Cell Coverage in Bullpen of Saint Louis

Some background, on the communication problem between Tony La Russa with his bullpen. Twelve months ago, the St. Louis Cardinals fired bullpen coach Marty Mason, the longtime right-hand man of pitching coach Dave Duncan. John Mozeliak’s move was one indication why there had been hesitation on the part of Tony LaRussa to announce his return to manage this year. On only a one year contract.

In the eighth inning of pivotal game five of the World Series, Tony La Russa explained that twice the bullpen “didn’t hear Jason Motte’s name– did not get Motte” up to warm up. “I don’t know if it was noisy…probably real noisy. They just didn’t hear the second time.”

Twelve months ago, Marty Mason had been replaced as bullpen coach by Derek Lilliquist, who since 2002 was in the organization, previously working as pitching coordinator at the team’s Jupiter, Florida spring training headquarters as part of injury rehabilitation. Lilliquist had moved into the dugout during the entire run in September 20111 which earned a wildcard spot, as pitching coach Dave Duncan took a leave of absence due to his wife’s health. Lilliquist’s job duties had never involved talking on the bullpen phone until this season.

There has been tension within the Cardinal organization ever since Walt Jocketty’s firing as general manager. Tony LaRussa still was having to address the different philosophy of owner Bill DeWitt and the other members of the organization to the press, it was said in 2010, on questions about the relationship between the Cardinals’ minor-league development and the club’s major-league coaching staff. And it was getting more and more personal.

Twelve months ago general manager John Mozeliak demoted longtime La Russa confidante Barry Weinberg –Cardinals head trainer since 1998– to assistant trainer, reversing roles with Greg Hauck who was promoted to head athletic trainer. Weinberg had also worked during La Russa’s 10-year term in Oakland as part of his overall sixteen seasons as Oakland A’s head athletic trainer for 16 seasons.

So last night, when asked the sort of procedure when you call down to the bullpen, as to who gets the word, and how do the convey it, Tony said: “The bullpen coach hears it, and like he heard Lynn.”

LaRussa said he wanted right-hander Jason Motte in a matchup with Texas’ right-hand-hitting Napoli, so he called down to the bullpen, but coach Derek Lilliquist misunderstood his instructions. According to the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch:
Question: ‘He heard Lynn?”
Answer: “Yeah. That’s why Lynn got up…and I went out there. I thought it was Motte …and they were yelling at me as I went out. I didn’t hear them. It wasn’t Motte. So I saw Lynn, I went, ‘Oh, what are you doing here?’”

When LaRussa signed his one year contract for the 2011 season, it was the makeup of his coaching staff which was believed to be the final detail in his decision whether he would return. Was it with his eyeglasses on or off that LaRussa had said twelve months ago that 15 years is a long time for one manager in “one place,” that the organization might benefit from “freshness”?

The Cardinals were an organization which had fired Jocketty, fired Marty Mason –Mason had worked under La Russa for the 12 seasons after working as a Triple-A pitching coach from 1997-1999 — demoted Weisberg, and had a manager whose contract was up in two week.

Bobby Valentine attributed a major mistake to the move by Tony LaRussa, though the ongoing power struggle within the organization — unchanged since that departure of Walt Jocketty — showed up in the call to the bullpen last night, and might have determined the champion of the World Series. Tony LaRussa never really let those kind of mistake happens. Though he has said he would never manage another team after the Cardinals, the timing might be right for White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to pull the plug on his general manager and hire a new White Sox general manager. According to two team sources, meetings at the conclusion of the World Series will involve Jerry Reinsdorf, a few front office executives, new manager Robin Ventura and his coaching staff, and only a few selected scouts. The timing seems right for Reinsdorf to bring back his one-time manager to Chicago. To take some of the Theo spotlight back to the southside.

When You Absolutely, Positively Needed it Overnight: Overnight Millionaires

With less than a six percent chance to make it to the big leagues, three of the following were made millionaires over night. Of course by waiting until the last minute before the August 15th deadline, these three guys lost out on interest of more than $4,000, at five percent interest, if not a year closer to their own development as big league players. If they truly really were big league players, where the average salary was somewhere between two million to three million dollars per year.

Here is the list of draftees of the Minnesota Twins, the round signed for in parentheses, along with the amount signed for, in a year where all 30 major league ball clubs spent approximately $228 million in draft bonuses:

SS Levi Michael (1) $1.175 million, last minute sign before senior year.
3RD Trevr Harrison (1), $1.05 million, out of high school, last minute sign.
RHP Hudson Boyd (1) 1 million, out of high school, last minute sign.
RHP Madison Boer (2), Oregon; $405,000, native of Eden Prairie, MN signed right away.
LHP Corey Williams (3), Vanderbilt reliever; $575,000, after missing much of last season with a shattered kneecap, a 5.64 ERA in 24 appearances. Signing at end of July double the slot.
RHP Matthew Summers (4), Cal-Irvine, hard-throwing pitcher, 9-2 with a 1.90, wanted $500,000 to sign out of high school as a pitcher but $100,000 to sign as an outfielder. Unknown amount signed for.
INF Tyler Grimes (5), Wichita State; 30 errors in 329 chances in 2011.
LHP Jason Wheeler (8), Loyola Marymount, 6-4 with a 3.84 ERA as a 6-foot-8 junior, last minute sign, 2010 Northwoods League pitcher of the year (8-1 with a 1.35 ERA last summer for the St. Cloud River Bats). How much do those signing at this point of a season want to play? The minor league season has less than 3 weeks left.
C Matthew Koch (12), Loyola Marymont, 313/.357/.483 this season

Described by scouting director Deron Johnson as a switch-hitting 20-year old college shortstop with speed, Levi Michael signed for $1.175 million, $86,000 above all the discussion of slots. Selected 30th overall, junior INF Levi Michael appeared in 65 games in 2011 for the University of North Carolina, batting .289 in 242 at-bats with 22 extra base hits, five home runs and 48 or 49 RBI. These are million dollar statistics? In 2010, Michael appeared in 60 games, with a .346 average and 76 runs scored. So his performance diminished over the last twelve months, as well as his own private hopes of player development missing the 2011 season, setting him one season behind his own contemporaries. He must have a really bad agent, if he can play the game. And I heard about a bad performance in the College World Series. Not exactly a jump on my back Kirby Puckett type.

