Yanksfan Soxfan

Working in a Bubble

I hesitate to link to Murray Chass, especially to a story regarding yesterday's mini-strike/delay caused by the Red Sox sticking up for their team staffers (in fact, this post is not about yesterday's events and I'd prefer they not become the subject of this post), but buried in his column today is a nugget that reveals quite a bit about reporting, or, at least, his reporting -- I hesitate to generalize. Deep in the story Chass offers this, regarding his attitude towards reporting on baseball's previous labor strife and, perhaps, his relationship to those outside his privileged position in the world of sports:

(Note: Unlike most everyone else who was affected, I looked forward to labor negotiations, strikes and lockouts. They provided a periodic change of pace and a challenge to report them.)

While I find this unsurprising it is akin, at least to me, to weather reporters who actually seem excited at the prospect of a deadly hurricane, who seem to bounce on their way over to the map on the wall, jazzed by the maelstrom and chaos caused by angry low pressure systems. While I understand the fascination with the chaotic, with the different, there is always something unseemly about this subtextual glee: there is danger, harm in these storms. With Chass, the analog is that labor strife in baseball has real economic consequences, and I am not just speaking about players losing their salaries or owners losing their revenue. There are untold employees who rely on baseball to either make a living or supplement their wages: park workers, vendors, business owners who lease near or adjacent to stadia. Not everyone involved in baseball is a fatcat executive in a luxury box who can backslap an all-star, and not every player is pulling down millions a year. So while I understand that, for Chass, there was a challenge in the reportage and an energizing change of pace for him as a journalist, I find it quite selfish and elitist, quite callous that he would actually "look forward" to events that might inflict tremendous suffering on scores of people.

All You Need To Know About The Owners And Selig

Okay, the title is redundant. The owners had 15 million reasons why they liked him (themselves?) last year, and they liked him (ibid) enough to extend his/their reign through ought-twelve with 4% hike (gotta keep up with cost of livin' dontcha know) this year. It's good to be the Bud, king of beermakers.

ht: FanHouse

The Moment Punk Rock Died

First, the Red Sox shed the lovable loser status and win a freaking World Series (or 2). And now they're advertising on their uniforms.

The Boston Red Sox are putting advertisements on their uniforms for the first time.

The World Series champions said Wednesday they will wear sleeve patches with the logo "EMC" when they open the season with a two-game series against the Oakland Athletics at the Tokyo Dome on March 22 and 23. EMC Corp. is a data-storage company based in Hopkinton, Mass.

This is a shame. We Yanks fans enjoy crass commercialism because, after all, we're Yankees fans. Capitalism has done us well. Heck, our beloved Bombers even pioneered this uniform advertising practice a couple of years ago (as the linked article notes). But the Sox?! That's not the franchise's ethos. If the Yanks were Standard Oil, then the Sox were a Mom and Pop operation that sold vintage clothes and used lamps.

This Yanks fan doesn't know what to make of these new Sox. They signed onto a major label and  started singing about things for which the youth did not care. I'm not sure I'm getting their next album.

Next thing you know, their owner will be making overtures in the press  about moving away from good old Fenway.

The Price Of Santana Tickets

When I was 17 I saw Carlos Santana play at the Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua, New York on a warm summer night. It is arguably the greatest concert I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few; it was the best three-and-a-half hour musical investment of my young life. I don't remember how much the tickets cost, but I want to say it was somewhere around ten bucks for general admission.

Vince Gennaro writes about the price of seeing Johan Santana on your roster from a Major League Baseball owner's perspective. It is arguably the least interesting way to spend ten minutes of your life, unless you are an sports economics major. Actually, you will probably finish the article faster than I did since I fell asleep part way through and had to start over. Twice.

I know now I am in no way qualified to handle anyone's money, and have no interest in doing so whatsoever. Also, I learned that by signing Santana, Gennaro thinks the Yankees would possibly be good for 98 wins. I think. Graphs are pretty. Now pardon me while I pop in my copy of Caravanserai and curl up on the couch.

Four Finger Discount: Rudy and the Rings

Though this blog avoids politics for the most part, this story by Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice reveals some seriously questionable decisions by one of the country's most prominent politicians, one of New York's icons, and one the Yankees' biggest fans.  Barrett details the saga of four World Series rings purchased by Rudolph Giuliani, along with a skeptical investigation of our former Mayor's game-attending practices.  The story uncovers an extremely suspect relationship between a fan/politician and the team he grew up rooting for, and concludes with details about how this tightness had some very serious financial ramifications for the Bombers and their new stadium endeavor.  It's a long story, followed up this week in another piece with response from Giuliani and others.   

