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Baseball's greedy players: Williams vows to boycott major league games if players strike
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Saturday, August 24, 2002 | Kyle Williams

Posted on 08/24/2002 12:00:21 AM PDT by JohnHuang2

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To: Sen Jack S. Fogbound
I said unions. Or at least, I meant to. Unions -- baseball and otherwise, finding themselves obsolete, have begun to try to justify their existence by antagonizing counterparties and basically extorting them.
21 posted on 08/24/2002 6:22:04 AM PDT by ASDFGHJK
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To: JohnHuang2
1. How can anyone criticize the players for wanting a free market system? I'm not aware of a single instance where an owner had a gun to his head forcing him to pay out the big bucks.
2. If the clubs were losing so much money, they woludn't be paying out the big bucks.
3. Any government that shelled out $$$ for building new stadiums did so at its' (taxpayers) own risk---to the stupid don't go the spoils.
4.Is there a single one of us that would turn down a huge salary, of course not.
5. These negotiations are the same, in concept, as before, the owners want the players to agree to limit their salaries to protect the owners of small market clubs from large market clubs.
6. Several of the small market teams took their luxary tax receipts and gave their executives raises and didn't spend a dime on players.
7.Since Henry Aaron was my favorite player from the time I was a little kid, I hope the players strike this year and next so Bonds, Sosa and ARod never reach 756.
22 posted on 08/24/2002 6:39:06 AM PDT by Founding Father
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To: Founding Father
This is a rare time when I agree with the players union. In reality, this mess is more about unsuccessful owners vs. successful owners, so that one of the biggest militants wanting to tax high payrolls is Tom Hicks of Texas, who has one of the highest payrolls in baseball but has spent his money so poorly that he feels the only way he can compete is by going after owners (mainly Steinbrenner) who have spent wisely, albeit abundantly. As much as some people whine about what the Yankees spend, it helps to remember that Steinbrenner is by no means the wealthiest owner -- Disney owns the Angels, Chicago Tribune owns the Cubs, Anheuser-Busch owns the Cardinals, Peter Angelos the Orioles, Ted Turner the Braves, Murdoch the Dodgers, etc. Steinbrenner is just willing to spend more on getting the right players because he wants to win, not just maximize his profits.

And by the way, I can't believe this article gives the old "Abner Doubleday invented baseball" fairy tale the time of day. Even the people who invented that story in the 1930s didn't believe in it.
23 posted on 08/24/2002 6:55:40 AM PDT by speedy
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To: Always Right
The players are getting more revenue than they produce??????

This must be from Selig's text called Outright Lies and More Subtle Forms of Baseball (Owners') Accounting.

If baseball ownership is such a bad deal why does the Minnesota Twins' billionaire investment banker owner, 86-year-old Carl Pohlad want to extort $250 million from his fellow owners (including the "poor" small market owners) for the folding of his franchise? He paid $30 million in 1986 to buy it and has spent scarcely a cent since by way of capital improvements and very little on player acquisition. He claims that his team just cannot compete and yet the Twins embarass him by leading their division by a wide margin.

If baseball ownership is such a bad deal, how did Steinbrenner acquire the Yankees with limited partners galore for $8 million total in 1973 and now have a team worth $1 billion (with a b) and far fewer limited partners? He bought the Yankees from the same clueless CBS clowns who infested our liveing rooms for as long as any of us can remember with the likes of Walter Cronkite and Dan Blather. CBS had paid $13 million in 1965.

Ah, but New York is the Emerald City of baseball markets, right? Tell it to the Mets' ownership whose team plays in Queens near fashionable Forest Hills and not in the South Bronx. Their team is not worth half as much as the Yankees. Nor as much as the $600 million that the small market Red Sox just sold for last winter.

If the union is the problem, if Steinbrenner is the problem, if small markets not being competitive is the problem:

1. How many pennants have the Cubs and White Sox won since 1910 in that tiny Chicago market? Why?

2. How many pennants have the Angels (Los Angeles, nearby Anaheim or California) won in their forty years of existence owned only by the very wealthy and well-meaning Gene Autry and then by the far wealthier and malevolent Disney Company? Why?