Power-hitting third baseman Trevor Harrison, a 50th overall pick from Tustin High School in California, reportedly signed for $1.05 million.

Righthanded pitcher Hudson Boyd, a 55th overall pick as a right-handed starter from Bishop Verot High School in Florida, who once attended school directly across the street from the Twins’ spring training complex in Fort Myers, reportedly signed for $1 million.

All these guys who have a six percent chance to get to the big league asking for big league bonuses to sign. It was the system, from the free agency draft. What did a big league club have to budget to sign these guys the first time?

There was a lot of money in baseball over the last ten years. And what was the legacy built? By players like Mike Jacobs, who made it to the big leagues. Mike Jacobs was given his unconditional release by the Colorado Rockies after testing positive for Human Growth Hormone. Their press release said, “There is no place in baseball for such substances, and we have and will continue to do what we can to eliminate them from our game.” Mike Jacobs was leading the Triple-A Colorado Springs affiliate of the Rockies’ in home runs (23), doubles (30) and runs batted in (97). The 30-year-old first baseman did receive a 50-game suspension by MLB, should anyone elect to pick him up. In a 2005 call up by the Mets, Jacobs hit 11 home runs in 30 games. He was soon traded to Miami for Carlis Delgado before the 2006 season. Jacobs did hit 32 home runs for he Marlins in 2008 when he was traded at season’s end for Leo Nunez. He made $3.25 million playing for Kansas City in 2009, being used primarily as a DH, hitting 19 home runs. He was released following the 2009 season by Kansas City. The validity of his first 80 home runs are in question for this confessed cheater who played six seasons in the major leagues, with diminishing performance based upon the statistics, earning in his big league career $5.27 million, playing with the New York Mets, Florida Marlins and Kansas City Royals.

How could there ever be any remorse by those in the front office about having to let these one-time prima donnas go some day when they did not measure up, 94 percent of the time? Was it a wonder that the people working in the front offices today, as described in Pat Gillick’s Hall of Fame speech, had little deep concern for guys like Mike Jacobs, who should be scorned by anyone who ever played the game professionally — like a priest might hold scorn for a colleague who tarnished his profession — and maybe little deep concern for each other.

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Inside Baseball: After Free Agency

Franchises. Were baseball teams ever called franchises in the press until the Orioles moved from Saint Louis? It was about the time hamburger joints were franchised by Ray Kroc. Yeah, McDonald’s Corporation founder Ray Kroc.

The operators of baseball franchises learned a lot from the team purchased by Ray Kroc. Joan Mansfield was born to Charles Smart Mansfield, a railroad telegraph operator, and Gladys Bonnebelle, a homemaker and accomplished violinist, on August 27, 1928 in West St. Paul, Minnesota. Growing up with her sister, Glorai (Chadima), she had years of skating lessons, and finally won a skating contest of which she often talked of the joy she had felt qualifying for the city finals as a girl. She studied music at the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis and started teaching at age 15. In 1945, she married Rawland F. Smith, a Navy veteran. The following year, the couple’s only daughter, Linda, was born. She met McDonald’s Corporation founder Ray Kroc in 1957 while playing piano at a bar in St. Paul, and Ray Kroc, a hard-driving, entrepreneur, carried on reportedly a secret relationship for the next six years. When Ray Kroc then divorced his wife, Joan refused to divorce Rawland Smith who had become a McDonald’s franchisee, according to one San Diego news source. Kroc and Joan then didn’t see each other for another six years until meeting at a 1969 McDonald’s convention in San Diego. At that point, Joan finally divorced Rawland Smith and married Ray Kroc — twenty-six years her senior — when Linda Smith was twenty-three years old. Following Ray Kroc’s death in 1984, Joan Kroc acquired his fortune. The fortune included the San Diego baseball franchise.

Linda Smith, who sang in a rock band in college, had married Ballard Smith, the son of Ballard F. Smith who had married his bride Millicent K. Smith in 1945, after meeting in the navy. Ballard Smith, a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota and then the University of Minnesota Law School, came from a family who had lived in Indianapolis, Edison Park and Glenview, Illinois as well as Meadville, Pennsylvania. It was Meadville where Smith returned, with his wife Linda, where eventually he was elected district attorney for Crawford County. Ballard Smith and Ray Kroc had both taken their new wives’ previously named Smith at approximately the same time. In 1976, Ballard Smith abruptly terminated his elected term as district attorney, when Ray Kroc wanted his stepson-in-law to move to San Diego to work for the San Diego Padres’ front office. However, because Kroc soon had purchased the San Diego Mariners in the World Hockey Association, he asked Smith to run his hockey team. Smith became the Padres’ president in 1979 and became involved in series of battles with players’ agents, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and a goodly number of the San Diego City Council.

