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The Queens Baseball Convention Is Saturday: Gooden, Dickey, Hojo, Bartolo, Endy and more!

A reminder that the Queens Baseball Convention has snuck up on you!  The QBCers say…

We are bringing in Bartolo Colón, RA Dickey, and Howard Johnson for panels and signings. Lori Rubinson of WFAN is hosting the HOJO Panel. John Saponaro Host of the QBC is also hosting the Bartolo Colón Panel and NY1’s Roger Clark is hosting the RA Dickey panel.

State of the Mets Panel is once again hosted by Gotham Baseball’s Mark Healey. Newsday’s Tim Healey, The Apple’s Tim Ryder, NY Daily News’s Abbey Mastracco, and acclaimed Baseball book author Erik Sherman are all going to be giving their thoughts on how the Mets season was and what the future looks like.

SNY is bringing in their Mets Hot Stove to do a live show. Gary Apple, John Harper and Sal Licatta are coming in “hot” for what will be a busy Mets off season. Also You could try to stump Sal at Mets trivia.

SNY is also bringing in their The Mets Pod with Connor Rogers and Joe DeMayo. These guys have a great podcast. Make sure to to subscribe to it on all your podcast platforms.

The NY Post Sports + is bringing in their Amazin’ But True Podcast with hosts Jake Brown and Nelson Figueroa. Figgy gives a great baseball insider’s view of the game, while Jake is a knowledgable host that’s a true fan of the Mets!

Jay Horwitz is receiving the Gil Hodges Unforgettable Fire Award. Past recipients were Gil Hodges, Ed Charles, Buddy Harrelson, Bobby Valentine, Tom Seaver, David Wright, and Shannon Forde.

We will have vendors at the QBC. Coach’s Collectibles is bringing in Doc Gooden and Endy Chavez to sign at their table (need admission to QBC to enter).

We will have mascots, food from Katch Astoria and much more.

December 3rd. Four Points by Marriott in Flushing. 10:30 doors open. For more info and to get tickets go to QueensBaseballConvention.com

 

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Baseball: we’re half as popular as daytime soccer, but we’re doing great!

The MLB Finals, featuring a 6 seed, averaged 11.78 million viewers on Fox, and 12.03 million combined viewers (Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming), the network said (per The Athletic)

Thursday’s Giants-Cowboys NFL Thanksgiving game averaged a 12.7 rating and 42 million viewers across the Fox Sports family of networks, per Nielsen fast-nationals — marking the largest NFL regular season audience on record (per Sports Media Watch)

Meanwhile,  World Cup Soccer (USA-ENG)… was watched by 24.7M people. (via Deadline)

So, at some point, even the staunchest of The Baseball Mafia have to admit that something is wrong here with America’s Former Pastime.

Soccer proved that if you have a Big Event that people will tune in. There was something special about it.   And it was 2pm on a day off, so apparently the West Coast Sports Fans AND the East Coast Sports Fans are able to show up if it’s a big event.  (I bet yesterday’s Ohio State – Michigan game did well too, at noon.)

Football will be excused away by it being Thanksgiving.   Well, guess what, the NFL has successfully created an Event.  A lot of the elusive Casual Sports Fans must have tuned in.

Baseball continues to excuse things away.   “Baseball is a regional sport” – as if everyone lives in Dallas and that’s why they watch football.  “You can’t play in the daytime and get a big rating” except for every event listed here.  “Streaming/Netflix/Video Games” – sure, unless there’s an event, like say a SOCCER GAME.

Baseball gave away the younger millennials and all of Generation Z, and are in the process of losing the “me” Generation X crowd with these expanded playoffs and everything else wrong with the sport.  I’ve been really thinking bout the expanded playoffs, and I think they are really going to hurt things.  I look back to my own behavior last season – I checked out on the regular season because there was nothing to follow.  I jumped in around September 25th and was gone, like the Mets, after one round.  I compare that to a season like 1985 where every game mattered.

Anyway, if I am baseball and my MLB Finals are getting HALF what a Friday afternoon soccer game is getting, I’d be really worried.  You can only pull the “AL Home Run Record” lever so many times guys.

 

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Mike Piazza rallies around Mookie Wilson’s catering business

Famous Soccer Team owner Mike Piazza

What’s interesting to me about this story is that the Post picked up the catering business “news” – but a quick Google shows that the Daily News Remnant had the story in September – but the DN has fallen so far I guess nobody at all noticed. And then since the Post had it, the guys at the Amazing Apple Insiderized Mets Blog Report had to regurgitate it. I ignored it because I hate “And Us Also” content (formerly knows as Me Too content before Me Too came to mean something else) – and am only bringing it up today because I like goofing on Donald Trump Rally attendee Mike Piazza.

But hey Mike Piazza,  during the rule of America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, helped heal the city with a home run that one time so it’s all good.

Anyway, Mookie Wilson is a caterer.