2010 GBL Schedule: Balance Breakdown

The 2010 Golden Baseball League Schedule is out, and I’ve performed a larger breakdown of the schedule this year as opposed to last.  Before we get to the meaty charts, a few bullet points: 

• By my count, every team plays 90 games except for Victoria and Maui, who play 88 (please correct me if I’m wrong)
• The season begins on May 19, ends on September 6, and the All-Star break occurs from July 12-14
• Orange County doesn’t get a home game until June 15 (they host the heroic Vipers)
• Series in Maui go as long a seven games
• Chico and Calgary are the only teams that don’t get to travel to Maui; Edmonton is the only team that doesn’t travel to Tijuana

 Those are just appetizers, here’s the main course.  The Home team is on the Y (vertical) axis, and the road team in on the X (horizontal) axis for the next two tables. First Half (pre-all-star break) Team Vs Team Breakdown:

	CAL (A)	CHO	EDM	STG	VIC	MAU	OCY	TIJ	TUC	YUM
CAL (H)	x		4		5	4	5
CHO		x	3	6			3	4	3	3
EDM	2		x		3	5	5	5
STG	3		6	x		3	4		6	3
VIC	7		3		x	5	4	5
MAU				7	4	x		6
OCY	6	3				3	x		3	2
TIJ	3	8				3		x	3	3
TUC	3	6	4	3	3	3			x	5
YUM	4	6	3	3	3		4	3	5	x

Second Half (post-all-star break) Team Vs Team Breakdown:

	CAL (A)	CHO	EDM	STG	VIC	MAU	OCY	TIJ	TUC	YUM
CAL (H)	x	3	4	4	4			4	5	3
CHO	6	x		5	3	3	3			3
EDM	7	4	x		3			3	4	4
STG		4		x	6		4		3	3
VIC		7	4	3	x				4	3
MAU			7			x	7		6	6
OCY		4	3	4	3	3	x	8		3
TIJ	4			4	3	3	6	x	3	2
TUC			4	6		3		3	x	2
YUM					3	7		4		x

 Total 2010 Team Vs Team Breakdown, all games (not just home or away):

	CAL	CHO	EDM	STG	VIC	MAU	OCY	TIJ	TUC	YUM
CAL		9	17	7	16	4	11	11	8	7
CHO	9		7	15	10	3	13	12	9	12
EDM	17	7		6	13	12	8	8	12	7
STG	7	15	6		9	10	12	4	18	9
VIC	16	10	13	9		9	7	8	7	9
MAU	4	3	12	10	9		13	12	12	13
OCY	11	13	8	12	7	13		14	3	9
TIJ	11	12	8	4	8	12	14		9	12
TUC	8	9	12	18	7	12	3	9		12
YUM	7	12	7	9	9	13	9	12	12

As far as I know, playoff spots are still given according to who wins the first half of the season, and who wins the second half of the season.  With this being the case, home-and-away game differential can become a large factor in who plays post-season ball and who doesn’t.  What follows is a breakdown of home games and road games for each team, per half.  

First Half (pre-all-star break) Home Vs. Away Breakdown:

 

Team	Home	Away
CAL	18	28
CHO	22	23
EDM	20	23
STG	25	19
VIC	24	18
MAU	17	26
OCY	17	25
TIJ	20	23
TUC	27	20
YUM	31	16

 

Second Half (post all-star break) Home Vs. Away Breakdown:

Team	Home	Away
CAL	27	17
CHO	23	22
EDM	25	22
STG	20	26
VIC	21	25
MAU	26	19
OCY	28	20
TIJ	25	22
TUC	18	25
YUM	14	29

There she be.

More Self Promotion, and Blog Stuff

Yes, it’s been a slow off-season here at Ten Prairie Sticks – but for those of you who crave baseball action this time of year, I’m doing what I can at 7th Inning Stache.

Feel free to follow my Twitter or my (new) RSS Feed for fresh, steaming piles.

Speaking of this currently dormant blog (who else can’t wait for the 2010 Vipers season? Hurry up and melt, snow!), I thought now would be a good time to share some odd stats.  Here are the top 20 search terms leading unsuspecting websurfers (you might be one of them) to the #1 Calgary Vipers Blog Available (out of a total of 1), from #1 to #20:

jackie robinson

ten prairie sticks

pink paint

i got to be unstoppable

mario mendoza

felix jose

calgary vipers

travis drader

calgary vipers blog

patrick arlis

razor ramon

mcmahon stadium

terry mermer

seth loman

mcmahon stadium seating chart

fehlandt lentini

evan greusel

yuma

yuma arizona

carlos duncan

There it is, further proof that you just don’t get any bigger than Jackie Robinson.

Here are the Top-10 most-viewed articles on this humble blog, in descending order:

1. I Got To Be Unstoppable, Ey Ey Ey Ey, You Don’t Lie
2. Calgary Sports Ticket Price Breakdown
3. With a Big Ol’ Dump of Names, AWL 2009 Begins
4. To Walk or Not (Drew Miller 2009 Preview)
5. Championship Photos (with TPS Report-esque Comments)
6. Championship Videos
7. AAArlis
8. Where’s Travis Drader?
9. Drew Miller: Player of the Week
10. Check-Check Me Out

Relive the glory of the 2009 Vipers season.  It still feels like the 2010 season is too far away.

Check-Check Me Out

It may not look like it here, but I am writing during the Vipers off-season.  Bookmark 7th Inning Stache and follow me on Twitter to keep up-to-date on my thoughts on Pete Rose, the MLB salary cap, Calgary weather, and more (I’m going to squeeze some Vipers stuff in there, so don’t tell anyone in case I get busted).