3. Why aren't the New York Mets world-beaters after last winter's shopping spree?

Translating your real point: Baseball players are stupid because they offend Always Right by making more money than he does or will. Always Right can relate easily to the idea that the players who want $400,000 as a baseball "minimum wage" at the major league level are getting a bigger salary than Always Right gets. Always Right does not own a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars as most of us do not. He or she will not as most of us will not. It is tooooooo complicated to wade through the thicket of Selig's lies to accurately guage the net income of the owners (including fabulous capital gains) so it would take real work to criticize the owners without facing a firestorm of critics more knowledgeable. Better to go with the flow: Hate the Yankees! Hate the greedy players! Hate those SOBs who inherited nothing but make more than we do! All hail Big Brother!

Further, the law of supply and demand is not suspended just because the SCOTUS exempted baseball as "a gentleman's sport" and not a business from the Anti-trust laws applicable to every other business. If the owners had not insisted on grubbing pennies from expansion again and again and again, the talent pool would be much less diluted and the pitching staffs would not be loaded with scrubeenies who make Barry Bonds and Mark Maguire look like Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron and, given the relative scarcity of jobs compared with expanded baseball, the salaries would be lower for many players, for those who obsess about lowering other people's paychecks.

The owners have never won a negotiation yet and they are not about to start now. For one thing, they will collectively owe one of their richer colleagues Rupert Murdoch (Dodgers and Fox Sports) $500 million if there is an actual strike as liquidated damages whether the strike is long or short. Secondly, many owners have strapped themselves with credit practices not available to the likes of you and me and cannot afford to make massive interest payments during a strike or lockout. Thirdly, the owners are liars and they are wrong. Fourth: like little tykes, they are wistfully dreaming that this time their prince will come, the union will fold, and they will be emperors once again. Not a chance!

Get rid of ten franchises minimum in towns which have no more business being in the major leagues than Kosovo has.

24 posted on 08/24/2002 7:57:30 AM PDT by BlackElk
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To: Sen Jack S. Fogbound
1, Tooooooo bad for the owners!

2. The owners' position is to irrationally demand that the players who receive the salaries join in a conspiracy in restraint of trade to prevent the players from receiving the salaries that the owners will pay without player cooperation. What the owners are saying is : PLEASE, PLEASE, STOP US BEFORE WE SPEND AGAIN!!!!

3. Do you actually believe that the owners are losing money????? Have you seen the actual books? Has anyone seen the actual books?

4. The Milwaukee Brewers were allegedly the most profitable team in MLB last year? Laugh, I thought I'd die! How much do the Cubs (a Chicago Tribune toy) pay to WGN, the cable superstation, also owned by the Tribune to broadcast Cubs games?

5. How many owners of small market teams like billionaire Pohlad of Minneapolis pocket the revenue sharing money and refuse to improve the roster by free agent acquisitions or even by retaining their own players with that revenue sharing money?

6. Is Tampa Bay a major league city? Miami? Kansas City? Montreal (which cannot manage to get a radio contract much less a TV contract?) Add your own next six selections.

7. A few short years ago, the Cleveland Indians were operated by magnificently wise ownership and executives like John Hart. The Indians innovated by paying sure-fire prospects and rookies much better than other clubs in exchange for modest long-term contracts. The seats at Jacobs Field were sold out for a year in advance. The core of players remained recognizeable. Occasionally, a star like Matt Williams was traded at his personal request for personal reasons of a divorce and his desire to be nearer his kids. The Indians treated their players very well and at a reasonable price in today's market. Jacobs sold to the Dolans (cable TV vampires) who are no doubt grabbing broadcast rights at a discount for their TV operation and are certainly conducting a fire sale of every valuable player that they can move to save salary. When they ruin the franchise and the fans don't buy tickets, the Dolans will cry poor mouth and blame Steinbrenner. They also tried to buy the Red Sox last winter and would be stripping that franchise as well if they had been successful.

8. Wake up and smell the coffee!

25 posted on 08/24/2002 8:14:15 AM PDT by BlackElk
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To: BlackElk
First you chastise me and accuse me of being jealous of what players make, then you bitch about what owners made and insist they are all liars. I don't deny owners have made money over the years, especially those who bought teams a long time ago. But the fact is owners today are not making money overall, and that what matters in evaluating salaries today. Most of your points are personal attacks against me and class welfare arguements against the owners. I am happy players can make millions of dollars, but when they aren't bringing in enough revenues to pay the bills, I still say it is stupid for them to strike. And I do mean really stupid.
26 posted on 08/24/2002 8:27:14 AM PDT by Always Right
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To: Always Right
Again, you repeat the statement that owners are losing money. This is simply not true: there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that MLB is haemorrhaging cash.

