Mehring Monday: The Bureau

By Chris Mehring

October 28, 2013

Mehring Monday is a bit late this morning because I was out doing something I love to do. I was laughing at every fan of the St. Louis Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings I know.

That's not true. As enjoyable as giving grief to those fanbases is, I was actually over in Manitowoc to give a talk to a sports marketing class at the UW-Manitowoc. That talk is part of our Timber Rattlers Speaker's Bureau.

We have the Speaker's Bureau for two reasons. The first is so that I have an opportunity to spell out Bureau a couple of times each month. (Aside: Sound out the word Bureau then, try to spell it without use of Spell Check. It's impossible unless you have some kind of muscle memory).

The second is to get out the word about Timber Rattlers baseball during the offseason.

I have spoken to Accounting Groups, the Appleton Historical Society, Kiwanis, Lions, and Optimist Clubs. I have talked with high school, junior college, and university students.

The topics range anywhere from the history of baseball in Appleton to the business of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers to the evolution of the Timber Rattlers in 1995 into the year-round juggernaut that it is today to what it is like to travel nine hours on a bus for travel. It's kind of a free-flowing discussion, but it's usually pretty fun and there's always time left for questions at the end of the presentation.

Just so you know, I usually stay away from the funny anecdotes to start presentations. This is due to the one that I have for the Timber Rattlers normally isn't a good one to talk about after a meal and the one that is my favorite is the Harmonica Story from the 1964 Yankees season. But, no one knows who most of those guys in that story happen to be.

If you are interested in having me - or someone else from the Timber Rattlers organization - come out to talk to your group, just contact the office at 800-WI-TIMBER or (920) 733-4152. You can also email me here: [email protected]. If I don't respond right away, you may want to call. We have a pretty good spam filter.