Vindication! Former Rapidz owner strikes out in court

The former owner of the Ottawa Rapidz has suffered another defeat.

Rob Hall of Zip.ca and Momentous has been out for vengeance since his chute-pull after the Can-Am League team's single, farcical season in 2008. Earlier Tuesday, Judge Lynn Ratushny of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed Hall's actions against the Can-Am League and Bruce Murdock, a season-ticket holder and Ottawa resident who put a lot of time and sweat equity into the ill-fated franchise. Claims vs. the City of Ottawa and Can-Am commish Miles Wolff are still extant.

The long-story-short is this is vindication for those who were sickened by how Hall and former partner Rick Anderson's gong show in 2008 almost drove the final nails into the coffin of pro ball in Ottawa. The court not only threw out the claim on jurisdictional grounds (i.e., an Ontario court shouldn't address claims against a North Carolina-based league), but also on its merits, which could be significant in the event of an appeal.

Hall, et al., still has claims pending against Can-Am commissioner Miles Wolff and the City of Ottawa (these people is nothing if not thorough). I'll just reiterate what I said in '08:

"The record will show that you and fellow/former Zipperhead Rick Anderson bought the team and acted like overgrown brats with a new toy, not as keepers of a quasi-public trust. You rejected advice from people whose track record, unlike yours, actually suggests they know their ass from second base when it comes to baseball. Worst of all, you toyed with the hearts of the fans. They honestly believed that a new team would rise from the ashes of the Lynx's Long Goodbye. They feel like fools now, and honestly, that sucks.

The legal system is not in the business of applying salve to the thin skins of megalomaniacs. As noted eight months ago, what it boiled down to is that they were trying to get back at the people for their self-inflicted embarrassment. Far be it that they could have found the culprits for causing the embarrassment simply by looking in the mirror first thing each morning.

For pity's sake, one minute Hall was talking about signing a 30-year lease on the Coventry Rd. baseball stadium and the next they were accusing the city and Wolff of duping them into thinking baseball could work in Ottawa. They talked about buying the stadium, but they wouldn't pay their bills. Say whatever you want about the litigation former Ottawa Lynx owner Ray Pecor has vs. the City of Ottawa, but when his team pulled up stakes, they left with every bill paid in full. Wolff worked to get the Can-Am team going and won over the right people at City Hall. The city, for the record, wanted baseball back.

When you get right down to it, the Zipperheads threw an OPM party (other people's money) all summer long party in 2008. Since then, they have been trying to collect a payoff on the backs of people who were sincere about keeping pro baseball alive in Ottawa.

The Rapidz quote, unquote lost $1.4 million. In reality, one of the owners' other businesses, Momentous, was the biggest creditor, to the tune of about $700,000, so one wonders if that was just creative accounting. The rest was unpaid expenses owed to suppliers. Those are the real victims, the businesspeople who have to go to bankruptcy court in hope of getting pennies on the dollar.

The bottom line is Ottawa ball fans should laugh long and loud. They earned it the hard way, by having their hearts broken.

Ottawa baseball: Former owners sue city, Can-Am commish

Who needs fiction when you have the former owners of Ottawa's minor-league baseball team.

Long story short, the team's former owners, the Zipperheads, are suing anyone and everyone over their losses from last season and not one Ottawa media outlet has clued in. Far be it to suggest Rob Hall, Rick Anderson, et al., in lieu of going away in anger, should just go away. Their statement of claim, which is a matter of public record, goes so far to claim Can-Am League commish Miles Wolff and the City of Ottawa actually conspired to cause them to lose the $1.4 million they claimed to lose last summer.

33. In the 2008 season, Momentous funded the baseball club and its operations to the extent of some $1 million. In addition, Momentous loaned personnel and equipment to Rapidz Baseball while continuing to carry them on its payroll and inventory. During the course of the 2008 season, Rapidz Baseball incurred an indebtedness in excess of $1.4 million.

34. The likelihood of operational costs leading to a deficit in this range was known to the City and Wolff, but was not disclosed by either of them to the plaintiffs.

So, the Ontario courts are to believe that Wolff has spent the better part of two years trying to put a team in a market to purposely lose money. That is asinine on its face. Read that twice. Wolff and the city knew how much the owners would stand to lose? That's akin to me telling you how much money you'll have in your checking account at the end of this year without knowing anything about your spending habits.

Good friend Carl Kiiffner is pretty succinct:

If he 'knew' that baseball in Ottawa was a 'losing proposition' in excess of $1 million dollars, why did Miles Wolff try so hard to bring the Can-Am League here in the first place?

It just goes on and on through their statement of claim, that they were supposedly set up by the city and their commissioner. Sorry, gentle sirs, it does not pass muster, unlike the hot dogs at the ballpark last summer, which were so superb they barely needed mustard (how did you make the buns so crispy?).

This part of the SoC deserves a good slathering of soy sauce:

"They realised, by the magnitude of the losses, that the representations and warranties made by Wolff and joined in by the City were patently false. To overcome the effect of this breach, the plaintiffs sought the agreed upon negotiation with the City of a long term lease at commercially reasonable rates.

Translation for the legalese-impaired: "We were so mad at being lied to that we decided the only way out was to get into bed with this city for 30 years." (Mental note: Do not hire these guys to provide counselling to battered spouses.)

Anyway, the real proof, like Carl says, will be what the Zipperheads got in writing from Wolff and the city. The heart of the matter is that, despite Ottawa being a fickle market for teams other than hockey, Wolff put a ton of personal and sweat equity into bringing baseball back in 2009 with the Ottawa Voyageurs. The municipal government in Ottawa was only too eager to welcome it back, in stark contrast to some of the near tooth-pulling it took in fall 2007/winter 2008

At the end of the day, this post is being written so readers know what was meant by saying in January that the former owner "was pulling a Horn Chen." This goes a little bit beyond merely trying to hoard that team's former nickname.

To the media, this has nothing to do with the Voyageurs, which is essentially an expansion team which play out of the same ballpark (the Vees' Nest, as it shall henceforth be known). There is going to be pro ball in Ottawa in 2009.

The upshot is no one ever said it would be easy to preserve pro baseball in Ottawa and safeguard the Lynx legacy. With friends of baseball like the Zipperheads, who needs enemies.

Related:
Kennedy, the moon landings, Area 51 and… the RapidZ? (Carl Kiiffner, the unofficial Ottawa Voyageurs blog)
Previous:
Clean break from last season's Hall hole (Jan. 27, 2009)

Rapids: Like a bad penny...

Carl at the The Unofficial Ottawa Rapids blog has come out swinging at the latest fertilizer spewing forth from the Can-Am League baseball team's ex-owner, who doesn't get the dignity of being identified.

