B Rock

A few photos from the last couple months. Many to follow...

As you can see Brian has clearly done this before. He's in Mali right now or Uganda or somewhere in Africa fixing internet connections.

The girl holding the funnel is Vivian, who loves Britney Spears music videos and has memorized the dance moves to Single Ladies.

Belated Blog

It's been a while since I was in Las Vegas posting about Baseball's Winter Meetings. I'll get to some details a little later, but the blog died on the day I decided it was taking up too much of my time. Sure, it wasn't much material, but out of respect of the process of making it in the baseball business I decided to quiet down for the time being.

However, I am ready to open back up about the events that have transpired over the last two and a half months. I'll get to all that, but I wanted to share something I saw on HuffPo this morning.

It's a clip of the beloved Conan O'Brien saying goodbye and thank you to everyone he worked with while he was stationed in New York during his 16 years at Late Night. Conan is my favorite TV personality and has got to be one of the most charismatic people on the planet. It's amazing that he goes out night after night and is able to relate to almost every person he meets. Not only that, but to go out and do it for such a long time and continually be the best at what he does is an inspiration.

Check out the clip... it's ten minutes long, but well worth it to see such a classy display of affection.

For those who aren't aware Conan is moving to the 11:30 PM EST time slot to run the new Tonight Show

The Most Thrilling Experience Of My Life

I wish I had the time to write about everything that has happened over
the last two days. It's a constant go around here, from one hotel to
the next, meet this guy, make a phone call, send an email, interview
for that job, etc. Basically, if I'm not actively pursuing something
at any moment during the day and even late at night than I'm missing
valuable opportunities.

I'll have to write more when this is all over. I just don't want to
miss out.

It's been amazing and a whole lot of fun.

Hats Galore

The New Era booth had a million different hats. Rawlings, Wilson all
the dealers are here all trying to sell, sell, sell. Tons of stadium
design firms, publications, stadium software, souvenirs, craziness...
I'll have to go back tomorrow and collect all the free giveaways.

Like I said there's all kinds of merchandise here. I was even courted
by a woman who wanted me to be a $6,000 greasless deep fryer. She
made me feel like a king and there was free food involved.

The Trade Show - Lot's Of Usefull Stuff

Like this!

Too Late

The Reds called me at 11:30 Pm to do an interview tonight. They
really enjoy trying to catch you off gaurd. So I put my pants back on
and made what seemed to be my 1000th trip down this hallway from my
room, out thru the casino, across "the strip" into the Bellagio,
through their casino and back over to the infamous lobby. Passed
everyone from the media including Steve Phillips and Roch Kubatko!!
(couldn't do a photo though). Good interview.

I actually spent most of the day at the job fair and interviewed with
the Dodgers there. Initially I wasn't selected from the 500 or so
resumes, but I noticed one of the selected hadn't claimed an open time
slot so I swooped in and snuck my way into the interview room.

Now I'm not going to say it was my best interview, but the guy seemed
to like the initiative. The plan is to meet with him again maybe
tomorrow or Wednesday.

Earlier in the evening I met up with the Brewers and took my pitch
test. Basically you get 60 pitches and you have to determine the
pitch type between a Fastball, Changeup, slider, and curveball. You
see the pitch twice, but it's far from easy and it's super important
to do well on the test since the job revolves around watching tons of
games and charting and logging the data for advance scouting.

As I was waiting around for the Brew Crew I shook some hands and
chatted up a few other notables including the one and only Ken
Rosenthal! He and I talked about how the Baltimore Sun breeds
impressive talent... Kurkjian, Shaunessey, Buster Olney, and Rosenthal
of course. That's basically mlbtraderumors.com in a nutshell.

I also intercepted ANDY "the rebuilder" MACPHAIL in the lobby. I must
say he's very friendly and I thanked him for the ticket he gave me to
that Orioles win back in September... Of course, he knew nothing about
it since it wasn't he who gave it to me, but they were his seats
nevertheless. I think it's a MacPhail reunion here in Vegas this
week. It's just one of those long standing baseball names.

Sorry no interesting Boras or player news. I pretty much missed all
that today while I was at the Hilton.

Ok bed time. Finally.

The Boards

Here's one of the boards they post the jobs.

As you can see it's kinda crowded. This photo does not do it justice.

Everyone's Looking For A Job

Quite an intense atmosphere here at the PBEO Job Fair. I threw a few
resumes into the stacks. Mostly somr Baseball Ops internships and some
scouting stuff, which are relatively limited.

There's actually hundreds of postings and a lot of them are
internships in sales, marketing, stadium ops, etc. Plenty of mascot
opportunities and other sorts. Check out the next photo...

Bingo, Bango, Bongo

Got here around 6 PM PCT and checked into the Flamingo. At this point
I'm just trying to get my bearings straight. Vegas is a lot to take
in at once.

We ran over to the Bellagio lobby to scope out the scene and got a
good feel for the layout. It's definitely a madhouse even without all
the baseball people. There were some media types hanging out and I
spotted a couple other notables in Harold Reynolds and Rob Dibble.

Not much more tonight, I'm beat.

Karaoke At O'Hare

To the tune of "I'll Be Home For Christmas". Amazingly, the flight attendant pictured here was serenading the folks waiting for their flight over the PA system.

The layover has me here in 5 degree Chicago for a couple hours. Pretty cold if you ask me.