Fire Todd Butler

[im4wsu]

I am closely acquainted with owner of the business that has been the lead sponsor of the Volleyball 101 dinner for the past several years. He and Lambo have become very good friends and he has now totally bought in to Lambo's VB program. However, when I talked to him the 1st year he sponsored the VB101 dinner he told me that he didn't really follow the VB program and his business is not the kind that would really benefit from any advertising or goodwill associated with that sponsorship. He initially got involved in that for one and only one reason. He had men's basketball tickets in the upper reaches of Koch Arena. However, his business had become very successful and he now had the wherewithal to afford to improve his seating if he could. He approached WSU to see what he could do to secure better seats. WSU said they were looking for a new lead sponsor for the VB 101 dinner which would cost $5,000 at that time. (May have gone up since). He signed on to that and the following season he went from the nosebleed seats in the corner to center court seats in the lower part of the upper bowl. He may have moved on down into the lower bowl since then I am not sure. As I said he and Lambo have become good friends and he is a big supporter of the VB program but improving his men's basketball seating was his sole motivation for getting involved in that initially.

With men's basketball being the financial bell cow of this athletic program just about any money you contribute to any other sport is a contribution to men's basketball. I contribute $1,000 to the track & field program that is $1,000 less that men's basketball has to subsidize. There was a reason WSU amended their priority point system a few year's back to include contributions of any kind to WSU, athletic related or otherwise. Don't kid yourself, WSU is leveraging the success of the Men's basketball program for all it's worth in their fund raising efforts. Another reason 3G is worth his big contract.

That is not the only example of WSU "directing" funds to where they need them. When WSU was having difficulty raising the money to complete Phase II of the improvements to Eck Stadium under the Building Excellence for the Student-Athlete campaign started by Jim Schaus they ended up giving the students and extension on their men's basketball ticket deal in exchange for letting them use some of the student fees to fund those baseball facility improvements.

Obviously, keeping the men's basketball program healthy is of the utmost importance to the overall success of WSU athletics.

Good fundraisers always try to persuade donors to give to what is "hot" or needed. Unless you can point to me where a donor got double the priorty points for every dollar donated elsewhere, I will continue to believe that the same dollar contributions to MBB will be treated the same as if contributed to VB or anywhere else. Now i fully understand that businesses who have products/services to trade in-kind may receive favorable trade values, although probably not absurd exchanges. If they open that Pandora's box, it will come back to bite them sometime.

[1972Shocker]

Good fundraisers always try to persuade donors to give to what is "hot" or needed. Unless you can point to me where a donor got double the priorty points for every dollar donated elsewhere, I will continue to believe that the same dollar contributions to MBB will be treated the same as if contributed to VB or anywhere else. Now i fully understand that businesses who have products/services to trade in-kind may receive favorable trade values, although probably not absurd exchanges. If they open that Pandora's box, it will come back to bite them sometime.

I don't have any inside information on how that worked out. All I know is what I was told by person involved and what the result was. I would have no way of proving or disproving whatever conclusion you come to as a result of that anecdote.

I will say this. I can give an extra $5,000 to the men's basketball games and improve my basketball seating priority by X amount. Or I can give $5,000 to the baseball program and improve my seating priority by the same X amount plus maybe get a chunk of baseball season tickets and other perks which I can use or not use as I choose. In any case, I would get at least a little something extra for my support. How much value those extras are worth is debatable and will vary from person to person. Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe you don't get the same seating priority boost in that situation.

[im4wsu]

I don't have any inside information on how that worked out. All I know is what I was told by person involved and what the result was. I would have no way of proving or disproving whatever conclusion you come to as a result of that anecdote.

I will say this. I can give an extra $5,000 to the men's basketball games and improve my basketball seating priority by X amount. Or I can give $5,000 to the baseball program and improve my seating priority by the same X amount plus maybe get a chunk of baseball season tickets and other perks which I can use or not use as I choose. In any case, I would get at least a little something extra for my support. How much value those extras are worth is debatable and will vary from person to person. Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe you don't get the same seating priority boost in that situation.

It's been my experience that if I donate to baseball, I still have to purchase the tickets -- they are not "extras" but I probably don't hobnob withnth right people

[1972Shocker]

It's been my experience that if I donate to baseball, I still have to purchase the tickets -- they are not "extras" but I probably don't hobnob withnth right people

I have been employed by the "right" people although not sure that I can say I "hob knob" with the right people. Let me say that when Jim Schaus visited our offices on occasion I was pretty much invisible. But I do like the people I do hob knob with. I am sure your priority points exceed mine.

By far the biggest contribution I have ever made to WSU was the $2,500 pledge I made to the Roundhouse Renaissance payable over 5 years. That was a stretch for me but I really thought that was one of the most important things WSU has done for the athletic program since the original construction of the roundhouse. Man our facilities were bad before that project and it had to be hurting our recruiting badly.

I hate to think of where we would be had Jim Schaus not pulled off the Roundhouse Renaissance. I doubt that we would have ever heard of Gregg Marshall.

[1972Shocker]

I know I am plenty critical at times, but my butt is in the seats at nearly every game and I bring people with me and spend lots of money on concessions and merchandise.