Mr. Kiiffner's entire rebuttal should be read, but a few handy bullet points:

• The knob in question is still trotting out that "million dollars a year in rent" malarkey that has long since been discredited. The lease on the ballpark is $108,000 for 2009. Everyone knew this all along. Move on, sir.
• Any proposed rent increase once the sub-lease expires after the 2009 season would have gone to city council. This council on balance is not the greatest one that Ottawa's ever seen, but they have been onside with the Can-Am League.
• The ex-owner is claiming he had no plans of developing the site into a year-round entertainment centre. This raises the question of why he wanted a 60-year lease.
• One hates to look at this as someone trying to wiggle out from under his financial obligations:

  "They had X million dollars to buy the Stadium, but not pay the roughly $700K owing to their creditors (stripping out for the moment, the debt owed to Momentous)? While I fully concede my naivete with respect to business, how exactly does that happen? And aren’t the optics of the situation truly deplorable? Worse still, if I’m a Rapidz creditor reading the Sun last Wednesday, I’d be asking the Rapidz owner this question: If you have the money to buy the stadium, why don’t you have the money to pay me what you owe me?
  
  Here's a thought: If he’s really glad baseball is remaining in Ottawa and truly believes that 'it belongs here,' instead of being 'first in line' to buy RapidS tickets for himself in 2009, perhaps Mr. (blank) should settle the RapidZ debts to others first."

• The dingus also said the lease prohibited loud, stand-alone rock concerts. Nickelback played there in July 2007. No one plays louder than Nickelback, unfortunately.

The sooner this gentleman goes away, the better off the baseball diehards in Ottawa will be.

Related:
Latin 101 (Carl Kiiffner, The Unofficial Ottawa Rapids blog)
Previous:
Hall of Shame (Sept. 30, 2008)

Zen Dayley: Park helps Phils avoid opening on a Lowe

One way to look at Game 1 of the NLCS is to say the Phillies were helped out by the dimensions of their ballpark, which is as it should be.

There are not many parks in the majors where you can hit a ball 400-plus feet and not end up with a homer, but Manny Ramirez hit it to that one spot in the first inning and ended up with a RBI double instead of a two-run homer. The two homers that the Phillies socked off Derek Lowe in the sixth inning, when they got the only runs that Cole Hamels needed, would have been warning-track fly balls in a lot of places.

Hamels still pitched a very good game, but it's important to have that bit of context when the columnists are talking about who was clutch. (The second Dodgers run was also ballpark-assisted, with Matt Kemp looping a ball down the right-field line that fell in and bounced out of play for an automatic double.)

The best reads on the web coming out of this game are Crashburn Alley's writeup on the game and the response Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan wrote in regard to Tim McCarver's ignorant comments about Ramirez. The Dodgers can still win this in seven games.

Something to mull over is whether the Dodgers bring back Lowe in Game 4. He was taken out in the sixth inning. By the way, when was the last time Fox aired a LCS game and it was over in less than three hours? (ShysterBall coined a new word to describe the typical Fox playoff broadcast: "Turgid-a-thons.")

Other bidness

• For the ALCS, The Beep's Christina Kahrl says Rays in six.
• An Ottawa Can-Am League update: The city does want to work to keep baseball in town, even as it's trying to recover costs from the Zipperheads.

Blog blast past: Ottawa fans' hearts were full of hope once, and will be yet

The latest lame excuse from the Ottawa Rapidz is the city would "only" offer them a five-year lease. Never mind the league's best-run franchise has never had more than a three-year deal. (Sense of entitlement, much?) Hope does remain, and just to affirm that, from Carl Kiiffner of the Ottawa Lynx Blog on Dec. 1, 2007, here's a reminder of how full our hearts were before Rob Hall and Rick Anderson came out of the woodwork.

Way back on Media Day, after we’d finished up for the day, Lynx Director of Media Relations, Mr. Riley Denver smiled and said: "So, now you know how the hot dog is made." My first thought was that while I’d seen a lot of the Stadium I’d not seen previously, I was pretty sure that none of us had been taken on a tour of the concessions. Sometimes I’m a little slow.

I first met the man Neate has dubbed "Deep Fly" back in mid-July, during the Tribute to the Expos weekend. Deep Fly (DF) was also a friend of assistant blogger, Patrick Shanks, and our paths would cross again, late in the season. DF, Patrick and I, first discussed the Can-Am League issue during the Lynx final home stand while watching an evening game from the Rogers Television suite. DF suggested that working together, we might be able to find a way to get the Can-Am League here after all; the news that the deal that both the Lynx and Miles Wolff thought they’d secured had been scuttled was filtering out during that time. Shortly after the final game of the season, and spurred on by the anger of witnessing my son’s confusion and tears over losing any hope of baseball in 08, I picked up the phone and called Miles.

That was September 5, 2007. It turned out that DF was one of the others who’d called -- but while I was blogging, he was organizing, arranging to have Miles in front of as many City councillors as he could on September 13. What would become a lengthy series of meetings, emails, phone calls, faxes and a friendship had begun. Our goal was simply to get that original plan back on the table, and then get Council to vote on it. It seemed so simple.

A preliminary meeting scheduled for September 11 was cancelled when DF’s wife went into labour -- poor planning on his part, and with Miles coming into town on September 13, we were now officially scrambling. We had no choice but to postpone to the 12th. September 12th rolled in and we got together, some of us having had more sleep than others, and began to map out a strategy. DF thought that having reps from the Booster Club, Baseball Canada and the "petition people" in attendance would be important -- necessary actually. Media was invited -- and I guess that was where I fit in; I sent the first of many "media releases" and contacted the larger news outlets in town by phone, giving them a "heads up."

We first met Miles on September 13, just a couple of hours before the meetings at City Hall. DF picked him up at the airport and together with Jim Baba and Andre Lachance from Baseball Canada, Wayne Sollows (one half of "the petition people"), and Patti representing Cat’s Pride, we sat down to discuss strategy before heading over to Laurier Avenue. "The plan" was that this was to be an informal "meet and greet," a chance for Miles to discuss his vision for a team and why it would be good for the City -- taxpayers and baseball fans alike.

Keep in mind, City council had not had the pleasure of meeting with Miles beforehand; the earlier meetings (Editor's note: Where the Lynx were present) had been held quietly and few if any councillors were aware of the original plan.

