Kuzul

At a Seattle Mariners professional baseball game last night, we were parked in the garage between the football and baseball stadiums in Seattle.  This was a perk for the front-row tickets given my wife by supervisors for all her good work of the past few months.  No nose-bleeders for this group on this warm late-spring night! 

And no hiking tens of miles to the car following the game.  This time we would be the snooty royalty that annoys the masses of peons, and like snooty royalty, we would be parking across the street from the baseball stadium free of charge with the BMWs, Mercedes and exotic sports cars of the world.

Walking only a few yards to the car was really cool. 

But after the game, not getting out of the same parking garage for over an hour, gridlocked in non-moving vehicles just outside the stadium, sort of ruined the thrill of parking in the garage where they charge mere mortals up to $50.  

More disturbing, it became apparent that the traffic planners in our city were either crazy, or deliberately making traffic as bad as they could following typical sporting events.  It was almost as if they were making traffic worse—far worse than had there been no helpful, friendly Seattle police officers supervising traffic flow after games.

How do I know this? 

Because after waiting an hour in toxic fumes that could melt steel, I finally managed to escape the confines of the concrete garage, but was immediately ushered to the east side of Safeco Field where all vehicles did not move.  Nor could they move, because helpful, friendly Seattle police traffic officers were routing all 45,000 vehicles into the same one-lane alley south of the stadium. 

Ironic, because I sort of wanted to go north, and catch the freeway on-ramp that would take me north, that I could see…ever so close.

But the friendly, helpful police traffic officers were having none of that!  Nope, they insisted all traffic go south, right into a big gridlocked mess where nobody could move out of because other helpful police traffic officers were routing everyone where they should not be.   

So there we sat.  For a very long time.  Nobody moving and everybody getting extremely agitated.

Finally, the two-hour mark after the game hit, and like magic all the police officers hopped on their little parked motorcycles and sped away into the night, suddenly leaving all the gridlocked intersections unregulated. 

And once they did, within five minutes the traffic had completely cleared out. 

No more helpful traffic cops equaled no more gridlock.  Who would have thought?

At that point many of us, as we drove home, asked the important and profound question most citizens in Washington State have asked after sporting events: 

“Hey, if traffic is better without the friendly, helpful police regulation following games, perhaps the city is wasting its money by having each and every intersection littered with these fine, uniformed folks?”

Maybe a prudent plan would be to not spend the money for all these lovely traffic heroes, and instead let things be like they are during the rest of the week? 

Why not let traffic do what traffic does, without the “help”?

Once, several years ago, following another game in which this exact same thing happened, I emailed the beloved traffic commission chairperson and suggested this wonderful and intellectual idea. 

And just like the friendly, helpful police traffic officers at every corner last night, he eventually emailed me back with suggestions of various physical activities that I could do to myself. 

He also mentioned that people as stupid as me don’t realize that this was actually a huge traffic improvement.  “You idiot!”

See this is because the Seattle Police Department, in co-operation with the City of Seattle and various inept mayors, has carefully crafted a set of hiring guidelines for every single traffic planner.  Here’s how it goes:

Clause No. 1

If the applicant shows college education or traffic planning experience, that person will immediately be disqualified for employment consideration by the PGSTPC (Postgame Seattle Traffic Planning Commission).

Clause No. 2

If said applicant shows any natural talent for common-sense thinking, that person too, will immediately be disqualified for employment consideration by the PGSTPC.

Clause No. 3

Preferred applicants will normally be found in chimpanzee cages at the Woodland Park Zoo, or found sleeping under bridges in frigid temperatures.

Clause No. 4

Habitual inebriation for each traffic planner is a plus.  In fact, if said applicant arrives at job interview immediately after consuming a fifth of Jack Daniels straight up, that applicant will vault to the top of the stack and may be immediately hired and assigned to supervise all traffic planning for the day, before sobering up.

Contrary to what you might think, the goal of the PGSTPC is not to clear traffic out.  Nope.  The goal is to keep traffic confined in unmoving gridlock for as long as possible. 

Speculation persists that the local business community is behind this reasoning, insisting that the longer you stay in their neighborhood, the more crap you may buy.  Oh sure, most of those businesses are closed by the time the Mariners games are over, but…well, please see Clauses No. 1 through No. 4 if you are confused about this policy.

