It's baseball season

“Jason Giambi on roids??? Next thing you know they'll be saying Barry uses the stuff.”

“Jason admitted it.

There was also a piece on ESPN about A-Rod. They asserted that he cost the Yank-me's the playoffs, with abundant replays of him slapping the ball out of the Sox pitcher's hand (from every conceivable angle).”

“Oh Barry, say it ain't so. Next they'll be saying there's no Santa Claus. Moohahahaha”

“Note that I predicted this exact scenario. Bonds says he was given substances and told they were "nutritional supplements." Plausible deniability.”

“You would not expect a man making that kind of money to take on personal responsibility, would you?”

“Why should he? Nobody else does....”

“BALCO--We don't make baseball players. We make baseball players better.”

“LMAO”

“This just in: Kenny Lofton is a Phillie.”

“Good for the Phils. I wish the Cubs had kept him, but we had no room for him. Personally I think they should have made room, but what do I know, I'm just a fan.”

“Lofton is a good player. He's one of those guys who could easily be a starter for some team for 15 straight years, but for some reason seems to bounce around a lot. He doesn't have a reputation for being a jerk or anything, so it's kind of a mystery. Looks like the Phils get lucky this year....”

“They're also checking out the health of Sandy Alomar Jr. for a backup to Lieberthal. Indians reunion in Philly town!”

“I hate the name, Nationals, it should have been the Monuments.
And I hate the W on the hat also.”

“That "W" looks like a little snake or inchworm. They need to turn that thing green and put some eyes on it.

I also think that Washington should have kept "Expos" as their name. I love the incongruity of "Utah Jazz" or "Los Angeles Lakers." The best one is "Calgary Flames" - a Canadian team named after the American Civil War.”

“Just read this morning that the Phils gave up Felix Rodriguez to get Lofton. Rodriguez would drive us Giants fans crazy! He has awesome stuff, but totally chokes in pressure situations. I swear, he must've lost every single game when he was put in with the score tied. But put him in with a 2 or 3 run lead or behind by a run, and the guy was freakin' unhittable. A good sports psychologist could make that guy a Cy Young winner.”

“The Phillies just announced that they signed Jon Lieber to a three-year deal.”

“Gigantes announced that they won't re-sign Dustin Hermanson (White Sox picked him up). We had too many Dustins anyway....”

“That reminds me of the season when the Phils nearly fielded the all Kevin team.

And the season when we had two catchers named Darren. This is my catcher Darren, and this is my other catcher Darren.”

“Cubs are keeping Nomar!”

“Do they only have one "Nomar" or more than one?”

“You need to pronounce his name right if you're going to keep him. It's Nomah.”

“Just the one I think. Unfortunately it looks like we'll be keeping Sosa too. I don't think it's going to be a very happy clubhouse this year.

After his "leaving the clubhouse early" trick during the last game this year, someone took a bat and demolished Sosa's boom box, which he typically used to blast salsa music through the entire locker room, oh, whenever he damnwell pleases.

I guess $15 million a year can buy a lot of boomboxes though.”

“65 days!

Looks like the WashNats will have just a year in DC. http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/sports/10419836.htm”

“Hey Geo, you oughta read this.

Either Marion Barry's got a good ghostwriter, or he's finally off the crack.”

“I get a registration screen. I'm tired of registering. Can you give me the Cliff Notes version?”

“Hang on, I'll copy the whole article...”

“D.C. Baseball's Hidden Costs

By Marion Barry
Tuesday, December 14, 2004; Page A27

The relocation of a Major League Baseball franchise to the District of Columbia is cause for both elation and pride for Washington area residents. Baseball is, after all, one of America's greatest pastimes. Games are not just games, they are great social events that bring families and friends together on a Saturday afternoon.

But the relocation of a major league team to the Washington area also raises fundamental questions about responsibility -- particularly about whether the multimillionaire team owners can hold communities hostage to their terms, which require taxpayers to shoulder the burden while owners skim the cream. I want baseball to come to Washington, but I don't want to see the District pillaged in the process. Rather, the District should stand up for itself, use its considerable leverage and ask for the burden to be shared by the owners -- who can more than afford it -- so that the city's essential human and educational service budgets aren't neglected for a Saturday afternoon thrill.


MLB's proposal -- swallowed with little question by a mayor sworn to represent the interests of D.C. residents -- is unfair and exploitative. As cities such as Seattle and San Francisco have shown, arrangements can be made so that the team owner -- in the spirit of shared responsibilities and benefits -- picks up part of the tab.

What should particularly bother D.C. residents are the secret parts of this deal, whereby MLB plans to stick the people of our city with hidden taxes -- most notably in the form of increases in cable and satellite rates -- by heisting TV broadcast rights from the owners of the new Washington Nationals and thus from the city at large.

In most instances, owners of sports franchises get the financial crown jewels -- the television broadcast rights -- which help make them a success and defray costs of such things as, say, stadium construction. In New York, the Yankees were able to convert their broadcast rights into a $1.2 billion new television network.