The first meeting was, in my opinion, one of the worst. Miles, a tall man, leaned forward in his chair, his arms resting on the table, loosely clasping his hands. He spoke confidently, with a deep voice that resonated clearly in the small room. He laid out his plan for the two councillors in the room, touching briefly on his own past and his experience with Independent League baseball. The councillors, while respectful, seemed unimpressed. What about parking? What about the legal issues currently facing the City and the current occupant of Lynx Stadium? The discussion, while candid, seemed more about the past and why this proposal couldn’t work. It was deteriorating, becoming less about the art of "the possible" than just pure negativity and defeatism. The councillors then listened to Jim Baba and Andre Lachance as the two presented their hopes for Baseball Canada. Jim struck me as a quiet person, but he was confident and spoke well -- he clearly knew his material and his passion for baseball was undeniable. Andre made his contribution in French, engaging the councillors on a different level as they listened and asked more questions of him directly.

The attention returned to Miles. What about the debt? The commissioner outlined how he understood the debt and lease agreement and why he thought he could get it to work. One councillor disagreed with the interpretation and proceeded to lecture explain to Mr. Wolff that he didn’t have the "whole picture." The facility, explained the councillor, was not yet paid for. I clutched my copy of the operating agreement tighter, but held my tongue.

Then, something truly impressive occurred. Perhaps irritated by the councillor’s tone, Jim Baba stepped in and spoke again. While pointing a finger at Miles, he addressed the two elected officials with a direct voice, laying out the commissioner’s credentials and achievements -- a strong decisive statement which said, in essence: Do you know who this guy is? All eyes turned back to Miles, who, appearing embarrassed by the accolades, lowered his gaze to his still clasped hands. Jim was unrelenting. This man is considered the guru of Independent Baseball.

My money’s on him.

After meeting briefly with a reporter from CBC, we carried on to the second and third round of meetings, and they got progressively more positive. During a break between the two last meetings of the day, I turned into a motivational coach, gently suggesting to Miles that the intensity in his voice had drained a bit -- not surprising given the fact that he’d likely been up since very early that morning and he’d effectively delivered the same speech for several hours. While Darren Desaulniers of the Ottawa Citizen took notes, DF chatted with the councillors. The Sollows broke the day up between them with Carol covering the morning sessions and Wayne handling the afternoon. I had completely underestimated the importance of that petition; politicians, I discovered, are moved by numbers and opinion. Several of them examined it closely, paying particular attention to the postal codes beside each signature. Patti and Tricia (who showed a little later in the day), spoke convincingly about the history of the team and its importance in their lives and of the value of the park. Neate attended the afternoon sessions and quietly added his voice, during the session and afterward.

I pulled Jim Baba aside and made a quiet suggestion. "Jim, Miles isn’t going to blow his own horn here, somebody’s going to have to do it for him. What you said this morning, the 'guru of Indy ball,' that was beautiful!" Jim smiled, probably amused by my enthusiasm and lack of sophistication.

"Seriously, every meeting we’re in from now on -- you’ve gotta keep saying what you said."

God love him, he did - with the same passion, fervor and conviction in his voice as the first time he spoke.

All hope is not lost. It's brutal to have had one's worst fears about the Rapidz ownership confirmed, i.e., "Who's going to hammer out a longer lease that the team can live with if Anderson, 'a mover and shaker in political and business circles most all his adult life' (The Citizen, April 29) is no longer around?"

Not to get too flowery, but there's always hope. Shame on anyone who cries over red ink. It's onward and upward, but with feet firmly on the ground.

Rapidz: Gonna Zip it, because the point is probably moot

It seems best to go Voltaire and pass along Earl McRae's take on the Ottawa Rapidz gong show.

Bye, bye Ottawa Rapidz. A real sports person could have told you that semi-pro baseball wouldn't work here. Aside from the lousy early-season, late-season climate, Ottawans don't like baseball in the sustainable number of fans needed to make it work.

This is surprising given the essential nature of Ottawans and baseball: Slow. Often boring. Prone to narcolepsy.

By extension, then, Miles Wolff -- not a real sports person, huh?

I'll say it: Blaming the Rapidz' demise on the customers is like blaming Enron's accounting frauds on its customers. They had 4,000-plus fans out for the first few games, and that would have kept up had their owners not revealed themselves time and again to be nincompoops.

Related:
Yeeeeerrrrrrrrr out!; Please, no more pro baseball teams in sleepy Ottawa (Earl McRae, Ottawa Sun)

Rapidz: Well said, Mayor Lare

"I think the particular businessman in question was just thinking ahead and decided he didn't want to be here anymore with the Rapidz." -- Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien.

For once, we agree.

Ottawa baseball fans: Alone again, naturally

Question for everyone: If a team is broke, then any hypothetical figure the city throws out for annual stadium rent is irrelevant:

"If the Rapidz are already bankrupt, this million dollar a year lease argument is entirely irrelevant — a red herring. It’s pretty tough to blame the City for this — no more than I would blame an undertaker for not saving his unfortunate client. For his part, the commissioner of the Can-Am League, Miles Wolff concurs — the City has bent over backwards for Independent baseball in Ottawa, they’re not the problem.

"Watch closely as the facts continue to spill out over the next few days."
— Carl Kiiffner, The unofficial Ottawa Rapids blog

Please go read Mr. Kiiffner's post in its entirety. There are many salient points, along with some rather damning words from Rob Hall and Rick Anderson that have been retrieved from the memory-hole. He also makes it pretty clear why many were justified to withdraw in disgust after seeing the direction the club went in under the Zipperheads

"The Rapids were the team envisioned by most of us, people like Miles Wolff, Don and Lorraine Charrette and my son. A team that was snatched from the jaws of defeat more than once, and that had its zenith at the February 14th press conference with the introduction of its first manager, its front office staff, and its distinctive logo. The people involved all held one unifying trait: They loved the game of baseball.

"The contrast with the Rapidz was as stark as it was disquieting. First the name and logo change — a pointless decision that needlessly upset many of the fledgling franchise's fans. Next, the firing of GM Don Charrette and the very clumsily handled dismissal of Ed Nottle, the latter a complete PR disaster. Good things that had been done around the park were completely undermined and then forgotten. In the two years that I’ve written the Unofficial Ottawa Lynx Blog I have yet to receive one email from a former or then current staff member criticizing the organization. Not a single one. The Rapidz? Don’t even ask."

Every effort was made here to give this franchise a chance. However, it took just more than three months before one could be sure in saying there was "uneasiness over whether we'll have pro baseball in Ottawa beyond 2009."

It turned out that was being way too generous. There's still a flicker of hope, but it's not much of one.

Update: It appears the Nashua Telegraph swallowed the unsubstantianted allegation too:

"Reportedly, there have been lucrative offers to the city for the land that the Rapidz' stadium rests on, so much so the city has allegedly said it would charge the Rapidz as much as $1 million in rent after the current lease expires in 2009, an obvious attempt to force them out.

"City officials have denied that is the case.

"The Rapidz may be gone as soon as this year. Team owner Rob Hall informed Can-Am owners yesterday he was ceasing operations and declaring bankruptcy.