You should be able to find out which writer I am from the featured writers page.

• Site: http://7is.neswblogs.com/
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/xolager

Wish me luck.  Go Vipers!

The Hallowed Grounds of Foothills Stadium on TSN

The hallowed grounds steal the show on a national broadcast

The outfield (Fehlandt Lentini’s office)

Eric Francis is Forgetting Something

It’s a good time to be a sports fan in Calgary, says Eric Francis of the Calgary Sun and those unfunny bus bench ads for Jack FM (“like free mittens!” hahaha!):

In a world in which we often neglect to stop and smell the roses, now might be a good time for Calgary sports fans to take stock. In consecutive weekends, the Stamps and the Flames went undefeated against their biggest rivals and provincial counterparts. Both have stellar records as does Canada’s second-ranked Hitmen and the nation’s third-ranked Dinos football team. None of this is to mention Calgary is also host of the defending NLL champion Roughnecks and of next month’s Grey Cup. Drink it in Calgary — these are good times.

I wonder which professional sports team in Calgary Eric “France” Francis is forgetting?  Could it be a 2009 league champion with a league MVP and the top manager to their credit?

Eric Francis, a sports reporter by trade, may not recognise or care about professional baseball in this city, but our professional baseball players do care about their fans.  Check out this comment we received from Calgary Vipers ace pitcher Joe “The Cobra Clutch” Sergent:

thanks for putting the site up for us players to look at and even get pictures and videos that we wouldn’t be able to get if it wasn’t for your support. all the players look at it and have a blast with what you write. you make us feel like big leaugers. thank you for doing this and hopefully we will be able to repeat next year!!

Indy All-Stars

The members of the Independent Baseball All-Star Team (technically speaking, the Baseball America All-Independent selections for the 2009 season) were recently announced, and the Golden Baseball League finds itself represented by four players – three of them Champion Vipers.  Not surprisingly, they’re four players that are well known to this blog.  Here’s a list of the players, as well as what we’ve learned about those players thanks to Ten Prairie Sticks:

• 1B: YouTube Self-Searcher A.J. “Mr Magician” Valentine (St. George Roadrunner)
  • Hates Canada and thinks Canadian beer is too strong.
• SS: Bonafide Mr. 410 Nelson Castro (Champion Viper)
  • Bats his best with me in attendance.
• 2B: Wilver Perez (Champion Viper)
  • Teamed up with The Cobra Clutch to almost single-handedly win the second-biggest game in Vipers history.
• OF: Sergio Pedroza (Champion Viper)
  • Got even better when he joined the Vipers’ lineup.

Congratulations to these four players, and an extra tip-of-the-cap to the three Indy All-Stars who are members of your 2009 GBL Champion Calgary Vipers.

All Hail Nelson Castro

I was working on a long-winded post with charts and graphs the detailed Nelson’s Castro’s 2009 GBL prowess – specifically when compared with A.J. Valentine, who I considered to be his stiffest competition this season.  The GBL surprised me, though, with its speed in naming Nelson Castro the 2009 GBL Player of the Year.

For the 2009 GBL season [Nelson Castro] was named Player of the Month for July and had an outstanding entire season as he led the league in batting with a .410 mark… In addition, he led the league in Triples with 10, Stolen Bases with 33, Slugging Average at .646, and Hits with 123. He was second in the league with 81 RBIs and 80 Runs Scored and also pounded out 11 HR which was just one off his all-time season high. He is considered one of the top defensive shortstops in the league and was key to the Vipers winning the 2009 GBL Championship.

I guess it was an easy choice for them, too.

Congratulations to Mr 410

2009 Attendance Bric-A-Brac

There was a great post-mortem article on the 2009 Calgary Vipers in the Calgary Herald earlier this week.  Vipers president John Conrad was interviewed with regards to the Vipers financial situation.  Here’s what I found interesting:

• Conrad talks about starting to build a better fan base, targeting families – which I think we can all agree is the exact direction the Vipers should be headed.
• He is aiming for 1500 season ticket holders for 2010.  I think season tickets need to be a better deal for this to happen, and (hypothetically) raising the base single-ticket price is not that way to achieve season ticket value (hint, hint).
• Conrad confesses that approximately 30% of the 2008 announced attendance was no-shows.  Can we assume the same thing happened in 2009?
• The Vipers had the best average playoffs attendance in the GBL with 2885 FPG (fans per game).
• The Vipers say their average attendance was 1525 FPG in the regular season. 
  • I’ve been tracking the Vipers regular season attendance all season.  They sold 54910 tickets for 38 home games.  54910/38=1445
  • Two of those home game were double headers.  54910/36=1525
  • The Vipers are counting the attendance for the double header games twice, but only counting the games once.  Whatever.  They actually drew 1445 FPG
• Conrad says attendance increased over the season.  This is true, and is very significant.  Here’s my chart:

You could argue that a lot of factors affected attendance.  Game time temperature (shown on the chart as well) certainly looks like it played a role.  Remember that Peter Young stepped down on June 11th, and he was considered by some to be a polarizing figure.  For the record, though, attendance in 2009 grew at a faster rate than the temperature rose – so weather wasn’t the only factor.  The Vipers did some things right in 2009 as the season wore on when it came to selling tickets.

Championship Videos

Videos from the Calgary Vipers’ Golden Baseball League Championship-clinching game.  Check out the photos and commentary, too.

The last pitch and ensuing celebration:

The presentation of the MVP award (Golden Bat), GBL Cup, and Championship Banner:

On a personal note, as a sports fan, this was my favourite moment of fandom.  Congrats to the Vipers!

It Looks Good On Paper

Don’t forget to check out the game-day photos.  Videos to come.