But here in Washington, the MLB owners seem to be patronizing us and apparently want to withhold these rights and instead transfer the lion's share of them to our new team's rival: Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos. Not surprisingly, Angelos intends to follow in the Bronx Bombers' path, leveraging these rights to force the creation of a new, superfluous, sports network that will -- if experience is any guide -- hike monthly satellite and cable prices for D.C. residents by $2 to $3, notwithstanding the mayor's promise to protect taxpayers.

This kind of Robin Hood-in-reverse practice is nothing new to District residents, who are used to non-taxpayers making full use of the rich resources of the city. But for baseball owners to start the practice is something new. And D.C. television viewers will not be the only ones footing the bill. The uncompensated transfer of the broadcast rights to a rival is the equivalent of MLB dictating to the Nationals that they must trade, at the very least, one Alex Rodriguez to the Baltimore Orioles for nothing.

The new owner of the Nationals, whoever it is, will be under unprecedented pressure to make a new team solvent -- and thus vindicate the public's huge investment in the new stadium. With the usurpation of the TV rights, the new owner would be greatly handicapped in satisfying the thirst of Angelos, who, with his saber-rattling, threatened to veto the relocation unless he was compensated.

The team doesn't need Angelos as its partner (through a forced marriage) in creating a new sports TV network. When a second local sports network is created -- as happened in New York -- cable and satellite customers' bills for local sports TV double. But when the teams in a local market agree to create a single network -- as happened in Chicago -- there is plenty of revenue to go around, and cable and satellite customers get a better deal.

As much as we all want baseball games to take our kids to -- and I do -- we should not allow our enthusiasm to sanction mendacity, and, in particular, to give the green light to powerful new corporate interests to treat the District and its people like second-class supplicants and pawns. Baseball is more than possible in the District: It's within our grasp. But if I'm going to sign my name to a deal that commits taxpayers, then the deal better be fair. And right now, it's all give and no get for the taxpayers I represent.

The writer is the former mayor of the District of Columbia and D.C. Council member-elect from Ward 8.”

“Wow! That was a thoughtful and well presented piece. And eloquent as well.

Peter Angelos is evil.

On the other hand, if baseball moves the team west, that would open the National League East for the Pirates to return.”

“Yes, Angelos is evil. Evil, evil, evil. I dunno if he's as evil as Bud, but he's right up there.”

“Bud. Ugh!

When the all-star game was in Philly, they had a media day for the Fan-Fest. I went down to do a story on it, and Selig at the time was involved in some sort of negotiations related to the strike. He walked into the media program very late, and all the city-wide reporters immediately swarmed him. He had apparently been up all night working on the negotiations, and was tired and hagard. They reporters kept peppering him with questions, and he answered almost drowsily. I thought to myself, man, this guy might just be human after all. But I got over it.

Living in Maryland for about 12 years, I became an Orioles fan during the glory years of Frank, Brooks, Boog and the rest. That was the first winning baseball I had ever witnessed up close, and it was a great time. What Angelos has done to that team makes my blood boil. If he was in Philadelphia he'd have been run out of town long before this. Then again, we can't seem to run our current behind-the-scenes owners out.”

“Ah, yes - the Robinson brothers!”

“Geo, I understand that tar, feathers, and a rail still work pretty good...”

“Grab up the tar, round up some geese, pluck the geese, melt the tar, ... man, this is getting complicated. Must be an easier way ...”

“It's too bad they didn't rename the team the Senators.

Just think... the Montreal Senators.

That would have been beautiful.”

“More like the Washington Transients.”

“Hey, we can call them the Trannies for short!

I don't think they'll like that though.”

“LMAO, good one!”

“The Big 3 are now the Big 2, with Huddy getting traded yesterday. Should be interesting to see if the A's decide to do more than rely on the 3 pitchers, like maybe try to get some hits or something....”

“Rats! I was hoping they'd move the team to Vegas so we could get the Pirates back in the Eastern Division.”

“Link to entire article on ESPN.com

Excerpt:

As best I can tell, here's how the deal nearly came together and then fell apart:


Vazquez served up the grand slam to Johnny Damon in Game 7 of the ALCS, knocking George Steinbrenner off his sedan chair. Steinbrenner's fall crushed three Yankees interns who were peeling his grapes in between sending out e-mails announcing an increase in co-pays on the team's medical plan. When Selig presented the Red Sox with the American League pennant, Steinbrenner's howls of "Give us back our precious!" reached ultra-high frequency wavelengths that sent dogs scurrying from Yankee Stadium and was heard by player agents as far away as Los Angeles.”

“I heard he fired Billy Martin again.”

“He can only dig up Billy's bones and reduce them to dust so many times, ya know...”

“See, when people don't feel good and want to do something to feel better, we go shopping, have a beer, take a walk, ... whatever.

Georgie Boy fires Billy Martin. It doesn't matter whether Billy is there to groan and whine or not. Georgie just feels better.”

“I just watched "Reverse the Curse" on HBO last night. I was both glorious and painful to watch. Being a Yankee fan, or although I'm a NY fan, I thought it is a great story for the sport of Baseball.”

“Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg”

“Hooray for Ryno!

I'm glad Boggs made it too, but he's a first-year.”