Sunday, December 12, 2004
And Steroids Are a Scandal?
I just wanted to quickly comment on a few articles that have gone under the radar recently.
Let's start with this winter meeting report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. What I love is this line:
Despite a payroll bump from prospective new owner Mark Attanasio, Melvin cannot shop in baseball's Saks Fifth Avenue store. And with many of the second-tier free agents getting bigger deals than in recent years, Melvin might be out of luck at Wal-Mart, as well.
Remember how Miller Park was supposed to solve the Brewers' payroll problems? Whoops, oh well, it was only $300M of the taxpayer's money. Well, this isn't the first time we've dealt with the Miller Park Three-Card Monte game in this space. Check out some of our older comments:
Crying in Beertown
Miller Park Funny Money
Meanwhile we have the entire Florida situation. The Marlins won the World Series, and once again, a year later they are playing poor-me. They've entered talks with Las Vegas. This is simply to put pressure on Miami to build them a new stadium. For more added pressure, Pro Player Stadium has declared that the Marlins will be kicked out right around 2010. This way Pro Player can host the likes of soccer and cricket.
Follow the money. Pro Player Stadium is owned by Wayne Huizenga, guess who used to own the Marlins? Their current owner Jeffrey Loria is a piece of work himself. He used to own the Expos, and then MLB more or less funded his purchase of the Marlins by taking the Nationals off his hands. The sale of the Red Sox was also involved. A sale to a lower bidder.
But hey, watch the little birdie that keeps chirping "Steroids are bad! Steroids are bad!", let's keep pouring tons of taxpayer money into publicly-funded stadiums.
posted by David 1:21 PM