"' Right now, nothing official has happened," Wolff said. 'But we'll have to see.' "

Please bear in mind, the lease calls for a professional baseball team to play at the stadium through 2009. That would lead one to believe the City can't sell the stadium even if it was offered a billion dollars for the land.

Rapidz: Hall of Shame

Congratulations, Rob Hall, you're No. 1.

In five short months, you topped Horn Chen and the Glieberguys as the worst sports owner in Ottawa history. There is no all-things-considered, no sympathetic ear for pulling the chute on the Ottawa Rapidz after a single season.

The record will show that you and fellow/former Zipperhead Rick Anderson bought the team and acted like overgrown brats with a new toy, not as keepers of a quasi-public trust. You rejected advice from people whose track record, unlike yours, actually suggests they know their ass from second base when it comes to baseball. Worst of all, you toyed with the hearts of the fans. They honestly believed that a new team would rise from the ashes of the Lynx's Long Goodbye. They feel like fools now, and honestly, that sucks.

Now you're going to take your ball and go home. This is how it works in business, huh? Be that as it may, it's a lousy way as far as the business of coming across as human being is concerned. Please, go stand in front of a mirror, and ask yourself, after what you have done, how is anyone in Ottawa ever going to trust another owner? All hope is not lost yet — last fall and winter is proof of such — but the window of opportunity is closing very quickly.

You have left Ottawa high and dry. The Can-Am League has assured itself stability in Nashua with the American Defenders of New Hampshire, there's no urgency to make sure there's an eighth franchise. They can run a road team next year if needed.

There would be sympathy for your situation if you had just manned up and said, "We tried, but we couldn't make a go of this ... we hope someone else will for the 2009 season." This is a business. Independent-league teams have start-up costs. Many flame out in a trice.

That would have left people with a small window of hope. Instead, you turtled. You resorted to a blame game. Forgive me for expressing a heartfelt opinion, since that's just not done in Ottawa, but there is next-to-no reason that anyone should buy your contention that you were "told by the city in a meeting early this month that rent at the stadium would jump from its present $108,000 per season to in the area of $1 million once the current lease with the city expires following the 2009 season."

No one is calling you a liar. It's just that anyone who caught the Rapidz' act and has a fully functioning brain knows better. You ran through any bit of public trust that you might have accidentally had, which makes it hard to believe anything that comes out your cakehole.

Best wishes on making a clean break. The least you can do is apologize to each and every Ottawa ball fan who is heartbroken.

(The Nashua Telegraph, unlike any Ottawa media outlet, is covering the Can-Am League meets in Brockton, Mass. Let's see what they have on this tomorrow.)

Related:
Ottawa Rapidz strike out (Don Campbell, Ottawa Citizen)

Rapidz: One spiked shoe drops

The Ottawa Rapidz just sent out a press release not 20 minutes ago confirming what's
been known for almost two weeks.

Shelagh O'Connor is the new general manager, with Tom Carcione as field manager for next season. In other words, a baseball neophyte will be in the GM's chair, with a rookie manager and presumably another newbie, pitching coach Mike Kusiewicz, also working on player personnel.

This, for a team which probably has to turn over about 17 or 18 spots on the 22-man roster.

Far be it to say the coverage will focus on the novelty of a woman in the GM's chair, instead of hard questions about her bona fides for the office. One question that has to be asked is if Carcione will return to his coaching job at Northern Illinois University for fall, winter and spring months, and what time that leaves him to chat up potential players. Also, where is Rick Anderson in all this? Oh, right ...

Related:
Rick Anderson is outta here! Rapidz owner Zipz off to Calgary (Aug. 23, 2008; "riposte" on Sept. 2)
Rapidz, Zip.ca chief resigns (Krystle Chow, Ottawa Business Journal, Sept. 3)

Riposte: Rick Anderson is outta here! Rapidz owner Zipz off to Calgary

The Ottawa Rapidz' first season was anything but dull. From a name change, to one of the team's players accusing this site's author of being "on drugs" for having the temerity to suggest it was a bad idea to fire a manager -- who probably should have been axed earlier -- while he was visiting his sick wife, it's been a trip. Oh, and for those who missed it back on Aug. 22, one of the co-owners has essentially flown the coop.

It's an open secret that Rick Anderson and the Ottawa Rapidz are no more.

Anderson has cut ties with the club not even four months after he and Rob Hall bought the team from the Can-Am League. The former co-owner is relocating to Calgary and as a source put it, "no longer has any involvement" with the team. In due time, it will get into the broader public realm that Hall is owner and Shelagh O'Connor will be the team's general manager for the 2009 season. Both of them, based on what's known, are woefully out of their element. Tom Carcione will return as manager.

Anderson is leaving, not seven weeks after the Ottawa Citizen quoted him, "Next year will be even better than this year. And the next year will even be better ... This is a good quality of ball and the fans seem to be enjoying it, and we'll keep working on it."

This is very, very bad news for Ottawa-Gatineau's loyal band of ball lovers. For starters, the Rapidz will have to hammer out a lease with the City of Ottawa after their sub-lease from Ray Pecor expires after the 2009 season. Who's going to hammer out a longer lease that the team can live with if Anderson, "a mover and shaker in political and business circles most all his adult life" (The Citizen, April 29) is no longer around?

Hall (bottom right with Anderson in photo) is self-described as "more of an operations guy," not so schooled in the art of the deal, the face-to-face negotations. O'Connor might have that in her, who knows, but as for the baseball side, her online CV (since blocked) doesn't scream that she's the next Kim Ng.*

It might not matter much to Anderson to sever his partnership in the Rapidz. It's also understood that the situation can change very quickly for a businessman who's a political animal, especially with federal election talk percolating on Parliament Hill. It might also seem like small beer to the media (there's been nothing about it online, except for one comment at the near-dormant The New Ottawa Rapidz Blog) and it's certainly not on par with, hypothetically speaking, the Senators making a change in their front office.

The fact remains that Anderson came in promising good local ownership, spinning yards about his childhold trips to Montreal to take in the Expos at Jarry Park. God forbid that the people who do turn out to watch baseball in Ottawa read that and took him and Hall to be their saviours of summer, or something.

There were bound to be a few rookie mistakes, but for those of you scoring at home, here's Anderson's timeline:

• Buys the team, with Hall.
• Changes the name, leading to a public backlash and logistical problems -- the players didn't have proper fitted, full-back caps for the first few games.
• Fired Don Charrette as GM.
• Enables, at the least, and participates in, at worst, constructive dismissal of long-time Lynx employee Lorraine Charrette, who thought her job had been saved by the arrival of the new ballclub. (Helping out Ms. Charrette was a major motivation for a few citizen-fans who went the extra mile and then some last fall trying to keep hope alive for a team here, before the Zipperheads came out of the woodwork.)
• Effectively tells Can-Am League commissioner Miles Wolff, the minor-league mogul who "bought the Durham Bulls for less than the price of a used Volkswagen, and turned them into minor league baseball's most famous team," (Baseball America, July 21, 2006) where he can stick his advice.
  