In a story written by Times Staff writer JENIFER WARREN on February 19, 1987, Linda Smith, the daughter of Joan B. Kroc, reportedly said she was filing for divorce from Ballard Smith, her husband of more than 16 years. The founder of Mothers Embracing Nuclear Disarmament (MEND), a San Diego organization fighting for nuclear disarmament, Linda Smith said the split was “difficult but amicable,” and, with a nurturing discourse of a universal biological and spiritual bond that cut across political boundaries, insisted the divorce would have “no effect whatsoever” on her husband’s position with the baseball franchise. Linda Smith and Ballard Smith did have four daughters.

Following her divorce, Linda Smith married player agent, Jerry Kapstein, who had represented professional baseball players in contract negotiations from 1973 to 1989. It was the first time in her life that she had to consider a name change. On April 20, 1990, Linda Smith had filed for divorce from Kapstein, the team’s chief executive, according to reports in The San Diego Union and The San Diego Tribune. The couple were married 18 months ago. Speaking of nuclear fallout, that position with the baseball franchise which Ballard Smith had held soon disappeared — as he was truly flipped off — after the divorce.

In a revolution in baseball for the times, after the free agent revolution, player agent Jerry Kapstein negotiated the sale of the team to an investment group for $75 million. Flipping sides in the contract battles each spring, Kapstein had said he would resign as Padres’s chief executive when the sale was completed. Jerry Kapstein had been authorized by Joan Kroc to conduct negotiations for the sale of the Padres, in October 1989. Kapstein then went to work for the San Diego Padres as chief executive, in February 1990 to oversee all aspects of the club’s operations. He was ostracized by the fraternity of other players’ agents. Lee Thomas, now a special assistant to the Red Sox general manager but one-time general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, said Kapstein’s “leadership skills and sense of direction were what turned the Padres’ organization into a successful franchise.” Of course, having now been brought to the Red Sox front office by former Padres president Larry Lucchino (who had done a substantial amount of work while employed as an associate at Willliams & Connolly, for clients the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Redskin franchises), Kapstein now carries a title of senior adviser to the Red Sox — so Lee Thomas had to say those things, and who would remember? (Edward Bennet Williams of Willliams & Connolly had purchased the Orioles, as the period of free agency began.) By April 1990, an investment group led by television producer Tom Werner, signed a letter of intent to purchase the San Diego Padres, owner Joan Kroc said, though she later abandoned hope of selling the franchise before June.

Born in 1943, Kapstein is a son of the late Sherwin J. and Gladys Kapstein who grew up on Forest Street in Providence, Rhode Island. His father worked as executive director of the National Education Association — Rhode Island, as well as served in the state House of Representatives. At the age of 15, Jerry approached Chris Clark about doing stats on the Providence College basketball game radio broadcasts. He worked at stats professionally for the rest of his career. His first job had been at D’Ambra’s Texaco pumping gas and changing oil. Kapstein, a graduate of Harvard and Boston College Law School, was running in 2010 for lieutenant governor of the state of Rhode Island. After serving in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps working on court-martials and other legal proceedings, Kapstein began his sports agency practice, and within four years of leaving the Navy he was as big as there was. By 1976, with his 18-hour work days, working for his 60 clients, his first marriage had ended in divorce, just as Ballard Smith abruptly was moving to San Diego to work in a San Diego front office. Kapstein had prepared Ken Holtzman’s first salary arbitration case in 1974 and as a result of working on that case landed Rollie Fingers and Darold Knowles (who used to have a metal detector and go through the stands, prior to his hiring Kapstein, looking for coins before a game on the road) as clients.

By 2003, Linda Smith was then Linda Kilber, and now known as Linda Ardell Wendfeldt, sometimes just Linda Ardell. And the Red Sox — now with Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino and a hedge fund trader named John Henry — had hired the refugees, all these guys who represented players in one way or another, including Bill James after his 10-year association with the Hendricks brothers — Randy and Alan Hendricks — in the days, following the free agency revolution, in the days when mothers were embracing nuclear disarmament. As everyone kept moving around. Lucchino originally brought Theo Epstein into the game, and when Lucchino left San Diego Padres for Boston, he brought Epstein with him — giving him eventually the Moneyball job as general manager. In the era of free agency, you needed to buy a scorecard on opening day. Because Republicans were running the Democratic Party, Democrats were running the Republican Party….and in the era of Bud Selig, the agents had taken over the game of baseball — since they were the only ones who could make money before the last baseball strike… or maybe came to their senses, after a divorce.

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The Selig Statue: The Flow of the Revenue Stream of Big League Clubs

Minutes ago in Milwaukee,the Bud Selig statue was unveiled at Miller Park, to commemorate a time in baseball history. The unveiling comes on the leak of the financial statements of the Pirates, Mariners, Rays, Marlins and Angels –things which owners never would do in the strike years of 1981 as well as 1994 when a players’ strike wiped out the last eight weeks of the season. The year without a World Series.

According to the thesis of journalist Pat Reusse, it is now in baseball “incumbent” to sell 2.4 million tickets – average 30,000 over an 81-game schedule – “to be considered successful at the gate. You can beat the system for a few years, but to stay competitive for a longer haul teams no longer can flinch at the idea of a $100 million payroll.”

Despite a projected attendance of 2.7 million people, Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the team will lose money this year. “I think it’s a foregone conclusion that we are going to lose money this year. I don’t see any way that’s not going to be the case….We did everything we could to do that with a big push with pitching. We threw a lot of money at it and it didn’t work.”

Somewhere in that statement was the announcement that Doug Melvin won’t be back next year. Because, as Attanasio said, “If you can’t stand the heat, don’t go into the kitchen. We are committed to putting a winning team on the field.”

