It's About The Money

Only in New England is this an issue

Jason@IIATMS — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:58:11 +0000

Kids today are wicked soft. There's quite a bit of fun buried in that comment. Here's why:

The Lowell Spinners (short season; NY-Penn League) are bringing back the Yankees Elimination Promotion for a fifth year, as the Red Sox affiliate works to eliminate New York Yankees teams from youth baseball programs throughout New England.

[...]

“The Yankees Elimination Promotion was originally built as a fun promotion in response to parent’s stories of children losing interest in the game after facing taunts simply for playing in a Yankees uniform,” said Spinners Vice President and General Manager Tim Bawmann. “Five years later teams are still eliminating the Yankees and the joy on the faces of the newly minted Spinners players on the field at LeLacheur Park reminds us why we love this game.”

Only in New England is this an issue. Booo-hooo. So much teaching kids that life's not fair, people are mean and that the Yankees suck. Go Spinners.

(thanks to Pete Toms for the heads up)

Rays financial condition worsens; How to fix it?

Jason@IIATMS — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:07:12 +0000

Is the answer really throwing more money via revenue sharing and luxury tax at the Rays? Or does this team need to either move elsewhere (out of state) or get out of their stadium into a better location within Tampa?

Stuart Sternberg, savvy owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, in a recent interview predicted that his team's payroll must be sliced from more than $70 million this season to the $50 million range for 2011.

[...]

Renewal of season tickets, Sternberg said, is "bad ... not good."

Usually when a team goes to the World Series, there's an attendance jump the following season, but the 2009 Rays fell short of the Major League average of 30,351, drawing a disappointing 23,148.

The Tampa market is not supporting its team. Is it then therefore fair that MLB subsidizes this team to stay afloat ("good money after bad")? Is it any more fair that the Yanks can out-spend their nearest high-spending competitor by $65m (in 2009)? (click "view full post" to read more)

I wish this passed the sniff test UPDATED

Jason@IIATMS — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:09:10 +0000

The story first:

Galea told The Associated Press on Monday that he treated the Yankees star for his hip, which was "inflamed." But Galea says he has never given HGH to any athlete and Rodriguez was given anti-inflammatories.

I wish this passed the sniff test with me. But it doesn't. Here's why: (click "view full post" to read more)

No, you’re outta here

Jason@IIATMS — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:46:22 +0000

Not sure why this is coming out today (really, last night) when the deed was done back on January 12th, but it's still a shame in the way it was handled, it seems:

Major League Baseball, angry over the abundance of blown umpiring calls in the 2009 postseason, has fired three of its seven ump supervisors.

Marty Springstead, Rich Garcia and Jim McKean, each involved in umpiring for 40 or more years, were fired on Jan. 12. They received the news by telephone.

"I was totally shocked," said Springstead, who began his umpiring career in 1960. "Fifty years, and I get a four-minute phone call to say good-bye? They didn't give us a lot of reasons."

Randy Marsh and Charlie Reliford, two umpires who retired after last season, have been hired as replacements. Ed Montague, who retired after 34 years, also is in negotiations about a supervisor's job.

Imagine working at your company for fifty years, doing a good enough job to last that long, then tossed unceremoniously via a phone call? We blast the umps at will, sometimes rightfully so, but most of us recognize that these guys are human and doing the best job they can at the time. They don't (yet) have the benefit of instant replay on every close call that we, the viewers, do. I'm not saying that the underperforming don't deserve to be replaced, but to do so in that manner is just bad form.

Four corners, Freddie Patek and instant replay

Jason@IIATMS — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:19:00 +0000

Some really good stuff coming out of a roundtable hosted by USA Today's Bob Nightingale. It's the kind of discussion we'd love to be part of; hearing the different opinions and rationales coming from the different constituencies within baseball. Nightingale summarized the three major topics that were discussed with the panel (which included: Dusty Baker, Scott Boras, Torii Hunter, LaTroy Hawkins, Steve Palermo, and two scouts): Replay, the Strike Zone and Speed of Play. I tried to capture the most intriguing comments below, but feel free to click thru to read the whole synopsis:

Replay:

Umpiring supervisor Steve Palermo, considered baseball's finest umpire until he was forced into retirement after being shot in the spinal cord outside a Dallas restaurant in 1991, doesn't sugarcoat his sentiments. He sympathized with umpire Tim McClelland after his gaffe in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series when it appeared the Angels had tagged two Yankees runners off third base and McClelland called only one of them out. Palermo was angry that no one on McClelland's umpiring crew came to his assistance and overturned the call.

It was no different with Phil Cuzzi's call in the AL Division Series, when Palermo says Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer's apparent double was errantly ruled foul.

Palermo, to this day, doesn't understand why no one else on McClelland's crew seemed to have seen the play.

"We could have reversed it," Palermo says. "You know what? We got six guys on the field. One of those five other guys has got to see it."

This is precisely what I want to read/hear, a former umpire laying it down. He's right, too, as one of the other five guys has to not only see it, but also have the confidence to call a conference with his peers to share what he saw, even if it contradicts the crew chief. (click "view full most" for more)