They have not opened their books, and they never will, because they know exactly what they show.

Andrew
27 posted on 08/24/2002 9:06:30 AM PDT by Andy Ross
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To: Andy Ross
The players and their union are entirely in the right here.

Nonsense. These guys aren't manufacturing widgets; they're playing GAMES against each other.

You can't have a system of games where certain teams always have a financial advantage over others. Fans will lose interest. The system has to be fixed.

28 posted on 08/24/2002 9:16:36 AM PDT by B Knotts
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To: Always Right
Try proving your point by objective evidence.

The players' union does not threaten massive fines against players who talk about the strike in the press. Selig i9s about to fine three owners for speaking to the press. The fines will reportedly be in millions each.

You have not seen the owners' books. Nor has anyone else because, as liars, they understandably value secrecy. Yet you are willing to take them on blind faith as to their alleged losses. Their "losses" are largely for tax purposes if they exist at all. When Steinbrenner was wrangling with David Winfield, it came out that the owners actually depreciate the players' value each year for tax purposes and the depreciation is based on salary owed. The owners deduct the salary and get an additional deduction for the supposed deterioration of the player. Jason Giambi has begun to depreciate. So has Derek Jeter. And Alfonso Soriano. Surely you have noticed.

Would you deny that much of the resentment of the players is along the line of: Who are they to be making that much money when I don't? Or government school teachers don't? Or cardiovascular surgeons don't?

BTW, that's class warfare not class welfare.

Assuming for the sake of argument that class warfare is disreputable, why is it more reputable when aimed at the players than at the owners? Assuming that it was aimed at the owners. Actually, the owners think that there should be class welfare for owners and, in a remarkable twist of normal reality, think that the welfare ought to be distributed by the players to the owners. Selig thinks there ought to be a minimum dividend for owners no matter how ignorant they may be of the game (their business) and that it is perfectly fine to strip well-run teams like the Yankees of the money paid by their patrons and fans to help a pack of whiny losers with surplus teams to pocket the revenue sharing money and further cheat their fans. Selig sees nothing wrong in the Dolans purchasing the Cleveland Indians and then strip-mining the team. If Selig really cares about "the best interests of baseball", he will throw the Dolans out of opwnership for actions far more deleterious to baseball than any of Marge Schott's personal idiosyncracies.

The players' performance on the field IS the product sold to the public. Would you pay money to see Selig play? To see Pohlad play? To see Glass play? To see Wilpon and Doubleday play? To see the Chicago Tribune play? To see the Disney Company play? MLB is not a factory where the owner pays large sums of money for raw materials and substantial sums in labor to produce finished goods and more large expenses for sales and marketing and delivery and has a few percent left over as profit for himself and any stockholders. Nor is it a business where brilliant and innovative entrepeneurial insight is critical to competitive advantage. Basic human relations and paying a decent level of income to the 750 best baseball players on the planet (each according to his skills in a free market) is all that is necessary.

Most teams play in taxpayer-subsidized or provided stadiums, with unimaginable special tax breaks, with little or no requirement of disclosing their books since their stock is not publicly traded, etc., etc., etc. The owners absolutely resent the success of the players in making them pay the salaries they pay. The owners think that the revenue should be theirs, all theirs and yearn for the permanently dead days of the reserve clause and lifetime chains upon the player talent. The owners have oodles of ego, oodles of id and no self-control or common sense.

It is not a chastisement to point out that your post suggests a much easier understanding of simple player salaries than of complicated and dishonest bookkeeping by owners (if it is not dishonest, why is it so very secret?). And since, they are so very secretive about their books but enjoy your naive faith:

Your specific objective evidence that most owners are losing money?

Your specific objective evidence that player salaries and not gross mismanagement is the root of the problem?

Your specific objective evidence that the players do not generate the necessary revenue to pay their salaries.

Your specific objective solution to the baseball "crisis".

America wants to know!

Disagreeing with you is not a personal attack. Using language colorful not language bland is not a personal attack.

I do personally attack the likes of Selig, Pohlad, the Dolans, the Chicago Tribune, the Disney Company and other practitioners of the art of deception who fleece their clubs' fans and want a guaranteed level of "earnings" as a reward.

