Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Monday, March 30, 2009

To really screw up it takes a . . . .


Death. Taxes. Bud Selig putting a committee together to solve a sticky problem he doesn't want to deal with:

After meeting with ownership and management of the Oakland Athletics in Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday, Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig announced today that he has appointed a committee to thoroughly analyze all of the ballpark proposals that have been made to date, the current situation in Oakland, and the prospects for obtaining a ballpark in any of the communities located in Oakland's territory . . .

. . . The committee will be chaired by Bob Starkey, a stadium expert and financial consultant for Major League Baseball. It also will consist of Corey Busch, a former baseball executive, and Irwin Raij, a lawyer with Foley and Lardner who worked extensively on both the Washington and Miami ballpark proposals. They will work with MLB President & Chief Operating Officer Bob DuPuy and will provide a written report to the Commissioner at the conclusion of their analysis.

Of course limiting of the analysis to the "communities located in Oakland's territory," by definition leaves out San Jose which, while not really having a plan either, has at least some rumblings of one and an argument for viability. Otherwise there's nothing. If Bud's track record means anything, it means that this committee will come up with a report that forecasts the doom of the Athletics franchise, most likely alluding to their potential contraction if a stadium isn't built. More importnatly, the report will serve as a bludgeon for any pro-ballpark group to weild as they make their case to give Lew Wolff a new home. "It's not Wolff asking for a handout," they'll say. "This is about the very viability of the A's! It's right here in this independent report!" This is what he did with the famous "Blue Ribbon Panel on Baseball Economics"

Which is well and good. It's Bud's league and he can appoint whatever commission he wants to appoint. Everyone should remember, however, that the product of this committee will not be some objective, scientific report. It will be an advocacy document, and it should be treated like one.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:37pm (5) Comments

He is Legend


If you saw a headline that read "Cubs legend visits devoted fan," who would you think the article referred to? Ernie Banks would be my first guess, though if I were in a good mood I'd probably accept Ron Santo, Billy Williams, or Ryne Sandberg. Heck, if it was a local Chicago paper and the "devoted fan" were a sick kid or something, I'd also grant you Mark Grace, Sammy Sosa or someone like that. Legends? Other than Banks not really, but we'll let it pass if it's for a good cause.

But no matter how good the cause is, Milt Pappas doesn't seem to qualify:

Gewerth, now a 91-year-old patient at Manor Care in Palos Heights, had a dream fulfilled yesterday when he met and talked baseball with former Cubs pitcher and Beecher resident Milt Pappas as part of the nursing home's Hearts Desire program, which grants wishes to dying residents.

"When I told John that Milt Pappas was coming, his eyes just lit up," said Chris Raciti, an assistant administrator at Manor Care who worked with Gewerth's hospice nurse, Barb Briarton, to bring the ballplayer to the nursing home. "He had a big smile on his face. He was speechless. He didn't know what to say."

Kudos to Pappas for making a dying baseball fan's day and everything, but man, I can't help but think that someone at the Southtown Star needs to recalibrate their adjective use.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:32pm (9) Comments

MSM writers to put bloggers out of business


AOL's FanHouse started out as Jamie Mottram's fresh-air response to MSM blather. Since its relaunch back in January, however, there is a lot more MSM there than there used to be:

FanHouse.com, the recently-launched sports site from AOL’s MediaGlow publishing unit, announced six major additions to its growing roster of professional journalists. Joining FanHouse’s writing staff are Greg Couch, sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times; Matt Steinmetz, Golden State Warriors analyst for Comcast Sports Net and former Contra Costa Times NBA writer; Dan Graziano, former national baseball writer for the Newark Star-Ledger; Ed Price, former baseball and Yankees writer for the Newark Star-Ledger; and Jeff Fletcher, former baseball writer for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Also joining the FanHouse editorial team is Sunny Wu, former senior editor at MSNBC.com and Page 1 editor for ESPN.com . . .

. . . FanHouse.com launched in January as AOL and MediaGlow’s main sports destination and added nationally acclaimed columnists Jay Mariotti, Lisa Olson and Kevin Blackistone to provide daily commentary and analysis across the spectrum of sports. With today’s additions, FanHouse’s writing staff now includes five Baseball Hall of Fame voters.

I'm not saying that this means that blather won out -- outside of Mariotti, this is a fairly unobjectionable group of writers -- but the enterprise is certainly a very different one now than it set out to be only a couple of years ago.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:42am (7) Comments

Something to watch for


Following up on deMause's note about empty seats in Shea, Bob Raissman wonders how a less-than-capacity crowd at Yankee Stadium is going to look to the viewers at home:

Ticket talk triggered a memory from long ago - Sept. 22, 1966. The Yankees would finish in 10th place that season and on that day, 413 fans squeezed their way into Yankee Stadium, which at the time had a seating capacity of 65,000. The legendary Red Barber was at the WPIX-TV microphone. He instructed the director of the telecast to have PIX's cameras pan the empty Stadium. "I don't know what the paid attendance is today, but whatever it is, it is the smallest crowd in the history of Yankee Stadium," Barber reported. "And this crowd is the story, not the game."