I have to admit that I have only been to 1 game this season. Since you are one of the true diehards and have been to most of the games I am just curious if you could venture a guess as to what the average actual attendance at games has been this year. I know some of the games I have seen on TV this seemed very sparsely populated in terms of attendance. Just curious what that guess would be compared to the reported average paid attendance of 2,186 per game this season.

[shockfan89_]

I have to admit that I have only been to 1 game this season. Since you are one of the true diehards and have been to most of the games I am just curious if you could venture a guess as to what the average actual attendance at games has been this year. I know some of the games I have seen on TV this seemed very sparsely populated in terms of attendance. Just curious what that guess would be compared to the reported average paid attendance of 2,186 per game this season.

1972 - It varies from game to game but it doesn't seem to be anywhere close to even 2013. I miss the days of showing up to a Friday night series opener and having 4k or 5k, or an evening game during the MVC Tournament and of course those awesome Regional / Super Regional games when they had to bring in extra seating. I know those days are long gone and seem farther and farther away every year but I would love to get back to that whether it is with HCTB or someone else at the helm.

To answer your question, I started counting on Sunday just after the first pitch. I started along the 3rd base side counting top to bottom and I got passed home plate (section 3 of the blue seats, middle of section f) and I was at 65 and quit there. Obviously that was early in the game and didn't count for GA over the office or the outfield hill although there were less than 10 in the GA over the office). I would say actual attendance is between 500 and 1,000 for most games but the crowds were better for MSU. It was so dang windy last weekend that I'm sure it kept most fans away. There have been a few games that I ESTIMATED were between 2,500 and 3,000 but only a couple times.

[xazshox]

Defense

72, since you mentioned catchers in your dissertation on what constituted good defense, I was in the WSU Alumni Association box last season and 3 former WSU catchers ended up there, too. They all liked what they saw of young Gunnar Troutwine then. He was a freshman & had only recently started catching after HCTB tried a couple of other guys there first. I think it was Tinkham & Arens.

Troutwine made a great defensive play in the top of the 10th on Sun in the come from behind win over Bradley. The leadoff hitter doubled off Chase Williams. The next hitter hit a little blooper down the 3rd base line. Troutwine ran after it and caught it & then threw a strike to 2nd to double the runner and complete a double play.

[ShockTalk]

I see that "Tham" has taken exception to my comment about WSU's fielding % of 0.968 being excellent. Someone else quotes WSU's fielding % in MVC games at 0.974. I checked the MVC website & it's shown as 0.968 which is, of course, for a limited no of games compared to the whole season. Looking at WSU's all-time best fielding %'s on GoShockers.com, the 9th best all-time was 0.969 set in 1999 & tied again in 2006. Perhaps I should have put this in a different perspective because as of last Sun, WSU had 5 frosh in the starting lineup. 0.969 for a team starting 5 frosh is really excellent & especially when compared to past Shocker teams. The other thing about it is that this has been a team in flux during the season so a lot of different players have been tried at various positions in order to get to this point in the season.

I had looked this up at the time (not going to now), but several years ago, WSU set their own team record for fielding %. I noticed that among other Valley teams, that record setting % was only 3rd or 4th in the Valley just in that year.

[Cdizzle]

If people think this team plays great, or good, or above average, or even average defense, they need to watch a LOT more baseball.

[WstateU]

If people think this team plays great, or good, or above average, or even average defense, they need to watch a LOT more baseball.

No doubt we've had our share of boneheaded plays this year; we're lucky we haven't seen one of these yet...

Oops! Nice 'intentional walk' attempt.

[OregonShocker]

No doubt we've had our share of boneheaded plays this year; we're lucky we haven't seen one of these yet...

Oops! Nice 'intentional walk' attempt.

Ouch. You know you don't have your best stuff when you can't intentionally walk someone!

[Cdizzle]

No doubt we've had our share of boneheaded plays this year; we're lucky we haven't seen one of these yet...

Oops! Nice 'intentional walk' attempt.

Is that John Hayes?

[Aargh]

Is it just a myth, or maybe something from a movie, but I thought it actually happened .

Manager goes to the mound and loudly explains "Walk this guy". Pitcher grooves a FB right down the middle. Bat never leaves shoulder. Manager runs out to the mound, now yelling, "I told you to walk this guy" along with some profanity. Pitcher throws another FB right down the middle . Strike 2. Manager charges the mound pulls the pitcher, calls in a reliever from the pen, and instructs him in no uncertain terms, to walk the guy. Third FB right down the middle. Strike 3.

[OregonShocker]

Is it just a myth, or maybe something from a movie, but I thought it actually happened .

Manager goes to the mound and loudly explains "Walk this guy". Pitcher grooves a FB right down the middle. Bat never leaves shoulder. Manager runs out to the mound, now yelling, "I told you to walk this guy" along with some profanity. Pitcher throws another FB right down the middle . Strike 2. Manager charges the mound pulls the pitcher, calls in a reliever from the pen, and instructs him in no uncertain terms, to walk the guy. Third FB right down the middle. Strike 3.

Gotta be a myth. That's as crazy as faking a passed ball on a pickoff move to first...

[OregonShocker]

No doubt we've had our share of boneheaded plays this year; we're lucky we haven't seen one of these yet...

Oops! Nice 'intentional walk' attempt.

I like how, by where the ball lands, everyone throws their drinks in the air and the one guy just turns and walks out...