Geoffrey Bilau

Dad • Coach • Writer • Photographer • Graphic Designer • Karaoke Enthusiast

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@VinRBI Yeah, nope.

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@Jsalllll @TheJacobTurner This post is about the parent, not the child.

[Jacob Turner @TheJacobTurner]

A PARENT’S JOURNEY THROUGH YOUTH SPORTS:

Age 5: “He’s got a cannon.”
Age 6: “He’s the fastest kid out there. Coach said so.”
Age 7: “Rec ball isn’t challenging him anymore.”
Age 8: “We tried out for select. Obviously made it.”
Age 9: “$2,800 for the season. Plus uniforms. Plus tournaments. Plus hotels.”
Age 10: “Cooperstown is basically a family vacation, right?”
Age 11: “He needs a hitting guy. And a pitching guy. And probably a mental performance coach.”
Age 12: “I’m not a crazy sports parent. The OTHER parents are crazy.”
Age 13: “We changed schools. For academics. (And also baseball.)”
Age 14: “Showcases are a requirement at this age.”
Age 15: “Ya his ranking just ticked up. We’re cooking.”
Age 16: “He just needs to get seen by the right school.”
Age 17: “The D1 schools want him to walk on. He’ll earn a spot by sophomore year.”
Age 18: “Okay, D2 is actually really competitive.”
Age 19: “He’s redshirting. Strategic.”
Age 20: “He’s focusing on school now.”
Age 21: “You know what? He’s so much happier.”

Roughly 7% of high schoolers play in college.

About 1.5% of those get drafted.

Less than half of draftees ever play one day in the big leagues.

The odds of our kids going pro are somewhere between “struck by lightning” and “find a $100 in old shorts.”

I love youth sports (all my kids play a bunch of them) just keep a good perspective my friends. ✌️

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@BiffSlodge @nytimes "had accused" "had found"

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@WesPothington Take Lee Thomas

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@WesPothington I need to double check if I have that Fregosi, but I'll take it if I don't. I'll check tonight.

[The Angels Suck @HalosAnonymous]

To Arte Moreno, Perry Minasian, and the Angels Front Office,

As a season ticket holder for years, having gone to Game 6 of the World Series in 2002 with my Dad, having lived through the winning years in the early 2000’s — going to 40+ games a season growing up, watching them win, watching them fight, creating countless memories of WINS..

Only to now be in my 12th consecutive year of losing is so embarrassing. I’m raising my two young sons and all I desperately want is for them to know what WINNING feels like. To come from victory.

We live two miles away from the stadium now (have been for four years) — I’m living my CHILDHOOD DREAM!! I drive down the street and see the Big A. I go to the grocery store and see people wearing Angels’ gear. I walk into my sons’ room and see Angels memorabilia on the walls, bobble heads, their closets with Angels t-shirts. Rally Monkeys as their teddy bears.. but it feels empty and purposeless.

I’ve now pivoted our perspective of Angels fandom to lessons for my kids of what it means to unconditionally love someone or something to where: YOU DON’T GIVE UP ON SOMETHING YOU LOVE!! But I REFUSE to subject them to lessons that some parents teach — that lesson of “Not everything is about winning. As long as you try your best! That’s all that matters!” NO. Bullshit. Life isn’t easy, and you’re going to need to work AS HARD AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN TO WIN! “There’s two types of people in the world: WINNERS & LOSERS. We are WINNERS.”

With the Angels, all they know is losing.. disappointment.. frustration. They are going to games and hoping the Angels win, only to LOSE. My 5-year old was visibly saddened after another loss at the stadium. And I have to offer him a hot dog, or ignore my own disappointment in order to make it easier..

Thank GOD the Ducks are making a run in the playoffs this year. I had never been to a hockey game before — but my son asked me if we could go to a Ducks game after passing by the Honda center in late April asking “where are all of those people going?”

“They’re going to see the Ducks”

“Can we go see the Ducks?”

The next week we went and saw the Ducks clinch the first round of the playoffs. It brought me to tears — seeing a team that I had never previously been invested in win a playoff series, while my Son who had also never seen a ducks game, jump up and down in excitement. It brought back memories and feelings of what it was like to feel VICTORY with my Dad as a young kid growing up. He told me he wants to learn how to ice skate.. and Now next to his Rally Monkey is a little “Wild Wing”.

Not yet giving up on the Angels.. but this team is broken. Doesn’t want to win. And it starts with you, the owner, Arte Moreno, and the entire Front Office. You don’t seem to care about this team. And you don’t know the impact of what you’re doing..

You are killing an entire generation of Angels Baseball.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope this message is received in the spirit it was written: from someone who cares deeply about this team and wants to see the Angels become the organization the fans deserve.

Sincerely,
The Angels Suck - @HalosAnonymous

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@BeyondTheHalo @JeffFletcherOCR They're likely paying Trent Rush less and he's working far more hours for the organization.

[The Angels Suck @HalosAnonymous]

Arte Moreno’s legacy:

– A decade-plus of meaningless baseball, 12 straight losing seasons
– Turned Mike Trout’s career into baseball’s biggest “what if”
– Managed to lose Shohei Ohtani after years of empty “all-in” moves
– Lit hundreds of millions on fire with the Rendon, Pujols, Hamilton, and Wells disasters
– Made Angel Stadium the final stop for washed contracts
– Consistently ranked at the bottom in player development
– Took 20 pitchers in one draft and somehow built nothing out of it
– Built an organization whose negligence during the Tyler Skaggs era will forever define his ownership
– Dropped the Kurt Suzuki announcement THE SAME DAY Trout testified in the Skaggs case to bury attention
– Played a central role in the Anaheim stadium mess that ended with Mayor Harry Sidhu in prison
– Let the stadium become infamous for filthy conditions and rat complaints
– Repeatedly gambled on broken pitchers instead of building actual depth
– Created a franchise permanently stuck between rebuilding and competing
– Teased a sale of the team, then pulled the plug and left fans stuck in ownership purgatory
– Took two once-in-a-generation talents and produced irrelevance
– Prioritized land deals and marketing over sustainable baseball operations
– Haven’t won a playoff game since 2009
– Turned one of baseball’s most promising franchises into a national punchline

#FuckYouArte

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@jackadamss03 @SamBlum3 @DJMurphiK He covers MLB for the Athletic. The Angels play in MLB. No reporter employed by the Athletic has more connections to news about the Angels than Sam. This isn't complicated.

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@jackadamss03 @DJMurphiK @SamBlum3 It wasn't a song and dance. He was reporting that the Athletic is no longer employing him as a beat writer, which ultimately is bad for us Angels fans as there is now only one independently employed writer (Jeff Fletcher) covering the team.

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@jackadamss03 @SamBlum3 Dude just reports what's happening. LOL

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@ewoksduendor @BeyondTheHalo I don’t think a boycott will work because there are far more “customers” than fans. That’s reality. Arte knows it. The only thing that’s going to change anything at this point is Arte selling the team.

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@ewoksduendor @BeyondTheHalo I don’t understand why fans get mad when people point this out. It’s true. Moreno has zero incentive to change what he’s doing because to his mind it’s working. So the Angels will continue to be anywhere from awful to mediocre at best as a result. That sucks.

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@JeffFletcherOCR It definitely didn’t involve an Angels reliever.

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

Fire Perry Minasian. #angels

[Geoffrey Bilau @BilauGeoffrey]

@katierose84 “Borrowing” this for our IG page. 😁

[Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 @joncoopertweets]

This photo should be on the front page of every single newspaper in America today.