Holy Christ Jesus, do the Blue Jays suck. But today’s topic is not about how I’m sick of them losing and I’m sick of watching them bring in washed up bums and I’m sick of the shitty managing and I’m sick of them not being able to tell a ballplayer from a busboy.
No, I’m sick of major league sports teams ripping off taxpayers with one hand and then bitching at the fans through their media lapdogs about how we don’t give them enough money.
Here in Ontario the taxpayers ended up having to foot the bill for the Skydome, which has cost them at least $500 million and is costing them more every day. The Skydome is allegedly a multipurpose facility and it does host concerts and trade shows and whatnot, but it really WAS built for the Blue Jays, let’s be honest, and it is built right smack downtown in the entertainment district where you have to sell your soul to get enough land to set up a hot dog stand. They get a sweetheart deal there and paid nothing for its construction, despite the overwhelming evidence that pro sports teams don’t help a city’s economy enough to justify the investment. But does this satisfy them? Noooooo.
Week after week I read in the paper about how Blue Jay fans don’t show up to the games in sufficient droves to “support” the team. Never mind that we PAID FOR THEIR FUCKING STADIUM. Never mind that they jacked up ticket prices by 15% this year. And never mind that there’s no reason to see them anyway. Since they won the World Series in 1993 they haven’t once made the playoffs or ever been reasonably close; hell, the goddamn PADRES won a pennant.
But oh, we don’t give them and their millionaire ballplayers enough money.
And it isn’t the Blue Jays, it’s all of them. The Twins are owned by a guy with more money than God but they want the people of Minnesota to build them a shiny new stadium. The Expos want a new stadium. The Devil Rays want a new stadium. They’re all liars and theives. They recently released a bullshit report that said they were all losing money. The ATLANTA BRAVES ARE LOSING MONEY? I don’t think so. If they’re all losing money why are the franchise values doubling every ten years? If people are paying $250 million a franchise, do you think they’re losing money? Gosh, what a way to invest a quarter of a billion dollars.
Well, fuck them. I like baseball but I don’t like my tax dollar going to pay Joey Hamilton his $6 million a year while our schools need new textbooks. Fuck 'em. If the Expos want to move to Washington I say let them go; let the people of DC pay out their noses if they’re stupid enough.
Here in Dodgertown, we got a guy (Kevin Brown) making 15 mil a year and only plays every 5th game. And a position player (Shawn Green)who makes 14 mil a year.
Rupert Murdoch(sp) spent 50 mil upgrading the stadium, and the only difference is a luxury section directly behind home plate. (210 dollars per seat per game) And Dodger Stadium has the only parking lot capable of causing ‘road rage’.(takes about an hour to get out of it)
And we just got our asses kicked by the PHILLIES, BREWERS, AND CUBS!!!
If Rupert Murdoch wants to blow his money on Kevin Brown and Shawn Green and pay $50 million for upgrades in Chavez Ravine, I have no problem with that.
I want to stress that I really see nothing wrong with ballplayers making big money. May as well give it to them rather than letting Murdoch and Steinbrenner keep it. Salaries do NOT drive ticket prices up, despite what the owners say.
What chaps my ass is when they want the government (read: taxpayer) to pay for it. They’re a business. Let them worry about it. Murdoch spent that money and didn’t ask the people of California to pay for it. That makes him a pleasant exception to the rule.
I am so beyond caring about sports it’s not funny. Let the Expos move. Let the damn Olympic Stadium crumble to the ground. I so don’t give a rat’s ass. Use the goddamn money to pave the goddamn streets like a civic government is supposed to do.
You mean the third place Toronto Blue Jays, right?
(Note: You were the person making a big stink when you were in first over my two-time defending world champion, team of the decade and franchise of the millennium New York Yankees, so you started it, pally!)
Yer pal,
Satan
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I don’t see how the Braves could be losing money, but I’m one who’s against using taxpayers’ money to fund baseball stadia, or other sports stadia. I see it as this: it’s not making me money, personally, when the Washington Capitals play. I don’t see it is driving the price of anything down, and what’s more I don’t go to the fuckin games anymore. SO I say use that money for public fuckin education and other shit we need, not the stadia the owners could pay for with the lint from their pockets.
This from a fan of the real team of the 90s, the Atlanta Braves, who despite losing the WS three times, at least made it to the playoffs more than once in the first half of the decade
I’m just as pissed about hockey teams, too. The Maple Leafs at least pay their way to some extent - they should be able to, they’re loaded, and so far they have been unable to hide the fact they’re loaded. They paid a lot of the money to build their arena. The government did help, though, and that’s all wasted money, every damned penny of it. The Maple Leafs frankly owe the city for 33 consecutive years of atrocious hockey, but I don’t care as much about hockey so their fans can screw themselves.
The NFL’s just as bad, too. The Rams held up St. Louis for about eleventy bazillion dollars for their new (albiet amazingly ugly) stadium, and yes they won the Super Bowl and Kurt Warner is cool, but St. Louis isn’t going to get their money’s worth out of that, believe me. They’d have been better off spending their money on decent schools. Thank Christ Toronto doesn’t have an NFL team.
