Posted on 01/12/2003 6:50:19 AM PST by SJackson
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:39:43 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The self-anointed Grand Poohbahs of Major League Baseball (MLB) have deigned to grant local elected officials an audience sometime next month to measure just how desperate D.C. politicians are to attract a big-league baseball franchise. The poohbahs' unit of measurement, as it has been in every other city, is the dollar bill. Specifically, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and his fellow extortionists want to know how many hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds D.C. officials are willing to provide his multibillion-dollar industry in order to build a state-of-the-art stadium where players earning nearly $2.5 million per year will ply their trade.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Good idea. But not one cent of taxpayers money for any facilities!
Ha! If that were true, why are the Twins in Minnesota and the Rangers in Texas? DC isn't "untapped," it's "tapped out."
But while baseball certainly should have the ability to control their own expansion, I don't see much justification for the antitrust exemption which other professional sports do fine without. In the long run, I think it's harmed baseball collectively, though certainly helping the more successful franchises.
Washington: first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League.
Look at cities like Charlotte and Tampa, 1970 to 2003. Cities that were large, but never considered for whatever reasons then, made improvements in the factors that were lacking and are now professional sports towns.
DC was lacking in good transportation in those years of the Senators. Things have vastly improved and they should be able to make a go of it now.
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