You have posted that the players are "stupid" apparently for disagreeing with you as to what their paychecks should be though you have very little personally at stake in the size of their paychecks and I am "chastising" you because I disagree with you and do so enthusiastically. By George, I think I've got it!

Don't hit and run now. Answer the substantive questions.

29 posted on 08/24/2002 9:25:00 AM PDT by BlackElk
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To: BlackElk
Your specific objective evidence that most owners are losing money?

Baseballs Profit and Losses

Baseball's operating loss was $232 million this year, including a major league-leading $52.9 million by the Toronto Blue Jays.

Commissioner Bud Selig, summoned to testify Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee, released an unprecedented amount of financial information on the 30 major league teams.

While the Arizona Diamondbacks were a success on the field, winning the World Series in just their fourth season, they were a bottom-line bust, with an operating loss of $32.2 million, according to the report.

That was the third-highest operating loss in baseball, trailing only Toronto and the Los Angeles Dodgers ($45.3 million).

Eleven of the 30 teams had operating profits before revenue sharing, led by the New York Yankees at $40.9 million. Seattle was second at $34.3 million, followed by San Francisco at $19 million and Milwaukee at $14.4 million.

.......

Of course you will just dismiss this as lies by the evil cartel of baseball owners, but this is the best info available.

30 posted on 08/24/2002 9:31:44 AM PDT by Always Right
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To: JohnHuang2
If indeed, the baseball players do strike, I vow that as of the strike date, I will never watch, read, or have anything to do with Major League Baseball until this generation of players are gone.

I've BEEN boycotting since 1994 already...this just deepens my commitment all the more - besides, it's football season already, and the REAL sport of hockey will be starting soon as well - I've never even missed baseball....

31 posted on 08/24/2002 9:36:58 AM PDT by NorCoGOP
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To: NorCoGOP
I've BEEN boycotting since 1994 already...this just deepens my commitment all the more - besides, it's football season already, and the REAL sport of hockey will be starting soon as well - I've never even missed baseball....

Me too, besides the Tigers have absolutely sucked for way too many years to be even remotely interesting.

32 posted on 08/24/2002 9:39:33 AM PDT by Always Right
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To: B Knotts
Are you familiar with the history of baseball? There has always been a competitive edge for certain teams over others. Look at the standings, year in and year out during the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s ans 1960s when free agency was not imagined. In the later period of those years, there was an entry level draft, as there is today.

The Washington Senators were perennial losers. So were the St. Louis Browns. So were the Chicago Cubs (last pennant 1945/last World Championship 1908). So were the Chicago White Sox (pennants only in 1919: "the Black Sox" and in 1959 since their last World Championship in 1917) The Red Sox: last Championship: 1918. The Philadelphia Phillies: One championship since 1915. One could go on and on.

Solution: Terminate a minimum of ten franchises and distribute their players by reverse order draft with worst survivors drafting first. That eliminates 250 major league player jobs in one fell swoop for those obsessed with players' salaries. Supply and demand will take care of lowering the salaries. If the terminated teams are such money losers, surely the owners would be glad to fold without compensation or for very little compensation? Right? Pitching will tighten up considerably. Baseball will go back to being baseball rather than homerun derby when modestly competent major leaguers will have no scrubeenie pitchers to feed on.

You are right that baseball is unlike manufacturing widgets. Baseball is an art. Ther players are the artists. The owners are mere middlemen, often ignorant of the game they are ruining, who survive in their localities only by virtue of the anti-trust exemption. Without the players, baseball is finished. That is why the players always win at the negotiating table and why the football players and basketball players were very foolish to facilitate gambling interests by accepting salary caps and artificially contrived "competitive balance."

There was no free agency and little salary (Mickey Mantle: $125K per year) when, during 1949-1964, rooting for the New York Yankees was like rooting for US Steel (which was also very strong in those days). Fourteen pennants in sixteen years and nine World Championships. Most who have a problem with player salaries nonetheless seem to regard those years as a golden age. If you scrap ten franchises in cities having no business calling themselves major league

33 posted on 08/24/2002 9:42:55 AM PDT by BlackElk
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To: Always Right
All I can say is: What reason would the owners have to lie? Was it the Tigers' players who have caused your grief or their sorry ownership and management?

Did someone twist their arms to force them to trade a boatload of prospects for Juan Gonzalez who then walked away?