  (Wolff's Quebec Capitales have more wins, 53, this season than three major-league teams who started playing seven weeks earlier.)
• Hires Jeff Hunt as a consultant instead.
• Fires manager Ed Nottle, which rightly or wrongly, incited more public backlash. (By the way, to those you leaving comments on that Aug. 1 post about Nottle, you're politely invited to send an e-mail to neatesager@yahoo.ca identifying yourselves. Your identity is safe with me.)
• Leaves town.

Please bear in mind those bullet points are only highlights of Anderson's abortive experiment with being a baseball owner. Highlights, of course, can never completely do someone justice.

It's been said in a million and one ways that there's no end to the way that baseball can break a fan's heart, but this is ridiculous. Anderson said this was a "hobby" to him, but it's a hobby that carried with it a strong element of public trust, in market that is much more than once-bitten, twice-shy. The departure of a man who can charm and win over political folk, and the media, and having a technocrat and a public-relations person step seems like a terrible trade-off.

Sure, you can leave the door open just a sliver on the infinitesmal hope that Hall, O'Connor and the closest facsimile of a baseball person left in the Rapidz' disorganization, Mike Kusiewicz, who's still an active player, could make this work. But if you believe that, then please, kindly share whatever you're on with the rest of the group, so we can become so enlightened.

* (Kim Ng might be a bit obscure for non-baseball fans, but typing "Billy Beane in heels" would be a bit sexist.)

Update: No one should be surprised that the Team 1200, during an interview this afternoon, did not press Hall at all on who the owners and general manager will be next season. They also let him slide by with that cock-and-bull story about how first baseman Jabe Bergeron, one of maybe four players who merits a contract for next season, is doing the recruiting by chatting up opposing players at first base.

Update 2: Sorry for only getting to this now, but did everyone see the Sept. 3 Ottawa Business Journal: "Sports blog Out of Left Field also said Zip's director of communications, Shelagh O'Connor, would become the Rapidz general manager for the 2009 season."

Snark break...

• Mats Sundin is returning to Toronto next week out of charity. Wasn't that why he stayed in Toronto so long in the first place?
  
• According to Stephen King, TV ruined baseball. Has he not heard of Scott Boras?
  
• Stephen Colbert on John McCain: "John McCain could be the guy next door, literally. He owns a lot of houses."
• Silly college football. The first weekend of the season includes a game with national-title implications, Missouri vs. Illinois. Don't they know that at this point in the calendar, they should be playing nothing games involving third-stringers who have no chance of being on the field when it really matters? That's how the NFL does it.
  
• It's probably no consolation to Sennies supporters, but the Tampa Bay Lightning's owners who bogarted Andrej Meszaros, also like real low-class bums when they can get away with it.
  
  The NHL has a major blind spot about the reality that Americans are introduced to sports through high schools and colleges. That's why it's borderline bloody scandalous that Oren Koules' and Len Barrie's team bolted on a a commitment to host a college holiday tournament. I can appreciate a good screwing-over of Notre Dame as much as the next guy, but talk about short-sighted and stupid, especially when no less than 10 Lightning are NCAA alumni.

It's kind of a big deal, but not so much it gets a unique post:

• The St. Louis Rams should just move back to L.A. already, if there's going to be a NFL team there.
• chances of one of the Ottawa Rapidz' league rivals might fold after this season.
• Offensive tackle Scott Mitchell, of Manotick, and his Rice Owls put up 56 points in their college football opener. Granted, it was against Southern Methodist, but from Cliches 101, any time the quarterback throw six touchdown passes and the team has its highest-scoring season opener since World War II, it's a positive.
  
  (Out of Left Field is on the search for a college football team. The school has to have a veneer of academic credibility -- apologies to SEC schools not named Vanderbilt -- at least a remote chance of playing in a bowl game-- apologies to Vanderbilt -- and no chance whatsoever at ever cracking the BCS. It's better that way, as a fan. You know where you stand.)

Someone almost became a personal hero, too bad he/she's so shy...

The gauntlet has been thrown down for the Anonymous Commenters Hall of Fame.

This one is the total package of...

• Having an ax to grind about a single issue, long after everyone else has made their peace.
• Coming off as holier-than-thou.
• Making unsupported, ya-sure-you-are claims of social or professional status.
  
  (One would think a self-proclaimed Rapidz "insider" who claims a man's "wife probably has cancer from all of his second hand smoke and just the basic stress of living with a control freak" would at least nut up and put a name behind it.)
• Dehumanizing someone with an unflattering nickname.
• Run-on sentences that don't give a reader a chance to come up for air.
  
  See that key right above the spacebar? The one right below the the L, between the M and the period? It's a comma and it's wonderful.
• Statements that would get anyone using his real name sued for libel and defamation.

That's enough of an intro. The man who was the target of this attack deserves so, so much better.

I think the firing of The Bottle(Ed's nickname throughout baseball) was too late and if you are an insider with the team then you would know that Bottle was the seventh or eighth choice for manager. The team was thrown together in three weeks and the win loss record shows that. Bottle was a dictator that would not stop polluting his players lungs with toxic fumes on a daily basis and even on the road bus. The smoking police were notified and Bottle was given a choice. It sounds like some of Bottles Alcoholic friends from Liam's are upset to loose their drinking buddy. I've got news for all of you pro Bottle people. The guy was a self proclaimed alcoholic that only cared about how much attention he could get. But no one cared about him in Ottawa just like every other place he has ever coached. Bottle has one of the worst reputations in the "Bush leagues" as he calls them. He is only negative and a proven looser. His wife probably has cancer from all of his second hand smoke and just the basic stress of living with a control freak. Baseball was a Bottle had left in life and all he cared about but not for any positive reasons. His reasons for loving baseball were and are purely selfish because the only reason he is involved is to control people and feel as though his life and opinions matter which they clearly do not. This was Bottle's last job in baseball and no one else wants anything to do with him. He has burned every bridge he has ever crossed and now even a bridge to Canada. He insulted Canadian beer on a regular basis because he said it was too expensive. I think it was because he could'nt handle the punch compared to his watered down American crap beer. Just another reason why Bottle is a looser. I personally hope he lives the rest of his days a sorry old man who blew every chance in life he was ever given. If he did'nt loose his mortgage trying to finance his singing career maybe he would have a house to live in but now I think he may be checking into the cheapest old folks home the U.S. has to offer. I hope his liver shrivles up and fails. I hate the Bottle!!!!

