MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

[ursus arctos]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

Maybe you could get Manny's old dreadlock thingy.

[insert winky thing]

[Femme Folle]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

I could always buy one.

[ursus arctos]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

Or your dad could get you an LSU one.

[Reed John]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

What exactly what Manny's gripe with the Red Sox? He didn't enjoy winning championships and being beloved by millions of people?

[Femme Folle]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

I've wondered about that myself, Reed. I guess there are probably dynamics between Manny and Mannygment (tee hee) that the general public might not be aware of. You know how that happens to regular people? Someone at work suddenly gives their notice and you had no idea that they were even looking for another job.

(sh)it happens.

[ursus arctos]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

The Yankees test the bounds of hubris.

$2500 a ticket for boxes near the field? An average ticket price of $75 a seat?

For 81 games?

[Reed John]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

I'm suprised it's not more.

[Femme Folle]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

To help pay for this cash cow, the Yankees are asking the government to let the team raise as much as another $366 million in tax-exempt financing. But the Internal Revenue Service is considering a rule change that would block the request, while members of Congress are investigating why baseball's most valuable team got tax-exempt financing to begin with.

WTF? I sincerely hope the IRS is successful. It's obscene.

[jefe]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

As do the New York Giants, ursus. PSL's for some seats at the new stadium will be 20K alone, never mind the actual ticket cost.

[ursus arctos]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

But the Giants play 8 regular season games; the Yankees play 81.

Perhaps it's just because I lived through "crowds" of under 10,000 during the Jerry Kenney years at the original Yankee Stadium, but I just don't see those prices being sustainable in this economy, especially if the team has a couple of off years.

Our firm has a box (and has had one for yonks), and I can assure you that there is no way that we could justify 2500 x 81 x 4 for a single season.

[Reed John]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

Perhaps, but New York seems to have a completely seperate economy, especially when it comes to conspicuous consumption.

[ursus arctos]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

I actually think that LA is better at that than we are, at least on a day-in/day-out level.

I assume the model is the Knicks, but there is a big difference in the visibility of courtside fans in basketball and field-side fans in baseball, and it is worth noting that the Knicks are no longer assured of fillng the building every night (throughout my lifetime only the New York Football Giants and New York Rangers have appeared to be essentially immune to sharp dips in popularity when they aren't performing).

I really would like to know who is going to pay USD 2500 for a ticket to a midweek day game against Kansas City, if only to suggest to the IRS that they be audited.

[Reed John]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

Presumably, those tickets will be bought as part of massive season ticket packages by Wall Street firms, Madison Avenue types and so forth. I would also think the big corporate law firms would buy some too, but you say your's wouldn't so maybe not.

I don't really understand how those businesses work, so I don't know how they justify it, but I think the firms that do buy luxury box packages except a certain amount of dead loss. For example, when a friend of mine worked for Capital One (yes, the credit card people) I got to go with him to sit in their box at the MCI Center for Wizards games (this happened twice). Both times I went, all the other people in the box were middle managers like him who brought friends. No business was being conducted. Capital One wasn't getting anything out of it. It's just that none of the big shots wanted to go to that game in particular so the tickets trickled down through the organization and my friend was able to get them as they trickled through his division.

Likewise, I imagine whoever buys those tickets will be willing to pony up the massive investment just so they can take a few clients to the Red Sox game. The Royals games are just part of the cost. So, in reality, the cost to them is really more like $5000 or $7500 per seat.

And I imagine some of the tickets will be bought by outrageously wealthy individuals who either have nothing better to do with their money or who are just really keen on baseball or both.

I imagine the "fan atmosphere" in those seats will be terrible.

[Reed John]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

UA, can you explain what, exactly, is going on with the Cubs ownership? I thought about asking this in the LA Times thread since Sam Zell owns the Tribune Company now, but this seems more appropriate.

A few months ago it seemed like he was about to sell them to Mark Cuban, but I haven't heard anything more about that.

