GM Jeremey Stephens (jstep): Spokane fans, as I am sure you know we have been making a lot of trades in the off season. We have made some major changes in both our personnel and our Philosophy. And I am here tonight to announce a few things.
First we will be changing our mascot. We will henceforth be known as the Spokane Pirates.
We have made this change for several reasons. We wish to change our image somewhat. The Spokane Paladins were a team that said, 'Sure, come on in. Have a Coke and some cookies. Would you like to
Watch some TV? By the way, would you like to hit three homeruns and score 7.51 runs per game?
We really don't mind if you thump us soundly. We are perfectly happy finishing 20 games out of first place.' Well that is not us anymore. Now we're Pirates. AAARRRRRRRRGGGGH ya scurvy dogs!. Teams coming to Spokane are going to learn to fear us, and if they don't we'll change their minds. The other reason we changed our mascot to the Pirates leads me to the next announcement.
We will be re-naming the Spokane Stadium. Due to corporate pressure-er-uh..I mean the fact that the Captain Morgan Spiced Rum Company was nice enough to fund a large portion of this fine stadium, with a retractable dome I might add, it will now be known as the Captain Morgan Dome.
Now for the moment you have all been waiting for. I will now release the Starting line-up for the
1998 season.
The Starting rotation will consist of Jack McDowell, Juan Guzman, Aaron Sele, Ariel Prieto, and Jamey Wright.
And the line-up looks like this:
DH Paul Molitor
CF Eric Davis
LF Brady Anderson
1B Mark McGwire
RF Hi Stedronsky
C Mike Matheny
3B Jeff Ness
2B Bret Boone
SS Mark Lewis
There will now be a brief Q and A session, followed by refreshments.
Reporter: I see that you have elected to use Wright in your starting rotation. Given the fact that he is so young, twenty to be specific, and that you have a capable starter in Aguilera, what makes him the right choice for the job? Especially considering he lost nine games last year. Wouldn't it be better to send him to the AAA Los Gatos and let him develop?
Jstep: The future of our pitching staff is Jamey Wright. We have discussed this with him, and he knows this. Jamey is a remarkably mature person for 20 years old. While its true that he lost nine games for us,
You're overlooking the fact that he won 11. And we put a lot of pressure on him. But this year we have some big names that can carry most of the load for us. We can put Jamey in our fifth slot and tell him, "go out there and pitch .500 just like last season." It gives him good experience. This boy is HOT and we feel that it is in everyone's best interests to let him play at this level for now.
Reporter: You said you want to change your image, to be not so nice. What will that mean to the kids that look up to the players on your team?
Jstep: It comes down to this. We can either be good role models, or we can be winners. Remember the Oakland Raiders under John Madden? They were the dirtiest, most penalized, meanest team in the league. You know what else, they won a whole lot of games.
Reporter: But that's football, this is baseball.
Jstep: Security, get this jerk out of my sight! That ends this interview. Yo, Ho, Ho, and a bottle of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum!