Even before any notes about invoicing them for 2010 post-season tickets, the Minnesota Twins announced in a letter to season ticket-holders, per-game price hikes for 2011 just for season-ticket packages (full, 40-game and 20-game) ranging from 3 to 9 percent. Single-game pricing hasn’t come out yet. This, after averaging an attendance of more than 40,000 per game, with revenue streams, not including national television money, local radio and television money, or without suite revenue, of more than $240 million.

Because in the nature of sport, losing is part of the game. Consecutive losing seasons are inevitable, and fans are fickle. The day will return when Minnesota fannies will not be filling those 40,000 seats every night and day.

“The numbers indicate why people are suspecting they’re taking money from baseball and keeping it — they don’t spend it on the players,” said David Berri, after stumbling on his win as the president-elect of the North American Association of Sports Economists, about the Pirates of Pittsburgh. When you live in affluent times, economists branch out into new areas. Like the North American Association of Sports Economists. “Teams have a choice,” according to David Berri, and they “can seek to maximize winning, what the Yankees do, or you can be the Pirates and make as much money as you can in your market. The Pirates aren’t trying to win.”

Yesterday Deadspin released information on the revenue stream of the Pittsburgh Pirates. And Maury Brown was discussing on his radio show today all of the repercussions. With the best record in the National League, the San Diego Padres carry the second-lowest payroll, next to Pittsburgh, in baseball at $37.8 million which is less than what the Cubs are paying two players combined. The Pirate payroll is reportedly $34.9 million. And David Berri is offering his insight about all of it. From revenue-sharing, gate receipts, television and radio revenues, amounts from MLB Advanced Media, and the Central Funds.

Perhaps with his own concern for still present real estate bubble, the leader of the North American Association of Sports Economists might not have noticed that this year Tampa Bay is competing for first place with his Yankees after having gone to the World Series in 2008, with a payroll less than half that of their division rivals in Boston and New York. And Carl Crawford won’t be back. But who has time to read the sports page when you were going to be taking on the presidency and had a real job. I think.

There is no information available if David Berri is married. Or was. Or about the money he spent on housing, indicating if the Berris themselves weren’t trying to win. Or whether Berrai was spending his money on his kids. Or just his wife. Or his feeling about the Cubs. With the third-highest payroll in baseball, new owner Tom Ricketts’ team played 10 rookies last Wednesday and were still trying to win.

David Berri did not answer how much exactly someone deserved, to play baseball. And if the price would be the same in New York, Nebraska, or Utah. Berri himself is a 41-year old graduate from Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln in 1991, with an economics major. He is now an associate professor at Southern Utah University having authored of two books, Stumbling on Wins: Two Economists Expose the Pitfalls on the Road to Victory in Professional Sports, and The Wages of Wins. Mostly about professional basketball. Apparently about the relationship between finances and winning. He pursued his Masters and doctorate at Colorado State University, an NCAA institution with cable television. Watching from a distance. Like a pigeon oversees a statue.

Maybe Berri was too busy talking to the South American Association of Sports Economists to notice, but Pittsburgh has complied with the rules for revenue sharing, spending $23.2 million in 2008 and $21.2 million in 2007 for player development. According to the Commissioner’s office, where Pirate club president Frank Coonelly used to work. Or maybe Berri was too busy talking to the Central American Association of Sports Economists. Or just at the World Cup. Like Paris Hilton.

“The numbers indicate why people are suspecting they are taking money from baseball and keeping it,” said David Berri, who has moved to Dubuque, to California, to Utah with his PhD. “The Pirates aren’t trying to win.” Like the Nebraska Cornhuskers across town from Nebraska Wesleyan University used to.

Though it did seem a little early, the White Sox sent in mid-August a note to season-ticket holders with a big exclamation point, advising that “post-season invoices are on the way!” Maybe for economic reasons, since in the post steroid age when it was “incumbent” to sell 2.4 million tickets, the White Sox would not be there. But with an expectation more money meant more wins, with more than 50 games left, the message was: “We are currently in a battle to make the post-season and in order to process and deliver all post-season tickets by the end of September, we are invoicing you for the 2010 post-season at this time.”

It was after 1994 that the steroid era began, undetected, with all of the concern of a regulator from the Security and Exchange Commission in the first decade of the New Millennium. When Bud Selig took over, as acting commissioner in 1992, and permanently, in the age of consensus, in 1998. The things which could come out of work stoppages. Like the requirement to operate a business like the clowns wanted the circus run. As if the clowns had a stake in all of this, when people no longer laughed, and old clowns would one day die. Like Marvin Miller.

You cannot attend Major League Baseball games and not detect that some of the clowns in the commissioner’s office were micro-managing the game. The messages on those scoreboard, the control of all umpires, or their uncontrol, the partnerships with broadcasters who seldom criticized the home team. In the age of consensus, it was all the same. Along with the “we are invoicing you” message. The commissioner’s office was instructing each club on the same rules of baseball operation, and threatening huge fines to any owner who offers criticism of the rules under the basic agreement, as to the luxury taxes paid by the “pseudo-large market” teams, about revenue sharing.

After the unveiling of the steroid era by Congressional hearing, little change had come. The system was fixed, front office executives collaborating now with the Players’ Association, to avoid work stoppages. At least until the release of those financial records, it was all about maintaining the status quo. The goal was good television ratings in October, so the Yankees did enough each year, with wild cards, to obtain those good national television ratings. When the New York Times was even allowed to buy a stake in the Boston Red Sox, and finally the Red Sox won a World Championship. Everybody was happy, under the circus tent.

That unveiling of the Bud Selig statue, after the steroid era had come to an end. Baseball owners had been through a lot. Actually about the time of 2004, the Murdoch News Corporation was losing an estimated $30 million to $60 million a year operating the Dodgers, and was desperate to sell. The Dodgers! One of the “pseudo-large market” teams, like the Mets and the Red Sox. And the Yankees.
After all the great growth of the game, after the strike of 1994, with finally the unveiling of the steroid era in those Congressional hearing. With only perjury charges left to decide.

