedly did such a good job upgrading over the off season. The o-line is awful and there’s not much more you can say.