Also, within the traffic code is the north/south directional concept.  If said vehicle prefers to travel north (because your house is north of the stadium), each and every regulated traffic corridor will insist you go south.  For many miles too.  Conversely, if your house is situated to the south, then the very same traffic corridors will route you north in the opposite direction you wish to go, usually into gridlock and parked contraptions that cannot move.

Years and millions of dollars were spent on little, unknown GPS chips that police officers read from your vehicle as you approach, like they do for the toll bridges.  Particular effort is put into stringent requirements insisting the direction of your vehicle goes in the opposite direction that it should.   

Why? 

Because it’s fun for intoxicated traffic planners to see all the cars not moving for hours after a sporting event.

And don’t bother screaming at localized traffic cops on corners about all of this, because that will merely make them cranky.  They didn’t do the traffic plan, they merely enforce it.  In fact, when frustrated motorists yell at cops, frustrated motorists may soon find themselves charged with heinous crimes and strip-searched in public. 

What frustrated motorists can do, however, is write sarcastic articles like this one when they get home several weeks later, and then send them to every public official they can find. 

That’ll teach those jerks.

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As a college kid I once drove to Southern California with my soccer team buddies. 

We had a very difficult and grueling two-week season-opening training camp to prepare for, so we decided to pack all five of us into my small Toyota Corolla, and we headed down to Santa Cruz to prepare.

Five guys with five soccer balls across the back window as we drove.

Two weeks later, anxious and homesick, we drove all night.  And I’ll never forget that last corner driving north on the I-5 freeway by Boeing field.  When you make that turn and first see the tall buildings of downtown Seattle with the Olympics in the background, the exuberance never fails!  You know you are finally home.

The soothing tones of Dave Niehaus had that same kind of magic. 

When you heard him weaving words together like an artist, transforming an average baseball game into a majestic masterpiece, you knew you were home.   

His voice was like no other, describing baseball for the Seattle Mariners like nobody else can, or ever will again.

He was our friend.  He felt like our father.  Our childhood pal who we stole away with, late at night when our moms thought we were sleeping. 

His was the voice heard while painting a deck, or floating on a boat during a warm summer night on Lake Washington. 

He made the woeful Seattle Mariners more than just a baseball team.  He made them feel like family.

And he was there, each summer, each game.  Always there.

We all knew the news of this past Wednesday was coming. After all, he was 75 years old. But like any beloved family member, none of us were ready for him to be gone and we certainly were not ready when he left.

The most talented and unique personality in Seattle sports history has passed, leaving a hole in the hearts of so many.

There really is nothing else to say that hasn’t already been mentioned.  So rather than try, let’s have Dave himself do what he did for so many years. 

This is not a clip of a famous play.  This is just an average game on an average summer night, recorded during a meaningless extra-inning game almost two decades ago. 

Playing the Chicago White Sox as my then young family rode the ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle, he made average games more than just baseball. 

Dave Neihaus’s brilliance was in how he made the routine special.

Over the past four decades every one of us heard hundreds of games just like this one.  While approaching Seattle in the car, or from far-off corners of the state, Niehaus brought the game to life with enthusiasm and clarity, as if every one was game seven in the World Series.  

Thus the best call ever made by Dave Niehaus, was the one he made every single day during four decades of baseball seasons. 

It will never be the same listening to a Seattle Mariners game now that’s he’s gone!  

(If for any reason the embedded clip fails to show, you can still find the video here.)

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This week, the Seattle Mariners rebuffed fan demands and shunned fan favorite Bobby Valentine in favor of former Cleveland manager Eric Wedge.    

Perhaps it’s not the end of the world, because the last time the fans had a favorite, it was for the bench-riding, manager-in-waiting Joey Cora of the Chicago White Sox. Not exactly a household name known for multiple pennants, and not someone other teams have jumped to hire, Cora is known more for cute pins on his baseball cap than his management prowess. 

In Seattle, most fans feel they know more about hiring baseball managers than the Mariners‘ team management does.  

Long-suffering Seattle fans have been very patient with their sports teams, but that patience seems to be wearing thin if initial reactions to the hiring of Eric Wedge is any indication.  Most were aghast with worry, with some older fans still gnashing their teeth at the bad-luck loss of the beloved and cherished Lou Piniella nearly a decade ago.  Nobody seemed to be in a mood for parades or celebrations.   