The Toronto Blue Jays were another team that sold out a year in advance before the present strip-mining ownership took over. If they are losing money, maybe it is because fans don't want to spend ever-escalating prices for ever more diluted talent.

And, yes, the owners are liars and, as I previously posted, you are taking their lies at face value. That is not OBJECTIVE evidence nor even very good evidence. It just happens to comport with your personal preferences.

If socialism (unearned revenue sharing) is the answer, it cannot have been a very good question!

34 posted on 08/24/2002 9:49:19 AM PDT by BlackElk
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To: Andy Ross
Why does expansion force teams to pay a player more than he's worth? The overpaid players are overpaid because of stupid owners: it has nothing to do with the system. To use examples from my team: Vinny Castilla and Albie Lopez both get payed around 4 million bucks a year. No one twisted the Braves' arms to sign these worthless players.

Supply and demand. In the abstract, increasing the demand for players will increase the price. Consider starting pitchers. Suppose there were 12 teams per league, and each team had four starters. How much money would the 96th-best starter be able to demand? Not a whole lot, since an almost-as-good pitcher (the 97th) could probably be hired to replace him pretty cheaply (given a choice between pitching in the majors or the minors, people are apt to opt for the former even if the salary isn't much different). Likewise, the 95th-best pitcher would have to compete against the 94th-best, etc. limitting the salaries any particular player could demand.

Expand the leagues to 15 teams each, though, and the 96th-best starting pitcher suddenly becomes much more valuable and can demand a much higher salary. As his salary goes up, so do those of people above him.

And on the point of reducing talent? The talent pool is increasing, as teams look further than ever before for future stars. We're seeing an influx of players from Japan and even Australia.

Does that mean that the talent pool is inceasing, or that the talent pool is scarce enough that teams are desperate to find talent wherever they can get it?

I know that there are a lot of talented players out there, but I don't think there are enough really talented players to fill the rosters of all the teams in the league. If there were, I don't think the owners would settle for the expensive mediocre players they're getting.

35 posted on 08/24/2002 9:58:34 AM PDT by supercat
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To: BlackElk
And, yes, the owners are liars and, as I previously posted, you are taking their lies at face value. That is not OBJECTIVE evidence nor even very good evidence.

You ignore the evidence presented but provide nothing to back up your point except the mantra, "the owners are liars".

36 posted on 08/24/2002 10:03:31 AM PDT by Always Right
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To: JohnHuang2
Sad to say but MLB is a dying game and has been. It is boring , the games are too long and the players and owners have gotten greedy and money has destroyed the sport beyond repair. Baseball was king during the years when society was slow moving and in a more charmed age. In today's fast paced age baseball just doesn't fit in. Baseball will continue to exist I think more in the local venue little league, AAA ball clubs, etc. But I think the long slide down for MLB started a long time ago and will just continue to accelerate caused by greed and a lack of common sense by players and owners. Perhaps it's time congress revisited MLB Baseballs anit-trust exemption and revoke it and let the free market sort it all out for better or worse.
37 posted on 08/24/2002 10:03:36 AM PDT by jjhunsecker
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To: JohnHuang2
"There is no joy in Mudville...."
38 posted on 08/24/2002 10:07:24 AM PDT by Young Werther
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To: Always Right
No one was an eyewitness to the murder. There are no videotapes. There is no DNA evidence. All of the circumstantial evidence points to the defendant as the guilty party: Motive, Opportunity, Means.

BUT, the defendant says he did not do it. Release him, right? After all the defendant knows what he did or did not do better than we do and his statement must be the best evidence. Right? What reason would he have to lie? Right?

Whether or not the owners make money or lose money and how much is relevant only because they have brought up the issue. If they raise the issue, they have the burden of proof. Their self-serving statements are NOT the best evidence. Their books, audited independently, are the best proof. We will not see those books in this lifetime, much less independent audits of same for reasons obvious to anyone with common sense.

I guess I am not going to convince you and you surely are not going to convince me by repeating the unaudited lies of the owners. Do you think the owners shoul;d submit their books to an independent audit or should we just take their word for it under the circumstances?

39 posted on 08/24/2002 10:12:24 AM PDT by BlackElk
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To: Always Right
AND, if you have been boycotting baseball since 1994, why do you want to screw up the game for people who actually care about baseball?
40 posted on 08/24/2002 10:15:48 AM PDT by BlackElk
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