And now, the absolute nadir of sports corruption: The Olympics. Toronto and Ontario are now prepared to spend BILLIONS prepping for the 2008 Olympics, which I suppose will include lots of bribe money. Never mind that Beijing is going to get the 2008 Games and it’s already been decided by Cashy the Bag. Never mind that the Olympics long ago gave up any actual ideals or love of competition in favour of the almighty buck. Never mind that we don’t have an acceptable track and field stadium, velodrome, or any one of a thousand facilities we’ll need and WON’T need after the Games are over. Never mind that Toronto would probably lose billions, just as Montreal did. Never mind that Canada doesn’t really have an overwhelmingly solid reason to get another Olympics anyway. No, let’s juice the taxpayers for more money so that we can give it to IOC members and hold fucking ballroom dancing events (yes, it’s an Olympic sport now.)
Will people * please * stop calling the World Series winners “world champions”? You don’t play the rest of the world–you play the US and Canada. Sure we would likely win it anyway, but in a real sport like lacrosse we at least play the rest of the world (teams from all over come to play–places you wouldn’t think had ever heard of the sport) before declaring ourselves world champs. Sure we win it every year. Sure they changed the rules just to make us less dominant…and we won anyway. But we had a few close calls. Australia had a legitimate shot at it.
Myrr21, when a team from Europe, or Cuba, or DR, or China offers to play the Braves or Yankees or whoever else, we will consider them to be a potential threat. I have not yet seen a foreign team (and I have seen Chinese and Japanese leagues on TV) that could beat MLB’s best in 7 games.
Here we go with the “World Champions” complainers.
The world’s premier baseball championship event is the World Series. There is no World Cup, no international playoff, nothing. The World Series is it. It is quite reasonable to call the World Series champions the “World Champions” because there’s simply no other equivalent championship. The major leagues ARE comprised of players from all over, you know.
The World SEries is not played between “the U.S. and Canada.” It’s determined as the championship of the 30 best teams in the world, hands down, comprised of players from throughout the world. I suppose we could have the New York Yankees play (and destroy) the Japanese League champs, the Taiwanese League champs, the European champs and the Albuquerque Packing Plant Slo-Pitch Rep Team, but at some point you should accept that the major leagues are the world’s one premier baseball league, and their champion in unquestionably the best team in the world. Major league rejects regularly lead the Japanese League in home runs and batting average and such; that league isn’t anywhere near MLB standards.
When a baseball “World Cup” is formally created, then the World Champions tag will no longer make sense. That hasn’t happened yet, though, and probably never will.
NOTE: Before anyone says anything - no, the World Series was not named after the “New York World” newspaper. That’s a myth.
So why not set up a World Cup? The only sport that doesn’t have one, but claims to be world champs, is baseball. Real (read: non pansey-ass) sports either play the rest of the world, or don’t pretend that they did (like the NFL, NBA, NHL, and so on). Only baseball seems to think that you don’t have to play the world to claim you’ve beaten them.
It’s just a wee bit obnoxious–it just feeds into the asinine snobbery people like to associate with baseball. It’s a good game; it doesn’t need BS like this to make it look silly.
RickJay, I can sympathize. Well, from the opposite side of the spectrum. For years and years, my beloved Giants played in that hideous pit known as Candlestick. Oh my lord, did that park suck. A night game required bringing along an extra sweater, parka, blankets, mittens, and thermoses of hot chocolate. Yup, August in California, how pleasant! Every election year, a there would be a ballot measure to build a new ballpark, and every year, it would be defeated. This happened three or four times, and eventually, the Giants were sold to a group in St. Petersburg and were all set to move to Florida. I cried. My heart was broken. It was a dark time.
Fortunately, the owners blocked the sale, and the team was sold to a local group, and this isn’t the point anyway. The point is that the new owners were able to privately finance the building of a new ballpark, through sponsorships. As a result, it has a stupid name, Pac Bell Park, but it is absolutely beautiful. Without taxpayer money, we have a gorgeous new ballpark, in which the Giants are 38-18.
The MLB has players from every country that plays the game. That pretty much means all the best players in the WORLD are here in the major leauges. Why someone would feel the need to divide them up by nationality for tournament is beyond me.
As far as public money for stadiums goes, I’m torn. On one hand, I feel the owner of the team should pony up the dough. On the other hand, a new stadium CAN benefit the public. The stadiums in Cleveland and Baltimore have been credited with helping to revitalize the downtown areas of those cities.
And call me irresponsible, but I would rather see L.A. give money to the Dodgers than the Democratic National Convention.
Oh, I dunno, maybe because that’s the way it’s done in sports that don’t have some superiority complex. Just an observation…
All the best lacrosse players in the world are in US colleges (or in MLL); yet they still go out and prove it. Do you ever notice how many of the best hockey players in the world are in the NHL, yet they go off to play for their respective home countries (all over the world) when world competition arises. Gee, sounds logical, doesn’t it?
As an 18-year resident of the Cleveland area, until this past June, I can assure you, it did not. It has, in fact, created a net economic negative for the city and county. Downtown is just like it’s always been–dead after 6:00 p.m., only with some newer buildings.
I will second this for Baltimore. Sure, downtown Baltimore is somewhat revitalized–but it was long before the stadiums were built. Besides, how does the stadium provide real economic progress? The stadium provides mostly seasonal jobs–especially in the case of PSINet (vs Camden Yards). The money to build the stadium could have easily repaired Memorial Stadium (I’m sad to see it go; I used to live about 4 blocks away) and provided for a lot more economic benefit beyond that.