Yes, we all giggled at the press conference yesterday, with all the witty comments made by kiss-up pundits.  

Yes, we patted Chuck and Howard on the back and thanked them for saving baseball in Seattle and their wonderful two decades of stellar leadership.  

Yes, we acknowledged the seven years of Cleveland bliss under Eric Wedge.  

Yes, we heard all of the futuristic comments of what winning will be like. 

But nevertheless, fans clearly are not buying the sales pitch like they have in years past.

Now I gotta admit, neither was I, which is very odd because normally I’m such a positive guy budding with optimism.  When a used car salesman tells me “this car was driven by an old lady to church”  in spite of the clearly tampered-with odometer on the dented 1973 Dodge Dart, I celebrate!   

When Bill Clinton said he “did not have sexual relations with that woman” and that he used the cigar for smoking and not for—well, you know—I believed Bubba. 

When George W said the “Mission was Accomplished” and the troops would soon be home soon and the world was saved from unsavory terrorists with WMDs, I believed that too! 

When Obama promised the new health care bill would cover everyone in this country and possibly others for “not a dime more than we’re now spending,” I was so very happy!    

Why? Because I am an optimist. That’s just how I am. I believe what most people tell me.

But with this new managerial change for the Mariners, like most fans, I’m finding myself just a tad bit skeptical.   Perhaps it’s because I’ve heard this so many times before? 

Half a dozen times since Lou, we Seattle fans have been told the same thing: that the losing days of old are gone, that the culture will be changed, that this is the guy who will lead us out of the wilderness and into the promised land of milk and honey and World Series rings.

Yesterday, the mystified Mariner management seemed dumbfounded over public skepticism. “Why would they not trust us, we of incredible baseball wisdom long since demonstrated?” And as radio hosts and newspaper columnists danced on tables and were downright giddy over the Eric Wedge hiring, we fans…not so much. There was a muted suspicion of being conned once again, with most fans saying they would wait to pop the corks until they saw what this guy actually did. No, they were not pronouncing judgment of impending doom, but they weren’t caught up in yesterday’s hoopla either.  

Now why would fans be skeptical?  Well, let’s take a look at the press conferences of the last seven managers hired and you might see a pattern:

On November 16, 2002, the Mariners hired 41-year-old Bob Melvin, saying “We think we’ve got a real gem in Bob, as you’ll all learn when you get to know and respect him. He’s going to bring us a winning team and a championship.” 

The local press speculated that Melvin was more even-tempered than the fiery Piniella. Mariners chairman Howard Lincoln said, “He brings to this position not only baseball expertise but high energy, good judgment, intelligence, leadership and communication skills.” Others noted that since he was a catcher and was so much younger than Lou, he would communicate better with the players.  

Less than two years later they fired him.

On October 20, 2004, the Mariners announced the signing of Mike Hargrove, who had led the Cleveland Indians past the Mariners in the 1995 ALCS. 

Mariner management said, “We went for an impact manager, one who can have immediate success on the field.” Others wrote that Hargrove “is saltier, a more savvy figure than Melvin, more along the lines of Lou Piniella, who will be the gold standard for all subsequent Mariners managers.” Still others penned, “As with Piniella, he sees season-long clubhouse management as his top priority.” 

Turns out Hargrove shared one other trait with Piniella.  He was burned out, tired of managing, and thus drove out of town in a red pickup during an eight-game winning streak on July 1, 2007.

Hargrove was succeeded by 55-year-old John McLaren, who the Mariners were again very optimistic about.   Upon accepting the job, McLaren said, “I am really looking forward to the challenge of taking over this club and continuing to build on what Mike has established here. When I came back I said I wanted to be a part of taking this team to the postseason, and back to what our fans expect and deserve. That’s still the case. My focus, and the focus of every one of my coaches is to help these players achieve what they are capable of, and that’s getting this team back to the postseason.”

McLaren had managed in the Toronto minor league system for eight years prior to working as a major league coach. He made his managerial debut with Medicine Hat in the Pioneer League in 1978. He guided Kinston to the first half title in 1981 and managed Southern League Championship clubs in 1984 and 1985. He was named Co-Manager of the Year in the Southern League in 1985. 

But on June 19, 2008, he too was fired by the Seattle Mariners, replaced by Jim Riggleman. 