[Incandenza]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

There was an article about Cuban looking into the Cubs in the NYT on Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/sports/baseball/03cubs.html?_r=1&em=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

[Reed John]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

Thanks. I didn't understand why it's taken Zell so long to sell the Cubs. Given all his problems, I figured they'd be priced to move. Somehow it totally slipped my mind that MLB has to approve the sale.

[ursus arctos]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

It isn't just the approval process, but also Zell's interest in maximizing proceeds from the sale, as the Cubs may well be the single most attractive piece of the Tribune "empire" at the moment (with the television stations, I'd imagine).

We talked about this a bit last year, but I still have rather mixed feelings about Cuban, though I was rather more favourably disposed to him after reading the NYT article that Inca linked to. It's actually quite an accomplishment for him to have gotten Stern and the other NBA owners to publicly support his bid.

[Incandenza]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

I swear that I mentioned Clayton Kershaw on here before (edit: here, on the old board)--the Dodgers' hot pitching prospect with a wicked curveball. And he's a lefty. So no expectations to live up to there.



Anyway, he's gotten a few starts in the majors, and he hasn't disappointed. Stats from his last three starts, from Dodger Thoughts:

19 innings
72 batters faced (3.78 batters per inning)
283 pitches (14.8 pitches per inning)
180 strikes (64 percent)
103 balls
27 groundouts (one double play)
13 air outs (one double play)
15 strikeouts (7.11/9 IP)
6 walks (2.84/9 IP)
8 singles
2 doubles
1 triple
[11 hits (5.21/9 IP)]
1 run (0.47 ERA)

He's 20 years old. Just hope he doesn't flame out with injuries like so many young pitchers do.

[Femme Folle]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

Like Joba The Hut?

[ursus arctos]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

What we saying about how it would be good for the Rays to win the division??

Inca, you can start to worry when they say that Kershaw has a "perfect motion" that renders him impervious to injury.

That was the line on Mark Prior . . .

Koufax was the best pitcher I've ever seen. Watching him was like being at a virtuoso recital.

[jason voorhees]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

I'm a few years late on this, but as I descried the Sawx and Cubs during The Curse, the Cubs were comedy and the Sox were tragedy.

As y'all were.

[Femme Folle]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

Being faithful to a losing team makes you stronger. It makes the victories that much sweeter.

And that's basically the problem with Yankee fans. They're spoiled. Rotten.

[ursus arctos]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

FF speaks the truth to power.

[Gerontophile]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

Bollocks.

[Incandenza]

MLB 2008: The Year of Anti-Boston

Good pieces on ESPN from the Mag today about this season's hired guns: Sabathia, Teixeira, Pudge, Griff, and Manny. The Manny one is interesting just for the logistics of a team getting everything ready for a new player, especially what number he wants to wear:

Now it's game on. The Dodgers buy full-page welcome ads in La Opinión and Hoy, two local Spanish-language papers, to run in Sunday editions. Team officials then scramble to figure out which number Ramírez will wear so they can place a rush order of jerseys and T-shirts for his debut the following night. A Dodgers VP huddles with Manny's agent, Scott Boras, who has season tickets behind the dugout and is in the ballpark. Manny wore No. 24 in Boston, but in LA, that's Walter Alston's retired number. Also retired are No. 2 (Tommy Lasorda), No. 4 (Duke Snider) and, of course, No. 42 (Jackie Robinson).

Ramírez, through Boras, requests No. 28, because it's the closest he can get to 24. Then, Manny being Manny, he asks for No. 66 instead. McCourt and GM Ned Colletti sign off, and the jerseys go into production. But Manny changes his mind again. Now he wants No. 11, in honor of coach Manny Mota, who's been in the organization nearly 40 years. While waiting for Mota's okay, Ramírez changes his mind once more. He requests No. 34, presumably as an homage to Red Sox buddy David Ortiz. Trouble is, that was Fernando Valenzuela's number, and it's unofficially retired. Someone suggests No. 99; no one is quite sure who came up with it. Could have been Boras. Could have been Manny. Could have been Manny's personal barber, Angel. So a little past 10 p.m. ET, the Dodgers put in a new order. They cross their fingers that the jerseys will arrive on time.

Punchline to the uniform number question at the end of the piece.