Bob Nutting and Pirate club president Frank Coonelly (formerly of the commissioner’s office) called a press conference yesterday to say.“ It’s important the team not be in the kind of financial shape it was in in 2003 and 2004, when we were struggling and making bad decisions purely driven by financial constraints and pressure.” During the steroid era, in 2003, as the steroid era continued, under former owner Kevin McClatchy, the Pirates’ debt-to-equity ratio had exceeded Major League Baseball’s standard and the Pirates were forced to asked Bob Nutting, then a minority partner, now the principal owner, for money to fund operations in 2003. The Nutting Family made the loan to the Pirates which partly was converted into a $20 million equity stake. The standard of debt-to-equity ratio established by Major League Baseball’s basic agreement of 2002 which expired at the end of the 2006 season?

At about the same time as Mr. Nutting was bailing out Pittsburgh, Frank McCourt had used in 2004 his Boston parking lot to buy the Dodgers from Murdoch’s News Corp. Frank and Jamie McCourt have come a long way from their early days together when Jamie had lent $1,000 to Frank to start his development company which became the McCourt Group.

That bubble in sports. Was there any reason for the owners to flex their muscle in 2006, when money was so cheap? Cheap money for the operation of any business. As the value of franchises rocketed like a Sammy Sosa homerun, in October 2006, Donal Fehr said: “With the new labor contract, baseball’s drug-testing rules will also be extended through the 2011 season. When both sides agreed to toughened drug testing last November, they said that deal would run through the next labor contract.” Is it now a consensus that there never had been “toughened drug testing?” The current collective bargaining agreement which had been worked out quietly in October 2006, behind the scenes by the then soon-to-be fired Chicago Cub President Andy MacPhail, the baseball executive who had not taken a player to arbitration since at least a time prior to 1995.

Peter Gammons reported in October 2006 that the new basic agreement made “relatively minor changes to the previous agreement and doesn’t alter baseball’s drug rules.” At the same time, it was reported that both sides “would consider adding testing for Human Growth Hormone.” Four years later, I think those baseball players are waiting news of such testing for major league ball players.

It sounds like the story of Countrywide, my own home mortgage holder, until they ran into trouble. With the leak of the financial statements of the Pirates, it has been noted the Pirates are carrying considerable debt, though the Boston Globe reports a belief this debt is only a fraction of that of some other clubs. “It is common for major league teams to owe such debt ….owners aren’t burdened by the debt because franchise values historically rise each year, meaning most teams could be sold for a substantial profit.”

Planted in front of Miller Park, the bronze, 7-foot statue designed and produced by Brian Maughan, shows Mr. Selig’s right hand extended. Under Selig, franchises never would release the books to the players union or to the municipalities where Selig implored civic authority to release tax moneys for new stadiums.

In Milwaukee, if you were selling 2.7 million tickets and losing money, the owner just was clueless in his overall baseball operation. Maybe listening too much to those sports economists like David Berri (who has moved as often in his short professional career more than the Atlanta Braves had in the past 50 years). Or busy paying for the costs of Selig’s statue. Because when two teams played, losing would always be part of the game, as Brewer fans learned so well at the feet of Bud Selig. Negotiations of a new basic agreement, with the usual leaks yesterday, signified that the same arguments in the years of 1994 and 1981 would be back, over a philosophy of cutting expenses and raising prices. The Cubs went to arbitration this year with Ryan Theriot for the first time since before Andy MacPhail had been hired. The bubble in real estate would be affecting national elections and the future of baseball. And maybe a ball club somewhere would be concerned about having to raise ticket prices.

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Cancer Takes Seattle Manager

It was in the first half of June, that Mariners second baseman Chone Figgins criticized manager Don Wakamatsu for removing him from the second spot in the order. The 32-year old one-time All-Star said, “I think I’ve about earned enough respect as a player. I’m still battling and I’m doing good. I should stay where I was hitting.”

The people who have seen his play this year would agree that he has “earned enough.” Figgins was brought to the Mariners to play second this season at a cost of his $9 million salary. At the time he was moved out of the second spot, he was hitting .235. Manager Don Wakamatsu informed reporters before the June game that the lineup switch wasn’t focused upon Figgins.

“Obviously, it’s me,” Figgins said at the time. “It doesn’t matter. Anybody that has ever known me or watched me play this game….no matter where you hit me, first, second or 10th…..I’m going to come to play. If I come off the bench, I’m going to play 110 percent. There’s not anybody in this game who can take that away from me.”

Well, if you watched Figgins, you knew it actually WAS him that necessitated the change in the line-up. But today, sixty days later, Don Wakamatsu lost his job because of the cancer named Figgins.

Figgins was still hitting .235 on the last Saturday in July, when he came to play at Target Field in Minnesota, back hitting second in the lineup. The lineup change had not lasted long. That night, he was involved in a play with a missed cutoff man on one play, when he clearly no longer was coming to the ballpark “to play every single day,” as Figgins had said in June. In a prior Boston weekend series, 8 days before, Figgins inexplicably let a throw from Michael Saunders, which had missed the cutoff man in the bottom of the fifth, bounce a few feet to his left without any moment from him as the ball dribbled past the second base bag. Mike Cameron leading off the fifth inning, went to third on the play, having pulled into second on the ball hit into the left-field corner.

