Jay Mohr: How to tell if your team sucks

[Drbio]

You can log on to some professional sports team Web sites and have no idea the team stinks. If you use the Internet instead of the box scores in your local newspaper to find information on your team, you might find it to be very misleading. Although the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are 23 games out of first place, their Web site has a giant banner across the top that reads, "Watch it happen!"

Unless by "Watch it happen" they mean "Watch Lou Piniella slowly die" this seems like false advertising. Watch what happen? Watch pitchers stink? Watch hitters make sure to keep the bases clean of footprints? Obviously the job of the team's Web site is to make a day at the ballpark seem like a wonderful idea. Why else would the D-Rays offer tickets behind homeplate -- in a place called "Kane's Club" -- for $250 apiece? Who the heck is Kane, and why would he allow such misery? If two hundred and fifty bucks to see the worst team in baseball is out of your price range, the Web site advertises $5 tickets at a place called "The Beach." Unless the beach in question is Daytona, I'll pass.

I clicked on the "Roster" link to learn about some of the D-Rays players. When I hit backup catcher Pete LaForest's name, I found a prominently displayed photo of 'ol Pete clutching his groin as a baseball bounced off his mask. That might be worth five dollars if they guaranteed I could see it live.

All of the team Web sites I visited had links for "Special Events." The Rays offer a postgame concert featuring such luminaries as ... Steven Curtis Chapman and Emcee Urban D. The name of the concert is "Raise The Roof." Hopefully they will indeed raise the roof at this concert so the players can crawl out!

I was inspired to write this column after reading what Rick Reilly (best in the business) had to say about the Arizona Cardinals and their futility. When I visited the Cards' Web site I was greeted by the exclamation, "The Bird Is Back!" Huh? Big Bird? The California Condor? Certainly they can't mean the Cardinals, considering there are more than one of them. I can only assume that by "The Bird" the Web site is referring to the gesture most fans would be pointing at their television sets if the local broadcasts of Cardinals games weren't blacked out.

Whoever sets the ticket prices for Cardinals games cannot possibly have sat through an actual home game. How else would they justify asking $360 for a seat in the north end zone of Sun Devil Stadium? Oddly, tickets in the south end zone are less expensive, at $270 a seat. Probably because you have to sit closer to the team. Tickets for seats in stadium's upper northwest corner are listed as N/A ... probably because they have never had the burden of anyone's rear end sitting in them. The Cardinals might as well list those tickets as "What can you give us?" or "Seriously?"

The Atlanta Hawks have the best team Web site I've come across. It features 3-D imaging of where your seats will be. The problem with such a feature is that the photo of the empty Philips Arena featured on the site looks eerily similar to the empty Philips Arena seen during SportsCenter. There's nothing like watching Josh Childress break away for a dunk and come crashing to the floor in front of empty seats. Maybe the fans in those seats have taken the slogan "Rise Up!" from the Hawks Web site literally. If you click on the link for the Hawks' gift shop, you'll find a golf towel you can purchase for eight bucks. I wonder if the Atlanta players get discounts? We all know come playoff time they will be playing plenty of golf.

Team Web sites will have you believe that mascots are superstars in their own right. Harry the Hawk has his own biography page, which features the jarring headline, "Hold on to your popcorn! Hang on to your seats! It's Harry the Hawk!" Thanks for the warning. The last thing I need at a Hawks game is some creepy guy in a bright red bird outfit trying to get me pumped up to watch 10 guys who won't be in the building come the trade deadline. Harry the Hawk's bio, by the way, has such gems as "Position: Center (of attention!)." Oh, the hilarity. Center of attention, get it? All I know is if you are running around a half-empty stadium in a giant red bird costume you probably should be the center of attention. What else am I going to watch? The Hawks?

The Pittsburgh Pirates Web site features the slogan -- ready for this one? --"Come hungry!" Huh? Are Pirates particularly hungry? Is the Web site suggesting we not eat before the game? Doesn't the Pirates' front office realize that the team it has been putting on the field has made fans lose their appetites? I took a virtual tour of the Pirates' stadium on their Web site and found a slight problem. PNC Park has black seats. It's August. Nothing is more relaxing when the mercury pushes 100 than watching your favorite team suck while cooking your buns in a black seat.

By the way, in case you were wondering, the Pirate Parrot needs a guarantee of at least 100 people before he'll agree to make a personal appearance. If you can get 100 people in one place at the same time willing to watch a creepy yellow bird walk through the door the appearance is free. It better be.

The Colorado Rockies do not have much to be proud of this year but their Web site is doing its best to disguise it. Each time I clicked a link on their site I was re-routed to MLB.com, which features teams and players who are NOT Colorado Rockies. The slogan that greets you when you log on to the Rockies' site is "GenRation." As in "We haven't been good in your generation."

The Rockies Mascot is named Dinger. He is a big, fat, purple dinosaur who sports a baby t-shirt that barely covers his nipples. According to the Web site, Dinger travels the land promoting physical fitness and literacy. Ahhh. There is nothing a dinosaur likes more than a good book. Maybe that's why they are extinct. They were too busy reading the classics to notice the meteors falling on their heads. And -- excuse me -- physical fitness? Dinger looks like Barney after a bender. What is he going to teach me about fitness? How to stretch my neck before watching balls fly out of Coors Field?

I finally found myself on the Toronto Raptors' site. There was no slogan (why not let the product speak for itself, right?), but I clicked on the link for "Playoff history" with great intrigue. Toronto's "playoff history" starts at 2002. (Note to web designer: Maybe it's not such a great idea to feature a playoff link if the leader in games played is Antonio Davis with, drum roll please, 20.)

The lead story on the Toronto Raptors' Web site is the release of the 2005-06 schedule. The first paragraph of the story suggests now would be the perfect time to secure your Raptors season tickets so you can watch such exciting young stars as Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison. Both gentlemen play for the Washington Wizards.

So, in review:

If it has to sell its mascot, your team sucks.

If its mascot will show up for free, your team sucks.

If it doesn't know what to charge you for nosebleed seats, your team sucks.

And most important, if the players featured on its Web site don't actually play for it, your team really, really sucks.

[mary]

Funny stuff

[mary]

Funny stuff