Some would just delete that post-haste, especially given the case law in Canada with respect to third parties in cases of libel or defamation. Against better judgment (presuming it's not a trap set by a troll), it's going to stay up there. Consider this to be just like the scene from Fast Times At Ridgemont High when Spicoli said, "I don't know" and Mr. Hand wrote it on the chalkboard for posterity for all of his classes to ponder.

Who knows what possesses fully functioning adults to something like that about a 69-year-old man. Who knows who said it, and who knows what it says about the people running the Rapidz if it did spew from the mouth (or some other orifice) of someone of their acquaintance. Let's hope not.

Menatime, let it stand, as a monument to ignorance and that, oh, because's you're only venting on the Internet, that doesn't mean that you're actually a solipsistic little twit.

Zen Dayley: Cuban would be in the Bonds market

The longer Barry Bonds remains in left-handed slugger's limbo (it's not bad, but it's not great), the more it increases a fan's desire to Mark Cuban win the Chicago Cubs sweepstakes.

Cuban is anteing up $1.3 billion for the Cubbies. As you probably know, he will face a major challenge trying to get the required three-quarters approval from 23 of 29 MLB owners.

The Cubs also have Alfonso Soriano in left field, but this is not really about Bonds playing for Chicago. It's not even about the 44-year-old home-run king getting a chance to succeed or fail on his own merits, even though every other Hall of Fame player, was given that courtesy, and not just the nice guys. (Bonds says he's in fighting trim.)

The point is that Bonds, or any other player with a nasty reputation, are anathema to members-in-good-standing clubs such as the Houston Astros and your Toronto Blue Jays. They don't want the drama, the whiff of controversy -- or the end to their lack of left-handed power at the DH/corner outfield spots. Granted, you know what you're getting with Brad Wilkerson. In the Jays' case, that's a .221 average and 13 homers from the DH spot.

For Bonds -- and maybe Milton Bradley, almost need by an Al Davis type. Cuban comes closer to that than anyone else who currently owns a major professional team.

Perhaps Cuban would play by the house rules if he landed the Cubbies. He's mellowed out over time with the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA; he says only been fined once by the league in the past five years. He and Sam Zell, who wants to unload the Cubs, could sue to get him into the owners' ranks. Eamonn Brennan wrote last week, "Major League Baseball likes its old-boy owners, its old money, its quiet yes-men, and it doesn't like to have its quaint club disrupted by those of ill-repute. Mark Cuban's antics do not endear him to Major League Baseball. After all, when was the last time you saw an MLB owner take pregame press questions on his treadmill?"

That's a big matzo ball hanging out there. But would Cuban sign a Bonds type, or maybe in a few seasons, an aging but still productive Manny Ramirez? It stands to reason that he would be more likely to do so than some teams. There are a few which, to quote Houston columnist Richard Justice, "have a reputation for wanting guys that look and sound alike." (Justice also sticks the dagger by pointing out that if personality is an issue, well, the Astros have employed Jeff Kent and Roger Clemens.)

Point being, he wouldn't freeze out a controversial player, because in his words, to "make good money is a win for everyone." The NFL realizes this -- it's show business. Cuban would be too late to the game for Bonds, but not too late to shake up baseball. A byproduct might be that it would help a few players who have been smeared with the bad-apple brush.

Errata

• Speaking of which, FanGraphs has a look at what kind of offers the Rangers' league-leading slugger Milton Bradley is going to elicit in the off-season. As is always the case with Bradley, it's fraught with something. He can hit, no question, but no one's likely to guarantee him more than two seasons.
  
  The U.S. economic slowdown probably won't play a part in what kind of offers Bradley does or doesn't receive. Baseball's coffers are still flush; any change in the player market won't come until after the 2009 season.
• Ken Griffey Jr.'s return to centrefield is working about as well as expected. It's time for the White Sox to break out the nerve tonic.
• Phillippe Aumont had a decent outing in his first game with the Mariners' Class-A team since coming off the disabled list. He went three innings, giving up one run on three hits with two walks, one strikeout and a wild pitch. One positive sign: Five of the nine outs he got came on ground balls.
• In other 2007 first-round draft pick news ... the Rays promoted phenom left-hander David Price to Triple-A. The over/under on how long it is before he's called up to the majors is three starts.
• One takeaway from Yahoo Sports' Tim Brown's column on Skimgate is that MLB would have to re-open the collective agreement in order to have a universal entry draft (which even the stodgy NHL has. King Kaufman also noted that this means that Gary Sheffield had a point when he attributed the diminishing number of black players in baseball to the belief that Latinos "are easier to control."

Damn, the Jays

• No disrespect, but if Paul Beeston and Pat Gillick are coming back to the Jays, how come it's on the website of an out-of-town newspaper?
• It would only be fair if the Jays rack Cy Young candidate Cliff Lee pretty well on Sunday after abandoning Roy Halladay on Saturday.
• Great stat from John Brattain: The Jays have scored four runs or less in a game times since Opening Day 2007. That's almost an entire season's worth of never having a big night with the bats.
• Mike Wilner is calling out Alex Rios for being lackadaisacal yesterday: "one hopes that with the new regime in place, they’ll be able to get a stern message across to Rios about his at-the-very-least occasional lack of effort, but for now their hands are tied. It’s not like they could put Joe Inglett or Brad Wilkerson out in centrefield tomorrow with Cliff Lee on the mound, nor should they."
• Please read The Tao of Stieb's takedown of those who would make a big show out of pronouncing the Jays dead and buried (they are, but that's not the point).
  
  There are going to be times during the season when, for sanity's sake, it's best to give the Jays a pass for a week or so.
  
  There's an odd phenomena, though, when you cheer for an also-ran team -- you find yourself drifting back in during August and September. It stems from the feeling that the season is almost done and it won't be that long until you're staring at five long months of fall and winter before spring training opens down in Dunedin. The beauty of baseball, of course, is that your team can still be interesting to follow when they're not in the hunt. The same can't be said of NFL, NHL and NBA.

Les Rapidz

• On his vacation, good friend Carl Kiiffner caught up with former Lynx owner Ray Pecor and GM Kyle Bostwick, who are no worse for wear with the Vermont Lake Monsters of the NY-Penn League. (Carl's headline is very self-explanatory, let's just leave it at that.)
• No one needed any reminder of what Ottawa baseball fans lost with Ed Nottle's ouster. Channeling Stephen Colbert: Thanks a lot, Nashua Telegraph.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

Ken Gray: The O-Royals could come to O-Town!

Opportunities to get a Triple-A baseball franchise don't come along very often so the City of Ottawa should jump immediately on this one.

