BOB:  A costly move for Halladay

Change in Phillies’ venue costs Roy Holliday

Major League Baseball decided to move a June 25-27 Toronto Blue Jays/Philadelphia Phillies series from Toronto to Philadelphia to avoid a conflict with an upcoming G-20 summit. It would have been nice to see Halladay pitch in Toronto again but he and his tax advisers must be burning up because the change in venue is going to cost Halladay around $75,000 on his taxes.

It seems that Halladay has unused foreign tax credits that he would have been able to use if he pitched in Canada. Basically if an American athlete plays for a foreign team, he has to file a tax return in both the United States and the country he plays in. If the tax rate in the foreign country is higher like it is in Canada, they usually end up with a credit for foreign taxes that offsets their U.S. tax but an excess can be built up because their foreign tax exceeds their U.S. taxes.

Marlins open new sales headquarters

In anticipation of their new ballpark, the Florida Marlins are going to open a new sales headquarters on June 15. This is where the team is going to sell their suites and season tickets. The 1,800-square-foot facility has a view of the new ballpark and there’s a replica of the Founders level and the Legends level suites. There’s also a detailed model of the stadium as well as seat samples.

Nationals’ ticket-holders cash in on Strasburg debut

As I’m writing this, Stephen Strasburg has pitched four innings in his major league debut. The hype surrounding the phenom’s first start has been fantastic and this really shows when it comes to Nationals’ ticket sales on the secondary market. BizofBaseball provides the data and the graph in this post and for the past week, Nationals tickets have sold for no more then an average of $60 for any given game. Today’s game has seen that mark go through the roof as tickets to see Strasburg pitch are averaging well over $100.

Diamondbacks future spring training home is named

Late last week the Arizona Diamondbacks announced that their future spring training home in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community is going to be called the Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. The facility is going to have 12 practice fields and the name is derived from the Indian community and Talking Stick is a historical reference to the traditional Pima calendar stick. There’s also a new logo as well as a new website. The hope is that the Diamondbacks will begin to play there beginning in 2011.

Mets win at home, not at the ticket booth

The New York Mets were the first team with 20 home wins this season and while they’re getting it done at home, attendance at Citi Field is down more then 15 percent from last year. In a solid column, Ken Belson spells out why this might be. A lot of it probably has to do with a poor 2009 that cost the Mets some season-ticket sales and he also talks about how every time the Mets have a good home stand, they follow up with some rough play on the road.