What did the Mariners say about Riggleman when he got the job? “Jim’s going to bring what we think is a different style than Mac had.  Just the depth and breadth of his experience and how he presents himself.  We’re happy to have Jim!” Others in the community wrote, “He’s a pretty standard-issue manager. It’ll be a huge improvement in terms of consistent lineups and bullpen usage.”  

But apparently experienced standard-issue managers were also not what the Mariners wanted, and he too was fired at the end of the same season, replaced by then 45-year-old and relative unknown Don Wakamatsu.

Wak had no major league experience as a manager.   He had spent five years as a bench coach and third-base coach in Texas, then one year as bench coach for the A’s before Seattle called.  He had never managed above Double-A prior to the Mariners hiring him.  In fact, none of the six candidates interviewed by the Mariners had big league experience as managers.

Nevertheless, pundits exclaimed how Wakamatsu was the first Asian-American manager in major league history, and how he was the first significant hire in the new era of new general manager Jack Zduriencik. The New York Times wrote a special article celebrating how his family had overcome unjust internment during World War II and noted his heritage.

Wakamatsu himself said, “I welcome the challenge here to bring a world championship to Seattle and the fans of the Mariners” and added that “communication and leadership will be key and this will carry over to the team.”

Observers, mostly quite pleased with the hire, noted that the Mariners had a league-worst offense in 2008 and that Wak “had a daunting task to reverse the culture and performance of a team that last season became the first to lose 100 games with a $100 million payroll.” 

In his first year as Mariners manager, the team put up 85 victories, of which a MLB season-high 35 were one-run triumphs, as well as 13 walk-off wins.   Everyone was optimistic and giddy. 

During the spring of this past year, general manager Jack Zduriencik gushed about his own confidence in the Mariners’ clubhouse culture.  “Don Wakamatsu lets players be themselves, and the veteran Ken Griffey Jr. keeps teammates loose with biting humor and nearly nonstop commentary on everything that crosses his line of vision.”

Don Wakamatsu was fired this past August 9th because of the clubhouse culture.  This month team philosophy apparently reversed once again, and now is focused only on experienced managers with a depth of big league experience, according to the same yet unhired Joey Cora.   The Seattle Mariners have settled on Eric Wedge in spite of wailing from the fans yearning for the four decades of experience offered by Bobby Valentine.

Yesterday at the press conference, questions were fired off by hundreds by writers and TV personalities, all skippy and happy (or at least putting on a good act). Optimism was flowing. We the fans are told we should jump for joy over this wonderful new hire for the Seattle Mariners. Things will change. You’ll see. This time it will be different!

Yes, and perhaps that flat-white, dented Dodge Dart did actually only have 10,000 miles on it.

But with a league-worst offense and a spotty pitching staff, surrounded by bad-attitude underperforming free agents with multi-year contracts, this team again looks to be in trouble, and no manager is going to change that without serious help from the front office.   Like years past, and it probably wasn’t a manager issue in the first place.  

Perhaps the team is cursed by a field built over an ancient burial site? 

Whatever the problem is with baseball in this city, I wouldn’t bet your house on the Seattle Mariners going to the World Series with Eric Wedge at the helm.  And I’m sorry if that sounds negative and pessimistic, but we’ve been down this road six times since Lou.

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Yesterday the Seattle Mariner front office garnered similar fan enthusiasm for their latest choice to manage the team, as one might find at an exciting university lecture on Wave Particle Duality and how that relates to quantum physics.

Lots of snoring, cat-calling, muttering, outright grumbling amidst the masses, scattered with skeptical “who the crap is that??!?

That’s right Seattle sports fans!  Your stellar ownership group has once again opted to rebuff your wants for proven winner Bobby Valentine and his four decades of baseball success, in favor of Cleveland’s cast-off manager and far more dubious Eric Wedge.

Yet another in a series of brilliant public relation moves by your pals Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln!

You would think at this point, given the track record of the past three years, that if Seattle fans wanted Snookie Polizzi and her Jersey Shore cast collegues to manage the team, Mariner management would have obliged!  Given that this ownership team has brought us four managers and two 101 loss seasons during the past three seasons.

