Something coming out of the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas which you can ponder while you wait for the Cubs to land Jake Peavy:
The lovable Cubs, who have not won a World Series since 1908, have the most bets...placed on them by MGM Mirage Properties, which could partly explain why they are tied with the Red Sox for the best odds. (MGM Mirage's Jay) Rood said the Cubs were routinely wagered on more than any other baseball team, followed by the Red Sox and the Yankees.
Here is all you need to know about the most interesting aspect of this year's just concluded, nearly drama-free World Series:
It looks like Taco Bell's free-tacos-for-a-stolen base promotion was a grand slam.
According to Advertising Age, the chain spent $5.6 million--chump change for a major national advertiser--on World Series ads promoting their plan to give away tacos at 6,000 Taco Bell locations between 2pm and 5pm on Tuesday (10/30) if a base was stolen during the Series.
Jacoby Ellsbury stole second base in the fourth inning of Game 2, so the giveaway is on.
"It's pretty low-risk," said Ron Paul, president of restaurant consultant Technomic. If each of 6,000 locations gives away three tacos a minute for about three hours, Mr. Paul calculated Taco Bell would give away a maximum of 3 million tacos. He estimated they cost Taco Bell about 20¢, making the maximum total cost about $700,000.
And of course, Taco Bell chose its hours and dates wisely -- the free taco giveaway is comfortably between the lunch and dinner hours. The company said it didn't take out any insurance on the promotion, which indicates it wasn't concerned about financial risk.
And the buzz built by the promotion is only part of the program's upside for Taco Bell. One can safely assume that most of the free taco hounds who pack the restaurants Tuesday will order something to go with their free tacos; at the very least, they're likely to wash down the food with one of those sky high-profit margin soda drinks.
All in all, a pretty smart play by Taco Bell.
Next year, somebody ought to come up with a promotion tied to the possibility that Scott Boras will make a grandstanding ass of himself and try to upstage the most important event on the baseball calendar.
It could be a big draw. But like Taco Bell, they just better plan on having to pay out.
Giants Stadium may be able to claim the honor of being final resting place for James R. Hoffa--well, maybe not--but as the Sodfather, Roger Bossard, learned today while beginning to replace Wrigley Field's woeful playing surface, the Friendly Confines have been home for more than three decades to several massive slabs of subterranean concrete.
The slabs, which supported the goalposts used by the Bears when they played at Wrigley, were left behind and covered over with dirt when the Bears moved to Soldier Field following the 1970 season. Now Bossard has been instructed to simply discard them.
Clearly John McDonough's upward migration from the Director of Marketing position has affected the Cubs. In the old days, the front office would have ordered a couple of the grounds crew guys to break out the sledgehammers, pulverize the concrete into crumbly little pieces, and then sold off each of the crumbles for $25.
Those were the days.
The Red Sox just closed out the Rockies in World Series Game Two, 2-1. Matt Holliday had four of the five Colorado hits (all singles), but was picked off first base by Jonathan Papelbon in the top of the 8th inning with Todd Helton, the potential tying run, at the plate.
Maybe the Rockies can still make it a series. In addition to the obvious challenges of playing on the road in front of a large, Red Sox-hating crowd in a stadium most of the Sox have never seen, Boston will also be playing without a DH.
Terry Francona will have to decide what to do with David Ortiz, who could be murderous against Colorado's Game 3 and Game 4 starters, righthanders Josh Fogg and Aaron Cook, but would have to play in the field in order to take his licks.
Should be interesting.
Earlier this evening, while listening to the player introductions before World Series Game One, I decided to play a little game with myself and imagine that it was the Cubs, not Colorado, taking the field against the mighty Red Sox. It was Alfonso Soriano, not Willy Taveras, stepping in against Josh Beckett to start the game; Ted Lilly, not Jeff Francis, facing the fearsome Boston lineup.
(I know Carlos Zambrano probably would have been our Game One starter, but since Lilly is a lefty just like Francis, it made for an easier self-deception. I only have so much imagination.)
Funny thing is, the longer the game went on and the larger the Boston lead grew, the easier it was to imagine the Cubs out there. I actually felt anxiety pangs in the home half of the first when Dustin Pedroia connected for a lead-off homer and then Kevin Youkilis continued the assault, etc., etc., etc.
Damn Cubs. Even when they're not playing, they make me sick to my stomach.
And if this is, indeed, destined to be the World Series when the Red Sox are fully transformed from the underdog darlings of everyone outside New York into the new playground bullies, they're certainly off to a good start.
If the events that unfolded three Octobers ago didn't convince you, nor the three-game comeback that culminated Sunday night in Boston, I'll state it emphatically:
The Red Sox are no longer the Cubs' kindred spirits, their brothers in heartache, their similarly cursed, American League cousins.
They're the Yankees.