Figgins was told he was being benched, when he returned to the dugout. He then began shouting across the length of the bench, with ensuing pushing between players and coaches who tried to intervene. One Mariner had climbed over teammates and lunged toward Figgins, with the starting pitcher reportedly in the middle. Third baseman Jose Lopez ended up with his jersey over his head, with the jersey pulled off his back. When reporters were allowed inside following the 2-1 loss to Boston, Figgins turned down requests to talk through a team spokesman.

In June, it was Figgins who claimed he wasn’t frustrated by Wakamatsu, even if his manager was frustrated by him. “I’m never frustrated,” Figgins said in June. “The fact is I come to play every single day. I never get frustrated with anybody.”

“I’m motivated every day,”Figgins said, with three-and-a-half years left of a four-year $36-million contract. “Like I’ve said before, there’s nobody who can ever doubt what I do on the field.

So what Chone Figgins, in the first year of a four-year $36-million contract, do you do now? You fire the manager. Asked if the team quit on Wakamatsu, general manager Jack Zduriencik, “I would not go there. I don’t think that’s a fair question. These guys are professional athletes.”

In this bad Rime of the Ancient Mariner, because with the albatros hung around the neck of Jack Zduriencik, the fact is, Chone Figgins will keep coming, however poorly, to play. Because “these guys are professional athletes.” As evidenced on YouTube and all over the country. In Big League parks. At Big League prices. And with $27 million real dollars left on his contract.

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Obama Interview with Matt Lauer

Comedian Jon Stewart lampooned on Tuesday night President Barack Obama interview with Matt Lauer, in which Obama said he was talking to experts to find out “whose ass to kick” for the the Gulf Coast oil disaster. President Barack Obama did back Bud Selig on not overturning Jim Joyce’s blown call, but said on the issue of expanded instant replay: “I think that baseball is going to have to take a look at what football and basketball have already decided, which is replay may, in some cases, be appropriate,”

Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times wrote on June 7th that British Petroleum “and its folks were significant contributors to the record $750-million war chest of Barack Obama’s 2007-08 campaign.”

Andrew Malcolm wrote:“In case you were tempted to buy the faux Washington outrage at BP and its gulf oil spill in recent days, here’s a story that reveals a little-known corporate political connection and the quiet way the inner political circles intersect, protect and care for one another in the nation’s capital. And Chicago.”

“Follow these standard Washington links if you can: Shortly after Obama’s happy inaugural, eyebrows rose slightly upon word that, as a House member, Rahm Emanuel had lived the last five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment of Democratic colleague Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and husband, Stanley Greenberg,” whose consulting firm “was a prime architect of BP’s recent rebranding drive as a green petroleum company, down to green signs and the slogan ‘Beyond Petroleum.’”

Stanley Greenberg’s consulting firm is closely tied to GCS — whose name is based upon the last initials of Stanley Greenberg, Clinton advisor James Carville, and John Kerry’s 2004 campaign manager, Bob Shrum — a sister Democratic outfit which “according to published reports, GCS received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political polling contracts in recent years from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.”

“Now, we learn the details of a connection of Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayoral wannabe, current Obama chief of staff, ex-representative, ex-Clinton money man and ex-Windy City political machine go-fer,” Andrew Malcolm wrote, “…. you’ll never guess who was the chairman of that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dispensing those huge polling contracts to his kindly rent-free landlord.

“For an ordinary American, that (five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment) would likely raise some obvious tax liability questions. But like Emanuel, the guy overseeing the Internal Revenue Service now is another Obama insider, Tim Geithner, who had his own outstanding tax problems but skated through confirmation anyway by the Democratic-controlled Congress.”

“Remember this was all before the letters BP stood for Huge Mess. Even before the Obama administration gave BP a safety award,”Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times wrote. While comedian Jon Stewart Stewart lampooned on Tuesday night President Barack Obama interview with Matt Lauer, in which Obama said he was talking to experts to find out “whose ass to kick” for the the Gulf Coast oil disaster, and he did back Bud Selig on not overturning Jim Joyce’s blown call.

$9 Million Second Baseman with his .230 Batting Average Pops Off

Mariners second baseman Chone Figgins raising his batting average to .230 on Tuesday after going three for four. And after a great night, when asked about his disappointment in being dropped to ninth in the batting order after the first 56 games of the season, Figgins criticized manager Don Wakamatsu.

The 32-year old one-time All-Star said, “I think I’ve about earned enough respect as a player. I’m still battling and I’m doing good. I should stay where I was hitting.”

Apparently Figgins brought to the Mariners not only his $9 million salary for 2010, but a growing talent as bench coach when his playing days are over. “I’ve been getting on base, I’ve been hitting the ball pretty good,” said the $9 million free-agent acquisition, with his batting average of .230. “Obviously, it has something to do with me.”

“I come to play every single day,” Figgins said. “No matter the situation or anything. I come to play every time.”

After Monday’s 4-2 victory over the Rangers, he wasn’t frustrated by Wakamatsu’s decision, he said. “I’m never frustrated. The fact is I come to play every single day. I never get frustrated with anybody.”

Manager Don Wakamatsu informed reporters before the game that the lineup switch wasn’t focused upon Figgins. “Obviously, it’s me,” Figgins said. “It doesn’t matter. Anybody that has ever known me or watched me play this game….no matter where you hit me, first, second or 10th…..I’m going to come to play. If I come off the bench, I’m going to play 110 percent. There’s not anybody in this game who can take that away from me.”

So what Chone Figgins, in the first year of a four-year $36-million contract, do you do now?

“Same thing I do all the time….come to play every day. You’ve seen that tonight. Every time that something happens, he took me out the first time….he pinch-hit here….And I still come to play. That’s not ever going to change. And there ain’t nobody in the front office or in this game or any part of what this game is all about can tell me any different. They will never see any different from me by coming to play.”

