How much revenue is your house going to bring every business within a four-block radius?
Not really helping out the slums around Turner Field that much.
— Alan
…hmmm Wrigely and Dodger stadium off the top of my head.
Yup. For a game selling “steeped in tradition” that’s messed up.
Mmph. Crap doesn’t merit becoming tradition. The only thing to miss about those wretched multipurpose boxes are some of the names—Shea, Riverfront, Three Rivers, Candlestick.
I’m kind of glad I never made it to Candlestick. It sounds magical.
Teams actually putting money into the ball parks is a fairly new thing, so while you can argue the economics of a county/city/state building a new ball park I think it is a step in the right direction that teams are now putting money into them as well. I am pretty sure the 49ers are helping to pay for their new stadium, although I don’t know the percentage.
Smart point being made here:
Buster Olney @Buster_ESPN 3m
Smart team lawyer notes MLB must now follow through on HP collision rule change for '14,because acknowledgment of problem sets up liability
Background: yesterday the MLB rules folks acknowledged that home plate collisions were indeed a problem in baseball and needed to go away. They’re working on the new rule, and as Olney notes, now that they’ve acknowledged the existence of a problem, failure to implement a new rule for the 2014 season implies negligence if no change is made.
Cribbed from Wikipedia:
In December 2011, the Santa Clara City Council voted for an agreement that calls for the city’s Stadium Authority to borrow $850,000,000 from Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and U.S. Bank. This will cover most of the construction costs, with the remainder to be made up via funding from the NFL, a hotel tax and city redevelopment funds. Interest, fees and terms for this loan have not been disclosed.[47][dead link][48] The $850,000,000 building loan, plus interest and fees will be assumed by the City’s Stadium Authority, where additional interest and fees will be applied. On February 2, 2012, NFL owners approved a loan to the 49ers of $200,000,000, for use in constructing the new stadium, and to be taken from a new G-4 stadium loan fund.[49][dead link] Terms of the loan were not specified, but under the previous G-3 plan, money was repaid directly into the league’s account from the borrowing team’s share of gate receipts from road games.
So, at most, the 49ers are only responsible for less than 25% of the overall cost of the stadium… and it’s not even their money.
— Alan
Well, 25% from somebody is better than 0% from nobody.
Plus in this case anyway Santa Clara has been after a pro sports team for years. I think they would take the A’s but the Giants own the territory.
Just heard announced on the local news that Miggy won his second straight AL MVP. MVP and Cy Young for the Tigers in 2013, not bad. Of course, I’d happily have traded both for a World Series win.
Mike Trout is going to kill everyone.
Apparently the Giants just signed Tim Hudson 2/23. I like it.
Now they need to sign Mulder and they can have the big 3 back together once more.
LOL A’s!
From what sources tell me, the Giants weren’t 100 percent certain they had the highest offer for Hudson. The A’s also went hard after him and might have come close to matching the money the Giants put on the table. But Hudson told Giants officials that his first choice was to pitch at AT&T Park and try to advance past the first round of the playoffs for the first time in his career.
Zito is already gone. Zito for Hudson though was a big improvement.
Sudden flurries of activity! Looks like the Giants are just about to make a deal with Javier Lopez and are in the running with the Pirates (and maybe the Padres and Cubs) for Josh Johnson.
Didn’t see this one coming, Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler: http://tracking.si.com/2013/11/20/tigers-rangers-agree-deal-prince-fielder/
Me neither. Holy crap. Uhh. Well, there has always been speculation of how the middle infield was going to be with 3 good players jockeying for 2 positions. Kinsler is the oldest and perhaps most expendable at this point, so it makes sense. Something had to give with Profar now in the mix.
On the other side of the equation, Texas really needed a power 1B and Moreland, who has times been good, can’t get it done consistently. Then again, Fielder didn’t have a particularly awesome year either, but still better than a lot of folks. There’s talk of either another player or extra cash for Fielder, which would make sense. Probably won’t miss out on speed component too much, since Profar has decent speed. Andrus and Kinsler play really well together though, so there’s the missing chemistry as a con.
But yes, Kinsler has been at Texas for seven (!) years now and I’ll really miss him.
— Alan
That is a hell of a trade.
It’ll take a hell of a lot of cash to make up for that ridiculous contract and Fielder’s inevitable post-30 decline. How much is the league gonna let Detroit send?
Hopefully tons :)
MLBTradeRumors remarked that if the Rangers really wanted to shale things up, they’d trade Profar for Cano and use that cash to help pay for him. That’d be totally nuts and can’t really see us doing that, but what the hell, I didn’t think we’d trade for Fielder either at this point.
— Alan