Mayor Larry O'Brien is a great salesman, after all he convinced Ottawans to elect him despite having never held political office, so it is time for him to show what he can do. It is possible the Omaha Royals, the Triple-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, will be without a home stadium after the 2010 season, as their current home is being torn down and plans to play in that city's new downtown stadium being built for the National College Athletic Association's College World Series have fallen through.

The Royals have a long history with the Toronto Blue Jays, our local major league team -- they beat them in the World Series semi-finals in 1985. They even have a powder-blue jersey -- ust like the Jays do -- which is symbolic of blue sky thinking. We have one of the best minor-league baseball parks around and a professional sports market. Ottawa was also previously a farm club of the Philadelphia Athletics -- right before they moved to Kansas City in 1955 -- and Ottawa fans have long identified with Montreal, which once had a Triple-A baseball team called the Royals. There is a natural synergy.

The Ottawa Lynx were never sold very well to Ottawa's business community or the public. The Kansas City Royals know how to market baseball and have fan identification for their players and brand in this market. A Kansas City Royals farm team in Ottawa would boost the major-league club's TV ratings in Ottawa and provide a source of revenue for the Royals if the team were owned outright by Kansas City. That would give the Royals an interest in marketing the team here.

The Royals' distinctive KC insignia could be remodelled to an OC -- for Ottawa, Canada, and for the old municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, which would no doubt help bring in fans. Another tie-in would be with Ottawa's iconic Royal Swans.

The mayor should be on the phone today with the Kansas City Royals arranging a meeting between him, the baseball club, some councillors and city staff to explore this option. Mr. O'Brien need not get hung up on the fact that the Kansas City Royals, like the Toronto Blue Jays, do not own their Triple-A team or that the Ottawa Royals would not have a Canadian rival playing in their league. As well, moving players between Kansas City and Ottawa is very easy with superb air links. That would balance out any worry that the Royals' nearest opponent, the Des Moines, Iowa farm club of the Chicago Cubs, would be 1,500 kilometres away from Ottawa.

This kind of opportunity occurs but once or twice in a lifetime. Let's not lose a chance to properly use the $15-million taxpayer-owned ballpark on Coventry Road.

The Ottawa Royals. It has a nice ring to it.

Rapidz: Was Ed Nottle in Canada long enough to learn Rush's 'Fly By Night'?

Ottawa Rapidz co-owner Rob Hall's claim that they decided to fire Ed Nottle before he went on a family leave didn't just set off the B.S. detector.

It broke the damn thing. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a technician to come to your house on the Friday before a long weekend?

Anderson and Hall's damage control has revived a few local baseball nuts' worst fears about the Zipperheads, Hall and Rick Anderson. The guardians of pro baseball in this "fickle" sports town (Hall's word) have to know the media and optics inside and out.

There is patience over the club's 20-44 overall record, but not for the Zipperheads' series of stumbles. First there was the clumsily handled name change and the firing of a long-time Lynx employee right before the season. Axing a popular manager for bogus reasons adds to the uneasiness over whether we'll have pro baseball in Ottawa beyond 2009.

Firing Nottle wasn't about wins and losses. It's about a couple control freaks who have shown they don't get it with a running a baseball team. Of course, they would probably say we don't get it.

Hall claimed the owners had "already decided before Nottle took his leave that he didn't figure in next season's plans and they wouldn't wait to replace him," claiming that "it's strictly wins and losses at this point." Baloney. Oh, only now have Anderson/Hall got in touch with into their inner Jerry Jones, when the Rapidz were roughly one-third of the way through the second half of the schedule where they must finish first to make the playoffs?

Talking to fellow fans over the past 48 hours, who in turn have been talking with their acquaintances all boils down to one prevailing sentiment. People not only disagree with firing Nottle, but they feel it's dishonest, opportunistic -- the kind of stuff you can get away with in business, in politics, but not in sports. People are funny that way. Thing is, if they don't buy tickets, there's no team.

Anderson/Hall's "wins and losses" justification doesn't hold water. Most fans at an indie-league game are there to eat, soak up the ballpark atmosphere and see a well-played game. No one gets too bent out of shape over the home team losing.

Do it when everyone's tied for first ...

An ownership which is so worried about winning should have made the change at the end of the first half, when each team's record was reset to 0-0.

The way it works in the Can-Am League is that the winner of each half makes the playoffs. Two more teams get in by virtue of their overall record. The Rapidz gave up so much ground in the first half (they were eight games behind the seventh-place team in an eight-team league), they would have to win the second. If they needed to get Nottle out of the dugout so badly -- even though the owners admit the players had no beefs with him -- they should have done it then.

Nottle, the team's best ambassador (jealous much?), could have stayed on in an advisory capacity. That would have afforded him a dignified exit at the end of the season. The Singing Manager was owed that much, considering that by force of Nottle's personality, the Rapidz got coverage from major media outlets that wouldn't have cared about the team otherwise. Instead, he was discarded like an old newspaper, because he was hired by Miles Wolff and might happen to have prior knowledge about how a baseball team should operate.

Nottle could have stayed on, worked the phones to try to recruit players, visited with fans in the stands during the games, sat in for a couple innings on the Internet broadcast, promoted the team around town -- point being, you do anything to keep a true baseball character like him around. (This is a man who, even though he's been fired, still plans on coming back on Sept. 7 for a benefit at Liam Maguire's, bar-restaurant near the ballpark, he's helped organize on behalf of a terminally ill child. Could you believe his ex-bosses don't want him to come back? Talk about no good deed going unpunished.)

You don't develop a man-crush on the interim manager on the basis of a five-game win streak.

The point is that in any city, any town, people buy tickets somewhat out of sentiment and do so with the expectation that team is committed to the city and the paying public (leaving aside whether the city is committed to it).

Firing Nottle is completely lacking in sentiment. It gives the appearance of a fly-by-night operation, which is something you can't have in a market that's been scorched by so many sports teams that have come (and gone) before.

It looks really bad. Anderson and Hall, with their backgrounds in business and politics, ought to know appearances can often be more damaging than how things actually are.

On Sept. 2, when the season ends, the bottom line will show:

• They didn't produce a playoff team;
• They gave the outward appearance of treating the team like a toy;
• They fired the Rapidz' best "ambassador";
• They alienated their base;
• They needlessly pissed-off potential customers;
• They demonstrated, very publicly, that they have little sound judgment.

Well-done, gentlemen. Enjoy the long weekend.

(Incidentally, if you want to take this up with Rapidz, the contact on their website is monica.maika@ottawarapidz.ca.)

Related:
'No good time' to dump Nottle; Owner defends firing manager while he's out of town, caring for ailing wife (Shane Ross, Sun Media)
High praise follows Nottle low note; Timing sours Rapidz managerial move (Chris Yzerman, Ottawa Citizen)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

Rapidz: Here for a good time, Nottle long time...