Seven managers since Lou Pinella quit abruptly,  with some pundits suggesting this ownership team is difficult to work with and a tad arrogant. From the fan’s perspective, that suggests any one of us could write random names on a tree stump, cast darts at it, and likely come up with a manager who might deliver more wins than what we’ve just seen.

So the “Wedgie” choice is not likely to motivate fan excitement nor higher ticket sales and camping overnight for best seats.  Not until management demonstrates that they know more about these decisions than your average garbage man or beer delivery person.

Seattle fans wanted a man like Bobby Valentine, with a strong personality and a willingness to fight for what he needed.  Fans specifically made clear that they were tired of “yes men” managing the team.  And the larger question is how many more wins will Eric Wedge deliver over what Bobby Valentine would have?  Few believe there would be more wins under Wedge, so why not give the fans what they wanted?

Today, after the announcement, fans were apathetic and irate, assuming more of the same.

How do I know this?

Well, other than the scathing fan remarks from talk shows and comment sections in local newspapers,  Thursday I did my own poll research using roughly the same scientific methods that those polling the Patty Murray/Dino Rossi senatorial race are using.

We just put a question up and let anyone who wanted to, respond, happy to accept multiple votes from the same party.

And with this scientific method, my research indicates that roughly 92.4 percent of Seattle fans insisted on Bobby Valentine managing this team. Over all the other choices. Numbers that Saddam Hussein would be jealous of.

Now the Mariners, being the Mariners, of course did not listen to the fans. They felt it wiser to go with the mostly unknown former Cleveland Indians manager.  And perhaps this is indeed the better choice from a baseball perspective, but Seattle fans are very skeptical.

And this in spite of well-known sports talk hosts and newspaper columnists in Seattle, using the better part of the past few days trying to convince us that this was indeed the best choice available.

Similar arguments, ironically, to those presented at the hiring’s of Del Crandel, Chuck Cottier, Bill Plummer, and Jim Rigglemen.  

Predictably they’re having about as much luck convincing us as McCain & Palin did with the wisdom of the Bush economic policies in 2008.  So pardon me if my enthusiasm wanes, but I, like most Seattle baseball fans, am wondering why the Seattle Mariners fired Don Wakamatsu three months ago if a manager with the same skill set is what this team allegedly needs?

The Mariners claim they want a leader who works well with young players. Exactly the skills former-manager Don Wakamatsu was gifted at.

Interim manager Darren Brown had no better luck managing this team with it’s impotent offense, than Wak did.

Clearly it was never a manager issue.   It was a player decision and talent issue.

So the challenge for those running the Seattle Mariners this offseason will be in convincing skeptical and likely former-season ticket holders, why they should feel any more optimistic over the 2011 version of the Seattle Mariners than what we just saw with the 2010 version.

And at this point, many of us remain unconvinced that these latest moves made any difference whatsoever!

If anything, there is more egg on the faces of those running the organization and less fan confidence.

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“Six-and-a-half games back and not playing very well in a season we thought we ought to be in contention.  I think we were losing ground with the field,” Ranger managing general partner George W. Bush said in June of 1992 upon firing his manager.

The manager?  None other than Bobby Valentine, a baseball man with nearly four decades of baseball experience sorely needed in the dullard Seattle Mariner organization, made famous for its uncanny ability to create 100-loss seasons regardless of the payroll or who is running it.  Valentine has the personality horsepower needed to confront a dogmatic front office that Mariner fans are ready to run out of town amidst a mob of ropes and flaming torches.

The Texas Rangers were 46-41 at the time of the firing, and were in third place in the division, 5.5 behind first-place Minnesota in the days of dual divisions in each league.   Valentine then in his 25th baseball season at the age of 41, his eighth with the Rangers,  he had been the third-longest tenured manager in the major leagues behind only baseball icons Tommy Lasorda of the Dodgers and Sparky Anderson of the Detroit Tigers.  Bobby Valentine had been the youngest manager in the major leagues when offered the job on May 16, 1985.  A former Dodger, he had long been a favorite of Lasorda and once was thought to be his heir apparent as manager of the Dodgers.  

Almost a decade later on a different team, Valentine was again fired, but this time following a tumultuous and controversial summer of 2002 in New York.  The Mets finished with a 75-86 record in spite of their $102 million payroll, in last place in the NL East for the first time since 1993 and below .500 for the first time in six years.  It had been a mere two years after Valentine had led them to the first Subway Series in four decades.