“I’m motivated every day,”Figgins said, with three-and-a-half years left of a four-year $36-million contract. “Like I’ve said before, there’s nobody who can ever doubt what I do on the field.

“I don’t have anything to say. The fact is, I come to play.”

Slumdog Millionaire, Part III

Alex Rodriguez violated the unwritten code of conduct in baseball last night in Oakland when after Robinson Cano’s foul ball down the left field line, following his own one out single, he cut across the pitching mound and touched the pitching rubber on his return to first base, infuriating the pitcher Dallas Braden.

Braden yelled at Rodriguez, telling him to get off the mound. Rodriguez characterized the confrontation as “pretty funny, honestly.” According to the New York Times, he did not remember where he was running or whether he did, in fact, step on the rubber as he returned to first. ‘It’s not really a big deal,’ he said.”

According to the New York Times, Braden said of the New York Yankees. “It’s kind of disheartening to see that not show through, or be reflected by somebody of his status. They are an extremely classy organization with guys who always tend to do the right thing every time.”

To Braden, it was big deal. After the game, Braden said: “I don’t go over there and run laps at third base. I don’t spit over there. I stay away. You guys ever see anybody run across the mound like that? He ran across the pitcher’s mound. Foot on my rubber.”

This was the A-Rod who in Toronto in 2007 as a base runner called for a pop fly, violating the unwritten code of conduct. Whether written or unwritten, this A-Rod ignores all codes of conduct. Like with steroids. It was in October 2007 when Selena Roberts wrote: “Do you like the new A-Rod who doesn’t care if he is liked?”

Nothing had really changed.

The Sportsmen of the Year

There was a time not long ago when the commissioner of baseball did not allow a baseball owner to have an interest in other professional sports franchises.

Hicks Sports Group, which owns the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League as well as the Texas Rangers, missed a $10 million quarterly interest payment on March 31, 2009, triggering the default notice on a $525 million loan, according to the Wall Street Journal. The default on the $525 million debt at the time was deliberate, Hicks said, in order to help get better terms from its banks.

In 2007, Hicks Sports Group had partnered with George Gillett, Jr., to buy the Liverpool team of the English Premier League. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia, leaders at the forefront of the British banking crisis, had reportedly provided the financing to Hicks and Gillett for the 2007 purchase. Mr. Gillett was at the time the owner of the Montreal Canadians. In July 2009, they had faced a deadline to refinance the $574 million debt for their Kop Football (Holdings) Ltd.

On June 20, 2009, Gillett agreed to sell the Montreal Canadians of the National Hockey League, the Gillett Entertainment Centre, and the Bell Centre back to Molson Brewery, the entity which he had staked his majority purchase. Gillett made his fortune through sports franchises, developing Colorado real estate for ski resorts, and in meat packing companies.

In January 2010, Hicks Sports Group reached an agreement to sell his majority share in his Texas Rangers which he acquired in 1998 to Chuck Greenberg. Sources told Jeff Wilson of the Star Telegraph on April 6, 2010 that Major League Baseball sent a request to lenders led by Monarch Alternative Capital, who hold $525 million in Hicks Sports Group debt to reach settlement with Hicks Sports Group, to allow an agreement in place with Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan to move forward toward final approval from baseball’s club owners.

In England this month, Tom Hicks refused an offer from the Rhone Group of New York of £100-million for his 40percent to satisfy the Royal Bank of Scotland’s demand for a pay-down on his huge debt. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, Hicks reportedly said that he anticipated the Liverpool soccer team to bring £600 million to £800 million ($1.24 billion), with his 50% stake in the sale, four times his original investment.

In delivering a damning indictment on his relationship with Tom Hicks, George Gillett, Jr., said in a March 28, 2008 interview with Prime Time Sports Radio in Canada,: “This partnership [with Hicks] has been unworkable for some time. We gave our partner a long period of time to try to make arrangements to buy us out. We didn’t put pressure on him but he ultimately did not get to the finishing line. Because of the things he said, the fans’ reaction has been so negative to him that if we sold to him it has been made untenable for us. He threatened to block me selling to Dubai – that was certainly one of the things that made the fans upset.”

On April 15, 2010, Bloomberg News was reporting that the team’s creditors might force the Texas Rangers into bankruptcy unless the deal with Pittsburgh attorney Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan Ryan is improved, or another buyer is found. Creditors balked at the terms of the deal, where Hicks keeps $30 million of the negotiated $300 million sale, in ongoing negotiations between the lenders and HSG. The media in Dallas is having a hard time following all of this high finance. Whether the offer for the baseball team was $300 million or the amount of debt financed, the debt which had been defaulted upon. Creditors who simply wanted the most money possible out of the deal. According to Bloomberg, Hicks spokeswoman Lisa LeMaster said the situation is between Major League Baseball, Hicks’ lenders, and the Greenberg-Ryan group. But the story also credits a Greenberg spokesman as saying the talks are between Hicks Sports Group and its creditors.

With total debt between $520 million and $570 million, an agreed-upon price has not been confirmed for the baseball club. In 2009, Tom Hicks had sold the rodeo he owned. At one point, Hicks was reportedly trying to work out a sale where he would retain some percent of ownership of the Rangers.

The Liverpool football team has three months to find the requisite investment for the refinancing of the club’s £237 million debts with the Royal Bank of Scotland. Liverpool co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett refused to cede overall control of the club to Rhone, preferring to sell a 40 per cent stake in the club, but to combine each of their own respective 30 per cent shares to maintain overall control. Yet unable to find financing for construction of a £375 million proposed stadium.

