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6 Reasons to Buy Mariners, NOT Pokemon, Stock

Not pictured below in Photo 1: anything resembling the actual Go app

Posted by

jemanji

8/3/16

1. YOU RARELY HAVE TO CATCH A 98 MPH RELIEVER TO USE IT.

Well, we fans don't.

You have to drive to Pt. Defiance to catch a Charmander - that is not a joke - but baseball conveniently starts you off with a 25-man roster before the game even begins. (The same is true for the 32 chess pieces. There is no "flash crowd" sprinting after a Queen sighting.)

Also, in Go it's impossible to come up with "nicknames" that don't make you look like a Kanji-speak wannabe. (Suggested improvements desperately welcomed.) In baseball, it's rather easier to come up with nicknames, both real-life and SSI-specific. You can't even decide between K-Pax and Zeus, they're both so awesome. By contrast, who knows whether "Mizu Arashi" is appropriate or laughably kludge.

Yes, Mojo, you can consider the below screen shot a Lure

2. YOU ARE VERY UNLIKELY TO PERISH WHILE WATCHING THE MARINERS.

People follow Pikachu into, quite literally, traffic, over waterfalls, through SE Asian minefields, into "lures" with gunmen hiding behind the bait.

And, Dr. D has little doubt, Go players follow monsters into the state of Alaska. Don't think we don't know perfectly well why Mojician no longer posts here. Good riddance to him, I say. May his wild Moltres sighting result in panic and a phone down a sewer grate.

3. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EXERCISE REQUIRED TO WATCH JAMES PAXTON.

Notice how all these things hold true for baseball, chess, and in fact for every other pastime worth committing to.

Well, there IS exercise for the lefty standing in against K-Pax

Bringing us to...

4. THERE IS AN EXCELLENT CHANCE THAT PEOPLE WILL STILL WATCH BASEBALL IN SIX MONTHS.

Well, not in exactly six months; that will be January. But you know what we mean. Shatranj is old also - baseball 150 years, chess 1,000 plus years, Pokemon Go ... three weeks? USCF membership is about 0.1% of what Go's membership is, but I like our chances to hang around. Like Herr Lincoln's.

5. BASEBALL DOES *NOT* HAVE IN-APP PURCHASES.

Dr. D spent, oh, seventy bucks on the game in the first week. The Japanese teach us a lot of things; aggressive in-app extraction with zero ethics is not going to be the best of them.

6. YOU CAN ENJOY BASEBALL FROM YOUR COUCH.

Contrast the Pokemon Go vista from Dr. D's couch.

You see a Nidoran about as often as those guys hit a rock in Men Who Stare At Goats. :: forest whitaker, color of money :: I want you to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me. Do you think it's sad that a fiftysomething plays Go with his kids. (Well, not if he were level sixteen ... )

So breathe easy, gentlemen. Your preferred hobby is, intrinsically, the second best available to man. May the Sicilian Dragon Accelerated be ever in your favor.

BABVA,

Dr D

post inspired by the original chess.com idea. thanks amigos :- )

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Hottest Groks

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Edwin Diaz

Comments

7 reasons why Pokemon is better than the Mariners

Heh! I really appreciate that Doc would leave the 99 Mariners faithful to look for the one that is lost. But, nowhere is it written that faith in the Mariners will be rewarded in any way.

But, that's an unjust parralel. We're not asking the Mariners to save your soul, we're only asking them to amuse you for 30 minutes a day. If that's the test, Pokemon beats the Mariners by orders of magnitude. Observe:

1. Fan base. Mariners: 3 million people or so spread across the Pacific northwest with a small following in Japan. Only about 500,000 really care about what happens. Pokemon: about half a billion people largely located in Japan, South Korea, all Americas, especially the United States, Mexico, Canada and Argentina, all Europe, especially England France, Germany and Italy, and Australia and New Zealand.

2. Time per contest: Mariners: 3-4 hours. Pokemon: 15 turns in doubles, 15 turns in 3 v. 3 singles, 30-50 turns in 6 v. 6 singles. A turn lasts around 30 seconds.

3. Odds of being dissapointed by your contest: Mariners: about half the time. Pokemon: Depends on how good you are.

4. Maturity level of average fan: Push.

5. Time to retool if your team is lame. Mariners. 2-3 years if they had a good farm system. Pokemon: 2-3 weeks if you have a good farm system.

6. Point of the game: Mariners: For the Mariners to win. Pokemon: For you to win.

7. Ways to improve if you are losing too much: Mariners: Hope that Jerry DiPoto changes things up, and hope the players are playing well. Pokemon: Change things up and play better.

For example: Mojo and his dad: "The Mariners have a Jose Altuve problem. He owns them. He's always on base, and in the middle of every Houston rally. He's cost the Mariners at least three games this year. What are the Mariners going to do about it?" Answer: "I dunno. They only play seven more times. If the Mariners don't figure this Altuve problem out there won't be a wild card game." Mojo and his kid: "The team has a Mega Salamence problem. It intimidates attackers, sets up tailwind, hammers Groudon with hyper voice, hammers Xerneas with double edge, has enough defense to take multiple rockslides and outspeeds the entire team. My ELO rating would be 100 points better without him" Answer:"If Salamence bothers you so much, use thunder wave to slow it down, or get a Salamence."

Two weeks later, a new Salamence is bred, trained, and in game, this one packing draco meteor to dump opposing Salamence in one shot. A month later, there is still a Jose Altuve problem, and there are still seven games in September for all the marbles, assuming the Mariners don't wuss out before then.

8. Customization. Mariners: You have zero say in how the team operates. I like clutch players and a funny manager that throws lots of bases and kicks dirt at umpires and gives interesting quotes to read about. Kyle Seager, Nelson Cruz and Felix are my kind of players, and are still around, but Lloyd McClendon is gone. Apparently, JeDi didn't get my E-mail. Servais gives horse(manure) quotes like: "The team didn't play very well today".

Pokemon: You change your team to match your play style and personality. Like to troll? play stall. Like to dump opponents in one punch? Play setup sweep. Like to switch things up a lot? play fire-water grass with regenerator and entry hazards. Like to use your opponents own stupid robots against him or her? Play ditto. Like to disable your opponent's robots? play Sableeye and Klefki. Like clutch come from behind victories? Use Klefki, Groudon, Talonflame and Yveltal.

Haven't played Pokemon Go, but my kids seem to like it. My Pokemon phone game is play.pokemonshowdown.com. If you want to play, I'd be happy to friend you, then set you on fire, and ritualistically dance around your flaming carcass. Its free and more fun than the Nintendo games. The only catch is, the rules are so complicated that it takes about two years to learn how to play. You start with the dual type charts, then the fourteen levels of priority, then the speed tiers, then the training points, then the natures, then the move sets of the 100 or so most common battle pokemons.

Pokemon is more fun than poker and chess, because a queen, or a suited Ace King in the hole are what they are, but an opponent's pokemon has a wide level of customization, and if they are playing the DS game, that level of customization took a great deal of breeding and training to acheive. So you are beating an opponent's customized robot that they worked really hard on. Its like robot wars, but free.

Haven't really turned against the Mariners. The real reason I haven't been posting, is my school teacher wife is working me nights and weekends through a downstairs remodel. She has lots of energy, because she has most of the summer off. Poured my first batch of floor leveling cement the other day and it turned out OK! Woot.

Go M's.