In Social Media Marketer-Land, we often make sport of the constant ego-building, attention-mongering activities that are all too prevalent. I do it, you do it (oh, I know you do don’t act all innocent), and it’s great that we call each other to account for being egomaniacal jerks.

Sometimes, though, we’re just having fun. For example, on our recent vacation in Phoenix, we noticed that at Chase Field, home of Major League Baseball’s Diamondbacks, fans could get Tweets displayed on the big scoreboard in center field. All you had to do was include the #godbacks” hashtag.

• Ego gratification? Check
• Gratuitous hashtag use? Check.
• Publishing message on Twitter that everyone can see, not just people at the Diamondbacks games, for maximum lack of context? Check.

So, do I promise to be less cynical when others do silly attention-getting things in social media?

Nah. Probably not.

On April 17, my son and I went to the second of three Mets-Cardinals games at Busch Stadium in St Louis, as part of our annual baseball vacation. Little did we know we would spend nine hours at the ballpark. Here are some snippets from our experience…

Mets at Cards – April 17, 2010 – 20-inning game from Doug Haslam on Vimeo.

I love baseball, and have all my life, and have come to appreciate the goofballs and pranksters that litter baseball history. In fact, that’s the main reason I would like to see the great lefty Bert Blyleven enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Well, now there is a new Major League Baseball Prank King. Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Brett Myers came up with this whopper: he convinced teammate Kyle Kendrick that he had been traded to Japan, getting the manager, general manager, teammates and even the local beat reporters in on the joke. Impressive work.

Here is the letter informing Kendrick of the “trade.”

Hat Tip to Bugs & Cranks for the video and image.

Technorati Tags: baseball, prank, phillies, Brett+Myers, Kendrick

The World Series beings tonight, and through the generosity of a friend, I’m going to Game 1!

To invoke the spirits of good fortune to the game, my friend Yankee fan (!?!!) and Montrealer Mark Goren pointed me to this postgame interview of Bill “Spaceman” Lee, one of my favorite all-time Sox players. Sure, he was with the Expos at the time of this interview, but it is vintage Spaceman. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: baseball, Red+Sox, Bill, Lee, World+Series

Atlanta– Turner Field

Originally uploaded by douglashaslam.
On vacation in Atlanta last week, took the wife and son to Turner Field to catch the Braves vs. The Chicago Cubs. Despite the title of this post, we actually had a very good time. A close game with a lot of action, and we arrived early to catch batting practice, with my son getting an autograph from the Cubs’ Cliff Floyd, and the wife getting a good seat at the right field tavern for a pre-game quaff.

What did inspire the title of the post was the in-game “entertainment.” After every pitch– every freakin’ pitch!– there was some loud burst of crowd encouragement. The bugle “charge,” Addams Family theme, “Car Wash” Claps, and literal exhortations to “make some noise.” I had a headache by the third inning.

Now I know this isn’t the first rant about such stadial nonsense, but I just had to go with the moment fresh from the event. Perhaps I am a jaded ol’ New England fan of the Boston Red Sox, but I went to Turner to see a baseball game. If I’m going to make some noise, it’s because the game is exciting. And I don’t need some talentless bimbos shooting T-shorts out of the T-shirt-shooter.

Perhaps the Braves exec’s need to do these things to motivate the so-called fans. I don’t know, but I was really put off.

That said, there were some really nice things, including a Braves museum signifying an overall sense of history around the park, and some appropriately simple activities for kids in the outfield concourse. Plus, the stadium was nice, and accessible.

But my God, the noise…

Tech Tags: baseball Atlanta+Braves Atlanta Turner+FieldRed+Sox