In a counterclaim to recover damages in a lawsuit filed by his former Glorypark development partner, Steiner & Associates of Columbus, Ohio filed in January, Rangers owner Tom Hicks alleges fraud and breach of fiduciary duty by Steiner & Associates, stemming from “misrepresentations and omissions” about the financing involving a failed 1.3 million-square-foot shopping, hotel, entertainment, office and residential development near the Ballpark in Arlington.

Those bubbles. Where the value of one franchise can affect the sale of the next one. The partners in Major League Baseball who compete with each other on the field but now allegedly have had presented by Mr. Greenberg what was not the top dollar offer. The creditors however “are not happy with the proceeds from the deal,” one source, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters, in discussing the ongoing talks. In the Bud Selig age, it was who you knew that counted. So you could collaborate together. To increase revenue. With your business partners that had not really competed to acquire their franchises at the best possible price.

Reportedly, Hicks has retained Weil, Gotshal & Manges to lead deals for the Dallas Stars, the Texas Rangers, and the Liverpool team. Reportedly, lenders claim that they have already lost $100 million in the deal with Hicks Sports Group.

In Bud Selig baseball, too much had become an illusion. Doing the math, Hicks who in his own words, deliberately defaulted on the $525 million debt at the time. Hicks who is to make $450 million from the Liverpool team had. I have wonder if Hicks ever had given consideration to where money came from. If it all seemed too much like a game. And he wanted to keep $30 million as a form of memorabilia from the days when he was owner of the Texas Rangers?

There was a time not long ago when the commissioner of baseball did not allow a baseball owner to have an interest in other professional sports franchises. Fans who remembered when George Bush was just a baseball owner. While people who once bought the tickets now watched with their mouths opened. About the new world order. From not just hunger. Maybe over the price of tickets. People who bought cars and trucks and knew that the bank held title. People who understood that if a vehicle was repossessed, they would have to hand over the keys, ceding overall control of the transportation. To bankers who knew from where the money came.

And now Bud would be working to convince the others owners to finance the purchase of the Rangers. Bud with his leverage. Like MLB had taken over the Expos, and moved the Montreal franchise to Washington. Maybe to keep the bubble inflated. On the value of all the franchises. And move the team, the former Washington Senators but the new Washington Senators, to Dubai. If the bubble there could ever be re-inflated. Maybe the Senate would approve the financing. Through TARP, since it never rained much in Dubai.

Valuations and Devaluations

Nicholas Cage. Pak Nam-Ki. Citibank’s former CEO. Tom Petters. Theo Epstein.

U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle, the judge in the Tom Petters’ trial, on sentencing Tom Petters for orchestrating a $3.7-billion Ponzi scheme, said: “You had to know.” Petters apologized to his family, friends and former employees.

In North Korean, restricting the amount that could be exchanged, the redenomination of the won on November 30, 2009, forced people to swap old banknotes for new ones at a rate of one hundred to one. On March 19, 2010, it was reported that the finance minister in North Korea was executed over too much inflation. Pak Nam-Ki was charged “with ruining the national economy deliberately as the son of a big landlord who infiltrated the ranks of revolutionaries,” Yonhap News Agency said. Pak was 77 years old when he was shot dead in the last few weeks at a military range in Pyongyang, after earlier being sacked as chief of the ruling communist party’s planning and finance department. There had been public anger at the inflation following the currency revaluation. A lot of anger. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service’s Won Sei-Hoon said the revaluation aggravated hunger, wiped out savings, and sparked riots after prices soared.

That is what happens after tinkering with currency. Or with the manipulations of systems.

At the start of his testimony, Charles “Chuck” Prince, the former Citigroup Inc chief executive, told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission “I am sorry.” His sorrow was for the problems that led Citigroup to be rescued by the government, while absolving himself of any personal responsibility for the $30 billion which eventually had to be off in collateralized-debt obligations.

In a foreclosure action for auction yesterday, bidding opened at the county courthouse in Pomona, California at $10.4 million on the property with a total of $18 million in loans, far less than the asked for price of $35 million on a property lost to foreclosure by Nicholas Cage, and in less than a minute the auction closed with no takers in the courthouse sale. Cage, who had earnings of $40 million last year according to Forbes, could not be reached for comment. In October, Cage filed suit against his former business manager, Samuel J. Levin for allegedly having “lined his pockets with several million dollars in business management fees” leading Cage down a “path toward financial ruin,” per the complaint. Levin did file his own countersuit, describing a spending binge by Cage “of epic proportions,” where by July 2008 Cage owned an island in the Bahamas, 15 palatial homes around the world, 4 yachts, a private Gulfstream jet, and millions in art and jewelry.

The Baltimore Orioles will pay just the $400,000 minimum of Julio Lugo’s $9 million salary this year, after a trade that sent him from St. Louis to Baltimore for a player to be named later. Or for cash. Lugo had come to St. Louis last summer in a trade between the Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox. It had been the Red Sox who agreed to pay $8.6 million of Lugo’s $9 million salary this year. That Red Sox general manager had set a price for all baseball in the system of arbitration by paying this salary. As the world begins to deal with the economic fallout of pretend banks, of propped up collapsed banks, of balloons in real estate, a view into the affects of bubbles on baseball salaries is worth a longer look.

There is so much sweet sorrow around today as Tiger Woods steps up to the tee in Augusta. Where is the punishment in all of this?

Now no one is all over Theo Epstein in all of this. Yet. But when the day arrives when the ticket buying public, in times more reflective of the 1960s, realizes that baseball can be watched in person only by the wealthy, maybe the spotlight might be focused on why no one in the front offices were fighting the system. No one had been watching out for the blue collar fan for some time. As the bubble in valuations in New York and Boston slowly affected the franchises throughout the nation.