A few weeks ago, I ran a guest posting from a loyal reader and well-thought-out commenter on all things money-related, Larry. I’ve since asked Larry to join IIATMS as a (somewhat) regular contributor, lending his professional experiences to the site. Larry’s intro to the IIATMS faithful is below:

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It’s All About The Money (Hopefully Getting Smarter)

An introduction: Jason has asked me to post here on economic and financial issues. I’m an attorney with experience in banking, finance and entertainment, but not sports. I’ll give this my best shot. I also know a bit about doping in sports, and while Jason hasn’t asked me, I’ll also post on doping issues.

It’s my goal to make the IIATMS readership the most educated in baseball when it comes to understanding baseball economics. Why should you care about baseball economics? Because you’re Yankees fans, that’s why. If you’re like me, you get sick of hearing how the Yankees “buy” world championships. We’ll discuss here what the Yankees can and cannot buy.

For example: It is not accurate to say that the Yankees “bought” the 2009 world championship (I’ll explain WHY in later posts). But it IS accurate to say revenue sharing forced the Yankees to “buy” a piece of the Florida Marlins, and to give this piece away to Jeffrey Loria. If I were a Florida Marlins fan, I’d worry less about what the Yankees are buying, and I’d focus instead on why I pay more for a seat on the first base line than my team’s owner paid for the entire team. (Marlins fans can read here how Jeffrey Loria got his team for free.)

Of course, I won’t limit my focus to teams like the Marlins. I’m more interested in the Yankees. So I plan an article looking at the $1.3 billion in debt incurred by the Yankees to construct the new Yankee stadium – and how this debt effectively reduces the Yankees’ contribution to revenue sharing.

My hope is that you’ll come to IIATMS for its coverage of on-the-field events – after all, that’s what brought me here – but that you’ll also participate in our discussions of events off-the-field. I hope you’ll post questions, and that you’ll point out when I go astray or get my facts confused. As I said, I’m no expert.

Let’s learn together.

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Please welcome Larry, friends. I think Larry’s voice, experience and insight will prove to be a perfect fit with our existing team. I hope you agree!

We’ll hopefully have another introduction or two to make as we deepen the roster as we creep closer to the beginning to the season!