The firing of Ed Nottle begs an obvious queston — beyond whether it's OK to jettison a manager when his wife of 42 years is in poor health.

Who, exactly, do the Mensas (thank, you TUC) down at 3000 Conventry Rd. expect to be their guru for player recruitment and retention? There's a pattern. Rapidz owners Rick Anderson and Rob Hall, since buying the team shortly before the start of the season, have steadily divested themselves of the Miles Wolff hires who know baseball backward and forward, which is what they need more than promotional pizzazz. First they got rid of the Charrettes, GM Don and front-office jill-of-all-trades Lorraine Charrette, and now the skipper, Singin' Ed. It makes you wonder if something larger is afoot — would a competitive team get in the way of what they have planned for the site? — or if this is just being unable to see the diamond for the discounted tickets.

The point is that Nottle probably still brought something to the table as a player-personnel man or as an adviser. He deserved to go out with a lot more dignity, not get axed and now he'll probably just be remembered as lovable one-off character, like Duffman from The Simpsons.

This reads like the Zipperheads figure that a 5-1 record since batting coach Tom Carcione became the interim manager a week ago is enough basis for a change. Have they never heard of a small sample size? You don't have to look much farther that down Highway 401 to know that a mid-season managerial switch seldom brings more than a short-term bump.

This is being written with the hope it's all going to work out for the Rapidz in Ottawa, but right now, it stinks that Nottle was dismissed, right after going on leave to tend to his wife, Patty, and before he had a chance to face the players. Meantime, what's the plan for spotting talent? Hire some teenager to check stats on the Internet and look for gems among the players who've been released?

Anderson and Hall, with all their baseball savvy, should have aited until the team was back in town and let Nottle say his farewells to his players. Meantime — and this is written without being fully aware of what Carcione, with his 10 years as a coach, brings to the equation, it seems the baseball savvy is in short supply down at The Zip. The Rapidz are 20-43 (7-9 in the second half), but considering how small a window Nottle and Mike Kusiewicz had to round up a team, just being competitive is worth a medal.

Oh, and you don't fire a manager one week after his wife's cancer goes into remission.

(Update: Incidentally, how about the arrogance of the one Ottawa daily whose story says the ballclub "is expected to formally announce the dismissal" today. They put out a press release last night; the other paper had the story on their website at 10 p.m.. Could it be any more formal?)

Related:
Rapidz throttle Nottle (Shane Ross, Sun Media)
Nottle fired after visiting ailing wife; Ex-Rapidz manager 'treated like king' by people in city (Ottawa Citizen)

Rapidz: A song in our hearts for The Singin' Manager

Ed Nottle taking a leave of absence from the Ottawa Rapidz due to the poor health of his wife, Patty, who's a cancer survivor, trumps any talk about the team's struggles on the field.

Nottle's Singing Manager shtick probably does leave some people trying to look behind the curtain, since it's human nature to wonder if someone is less than genuine when they're so upbeat (and no doubt he's often had to show a different side of himself to his team, which is a Can-Am League-worst 15-42 after being swept by Atlantic City, which won 13-3 tonight to complete a three-game sweep at The Zip).

However, when you read about him doing stuff like this for fans, you know that he's got a good heart in a baseball business than can often be heartless.

"I knew I would like Singin' Ed Nottle, as he is called. We talked at great length before the game. I seem to recall he spent off-seasons in Evansville, Ind. He talked about retiring because his wife had cancer. Then he told me he was going to sing before that evening's game. A Duluth season ticket holder of some 40 years had just lost her husband. Ed was going to dedicate a song to her.

"Around game time the clouds turned snowglobe blue, so classic of Northern Minnesota in mid-June. The elderly woman sat in her box seat wearing a Dukes warm up jacket. The seat next to her was empty. Ed walked to the pitcher's mound and his entire team followed. The players and coaches took off their caps. They all faced the long-time fan. Ed then delivered an immaculate version of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.' It was a touching moment."

It's hard not to feel for the Nottles when you read that. The man is, by his own admission, a through-and-through ham, who's adopted that persona as part of the bargain he's made to stay in baseball for a half-century. Right now — assuming that there's no duplicity about the reasons for his leave of absence — there's a little less joking. 

(Thank God yours truly refrained from pointing out the Rapidz, 18 games behind Québec for the league's best record, have almost caught up to Lehigh Valley — 21 games out of first place — which had a seven-week headstart.

New feature alert: Snark break

Getting the stupid and ugly out of one's system by lunch hour ...

Mats Sundin still hasn't decided. Prediction: He's going to drag this out past July 31, Chuck Swirsky's last day at the FAN 590.

The one Friday Night Lights spoiler you haven't heard about: The writers plan to introduce a character named "Brett." He graduated from Dillon High in 1987, but his friends keep dropping hints that he plans to get off his lawn tractor and show up for two-a-day practices in August, even though he wasn't invited.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have named Ryan Dinwiddie their starting quarterback. Unfortunately, they couldn't trade with Saskatchewan to get his favourite receiver, James Johnson. (Johnson plays defence for the 'Riders and Dinwiddie threw three INTs to him in the Grey Cup. To quote Rainier Wolfcastle, That's the joke.)

The Raptors lost Carlos Delfino to a deal in Russia, but when an American NBAer, Josh Childress, talks about getting a better deal in Greece than he can in the NBA, people start noticing.

Most of the Senators are participating in Jason Spezza's celebrity golf tournament. Brian McGrattan is a healthy scratch — they're making him watch from the clubhouse. 

How long before people can start making "what time can you be here?" jokes about calling the Ottawa Rapidz' office to ask when the game starts? Attendance was 1,106 last night. It's heartbreaking.

Speaking of the Buds ... the Leafs are playing at home on Thanksgiving Monday, October 13. It’s appropriate, since for 13 years, they surrounded Mats Sundin with a lot of turkeys.

Note to Chris Bosh: You're an early adopter. We get it.



Last but not least, please click through to see the "Brokeback Centre" logo SooToday.com has posted alongside an item announcing that the fine city of Sault Ste. Marie, will have a new corporate name on their hockey arena. Careful, SooToday.com -- you could get sued for that!

("Snark Break," which is literally the lazy man's alternative to those Body Break PSAs that a generation of Canadians know and love, will be a recurring feature at OOLF. Yes, yes, just like the "Zen Dayley," which has seldom been daily. It's one outlet for the glib, smartalecky comments that we like to think better of making.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

King of all Internet broadcasts

Our own Tyler King will be on air tonight with Howard Bloom for the Ottawa Rapidz' Internet broadcast, which you can access via ottawarapidz.com.