I wonder how you demonstrate your qualifications as a baseball expert. And if they'd let me go off on umpires in the way I see fit. I suppose not, as I just saw the adhering to guidelines about content portion of the contest. Unattractive in the extreme.

But really, this is somewhat insane. Condensed games must be permitted, and lots of them.

I think they should add that you will live with Brooklyn Decker in the NYC location if they really want to get apps up.

Who are BTF candidates for this? Mahnken? Lassus?

*raises hand*

What if you have to go to the bathroom?

/ramonaquimby

I'm a baseball fan, but that sure ain't my dream job. Sounds more like a nightmare.

It would be hard to say who among us would be a good candidate for this job. Who would be good in front of a camera?

Will they provide the greenies, or will I have to bring my own?

I don't see anything about hosing out the Presidential Sausage costumes after an 11-day homestand in Washington D.C. in July. This is not my dream job.

hosing out the Presidential Sausage

That's what she said! (/rimshot)


(crickets)

I'm really tempted to apply, but I don't think my employer would give me seven months off.

Geez, the guidelines look like an attempt to find some borderline stalker/assassin. What kind of life does one have to have in order to meet the requirements of this job? Single, low-paying dead end job, no real social connections, doesn't mine staying in doors all day and year long, loves to write, and oh yeah, keeps a cheery outlook!

All the verbiage about being a "baseball expert" aside, why do I get the sneaking suspicion that the winning candidate will somehow wind up on Dancing With the Stars or American Idol?

I think it's actually going to be a takeoff on this Japanese show that locked a guy in a small apartment and basically tortured him for over a year for the amusement of television viewers.

I'm imagining a chair facing thirteen television monitors, showing all the baseball games at once, and then the "winner" only gets to eat if he can correctly answer questions about what happened.

Who are BTF candidates for this? Mahnken? Lassus?

I'm not a candidate for this. I'm already an MLB.com employee.

The application says "Strong organizational skills with the ability to give attention to multiple things at the same time," so they're definitely going to just make someone watch all the games at the same time.

Man, where was this when I was holed up in Maine for 2 years? I'd have happily given up one of those years to live rent-free in NYC and do nothing but watch baseball all day.

Of course, those were the Dusty years, so my comments might not have always been family-friendly.

In early 2001 I was laid off and given a very generous severance package. At that time I could definitely have done this. Hell, I even moved down towards NYC (Stamford, CT in that case) so it wouldn't have made a big difference.

The highlight of it would have been watching the Red Sox fan that I am devolve from crazy optimism of a Pedro/Manny/Nomar led World Series contender and a Hideo Nomo no-hitter on day two collapse to an 82-80 mess with the whole Joe Kerrigan thing and Carl Everett and has beens like Mike Lansing and Dante Bichette crying that they weren't playing regularly. I imagine that particular blog would have been a fascinating insight to my soul.

I like that you must verify that you are of age to drink alcohol. Because you will clearly need to be drunk for those mid august homestands against the Pirates.

This would be way more interesting if they came to your home and set up one of your rooms as a mega-baseball-watching-control-center. That way the weirdness of your wife and kids walking in to harrass you while YOU'RE JUST TRYING TO WORK!/RELAX AND WATCH THE GAME! can really be captured.

The application says "Strong organizational skills with the ability to give attention to multiple things at the same time," so they're definitely going to just make someone watch all the games at the same time.

Well, you'd have to. Just using some rough math here, the regular season runs April-September (180 days, let's say), average game time of 3 hours (close enough, I think it's usually been somewhere between 2:50-3:00 the last decade), 2430 games in the regular season equals 7290 hours, equals 40.5 hours of baseball per day.

I think it's actually going to be a takeoff on this Japanese show that locked a guy in a small apartment and basically tortured him for over a year for the amusement of television viewers.

Incredibly, it's been done:

Denpa Sh?nen teki Pennant Race (????????????) "The Denpa Shonen Pennant Race". This segment tested the loyalties of diehard fans of the Central League teams - the Yomiuri Giants, the Hanshin Tigers, and the Chunichi Dragons. The contestants would be confined to a single room with a TV that only showed their team's baseball games. Their faces would also be hidden from public view. If their team won, they got to eat dinner and a small portion of their face would be revealed to the audience. If their team lost, they would get no food and the lights would turn out, leaving them in darkness until the next day's game. If the contestant's favorite team went on a win streak, the quality of the food they could eat would increase as well as gain public exposure and popularity due to their entire face being shown on TV until their team finally lost. A losing streak would mean that a contestant could go days in the dark without food. At the end of the season, the contestant would win an overall prize depending on how their team placed.

A losing streak would mean that a contestant could go days in the dark without food.

Daaaaaaaang.