Many felt Valentine had taken the fall for then knucklehead general-manager Steve Phillips.  Valentine left with an overall record of 536-467, reaching the playoffs in 1999 and 2000.  But in late-season 2002 came one of the worst months in team history with a 12-game losing streak where the Mets didn’t win a game at Shea Stadium in August, during a NL-record 15-game home losing streak.

Earlier that summer Mets part owner Fred Wilpon issued several dreaded “votes of confidence,” but by mid September was fed up with underperforming players, seven of whom Newsweek magazine had claimed were caught smoking marijuana and goofing off.  “The team just did not respond to the manager,” Wilpon explained at a packed news conference after the fact.  “Whatever grip Bobby had on the team was gone by the end of the season.”

Sports pundits ripped the move.  Ian O’Conner of USA Today wrote a scathing column insisting the Mets had fired the wrong guy, and that the Mets “should’ve fired his loser of a general manager, Steve Phillips.”  Phillips had embarrassed Valentine by refusing to allow him to attend the winter meetings and embarrassed the franchise with rumors of an extramarital affair with a subordinate.”

Valentine himself said, “I told Fred that that he had to give the next manager authority in the clubhouse and on the field, that he had to get Steve off the field and out of the clubhouse.  You can’t let a GM high-five guys and joke around after a win and then after a loss act like it’s the end of the world. Get him out of there for the sake of the next guy.”

Sobering words for Mariner fans, given that current Mariners manager Jack Zduriencik spent a large part of July and August this past summer hobnobbing in the dugout with Mariner icons while “evaluating” soon-to-be fired manager Don Wakamatsu, claiming that Wak too had “lost control of the team.”   

Mariner fans responded in ways not seen before.  Fed up with a perceived meddling by an incompetent front office, radio talk shows and newspaper comments were bombarded with scathing rebukes of long-time Mariner management figures Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln.  Fans weren’t buying management’s latest line about “needing change, ” considering the next hire will be the team’s seventh manager since Lou Pinella left in 2002.

If this franchise was a horse, it would have been shot two decades ago.

The Seattle Mariners are in dire need of a manager like the only successful manager in team history: Lou Pinella.  Unlike his predecessors, Pinella routinely had shouting matches with owners who felt they knew baseball better than he did.  Pinella had no problem getting in the face of decision-makers and publicly scolding them for failed or non-existent moves.  Valentine is a guy who shares this trait.

Whatever the real story in the clubhouse as Mets manager, off the field Valentine had been a force for compassion following the unsettling attacks at 9/11.  People close to the manager felt his unyielding commitment to the families of victims put things in perspective for Valentine, and perhaps made sports far less important.  Gone was the focus, some claimed, which led to apathy towards superstar tantrums during his last season in New York.

He has held various jobs in baseball other than his managing stints.  Following his departure from Texas, early in January 1993 Valentine was hired by the Cincinnati Reds to be an advance scout that included consulting player personnel and watching talent on other teams during spring training. 

Also spending part of the last decade in Japan managing the Chiba Lotte Marines, Valentine was soon headed back to the United States for reasons other than on-the-field success.  Making somewhere around $3.9 million a year, he priced himself out of the market and was told by Marines management that the club would not be able to afford him after the 2009 season, regardless of how many games his team wins.  Thus he returned to commentating on ESPN this past season.

Valentine’s players may have been chided for misbehaving, but he too has been known to be part of on-field mishaps and mayhem.  In December of 1998 he admitted he made a “bad guess” when he speculated why Todd Hundley blamed him for being replaced by Mike Piazza.  Hundley felt Valentine had it in for him, but Valentine blew it off saying, “It’s an Italian thing.  He thinks that I would do something because he’s not Italian or because I am Italian.  I think that’s ridiculous.”

And then who can forget the infamous if not somewhat humorous two-game ban and $5,000 fine in June of 1999?  While Met manager, Valentine returned to the dugout during a game versus Toronto donning a fake mustache and glasses after being ejected from a game against the Blue Jays.

He might need that humor if hired in Seattle, since this is only one of three organizations that have never played in a World Series.  But clearly Valentine would hold the most baseball experience of anyone in the organization.  On a team in Seattle with cranky fans still living in memories of the past, hiring Bobby Valentine should be a no-brainer.

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