Like Giuliani or not (full disclosure: we don't, at all), these investigative pieces are a telling view into the ethical morass that is big city politics and an indictment of the values of a presidential front-runner, someone who doesn't seem to be able to clearly delineate being a fan from being a pawn, or who simply doesn't care about drawing the line in any way.  The Yankees, like many other franchises who treat the public interest as a collateral benefit trickling down from the profits of their own greed, did their best to take advantage of having a Mayor who loved the team, abusing this convenient relationship at the expense of New York City. 

MoneyBud

Commissioner Selig drew 14.5 meeleeon dollars (imagine him saying that with his pinky pointed at the corner of his mouth) for fiscal year 2005, which broke down to 6M in salary, 6M in bonuses, and 2.5M in expenses and "personal fees", the latter being fees of a personal nature and not for discussion in mixed company I suppose.  Fiscal year 2005 ended October 31st 2005 from my understanding, so for you to feel fear and horror would be totally appropriate and for attackgerbil to make any snide comments about how much of that was at the expense of people who can no longer purchase MLB Extra Innings would be baseless and totally inappropriate.  Besides, how can you complain when you can pay for Major League Buffering dot TV?

Bargain Basement

TAMPA, Fla. - One Japanese pitcher has thrown 17 innings during spring training, allowing 13 hits and five earned runs. He has walked 12 and struck out 19.

Another Japanese pitcher has tossed 17 2/3 innings this spring. He has given up nine hits and four earned runs with seven walks and 19 strikeouts.

Care to guess which one is superstar-in-the-making Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Red Sox and which one is supposed rotation filler Kei Igawa of the Yankees?

Peter Abraham goes the snide route in the Journal News this morning, tarnishing an otherwise fine article with a needless comparison of the two Japanese pitchers based on their spring training statistics. Although, as commenter d-1 notes in a thread below, Abraham wisely stays away from extrapolating to his logical extreme -- that Igawa will be nearly as good as Matsuzaka -- he still can't resist saying Igawa might be the better "bargain."

Forgetting for a second the lunacy of declaring someone with no track record a bargain a week before the season even starts, extrapolating those spring stats over 200 innings gives two entirely different pitchers:

• 208.2 IP, 106 H, 83 BB, 224 K, .906 WHIP
• 200.2 IP, 153 H, 142 BB, 224 K, 1.47 WHIP

By comparison, no pitcher in baseball had a WHIP below 1.00 in 2006. The top 3 in WHIP were Santana, Carpenter and Halladay, all 1.10 or below with ERAs below 3.20. Sixty-five MLB pitchers had WHIPs below 1.47, including Tim Hudson (4.86 ERA), Mark Buehrle (4.99) and the much maligned Gil Meche (4.48). Jeff Weaver's WHIP last season was 1.51 (with a 5.76 ERA). Jason Marquis' (6.02) was 1.52.

If Igawa can pitch on a level with those pitchers, he will be a bargain considering what they received in free agency. If Matsuzaka pitches on a level with Santana, Halladay and Carpenter, he too will be a bargain considering what Zito and Schmidt received in free agency. The comparisons logically shouldn't go much further than that.

Cable Satellite Guy

InDemand claims they matched DirecTV's offer, but Bob DuPuy says they're not even close.  Who to believe?  Bud Selig and his greed-driven lackeys?  Or a company with absolutely nothing to gain by misrepresenting their offer and/or making MLB look bad? 

Topps Becoming Disneyfied...Eisnerfied?

As Paul notes below, Topps is making some serious errors these days, but perhaps there's a reason: It looks like the once proud baseball card company will be bought by Michael Eisner, and formerly of Disney. Could the sudden explosion of mistakes actually be acts of subversion by an editorial staff on the way out? Just a theory...

Update: I'm living in a past when Michael Eisner was the CEO of Disney. I just can't seem to get beyond those glory years. Thanks to Vic below for correcting me. I still maintain the conspiracy theory because...why not?

Dual Ownership

Buried in this story on whether or not Todd Greene will have surgery (I don't know how those Padres bloggers do it with material like this) is a choice nugget about Tom Werner:

Tom Werner, who retained a minority stake in the Padres even after joining the Red Sox board, is no longer part of the Padres ownership structure; this offseason, Padres Chairman John Moores bought out the 10 percent stake that had remained in the Werner sphere.

I know that John Henry sold his stake in the Marlins in order to facilitate his purchase of the Sox, but it's difficult to find information that discloses Werner maintained a stake in another major league ballclub.  Was it in a blind trust?  How did Werner service this interest? Not much information seems available on Werner's retention of stake in the Padres.  This doesn't strike me as an entirely conflict-free asset, and I am surprised this hasn't (or didn't) get more attention.