Shortly after the '66 season ended, Barber was fired by the astute suits from CBS who owned the team and were in the process of driving it into the ground.

All this is not to suggest games in the new Yankee Stadium will ever be that sparsely attended, but it certainly looks like some locations "downstairs" may not be totally occupied.

What would patches of emptiness mean in terms of how the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network covers the games? Would the Bombers' inability to sell out their new palace be bad for the organization's image and brand?

Personally, I hope that YES tries to go all Pravda with this should it come to pass. We're in an age now where that kind of propaganda is impossible to pull off and YES messing with the images or the Yankees messing with the official attendance figures would provide a fabulous opportunity for the elevnty-jillion Yankees' bloggers out there to make them look silly. If there are shenanigans, we'll know about as soon as it happens.

All of this presupposes, of course, that the Yankees will have trouble filling the house. And while there are signs out there that such is the case, I can't help but think that the tickets will ultimately be sold and used. Now, whether they're sold at the prices for which the Yankees have been offering them is another thing altogether, but I don't foresee tons of empty seats in the joint.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:08am (3) Comments

Centerfield


DiMaggio. Mantle. Murcer. Henderson. Williams. Damon. Gardner:

“We’re going to start with Gardy in center,” Girardi said. “Both of them played great. Melky had a tough year last year, but he came into camp and was ready to go and played well. Gardy finished up strong and had a great camp.”

Gardner and Cabrera have had equal chances in spring training, with one at-bat separating them. Gardner is 20 for 52 (.385) and Cabrera is 18 for 53 (.340). Each has scored 10 runs and walked six times.

I see no basis for concluding that Brett Gardner is going to be able to replicate or even come close to this spring training numbers over the course of a full season. Not that Melky would either. What will the Yankees do when they realize that they're getting nothin' from these guys? I know it may not be ideal, but I can't help but think we're going to see a lot of Nick Swisher in center this year.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:00am (11) Comments

The Spring Training Scam


Every year, lawmakers, chambers of commerce and municipalities in Florida and Arizona go on about just how much of an economic impact spring training has on local economies. On the basis of that impact, they argue for the use of public dollars to construct or improve spring training facilities, and towns practically go to war with one another to lure or secure teams. The basis for this are numbers provided by The Cactus League Association and The Florida Sports Foundation, which claim that spring training brings economic benefits to local economies of $310 million and $450 million, respectively. National Review's Charles Fountain notes, however, that these are dubious claims:

But are these numbers real?

“Politicians are making these claims, not economists,” said Phillip Porter, a professor of economics at the University of South Florida and the most oft-quoted critic of the economic-impact claims surrounding spring training. “There’s a group of sports economists, people who teach at universities and do very, very legitimate, frontline, historical, archival research in sports economics — people with no irons in the fire — and among that group of economists you’ll find uniform agreement that spring training and the presence of sports teams in a community have very little impact on jobs, on employment, on income and earning, and very little on spending.”

It's nice to have numbers to work with. Numbers are useless, however, when those who provide them have stacked the deck in their favor.

(thanks to Pete Toms for the link)
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:30am (8) Comments

Panic in Queens


Neil deMause is pretty much awesome. His Field of Schemes book and blog have served as one of the primary inspirations for my criticism of public subsidies for professional sports, and rarely a day goes by when he doesn't have something worth thinking about. Among the most interesting things from the past few days: based on the spam the Mets ticket office is sending out, there's a decent chance that there will be empty seats in Citi Field on opening day.

My guess: if there's even a remote chance of that, vans will be standing by to deliver free tickets to elementary and middle schools all over Queens, ensuring that the people will fill the place on opening day, even if the seats don't generate any income. After opening day? All bets are off.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:00am (5) Comments

Today at THT


Things to read as you realize that, in optimizing and synchronizing the iPod, your wife has somehow managed to delete 11 Bob Dylan albums yet somehow kept "Street Legal" on there:

  • As you know, THT lost one of our own in John Brattain last week. Over the past few days the THT authors have been reflecting and then writing down their thoughts about John. The results are here.


  • Victor Wang has part 3 of his farm system rankings. This is kind of opposite of how the bar exam results work. Here, if you don't see your favorite team, it's a good thing.


  • Every year THT releases its own player projections. No, I don't participate in that, so you can be assured that they're reliable. Well, mostly reliable, as David Gassko, in a pique of troubling intellectual honesty, lists 29 players whose projections he believes we got wrong.


  • Finally, Steve Treder has five questions for the San Francisco Giants. Question number six: Will Brian Sabean cut off that mullet after the season is over? Because really, if you're going to be out there in the job market like he should be come this fall, neatness matters.


    • Don't get me wrong: "The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar" is a fine damn song. I'm just saying that it's cold comfort when you realize that you're going to have to re-rip "Bringing it All Back Home" and everything else this evening.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:47am (7) Comments